The following statement seems to summarize very efficiently what is believed in most western religions and philosophies.
“Before the beginning was a Cause and the entire purpose of the Cause was the creation of effect.”
Judaism emphasizes God as the ultimate creator. Christianity makes God a personal being. Islam seems to de-emphasize that identity of a personal being by declaring God to be formless. However, God is still retained as the cause of all existence.
Spinoza starts his philosophical system with the premise of “uncaused Cause.” Aristotle starts his philosophical system with the premise of “unmoved Mover.” The system of philosophy that follows from either premise is pretty rational. But the underlying premise is at best arbitrary.
Regardless of how rational a system of philosophy might appear, the logical consistency of that system is set by its starting postulate.
Let’s examine the premise of “Cause.” It is taken for granted by the western religions. Cause is supposed to be there before the beginning of a manifestation. The question then arises, “Can Cause be there all by itself before its effect manifests itself?”
If the answer is “yes” then Cause will be a manifestation on its own right. The question then becomes, “What is the cause of the Cause?” This logic inevitably leads to an endless chain of causes, and the beginning keeps getting pushed back earlier and earlier.
If the answer is “no” then the “Cause” must occur simultaneously with effect. “Cause-effect” would then be part of the same manifestation as the beginning. The idea “before the beginning” would then be a projection that is created after the fact of beginning.
Cause is a projection backward that is created after the fact of beginning.
This is consistent with the idea that time itself would start at the beginning, and there would be no such thing as “before the beginning.” Cause would, therefore, be a consideration created at the beginning. As there is no “before the beginning,” Beyond the beginning would be unknowable. See Knowable and Unknowable.
The premise “uncaused cause” seems to be an attempt to fix the unwieldy conclusion of the endless chain of causes when Cause is assumed to exist all by itself. “Uncaused cause” is just another arbitrary consideration. No wonder it appears to be self-contradictory.
“Uncaused cause” is a consideration that is self-contradictory.
CAUSE is part of the creation, and has no meaning prior to the creation as assumed in the statement at the beginning of this essay. Neither “Cause,” nor “Uncaused cause” is an independent premise. It is part of the system of philosophy it generates.
The system of western religion and philosophy is made up of interdependent considerations. They are not linear but they form more like a circle. We may visualize this system as a sphere of consideration, which is ballooning out from a premise at its center. The premise is forever contained within this sphere; and it cannot lead to anything beyond that sphere.
What is beyond the sphere of considerations may only be speculated. But a speculation being a consideration would remain within that sphere.
The assumption that the consideration of “Cause” can extend beyond the “system of considerations” seems to be the basic inconsistency.
“Cause” may appear to be consistent but only within a system of consideration and not beyond. What is beyond is unknowable and it cannot be symbolized as Cause.
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Glossary
Starting Postulate
No matter how rational a system of philosophy might appear, if the starting postulate is inconsistent, the whole philosophical system would ultimately become unsustainable. The starting postulates, such as, “uncaused cause,” and “unmoved mover” are inconsistent in themselves. Therefore, the philosophical systems based on such postulates have become unsustainable in spite of all the effort to make them appear rational.
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Comments
“The entire purpose of CAUSE is to give meaning to the unknown”
Yes, I get you . . . and can the reason to create the concept of “unknowable” is to justify not-knowing the unknown?
Please delete the transitive verbs of “bringing” and “manifesting” when describing how cause if our own illusion and there is ultimately no cause and effect.
Please explain why this snake will not eat its own tail.
The reason to create the concept of “unknowable” is to have greater logical consistency.
I would love to see logical inconsistencies pointed out with the concept of “unknowable” similar to what I have done with the concept of “cause.”
I debated between the words “basic” and “entire”. Let me try out “The basic purpose of CAUSE is to give meaning to the unknowable.” This may provide a secondary purpose to “cause” as creating an effect.
There is a chair because we believe there is a chair. Similarly, there are cause and effect because we believe there are cause and effect. These are relative truths (dichotomies) based on our programming. None of these is absolute truth.
Ultimately, there is only knowable consideration against the background of unknowable… or, that is how it seems to be at the moment. 🙂
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CAUSE seems to be a master consideration, which balloons into the unknowable knitting all other considerations together to make a persistent whole.
~Vinaire
Yes, your effort on me is paying dividend. Thank you.
I am going to “percolate” this for a while.
One apparency is that as you attempt to communicate this concept of the unknowable, it definitely becomes a fractal and we move “toward” the unknowable, but only half the distance at a time. There is an illusion that we approach “unknowable” but in actual fact, though the incremental distance lessens, we are still in the box as ever. haha!
My “religious” belief is that it will not always be so.
Good on your observation. But any belief or speculation will be part of the box… ha ha!
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This is why I feel you are trying to punk me at every juncture! Another breakthrough is needed.
I know that this subject is difficult. Sorry!
Please refer to the essay on the nature of thought. Beliefs qualify as thought.
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In your model, there is neither cause nor effect?
In the “Unknowable” model, cause and effect exist only as considerations after the fact of manifestation.
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“CAUSE seems to be a master consideration”
Who considers?
“Who considers?” Well, the idea of “Who” is a consideration itself. Now, do you see why the consideration “UNKNOWABLE” is used in this model?
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After “consideration” – Not really. For me, the logic does not point to unknowable.
Your comment below that things appear and disappear against a backdrop of “unknowable” is poetic and maybe apt, but why do you insist in drawing this line?
That is how it appears to me at the moment. It may change with more looking… who knows!
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Please write more about the balooning sphere of considerations. This indicates something to me – not sure what.
