Per se VS. accidental?

[thinkandmull]

I have to think about that one, but I don’t think it is possible. Motion means a change that entails passing through intermediate stages in a continuous way. It seems to me that the only kind of instantaneous “motion” that there can be would be something that does not pass through any intermediate steps.

Do you see what I mean? I suppose that God could command iron to go from cold to hot without it passing through the intervening temperatures, or command a rock or something to disappear from one place and reappear in another at the same moment. However, this is discontinuous change, not exactly infinitely fast motion.

As far as really passing through the intermediate stages, infinitely fast, don’t think it can be done. Time is just the measure of change, so if you pass form one state to another in a continuous manner, it has to take a continuous stretch of time (even if it is a very small amount of time). “Speed” is the change in distance (or, in any event, the change in the quantity being measured) over time, so to get an infinite speed, you would need the change to occur in zero time—an impossible situation.

(Then, in the real world, you will end up coming against the limits imposed by relativity.)

But did you see how the impossibility of infinite regress is much easier to justify when we consider only per-se causes? When the per-se cause ceases, the effect also ceases at the same moment. Accidental causes do not have this property—their effects can continue on even when the causes have ceased.

You are saying the opposite of Aquinas. He says it is accidental, not per se, that is impossible. But it doesn’t matter if the cause continues after there is an effect which itself turns into a cause.

 

[thinkandmull]

Not exactly. I think that Aristotle’s principles—act/potency, substance/accident, matter/form, cause/effect, and so on—are still basically valid. Of course, his theory of four elements and the circular movement of the planets and so on has been superseded. We are aware of that.

That is correct. His theory is that heavy elements (water and especially earth) tend to downward movement. (The “light” elements—air and fire—tend to upward movement; they get mixed together, so to speak, because of the circular movement of the planets.) That theory has been superseded, as I mentioned, but his theory of causality—which does not depend on his cosmological theory—is not really undermined by the advent of Newtonian mechanics.

Oddly enough, it was not Aristotle who thought there was absolute rest, as you might expect, but Newton. Newton was well known (and heavily criticized later on) for advocating an absolute space and time. He even proposed experiments for detecting them (although he does not seem to have carried them out, because if he had, he would have had to abandon absolute space and time).

Aristotle certainly considered the earth the center of the known universe, but if you read his Physics you realize that he understands that rest and movement are relative to the earth. He also broadens “rest” and “movement” to types of change that do not have to do directly with changes in position. For example, a heated lump of metal returns to a state of “rest” (coldness) after it is heated.

The idea of inertia and the application of forces actually fits quite nicely with the concepts of act and potency, as well as cause and effect.

There is no problem in applying the perennially valid aspects of Aristotle’s thought to modern scientific advances. You just have to understand that Aristotle’s theory works on a different level, so to speak, from modern physics. (E.g., Aristotle’s “matter” and physical “matter” in modern physics are two very different concepts, and they should not be mixed up.)

Act/potency is an idea so simple any 7 year old can understand it. It has no bearing on these issues. Substance/accidents boil down to the same things as matter/form, and anyway is not relevant to the issue of the First Way. And hardly anybody believes there is not cause and effect. Even Hume believed in it (I got part of his book right here); it wasn’t that he thought physical things move without a cause, he just thought you couldn’t know anything about those laws of causality to the extent that you would be sure they would always act the same way. There is no way really to reason him out of his position

 

[thinkandmull]

Albert the great (in Sent., I, d. 37, A. 23) seemed to disagree with Aquinas on whether angel’s movements are the instantaneous. “illumination and substantial generation are called instantaneous movements” Aquinas says, but doesn’t really refute those who say angels movements are instantaneous. He goes on to say:

*As was observed above in the preceding article, the local motion of an angel can be continuous, and non-continuous. If it be continuous, the angel cannot pass from one extreme to another without passing through the mid-space; because, as is said by the Philosopher (Phys. v, text 22; vi, text 77), “The middle is that into which a thing which is continually moved comes, before arriving at the last into which it is moved”; because the order of first and last in continuous movement, is according to the order of the first and last in magnitude, as he says (Phys. iv, text 99).

