Existence of God by motion? Hard to believe

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Questioning said:
So what Thomas is basically saying is if everything in the world of experience is changing ie. in motion.

and that change consists from non existent being to potency to actuality,

that change from potency to actuality requires something in act to explain it than there must be something purely in act with no potential that is the cause and source of all motion ultimately.

equaling God???

???
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Yes.

Also, in answer to your previous question, virtually all of this comes directly from Aristotle. Where Aquinas differed is that he believed (based on his faith in the Bible) that the universe actually DID have a beginning. However, he did not think it could be proven, and so used Aristotleā€™s assumption of the universe that has always existed. For the purposes of Aquinasā€™s / Aristotleā€™s argument, it doesnā€™t matter one way or the other.
 
Now on being and essenceā€“

Where does this fall into the talk of metaphysics?

I can fathom that God is some type of being but is his essence different from his being?

Is his essence different than my being or essence?

What is the essence and being of a human being?
 
Benedict_Broere said:
Hello Q,

The argument ā€˜motionā€™ is maybe hard te believe, but just look at what scientists are telling us:
13.7 billion years ago there was a huge release of energy (Big Bang) and almost immediately after that this energy turned very orderly (Anthropic Principle) into specific forces, quarks, atoms, molecules, to develop further into star-systems, stars and planets, for making it possible, one step further, for life to emerge on at least this planet Earth, resulting in the appearance of creative organisms, of which man most stand out in being a culture-creating ā€˜creatureā€™, pondering on for instance the meaning of life. And all this went on against the all permeating force of decay (Second Law of Thermodynamics), suggesting a persistent drive to grow in complexity, towards an evermore interesting, alive and richly varied universe. Is there a God or anything like that responsible, out there, within us, somewhere ? Left aside any mystical experience one might have or not, my logical brain almost cries out in saying: Yes!
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Also, Alan Guth the Pioner of Inflation, stated something interesting that support the intelligent design in the big bang and in the creation.

He said that the speed of the expansion of the unvierse was the correct one.

If the big bang would have been some thousandth of a second after the moment it was, that would have caused an eternal expantion and it wouldnt have been possible the creation of gallaxies and stars in the universe.

On the other hand if the big bang had occured in some thousandth of a second before. the universe would have had an inmediate and total collapse.

In order for life to be possible as it was the big bang would have to have been at a perfect speed of expansion, otherwise nothing would have ever been formed the way it is.

you can easily attribute that to intelligent design.
 
Thanks. Evidently God has a much wider span of control than we do, being able to zoom in on and control the activity within a split-second, while overviewiing billions of years of consequences. It looks like the controlled first ā€˜bangā€™ of a symfony.

To me this cosmic event we are part of, this universe, including ourselves, us humans, us creative city-building organisms, this whole of nuture-culture, seems to give the strongest proof that there is more to this world than just matter moving about. A ā€˜moreā€™ that has to do with creativity, intelligence, power, imagination and a fascination for variation and invention, beauty and bliss, adventure and enterprise. The overal impression is that of joy in discovery, play and be.

Also to me all this universe we have seen until now, itā€™s just kids-stuff, the baby-fase, you ainā€™t seen nothing yet. The greater and greatest part of this creation, is still yet to come. In a future that is constantly transformed by a exponentially growing creativity.
 
Hi cpayne,
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cpayne:
Where Aquinas differed is that he believed (based on his faith in the Bible) that the universe actually DID have a beginning. However, he did not think it could be proven, and so used Aristotleā€™s assumption of the universe that has always existed.
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I agree with this assessment, at least tentatively. One need not believe that the universe had a beginning in order to accept the soundness of the argument from motion. However, the other day I came across Chapter 16 of Aquinasā€™ Second Book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, entitled, ā€œThat God brought things into being from nothingā€. Is this his attempt to depart from the Aristotelian assumption that God created the universe from eternally existent matter?

Blessings
 
Norman Kretzmann wrote a book called the ā€˜Metaphysics of Theismā€™ which examines the ā€˜First Moverā€™ argument of Aquinas in some detail. It does show the argument is interesting and worth considering, even today.
 
ā€œFor the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuriesā€. ā€“ Robert Jastrowā€™s ā€œGod and the Astronomersā€
 
punkforchrist said:
Hi cpayne,

I agree with this assessment, at least tentatively. One need not believe that the universe had a beginning in order to accept the soundness of the argument from motion. However, the other day I came across Chapter 16 of Aquinasā€™ Second Book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, entitled, ā€œThat God brought things into being from nothingā€. Is this his attempt to depart from the Aristotelian assumption that God created the universe from eternally existent matter?

Blessings
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Once St. Thomas had exhausted the purely philosophical (read: human logic) of a question, he turned to what we know by Divine Revelation and then applied both Faith and reason to it. So in proving the existence of God he doesnā€™t need to go to Faith and Divine Revelation because human reason already proves it. When it comes to things like the universe not having always existed he turned to Faith and Divine Revelation and explained them through human reason, and therefore departs from Aristotle who only benefitted from human reason.

So Aquinas will address things that go far beyond the scope of pure philosophy and human reason, and he will prove that these conclusions and facts of Faith do not contradict human reason even if they canā€™t be arrived at purely by human reason alone. That is what he does with the proofs of the universe not having always existed.

Make sense?

Peace and God bless!
 
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