“Ballooning of considerations” kind of reminds me of formation of “planets”, or systems, made entirely of considerations… crazy? Yes…
It also reminds me of something moving at supersonic speed, creating a stark boundary between disturbed and undisturbed as it moves.
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My consideration in the moment : creation comes from the simultaneity action of an apparent first cause (a decision) and an effect (result) without distance between cause and effect (space , time, energy, particules, planets etc.).The the real First Cause (unknowable) is then still here in his creation. We can’t understand more it by intellectual speculation but we can believe that some rare human jumped in this Reality and have some difficulties to explain with words because this knowledge is beyond the words. We have to look our considerations, meditate, and who knows a day we’ll jump in?
I do not see Unknowable as the “First Cause,” To me, things seem to just appear and disappear at the fundamental level against the background of Unknowable. The consideration of “First Cause” seem to be a persistent consideration in the West.
My recommendation, which I myself am trying to follow, is to become cognizant of all inconsistencies that exist, one by one. And, somewhere along the way, suddenly, one may be able to pierce the veil.
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to pierce the veil sounds like a realisation not a mental activity ? considerations are only mental approches . Realisation at this level is rare isn’t it?. I heard that Ramana Maharshi was one who got it.
Please, could you clear the concept of consistency and inconsistency ? It’s not easy for me to grasp it even with my english dictionnary.
I have tried to explain “inconsistency” here:
INCONSISTENCY
Consistency would simply be an “absence of inconsistencies.”
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Thanks you, I read this part and it helped very well to get better understanding
You are welcome. 🙂
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Maybe the consideration of unknowable appears simultaneous with any manifestation, because that, which is manifested can be known.
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This seems like progress. Maybe through progressively less knowing, we can get to there. We first need the consideration that we don’t know the source of things when they appear. Then we can progress to can’t. Then we can be so surprised when they just appear.
“Less knowing” to me would be more layers of considerations of obfuscation.
I could also write “progressively less responsibility through the obfuscation of the nature of cause.”
The way I see it, the dichotomy “unmanifested (unknowable) – manifested (knowable)” is more basic than “Cause – Effect.”
It is direct and it leads to more consistency (less leap of faith, or assumption). Either it is there to be known, or it is not there and can only be speculated upon.
“Cause – EFfect” seems to be an association among KNOWN manifestations.
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Use different words then and look without bias. This one hangup on cause is jamming up the works and this jamming is the result of a consideration.
Take another tact. “Neti neti” could have a dichotomy, could it not? How could you say the dichotomy out loud?
This is no more a paradox than the chicken v egg. We just need to re-word the question a bit. Address the problem from another vector off-90 degrees instead of head on.
The dichotomy is “yes to this, and yes to this as well.”
Spinning again. It is a leap of faith for you to think that you have manifestation nailed. It is inconsistent to spout thousands of words about something which you carefully and meticulously define as unknowable. Your thinking has locked up.
Why don’t you read my post and respond to what I wrote? When you don’t respond to my communication, I am given to understand that you did not duplicate what I wrote or several other worse conclusions. I already know and can recite your auto-responses. They are consistent only in their predictability.
If you will not look at the inconsistency of defining something which has no definition, then what is your intention?
If you beg to have inconsistency pointed out and then automatically do not look at that inconsistency when it is pointed out and respond in kind, then what is your intention?
What result are you trying to achieve by repeating the same comments for thousands of times? If you post the same comments a few thousand more times, what do you think will occur?
Dodging questions is wasting time. When I write to your post, I intend to have a communication. If this is different from you, then you owe it to me to make this clear.
Now what will I get back from this?
“Cause-effect” is basically an association between two manifestations.
In a logical world view created from the premise of “cause-effect” a concept of non-manifestation does not exist. Even an “absence of cause” is viewed as a potential. So, the concept of “absence of potential” does not exist in the “cause-effect” world-view.
“Knowable-Unknowable” allows for the concept of “absolute absence,” which would include the absence of cause, potential or anything you can throw at it.. Even when you say “yes to this, and yes to this as well.” it is not the opposite of “neti-neti”. All you are saying is that anything you can spot is a manifestation. “Neti-neti” is saying the same thing.
“Knowable-Unknowable” is simply presented as the modern version of “neti-neti.” But underlying it the ancient thought of the Vedas. It points to the concept of “absolute absence,” which is not found in any other system of philosophy.
Thanks for your persistence, Chris. It has helped me develop the view described above.
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You are welcome Vinay. I feel the same way about you. I would never have worked so hard at nothing without your help.
You lost me with your consideration of “absolute absence” of anything. You seem to have falsified once again unknowable. And if not false, you have pointed to a cerebral pursuit of “null and void” – a paralysis of thought if that.
In this context, we have already established that unknowable is an oxymoron. What is the yearning which drives this?
There is no yearning really. It is simply looking at what is there against what background.
What we recognize is always against some background. The recognition comes from the contrast (differentiation).
If we look at what is there, it is natural to look at the background as well. The gain is uncovering considerations that we have taken for granted.
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When we look at something for what it is, we are differentiating it against some background.
When we decide to look at the background itself, we need to find a deeper background against which to differentiate what we are looking at.
This can go for ever. There will always be a “background” we have not directly looked at.
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True. This is knowable.
That “There will always be a “background” we have not directly looked at.” is a postulate. A self fulfilling postulate which is in agreement with quantum mechanics. The wave function fits the bill for your background. This is physics.
Look for the “click” between this background and your psyche. This is philosophy until you find it. Then it will be physics.
You are right. But somewhere in all this, the factor of CONSISTENCY plays a role.
Not all postulates are created equal. There are prime postulates; and there are secondary postulates. There are harmonious postulates; and there are discordant postulates.
There is a lot more to look here.
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