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THE FIRST CAUSE: IPSUM ESSE SUBSISTENS AETERNUM - RETHINKING GOD IN A SCIENTIFIC AGE (The Metaphysics of Being and Science Series) - Hardcover
Book 1 of 2: The Metaphysics of Being and Science Series
Synopsis
The First Cause is a bold, wide-ranging exploration of one of the oldest and most profound questions in human thought: Why does anything exist at all? Drawing on classical metaphysics, modern science, contemporary analytic philosophy, and the deepest intuitions of reason, this volume offers a clear, compelling, and rigorous demonstration that the existence of the universe ultimately depends on a First Cause—an uncaused, necessary, self-subsistent act of being itself.
Rejecting the caricatures that dominate popular debates, the book restores the intellectual precision of Aristotle, Aquinas, and the classical tradition, while engaging the discoveries of physics, cosmology, biology, chemistry, and probability theory. The First Cause argument is reconstructed not as a relic of medieval thought but as a live, philosophically powerful explanation grounded in the very features of the world that science seeks to understand: change, motion, contingency, intelligibility, order, and the rational structure of natural laws.
The book begins with the undeniable fact that contingent things exist—beings that come into existence, change, and pass away. From this starting point, it develops a systematic account of causality, potentiality and actuality, essence and existence, and the metaphysical conditions required for anything to be real. It then shows, step by step, why a world composed entirely of contingent beings cannot be self-explanatory. The chain of causes, no matter how long or complex, cannot explain itself unless it ultimately rests on a being whose existence is not received, not dependent, and not conditioned by anything outside itself.
This First Cause is not a temporal “first event,” nor a cosmic starter that set the universe running, but a necessary being whose essence is existence, the ground of all causal powers, and the source of the intelligibility of every finite thing. The book explores how such a being must be simple, eternal, immaterial, and unchanging—not through theological assertion, but through rigorous metaphysical analysis.
This volume sets the stage for the other volumes within this series. While engaging Hume and Kant directly restoring metaphysics to its rightful place in philosophy and science, The First Cause prepares the way for the second volume in this series, Being and Necessity, to engage contemporary challenges: quantum indeterminacy, the multiverse, problems of temporal beginnings, physical cosmology, evolutionary explanations, and the claim that modern science has made classical metaphysics obsolete. Instead of conflict, the book argues that science presupposes a metaphysical structure it cannot itself explain: the constancy of natural laws, the existence of causal powers, the intelligibility of the world, and the reliability of reason. Far from undermining classical theism, scientific discoveries deepen the philosophical case for a necessary ground of being.
Written with clarity and intellectual ambition, The First Cause serves as both an introduction and a substantial contribution to metaphysics and epistemology. College students will find it accessible and eye-opening; scholars will find a fresh reconstruction of a venerable argument; and general readers will encounter a gripping narrative about reality, existence, and the ultimate foundation of the world. The result is a work that bridges ancient wisdom and contemporary thought, offering a vision of classical theism that is rationally compelling, philosophically rigorous, and deeply relevant in a scientific age when read as a series.
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About the Author
A. J. Rowan is a philosopher trained in ancient, medieval, early modern, and analytic thought, with advanced degrees in philosophy, theology, and classical languages. His work focuses on classical metaphysics, the philosophy of science, modal logic, and the interplay between reason, being, and intelligibility. Drawing on the classical philosophical traditions while engaging contemporary analytic debates, Rowan develops systematic accounts of causality, necessity, and the metaphysical structure of reality. He has taught courses in philosophy and religion at the university level and has written extensively on the foundations of metaphysical realism, the principles of explanation, and the relation between science and classical theism. The First Cause is part of a larger project of recovering a unified metaphysical framework capable of speaking with clarity and rigor in a scientific age.
