The fault in Aquinas' First Way

[Partinobodycula]

I’ve already explained how “creation” can be understood in terms of movement. Linusthe2nd also offered a good insight into this.

Actually your explanation and Linusthe2nd’s explanation seem to be completely different. You seem to be claiming that motion is essential to existence. No motion, no existence. Linusthe2nd on the other hand claims that God created the world, “First by creating it. Second by moving it in the act of creation.” Linusthe2nd doesn’t seem to be saying that motion is a necessary attribute of existence, but is secondary to existence itself.

If the two of you could clarify your positions it would be quite helpful.

 

[Triflelfirt]

The soul is the substantial form of the body, it has intellect and will (and consciousness, too), and is immaterial because it can abstract immaterial essences from things (in the act of knowing, the intellect isolates the material accidents of a certain thing, and abstracts the immaterial essence).

Consciousness is not a “thing” as in it’s not a form. Are you trying to imply that consciousness by itself is responsible for intellect and will?

" You as human being however need a body to affect mental states which is different from what angels and demons approach their realities. "

How can you tell me “you as a human being” if, in your own view, what I really am is consciousness, and therefore I am essentially no different from angels and demons (who would be “consciousness”) too? What you’re saying is: “You, as consciousness, however need a body to affect mental states which is different from what consciousness approaches its realities”. It doesn’t make sense. Yet you yourself admitted that, following your reason, there would be no difference between a man and an angel.

If an angel A, who in essence really is consciousness, needs no body to approach his reality, why would a man M, who in essence really is consciousness, need a body to approach his reality? It’s incoherent.

 

[Triflelfirt]

Actually your explanation and Linusthe2nd’s explanation seem to be completely different. You seem to be claiming that motion is essential to existence. No motion, no existence. Linusthe2nd on the other hand claims that God created the world, “First by creating it. Second by moving it in the act of creation.” Linusthe2nd doesn’t seem to be saying that motion is a necessary attribute of existence, but is secondary to existence itself.

If the two of you could clarify your positions it would be quite helpful.

It could very well be that I messed up my explanation, so it’d be good to hear Linus2nd’s opinion.

What I was trying to argue for is that creation is a type of motion. Existence requires act. In creating, God would move something from potency to act (however, he wouldn’t be moving “nothing” with a potency; he’d be moving an idea, a final cause, in His “intellect”. The “correspondence view of truth” would serve as an interesting analogy, for the order of the correspondence is different for God – something is true if the thing conforms to God’s “intellect”). And when I said that motion is to be expected in existence, I’m referring to created beings, or anything that isn’t pure act, because in virtue of their being mixtures of potency and act, there is nothing in their essence that implies act, just like nothing in their essence implies existence. For they to exist, they need to be maintained in act, and need to have their existence conjoined with their essences at every instant. Now, that seems to me like a type of motion. If such motion were to cease, then things wouldn’t be in act anymore, and wouldn’t have existence conjoined to their essences, and therefore would cease to be.

 

[Partinobodycula]

It could very well be that I messed up my explanation, so it’d be good to hear Linus2nd’s opinion.

What I was trying to argue for is that creation is a type of motion. Existence requires act. In creating, God would move something from potency to act…

I’m not certain that Linusthe2nd will respond, he doesn’t seem to care for my solipsistic philosophy very much. Hopefully he’ll respond, at least to vehemently disagree with whatever I’m about to say. But in the meantime I’ll give you my impressions of the idea of motion as a necessary attribute of existence.

The whole idea that absent motion nothing material actually exists, would appear to give credence to the notion that reality is simply an illusion. There’s just this overwhelming sense about the ethereal nature of a reality that ceases to exist if it ceases to move. Not that it can, but that its very existence is tied to such an abstract concept. Reality in other words is simply thought in motion. To you or Linusthe2nd those thoughts are God’s thoughts. They’re God’s thoughts actualized. But aren’t they still an illusion? If all that reality is, is thought in motion, then in what way is it physically real?

Is that all that existence essentially is, thought in motion?

 

[thinkandmull]

I agree with most of things you said. You could however hit harder and question the existence of soul instead of material world since soul as well as material world has to be animated to exist. I however don’t see any problem with infinite regress if the beginning is singular.

