ynotzap, I appreciate your efforts, but we’re beginning to talk around each other. I completely assent to Aquinas’ Second Way, and the argument for a First Cause. There must be something which created all the matter in the universe, if indeed there is matter in the universe. I also assent to Aquinas’ First Way, that there must be an Unmoved Mover. What I object to is Aquinas’ identification of these two as being necessarily one and the same. He provides no logical reason as to why this MUST be the case. It could simply be that something caused matter to exist, and something else caused it to move. It would then be the case of having to decide which of the two was actually God.
What I’m looking for isn’t a rehashing of the arguments for the First and Second Ways. As I say I assent to those. Instead what I’m looking for is an argument for why those two Ways MUST point to only one God. The only possible solution that I can think of is that movement/change is a necessary attribute of “matter”. If that were true then the First Cause and the Unmoved Mover would of necessity be one and the same. But that would lead to the conclusion that absent movement, nothing actually exists at all. Everything that you see around you is merely potency actualized. Which may sound like it agrees with Aquinas, and in fact does, but implies that we’re no more material than God is. God is Pure Act. He’s immaterial. We’re act combined with potency. But potency isn’t material either. So we’re a combination of two immaterial things. Logic would therefore conclude, that we’re immaterial.
Thus the ultimate conclusion of Aquinas’ Five Ways is that reality is merely an illusion. There’s nothing material about it at all.
So far NO ONE has ventured an argument against this conclusion, much less attempted to defend that argument. Which is disappointing, and would lead to the conclusion that they simply don’t have a rebuttal to the argument, other than a dogmatic one.
If anyone believes that my logic is faulty, please show me where. Otherwise you’re simply giving it your tacit approval.
But ynotzap, I do thank you for trying.
At the risk at sounding redundant, in the event I missed something unsaid, I’ll repeat my former reasons, perhaps you will understand, I hope, assuming you want to understand.
Motion is caused, things can not move themselves, but are moved by another, if they could move themselves, they wouldn,t exhibit potency and act, which constitutes change, and they do exhibit change, a fact of life, and a fact contained in material, and spiritual things(knowledge, reasoning, ideas can change and they are not physical things, did you every sense an idea, or thought?)
All motion is CAUSED by an Un-moved mover. If we follow the effect, motion to the first cause of that motion, we necessarily come to the Uncaused- cause, BECAUSE the first caused cause of motion did not cause itself. The Uncaused cause had to exist eternally, not in time, for there is no other cause and is not the effect of another cause. If it existed eternally, it has to be SUBSISTENT meaning it needed no other to exist, but existed independently This being the case, then the Uncause Cause necessarily has to have EXISTENCE AS IT’S NATURE. Having existence as it’s nature is the same as saying it is Pure Being, so anything that exists share in being. This being is called "contingent being because it can exist, and it can not exist. To bring things into being, and to cause them to move is called creation. God is the Creator of all things existing, and their conditions
Also communication does not imply that someone is in your mind, as you suggest If communication wasn’t coming from outside you mind, then what is the purpose of ears, is it not to hear sound, and what is human speach? And why human speach if not to communicate. If one exists in ones mind,who needs human speach? What do we communicate by speach? Meanings? What are meanings? Mental representations of ideas, thoughts about the objective world? Are these thoughts real, do they exist? Can we sense them? If they weren’t real would they exist? Would they have being?
Some saints by their own testimony have had interior locutions from God, other claim to hear voices in their minds and they have been known to suffer from schizophrenia, a mental illness. Some of us have lost some degree of loss of contact with reality, and we live in a very enclosed, self-centered, intro-spective life, and our thinking is very subjective (as apposed to objective) to our own thoughts which become reality to us. Truth initially comes from with-out, not with-in the mind of man, and as long as his thoughts remain objective he remains in contact with reality I think that you still will not change your original position, but that’s in a sense it is to be expected. Assuredly I won’t change mine, that’s call freedom of choice Bahman!
