Epistemology, Causation, and Libertarian Freedom (Once more)

In a previous blog post (http://nicholaslutzo.blogspot.com/2011/07/david-hume-and-kalam-cosmological.html) I discussed the epistemology of David Hume, as result of another blog post (http://nicholaslutzo.blogspot.com/2011/06/kalam-cosmological-argument-and.html) where I discussed the logical soundness premise 1 of the kalam cosmological argument for God’s existence (whatever comes into existence has a cause), and it was from that point that I pointed out libertarian freedom inconsistency in regard to such soundness. The need to discuss Hume’s epistemology was because of Hume’s claim that one cannot know causation. Alex Marshall was willing to point that out, and as a result I attempted to defend the soundness of the metaphysical assertion of premise 1 from the attack of Hume’s epistemology.

However, my arguments were perhaps unnecessary for there is no reason to suggest that these epistemological assertions have any barring on the metaphysics of causation. That is, just because one could not possibly know causation it doesn’t mean that causation does not exist. In fact, I said this multiple times, and now I have found a quote from Hume (thanks to my good fortune of knowing Don Hartley) to back it up. Hume says, “I never asserted so absurd a proposition as that anything might arise without a cause.” Hume, Letters, 1:187. For even Hume believed, despite his epistemological views, that nothing comes into existence without a cause whatsoever!

This now brings me to my final observation of this post. What now for libertarian freedom? If everything that comes into existence has a cause, and our actions comes into existence, then what is the cause of our actions? The kalam argument demands a transcendent cause/unmoved mover (i.e. God) in order to avoid an infinite number of past events because an actual infinite number of things cannot and does not exist. However, libertarian freedom rejects such causation, and holds to agent causation. The challenge then for the libertarian is how is agent causation not guilty of an infinite regress? In response, the libertarian may claim that the soul or will is transcendent and thus able to bring an action into existence; however, I reject such a claim. For one, there are perhaps two different definitions or understandings of transcendence and one is being confused with the other. For one I think that the soul is transcendent in that it goes beyond this realm of existence, but perhaps there is another aspect of transcendence that is ascribed to God as the one who can bring things into existence. It is the later understanding that when applied to the human transcendent soul cannot be true. For one, the libertarian has not proven it to be true and the shortcomings of Interactionism suggest that there is no philosophical reason to think that the immaterial soul or will can and does interact and/or cause a material action. For how could they? When one examines both, one comes away noting how different they are from one another (e.g. one is material, the other immaterial). What do you think?