Thomistic Argument

[Perplexity]

Lubomyr:

I don’t know what you’re on about, to be honest; but, you’re arguing against Aquinas’ definition now so I don’t feel like I’m in bad company in disagreeing with you

 

[Perplexity]

JDaniel: While I disagree with you on numerous points I don’t think my argument is receiving any critique, just my claim that it’s Thomistic, so I’ll concede it’s not Thomistic in hopes it’ll be put back under the light.

 

[Perplexity]

This is the problem. First of all, you cannot use a term in its own definition. Potency cannot be defined as the potential for something.

This definition of Act seems to be even worse, at least on an ontological level. You cannot define something at the absence of its absence. Act is essentially Being, and I feel just using the definition of Being, i.e. “that which is”.

A better definintion of potency would probably be the “ability to receive a new state of being.”

As I stated elsewhere, potential is not the same as potency. I’m unsure of why you think I defined act as absence also?

 

[JDaniel]

JDaniel: While I disagree with you on numerous points I don’t think my argument is receiving any critique, just my claim that it’s Thomistic, so I’ll concede it’s not Thomistic in hopes it’ll be put back under the light.

Perplexity:

You have a non-argument. You’ve changed the operative word from cause to actualize. That creates the problem. When we say, “uncaused cause,” there is no question about its existence. But, when you say, “unactualized actualizer,” this phraseology seems to alter its existence to a state of non-existence, just like uninstantiated instantiator would. That is an unwarranted exchange of words of mostly dissimilar definition, a straw man, and an equivocation. That would have been rejected on these, plus perhaps some other grounds, by Aquinas. And I, too, reject it on these grounds, regardless of whether or not I am a “believer.”

Correct your argument and let’s take a look at it.

God bless,
jd

 

[belorg]

Acquinas points out that there is no potency in God. He is pure actuallity, or “Pure act” as Acquinas says. He is the “necessary being” and “Is his own existence”. We exist because of something else. God exists because existence is his essense, that which makes him what he is.

These ideas have been around since Aristotle. Where have you been?

Arguments in the first post have nothing to do with God.

Yes, these idea have been around since Aristotle, but there is a major differnce in this respct between Aristotle and Aquinas. Aristotle believed that pure act was eternal and that also prime matter was eternal and uncaused. Aquinas, since he was a catholic,however believed that God is pure act and was the cause of all potentialities.
Now that Thomistic view leads to a contradiction.

1 God is Pure Act (basic Thomstic premise)

2 That means Pure Act is eternally unchanging (immutable).(follows from 1)

3 Pure Act caused everything else to exist (basic Christian premise, from the Nicene Creed, e;g)

4 (From 3) There was an ontic instant at which only Pure Act existed.

5 (From 3 and 2) There was an ontic moment at which everything that existed was eternally unchanging.

6 It is not the case now that everything that exists is unchanging.

7 6 contradicts 5,

8 Therefore either God is not Pure Act or the universe is eternally unchanging.

9 The universe is not eternally unchanging (from 6)

10 Conclusion: God is not Pure Act.

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

Yes, these idea have been around since Aristotle, but there is a major differnce in this respct between Aristotle and Aquinas. Aristotle believed that pure act was eternal and that also prime matter was eternal and uncaused. Aquinas, since he was a catholic,however believed that God is pure act and was the cause of all potentialities.
Now that Thomistic view leads to a contradiction.

1 God is Pure Act (basic Thomstic premise)

2 That means Pure Act is eternally unchanging (immutable).(follows from 1)

3 Pure Act caused everything else to exist (basic Christian premise, from the Nicene Creed, e;g)

4 (From 3) There was an ontic instant at which only Pure Act existed.

5 (From 3 and 2) There was an ontic moment at which everything that existed was eternally unchanging.

