First Cause
In Why I Am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell says of the argument for a first cause,
Perhaps the simplest and easiest to understand is the argument of the First Cause. It is maintained that everything we see in this world has a cause, and as you go back in the chain of causes further and further you must come to a First Cause, and to that First Cause you give the name of God. That argument, I suppose, does not carry very much weight nowadays, because, in the first place, cause is not quite what it used to be. The philosophers and the men of science have got going on cause, and it has not anything like the vitality it used to have; but, apart from that, you can see that the argument that there must be a First Cause is one that cannot have any validity. I may say that when I was a young man and was debating these questions very seriously in my mind, I for a long time accepted the argument of the First Cause, until one day, at the age of eighteen, I read John Stuart Mill's Autobiography, and I there found this sentence: "My father taught me that the question 'Who made me?' cannot be answered, since it immediately suggests the further question `Who made God?'" That very simple sentence showed me, as I still think, the fallacy in the argument of the First Cause. If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian said, "Suppose we change the subject." The argument is really no better than that. There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination. Therefore, perhaps, I need not waste any more time upon the argument about the First Cause.
There are two things going on here. The less important thing is Russell's understanding of the first cause argument and his response to it. According to him, the argument begins with "Everything must have a cause," and ends with the conclusion that there is a first uncaused cause which is called God. As he says, such an argument does not make sense, because its conclusion would contradict its premise. But it is unlikely that anyone ever argued for the existence of God in such a way. Consider St. Thomas's actual first cause argument:
The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.
Note that St. Thomas does not say that "everything has a cause." He says instead, "In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes." This is to say that some things are efficient causes of other things, not that everything has a cause.
Russell also confuses the order of causality with the order of time. These coincide to some extent at times, but they are not the same thing, and to say that the world has a cause is not the same as to say that it had a beginning in time.
It is reasonable to suppose that Russell is in fact speaking specifically about St. Thomas's argument, since he says "and to that First Cause you give the name of God," which appears to be taken from St. Thomas's text, "Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God." This suggests that Russell is being misled here by this conclusion to St. Thomas's argument. He assumes that since it concludes to the existence of "God", that the argument is supposed to prove that a first cause has the usual properties that we normally attribute to God. In reality, however, St. Thomas was not drawing any conclusion here beyond the fact that there is at least one uncaused cause. When Russell says, "If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument," this is not even opposed to St. Thomas's argument. The argument does not purport to prove that the world is not a first cause, but simply that there is at least one such cause, whether it be the world or something else.
But Russell's misunderstanding of the first cause argument is not the most important thing in his discussion of the argument. More important is his somewhat cynical and insinuating statement, "That argument, I suppose, does not carry very much weight nowadays, because, in the first place, cause is not quite what it used to be. The philosophers and the men of science have got going on cause, and it has not anything like the vitality it used to have."
The implication here is more important because it is likely to be Russell's real reason for rejecting the first cause argument, or at least for the fact that he does not think carefully enough about the argument to avoid the errors mentioned above. And that implication is that there is no such thing as a cause. There is no first cause, because there are no causes at all.
As I have defined it, however, there will always be a cause whenever one thing is from another in such a way that understanding this relationship gives an explanation for the thing which is from another. This is true even when it is not a complete explanation, and this is precisely why there is more than one kind of cause; because things come from other things in various ways, and there are various kinds of explanation.
In order to deny the existence of causes, therefore, Russell would either have to say that nothing is ever from another, in any sense, or that understanding the origin of a thing never has any explanatory value. Denying that anything is ever from another would deny the existence of any order, including the order of time, and consequently it is unlikely that Russell would deny this. It is more likely that he would deny the possibility of explanation through the origin of a thing.
This is naturally contrary to common sense, since it is easy to give examples where we think we understand a thing through its origin, such as the example of the carpenter and the chair. And denying the existence of final causes means denying that any of our actions have any purpose, or at least that our purposes explain our actions in any way. Such a denial is even more useless than this entirely useless blog; it would be better to believe that our actions have purposes regardless of the evidence for or against this.
Let's go back to St. Thomas's argument:
Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false.
St. Thomas is not giving some complex reason here why there needs to be a first cause when there is a series of causes, but a very simple one. Taking away a first cause is simply taking away all causality. It is that simple, because causality implies explanation, and explanation needs to begin somewhere. I may want the chair from the carpenter in order to sit, and I may want to sit in order to avoid exhaustion, and I may want to avoid exhaustion in order to live a good life and to be happy. Perhaps there are some other reasons why I want the last thing as well. But as soon as I claim that I have a series of purposes that goes on forever, I take away the possibility of these supposed purposes explaining why I want a chair.
This is true about final causes, and it is true about every kind of cause, since cause always implies explanation. There is always a first.