Christian August Crusius: Draft of necessary truths of reason, in so far as they are set opposite to contingent ones - The essence of the world

After going through what can be known about God, Crusius continues with the question of the world. His aim is to do metaphysical cosmology, that is, to describe what any world in general must be like and what we can know about this necessary essence of worlds without any help of prior experience. Thus, metaphysical cosmology in Crusius’ sense is not a physical endeavour and does not aim to describe our actual world.

Crusius faces the problem that since we do not even know our actual world completely and certainly don’t know what all the possible worlds are like, it seems impossible for us to know what worlds would necessarily be like. He admits that metaphysical cosmology must be incomplete. Firstly, he says, only God could know all the possible characteristics a world could have. Secondly, we are unsure even of many features of the actual world whether they are necessary: for instance, should every possible world have colours?

Despite these misgivings, Crusius thinks that we can still know some important truths of metaphysical cosmology. Firstly, all possible worlds are also things and thus must have characteristics that ontology has shown all things to have. Secondly, natural theology also implies things in cosmology, because any world would be God’s creation and would thus reflect their essential properties. Finally, he concludes, the very concept of the world must imply what a world must be like.

Furthermore, Crusius notes that we do not need to observe different possible worlds in order to form a distinct concept of a world - we just have to be able to distinguish a world from anything that is not a world. Firstly, Crusius distinguishes the world from God: the latter is necessary, the former is not. Secondly, a world is not an individual creature, but a sum of creatures, although, Crusius admits, God could have created just a single creature.

Not all collections of creatures are worlds, Crusius emphasises. Some collections are just connected by the observer, but a world should truly be a unity, not just in someone’s thoughts. Finally, Crusius notes, a world should be a real whole, not a part of something larger. Crusius’ final concept of the world is then that world is a real combination of finite things that is not again a part of another, to which it would belong through a real combination.

As a combination of things, Crusius says, every possible world must be spatial. In addition, because a world is particularly a combination of finite things, it must necessarily be of finite size. Crusius is especially keen to point out that although mathematics speaks of infinite spaces, this is just an abstract fiction that is not truly possible in a world. God, on the other hand, should exist wherever the world is, but God is not limited by the limits of the world. Crusius also accepts the possibility of world having void spaces in it - that is, spaces void of finite creatures, because God would exist even within void.

In addition to being spatial, Crusius continues, a world must also be temporal. He adds that because a world is created by God, it must have not existed at some point in time. World also could not exist by itself, even after creation, but must be sustained by God. Crusius appears to assume that God does not create anything else in the world after the first creation, but he does admit the possibility that some part of the world might have been isolated from another part for a while, while the two parts would later come in contact with one another. Thus, he suggests, the physical law of the constant quantity of forces is not as such necessary, because we cannot be sure that the world does not contain such isolated, unknown forces.

Crusius also emphasises that God has created the world for some purpose. As he has pointed out earlier, the purpose of creation has to serve especially the free creatures with the ability to reason. Thus, other things in the world must be either means for that purpose or then necessary consequences of creating and arranging the world to serve the purpose. Whatever the purpose of a particular possible world is, the world must be good, because its creator is also. Then again, no world can really be the best possible world, because all worlds are somehow imperfect and could be improved.

An interesting question Crusius considers is what belongs to an identity of a world: how much a world can be changed before it becomes a different world? Obviously, one could take the primary constituents of a world - simple substances - and reorder them in a different manner. Yet, this answer concerns only the ultimate metaphysical subject of what makes a world and ignores the intriguing problem of whether a world has some inherent structure that differentiates it from any other world made out of the same substances.

Crusius outlines next his criterion of a world’s identity: a world remains same, as long as it still serves its fundamental purpose and in particular no individual things, their combinations, laws governing them and their essential actions change in a manner that would change this inherent purpose or any means required for the fulfilment of that purpose. Any change that does not do this, he continues, merely changes the state of this world. Indeed, he points out an important type of change that does not change the identity of a world. A world is created for the sake of free creatures and for enabling their free actions. Thus, he suggests, whatever persons do freely should not affect the essence of the world they inhabit, because that would mean the very purpose of a world could contradict itself.

Because things in the world are combined, Crusius insists, they must be able to interact with one another. In these interactions some things must be active or affect one another, but Crusius notes that there can be passive things that do not have any force to affect other things, but at most enable something through their existence. Both active forces and inactive abilities can combine things into more complex wholes.