But if an angel’s movement be not continuous, it is possible for him to pass from one extreme to another without going through the middle: which is evident thus.** Between the two extreme limits there are infinite intermediate places**; whether the places be taken as divisible or as indivisible. This is clearly evident with regard to places which are indivisible; because between every two points that are infinite intermediate points, since no two points follow one another without a middle, as is proved in Phys. vi, text. 1. And the same must of necessity be said of divisible places: and this is shown from the continuous movement of a body. For a body is not moved from place to place except in time. But in the whole time which measures the movement of a body, there are not two “nows” in which the body moved is not in one place and in another; for if it were in one and the same place in two “nows,” it would follow that it would be at rest there; since to be at rest is nothing else than to be in the same place now and previously. Therefore since there are infinite “nows” between the first and the last “now” of the time which measures the movement, there must be infinite places between the first from which the movement begins, and the last where the movement ceases. This again is made evident from sensible experience. Let there be a body of a palm’s length, and let there be a plane measuring two palms, along which it travels; it is evident that the first place from which the movement starts is that of the one palm; and the place wherein the movement ends is that of the other palm. Now it is clear that when it begins to move, it gradually quits the first palm and enters the second. According, then, as the magnitude of the palm is divided, even so are the intermediate places multiplied; because every distinct point in the magnitude of the first palm is the beginning of a place, and a distinct point in the magnitude of the other palm is the limit of the same. Accordingly, since magnitude is infinitely divisible and the points in every magnitude are likewise infinite in potentiality, it follows that between every two places there are infinite intermediate places.

Now a movable body only exhausts the infinity of the intermediate places by the continuity of its movement; because, as the intermediate places are infinite in potentiality, so likewise must there be reckoned some infinitudes in movement which is continuous. Consequently, if the movement be not continuous, then all the parts of the movement will be actually numbered. If, therefore, any movable body be moved, but not by continuous movement, it follows, either that it does not pass through all the intermediate places, or else that it actually numbers infinite places: which is not possible. Accordingly, then, as the angel’s movement is not continuous, he does not pass through all intermediate places.

Now, the actual passing from one extreme to the other, without going through the mid-space, is quite in keeping with an angel’s nature; but not with that of a body, because a body is measured by and contained under a place; hence it is bound to follow the laws of place in its movement. But an angel’s substance is not subject to place as contained thereby, but is above it as containing it: hence it is under his control to apply himself to a place just as he wills, either through or without the intervening place. *

newadvent.org/summa/1053.htm

But passing through the infinite medium is exactly that happens if time was eternal.

 

[thinkandmull]

*But if the action is **instantaneous *and not successive, it is not necessary for the maker to be prior to the thing made in duration as appears in the case of illumination. Hence they say that it does not follow necessarily if God is the active cause of the world, that He should be prior to the world in duration; because creation, by which He produced the world, is not a successive change
newadvent.org/summa/1046.htm#article2

So there can be instantaneous motion; however, the issue of an infinite chain that must move together as one is again not really relevant to the Kalam argument,

*In efficient causes it is impossible to proceed to infinity “per se”–thus, there cannot be an infinite number of causes that are “per se” required for a certain effect; for instance, that a stone be moved by a stick, the stick by the hand, and so on to infinity. But it is not impossible to proceed to infinity “accidentally” as regards efficient causes; for instance, if all the causes thus infinitely multiplied should have the order of only one cause, their multiplication being accidental, as an artificer acts by means of many hammers accidentally, because one after the other may be broken. It is accidental, therefore, that one particular hammer acts after the action of another; and likewise it is accidental to this particular man as generator to be generated by another man; for he generates as a man, and not as the son of another man. For all men generating hold one grade in efficient causes–viz. the grade of a particular generator. Hence it is not impossible for a man to be generated by man to infinity; but such a thing would be impossible if the generation of this man depended upon this man, and on an elementary body, and on the sun, and so on to infinity. *newadvent.org/summa/1046.htm#article2

See, it is the per se that is considered impossible. The accident is just like time going on forever in the future. The per se as there explained could apply to infinite past time, could it not?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

*But if the action is **instantaneous ***and not successive, it is not necessary for the maker to be prior to the thing made in duration as appears in the case of illumination. Hence they say that it does not follow necessarily if God is the active cause of the world, that He should be prior to the world in duration; because creation, by which He produced the world, is not a successive change
newadvent.org/summa/1046.htm#article2

So there can be instantaneous motion; however, the issue of an infinite chain that must move together as one is again not really relevant to the Kalam argument,

