What is purely simple? Like a void? Do you believe that air is more incorporeal than sand (Aristotles physics)? What is the infinitely incorporeal? Why is anyone in moral danger for trying to understand the spiritual? Have you read Rosmini on God and creation, and what Cardinal Ratziner in the Holy Office said in their document on him? You’ve been judgy lately. Even Aquinas believed that Heaven was out there in the empyrean Heaven, circling the universe. Perhaps God is like a point in that Heaven, thus simple, but the most rarified of Energies, pure goodness. The softest of lights that come from him would be his the mildest of an accident to him, hardly so. Was John Paul II evil for praising Teilhard? Or Benedict XVI for doing the same? Or have you read the book *Crossing the Threshold of *Confusion?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
This sounds like Buddhism. Don’t worship a Void. God LOVED us when He created us, thus passing from potency to actLinus
this
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.
I meant that infinite regress is resolvable 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…
I am not familiar with the case. Yes, Rosmini was mentioned, along with others as respected philosophers of the 20th century. I don’t feel qualified to comment on the enumerated sanctions and the lifting of them. But can but repeat what I have been saying for two years now. The Catholic Church teaches solemnly that God and his creation are entirely separate from one another.That God created the whole order of existence, the material and the spiritual, in time, out of nothing. Man has as part of his nature no part of the substance of God.Here are some of the propositions of Rosmini that JPII and Cardinal Ratzinger removed from suspision of heresy:
*#4 “Indeterminate being, which without doubt is known to all intelligences, is that divine thing which is manifest to man in nature.”
#6 “In the being which prescinds from creatures and from God, which is indeterminate being, and in God, not indeterminate but absolute being, the essence is the same.”
#12 “There is no finite reality, but God causes it to exist by adding limitation to infinite reality. – Initial being becomes the essence of every real being. – Being which actuates finite natures, and is joined with them, is cut off by God.”
#19 “The Word is that unseen material, from which, as it is said in wisdom 11:18, all things of the universe were created.”
#26: “The Word, insofar as it is the loved object, and insofar as it is the Word, that is the object subsisting in itself, known by itself, is the person of the Holy Spirit.” *
John Paul II also said Rosmini was a great scholar in his encyclical Faith and Reason in which he praised pluralism in these issues
Sorry I don’t have time for reading the Threshold of Confusion, I find that reading Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, trying to put out fires here, and keeping up with personal obligations and the spiritual life are about all I can do.What is purely simple? Like a void? Do you believe that air is more incorporeal than sand (Aristotles physics)? What is the infinitely incorporeal? Why is anyone in moral danger for trying to understand the spiritual? Have you read Rosmini on God and creation, and what Cardinal Ratziner in the Holy Office said in their document on him? You’ve been judgy lately. Even Aquinas believed that Heaven was out there in the empyrean Heaven, circling the universe. Perhaps God is like a point in that Heaven, thus simple, but the most rarified of Energies, pure goodness. The softest of lights that come from him would be his the mildest of an accident to him, hardly so. Was John Paul II evil for praising Teilhard? Or Benedict XVI for doing the same? Or have you read the book *Crossing the Threshold of *Confusion?
Thomas Aquinas also can’t explain how God could be better than humans who have to try really hard in order to be good. Just saying He is Pure Goodness as a nature apart from Will is worshipping gold. I believe God wills to the infinity of His will from all eternity to be Good, with a strength beyond limits. But like with the Thomistic efficacious grace, it is infallible from the Goodness of reality itself (which God is bound to as we know from discussions on the problem of pain), that He has always and will always Choose to be Goodness. That’s what makes him God.
Aquinas says odd things like that the will is a power of a power (the intellect): “And in this way Augustine puts the will in the mind; and the Philosopher, in the reason (De Anima iii, 9).” newadvent.org/summa/1079.htm#article1
You claim to be a Catholic, a Catholic Christian? What will you say of the divinely revealed truth when Jesus said " … I Am" The Jews used this reason to crucify Him, because He made Himself God. You are laxed in your understanding of Catholic Doctrine, and you are the source of your own truth, you are out of touch When Moses said to the burning bush, who shall I say you are, God answered , I am who am. What do think those words mean? The Catholic Church is very explicit in explaining this doctrine :" I am Existence!" To me you appear to be very confused. We all give it our “best shot”, and that’s all we can expect, we can’t give what we don’t have.This sounds like Buddhism. Don’t worship a Void. God LOVED us when He created us, thus passing from potency to act
And I think you better read it again. This is not an endorsement of the work of Rosmini.
.Either you have trouble reading or you didn’t read my previous post. The condemnation was lifted because the 40 propositions were shown not to be those of Rosmini. The propositions were **not approved **but that Rosimini was not that source of them, so his books were taken off the Index.It didn’t endorse Rosmini, but it said those propositions were not heretical. And they said what I am saying. And John Paul II’s encyclical DID endorse him. Also, I didn’t say we were part of God’s nature. My philosophical explanation was that we are an accident of the light which surrounds Him, which is in turn an accident of Him. Also when you said God IS existence, are you not saying the world is part of Him then? Aquinas doesn’t say that. He says that God is His OWN existence. I haven’t seen where the Church has taught that position though
I like the proposition which said the Son and Holy Spirit were the same. Its like when Jesus said the husband and wife are “one flesh”. Two persons, but one as well
Well, lets see.Now that the pace of this thread has slowed, I’d like to review the original premise of the thread, and the arguments against it.