6 It is not the case now that everything that exists is unchanging.

7 6 contradicts 5,

8 Therefore either God is not Pure Act or the universe is eternally unchanging.

9 The universe is not eternally unchanging (from 6)

10 Conclusion: God is not Pure Act.

Here we go again…

The state of existence outside of God does not change the being of God. God’s being is pure act, God created a temporal mutable world. How this is reconciled: willing to create is part of His pure act and willed from eternity, existence outside of Himself was created necessarily by supposition.

 

[belorg]

Here we go again…

The state of existence outside of God does not change the being of God.

The problem is: at one ontic instant there is no ‘state of being outside God’, so the whoile ‘state of being’ at that instant was eternally unchanging.

God’s being is pure act, God created a temporal mutable world.

Which premise of my argument are you actually disputing, Trevor?

How this is reconciled: willing to create is part of His pure act and willed from eternity, existence outside of Himself was created necessarily by supposition.

That does no reconcile an instant of eternal unchanging being that somehow became a changing state of being. On the contrary: what you describe is an eternally unchanging being willing to change from eternity and therefore becoming eternally changing. that is a contradiction, Trevor.

 

[Sarpedon]

Argument:

Let (Pn) stand for some potency.

Let (An) stand for some actualization of (Pn).

1. If (P1) cannot obtain unless: (i) its actualization (A1) has the potency (P2) to actualize (P1) and (ii) (P2) is actualized, then every actualization of (Pn) must itself be an actualizing (P) and no unactualized actualizer exists.

Here you seem to be saying that the actualization of something has the potency to actualize its own potency. You’re correct in saying that the P1 potency needs to be actualized as a potency. A possibility needs to be made real before it is a real potency that could be actualized. Your mistake is to think that the actualization of P1 has the potency to actualize P1 as a potency.

Aristotle and Aquinas are clear that a potency must be rooted in an underlying actuality. For example, if there is a potency for a human finger to be a different position, that potency must be rooted in the actuality of a human being. Without an underlying actual human being, there is nothing making the potency of finger movement a real possibility. Your P1 potency does need to be rooted in an actuality, but you simply can’t say that the actuality is the same as the potency itself actualized. The actuality has to be something different, underlying the potency. It should not be hard to follow this actuality-potency-actuality… sequence to its logical conclusion, especially when combined with the observation that the world is fundamentally contingent (i.e. Hume’s billiard balls).

So, you basic problem is evident in your conclusion:

“Therefore, every actualization of (Pn) must itself be an actualizing (P) and no unactualized actualizer exists.”

You’re correct in identifying that P1 as a potency has to be rooted in an actuality. Your mistake is assuming that the actualization of P1 can be this underlying actuality. If you can have this, then obviously any actuality is self-standing and circular in its potency/act distinction. Of course, to say that an actuality can be the underlying actuality for its own potency makes no sense in Thomistic metaphysics.

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

The problem is: at one ontic instant there is no ‘state of being outside God’, so the whoile ‘state of being’ at that instant was eternally unchanging.

And that is where we divided in our last discussion. You argued that it’s logically impossible for God create outside of Himself when there was no “outside” of Himself, not even nothingness. Also asserting that in order for anything to happen, He must create from His own substance. This is a logical fallacy; if He was the result of motion then He is nothing more than another member of the series of act and potency. Since He is the unmoved mover, and logic demands an unmoved mover in the beginning of the series of motion, He is pure act. Being concerned how He was able to create outside of Himself when there was no outside is answerable through omnipotence, but you weren’t satisfied with that answer.

Which premise of my argument are you actually disputing, Trevor?

Your assertion that since change happens outside of God, God is not pure act.

That does no reconcile an instant of eternal unchanging being that somehow became a changing state of being.

The being didn’t change or became that which is the changing state of being. If the state of being were the being, this would be creatio ex deo. We don’t believe this, and does not apply.

On the contrary: what you describe is an eternally unchanging being willing to change from eternity and therefore becoming eternally changing. that is a contradiction.

I stated from St. Aquinas, the Pure Actual Being willed to create outside of Himself from eternity and a result of His pure act. What is changed by result of His will does not change Him. Your argument is reducible to the first quote; I’ll focus on that since it is the crux of the entire argument.