What do you mean by the last sentence there? If I run my hand over a ruler, the appears to be an infinite number of halves, but they get infinitely smaller, so it ends up at a point. But it is not the same infinity as if a line was going through the universe in both directions at the same time infinitely…

 

[thinkandmull]

The soul “has to be animated to exist”. Well, the soul has to be in act in order to exist. There can’t be an infinite regress in an essentially ordered series, and if we consider an essentially ordered series involving a human being (for instance), the soul can’t be the first mover because it also undergoes movement at the moment it is moving the other instrumental movers. The soul undergoes change of belief and will, for example. So the soul can’t be the first mover in an essentially ordered series; we must consider what moves the soul (the object of its appetite, for example), what moves the object, and ultimately, what allows the soul to remain in act, since the soul is not pure act. And what allows the soul to operate the body, which itself requires at every instant many different chains of essentially ordered series of movement (going as far as the natural laws, for instance) to exist and operate.

Are you using the Third Way argument of contingency? Do you agree with Aquinas that the world could logically be eternal?

 

[thinkandmull]

All responders so far are in error. The Unmoved Mover, which is the conclusion of the First Way, moves the world two ways. First by creating it. Second by moving it in the act of creation. This the definition of the Unmoved Mover, to create and to move. This is easy to see if you go on and read other pertinent parts of the Summa Theologiae, part 1, such as creation, providence, and man. The First Way of course assumes all these by pointing out that nothing moves itself from potentiality to actuality except that this motion be caused by an Unmoved Mover. All things exist potentially in the mind of God. When he creates, he moves them from potentiality to actuality.

As to the argument that we can imagine a universe that is not moving, such an imagined state has no bearing on the argument, because the argument deals with the real world, the one God created. But even if you can imagine a world that is not moving, it would have been moved from potentiality to actuality in the act of creation.

Can someone please explain to me the sudden attraction to Solipisism on this Forum? It is like the sudden outbreak of some disease. What have you all been studying or reading or viewing?

Linus2nd

I just thought of something. Is God the same as His acts? Either way you answer that, is it not saying He has potency?

 

[thinkandmull]

“No, Consciousness is simply and primary”. But if consciousness is to be taken as the essence of a being that has consciousness, and my essence is “Consciousness”, then anything that has consciousness, too, would have the same essence as me, and would only be accidentally distinguishable. If a man and an angel have the very same essence, their only differences would be accidental ones, and deep down they’d be the same thing. Why, then, would I need a body to “experience my essence which is consciousness”? Angels, who have intellect and will, don’t have a body, and they don’t need it in order to “experience” their “essence”.

I am not consciousness, a man is not consciousness. A man is a unity of body and soul, and not merely consciousness, which would make it undistinguishable from an angel or a separated substance. That’s faulty.

Besides, if we rule out the soul, then the body wouldn’t make any sense either; we wouldn’t have a “human body”, we wouldn’t be able to grow or do anything with it. If there were no soul – no form – our body would be matter without form. But that’s absurd.

(I should have put all my points in one post. I apologizer) Well the thing about Aquinas is that he believed that that matters of faith cannot be proven by reason. Now reward for a sinless life can be reasoned to, but wouldn’t he say not the Resurrection? Therefore the soul must have a certain autonomy

 

[ynotzap]

I’m not certain that Linusthe2nd will respond, he doesn’t seem to care for my solipsistic philosophy very much. Hopefully he’ll respond, at least to vehemently disagree with whatever I’m about to say. But in the meantime I’ll give you my impressions of the idea of motion as a necessary attribute of existence.

The whole idea that absent motion nothing material actually exists, would appear to give credence to the notion that reality is simply an illusion. There’s just this overwhelming sense about the ethereal nature of a reality that ceases to exist if it ceases to move. Not that it can, but that its very existence is tied to such an abstract concept. Reality in other words is simply thought in motion. To you or Linusthe2nd those thoughts are God’s thoughts. They’re God’s thoughts actualized. But aren’t they still an illusion? If all that reality is, is thought in motion, then in what way is it physically real?

Is that all that existence essentially is, thought in motion?

