>>causes aquinas and more [thomists only please]<<

[thinkthaughts]

hi!

thomists say everything that moves or is in ‘act’ gets its ‘potential’/‘potency’ to move from something else. why is that? why couldnt something in act actualize its own potency itself?

thinkthaughts

 

[Linusthe2nd]

hi!

thomists say everything that moves or is in ‘act’ gets its ‘potential’/‘potency’ to move from something else. why is that? why couldnt something in act actualize its own potency itself?

thinkthaughts

Material being which Aristotle calls " mobile being " is composed of matter and form. Every genus and species of material being has matter. Therefore matter, at least a primary or ultimate matter, is at the heart of every mobile being. That which makes each " bit " of matter different from every other, organized into genus-species groups, is its form. It is the " form , " called substantial form, which molds the matter of each individual mass of prime matter into definite beings we recognize as rocks, roses, threes, horses, etc. Thus each mobile being is composed of principles of matter and form. Form cannot create itself, neither can matter and neither exists alone except form ( angles and God ), but mobile being, material being cannot exist without the two principles which compose it.

The above shows you that primary matter has a potency to any form, but particular matter ( the matter of an acorn for example ) has a very limited potency. Take an acorn for example, it can become the form of an oak tree or it can die and be resolved into the forms of its component atomic and chemical constituents.

In a sense, the acorn does activate its own potency. The potency to become an oak is programed into its nature. But that nature was caused by its parent oak tree. But that nature has to be activated, moved to action by the causality of other agent causes - temperature, moisture, time, soil structure and more. And of course the most important agent cause is the oak tree it came from.

Hope that helps. See my thread on this page called " The First Way Explained. "

Linus2nd

 

[Theophorus]

hi!

thomists say everything that moves or is in ‘act’ gets its ‘potential’/‘potency’ to move from something else. why is that? why couldnt something in act actualize its own potency itself?

thinkthaughts

Of course there are some potencies that a being (already in act with regard to its existence) can actualise, but in general terms it would also have to be the cause of its own being and essence and be ontologically prior to itself to be the cause of its own actualisation. For instance a dog has the potential to be the cause of ‘dogness’ in other dogs, it’s offspring, but it does not have the potential to be the cause of ‘dogness’ per se, which would require something on a higher order of being to be its cause(eventually taking us to a first cause), it obviously couldn’t be the cause of ‘dogness’ in itself. I know it is maglined by some, but St. Thomas’ fourth way is IMO a good exposition of this point, which of course it builds on the preceding ways for this. I think that Fr. Lawrence Dewan OP gives a good exposition of this way in his paper “St Thomas, the Fourth Way and Creation”, certainly much better than I could!