Does real 'chance' exist?

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armourbearer said:
The sum is -- Chance happens; it just doesn't happen by chance. :)
Well whoda thought? :lol: Thanks for the help! I think I'm getting it, or at least better than when I started the thread.
 
Raymond, it seems from your posts that a lot of emphasis is placed on human ignorance of causes as necessary to their casual or contingent nature, as well as to our free will. Obviously humans are ignorant, but I am wondering if that ignorance is really an essential element of something being contingent or not. It doesn't seem so to me on the surface, but as long as questions are being answered, I figured I'd throw mine out there!
 
Obviously humans are ignorant, but I am wondering if that ignorance is really an essential element of something being contingent or not.

I deny any belief can be established on the basis of ignorance.
 
py3ak said:
Obviously humans are ignorant, but I am wondering if that ignorance is really an essential element of something being contingent or not.
I don't think it is in general. There's chance in the sense of "We don't know what caused it, but we know something caused it, and if we knew the causes, we'd be able to predict that effect." But there's also chance in the sense of "Even if we knew all the causes, we could not possibly predict the effect." And chance in the sense of "No cause or reason at all; it just happens." From what I understand from this thread, what we call chance is casual. So if we are talking about causes for what we call chance, then if we knew the causes we would know the effect, because the effect that we call chance would come from a complex of causes. So it seemed to me that ignorance would be the only way for us to call something chance, because if we knew what the causes were we would know what must follow. The other way for there to be chance from what has been discussed on this thread is if what we call chance has no necessary connection to its causes i.e., the causes of what we call chance events are do not necessarily produce those events, and so chance events could happen another way; that would not require ignorance for something to be contingent.

But it seemed from the thread that people were saying there are always causes to chance events, which made it seem to me that if we knew those causes, we could predict the event. But if we could not know those causes, then we could not predict the event, and so it would appear to us that the second cause was produced in a contingent manner (and so it also seemed to me that ignorance is essential to contingency in this world), yet because God decreed the events to fall out that way, they really are contingent. Although I could have misunderstood a bit (anyone correct me if I'm wrong).



Edit: Actually, as I've been thinking more on it, it seems that the events are contingent without being a matter of ignorance. There are causes to them, though they do not necessarily produce those chance events. But because God decreed all the causes that led to them, they only happen in one way, albeit in a way that by the nature of all the causes involved, they could have happened another way. Thus, even if we knew all the causes, we could not predict the event happening again. It's analogous to what was said earlier about David and free will; all the elements which have David choose one thing over another are there and decreed, yet by the nature of the elements in and of themselves, it could have happened another way. (Again, anyone correct me if I'm wrong)


armourbearer said:
I deny any belief can be established on the basis of ignorance.
So we cannot believe in contingency for the reason that we are ignorant of its causes (so contingency isn't a matter of ignorance merely)?
 
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Obviously humans are ignorant, but I am wondering if that ignorance is really an essential element of something being contingent or not.

No. Contingency simply means that God could could have created the world such that X was not the case.
 
No. Contingency simply means that God could could have created the world such that X was not the case.

This presents contingency as hypothetical instead of real. The Confession presents it as something real; something decreed by God; something true of our freedom within the Providential order.
 
So we cannot believe in contingency for the reason that we are ignorant of its causes (so contingency isn't a matter of ignorance merely)?

There is no ignorance. "Chance" is believed in because we understand that there is a Divine and Personal Power which governs the world and transcends its processes. Think of conception. The gift of life. The difference between being and non-being. "Life" simply cannot be explained in terms of secondary causation.
 
"The decrees of God relate to all future things, without exception; whatever is done in time was foreordained before the beginning of time. His purpose was concerned with everything, whether great or small, whether good or evil; although, in reference to the latter, it may be necessary to distinguish between appointment and permission. It was concerned with things necessary, free, and contingent; with the movements of matter, which are necessary; with the volitions and actions of intelligent creatures, which are free; and with such things as we call accidents, because they take place undesignedly on our part, and without any cause which we could discover." From Robert Shaw's Exposition.