Furthermore, Crusius continues, interactions that combine things are governed by physical laws that should hold independently of our thinking of them. Crusius notes that there are also laws of understanding that merely say what propositions follow or are possible in certain circumstances, but these differ from real physical laws. Similarly, he distinguishes physical laws from moral laws, which say what should be done according to commands of some lord.

Now Crucius defines nature as the sum of all substances in the world, together with the physical laws governing their combinations. Natural is then something that happens through the fundamental forces of created substances, while God does nothing else, but sustains these substances and fundamental forces. Supernatural, on the other hand, is something caused immediately by God. Because at least the sustainment of the substances and their fundamental forces is an immediate effect of God’s action, Crusius concludes that every world has something supernatural in it.

Crusius thinks that we can conceive no other interaction between finite things than interaction through movement. Since we are dealing with finities, he continues, we can invoke the principle that this non-conceivability reveals a true dependence relation: finite things can affect one another only through movement. Thus, when a finite substance affects another, it either forces the other to move by its own impenetrability or then its motion awakens some other activity in the other substance.

This other activity that can be awakened by motion, Crusius insists, is either thinking or willing, which we know are not movement. He then distinguishes two kinds of substances in the world: material substances, which can only move, and spiritual substances, which move, but also think and will things. Furthermore, he divides matter into two further subclasses: metaphysical or inactive matter that has only a passive capacity for movement and physical or active matter that has also some active force.

Crusius has noted that the world has been made for the sake of free spirits, thus, the world must, undoubtedly, have spirits in it. One important consequence of the existence of free spirits is that Crusius’ world cannot be completely deterministic. A world need not have matter, on the other hand, but matter can exist in it. Then again, Crusius notes, because everything in the world must somehow serve its purpose or free spirits, matter and spirits must be able to interact: why else would God have created it? Crucius brushes aside the old Cartesian worry that spirit could not affect matter, because they are two different types of substances: dogs and humans share characteristics and still are of different species. Crusius sees no problem in accepting that spirits are also impenetrable, like matter, and can thus move and be moved by material objects.

Crusius is unsure about the Leibnizian principle that there are no two things that cannot be distinguished from one another. He does admit that no two spirits can be completely similar, because everyone of them perceives the world from a somewhat different perspective and perceptions change their inner state. The case is different with material substances, Crusius says. The principle itself cannot be justified without experience, he insists and thinks that all supposed proofs of the principle have been sophisms: if God would have wanted, two different and still completely similar material substances could have been created. True, he admits, experience appears to show that seemingly similar things often differ in some manner. Yet, there is no assurance that at least some of the simplest parts of matter wouldn’t be completely similar. Still, Crusius suggests, God has probably created at least many different kinds of simple material substances, because this would provide more means for helping the world to fulfil its purpose.

Whatever the ultimate elements of matter are like, they can be combined into more complex substances or bodies. Indeed, Crusius says, matter as a whole probably has to be dispersed into distinct bodies, because this better helps to achieve the purpose of the world. Crusius distinguishes physical from mathematical bodies, which are mere possible divisions of space. Physical bodies, instead, are not united just because we think of them as united, but through something real that separates them from other bodies. Crusius suggests three kinds of such unifications. Firstly, parts of a body can be held together by inactive, unmoving substances surrounding it. Secondly, parts of a body can be held together by moving substances surrounding it, such as the vortexes in Cartesian physics. Finally, parts of a body can be held together by an elastic matter, that is, matter that has an innate tendency to return to a certain shape.

No other ways to unite material things into bodies exist, Crusius insists. He is especially keen to deny any attractive or cohesive forces that would hold parts of a body together, because all explanations why material things stay together should be reducible to fundamental forces. Cohesive force cannot be a fundamental force, he adds, because cohesion is just another name for material parts staying together and so merely describes the phenomenon without explaining it. Then again, Crusius denies the existence of attractive force, because such an action in distance breaks the requirements of what a force and causal interaction should be like. Finally, Crusius also denies that parts of bodies would stay together because of common feeling, since feeling is something he allows only spirits to have.

However the bodies are held together, they then interact with one another and with the spirits. Despite the interaction between the two types of substances, Crusius notes, these different classes can also be regarded in abstraction from one another. Thus, spirits of the world, in separation from material things, form a spiritual world, while matter as such forms a material world, and when regarded as separated into distinct bodies, a bodily world.

