On refutation of the Unmoved Mover

[Linusthe2nd]

Par for the course. Yet Thomas did make mistakes in physics. For instance with light:

Now no local movement of a body can be instantaneous, as everything that moves from one place to another must pass through the intervening space before reaching the end: whereas the diffusion of light is instantaneous. Nor can it be argued that the time required is too short to be perceived; for though this may be the case in short distances, it cannot be so in distances so great as that which separates the East from the West. Yet as soon as the sun is at the horizon, the whole hemisphere is illuminated from end to end. - Art 2, newadvent.org/summa/1067.htm

Thomas was human, all humans make mistakes. Though I think he would be open to Newton and the last 300 years of learning rather than dismiss them to protect his arguments. Oh, well.

No one is disputing the value of Newtonian or Modern Physics ( i.e. relativity and the Special Theory of Relativity or the ultimate mode or physicality nor any other scientific theory). What we are saying, what Feser says, what Thomas says is the " principal of motion " is valid. Neither Newtonian nor any other theory from modern physics disproves it.
You are the one who is discriminating. Are you an Eliminativist? Sounds like it to me.

Set aside for a moment your bias in favor of " inertial motion " as defined by modern science and you will see that the " principal of motion " is valid. And both principles are valid in regard to the same object. People shoot guns and drop bombs and hopp in airplanes because it is a known fact that the " principle of motion " is valid. They not do these things because they adhere to the " principle of inertia " as understood by modern physics. And if you told them they were standing still they would hoot you off the stage. Perhaps I should have said that that would have been a real " howler, " to use one of your more descriptive adjectives.

And really, to poke fun at Aristotle and Aquinas for their " scientific " views is just ignorant. Perhaps you should actually read Aristotle’s Physics, etc. You will be amazed at just how scientific this old Greek was. It is not quite fair to look back on our 2,500 years of gradual scientific growth and accomplishment and poke fun at him or Aquinas. Besides, they lacked the whole of our present scientific infastructure and all our modern scientific paraphernalia. It is like making fun of a farmer in the 17th century for using a horse or ox to pull his plow. It isn’t his fault that he doesn’t live in the 21st cent. where farmers use powerful four wheeled drive tractors, with articulated stearing, and 200 horse power diesel engines, to pull a gang of 10 or 12 plows.

And by the way, neither I, nor Feser, nor any Thomist is dismissing the last 300 years of scientific progress, as you put it. That is a very prejudiced remark and you know it isn’t true. You know very well that many of the scientific advances of the past 300 years have been made by Christians ( including Catholics ), and this continues to be the case. Only yesterday I pointed your attention to Fr. William A. Wallace, a Physicist/ Philosopher/ Theologian. How about Fr. Robert Spitzer, doesn’t he count.

Be careful that in your rush to dismantle the Philosophy of Nature, Metaphysics, and The Philosophy of God that you don’t destroy, for yourself, the grounds for rationality- that you don’t wind up as a pure Idealist or perhaps an Eliminativist.

Go out and smell the roses, get an airing.

Linus2nd

 

[polytropos]

Or to rewrite the last sentence “If the Unmoved Mover doesn’t exist it would mean that the Judeo-Christian God was telling the truth when He said His name was “I AM HE WHO IS”.”

But for the Judeo-Christian God to be named “I AM HE WHO IS” is for the Judeo-Christian God to be Pure Act, or Ipsum Esse Subsistens, the Being whose nature is simply to exist.

It might be prudent to keep your temper and check your facts. Even Feser says simultaneity is not a requirement - edwardfeser.blogspot.com.es/2010/08/edwards-on-infinite-causal-series.html

I don’t intend to give a full response, since I trust that anyone reading this thread will be able to judge the argument for themselves.

However, this citation is so egregiously misleading that it has to be clarified. Did you read Feser’s blog? The only case he suggests in which a per se causal series is not simultaneous relies on time travel being possible. As such, unless you propose another case, your objection would be committed to holding that all changes ultimately involve some sort of time travel. And even then, the Unmoved Mover would still be acting “on the other side” - and since the Unmoved Mover is eternal, it would be hard to say that’s any sort of detraction.

(Not to mention, I had read Feser’s blog previously, which is why when I have referred to per se causal series in this thread, I have generally stressed not just their simultaneity but their instrumentality by referring to the “derived” nature of secondary causal power.)

 

[polytropos]

The thread is about the argument, not Thomas’ life work, not our faith in God, not revelation, not a thousand and one different things, just the argument, and it makes no claim we are in God’s image.

I have not claimed that the argument proves that, though, or that the argument itself claims to prove that. What I’ve claimed is that the argument proves that the Unmoved Mover is Pure Act, and that from there we can conclude his other qualities.

So it’s fine for you to make this point. But what it essentially does is undermine any such claim that the argument doesn’t show X. The argument is only supposed to show what it sets out to show. If you want to say that we can only consider what the argument says, fine; but then you are not detracting from the argument any more than you detract from the first chapter of a physics textbook or a proof of the Pythagorean theorem. It’s simply a red herring.

What? You said “I am defensive because remarks like the one I quoted above are essentially insulting to the intelligence of theists.” It’s still on the thread, your post #177. It’s a big waste of time if we try to make posts not say what they say and arguments say what they don’t say.

Yes, I know I said that. The point is that nothing in that sentence (or anywhere else) implies that you, as a theist, are supposed to believe the argument. I did not say all theists, and there was no reason to infer that from what I said.

Nope. You’re over-complicating by not reading what is written. Far from being “a summary meant for people who already were familiar with the argument and Aquinas’s metaphysics”, the argument appears in the Summa, which begins:

Because the doctor of Catholic truth ought not only to teach the proficient, but also to instruct beginners (according to the Apostle: As unto little ones in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat – 1 Corinthians 3:1-2), we purpose in this book to treat of whatever belongs to the Christian religion, in such a way as may tend to the instruction of beginners.

So no, its own author intended it to be self-evident and stand on its own two-feet without any special glasses.

Summa Theologiae was a textbook for beginner students, yes. But the fact that they were beginners does not mean that they did not know anything about metaphysics.

