Classical Theism, Mind, and Fundamentality

Many suggest source idealism is better than source physicalism since the latter leads to construction problems. How, simply stated, can one get the stuff of minded entities — not just consciousness, but freedom of the will, rationality, etc. — from mindless particles? There appears to be a qualitative abyss that no number of merely quantitative steps can traverse. The problem is not just one of probability, but of principle. Or so the arguments go.

Source idealism is just the idea that mind came before matter; source physicalism the opposite.

I feel the force of this construction problem — definitely. However, putting mind at the ground layer of reality (without qualification) has issues of its own. Many associate minds with complexity on some level, including metaphysical. So, is this mind something that itself leaves important questions unanswered? If that’s the case, then we’re stuck with brute facts, which I believe are a serious problem for any worldview, not just naturalism.

To me, a much better ultimate explanatory stopping point — in fact, the only one capable of avoiding brute facts altogether — is something of absolute simplicity; something which escapes entirely the categories of caused being. Something whose essence, if we could comprehend it, would explain its own existence.

Fortunately, if we follow Aquinas and Lonergan, there is no conflict between these two theses, since the absolute simplest reality just will be an unrestricted idea, whose act and object of understanding are identical.

To me, this theory of fundamentality, which is classical theism, presents the best of all worlds.