That certainly seems a matter of ignorance because to discover the cause is to know the cause. But he could be saying what you're saying, which is the kind of causes that produce chance are the kinds that we could not manipulate in such a way as to necessarily reproduce their effects.... I think anyway.

armourbearer said:
There is no ignorance. "Chance" is believed in because we understand that there is a Divine and Personal Power which governs the world and transcends its processes. Think of conception. The gift of life. The difference between being and non-being. "Life" simply cannot be explained in terms of secondary causation.
So if it's not a matter of ignorance, then it's a matter of the causes not necessarily leading to their effects, and so we cannot explain those events in terms of secondary causation...(or are chance events simply events that cannot be explained by secondary causes?) I wonder then: are the extra causes that are needed to "push" those causes into producing the desired chance effect [as we would call it] come immediately from Divine power instead of God working through means? But I'll keep thinking about your example. For now though, I really should go to bed (it can be tough trying to find the right questions to ask sometimes!).
 
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No. Contingency simply means that God could could have created the world such that X was not the case.

This presents contingency as hypothetical instead of real. The Confession presents it as something real; something decreed by God; something true of our freedom within the Providential order.

Comtingency can also be used to talk about false states of affairs. It is contingently true that I was born in Virginia. It is contingently false that I was born in London.
 
Well, I'll just have to take your word for it for right now. It's a fascinating idea I'll have to keep in mind when I study QM this coming semester and for whenever I learn about Bell's inequalities and all that stuff that shows QM to have real chance, in the sense of that if we knew all the causes we could not predict the effect. I'm not sure, given what this thread has said, whether QM fits from a reformed theological perspective, but your idea would indeed make it fit.

Laws are simply for predictability. We can predict certian stuff based on regularity in natural laws. But remember the uncertainty principle in QM, you can never know the exact position or momentum of a particle at the same time, one or the other.
 
Okay, I'm ready to ask my questions now!

Are we speaking of chance in the sense of (1) ignorance, such that if we knew all the causes, we could predict the effect, but we don't know and can't know the causes so such events are chance for us? (2) Chance in the sense that even if we knew all the causes, we could not predict the effect? (3) Chance in the sense that it is impossible to predict the effect because such a configuration of causes that brought about the event do not occur all the time. However, if we had known those causes and the way they worked, we could have predicted that event. Because this unvierse is real and not hypothetical though, such events could really be described as chance.

It seems that (1) is being denied in this thread, but it also seems (2) is because we are saying that chance events always have a complex of causes. Is there a fourth option I am not understanding? In the case of life, it appears that God is an immediate cause. So perhaps the third option is that chance is whatever cannot possibly even theoretically be described in terms of second causes? Perhaps even that God is immediately involved in chance events, such that there are no second causes to describe the event by?


At any rate, from the "Method of Divine Government" by M'Cosh, I found these on contingency and chance.

"There are persons who willingly ascribe certain events to God, but hand over others to chance. Now there are senses in which we may allowably use the word chance; this we shall show forthwith. But in respect of production and purpose, there is, there can be, no such thing as chance. In this sense the word is simply expressive of our ignorance. An accidental event is one of which we may not be able to discover the cause or the purpose. But while man cannot discover the precise cause, yet he knows that there is a cause, and while the design may be concealed, yet there is most assuredly a purpose contemplated; and we may rest assured that the cause has been appointed to produce this particular effect, and this effect to serve the specific purpose. The wisdom of God is peculiarly seen in his constituting a large class of events as contingent in the view of man; but instead of being independent of God, it is specially by these events that he fulfils his own purposes, and becomes truly the governor of his own world."(190)

"II. In what circumstances may we discover an intended CONNEXION BETWEEN ONE PART OF God's WORKS AND ANOTHER?

We have said, that in the sense of being causeless or purposeless, no event happens by chance. But still there are two legitimate senses in which the word chance may be employed. First, it may be applied to an event of which the mode of production or the design is undiscoverable by us. Thus understood, many events may be described as accidental: and we have seen that great and beneficent purposes are served by the arrangement which admits of such. But there is a second sense, in which we may admit the existence of chance, and it is with this that we have now to do. While all events have a connexion with their immediate physical cause, and also with God as their ultimate author, it does not follow that every event has an intended connexion with every other. There cannot be such a thing as casual occurrences, but there may be, and often are, such things as casual concurrences. There may be conjunctions of events in respect of time or place, which are purely accidental, and this while the events themselves may all be traced to God. An eclipse of the sun and a devastating famine may happen about the same time; and true religion will teach us to refer both to God, but it does not follow that the two have a connexion with each other. It is one thing to declare that every event is connected with God as its author, and quite another to affirm that it is designedly related to every other which may be contiguous to it."(195)