This is why Summa contra Gentiles, as a defense of the faith written for gentiles, who were not already familiar with Christianity, fleshes out the arguments for God’s existence in greater detail than does Summa Theologiae.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

" All arguments directed against the First Way are known to have failed, including those raised in this thread. Not a single one has succeeded "

Thus, following my post # 245, we are now at the point of explaining why they have failed. First of all a more or less shotgun approach has been used against them. At one moment it is claimed that reality is not composed in such a way that the metaphysical principles advanced by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and those following them down to the present time are valid. In place of the principles of causality ( effecient, material, formal, and final ), prime matter and substantial from, act and potency , in the A/T sense , we are left simply with " events " of the Humean sort. But the reductionsim goes even futher in that the objectors reduce all reality to " waves " of some sort.

Thus with a wave or the wand or, I should say, two waves of the wand, we are left with a universe with only effecient causality ( and therefore with no reason to act one way rather than another because final causality has been denied ) and composed simple of waves with no substance or form, with only efficient causality and no final causality have any meaning? The antagonist has bitten off his ( in the genderic sense) nose to spite his face. In the rush to destroy the First Way, the antagonist has left us witha a universe void of meaning and reality or purpose - a rather forebidding place indeed.

Next our antagonist hits on " inertial motion " as a great boon to his argument. In this he is mistaken. The First Way is in no way tied to any concept of motion defined as local motion, whether that of Aristotle or of Newton’s inertial motion. It depends soley on the existence motion defined as any change, in which a being or substance moves from some potentiality to some actuality.

So we can actually exclude the case of local motion and the First Way is still valid, it still concludes validly to an Unmoved Mover that is pure act. It really is necessary to read what Feser has to say about local motion in " Aquinas, " pgs 76-79. If the reader cannot understand that, then, by all means, exclude all talk of local motion from the First Way.

But as the coup de grace our antagonist exclaims , rather emphatically, that Thomas does not prove that the Unmoved Mover is God, at least not the God of Christianity. That is certainly is a debatable point. Thomas certainly had no doubt about it for he says, immediately following his presentation of the Five Ways ( S.T., Part 1, ques 3) :

" On the contrary, It is written in the Gospel of St. John (John 4:24): “God is a spirit.”

I answer that, It is absolutely true that God is not a body; and this can be shown in three ways.

First, because no body is in motion unless it be put in motion, as is evident from induction. Now it has been already proved (2, 3), that God is the First Mover, and is Himself unmoved. Therefore it is clear that God is not a body. "

Thomas’ justification for this was that the Unmoved Mover, of necessity, was pure act, which meant that he possessed the one attribute that could be possessed by no other being. And that which had no potentiality whatsoever, and which caused the motion of every other thing, and was pure act, could only be the God of Christianity. Of course Thomas understood that the complete understanding of such a Being could only be had through Revelation, and he often remarked to that point.

It is difficult to see how any reasonable person could object to Thomas’ conclusion. Some would object because they already reject any kind of Revelation and, for them, Thomas’ argument must be dislodged as the only remaining proof that God does, indeed , exist. Others seem to object because it offends their fundamentalist spirituality of Sola Scriptorum.

In any case, my post 245 and this one show that no harm has been done to the First Way. It is absolutely valid and its conclusion, " Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God… " is absolutely valid.

Linus2nd

 

[inocente]

I agree with this largely. Though I am not sure to what extent Thomas would have found major difficulties in Newtonian physics - only a thoroughly trained and competent Thomist would be qualified to guess. Certainly Saint Thomas appears to have believed, following Aristotle, that a moving force really was always necessary (and on Earth that is normally true because of air resistance, friction and gravity). I think the Angelic Doctor may have had questions like how motion can be conceived of as inert. I mean, for example, if something in motion remains in motion inertially, then what is being lost or changed when another force or object alters that motion or even cancels it? For while we might grant that a body will remain in motion unless something else interferes with it, it is still not clear just what the relationship is between the actuality of local motion and the body that possesses it; for clearly it is something that can be lost or at least greatly reduced, and thus cannot be conceived as absolutely proper to a body. So even in Newtonian physics, motion still appears to be something positively added to a body; but from what I understand this is not how the principle of inertia is to be understood, since motion is considered as a kind of state.

These things are relative. Don’t know if this helps but imagine being in space traveling at 100,000 mph away from Earth. After a while you get bored and fire a missile backwards at 10,000 mph. Even though it’s now only moving at 90,000 mph away from Earth, it’s not lost anything absolute. Likewise it wouldn’t have gained anything absolute if you had fired it forwards instead.

Still, I think Aristotle and the Scholastics get too much flack for their understanding of the nature of motion on this point. Many of their comments and answers to questions on this subject were quite right physically for terrestrial purposes: they noted carefully and rightly the importance of air, for instance. Had people carefully considered their opinions and observations on this topic (e.g. of projectiles) we may have had achieved flight much sooner. They understood correctly the important role air resistance played in flight. They also seemed to come close to developing a principle that every action has an equal an opposite reaction. Their opinion that flying things were somehow being pushed upward by the air was very close to this in my opinion.

Yes, in his arguments about light and in the first way, Thomas uses what is evident to our senses, but in both cases our senses are fooled. Another example is that for a long time Euclidean geometry was taken to be self-evidently the only true geometry, then a hundred years ago Einstein showed that it actually doesn’t apply to the universe, our common sense was fooled again.

Or, for instance, Newton never realized that his theory of gravity was limited, it took quite a while before Einstein sorted that one out. Not Newton’s fault, the observations which uncovered the problem couldn’t have been made in his day. In turn Einstein’s theory is also limited, it can’t deal with quantum scales, so one day there will be another theory that gives the same results as Newton’s and Einstein’s but can also make other predictions.

However, these theories make correct predictions, Aristotle’s don’t.

 

[inocente]

No one is disputing the value of Newtonian or Modern Physics ( i.e. relativity and the Special Theory of Relativity or the ultimate mode or physicality nor any other scientific theory). What we are saying, what Feser says, what Thomas says is the " principal of motion " is valid. Neither Newtonian nor any other theory from modern physics disproves it.
You are the one who is discriminating. Are you an Eliminativist? Sounds like it to me.

