I did, but whether they’re my own or given by professional philosophers you just keep insisting they’re not good reasons.
Well, I am also trying to explain why they are not good reasons.
Because it’s irrelevant to the vast majority of Baptists. Whether Catholics place their trust in it I can’t say, but I’d hope they trust in Christ not in “proofs”.
First, how could an argument, any argument that sheds light on some non-trivial truth be irrelevant to anybody?
And second, by being a proof someone doesn’t “trust” in it. Does someone trust that 2 + 2 = 4? I’m not entirely sure why you are trying to attack reason with faith (God gives us both). They go hand in hand.
But yes, a Catholic would put their trust in Christ.
No
because the arguments are in no way hard to understand, they’re just insupportable, and saying I misunderstand won’t make them good.
Okay, let me put this another way. Say you want to learn a foreign language, what do you do? My contention is that while not wholly foreign, Aquinas’ terminology is not everyday English. Some of the terms have precise Aristotelian definitions that don’t match our “common sense” renderings of the words. Aquinas’ 1st way makes a lot of sense to someone with a background in Aristotle.
And because you don’t have much of a background in Aristotle (which you have led me to believe), then when you argue about the proof you will be attacking a straw man argument, and not the real thing. This has been apparent because, again, the kind of objections you raise are not the kind of objections someone who grasps the technical definitions would raise.
If you want a translation of the argument into layman terms, then don’t look for it in the
Summa Theologiae. While it is true that in this work Aquinas wrote for beginners in theology, those beginners had solid understandings in Aristotelian metaphysics.
I’ve not been ignoring you, it was three weeks ago. In that case, #3.
So you are saying that #3 presupposes the conclusion of the argument? Are you sure you want to say this?
Here’s one reason why #3 doesn’t presuppose the conclusion. Basically, it’s possible, as Oreoracle pointed out, that one could have multiple, separate per se causal chains. Therefore the idea of a causal chain not able to regress infinitely doesn’t presuppose the idea of a First Mover.
Oreoracle asked why not an infinite chain and your answers didn’t make such sense to me.
Understanding the concepts I was trying to put forward is key in seeing how the “infinite chain objection” doesn’t work and misunderstands the argument. I am willing to try to clarify if you are willing to listen and ask questions.
Per se and per accidens are concepts in Scholasticism, and it doesn’t follow from your restatement of Thomas (nor I think from his original) that the first entity must continue to exist to sustain the others, but even if it did I can still insert a prior entity to sustain it.
Yes, per se and per accidens causal chains are concepts in Scholasticism; they have origins at least as far back as Aristotle, however. What of it?
And because Aquinas’ argument is
atemporal, the First Mover must exist here and now, not merely sometime back in the past.
It also doesn’t make sense to say you could add a previous member to the First Mover. But that will only be apparent once per se and per accidens causal chains are understood… so I will wait for your invitation.
In all, I appreciate your willingness to engage in the arguments, at least insofar as you have been willing to bring certain objections made by other philosophers to the table. Not everyone would even go that far. I still invite you to check out the book that I suggested, it is short and will reward anyone who reads it, regardless of expertise. I see that you very much care about reason since you are willing to engage in dialog; faith and reason go hand in hand (God gives us both).
