I think we need note that most philosophers in North America are in the positivistic tradition in one form or another.
Perhaps that is because they have good reason for that position
.
When I say metaphysicians do something, you have already rejected anything I may say, since your brand of philosophy considers metaphysics a “pseudo-science.” So when I talk about metaphysicians, you cannot simply substitute “philosophers,” and then tell me most philosophers (meaning materialists and positivists) think what I am saying is rubbish.
I have already explained, in some detail, that I am not a positivist, and I do not think I called metaphysics a pseudoscience. So you are wrestling with a strawman here. Thomistic metaphysics is not the only flavour of the discipline - and there are many professional philosophers who are conducting serious enquiries into metaphysical questions who agree with me that Aquinas’s First Way fails as a proof for God - so to say as you did that “metaphysicians…argue from…motion, to the existence of an Unmoved First Mover” is to indulge in unjustified generalisation.
When the Catholic Church dogmatically defines that God’s existence can be known by the light of unaided reason (Denzinger 1806), she specifically refers to reasoning from the things that God has made, back to Him as First Cause.
But what the Catholic Church defines, dogmatically or otherwise, is of no consequence in this discussion, since the secondary point at issue is whether Church dogma is proper warrant for any belief, and the primary is whether, specifically, the dogma of a literal Adam and Eve is warranted. To use some other dogma as part of your demonstration is therefore a blatant case of petitio pricipii.
All I am saying is that Aquinas’ arguments to God’s existence, particularly his Five Ways, are not tied to any definitions of the species of motion Aristotle talks about in his Physics. Classical physics simply is not metaphysics, and the metaphysical arguments which have been developed out of a study of the Five Ways by Thomists are not dependent on Aristotelian physical concepts.
Now this is very strange - you agree that Aristotlean metaphysics argues from what can be sensed to more universal truths. As this discussion has unfolded you have persistently changed the definition of motion, as I have demonstrated quite clearly. You are now rejecting the idea that the idea of motion that Aquinas uses has anything to do with Aristotlean physics. But it also clear that when Aristotle talks about a First Mover, he is quite clearly referring to his ideas of motion as set out in the Physics - see, for example, Aristotle, Metaphysics Lambda in which not only does Aristotle rely on the definitions of motion that he sets out in the Physics, but he uses the argument from change of place (locomotion) over and over again. In Part 2 he reiterates the arguments of the Physics, in Part 3 he defines a Mover, in Parts 4 to 6 he develops his arguments for a First Mover; and in Part 7, he clearly includes change of place - indeed circular motion as being a kind of motion that requires a mover “There is, then, something which is always moved with an unceasing motion, which is motion in a circle; and this is plain not in theory only but in fact. Therefore the first heaven must be eternal. There is therefore also something which moves it. And since that which moves and is moved is intermediate, there is something which moves without being moved, being eternal, substance, and actuality.” and in Part 8, he makes that argument specific for the cosmos: “The first principle or primary being is not movable either in itself or accidentally, but produces the primary eternal and single movement. But since that which is moved must be moved by something, and the first mover must be in itself unmovable, and eternal movement must be produced by something eternal and a single movement by a single thing, and since we see that besides the simple spatial movement of the universe, which we say the first and unmovable substance produces, there are other spatial movements—those of the planets—which are eternal (for a body which moves in a circle is eternal and unresting; we have proved these points in the physical treatises), each of these movements also must be caused by a substance both unmovable in itself and eternal.” And we clearly see that all of this is itself dependent on arguments in his Physics - particularly Book VIII.
So we see that Aristiotle’s worldview, as we would call it, is self-consistent: he argues from what he observes to rules about what he observes, his Physics, and from thence to his Metaphysics. If you say that Aquinas does not use Aristotlean physics and metaphysics - you are left with a conundrum. What is the sensible foundation of Thomisitic metaphysics? Since Aquinas had no physics of his own, is it the case that his entire metaphysics is without foundation, an edifice supported on sky hooks?
Well no - it is obvious that Aquinas depends heavily on Aristotle for his First Way - in fact its statement in the Summa Theologica is purely Aristotlean; to the extent that Aristotle’s argument is undermined by his erroneous physics, so is Aquinas’s.
to be continued
those that resemble flies from a distance.”
At this point, my right brain is looking at the overwhelming evidence while my left brain is asking questions. I’ve read enough to realize that there is a variety of biological similarities between humans and chimps so we are on the same page. This is what I see on that page. The similarities indicate that not only did both evolve from similar sources but also within similar environments. Initial reading about the “Out of Africa” hypothesis offered theories about what caused the divergence of a common ancestor, at least one of which was a different environment maybe a founder effect on part of the common ancestor’s descendents.