Set aside for a moment your bias in favor of " inertial motion " as defined by modern science and you will see that the " principal of motion " is valid. And both principles are valid in regard to the same object. People shoot guns and drop bombs and hopp in airplanes because it is a known fact that the " principle of motion " is valid. They not do these things because they adhere to the " principle of inertia " as understood by modern physics. And if you told them they were standing still they would hoot you off the stage. Perhaps I should have said that that would have been a real " howler, " to use one of your more descriptive adjectives.

And really, to poke fun at Aristotle and Aquinas for their " scientific " views is just ignorant. Perhaps you should actually read Aristotle’s Physics, etc. You will be amazed at just how scientific this old Greek was. It is not quite fair to look back on our 2,500 years of gradual scientific growth and accomplishment and poke fun at him or Aquinas. Besides, they lacked the whole of our present scientific infastructure and all our modern scientific paraphernalia. It is like making fun of a farmer in the 17th century for using a horse or ox to pull his plow. It isn’t his fault that he doesn’t live in the 21st cent. where farmers use powerful four wheeled drive tractors, with articulated stearing, and 200 horse power diesel engines, to pull a gang of 10 or 12 plows.

And by the way, neither I, nor Feser, nor any Thomist is dismissing the last 300 years of scientific progress, as you put it. That is a very prejudiced remark and you know it isn’t true. You know very well that many of the scientific advances of the past 300 years have been made by Christians ( including Catholics ), and this continues to be the case. Only yesterday I pointed your attention to Fr. William A. Wallace, a Physicist/ Philosopher/ Theologian. How about Fr. Robert Spitzer, doesn’t he count.

Be careful that in your rush to dismantle the Philosophy of Nature, Metaphysics, and The Philosophy of God that you don’t destroy, for yourself, the grounds for rationality- that you don’t wind up as a pure Idealist or perhaps an Eliminativist.

Go out and smell the roses, get an airing.

I can’t see where I poked fun at Thomas, said anything about Christians or tried to dismantle philosophy in my post. Your continued attempts to pin labels on me and suggest that a critique of one 300-word argument is somehow an attack on God, philosophy and civilization seems a little like the lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Anyway, back to the topic.

Aristotle’s physics is to be applauded for its attempt to be systematic, but many of its conclusions are false, such as everything being made of earth, water, air and fire; each of these forming shells, the natural places to which all things move; that these shells form a geocentric universe in which a vacuum is everywhere impossible; that heavy objects fall faster than less heavy objects; and so on.

Aristotle, like Thomas, was human and all humans make mistakes.

Regarding your take on the principle of inertia. Either you are right that Newton and everyone after him is saying nothing ever changes, that bullets don’t move, that aircraft stand still in mid-air, that no one grows old.

Or perhaps you insist on not acknowledging what is actually being said.

Which do you think is more likely?

It’s important we get to the bottom of this before continuing, as all you’re offering me on the principle of motion appears to be a play on words - not only is the word motion in the principle’s name but things change so it must somehow be correct. But it’s the content of the principle that counts, the content which apparently only certain highly educated individuals can understand but which is so complicated and sophisticated they can’t explain it to us mortals.

Whereas the principle of inertia is explained with no need for special glasses in every physics textbook in the world, along with more empirical evidence than you can shake a stick at.

 

[inocente]

But for the Judeo-Christian God to be named “I AM HE WHO IS” is for the Judeo-Christian God to be Pure Act, or Ipsum Esse Subsistens, the Being whose nature is simply to exist.

Though isn’t this circular? God is pure act therefore God is pure act, the unmoved mover is God therefore God would be lying if He said He wasn’t the unmoved mover.

*I don’t intend to give a full response, since I trust that anyone reading this thread will be able to judge the argument for themselves.

However, this citation is so egregiously misleading that it has to be clarified. Did you read Feser’s blog? The only* case he suggests in which a per se causal series is not simultaneous relies on time travel being possible. As such, unless you propose another case, your objection would be committed to holding that all changes ultimately involve some sort of time travel. And even then, the Unmoved Mover would still be acting “on the other side” - and since the Unmoved Mover is eternal, it would be hard to say that’s any sort of detraction.

I had to spend a little while working out what was on my mind a week ago. It was simply that simultaneity is not a necessity. As Feser says “it is ultimately their instrumental character, and not their simultaneity, which makes every member of a per se ordered causal series other than the first depend necessarily on the first”.

 

[inocente]

I have not claimed that the argument proves that, though, or that the argument itself claims to prove that. What I’ve claimed is that the argument proves that the Unmoved Mover is Pure Act, and that from there we can conclude his other qualities.

So it’s fine for you to make this point. But what it essentially does is undermine any such claim that the argument doesn’t show X. The argument is only supposed to show what it sets out to show. If you want to say that we can only consider what the argument says, fine; but then you are not detracting from the argument any more than you detract from the first chapter of a physics textbook or a proof of the Pythagorean theorem. It’s simply a red herring.

I think we might be getting caught up with words. If it follows directly from the argument and nothing else that we must necessarily be in God’s image then we can say the argument makes that claim. Whereas if the argument is one part of some larger argument but doesn’t itself show that we must necessarily be in God’s image then we can say the argument does not makes that claim.

Yes, I know I said that. The point is that nothing in that sentence (or anywhere else) implies that you, as a theist, are supposed to believe the argument. I did not say all theists, and there was no reason to infer that from what I said.

So “insulting to the intelligence of theists” means “insulting to the intelligence of those who believe the argument”. Ok, but I think we’re now passed that particular elephant.

Summa Theologiae was a textbook for beginner students, yes. But the fact that they were beginners does not mean that they did not know anything about metaphysics.

This is why Summa contra Gentiles, as a defense of the faith written for gentiles, who were not already familiar with Christianity, fleshes out the arguments for God’s existence in greater detail than does Summa Theologiae.

Folk had been telling me that the argument can only be understood after long study, so the fact that Thomas says it’s for beginners is pertinent.

The version in Contra Gentiles is more detailed but not really more complicated, and to my eye the extra details bring out problems with the principle of motion rather than putting them to bed. I don’t believe it helps the case.

Feser only cites Theologica in his paper.

 

[polytropos]

Though isn’t this circular? God is pure act therefore God is pure act, the unmoved mover is God therefore God would be lying if He said He wasn’t the unmoved mover.