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Hardcover. Condition: new. Hardcover. First Cause: Ipsum Esse Subsistens Aeternum - Rethinking God in a Scientific Age exposes the deep metaphysical fracture at the center of modern thought and reconstructs a unified philosophical framework capable of repairing it. For centuries, debates over the a priori have divided philosophy into rival camps-rationalist versus empiricist, analytic versus continental-yet the true origin of this divide, and its far-reaching consequences for metaphysics, science, and theology, has remained obscured. This book brings that hidden rupture to light and offers a coherent path beyond it.The central thesis is uncompromising: early modern philosophy severed intelligibility from experience, generating the crisis that shaped the last three hundred years of thought. Once being, causality, necessity, and essence were disconnected from their grounding in reality itself, Hume's skepticism became unavoidable, Kant's limits on knowledge became permanent, and classical metaphysics was pushed to the margins. First Cause dismantles this inherited framework and rebuilds a synthetic a priori rooted in the intelligibility of being. Drawing together Aristotelian principles, Thomistic metaphysics, contemporary modal logic, analytic philosophy, and insights from the natural sciences, the book offers a renewed account in which causality, necessity, and essence become rationally necessary features of a unified metaphysical system.What distinguishes this work is its integration of classical theism with modern analytic precision. It recovers a robust account of ipsum esse subsistens-the self-subsistent act of being-and demonstrates that the intelligibility of the world, whether scientific, philosophical, or experiential, presupposes a necessary, eternal, incorporeal First Cause. God is not treated as an optional explanatory add-on but as the metaphysical ground that makes reason, causality, and coherent explanation possible. In this framework, the very possibility of understanding anything at all points beyond contingent reality to a transcendent source of existence.At a time when modern philosophy faces fragmentation, skepticism, and conceptual exhaustion, First Cause offers a way forward. It reunites metaphysics with reason, restores the classical tradition to philosophical relevance, and provides a clear alternative to naturalism by showing that reality is structured, intelligible, and grounded in necessity rather than accident. The result is a system that speaks simultaneously to ancient insights and contemporary scientific thought.Ideal for philosophers, theologians, scientists, graduate students, and thoughtful readers seeking clarity about existence, causality, and the foundations of intelligibility, this book invites the reader to reconsider the nature of reality and the rational inevitability of a First Cause. It restores metaphysics to its rightful place and opens a renewed path toward understanding why anything exists at all. The First Cause a rigorous modern restatement of classical metaphysics, showing why contingent reality requires a self-subsistent, necessary Being. It bridges philosophy, history, and logic in a clear, accessible argument. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9798994118016
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The First Cause : IPSUM ESSE SUBSISTENS AETERNUM - RETHINKING GOD IN A SCIENTIFIC AGE
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Buch. Condition: Neu. nach der Bestellung gedruckt Neuware - Printed after ordering - First Cause: Ipsum Esse Subsistens Aeternum - Rethinking God in a Scientific Age exposes the deep metaphysical fracture at the center of modern thought and reconstructs a unified philosophical framework capable of repairing it. For centuries, debates over the a priori have divided philosophy into rival camps-rationalist versus empiricist, analytic versus continental-yet the true origin of this divide, and its far-reaching consequences for metaphysics, science, and theology, has remained obscured. This book brings that hidden rupture to light and offers a coherent path beyond it.The central thesis is uncompromising: early modern philosophy severed intelligibility from experience, generating the crisis that shaped the last three hundred years of thought. Once being, causality, necessity, and essence were disconnected from their grounding in reality itself, Hume's skepticism became unavoidable, Kant's limits on knowledge became permanent, and classical metaphysics was pushed to the margins. First Cause dismantles this inherited framework and rebuilds a synthetic a priori rooted in the intelligibility of being. Drawing together Aristotelian principles, Thomistic metaphysics, contemporary modal logic, analytic philosophy, and insights from the natural sciences, the book offers a renewed account in which causality, necessity, and essence become rationally necessary features of a unified metaphysical system.What distinguishes this work is its integration of classical theism with modern analytic precision. It recovers a robust account of ipsum esse subsistens-the self-subsistent act of being-and demonstrates that the intelligibility of the world, whether scientific, philosophical, or experiential, presupposes a necessary, eternal, incorporeal First Cause. God is not treated as an optional explanatory add-on but as the metaphysical ground that makes reason, causality, and coherent explanation possible. In this framework, the very possibility of understanding anything at all points beyond contingent reality to a transcendent source of existence.At a time when modern philosophy faces fragmentation, skepticism, and conceptual exhaustion, First Cause offers a way forward. It reunites metaphysics with reason, restores the classical tradition to philosophical relevance, and provides a clear alternative to naturalism by showing that reality is structured, intelligible, and grounded in necessity rather than accident. The result is a system that speaks simultaneously to ancient insights and contemporary scientific thought.Ideal for philosophers, theologians, scientists, graduate students, and thoughtful readers seeking clarity about existence, causality, and the foundations of intelligibility, this book invites the reader to reconsider the nature of reality and the rational inevitability of a First Cause. It restores metaphysics to its rightful place and opens a renewed path toward understanding why anything exists at all. Seller Inventory # 9798994118016
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Buch. Condition: Neu. The First Cause | IPSUM ESSE SUBSISTENS AETERNUM - RETHINKING GOD IN A SCIENTIFIC AGE | A. J. Rowan | Buch | Englisch | 2025 | Providence Publishing House | EAN 9798994118016 | Verantwortliche Person für die EU: Libri GmbH, Europaallee 1, 36244 Bad Hersfeld, gpsr[at]libri[dot]de | Anbieter: preigu Print on Demand. Seller Inventory # 134416658
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