 

[belorg]

And that is where we divided in our last discussion. You argued that it’s logically impossible for God create outside of Himself when there was no “outside” of Himself, not even nothingness.

Well, is was there or wasn’t there any outside of Himself?

Also asserting that in order for anything to happen, He must create from His own substance.

If there is no outside of Himself, then this logically follows. It’s not an assertion.

This is a logical fallacy; if He was the result of motion then He is nothing more than another member of the series of act and potency.

Maybe, but I am not concerned with that.

Since He is the unmoved mover, and logic demands an unmoved mover in the beginning of the series of motion, He is pure act.

Well, this clearly shows that logic does not require an unmoved mover at the biginning, soince I do not think logic would demand anything logically impossible.
It is more accurate to say, IMO that the medieval logic of Aquinas demands that there is an unmoved mover, but that in the 21st century there are people who knwo better.

Being concerned how He was able to create outside of Himself when there was no outside is answerable through omnipotence, but you weren’t satisfied with that answer.

If it is logically impossible to create outside of Himself then omnipotence does not answer that question.

Your assertion that since change happens outside of God, God is not pure act.

No, my argument is not that since change happens outside of God, God is not Pure Act. My argument is that chnage cannot have happened outszide God because there was an instant at which there was no ‘outside God’ God was the whole of reality. And, according to Aquinas, (not according to me) the whole of reality at one instant was ‘Pure Act’, which means, among other things, eternally immutable.
Now, it does not take a genius to work at that for something that is ternally immutable to change at a certain instant is logically impossible.
To counter my argument, you will have to somehow say that there never was an instant at which the whole of reality was immutable (you would be in good compnay, BTW, because Aristotle would agree wityh this). But that means God is not the creator of everything, and if you belive that, you shoud stop being a catholic.

The being didn’t change or became that which is the changing state of being. If the state of being were the being, this would be creatio ex deo. We don’t believe this, and does not apply.

It is not because you don’t believe this, that it isn’t true. Lots of theists belive this, in fact.

I stated from St. Aquinas, the Pure Actual Being willed to create outside of Himself from eternity and a result of His pure act What is changed by result of His will does not change Him.

Sure it does. Because God

1 the whole of reality
2 God becomes only party of reality.

So God changed.

 

[Perplexity]

Perplexity:

You have a non-argument. You’ve changed the operative word from cause to actualize. That creates the problem. When we say, “uncaused cause,” there is no question about its existence. But, when you say, “unactualized actualizer,” this phraseology seems to alter its existence to a state of non-existence, just like uninstantiated instantiator would. That is an unwarranted exchange of words of mostly dissimilar definition, a straw man, and an equivocation. That would have been rejected on these, plus perhaps some other grounds, by Aquinas. And I, too, reject it on these grounds, regardless of whether or not I am a “believer.”

Correct your argument and let’s take a look at it.

God bless,
jd

Hmm, I’m not sure why you think I’ve changed ‘the’ operative word. What operative word? The only way of Aquinas’ 5 concerned with uncaused causes is the 2nd, and if my argument is inspired by any of the 5 it’s the first. Therefore, if I changed any phrase, it wouldn’t be uncaused cause; but, unmoved mover.

I’m also unsure of why you think unactualized actualizer is any less paradoxical than uncaused cause (or presumably, unmoved mover).

You say that it’s this terminological change which causes problems. So, it seems you’re granting my argument(i.e., it causes problems) but saying it’s irrelevant because I don’t have good grounds for such a change.

Since my argument is logically valid, if its premises are true, its conclusion is necessarily true. So, unless your objection about my terminology demonstrates one of my premises to be false, this objection isn’t good reason for rejecting my conclusion.

Note my definition of actualization. It’s simply a modified understanding of ‘motion.’ So, I’m going to contend that if my definition is nonsensical then so is Aquinas’ ‘unmoved mover’.

 

[empther]

“unmoved mover”

Plato used the word “music” to refer to all cultural subjects, music ifself, poetics, theatre, politics, art, everything.