It’s not circular. I have never claimed that the association of the Unmoved Mover with the revealed God is a deductive proof (how could it be?). What I am saying is that the First Way shows that the Unmoved Mover is Pure Act, and revelation claims that God is “I AM HE WHO IS,” which is to say that God is a being who just exists by nature, without any potential to go out of existence or change, hence Pure Act. This would entail that if the First Way succeeds and revelation is true, then the Unmoved Mover is God. (So if God exists and said that He is “I AM HE WHO IS” but is not the Unmoved Mover, then God would have been lying.)

The more “practical” application is that each quality of God we can demonstrate using the First Way would buttress the belief that the Unmoved Mover is God.

I had to spend a little while working out what was on my mind a week ago. It was simply that simultaneity is not a necessity. As Feser says “it is ultimately their instrumental character, and not their simultaneity, which makes every member of a per se ordered causal series other than the first depend necessarily on the first”.

Yes, and Feser is right in what he says there. He is not, however, saying that per se causal series are not simultaneous. What is saying is that, if you have a per se causal series, you can conclude that it has a first mover (rather than an infinite regress of movers) because each secondary mover has only derived causal power (referring to instrumentality, rather than simultaneity). If every member of a series was a secondary member and so lacked derived causal power, then the causal power would not be derived from anything, in which case there shouldn’t be any causal power, derived or otherwise. But there is causal power, so there must be a first mover which has not derived but intrinsic causal power, which entails that its acting cannot be contingent on its being acted upon, hence it must be unmoved and Pure Act.

That is why the instrumentality of per se causal series is important in the proof. The point of the blog is to correct a misconception that it is the simultaneity which should lead us to the above conclusion. Feser is not saying that per se causal series are simultaneous, just that their simultaneity is not the relevant characteristic when one is trying to show that a per se causal series has a first mover. Simultaneity, however, is the relevant characteristic when one is trying to show that the first mover of a per se causal series must be acting simultaneous to any change.

So the instrumental nature shows that per se causal series have a first mover; the simultaneous nature shows that the first mover is acting simultaneous to any change.

 

[polytropos]

I think we might be getting caught up with words. If it follows directly from the argument and nothing else that we must necessarily be in God’s image then we can say the argument makes that claim. Whereas if the argument is one part of some larger argument but doesn’t itself show that we must necessarily be in God’s image then we can say the argument does not makes that claim.

But what you have been doing is referring to the text of the First Way and claiming that it is not shown in there. So that would preclude any sort of “larger argument.” Which is fine - but if you do that, then it does not make sense to take it as a detraction of the argument, which in itself just sets out to show that there is a purely actual Unmoved Mover, which will later be established to be God (ie. to have various qualities of God).

I do think that Aquinas’s philosophical system as a whole does show that we are necessarily made in the Unmoved Mover’s image. But to make sense of what it would be mean to be made in something’s image, we would have to have some idea about what we are, so naturally it rests on other metaphysical claims about what we are as well. It is similar to how I wrote the topic “Being, Good, and Evil” to sketch out what it would mean for the Unmoved Mover to be good; separate metaphysical claims are obviously needed to know what it would mean for something to be “good” at all.

So “insulting to the intelligence of theists” means “insulting to the intelligence of those who believe the argument”. Ok, but I think we’re now passed that particular elephant.

Which was the more plausible interpretation?
“insulting to the intelligence of theists who believe in the argument”
or
“insulting of the intelligence of theists, all of whom should believe the argument and are worse theists if they do not believe in the argument”
I don’t see any reason why my comments should have been construed as the latter.

In context, I was also referring to theists who defend the argument (its “best defenders” and Aquinas’s “best commentators”), and saying that it was insulting to them that you would constantly suggest that they had not considered any of the most obvious objections. Given the choice to read an implicit all or some into the sentence, I don’t think the rest of the paragraph supports all.

In any case, we should probably drop this.

Folk had been telling me that the argument can only be understood after long study, so the fact that Thomas says it’s for beginners is pertinent.

The version in Contra Gentiles is more detailed but not really more complicated, and to my eye the extra details bring out problems with the principle of motion rather than putting them to bed. I don’t believe it helps the case.

Feser only cites Theologica in his paper.

As I’ve said, the argument in ST does stand on its own. Someone who knows what a per se causal series is, in the context of the rest of Aquinas’s metaphysics, can read just the First Way and recognize that that is what his examples are getting at, and that Aquinas would not claim that there was necessarily a first mover if he were referring to a per accidens causal series. The reason he put it at the beginning of ST may be because of the relevance of characterizing God as Pure Act, even if one needs some metaphysical context to understand it. I think we would also be wrong to assume that someone being a beginner necessarily entails that they had no metaphysical background in the sense that a modern reader might.

 

[polytropos]

Feser is not saying that per se causal series are simultaneous, just that their simultaneity is not the relevant characteristic when one is trying to show that a per se causal series has a first mover.

Correction: Feser is not saying that per se causal series are not simultaneous.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I can’t see where I poked fun at Thomas, said anything about Christians or tried to dismantle philosophy in my post. Your continued attempts to pin labels on me and suggest that a critique of one 300-word argument is somehow an attack on God, philosophy and civilization seems a little like the lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Sorry if I have misjudged your position, but your remarks throughout the thread have been desidedly negative. In one post you definitely eliminated The Philosophy of Nature, Metaphysics and Theodicy from your philosophical perspective. If you need me to search out the post, I can do it. In it, you did allow that it did have some value in the area of conscience…

Aristotle’s physics is to be applauded for its attempt to be systematic, but many of its conclusions are false, such as everything being made of earth, water, air and fire; each of these forming shells, the natural places to which all things move; that these shells form a geocentric universe in which a vacuum is everywhere impossible; that heavy objects fall faster than less heavy objects; and so on.

Of course, no one disputes that. But he and many of the ancient Greeks were correct in that they recognized that all material substances were composed of certain basic elements and possessed some sort of identifying nature specific to each. But he did endeavor to determine the fundamental characteristics of all physicality and he did it in a very organized and scientific way. To disparage their results on specifics seems a little harsh. After all, modern science is built on the efforts of the pioneers who went before them - including Aristotle and the other ancient Greeks…

Regarding your take on the principle of inertia. Either you are right that Newton and everyone after him is saying nothing ever changes, that bullets don’t move, that aircraft stand still in mid-air, that no one grows old.

