Ideas About Causation and the Cosmos
For centuries, ideas about causation and the structure of the cosmos formed a shared intellectual framework within which both science and theology operated. Rather than existing as rival enterprises, they developed together, drawing on common assumptions about how the world works, why it exists, and how events are connected. Understanding this shared heritage helps explain why the modern conflict narrative between science and religion is historically misleading and relatively recent.
In the ancient world, especially in Greek philosophy, causation was understood as layered and meaningful rather than merely mechanical. Aristotle’s account of four causes became foundational. Material cause explained what something is made of. Formal cause described its shape or essence. Efficient cause referred to the agent or process that brings it about. Final cause addressed its purpose or end. This framework shaped scientific inquiry and theological reflection alike. To explain a phenomenon fully was to account not only for how it happened, but for what it was for. Natural philosophy investigated efficient and material causes, while theology reflected on formal and final causes, yet both assumed that nature was intelligible and ordered.
This conviction that the cosmos is rationally structured was reinforced by Platonic and Stoic traditions, which emphasized cosmic order, harmony, and intelligibility. The universe was seen as a coherent whole, governed by reason or logos. Early Christian theologians adopted this outlook, identifying the logos with the divine Word through whom the world was created and sustained. As a result, studying nature was not a threat to faith but a way of discerning divine wisdom. The regularity of the cosmos was understood as a reflection of God’s rational will.
During the medieval period, these ideas were further refined. Scholastic thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas integrated Aristotelian causation with Christian theology. God was understood as the first cause, not as one cause among others, but as the ground of all being and causality. Created things possessed real causal powers, operating according to their natures, yet their existence and activity ultimately depended on God. This allowed for a robust account of natural causes without displacing divine agency. Natural explanations did not compete with God, because God was not invoked to fill gaps in causal knowledge but to explain why there is an ordered causal system at all.
Medieval cosmology also assumed a hierarchical and purposeful universe. The cosmos was finite, ordered, and value laden, with the Earth at its center and the heavens moving in intelligible patterns. While this geocentric model was later abandoned, the deeper assumption that the universe is lawful and meaningful persisted. The expectation that nature follows consistent principles made systematic observation and reasoning possible, laying crucial groundwork for the rise of modern science.
The early modern scientific revolution transformed ideas of causation, but it did not initially reject theological assumptions. Figures such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton continued to believe that the cosmos was mathematically ordered because it was the product of a rational creator. What changed was the increasing emphasis on efficient causation and quantitative description. Final causes were gradually set aside in scientific explanation, not necessarily denied, but bracketed as beyond the scope of empirical inquiry. Nature came to be described as a system of laws governing matter in motion.
This shift had profound consequences. As mechanical explanations proved powerful, especially in physics, the universe began to be imagined as a vast machine. Causation was increasingly understood in linear and deterministic terms. Theology struggled at times to adjust, especially when divine action was pictured as intervening within a closed causal system. Tensions arose when God was conceived as competing with natural causes rather than grounding them. Yet many theologians and scientists continued to argue that scientific laws describe how the cosmos operates, while theology addresses why it exists and what ultimate meaning it bears.
By the Enlightenment, debates about causation and the cosmos became more polarized. Some thinkers adopted deism, portraying God as a distant architect who designed the universe but no longer acted within it. Others moved toward naturalism, claiming that causal explanations within nature were sufficient and that no further explanation was needed. In response, theological traditions developed more sophisticated accounts of divine action, emphasizing God’s continuous sustaining presence rather than occasional intervention.
Across these centuries, ideas about causation and the cosmos served as a bridge between science and theology rather than a boundary. Both assumed that the world is intelligible, ordered, and worthy of investigation. The divergence between them arose not from incompatible goals but from changing understandings of what counts as an explanation. Recognizing this shared history reveals that science and religion have long been partners in the human effort to understand how the universe works and why it exists at all.