A closer look at the first way

[JDaniel]

I like to start by telling you that this argument has been around, in some form or other, since before St. Thomas. (No intent here to disappoint.)

In our earlier discussion, I re-printed an except or two from The Teaching of the Catholic Church, Vol 1. With your permission I’d like to reprint perhaps some additional teaching regarding this subject. You will not offend me by disagreeing with any of it, so just say so.

First, I am going to look back for our previous discussion to see if I can find it. But, if I see that that search is going to take too long, I’ll re-type it. I know that when I conversed with you about this before, I abbreviated the quote(s) from the (TTCC) which may have been responsible for you not getting the full meaning.

At this time, if you will, I’m going to take a little time to look for that old thread and/or re-write the authoritative text. With your indulgence, I shall return.

By the way, I assume that by “ontologic moment,” you mean simply a before-and-after state change. Right?

God bless,
jd

 

[belorg]

Belorg:

This is the crux of your argument: that “a changeless ontological ‘state’ changed from being a ‘changeless’ state to being a ‘changeful’ state, which is contradictory.” From:

“My argument is that the whole of reality was (is)changeless (onto)logically prior to it becoming (being) changeable. IOW a changeless state changed (changes, is changing, will be changing) into a state of change. This, I would think is so obviously contradictory that I really cannot see why anyone would deny this.”

But then I noticed, in another response to another poster, this:

“…except that ‘before’ in this case has no temporal meaning and that I prefer “the whole of reality” instead of “God’s reality”.

Do you think there is anything diffrent in this?

Before we begin I’m going to write your premise in a form that makes sense, from a sequenced reasoning perspective. If I am wrong, please say so.

1. 
   *] The whole of reality was changeless – which must be God, as we don’t have any other choices, precisely because per your argument, if He is/was all there is/was, then it is/was He who existed as your prior ‘changeless state’.

1. 
   Sounds about right.
   

   *] Then, at some moment, before it changed to ‘changeful’, this ‘changeless state’ changed into a ‘changeful state’.

   You lost me here, I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
   

   *] How can that be? God, which was the ‘whole of reality’, is said to be ‘changeless’ and, therefore, It/He cannot change.

   OK
   

   *] But, this is contradictory.

   Yes.
   

   If this is about right, even though I am not perfectly happy with my interpretation (believe it or not!), we can begin. Is it OK to invite participants?

   God bless,
   jd

   Well, I’d prefer not to make things too complicated, so if anyone wnats to join, that’s fine, but I would not go as far as to invite them.

 

[belorg]

I like to start by telling you that this argument has been around, in some form or other, since before St. Thomas. (No intent here to disappoint.)

In our earlier discussion, I re-printed an except or two from The Teaching of the Catholic Church, Vol 1. With your permission I’d like to reprint perhaps some additional teaching regarding this subject. You will not offend me by disagreeing with any of it, so just say so.

First, I am going to look back for our previous discussion to see if I can find it. But, if I see that that search is going to take too long, I’ll re-type it. I know that when I conversed with you about this before, I abbreviated the quote(s) from the (TTCC) which may have been responsible for you not getting the full meaning.

At this time, if you will, I’m going to take a little time to look for that old thread and/or re-write the authoritative text. With your indulgence, I shall return.

By the way, I assume that by “ontologic moment,” you mean simply a before-and-after state change. Right?

God bless,
jd

Take your time, JD. But keep in mind that whether a text is considered authoritative or not is not really my concern. It has to make sense.

And I do not know what you mean by ‘simply a before-and-after state change’. I most certainly do not mean a temporal before-and-after state.

 

[JDaniel]

Take your time, JD. But keep in mind that whether a text is considered authoritative or not is not really my concern. It has to make sense.

Belorg:

Of course.

And I do not know what you mean by ‘simply a before-and-after state change’. I most certainly do not mean a temporal before-and-after state.

OK. Interesting. You mean a state outside-of-time, sort of like a “sequence” imbedded in an Infinity?

God bless,
jd

 

[JDaniel]

Belorg:

I’ve decided not to resort to the authority of TTCC and wish to do this with God’s help, and with the grateful assistance of the many herein that are much smarter than I. To that end, let’s take a look at what St. Thomas argues in his First Way:

“The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion unless it is in potency to that towards which it is in motion. But a thing moves in so far as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potency to act. But nothing can be reduced from potency to act except by something in a state of act. Thus that which is actuality hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in act and potency in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actuality hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; though it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, that is, that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is moved must be moved by another. If that by which it is moved be itself moved, then this also must be moved by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only because they are moved by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is moved by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover which is moved by no other. And this everyone understands to be God.” – Summa Theologica, Vol I, First Part, Q 2, Art. 3, pp 12-13, Great Books of the Western World.

