But in reductio ad absurdum-or even in burhan-e inni for...

But in reductio ad absurdum-or even in burhan-e inni for that matter-this is not the case. In reductio ad absurdum, the mind accepts the conclusion as a compulsion. The state of the mind here is similar to that of a person encountering a coercive force before which he is helpless. He accepts it because he cannot reject it. In these types of proofs, as one of the two possibilities is invalidated by proof, the mind is forced into accepting the other.

The other alternative that is accepted by the mind is accepted only because its contradictory has been rejected, and one from among a pair of contradictories has to be necessarily accepted, for it is impossible for both contradictories to be false. Hence it accepts the other possibility under constraint and compulsion. This acceptance of one side is due to compulsion and not spontaneous.

Hegel wants to say that our going after the first cause and our acceptance of it belongs to the latter category. The mind does not directly apprehend the first cause, but accepts it to avoid infinite regress. On the other hand, it sees that although it cannot refrain from accepting the impossibility of infinite regress, it also cannot understand the difference between the first cause and the other causes that makes these causes require a cause while the first cause can do without it.

In his own words, one cannot understand why the first cause became the first cause. But if we seek the teleology and end [of being] we arrive at an end and purpose whose being an end is essential to it and does not require any other end and purpose. Statements similar to Hegel's with respect to the first cause have been made by Kant and Spencer as well.

Spencer says, "The problem is that, on the one hand, human reason seeks a cause for every thing; on the other, it rejects both the vicious circle and the infinite regress. Neither does it find an uncaused cause nor is capable of understanding such a thing. Thus when a priest tells a child that God created the world, the child responds by asking, 'Who created God?' " Similar, or even more baseless, are Jean-Paul Sartre's remarks in this regard.

He, as quoted by Paul Foulquie, says -concerning the first cause: It is self-contradictory that a being be the cause of its own existence.