*In efficient causes it is impossible to proceed to infinity “per se”–thus, there cannot be an infinite number of causes that are “per se” required for a certain effect; for instance, that a stone be moved by a stick, the stick by the hand, and so on to infinity. But it is not impossible to proceed to infinity “accidentally” as regards efficient causes; for instance, if all the causes thus infinitely multiplied should have the order of only one cause, their multiplication being accidental, as an artificer acts by means of many hammers accidentally, because one after the other may be broken. It is accidental, therefore, that one particular hammer acts after the action of another; and likewise it is accidental to this particular man as generator to be generated by another man; for he generates as a man, and not as the son of another man. For all men generating hold one grade in efficient causes–viz. the grade of a particular generator. Hence it is not impossible for a man to be generated by man to infinity; but such a thing would be impossible if the generation of this man depended upon this man, and on an elementary body, and on the sun, and so on to infinity. *newadvent.org/summa/1046.htm#article2

See, it is the per se that is considered impossible. The accident is just like time going on forever in the future. The per se as there explained could apply to infinite past time, could it not?

An infinite number of per se causes would be impossible, as Thomas points out. However, an infinite number of accidental causes are possible. But even if they existed they would have a per se cause, because nothing escapes the necessity of a pe se cause. In such a case God’s act of creation would be simultaneous with exsistence. It would be creation from nothing but not in time.

Linus2nd

 

[lmelahn]

Act/potency is an idea so simple any 7 year old can understand it. It has no bearing on these issues. Substance/accidents boil down to the same things as matter/form, and anyway is not relevant to the issue of the First Way. And hardly anybody believes there is not cause and effect. Even Hume believed in it (I got part of his book right here); it wasn’t that he thought physical things move without a cause, he just thought you couldn’t know anything about those laws of causality to the extent that you would be sure they would always act the same way. There is no way really to reason him out of his position

I brought those up in answer to innocente, not to your original question.

They are simple ideas, but not easy to get right. For instance, it would be a mistake to say that substance/accident refers to the same reality as matter/form. (Matter-and-form can mean several different things, and only one of them corresponds to substance-and-accident—but that is for a different thread.)

In any event, Hume did not deny causality, but his error was to reduce causality to temporal succession (saying, basically, that the effect is what follows the cause in time). In fact, causality is best thought of as referring to real dependence (in the present) of the effect on the cause.

 

[lmelahn]

*But if the action is **instantaneous ***and not successive, it is not necessary for the maker to be prior to the thing made in duration as appears in the case of illumination. Hence they say that it does not follow necessarily if God is the active cause of the world, that He should be prior to the world in duration; because creation, by which He produced the world, is not a successive change
newadvent.org/summa/1046.htm#article2

So there can be instantaneous motion;

Instantaneous action, which is not the same thing as motion. “Instantaneous” action means that there are no intervening stages between the beginning of the action and the end of it.

What Aquinas is getting at here is that God does not have to exist “at a previous time” in the same way (say) a father needs to exist in time previously to his son, because God is completely outside of time. There was no time “before” there was a universe. God acts on all things in an eternal present.

I realize that Aquinas’ physics is out of date, but if we indulge his presuppositions for a moment (he thinks that light works instantaneously, which we now know is not the case), his example of illumination illustrates the idea.

Shine a light on a dark object, and the object is immediately illuminated. The light need not have “existed” prior to the illumination. Rather, it is perfectly contemporaneous. Again, remove the cause (the light source), and the effect (the illumination) is immediately taken away.

however, the issue of an infinite chain that must move together as one is again not really relevant to the Kalam argument,

*In efficient causes it is impossible to proceed to infinity “per se”–thus, there cannot be an infinite number of causes that are “per se” required for a certain effect; for instance, that a stone be moved by a stick, the stick by the hand, and so on to infinity. But it is not impossible to proceed to infinity “accidentally” as regards efficient causes; for instance, if all the causes thus infinitely multiplied should have the order of only one cause, their multiplication being accidental, as an artificer acts by means of many hammers accidentally, because one after the other may be broken. It is accidental, therefore, that one particular hammer acts after the action of another; and likewise it is accidental to this particular man as generator to be generated by another man; for he generates as a man, and not as the son of another man. For all men generating hold one grade in efficient causes–viz. the grade of a particular generator. Hence it is not impossible for a man to be generated by man to infinity; but such a thing would be impossible if the generation of this man depended upon this man, and on an elementary body, and on the sun, and so on to infinity. *newadvent.org/summa/1046.htm#article2

See, it is the per se that is considered impossible. The accident is just like time going on forever in the future. The per se as there explained could apply to infinite past time, could it not?

