Now, because so much science, and so much philosophy, and so much theology,
rests upon the formal principle of the law of cause and effect.
Our reasoning in medicine, our diagnostic programs – if you have a stomach ache, that’s
an effect and you go to the doctor and you want to know what – what causes my stomach ache? Is it
something I ate or have I had an invasion of some microscopic organism that’s threatening my life?
You want to know what’s causing your stomachache. But here Hume has raised questions
about causality itself. Or has he? Now, what has happened since Hume is that many philosophers and
certainly many students draw the conclusion that what Hume did in his critique of causality has
so cut the rug underneath causality that he has disproven causality itself.
Now, there’s an ongoing debate as to whether Hume thought that was what he was doing. I personally
side with those who say that Hume did not think he was destroying the law of causality. I don't
think that was his point. Because, he makes some very revealing statements in his Enquiry like:
"We don't know what causes one thing to happen. Anything can produce anything." That’s his
statement. If he is changing the word cause to production, I'm not going to quibble with that.
What he’s being skeptical about is our ability to perceive the exact cause of a certain action.
Note the difference between saying, "I don't know what causes that pool ball to move." And saying,
"Nothing is causing the pool ball to move." If I say that I don't know what the cause is,
I am being skeptical about my ability to have a direct and immediate experience of perceiving
the actual cause. Nothing new there. This was what the debate in the 17th century was all about,
as I've mentioned. It is one thing to be skeptical with respect to pin pointing the exact cause.
It’s another thing by going whole-hog and saying that there is no cause. If we
say that there is no cause for an effect, now we have made a nonsense statement
at the rational level. Our argument would be falsified. I think Hume has been given way too
much credit or discredit for destroying causality; what he did was destroy our certainty about
particular individual causes. He’s right. We don't know that the grass gets wet because it rains.
Because, we have no direct perception of that cause.
But we do know this: if the wetness of the grass is an effect,
something has caused it. That becomes very important when we get back, later on,
to arguments for the existence for God. It is one thing for me to say, "I didn't perceive creation."
That doesn't mean there wasn't one. I may not know how that effect was brought to pass.
But if it is an effect, it has to have a cause. That remains absolutely, intellectually necessary.