You are attributing to God human qualities. To say that God’s thoughts are actualized is to assume that those thoughts were in the state of potency, there is no potency in God, He is Pure Act Thoughts are the product of man’s intelligence abstracting ideas from material things, God has no thoughts, mental abstraction, ideas. He HAS NO INTELLIGENCE AS AN ATTRIBUTE HE IS INTELLIGENCE. He is His attributes, man has attributes, big difference. He is Omnipotent, Omniscient, All Good, Pure Spirit, Pure Being. Physical things have existence and can be sensed. Man’s intelligence can draw from material things their essence or ideas that represent these realities mentally. If you had no physical reality, you wouldn’t have any knowledge, because that is were human knowledge begins, but it doesn’t stop there. Then by our reasoning ability we can acquire more knowledge from the ideas we abstracted from physical reality eg. mathematics, philosophy, science. God is Exsistence, Pure Being, He doesn’t have existence If someone thinks that we are illusions he is out of contact with reality, poor guy.

 

[thinkandmull]

You are attributing to God human qualities. To say that God’s thoughts are actualized is to assume that those thoughts were in the state of potency, there is no potency in God, He is Pure Act Thoughts are the product of man’s intelligence abstracting ideas from material things, God has no thoughts, mental abstraction, ideas. He HAS NO INTELLIGENCE AS AN ATTRIBUTE HE IS INTELLIGENCE. He is His attributes, man has attributes, big difference. He is Omnipotent, Omniscient, All Good, Pure Spirit, Pure Being. Physical things have existence and can be sensed. Man’s intelligence can draw from material things their essence or ideas that represent these realities mentally. If you had no physical reality, you wouldn’t have any knowledge, because that is were human knowledge begins, but it doesn’t stop there. Then by our reasoning ability we can acquire more knowledge from the ideas we abstracted from physical reality eg. mathematics, philosophy, science. God is Exsistence, Pure Being, He doesn’t have existence If someone thinks that we are illusions he is out of contact with reality, poor guy.

I don’t know if we have the correct understanding of God. If He is the same as His acts, then when He acts, HE goes from potency to act. Also, I don’t know if things HAVE existence. They exist

 

[Partinobodycula]

You are attributing to God human qualities. To say that God’s thoughts are actualized is to assume that those thoughts were in the state of potency, there is no potency in God, He is Pure Act

Bear with me. I assume that in the act of creation something went from potency to actuality. Who or what decided the form that that actuality would take? Or to put it another way, why is actuality the way it is?

If it’s not because God desired it to be so, and it’s not because I desired it to be so, then why is it so?

 

[ynotzap]

, and we are not

I don’t know if we have the correct understanding of God. If He is the same as His acts, then when He acts, HE goes from potency to act. Also, I don’t know if things HAVE existence. They exist

No some of us do not have the correct understanding of God as much as we humans can have by our own understanding. We all need help, and the Church supplies it through her teachers, and St. Thomas is one of them. When God creates He does not go from Potency to Act, He creates Potency and Act in created things. God is not subject to time, He creates time, (change). When God acts it is immediate and eternal, no subject to any limitation, infinite.

Things either have existence, or they don’t. If they exist, they either always existed, or were caused to exist, had a beginning. If they always existed then existence is their nature,and they would need no cause to exist, and if existence was their nature they had no beginning. This is contrary to human experience for humans have a beginning, their beginning can even be calculated aproximately to the date. If they always existed they would show no dependence for the existence, yet we depend on everything for physical existence, eg. food We would be subsistent, and we are not. So if we didn’t have existence as our nature, then the logical conclusion is that we were GIVEN existence by some entity who has existence for its nature, the entity is God who is Existence. Also if we always existed we would show no change, for change takes place in time and not eternity, we would be pure being, pure act, we would be infinite, and not finite which we are.

 

[thinkandmull]

I’m not the point that because we depend on food, compound matter must depend on the purely simple.

 

[ynotzap]

I’m not the point that because we depend on food, compound matter must depend on the purely simple.

I used the example of food as a simple illustration, in simple matters as physical existence. If we alway existed we wouldn’t need anything, we would be subsistent, self-sufficient completely You need to clarify your sentence to help me understand what you mean.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I just thought of something. Is God the same as His acts? Either way you answer that, is it not saying He has potency?

No God is absolutely simple. This is the Dogma of the Church. It also teaches that God is unchangeable. And being unchangeable he has no potency. All the perfections we attribute to God are just various ways of looking at his simplicity.

Linus2nd

 

[thinkandmull]

Unchanging doesn’t have to mean absolutely static. Aristotle says that are is more incorporeal than water. Maybe God is just the MOST incorporeal of all energies. I’m not sure either that God could create solid matter with the flick of a finger so to speak. Pope Francis warned against seeing God as if He was a magician (I got the quote somewhere in my email). Perhaps God is the most incorporeal (Personal) Energy, and the Light that surrounds Him (of which the Eastern Catholics speak) is an accident of His substance, and things in this world are accidents of that Accident, to varying degrees. That seems much more logical than any other position. And I see no way it is not orthodox

ynotzap, arguing that the world is contingent is a probable argument, not definite proof, as I see it.