No one is saying that Newton’s principle of inertia is wrong, we are saying that modern physics has interpreted it in a mathematical sense such that Newtonian movement is treated as a state, ignoring the metaphysical " principle of motion " which requires that a moving object must be moved ** here and now** by something else already in act.

Futher the Newtonian principle deals only with local motion, whereas Aristotelian motion includes all kinds of changes - changes of quality, of quantity, and of substance. ( see pgs 76-79 in " Aquinas "). Too long to go into here and it isn’t necessary to do so since, if it causes so much trouble, just ignore it. The First Way does not depend on it, there are other obvious examples of change which do not include local motion.

I don’t know what you mean here, " Either you are right that Newton and everyone after him is saying nothing ever changes, that bullets don’t move, that aircraft stand still in mid-air, that no one grows old. " That is not my view, it is the view of some modern physicists or certain modern cosmologists. I was simply commenting that such a view was not realistic.

Or perhaps you insist on not acknowledging what is actually being said.

Which do you think is more likely?

Not at all sure what you are trying to say here

It’s important we get to the bottom of this before continuing, as all you’re offering me on the principle of motion appears to be a play on words - not only is the word motion in the principle’s name but things change so it must somehow be correct. But it’s the content of the principle that counts, the content which apparently only certain highly educated individuals can understand but which is so complicated and sophisticated they can’t explain it to us mortals.

Please be more specific. I don’t know what you are trying to say.

Whereas the principle of inertia is explained with no need for special glasses in every physics textbook in the world, along with more empirical evidence than you can shake a stick at.

I haven’t read a physics text since high school, I will take your word for it. But I doubt very much that any standard text, even post high school, deals much with Aristotle’s " principle of motion. " But it is beside the point. The First Way does not depend on it. That is simply something that those who are fixated on disproving its validity have zeroed in on and have harped on endlessly. But as I pointed out, Aristotle’s principle of movement covers any change and all change is a change from any potentiality to any actuality. Many changes other than local motion satisfy that criteria.

But, as a matter of fact, Feser shows that there is no reason to exclude local motion in regard to the First Way. In the article you referenced and in reference I gave above he discusses his reasons. But if you can’t buy it, just ignore it.

Linus2nd

 

[Portofino]

I won’t get into questions regarding the definition of potential versus actual, and the definition of pure actuality. I don’t know whether the definition of these terms is controversial or not (though I see potential as a relative term; a tree is potential a chair, a source of paper, a source of food, a source of shade, a general source of timber to make virtually countless objects).

But some of the others, at least, I’ll comment on.

The Unmoved Mover has a Will, since the universe could have been created only by a Being with the Will to do so.

We’re not in a position to know whether the unmoved mover has a will in any way that we understand the definition of that term. We assume it does, because we find it hard to conceive action without motivation. We’re in danger of anthropomorphizing here, though, to ascribe a will to the unmoved mover (assuming we’ve proven its existence).
Linusthe2nd;11173518:

Unmoved Mover is Good, since all that It created is Good.

This depends on one’s definition of “good.”

Unmoved Mover is Love , since It would not have created what It did not love.

We don’t know this, unless we claim to understand the unmoved mover’s thought processes (assuming it has thought processes). There’s no logical necessity in the statement “the unmoved mover could not have created what it did not love.” Perhaps it merely “liked” creation, in a more lukewarm sense. Perhaps we are anthropomorphizing the definitions of such things as love and will.

That the unmoved mover wanted to create the universe, although still difficult to prove as a logical necessity (our ascribing want and desire to the unmoved mover may be a projection, on our part) would be less controversial, I think, albeit not definitely proven.

Unmoved Mover directs the universe in all its activities, since It would not have created the universe and " walked " away, since there would be no point in doing that

and since It would not have created the universe without a reason in mind. And to assure that that intention is carried out, the Unmoved Mover directs the universe to It’s desired end.

We really can’t say what would constitute there being “no point” – meaning, no sufficient motivation – to create the universe, and wouldn’t be. These are assumptions, on our part – unless we claim to understand the unmoved mover’s “thought processes” (assuming it has thought processes). We really could not say, with certainty, what the unmoved mover would consider to be sufficient motivation for the creation of the universe.

Unmoved Mover sustains the universe in existence, since the universe cannot sustain its own existence.

There must be arguments for this, somewhere; no doubt there are. But there’s no logical necessity in saying that the unmoved mover didn’t wind up the universe like a clock, and let it run independently of its own direct intervention – on auto-pilot, as it were.

Unmoved Mover is a Personal Being, since It would not have created the universe without a personal interest and for all the above reasons.

We can’t know this, through logical necessity; we cannot know what the unmoved mover “would” or “would not” have done, absent a comprehension of its motives and absent a comprehension of whether its motives can be understood in human terms. Here again, we’re in danger of anthropomorphizing the unmoved mover; it may have anthropomorphic qualities, but we can’t prove the logical necessity of this. It is logically conceivable that the unmoved mover is beyond our ability to comprehend, utterly alien to human understanding as regards such thing as will, motivation, love, or personality.

Unmoved Mover has many of the qualities Christianity attributes to its God. And since there cannot be two such Beings, the Unmoved Mover is the Christian God.

That’s assuming you’ve proven not only the unmoved mover, but the Christian God itself.

He is revealing Himself to man through arguments appropriate to man’s intellect, preparing man’s intellect for His Personal Revelation.

That’s a conceptual possibility, but not a logically necessary proposition.

arguments directed against the First Way are known to have failed, including those raised in this thread. Not a single one has succeeded.

Disproving it is not necessary; only raising a reasonable doubt, and pointing out other conceptual possibilities. As long as no one possibility has been proven to be logically necessary,the verdict is still out.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Portofino:

We’re not in a position to know whether the unmoved mover has a will in any way that we understand the definition of that term. We assume it does, because we find it hard to conceive action without motivation…

Yes, whatever we say about God ( unless we resort to Divine Revelation ) is anhtromorphized to some extent. Yet Thomas ( S.T., Part 1, q 19 ) argues for Will in God.

This depends on one’s definition of “good.”