In the foregoing, I have emphasized some sentences. The sentences I emphasized precisely deal with your contention that that which is changeless cannot become that which is changeful. What St. Thomas is arguing is that nothing that is in act can change itself. To our senses, animals seem to move themselves. Most things are singular things, not composed of parts, and we more readily see that they cannot move themselves. But when we see a thing that is composed of parts move on its own, it appears to us that that thing is in fact doing its own moving.

My God – your ‘state of changelessness’ – is a singular, unified whole that is infinite in all respects. (This is our contention and Catholic dogma.) If we attribute “motion/change” to Him, we attribute it wrongly. Moreover, if we attribute a “state of being” to Him other than what is expected of an infinite, non-composite whole, that, too, is wrong. God * moves* things, in the widest sense of that word, by emanation, not by “change/motion,” per se.

In order for a thing to be “changeless,” it would have to be very unique indeed. It would be sort of like One who identifies Himself as “I am who am,” or, in other words, “He who is.” Now, considering the reality of the substances of which we are composed, and of which all other things are composed, even science cannot take us to a significant understanding of precisely what we are and, what is more, how we come to be.

From the article: The Act of Creation and its Theological Consequences: Aquinas’ Strageties, from Here

“Now if that One is most properly identified as ‘He who is’, since ‘the existence of God is his essence and since this is true of nothing else’, then we are in the presence of One whose characteristic act will be ‘to produce existence [esse] absolutely . . . which belongs to the meaning of creation’ defined as ‘the emanation of the whole of being from a universal cause’ or ‘universal being’? That being’s ‘proper effect’, then, is the very existence of things. One implication of this unique form of causation is that

“creation is not a change, except merely according to our way of understanding, [since] creation, whereby the entire substance of things is produced, does not allow of some common subject now different from what it was before, except according to our way of understanding which conceives an object as first not existing at all and afterwards as existing” - Summa Theologiae, I, 45, 2 ad 2.

I have more to say, but will await your response.

God bless,
jd

 

[yppop]

JD
Forgive the interruption, but you are not going to convince Belorg that the unchangeable can create change (at an “ontic instant”) while still remaining changeless. As an atheist I don’t believe he understands the infinite and immutable God. Because God is infinite He can remove and infinite number of points (squeezed into a singularity) from His infinitude and create the entire universe (or, indeed, and infinite number of universes) from the nothingness of “space” while still remaining immutable and infinite. This is simple set theory. There is more than one “infinity”, in fact, an infinite number of them.
Yppop

 

[JDaniel]

JD
Forgive the interruption, but you are not going to convince Belorg that the unchangeable can create change (at an “ontic instant”) while still remaining changeless. As an atheist I don’t believe he understands the infinite and immutable God. Because God is infinite He can remove an infinite number of points (squeezed into a singularity) from His infinitude and create the entire universe (or, indeed, an infinite number of universes) from the nothingness of “space” while still remaining immutable and infinite. This is simple set theory. There is more than one “infinity”, in fact, an infinite number of them.
Yppop

Yppop:

I’m hoping that he will recognize that an “unchangeable reality” is not anything with which we have any familiarity - except for God. It itself is not ontological, in any sense that even an atheist might view it. We have no a priori indication that such a thing exists. So, the entire premise is really an abstraction, kind of like a mathematical problem, that, if recognized for what it is, he might see that God is the only thing that we can conceive to be changeless. But, his premise shows that he’s got a mind!

I’m glad that you wrote what I highlighted in your post above, as I wanted to get into that the more we discussed his premise with him. So, Belorg, here’s a little bit more to think on: can a finite exigency "remove an infinite number of points from a singularity? (I have to call it an “exigency” as, so far, we have no idea what such a finite thing might be.)

Yppop, the more that I’ve read of St. Thomas, Fr. Francisco Suarez, Meister Eckhart, Fr. Jean Baptiste Saint-Jure, the recent readings in Church, I find that your theory and all of their explanations dove-tail. Or, maybe it’s just me.

God bless,
jd

 

[AndyT_81]

Hi belorg,

Sorry - some time has passed now and you are into things with JDaniel. However, going back to our previous discussion, I would like to raise 2 points:

1. Catholic dogma does state that apart from God there is absolutely nothing, but this means (as far as I am aware, others please correct me if I’m wrong) that apart from God sustaining all creation within being there is absolutely nothing (apart from God)
2. I still think you’re trying to import temporal concepts into your argument

Let me expand on 2. You say that ReapReason’s summary of your argument is pretty much accurate apart from a couple of clarifications. So rephrasing ReapReason’s summary from:

It seems to me that you were saying that before physical reality existed there was only God; and then God created physical reality, which means that God’s reality changed from one state to another.

To:

1. Before physical reality existed, the whole of reality was unchangeable
2. This unchangeable reality created physical reality
3. Therefore the unchangeable reality changed from one state to another

Where “before” is meant to establish only ontological priority - not temporal priority.

So to establish a “time-line”

1. Whole of reality (not including creation) → change → Whole of reality (including temporal creation)

Now, as I’ve stated above, creation is not a part of God - if it is, you don’t need a complicated argument to show that God is changing because temporal creation obviously changes. But of course, the first way shows that this is not the case; it shows that for there to be any temporal change there needs to be an unchainging changer. So really, (1) changes to:

1b. God → change → God + temporal creation

The problem that you need to deal with, as I see it, is to show that the “change” in 1b is an actual change (i.e. a succession of states) within God, not just a ontological priority. Ontological priorities do not need to be temporal priorities (i.e. they do not need to involve a succession in states) - so if the “change” in the above is an eternal action of God it is not really a change, but an ontological priority.

Now you also said, in reply to TSAquinas:

Eternally contingent is still contingent and it still means there is a non-temporal state of affairs in which this whole state of reality did not exist.

This seems muddled to me. Yes, even if eternally contingent on God creation is still contingent on Him, but what you have to show for your argument to work is that there is a succession of states within God (i.e. a change). What meaning can be made of a succesion of states/change when you are just talking about ontological priority or eternal contingency? If we have an eternal vase resting on an eternal table, the table is still ontologically prior in the series, but this doesn’t mean that there is any actual succesion of states. Sure you can write the relationship succesively on a page, but this doesn’t equate to a true succession in eternal reality.

Interested to hear your response, where have I got you wrong?

 

[Shike]

AndyT_81,

You beat me to the point. But you did it much better than I could have. Belorg’s conception of ontological priority involves time, irregardless of his insistence that it does not.

I am afarid it’s not that simple. Eternally contingent is still contingent and it still means there is a non-temporal state of affairs in which this whole state of reality did not exist.

If you’re looking at things ontologically and not in any temporal way, then what you have is a series of relations. And for an eternal and changless Being, those relations do not change on His end. In fact, all of the relations are “present” to Him.

As an aside, after reading Edward Feser’s Aquinas, it seems to me that aristotelian-thomistic change is convertible with contingency. Which means, that the concept of change is much more deep than an average joe’s conception of change. For instance even if it was possible to remove all local motion for a set of entities, because there is composition (and hence contingency) there would still be change, although of a deeper sort.

I am interested in comments on the above paragraph.

ciao,
Michael

 

[belorg]

I’ll try to anaswer this the best I can. But there’s a lot of questions here.

If you’re looking at things ontologically and not in any temporal way, then what you have is a series of relations. And for an eternal and changless Being, those relations do not change on His end. In fact, all of the relations are “present” to Him.

I am not talking about His end. I am talking about the whole of reality, not just an ‘end’ of it.

1. Catholic dogma does state that apart from God there is absolutely nothing, but this means (as far as I am aware, others please correct me if I’m wrong) that apart from God sustaining all creation within being there is absolutely nothing (apart from God)
2. I still think you’re trying to import temporal concepts into your argument

The 1st one is correct, but I fail to see how it’s different fropm what I’ve said.
The 2nd one is incorrect. I am not doing that. Nowhere does my argument require any sort of temporal concept.

Now, as I’ve stated above, creation is not a part of God - if it is, you don’t need a complicated argument to show that God is changing because temporal creation obviously changes. But of course, the first way shows that this is not the case; it shows that for there to be any temporal change there needs to be an unchainging changer. So really, (1) changes to:

1b. God → change → God + temporal creation

The problem that you need to deal with, as I see it, is to show that the “change” in 1b is an actual change (i.e. a succession of states) within God, not just a ontological priority.

No, I do not have to show that. all I have to show is that reality changes.

Ontological priorities do not need to be temporal priorities (i.e. they do not need to involve a succession in states) - so if the “change” in the above is an eternal action of God it is not really a change, but an ontological priority.

Catholic dogma says that God brought the universe into being. That necessrily entails a succession from not-being to being.

 

[belorg]

This seems muddled to me. Yes, even if eternally contingent on God creation is still contingent on Him, but what you have to show for your argument to work is that there is a succession of states within God (i.e. a change). What meaning can be made of a succesion of states/change when you are just talking about ontological priority or eternal contingency? If we have an eternal vase resting on an eternal table, the table is still ontologically prior in the series, but this doesn’t mean that there is any actual succesion of states. Sure you can write the relationship succesively on a page, but this doesn’t equate to a true succession in eternal reality.

Interested to hear your response, where have I got you wrong?

Firstly, I have lots of problems with an eternal vase resting on an eternal table involving any sort of causation, I really do not buy into that. But even if I accept this omehow entails causation, the ‘state’ of resting on the table of the vase is not brought into being, unlike in the case of the universe and God. So, that’s where I think you’ve got it wrong.

 

[belorg]

JD
Forgive the interruption, but you are not going to convince Belorg that the unchangeable can create change (at an “ontic instant”) while still remaining changeless. As an atheist I don’t believe he understands the infinite and immutable God. Because God is infinite He can remove an infinite number of points (squeezed into a singularity) from His infinitude and create the entire universe (or, indeed, and infinite number of universes) from the nothingness of “space” while still remaining immutable and infinite. This is simple set theory. There is more than one “infinity”, in fact, an infinite number of them.
Yppop

Maybe the God you believe in can remove an infinite number of points from his infinitude while remaining infinite (not immutable, because there still is a definite chnage), but the Thomist God does not have an infinite number of points. He has only one ‘point’, and that is oe of the main reasons why He is immutable. Composed entities are mutable because they are composed of different ‘points’.

 

[belorg]

Belorg:

My God – your ‘state of changelessness’ – is a singular, unified whole that is infinite in all respects. (This is our contention and Catholic dogma.) If we attribute “motion/change” to Him, we attribute it wrongly. Moreover, if we attribute a “state of being” to Him other than what is expected of an infinite, non-composite whole, that, too, is wrong. God * moves* things, in the widest sense of that word, by emanation, not by “change/motion,” per se.

That’s what Thomas believed, yes. But in my argument I am trying to show why this is wrong.

In order for a thing to be “changeless,” it would have to be very unique indeed. It would be sort of like One who identifies Himself as “I am who am,” or, in other words, “He who is.” Now, considering the reality of the substances of which we are composed, and of which all other things are composed, even science cannot take us to a significant understanding of precisely what we are and, what is more, how we come to be.

All this is true, but I fail to see the relevance.

“Now if that One is most properly identified as ‘He who is’, since ‘the existence of God is his essence and since this is true of nothing else’, then we are in the presence of One whose characteristic act will be ‘to produce existence [esse] absolutely . . . which belongs to the meaning of creation’ defined as ‘the emanation of the whole of being from a universal cause’ or ‘universal being’? That being’s ‘proper effect’, then, is the very existence of things.

To produce something is a chnage, JD. A non-composed being cannot produce anything.

One implication of this unique form of causation is that

“creation is not a change, except merely according to our way of understanding, [since] creation, whereby the entire substance of things is produced, does not allow of some common subject now different from what it was before, except according to our way of understanding which conceives an object as first not existing at all and afterwards as existing” - Summa Theologiae, I, 45, 2 ad 2.

Yes, Thomas claims that first not existing and afterwards existing is not a change, yet he also says that God produces the entire substance of things.
It is impossible to produce without changing.

 

[Candide_West]

Candide:

I’ll ask the same question: “Is English not your native language?”

And I’ll ignore it again.

For everyone else, it appears, except you!

Incorrect, and a little silly too, especially as I already noted that the objective had been achieved.*

“No!” ad infinitum. Thus I win!

Silly and childish.*

“No!” ad infinitum plus 1. Thus I win!

And again, if you want to have that kind of conversation then you’re really better off to find a playground in which to engage in it.*

Of course they aren’t. They lack gravitas. Plus they don’t have a world of four billion adult and nearly adult people that understand what they mean, as does the name “God.”

Once again though the word “God” has many additional meanings to those demonstrated by the subject of the first way. Therefore that would be an inappropriate term. It’s not about gravitas, I’m sure I could pick an alternate word which also has a lot of gravitas and insert it into the end of the first way and that word wouldn’t be appropriate either.*

You’ve “listed” none. Now who’s trying to divert the conversation? You.

??? Incorrect, perhaps you missed the relevant post. Here’s the list I provided again for you :*

“Even if we just look at the catholic use of the term (obviously a tiny subset) then implied meanings include - omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipresent, personal and creator - and that’s just for a starter.”

Incidentally it would be rather silly of me to try to divert the conversation away from the question I myself asked. Indeed my attempts in this discussion with you have been most an effort to keep to topic rather than getting tangled in endless semantics etc. are you going to make any actual attempt to progress the discussion further? Or simply continue as you have?*

No it doesn’t. It merely means that some (perhaps 200 million) people have bought a line - and shall remain, at least for a while, ignorant.

Incorrect it means that YOU said that someone could agree with the conclusion of the first way and be an atheist. Once again, perhaps you didn’t mean to write that??? (the question marks indicate that this is a question).

Now you’re mixing apples and oranges, and the bad part is, I don’t think you realize it!

Ok, so please go ahead and DEMONSTRATE (preferably using logical arguments) this to be the case instead of just asserting that it is so.*

Sure we can. We have, haven’t we?

Nope, you just keep asserting it. Anybody can assert anything they wish, that ISN’T using logical arguments.

No, Candide, it’s either you, or it’s all of us (Chistians). “You” - or - “all of us.” Somehow, I just don’t think you’re that smart. (I don’t think very many authentic non-theists would agree with you either.)

Sigh, no JD I am not having a conversation with “Christians” here, I’m having a conversation with YOU. And by the way, I know plenty of Christians who agree that the first way says nothing about God.*

Are you sure you want to say that?

Yes.

OK. Let me put it this way: it is an idiotic turn of phrase.

Fair enough, as I said I prefer to use the term “Prime Mover” which is rather neater, but you seemed to be struggling a lot with using that term so I switched to a simpler one.

 

[Candide_West]

Given that you agree with both my points, then I take it that you agree with the idea of “proportionate causality”. Do you understand why I have said this?

Hmmm, I’m not much familiar with the term aside from a little light reading of Feser some time ago. Perhaps you could explain what you mean by the term and where you’re going with this? It would make replying much more straightforward.

 

[ReapReason]

Hmmm, I’m not much familiar with the term aside from a little light reading of Feser some time ago. Perhaps you could explain what you mean by the term and where you’re going with this? It would make replying much more straightforward.

Well, firstly, out of absolutely nothing, comes nothing.
Secondly, a potential effect is never the source of its own power, nature, or existence, since the effect is wholly dependent on the nature and power of its cause.

Proportionate causality, within the context of this debate, is basically the claim that while one can say that the ultimate cause of everything is greater in its power and nature in relation to its effect, you can never say that the effect produces something or possesses a power that is greater than that which is intrinsic to the nature of the ultimate cause. The ultimate cause can produce something lesser than itself, but it cannot produce something greater than itself.

We know that the power of sentient self knowledge exists. To claim that the ultimate cause of the power we know as sentience is as such that the cuase intrinsically lacks the power of sentience by itself involves a contradiction. It involves something coming from nothing precisely because that actuality does not intrinsically exist in the nature of its ultimate cause.

 

[yppop]

Maybe the God you believe in can remove an infinite number of points from his infinitude while remaining infinite (not immutable, because there still is a definite chnage), but the Thomist God does not have an infinite number of points. He has only one ‘point’, and that is oe of the main reasons why He is immutable. Composed entities are mutable because they are composed of different ‘points’.

Belorg,
You obviously didn’t understand. Do you realize that an infinite number of points can be removed from infinity - even if the infinity we are talkining about is Aleph (null) - **without diminishing it **? Do you or do you not understand that? Please give me an honest answer to that simple question. If you don’t understand transfinite numbers, I suggest you find out and then reconsider your basic argument that nothing can cause a change without being changed itself.

And what do you mean that the Thomist God is a single point?

I would appreciate an answer to both questions if you can spare the time.