“Per se” can’t apply to causes that succeed each other in time, for the simple reason that the past does not exist anymore. (That is way Aquinas refers to such causes as “per accidens.”)

I said that an effect depends on a cause “per se” if by removing the cause, the effect would also cease immediately. In other words, the effect depends on its cause for its very existence. However, an effect cannot depend on something past (i.e., non-existent) for its very existence. It can only depend on something that exists now.

 

[inocente]

You are obviously objecting to something I said in post #23, but I can’t see what it is specifically. Perhaps you could cite the offending paragraph?

I wasn’t objecting to anything. You gave terrific answers. Really terrific answers, your answers could not have been more terrific. Only problem was they answered questions I never asked, and didn’t answer the one question I asked . Ho hum, it was off-topic so let’s leave it there.

 

[inocente]

Not exactly. I think that Aristotle’s principles—act/potency, substance/accident, matter/form, cause/effect, and so on—are still basically valid.

[snip]

There is no problem in applying the perennially valid aspects of Aristotle’s thought to modern scientific advances. You just have to understand that Aristotle’s theory works on a different level, so to speak, from modern physics. (E.g., Aristotle’s “matter” and physical “matter” in modern physics are two very different concepts, and they should not be mixed up.)

I’ve not read Aristotle but have been on some long threads here with his fans, and have yet to find any two who agree on what his concepts (act/potency, etc.) mean. Each time I’ve pushed for explanations, to check understanding, and each time have been told it’s all too sophisticated to put into words. Which seems to indicate, at base, unexamined intuitions rather than real understanding.

Now you may say that’s the fault of teachers for not giving a good enough grounding, but my theory is it’s the result of mixing Aristotle with modern science. Mixing systems which look at the world in different ways isn’t a problem if they are kept separate until both are understood individually, but put them together before that and it gets messy and complicated and confused.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I wasn’t objecting to anything. You gave terrific answers. Really terrific answers, your answers could not have been more terrific. Only problem was they answered questions I never asked, and didn’t answer the one question I asked . Ho hum, it was off-topic so let’s leave it there.

A-ha, I think you were referring to your post # 35 where you said, " Thanks for replying. Though my question wasn’t about science, or about Aristotle. It is specific to you and Imelahn. Both of you mix Aristotlean concepts with modern science, a bit of essence here, a bit of inertia there, a dab of potencia here, a dab of relativity there, which results in a complicated patchwork quilt which isn’t true to Aristotle or to modern science. You may not realize how complicated you make even the simplest of things by mixing the two systems ad hoc without any synthesis going on.

It is Imelahn’s and your mixing of the two systems of thought which intrigues me. It doesn’t generate any new knowledge, it just seems to obfuscate. Is it a desperate last attempt to rescue scholasticism or something?

btw the relativity only needs to be Galilean relativity, the kind used by all navigators for centuries."

Yes, if one has not studied natural philosophy, the philosophy of nature or even the philosophy of science and metaphysics from an A/T perspective, it can get kind of " complicated. " And believe me it is complicated to all beginning students of philosophy as well, the confusion is not something peculiar to you. I think Imelahn would agree.

Nevertheless, it is an effort A/T philosophers feel compelled to make because of the criticisms of modern cosmologists and their inadmissible conclusions ( God does not exist, or we can get along just fine without him, nothing exists but matter, etc. ). And I agree that some of the folks who post here have an imperfect grasp of A/T principles. This is an open forum and anyone can jump in and claim anything they want. It would be best to go directly to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and his commentaries and then make conclusions based on those. The trouble is that a lot of people settle for someone elses analysis of these men and only that or, worse, on articles they find on the net.

For example, when they say that Newton has burried A and T or that General or Special Relativity or that Quantum Mechanics has burried not only A/T philosophy but even God himself, that has to be challanged, because it is certainly wrong. Now you might say that A/T philosophers are wasting their breath and I agree it is an uphill battle. But there are cracks in the armour. Aristotle is studied more than he was a couple of decades ago and so is Aquinas.