I am using Thomas’ definition ( S.T., Part 1, qs 12-13). Very simply. God is Pure Existence ( qs 3 ) and what exists is good. Since God is Pure Existence, He is Infinitely Good. We also know He is Good because what He created is good.

We don’t know this… There’s no logical necessity in the statement “the unmoved mover could not have created what it did not love.” Perhaps it merely “liked” creation… Perhaps we are anthropomorphizing …

Thomas discusses this in qs 20 ( God loves his creation). Couple this with " God is Good and we have a God who is Love. For God is simply Pure Existence or simply One. His Existence is His Goodnes, is His Truth, His Love , etc ( qs 12-13). To say God could have created evil is to say that God is both Good and Evil. These are contadictory attributes and cannot co-exist in that which is Perfect.

Since God created what was good, He loves it as much as it deserves to be loved.

That the unmoved mover wanted to create the universe, although still difficult to prove as a logical necessity (our ascribing want and desire to the unmoved mover may be a projection, on our part) would be less controversial, I think, albeit not definitely proven.

Perhaps, but Thomas argues otherwise. ( and of course Divine Revelation bears this out ).

We really can’t say what would constitute there being “no point” – meaning, no sufficient motivation – to create the universe, and wouldn’t be. These are assumptions, on our part – unless we claim to understand the unmoved mover’s “thought processes” (assuming it has thought processes). We really could not say, with certainty, what the unmoved mover would consider to be sufficient motivation for the creation of the universe.

According to Thomas to Know and to Will in God are one act. And he says that in God there is no motivation ( q. 19, art 5 ). So I was guilty of anthromorphizing here. In God there is no discursive reasoning process as we engage in. He knows what is good and wills that it be done.

There must be arguments for this, somewhere; no doubt there are. But there’s no logical necessity in saying that the unmoved mover didn’t wind up the universe like a clock, and let it run independently of its own direct intervention – on auto-pilot, as it were.

Yes there are good reasons. Thomas says that since God is Existence, no creatrue can cause and maintain its own existence ( qs 44, art 1, art 5, qs 103-105 but q 104, art 3). In these references Thomas shows that creation is the exclusive to the power of God, that creatures cannot sustain their own existence, that God operates immediately in His creation each moment of its existence. So it would be impossible for God to create anything and walk away from it, that would be contradictory to the nature of created things and God cannot do anything contradictory.

We can’t know this, through logical necessity; we cannot know what the unmoved mover “would” or “would not” have done, absent a comprehension of its motives and absent a comprehension of whether its motives can be understood in human terms. Here again, we’re in danger of anthropomorphizing the unmoved mover; it may have anthropomorphic qualities, but we can’t prove the logical necessity of this. It is logically conceivable that the unmoved mover is beyond our ability to comprehend, utterly alien to human understanding as regards such thing as will, motivation, love, or personality.

It would be contradictory to God’s Goodness, Intelligence, Will, Love, and Government and Providence to say that He didn’t take an interest in what He created, sustains and guides. And there is nothing contradictory in God’s nature. If you read what Thomas has written you will see that what I have said is true. Indeed, you can look at the world and see that God takes a Personal interest.

I think the possibility of a disinterested God is contradictory to what we see with our own eyes.

That’s assuming you’ve proven not only the unmoved mover, but the Christian God itself.

I think the Unmoved Mover is proven beyond reasonable doubt. And Thomas demonstrates that He has qualities which could only exist in the Christian God ( assuming one believes in Divine Revelation but it certainly seems reasonable that the Unmoved Mover would eventually Reveal Himself ). There was certainly no doubt in Thomas’ mind.

That’s a conceptual possibility, but not a logically necessary proposition.

Of course.

[QUOTEDisproving it is not necessary; only raising a reasonable doubt, and pointing out other conceptual possibilities. As long as no one possibility has been proven to be logically necessary,the verdict is still out.
[/QUOTE]

I haven’t seen any reasonable doubts proposed on this thread, nor anywhere else. I don’t even see a conceptual possibility. There may be better arguments than the Five Ways, there are certainly many reasonable ones proposed. But I think these are the best formal arguments.

As for the possibility that God does not exist or that the universe caused itself to exist ( either eternally or from a unique moment ) or that it is capable to sustain itself in existence, I do not consider a possibility at all. No, I do not think the verdict is " still out. "
Like it or not, God exists.

Linus2nd

 

[inocente]

It’s not circular. I have never claimed that the association of the Unmoved Mover with the revealed God is a deductive proof (how could it be?). What I am saying is that the First Way shows that the Unmoved Mover is Pure Act, and revelation claims that God is “I AM HE WHO IS,” which is to say that God is a being who just exists by nature, without any potential to go out of existence or change, hence Pure Act. This would entail that if the First Way succeeds and revelation is true, then the Unmoved Mover is God. (So if God exists and said that He is “I AM HE WHO IS” but is not the Unmoved Mover, then God would have been lying.)

The more “practical” application is that each quality of God we can demonstrate using the First Way would buttress the belief that the Unmoved Mover is God.

OK, I see your point. The issue for me is that if the unmoved mover has no potential to act differently then it has no choice but to act, and is what we might now call a blind force of nature. The attributes which separate the God of revelation from a blind force do not follow from the argument, they require other arguments.

Yes, and Feser is right in what he says there. He is not, however, saying that per se causal series are not simultaneous. What is saying is that, if you have a per se causal series, you can conclude that it has a first mover (rather than an infinite regress of movers) because each secondary mover has only derived causal power (referring to instrumentality, rather than simultaneity). If every member of a series was a secondary member and so lacked derived causal power, then the causal power would not be derived from anything, in which case there shouldn’t be any causal power, derived or otherwise. But there is causal power, so there must be a first mover which has not derived but intrinsic causal power, which entails that its acting cannot be contingent on its being acted upon, hence it must be unmoved and Pure Act.

That is why the instrumentality of per se causal series is important in the proof. The point of the blog is to correct a misconception that it is the simultaneity which should lead us to the above conclusion. Feser is not saying that per se causal series are simultaneous, just that their simultaneity is not the relevant characteristic when one is trying to show that a per se causal series has a first mover. Simultaneity, however, is the relevant characteristic when one is trying to show that the first mover of a per se causal series must be acting simultaneous to any change.