"Our scientific inquirers, in investigating the separate laws, have not sufficiently attended to that particular disposition and distribution of the agents of nature, which necessarily issues in the uncertainty which everywhere meets our eye. The circumstance to which we refer arises from the complication, and it gives rise to the fortuities of nature. Man at times complicates the relations of natural powers, in order to produce fortuity. He shakes, for instance, the dicebox, in order that neither he nor any one else may be able to predict the die which is to cast up.

There is, we maintain, a similar complication in the Divine arrangement of natural agents, and all to produce a similar end—to surround man with events which are to him accidental, but which to God are instruments of government. We have seen that physical nature is so admirably adjusted as to produce a number of very beneficent general laws. The events occurring in this orderly manner may be anticipated, pains may be taken for welcoming them when they are expected to be good, and of avoiding or averting them when they are supposed to be evil. But all the results flowing from the adjustment of natural objects are not of this regular character. There are others, which, so far from being in accordance with any general law, are rather the result of the unexpected crossing and clashing, contact or collision, of two or more agencies. Falling out in an isolated, accidental manner, they cannot possibly be foreseen by the greatest human sagacity; the good which they bring cannot be secured by human foresight, nor can the evil which they produce be warded off by human vigilance.

Not that we are to regard the phenomena now referred to, as happening without a cause. Both classes of phenomena proceed from physical causes, but the one from causes so arranged as to produce general effects, and the other from causes so disposed as to produce an individual or isolated result. The general law of cause and effect is.—that the same correlated substances, in the same relations to each other, produce the same changes. Now,in the case of the events that occur according to general law, the relations continue the same, or are made to recur—and hence the regularity of the effects. In the case of the other events, the relations change—and hence the isolated nature of the effects; the same combinations of circumstances, the same adjustment of things, may never occur again, and so as to produce precisely the same results.

Hence it happens, that even when the causes are ascertained, the results, owing to the complicated relation of the substances and laws to one another, cannot be determined beforehand." (161-162)


So it appears--unless I am misunderstanding him--that he is using chance in the sense of ignorance of causes (1) such that if it were possible to know all the causes, then we could predict what would happen next, although we couldn't even hypothetically know that because of the complexity of nature.
 
So it appears--unless I am misunderstanding him--that he is using chance in the sense of ignorance of causes (1) such that if it were possible to know all the causes, then we could predict what would happen next, although we couldn't even hypothetically know that because of the complexity of nature.

First, ignorance is culpable. Knowledge of limitation and sphere is not ignorance. Our Lord was not ignorant when He "grew in wisdom."

Secondly, "knowing all" should not come into the reckoning because it is an extension of the great temptation, Ye shall be as gods. Our happiness rests in being God's creatures.

Thirdly, God is free to work beside ordinary causes. Unless one has a means of predicting when He would choose to work in this way, it would not be theoretically possible to infallibly forecast outcomes on the basis of causation.
 
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Thanks, Rev. Winzer! I guess that pretty much wraps this thread up then (unless I have another thought on this issue before the thread closes itself). Thanks also to anyone else who participated!
 
First, ignorance is culpable. Knowledge of limitation and sphere is not ignorance. Our Lord was not ignorant when He "grew in wisdom."

Would it be better to speak of nescience?

Secondly, "knowing all" should not come into the reckoning because it is an extension of the great temptation, Ye shall be as gods. Our happiness rests in being God's creatures.

Very true, and very comforting.
 
Would it be better to speak of nescience?

I'm not sure; the point I'm trying to bring out is that the things unknown are a deliberate choice based on the knowledge of our limitations. Usually it is ignorance or lack of knowledge which leads to going beyond our province. I think it takes great wisdom to know our place. Hence I am reluctant to call it nescience. It could only be called nescience if the "science" itself was a legitimate undertaking. I regard it as an illegitimate undertaking. It is true science to know the God that worketh all things after the counsel of His will.
 
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