Thomas Aquinas' The Third Way to prove God's existence

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CrossofChrist said:
And I agree with Aquinas. But I still disagree with you that consciousness is an emergent phenomenon per se. God is aware (conscious) of reality precisely because there is no reality without him. Consciousness included.
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Fair enough.

It seems to me that you have indeed claimed that change is ultimately an illusion. If every act of compassion, love, and I think you mean everything, exists in one time and place in the physical universe, then isn’t any change we experience in our time still illusory? Everything already “is”. Then there’s nothing to change into, nothing to become. You can only become if there is something else to attain, some goal to reach. You don’t have to achieve the goal to undergo change, but there has to be an end in the first place.
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As I said before, you can choose to look at it that way. Just as some people choose to believe that God’s omniscience means that free will is only an illusion. What God knows doesn’t preordain what you choose. And in like manner, even if every possible change, every possible outcome, every possible path, already exists for God, you still have to choose which one you will take. For you, every potential outcome is still possible, every change still happens. God’s omniscience doesn’t change that.

Aquinas describes a God in whom there is no potentiality, and without the potential for change, there can be no change. But you’re not God. For you the potential is real, and the change is real. For God every path exists, but for you, only one.
 
Partinobodycula said:
As I said before, you can choose to look at it that way. Just as some people choose to believe that God’s omniscience means that free will is only an illusion. What God knows doesn’t preordain what you choose. And in like manner, even if every possible change, every possible outcome, every possible path, already exists for God, you still have to choose which one you will take. For you, every potential outcome is still possible, every change still happens. God’s omniscience doesn’t change that.

Aquinas describes a God in whom there is no potentiality, and without the potential for change, there can be no change. But you’re not God. For you the potential is real, and the change is real. For God every path exists, but for you, only one.
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You are now adding a distinction between man and the rest of the universe. If the essence of all matter = its existence, man being no exception, then man can’t experience any potentiality either. The universe would have to be simple since it is only act (so by definition there is no potency in it).
 
Frankenfurter said:
Do black holes destroy matter/energy?
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If black holes destroyed matter/energy, then there wouldn’t be any black holes. Think about it.

But seriously, according to Stephen Hawking, black holes eventually discharge all of their accumulated matter/energy back into space.
 
CrossofChrist said:
You are now adding a distinction between man and the rest of the universe. If the essence of all matter = its existence, man being no exception, then man can’t experience any potentiality either. The universe would have to be simple since it is only act (so by definition there is no potency in it).
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I just thought that I would pop in and let you know that I’m not ignoring your last post, I’m just thinking. I stop to do that sometimes.

Specifically I’m considering three separate yet related concepts: actuality, potentiality, and free will. What are they, and how do they function together to produce what I perceive as reality. The answer to these questions have a significant bearing on the subject of this discussion. I generally stop talking while I’m thinking, because to do otherwise is to radically increase my already significant risk of saying something profoundly stupid. In this instance I may be silent for a while. I’ll get back to you.
 
Partinobodycula said:
No, you and everything you see around you is the form, matter/energy is the fundamental building block of this form. It can neither be created nor destroyed. It fits perfectly into Aquinas’ definition of a necessary being.
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I guesss the guys at CERN (home.web.cern.ch/about/physics/early-universe) disagree with you since they say:

‘All matter in the universe was formed in one explosive event 13.7 billion years ago – the big bang.’
 
Frankenfurter said:
I guesss the guys at CERN (home.web.cern.ch/about/physics/early-universe) disagree with you since they say:

‘All matter in the universe was formed in one explosive event 13.7 billion years ago – the big bang.’
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To be precise, although this is a catchy title, it does specifically say “formed” not created. In this case the difference matters. The accepted scientific theory is simply that at the moment of the big bang, all of the matter/energy in the universe was contained in one single point. What existed before this, if anything, is open to debate. There may not even be such a thing as “before” the big bang. Which would make matter/energy effectively eternal. As far as we know, matter/energy has never been created nor destroyed.

space.com/13320-big-bang-universe-10-steps-explainer.html
 
From the link that you posted:

'The Big Bang was not an explosion in space, as the theory’s name might suggest. Instead, it was ***the appearance of ***space everywhere in the universe, researchers have said. According to the Big Bang theory, the universe ****was born as a ****very hot, very dense, single point in space.

***Cosmologists are unsure what happened before ***this moment…’

Above this description is a time-lapse graphic that shows, from left to right, first nothing, then ‘quantum fluctuations’, then this point appearing from nothing, then, various phases as it expands.

I find it disingenuous NOT to consider this a clear picture of creation. How more clear of a picture of something being created could we ask for?
 
Whatever scientists say, we do know that the physical universe had an absolute beginning in time for which there was no before as regards matter of any kind, not even of waves or energy or mathematical laws. And the moment it came to be we call creation in time out of nothing. And when the physical universe did not exist there existed, always and eternally, God, the ONE NECESSARY, UNCAUSED BEING, theBEING who could not not be, the cause of the physical universe and all its manifold parts, all of which are contingent - it is possible for them not to be. For nothing in the physical universe can either cause itself to be or cause itself to continue to be. And since nothing in the physical universe can either cause itself to be or to continue to be, it and all its manifold parts depends for its existence on He who necessarily is, who cannot not be.

No scientist can show me anything in the physical universe which causes itself to exist, not even waves or energy or mathematically laws, neither multiverses nor cyclical universes. No matter how complex such imagined universes may be, they are all contingent and can not be, they have no inherent necessity. Therefore God exists. Now it is to be determined what the nature of this God is. And this Thomas Aquinas explores in the Summa Theologiae, part 1, ques 3 and following. And as it turns out this God has enough of the characteristics of the Christian God that we can conclude that the two are identical.

Pax
Linus2nd
 
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