So the instrumental nature shows that per se causal series have a first mover; the simultaneous nature shows that the first mover is acting simultaneous to any change.

Agreed. The issue is that since simultaneity is not essential, there’s no need for the unmoved mover to sustain the series here and now without the specific machinery of per se, in esse, potential, form, etc., and that analysis is artificial (none of the disciplines which are concerned with causality, a.k.a. the natural sciences, can use it to explain the real world).

PS apologies for absence, real life intervened

 

[inocente]

Of course, no one disputes that. But he and many of the ancient Greeks were correct in that they recognized that all material substances were composed of certain basic elements and possessed some sort of identifying nature specific to each. But he did endeavor to determine the fundamental characteristics of all physicality and he did it in a very organized and scientific way. To disparage their results on specifics seems a little harsh. After all, modern science is built on the efforts of the pioneers who went before them - including Aristotle and the other ancient Greeks…

Their results are not to be disparaged, it’s just that they’re wrong . The cosmology of Genesis 1 is also wrong. We still get things wrong. Brings to mind a quote from Monsignor Georges Lemaître, who developed big bang theory:

“Should a priest reject relativity because it contains no authoritative exposition on the doctrine of the Trinity? Once you realize that the Bible does not purport to be a textbook of science, the old controversy between religion and science vanishes . . . The doctrine of the Trinity is much more abstruse than anything in relativity or quantum mechanics; but, being necessary for salvation, the doctrine is stated in the Bible. If the theory of relativity had also been necessary for salvation, it would have been revealed to Saint Paul or to Moses . . . As a matter of fact neither Saint Paul nor Moses had the slightest idea of relativity.”

No one is saying that Newton’s principle of inertia is wrong, we are saying that modern physics has interpreted it in a mathematical sense such that Newtonian movement is treated as a state, ignoring the metaphysical " principle of motion " which requires that a moving object must be moved ** here and now** by something else already in act.

Or, put another way, the metaphysical concepts of potentiality and actuality are not objective, since if they were they could be quantified. Which means they cannot be part of the physical law - the universe gets by fine without them.

Futher the Newtonian principle deals only with local motion, whereas Aristotelian motion includes all kinds of changes - changes of quality, of quantity, and of substance. ( see pgs 76-79 in " Aquinas "). Too long to go into here and it isn’t necessary to do so since, if it causes so much trouble, just ignore it. The First Way does not depend on it, there are other obvious examples of change which do not include local motion.

However, if the principle of inertia disproves the principle of motion in one case, the principle of motion falls.

I don’t know what you mean here, " Either you are right that Newton and everyone after him is saying nothing ever changes, that bullets don’t move, that aircraft stand still in mid-air, that no one grows old. " That is not my view, it is the view of some modern physicists or certain modern cosmologists. I was simply commenting that such a view was not realistic.

Paint me confused, could you cite someone who says such a patently absurd thing?

*Please be more specific. I don’t know what you are trying to say. *

You’ve made statements such as “People shoot guns and drop bombs and hop in airplanes because it is a known fact that the " principle of motion " is valid.”, but no, that’s not a known fact. Indeed, earlier I was being told that the principle’s concepts are so magnificently obtuse and subtle that they are not known to most people.

What is a known fact is the simple principle of cause and effect, which is the basis of the natural sciences, but that discards potentialities, actualities, natural places and so on.

*I haven’t read a physics text since high school, I will take your word for it. But I doubt very much that any standard text, even post high school, deals much with Aristotle’s " principle of motion. " But it is beside the point. The First Way does not depend on it. That is simply something that those who are fixated on disproving its validity have zeroed in on and have harped on endlessly. But as I pointed out, Aristotle’s principle of movement covers any change and all change is a change from any potentiality to any actuality. Many changes other than local motion satisfy that criteria. *

My turn to be confused. I said the principle of inertia is explained in every physics textbook. None of them would explain the principle of motion except as a historical curiosity along with Aristotle’s other errors such as motion requiring continuous propulsion, heavier things falling faster than lighter things, natural and violent movement and so on.

*But, as a matter of fact, Feser shows that there is no reason to exclude local motion in regard to the First Way. In the article you referenced and in reference I gave above he discusses his reasons. But if you can’t buy it, just ignore it. *

Au contraire, the principle of inertia is well tested whereas no test of the principle of motion is even possible. Feser tries to show the principles are compatible but fails, thus proving the opposite of what he had hoped.

Seems to me that when the first way is expressed using a simple cause and effect argument, without potentia and so on, it merely argues than long ago something pushed the first domino, but that something could be anything.

PS sorry for absence, real life intervened.

 

[polytropos]

The issue for me is that if the unmoved mover has no potential to act differently then it has no choice but to act, and is what we might now call a blind force of nature. The attributes which separate the God of revelation from a blind force do not follow from the argument, they require other arguments.

Well, its acting cannot be caused by something else since it cannot be acted upon, so it is not forced to act one way or another. It does act one way and can’t choose to act differently because it doesn’t change; since it is eternal, it simply doesn’t make sense to speak of it acting differently (ie. choosing to stop sustaining the world).

You are right to say that it does require other arguments (like any demonstration of the Unmoved Mover’s qualities would). Thomas does address the issue; I believe his approach has to do with the fact that acting in one such way is not essential to what the Unmoved Mover is. But this doesn’t have much to do with whether the Unmoved Mover exists and shares various qualities of God.

Agreed. The issue is that since simultaneity is not essential, there’s no need for the unmoved mover to sustain the series here and now without the specific machinery of per se, in esse, potential, form, etc.,

But the claim that simultaneity is not essential has not been spelled out by anyone. Feser only points out that it could technically be circumvented by time travel, but that is more of an illustrative argument about the instrumental nature of per se series.

I am open to alternatives. If you can think of an instrumental per se causal series that is not simultaneous but makes no appeal to time travel, feel free to voice it. (As I’ve said, the time travel example, even if it were plausible, would not really undermine the claim that changes are sustained at every instant by an Unmoved Mover, since the Unmoved Mover would be acting on the other side and is known to be eternal on other grounds anyway.)

and that analysis is artificial (none of the disciplines which are concerned with causality, a.k.a. the natural sciences, can use it to explain the real world).