Linus2nd

 

[thinkandmull]

An infinite number of per se causes would be impossible, as Thomas points out. However, an infinite number of accidental causes are possible. But even if they existed they would have a per se cause, because nothing escapes the necessity of a pe se cause. In such a case God’s act of creation would be simultaneous with exsistence. It would be creation from nothing but not in time.

Linus2nd

My first post of this thread shows this is false

 

[thinkandmull]

We’ve debated this issue for months now, and **no one ** has proven that we can know God’s existence from an argument from physics. Denying the contingency of the world can be held without contradicting an argument, but its a strange mental state similar to the Upanishads. To me, saying as Aquinas said that from reason for all we know a stone could be eternal,… well that’s just as ridiculous as Hindus or pre-socratics saying that everything is One and there is no motion.

**Once **one accepts the Third Way, the argument from design makes sense, but only after. What is this assumption that unless there is a God the world would by probability be chaotic to human consciousness? The design argument rests on the mental realization that the world is contingent (and, I believe, temporal).

 

[Linusthe2nd]

My first post of this thread shows this is false

All your first post showed is that you disagreed with Thomas’ answer to objection # 6. An opinion is proof of nothing.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

We’ve debated this issue for months now, and **no one ** has proven that we can know God’s existence from an argument from physics.

I wasn’t aware we were trying to prove God’s existence. Is there an argument for his existence on this thread? And we certainly cannot prove his existence from physics.

Denying the contingency of the world can be held without contradicting an argument, but its a strange mental state similar to the Upanishads. To me, saying as Aquinas said that from reason for all we know a stone could be eternal,… well that’s just as ridiculous as Hindus or pre-socratics saying that everything is One and there is no motion.

Who is denying the contingency of the world? Where did Aquinas say that " from reason for all we know a stone could be eternal? " All Thomas is saying is that you cannot prove from reason, conclusively, that the universe is not eternal. You are free to disagree. I think Thomas thought it would be better to proceed on the assumption that the world was eternal since that is what most of the philosophers and heathens up to that time believed.

**Once **one accepts the Third Way, the argument from design makes sense, but only after. What is this assumption that unless there is a God the world would by probability be chaotic to human consciousness? The design argument rests on the mental realization that the world is contingent (and, I believe, temporal).

Again, you are free to hold your own opinion on this. I think each argument stands on its own, Thomas certainly thought so.

Linus2nd.

 

[thinkandmull]

I wasn’t aware we were trying to prove God’s existence. Is there an argument for his existence on this thread? And we certainly cannot prove his existence from physics.

Who is denying the contingency of the world? Where did Aquinas say that " from reason for all we know a stone could be eternal? " All Thomas is saying is that you cannot prove from reason, conclusively, that the universe is not eternal. You are free to disagree. I think Thomas thought it would be better to proceed on the assumption that the world was eternal since that is what most of the philosophers and heathens up to that time believed.

Again, you are free to hold your own opinion on this. I think each argument stands on its own, Thomas certainly thought so.

Linus2nd.

The Three Ways do not stand on there own. In the Third Way it says “Now it is impossible to go on to infinity in necessary things which have their necessity caused by another, as has been already proved in regard to efficient causes.” The second must also bulster the First Way, which yet I don’t believe is an argument at all. How is the First Way not an argument from physics? How is it an argument at all without saying the eternal motions are contingent?

 

[thinkandmull]

All your first post showed is that you disagreed with Thomas’ answer to objection # 6. An opinion is proof of nothing.

Linus2nd

No. An eternal domino series ending today is the same as a per se series **and ** the eternity of motion. You reject one and not the other

 

[thinkandmull]

I am really fascinated with ancient and medieval science, psychology, and all that, but Aquinas says stuff like

“Since that which is tasteable must be liquid and flavored, it is necessary that the organ be neither actually liquid nor flavored in itself; nor can it be unable to become liquid.” In De Anima II L.21, n.12.

 

[Richca]

We’ve debated this issue for months now, and **no one ** has proven that we can know God’s existence from an argument from physics. Denying the contingency of the world can be held without contradicting an argument, but its a strange mental state similar to the Upanishads. To me, saying as Aquinas said that from reason for all we know a stone could be eternal,… well that’s just as ridiculous as Hindus or pre-socratics saying that everything is One and there is no motion.

**Once **one accepts the Third Way, the argument from design makes sense, but only after. What is this assumption that unless there is a God the world would by probability be chaotic to human consciousness? The design argument rests on the mental realization that the world is contingent (and, I believe, temporal).