The bodily world particularly, Crusius says, can be seen as a machine - that is, as a body of its own, combined from parts that are shaped for some purposes in such a manner that these purposes can be actualised with the aid of the shape and the position of these parts. This is not true, he adds, of the whole world, because this also includes spirits that cannot be parts of a body. Furthermore, he notes, although the bodily world is a machine, all its parts are not, for instance, a stone is just a body, but not a machine. Finally, Crusius points out that the bodily world is a rather peculiar machine, because part of its driving force comes from actions of free spirits.

Although spirits are not machines, they can be combined with naturally produced machines. Crusius is obviously speaking of organic bodies, combined to which spirits are called souls. Crusius suggests that it is not completely necessary that worlds contain animals or combinations of souls and organic bodies. Animals do make a world more perfect, but finite spirits should be able to affect the bodily world even without the help of a body of their own.

For Crusius, the world is not a deterministic whole, because it also contains spirits capable of free actions. God’s interactions with the world provide further reasons why determinism does not work. We’ve already seen Crusius to note that God has a constant supernatural effect on the world, for instance, in sustaining the world and all the substances in it. In addition to such constant effects, Crusius also thinks that God can occasionally have quite sudden effects on the world, that is, God might do miracles.

Some of the miracles can be hidden from us humans - they are done merely, because God thought it best to do things in such a manner. At other times, God might choose to reveal that a miracle has been done - in these cases, Crusius adds, God must want humans to know that some event was a miracle. Sometimes the miracle might appear to be a work of a person following God, but even in these cases it is God who actually gives the person a power for doing such miracles. In these cases, Crusius explains, it is futile to try to make experiments whether this person truly can consistently make miracles, because God can at any point just choose not to grant that power to the person anymore.

How then to know when some event has been a miracle? Crusius points out that because of the possibility of hidden miracles, we can never be sure that something hasn’t been a miracle. Yet, he also gives a general criteria for recognising miracles: something is a miracle, if it could not have happened in a natural manner generally or at least in these specific conditions. He also adds that we are sometimes very able to distinguish supernatural from natural events, because we are so familiar with what naturally happens: for instance, we know trees don’t usually talk. Crusius also points out that we do not need mathematically certain proofs to accept something as a miracle, but a lower grade of conviction is usually enough. Finally, he emphasises that miracles also have a moral aspect, that is, we shouldn’t think of something with immoral consequences as a miracle.

Christian August Crusius: Draft of necessary truths of reason, in so far as they are set opposite to contingent ones - What God does

The final part of Crusius’ natural theology is dedicated to the question of what God does, that is, what effects the divine activities produce. The obvious first answer for Crusius is that God has created the world, that is, the world that earlier was not has become existent. In the strictest sense, Crusius adds, creation refers to the generation of simple substances and their fundamental forces. In addition, God has also ordered these simple substances, but this is not something that only God could do.

God has not just created the world and everything in it, Crusius continues, but they also sustain all these things. Why couldn’t God just have created the things in such a manner that they would keep on existing without the help of God? Crusius’ answer is that this would have been impossible. Because the created things are contingent, their current existence is no reason why they would continue existing and thus they require the help of God for their continuous existence or otherwise they might as well just blink out of existence.

In addition to sustaining the existence of the things in the world, Crusius states, God also sustains the very order of the world. The threat here is not that the world would be completely wiped out of existence, but only that it would collapse into chaos. This threat is real, Crusius adds, because by themselves, material things would quickly move and change any given order.

Crusius adds that in some cases God sustains the actuality of certain things, but when free choices are involved, God can only sustain their possibility, while the actuality is then left for the decision of free beings. Thus, Crusius explains, God is not responsible for evil actions of free creatures, but merely sustains the possibility of such actions, which the action of a free person then makes real.

God does not just sustain the world, Crusius continues, but they direct the world in accordance with certain purposes. Original guidelines of this divine providence, he clarifies, are God’s fundamental desires, while what God attempts to achieve must have something to do with creatures capable of free actions, not with the mechanism of the material world. God is, as it were, building a kingdom, where the divine will morally obligates free creatures to do certain actions.

Crusius divided divine providence into such where God uses the course of nature to make something purposeful happen at appropriate time and such where God uses miracles or personally acts on the worldly things to make something happen. Since free spirits cannot be forced to do anything by natural causes, he points out, miracles must be especially used with them. Thus, particularly if there are plenty of evil free creatures, God has to do miracles, in order to assure the fulfilment of divine purposes. This still doesn’t mean that we should see miracles everywhere, since God can well use less miracles to produce more effects. In addition, Crusius notes, God need not make miracles obviously visible, unless the explicit purpose of the miracle is to be noted by human beings.