The original premise of the thread is quite simple, that Aquinas’ First Way only argues for an unmoved mover, it doesn’t argue for a creator. Thus Aquinas’ First Way contains a fault which lies in its last line, “Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other, and this everyone understands to be God.” But I would contend that everyone understands God to be the creator of the universe, and the First Way doesn’t argue for a creator, it only argues for a mover. This “mover” could simply be setting in motion something which had already been created. Thus the claim put forward by Aquinas in the last line is unsubstantiated, the first mover isn’t necessarily the creator, and thus isn’t necessarily God.
Thus far there have been three arguments presented to refute the premise of the OP:
What do you mean with something!?The first one comes from Triflelfirt, and simply proposes that the act of putting something into motion IS in itself the act of creating it. Because it’s moving something from the state of potency to the state of actuality. This appears to be the most elegant and plausible of the three arguments. But it still has subtle issues.
God is in state of timeless hence there is no before and after for him.The second argument comes from Linusthe2nd and proposes that God, "moves the world in two ways. First by creating it. Second by moving it in the act of creation." This is a subtly different argument from the first one, but isn’t clearly explained. I can only presume that the two steps are first moving something from potency to actuality, and then subsequently setting it in motion. Two distinct actions. But this argument has numerous faults, the two most important ones being that it supports the original premise in the OP, and also that it goes against Aquinas’ Fourth Way.
I already showed that forth argument is false. You can read my argument in here.The third argument comes from JuanFlorencio and in effect argues that although the premise of the OP is correct Aquinas makes other arguments which show that the first mover and the creator must indeed be one and the same. The problem with this argument is that thus far any such supportive arguments by Aquinas, if they exist, haven’t been presented.
This is the discussion as it sits at this point. I have a response to each of the arguments presented, but would like to allow Triflelfirt, Linusthe2nd, and JuanFlorencio to clarify their arguments before I respond, so as to avoid as many misunderstandings as possible.
So if any of you would like to clarify or summarize your position, please do.
Excellent observation Bahman!!! That’s the difference between Triflelfirt’s argument and Linusthe2nd’s argument. Triflelfirt basically claims that existence is simply motion itself, the change from potency to actuality, whereas Linusthe2nd claims that God had to first create something, and then put it in motion.What do you mean with something!?
Again you’re correct. God is timeless, but we’re not, and Aquinas’ argument is based upon our perspective. From God’s perspective all of creation, from beginning to end, occurs at the same time. But from our perspective, the one from which Aquinas formed his argument, things are a series of cause and effect. Thus following the chain of cause and effect backwards as Aquinas does, leads us to the first cause, the unmoved mover. But the question is, is the act of putting things in motion simply one act, as Triflelfirt proposes, or two, as Linusthe2nd proposes? Must you first create something before you can put it in motion, or is motion itself equivalent to actuality, equivalent to existence?God is in state of timeless hence there is no before and after for him.
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.
Answer:
No explanation is needed, it is self-evident, to explain motion in material things, both motion and material things must exist Concepts of material things are abstracted from material things. Their reality is objective, apart from the mind, not subjected to the mind for their existence. This is an error of solipsism thinking, nothing is real but self, and one’s own thinking, and experience, a subjective approach to reality. The rest of the argument is useless.
Yes, an explanation is needed, that’s the whole point of Aquinas’ Five Ways, to explain where that which is self-evident came from. Yes, motion exists. Yes, matter exists. But where did they come from? Aquinas attempts to prove that they can only have come from God.No explanation is needed, it is self-evident, to explain motion in material things, both motion and material things must exist Concepts of material things are abstracted from material things. Their reality is objective, apart from the mind, not subjected to the mind for their existence. This is an error of solipsism thinking, nothing is real but self, and one’s own thinking, and experience, a subjective approach to reality. The rest of the argument is useless.
Dear Partinobodycula:Yes, an explanation is needed, that’s the whole point of Aquinas’ Five Ways, to explain where that which is self-evident came from. Yes, motion exists. Yes, matter exists. But where did they come from? Aquinas attempts to prove that they can only have come from God.
But the point of the OP is that Aquinas’ First Way only explains the movement of things, it doesn’t explain the creation of things.
I have indeed pointed out the fault a number of times, but I’ll gladly reiterate it.It is you who have to show in which part of the “first way” do you see the fault. If there is a fault, then the conclusion does not follow from the premises.
God by definition is the creator otherwise I (who am consciousness/I) can also move my body.Dear Partinobodycula:
It is you who have to show in which part of the “first way” do you see the fault. If there is a fault, then the conclusion does not follow from the premises.
Explaining the creation of things is not part of Thomas’ argument. If that were the case, one could say that it does not explain music or why I have to iron my pants.
Best regards
JuanFlorencio