On the other hand, no one on this forum or anywhere else in the entire world that I know of has definitively proven or demonstrated that the first proof of Aquinas is false or incoherent. I think Aquinas assuredly thought himself, that the first proof based on observable motion or change, the principle that whatever is moved is moved by another, and the metaphysical principles of actuality and potentiality is a real demonstration for the existence of a first unmoved mover which we call God, the denial of which would be conceptually incoherent.

Metaphysics begins with the sensible, which is the field of physics, and ends in the trans-sensible and sound intellectual reasoning. Again, metaphysical concepts are based on observation and common sense, but the concepts themselves are trans-sensible. You can’t place the trans-sensible under a microscope and say “there it is!.” Neither can one place God under a microscope and say “There he is!.” God is trans-sensible, immaterial, and transcendent to the universe.

St Paul says: “For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.” (Romans 1: 19-20). And the CCC#286 states: The existence of God the creator can be known with certainty through his works, by the natural light of reason."

According to the word of God, which is truth itself, and the catholic faith, the existence of God can be known with certainty through his works by the natural light of reason. This is what appears to be what St Thomas attempts to do in the five demonstrations or proofs for the existence of God. But, the existence of God or His very being is not going to be found in the sensible and observable or under a microscope. One has to transcend the sensible and think outside the physical box, as it were, to acknowledge His existence.

The distinction between sense and intellect was an important advancement in philosophic thinking. If I’m not mistaken, I believe Aquinas attributes to Plato as at least one of the first and which Plato asserted the immateriality of the intellect. However, Anaxagoras before Plato did introduce the concept of Mind in his philosophy but it was apparently quite anthropomorphic. Aristotle once stated that Anaxagoras “stood out like a sober man from the random talkers that had preceded him.” Aristotle later though became disillusioned with Anaxagoras because of other elements of his philosophy and how he applied the concept of Mind in his philosophy.

 

[Richca]

I’ve not read Aristotle but have been on some long threads here with his fans, and have yet to find any two who agree on what his concepts (act/potency, etc.) mean. Each time I’ve pushed for explanations, to check understanding, and each time have been told it’s all too sophisticated to put into words. Which seems to indicate, at base, unexamined intuitions rather than real understanding.

Now you may say that’s the fault of teachers for not giving a good enough grounding, but my theory is it’s the result of mixing Aristotle with modern science. Mixing systems which look at the world in different ways isn’t a problem if they are kept separate until both are understood individually, but put them together before that and it gets messy and complicated and confused.

The concepts of act/potency at their basic level, really, are not to difficult to understand. That which is in act, has actual being or existence. That which is in potency, has potential being or existence. For example, a block of wood has actual being, it is actually a block of wood, but it is potentially a table, a chair, or if you burned it, ashes.

Aristotle introduced the concepts of act/potency in his explanation of how change takes place in the world. He steered a middle course between the Eleatics such as Parmenides and Zeno on the one hand, who denied the reality of change in the world, and the camp of Heraclitus on the other hand, who denied that there was anything permanent in the world but the only reality is change and fluctuation. Aristotle thought that to deny the reality of change or permanence is simply to deny common sensible observation. For example, in the example of the block of wood above, if a carpenter made this block of wood into a table, then this block of wood is no longer a block of wood but a table. At the same time, there is something permanent in the table that was in the block of wood, namely, the wood. This is an example of an accidental change. Wood is a substance in this example which can take on accidental forms. If you burned this block of wood, you would have a substantial change. The wood would no longer be wood but ashes or a conglomerate of elemental or compound substances. Wood, before being burned, is potentially ashes. But wood cannot set fire to itself nor make itself into a table. Potency does not raise itself to act. That which is already actual such as fire or a carpenter is required to bring about a change in the block of wood. Accordingly, Aristotle taught that change in general requires an external efficient cause which in this example is the fire or the carpenter.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

The Three Ways do not stand on there own. In the Third Way it says “Now it is impossible to go on to infinity in necessary things which have their necessity caused by another, as has been already proved in regard to efficient causes.” The second must also bulster the First Way, which yet I don’t believe is an argument at all. How is the First Way not an argument from physics? How is it an argument at all without saying the eternal motions are contingent?

The argument explains itself, I can’t improve on it. Why do you think it is an argument from physics? How can eternal motions be contingent and what eternal motions are you talking about?

Linus2nd