The Unmoved Mover

[djeter]

Are you familiar at all with Dr. Edward Feser? I’ve been reading *The Last Superstition *and have found it totally absorbing. I’ve featured some of Dr. Feser’s reading selections for essentialism and realism.

Here is one that explains Aquinas’ God and one of the good Doctors five proofs, The Unmoved Mover. To show that an Unmoved Mover exists is just to show that there is a single being who is the cause of all change, Himself unchangeable, immaterial, eternal, personal (having intelligence and will), all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. It is, in short, to show that there is a God.

I don’t think I ever really understood it until I had finished with this:

payingattentiontothesky.com/2010/12/17/the-existence-of-god-aquinas%e2%80%99-unmoved-mover-by-dr-edward-feser/

See if you don’t agree…

dj

 

[theMutant]

I have found the material available from the Aquinas School of Philosophy to be a wonderful help in understanding the importance of metaphysical concepts.

 

[Windfish]

No doubt a “New Atheist” reading this will already be sputtering some response or other; but judging from the writings of such people, there is also no doubt that the response will be superficial, ill-informed, and dogmatic,** long on attitude and short on understanding**. I have noted ad nauseam that the “No one’s ever shown that the first cause would be omnipotent, omniscient, good, etc.” objection — is an urban legend, sustained by the fact that atheists tend to read only each other’s books and not the writings of the religious thinkers they’re supposedly refuting.

Yup, he’s got 'em pegged. I am beginning to wonder if we should even bother with these people anymore.

 

[Luke_K]

The article does not explain why the prime mover must be purely actual. Why can’t the prime mover be actual only in regards to getting the universe going, and then have some potentiality which is later actualized by the universe?

 

[The_Exodus]

The article does not explain why the prime mover must be purely actual. Why can’t the prime mover be actual only in regards to getting the universe going, and then have some potentiality which is later actualized by the universe?

Because between the mode of existence of the prime mover and the mode of the existence of the universe there is no parity. What is actualized later in time in the universe is actualized in the way in which the prime mover has always, eternally willed it to be actualized. There is no time in which it is not actualized to the prime mover, because nothing is outside his “gaze” so to speak (to borrow from St. Thomas.)

 

[paduard]

“There is no time in which it is not actualized to the prime mover, because nothing is outside his “gaze” so to speak (to borrow from St. Thomas.)”

Yes, I quite like that sentence!

 

[Nooj]

Can someone explain to me how the Incarnation is not an instance of motion.

Merry Christmas everyone.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Can someone explain to me how the Incarnation is not an instance of motion.

Merry Christmas everyone.

In terms of the physical aspects, it is an instance of physical motion. Happy Christmas.