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    The Dao is necessarily ziran (self-so/spontaneous), posse... — Carmelics
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    The Dao is necessarily ziran (self-so/spontaneous), possessing a kind of necessity and aseity analogous to being causa sui in the Thomist tradition

    Divine AttributesModality & Possibility
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.The Dao is capable of singlehandedly originating everything
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    • 2.That which singlehandedly originates everything must be self-grounding rather than dependent on anything external
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Causa sui requires reflexive self-causation in a determinate causal order, but the Dao operates prior to any causal structure whatsoever.
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    • 2.Ziran denotes absence of external constraint, not self-grounding causation—'spontaneity' and 'self-causation' are categorically distinct modal concepts.
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    • 3.Mapping Latin scholastic causality onto Daoist cosmogony imports Aristotelian substance ontology that Daoist metaphysics explicitly rejects.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.The Dao's origination of the ten thousand things in Daodejing ch. 40 proceeds from wu (non-being), suggesting dependence on a prior privative ground.
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    • 2.If the Dao depends on wu for generative efficacy, it cannot be causa sui in the Thomist sense, which demands unconditioned self-sufficiency with no prior ground.
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    Divine AttributesModality & Possibility

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    Causation1 linkedNatural Theology1 linked

    Related

    Causa sui requires reflexive self-causation in a determinate causal order, but t...If the Dao depends on wu for generative efficacy, it cannot be causa sui in the ...Mapping Latin scholastic causality onto Daoist cosmogony imports Aristotelian su...That which singlehandedly originates everything must be self-grounding rather th...
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    The Dao is capable of singlehandedly originating everythingThe Dao's origination of the ten thousand things in Daodejing ch. 40 proceeds fr...Ziran denotes absence of external constraint, not self-grounding causation—'spon...

    Similar

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    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: god-ultimates
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    Second, because it is capable of singlehandedly originating everything, the Dao is taken to be necessarily ziran, meaning “self-so” or “spontaneous”, which is read as entailing something like the kind of necessity and aseity of being causa sui in the Thomist tradition (Perkins 2019). Wang explains the entailment in her explication of a famous passage (“Human beings follow earth, earth follows heaven, heaven follows dao, and dao follows ziran”): the Dao’s following ziran arrests the regress becau
    Extraction notes

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    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit