You have yet to provide any proof that they do not exist and since his proof depends on that thought, he is required to provide such proof, else he should have said, “IF an infinite chain of events cannot exist, then there must be a God.”
Again, you merely make assertions with no logic provided. But I’m curious how you think a "casual chain of movers, one to another, as stated in his argument, requires no passage of time. Time IS change.
And again, you state the assertion, the assumption, the presumption, that an infinite chain requires a beginning when the very definition of an infinite chain (being boundless) says that it has no “bound”, no “end” and no “first”.
Cause and effect can be concurrent. The passage of time is not required.
newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm#article3
The second way is from the
nature of the efficient
cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient
causes. There is no case
known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient
cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient
causes it is not possible to go on to
infinity, because in all efficient
causes following in order, the first is the
cause of the intermediate
cause, and the intermediate is the
cause of the ultimate
cause, whether the intermediate
cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the
cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first
cause among efficient
causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate
cause. But if in efficient
causes it is possible to go on to
infinity, there will be no first efficient
cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient
causes; all of which is plainly
false. Therefore it is
necessary to admit a first efficient
cause, to which everyone gives the name of
God.
Instead of rewording Aquinas’ arguments to your liking accept them as they are. He says nothing about the passage of time. He says that even if it is possible to have an infinite causal chain there still must be a first cause.
Many people have no trouble accepting that you can always add a number to the last so as to get another and continue forever. They have no trouble with forward time being infinite. But when it comes to the exact same logic being applied in reverse, they can’t accept it. You can always add another negative number and thus have more negative that you had before. You can always take away another second and go further back in time. It does not require that you have an actual functioning watch as materialism would suggest when it declares that time began 14 billions years ago. That is a very specifically secular, materialist, and atheist thought.
Show me the proof that an infinite time line requires a beginning OR be honest enough to admit that Aquinas didn’t prove that there must be a first mover as you cannot prove it either.
That’s because future time is potential and past time is actual. Past time has already elapsed (been achieved), future time can potentially be achieved. You can’t count to infinity because by definition reaching infinity cannot be achieved as you can always add one more.
What you propose is that past (achieved) time is infinite (unachievable.) :whacky:
An achieved unachievable is a contradiction and cannot be.
You’re beating a dead horse.