 

[thinkandmull]

No God is absolutely simple. This is the Dogma of the Church. It also teaches that God is unchangeable. And being unchangeable he has no potency. All the perfections we attribute to God are just various ways of looking at his simplicity.

Linus2nd

If God’s Acts are Himself, is there a passing from non-acting to acting, thus from potency to act? Would you say that? Very curious

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Even if we assume that Aquinas’ First Way is a sound argument, it still contains at least one major fault:

That fault being that although it explains the presence of motion in material things, it doesn’t explain the existence of material things.

The First Way simply posits that everything in motion must have been put in motion by something else, and since an infinite regress is impossible, there must have been a first mover, an unmoved mover. But this does nothing to explain where that which was put in motion came from. It simply argues for an unmoved mover, not a creator.

We could imagine a universe in which nothing was in motion, in which case Aquinas’ First Way would do absolutely nothing to explain the world’s existence. If nothing is in motion, then there would be no need for a first mover.

So Aquinas’ First Way simply argues for God as a manipulator of matter, but not as a creator of it.

Hi Partinobodycula:

The “first way” is based just on the reality of movement. It does not need more. Actually, St. Thomas argues in other of his writings that it is not possible to demonstrate that the world is not eternal.

There is another “way” which is based on the contingency of everything around us. This argument is valid even if the world was eternal, because -according to the Thomists- it would be eternally contingent.

Regards
JuanFlorencio

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Unchanging doesn’t have to mean absolutely static. Aristotle says that are is more incorporeal than water. Maybe God is just the MOST incorporeal of all energies. I’m not sure either that God could create solid matter with the flick of a finger so to speak. Pope Francis warned against seeing God as if He was a magician (I got the quote somewhere in my email). Perhaps God is the most incorporeal (Personal) Energy, and the Light that surrounds Him (of which the Eastern Catholics speak) is an accident of His substance, and things in this world are accidents of that Accident, to varying degrees. That seems much more logical than any other position. And I see no way it is not orthodox

ynotzap, arguing that the world is contingent is a probable argument, not definite proof, as I see it.

Well, I have tried to straighten you out but I give up. If you prefer to burry your head in the sand and live in material heresy that is no skin off my nose. But it does seem that you will find any excuse to set your brand of scientism on a pedestal in preference to the teaching of the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church.

But for the benefit of faithful Catholics be it known that the Catholic Church teaches that the human soul, angels and God are spirits and non-material, they cannot be sensed by man or any instrument of man. And that the one true God is utterly simple and without composition and utterly unchangeabl, being pure act without any potency whatsoever.

This is also the teaching of Thomas Aquinas and the whole host of Catholic philosophers and philsosphers and the Fathers of the Church from the very beginning. But if you prefer to follow Thinkingandmull, you do so at you own spiritual pearl.

Linus2nd

 

[ynotzap]

Linus
this

If God’s Acts are Himself, is there a passing from non-acting to acting, thus from potency to act? Would you say that? Very curious

When God creates He does not pass from Potency to Act, Potency is a real capacity to become to the actual becomming eg. from childhood to adulthood, from not knowing to knowing. God is Pure Being, creation does not possess full being, it is always becoming. This passage from having a capacity to become to becoming constitutes change, time, motion in creation. Creation is always changing, moving toward attaining fullness of being.
That is the created state of our existence. We are being eternally held in existence by God even though we are finite in nature. Pure Being is God alone,unchanging, our being is becoming, dynamic, changing, it’s the condition of our nature. God by an Act of His will creates the universe and all that’s in it. There is no past, or future with God, only with us, He is Omnipresent. When you think of it, for us the past exists in our memories, the future exists in our imagination, and all we really have is the present which is constantly moving, changing, dynamic, second by second, in time. God is present in all of these changes, and causes them. He never changes. The concept of Divine Concurrence is used to explain how God goes along with our existence, sustains it in His providence, and how we exist in time and how He exists in eternity One has to be familiar with Ontology to understand these concepts and require serious study of metaphysics which most people do not have, so it involves a lot of explaining. Linusthesecond has given you some excellent references.