But whether the natural sciences can use it is not a requirement for it to be true. (There are certainly biological truths which physics can’t use, as there are mathematical truths which do not necessarily find their way into the sciences.) What is important is whether Aquinas’s metaphysical picture coheres with the natural sciences, which it does. (Aristotelian notions of causality are also not at all devoid of scientific explanatory utility. New essentialism makes reference to neo-Aristotelian ideas about essence in philosophy of science, ie. that the way a thing acts is inherent in its form whether it acts or not.)

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Their results are not to be disparaged, it’s just that they’re wrong . The cosmology of Genesis 1 is also wrong. We still get things wrong. Brings to mind a quote from Monsignor Georges Lemaître, who developed big bang theory:

“Should a priest reject relativity because it contains no authoritative exposition on the doctrine of the Trinity? Once you realize that the Bible does not purport to be a textbook of science, the old controversy between religion and science vanishes . . . The doctrine of the Trinity is much more abstruse than anything in relativity or quantum mechanics; but, being necessary for salvation, the doctrine is stated in the Bible. If the theory of relativity had also been necessary for salvation, it would have been revealed to Saint Paul or to Moses . . . As a matter of fact neither Saint Paul nor Moses had the slightest idea of relativity.”

Or, put another way, the metaphysical concepts of potentiality and actuality are not objective, since if they were they could be quantified. Which means they cannot be part of the physical law - the universe gets by fine without them.

However, if the principle of inertia disproves the principle of motion in one case, the principle of motion falls.

Paint me confused, could you cite someone who says such a patently absurd thing?

You’ve made statements such as “People shoot guns and drop bombs and hop in airplanes because it is a known fact that the " principle of motion " is valid.”, but no, that’s not a known fact. Indeed, earlier I was being told that the principle’s concepts are so magnificently obtuse and subtle that they are not known to most people.

What is a known fact is the simple principle of cause and effect, which is the basis of the natural sciences, but that discards potentialities, actualities, natural places and so on.

My turn to be confused. I said the principle of inertia is explained in every physics textbook. None of them would explain the principle of motion except as a historical curiosity along with Aristotle’s other errors such as motion requiring continuous propulsion, heavier things falling faster than lighter things, natural and violent movement and so on.

Au contraire, the principle of inertia is well tested whereas no test of the principle of motion is even possible. Feser tries to show the principles are compatible but fails, thus proving the opposite of what he had hoped.

Seems to me that when the first way is expressed using a simple cause and effect argument, without potentia and so on, it merely argues than long ago something pushed the first domino, but that something could be anything.

PS sorry for absence, real life intervened.

So you insist that Feser doesn’t know what he is talking about. Ditto in regard to the other advocates of Thomistic Philosophy. You do realize that Thomism is the only intellectual response possible to the scientism which is the rage today, that scientism which daily proclaims that the universe created itself and sustains itself and does just fine without God. The only response you have to that, as far as I can see, is Faith, which in your case is a personal interpretation of Sola Scriptura. I don’t think they are willing to listen to that. At least there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that they are responding to that.

Linus2nd

 

[inocente]

Well, its acting cannot be caused by something else since it cannot be acted upon, so it is not forced to act one way or another. It does act one way and can’t choose to act differently because it doesn’t change; since it is eternal, it simply doesn’t make sense to speak of it acting differently (ie. choosing to stop sustaining the world).

If the unmoved mover is pure actus with no potentia then it would seem it never has any option but to act other than as it does, which is exactly the same as a blind force of nature (temporal or non-temporal).

But the claim that simultaneity is not essential has not been spelled out by anyone. Feser only points out that it could technically be circumvented by time travel, but that is more of an illustrative argument about the instrumental nature of per se series.

I am open to alternatives. If you can think of an instrumental per se causal series that is not simultaneous but makes no appeal to time travel, feel free to voice it. (As I’ve said, the time travel example, even if it were plausible, would not really undermine the claim that changes are sustained at every instant by an Unmoved Mover, since the Unmoved Mover would be acting on the other side and is known to be eternal on other grounds anyway.)

Take a ray of light traveling from Andromeda to your eye. It started the journey two years ago. There is no requirement in the argument for it to have been sustained by the unmoved mover during those two years, or indeed when it is absorbed by your eye.

But whether the natural sciences can use it is not a requirement for it to be true. (There are certainly biological truths which physics can’t use, as there are mathematical truths which do not necessarily find their way into the sciences.) What is important is whether Aquinas’s metaphysical picture coheres with the natural sciences, which it does. (Aristotelian notions of causality are also not at all devoid of scientific explanatory utility. New essentialism makes reference to neo-Aristotelian ideas about essence in philosophy of science, ie. that the way a thing acts is inherent in its form whether it acts or not.)

But to be objective it would have to say something quantifiable, but does not, and to be scientific it would have to make a falsifiable prediction about the world, but does not. So it has nothing to say about how the world is but only about how some people think. Essentialism falls into the same boat, it is about what we imagine to be objective essences but which only exist in our heads as constructs which help us model and deal with our world.

Basically then, the value is to anthropologists and psychologists looking at ourselves rather than to physicists and biologists looking beyond ourselves.

 

[inocente]

So you insist that Feser doesn’t know what he is talking about. Ditto in regard to the other advocates of Thomistic Philosophy. You do realize that Thomism is the only intellectual response possible to the scientism which is the rage today, that scientism which daily proclaims that the universe created itself and sustains itself and does just fine without God. The only response you have to that, as far as I can see, is Faith, which in your case is a personal interpretation of Sola Scriptura. I don’t think they are willing to listen to that. At least there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that they are responding to that.

You appear to be saying that it doesn’t matter whether the argument is or isn’t true, all that matters is whether it gets backsides on seats, which is pretty much my critique earlier in the thread of how all denominations have uncritically employed the argument.

Yea, though in times of old, when Jesus walked, people had faith. And yea did Paul employ arguments from experience rather than theory (1 Cor 1:18-31). And forsooth even today doth the Pentecostalists unto the charismatic Catholics.

This is the iPad generation, a lively church is a lot more welcoming than complicated medieval arguments. Jesus died for us, the unmoved mover is just marks on paper.