Yppop

 

[Candide_West]

Well, firstly, out of absolutely nothing, comes nothing.

Not actually something that we have any evidence for, but I’ll accept this for the purpose of argument.

Secondly, a potential effect is never the source of its own power, nature, or existence, since the effect is wholly dependent on the nature and power of its cause.

I’m not entirely sure what you mean here, it almost sounds as if you are saying that something can only cause something which is a property which it itself possesses. In other words a beaver must have a property of “damness” because it creates dams. Clearly this would be incorrect.*

Proportionate causality, within the context of this debate, is basically the claim that while one can say that the ultimate cause of everything is greater in its power and nature in relation to its effect, you can never say that the effect produces something or possesses a power that is greater than that which is intrinsic to the nature of the ultimate cause. The ultimate cause can produce something lesser than itself, but it cannot produce something greater than itself.*

Why not? This sounds as if you are denying the possibility of emergent properties, not to mention suggesting that things can only degrade (something cannot gain a capability that it’s “causor” lacked, but presumably can fail to have a capability that it’s “causor” possessed) clearly this would be in direct contradiction to observed reality (just look at evolution).

We know that the power of sentient self knowledge exists. To claim that the ultimate cause of the power we know as sentience is as such that the cuase intrinsically lacks the power of sentience by itself involves a contradiction. It involves something coming from nothing precisely because that actuality does not intrinsically exist in the nature of its ultimate cause.

True only if we accept your premise that of proportionate causality as described above. As explained I disagree.

 

[ReapReason]

Not actually something that we have any evidence for, but I’ll accept this for the purpose of argument.

We don’t need scientific evidence in order to know that its true.

I’m not entirely sure what you mean here, it almost sounds as if you are saying that something can only cause something which is a property which it itself possesses. In other words a beaver must have a property of “damness” because it creates dams. Clearly this would be incorrect.*

It would also be clearly incorrect to suggest that this is what i am saying.

Why not? This sounds as if you are denying the possibility of emergent properties,

That depends on what you mean by by emergent properties. I know that an effect cannot come from that which is absolutely nothing or in other words “non-reality”. It follows necessarily that therefore potential effects and their powers can only come from that which is not a potential effect but is in fact the ultimate reality from which all potentiality, possibility and powers originate.

not to mention suggesting that things can only degrade.

Did i say that?

(something cannot gain a capability that it’s “causor” lacked, but presumably can fail to have a capability that it’s “causor” possessed) clearly this would be in direct contradiction to observed reality (just look at evolution).

I don’t see what evolution has to do with it. Science simply describes effects as they are measured. It has nothing to say about what makes an effect ontologically possible. it only explains that an effect exists and that it has a relationship to other things in existence. Science does not measure logical possibility or absolute causes, but rather only measures secondary causes which were all at some point or another potential effects. Their powers are all derived and therefore contingent upon the power of the first cause, and can do nothing without the first cause since their potentialities and the possibility of their existence are all dependent on the existence of the first cause.

True only if we accept your premise that of proportionate causality as described above. As explained I disagree.

Thats a start. Whether my premise succeeds or not depends then on whether or not you believe that an effect can come out of absolutely nothing by itself.

I don’t see any logically justifiable reason for you to concede the possibility that a thing could come from nothing. Certainly neither science or reason is on your side.

 

[JDaniel]

Maybe the God you believe in can remove an infinite number of points from his infinitude while remaining infinite (not immutable, because there still is a definite chnage), but the Thomist God does not have an infinite number of points. He has only one ‘point’, and that is oe of the main reasons why He is immutable. Composed entities are mutable because they are composed of different ‘points’.

Belorg:

Actually, that’s not the case. The meaning of “point” is that it has no dimensional qualities whatsoever. You can pile points on top of one another forever and never acquire dimensionality. The church says that God is One and Singular, not that He is just “one point.”

St. Thomas did not possess all of the knowledge stored up in today’s physics. He knew metaphysics quite well. But, like us, he was constrained by language. He did well to fashion new words and new syntaxes - words and syntaxes that very few, if anyone, knew at that time. Such words and syntaxes were fashioned in order to represent, as closely as possible, what the Philosopher meant and what St. Thomas meant. Regardless, nowhere does St. Thomas state or presume that God is but “one point.”

However, for the moment, let’s assume that we agree with your interpretation. Let’s ignore this point (no pun intended) for the time being.

God bless,
jd