Following this tradition, Aristotle and Acquinas used the word “movement” to refer to change, all change, all kinds of change, even those that involvment no movement.

Looked at this way, we can more clearly see why there had to be an unmoved mover,
or unchanging changer.
Every change, or morement if you will, is an event. It happens. It happens at some moment in time.
But there cannot be an infinite past. Every event happened a finite time ago. So there has to be an unchangeable, or unmovable if you will, thing that started everything and “time” is meaningless and nonexistent for a thing that is unchanging. This thing we call God.

 

[Katholish]

As I stated elsewhere, potential is not the same as potency. I’m unsure of why you think I defined act as absence also?

A contrary statement doesn’t exactly make the case though. Potency and potential are in fact essentially the same. Aristotle introduces the concept of potency to settle the debate amongst the Pre-Socratics that “Being is. Non-being is not.” Which caused some to deny change, and others to deny stability. Aristotle showed that there is a state of potential being which is not either whole non-being and not wholly actual being. If you want to make the case that they are distinct, you are going to have to come up with a definintion for each which does not involve the other term.

The reason I said that you were defining act in terms of a double absense is that you defined it as “an obtained potency”. Potency, however, only has meaning in relation its corresponding act, and a potency only exists in the absense of its act. Thus, potency is fundamentally a kind of absence of its act. When you define act as “an obtained potency,” by saying "obtained, you are essentially saying, a potency which is no longer a potency, i.e. the absence of a potency, which itself is an absence of an act (the same act you are trying to define as the absence of the absence of the thing I am trying to define. It is not a logically valid definition.

 

[Perplexity]

A contrary statement doesn’t exactly make the case though. Potency and potential are in fact essentially the same. Aristotle introduces the concept of potency to settle the debate amongst the Pre-Socratics that “Being is. Non-being is not.” Which caused some to deny change, and others to deny stability. Aristotle showed that there is a state of potential being which is not either whole non-being and not wholly actual being. If you want to make the case that they are distinct, you are going to have to come up with a definintion for each which does not involve the other term.

The reason I said that you were defining act in terms of a double absense is that you defined it as “an obtained potency”. Potency, however, only has meaning in relation its corresponding act, and a potency only exists in the absense of its act. Thus, potency is fundamentally a kind of absence of its act. When you define act as “an obtained potency,” by saying "obtained, you are essentially saying, a potency which is no longer a potency, i.e. the absence of a potency, which itself is an absence of an act (the same act you are trying to define as the absence of the absence of the thing I am trying to define. It is not a logically valid definition.

It seems to me you’re saying Aquinas defined such and such as (x), and I’m describing (x) differently, therefore I’m wrong. But, I said towards the beginning of this thread that I’m not trying to represent Aquinas here. I acknowledge that my definitions and concepts differ from his. I don’t think this makes them wrong, or non-Thomistic though. So, while you’re correct that my understanding of act, potency and potential are different than Aquinas’, I believe you’re wrong that my argument fails because of this.

Finally, definitions can’t be logically invalid. Only arguments are valid or invalid.

 

[JDaniel]

Hmm, I’m not sure why you think I’ve changed ‘the’ operative word. What operative word? The only way of Aquinas’ 5 concerned with uncaused causes is the 2nd, and if my argument is inspired by any of the 5 it’s the first. Therefore, if I changed any phrase, it wouldn’t be uncaused cause; but, unmoved mover.

I’m also unsure of why you think unactualized actualizer is any less paradoxical than uncaused cause (or presumably, unmoved mover).

Perplexity:

Let’s take a closer look at the three words you have used:
(1) actualize(d);
(2) cause(d);
(3) move(d).

Only (1), by its definition, involves the existence of its subject. You see, unactualized means “non-existent.” In combination, unactualized actualizer means “non-existent existence maker.”

(2) and (3), on the other hand, do not mean “non-existent uncaused causer” or “non-existent unmoved mover.” (2) means, An existing causer that was itself uncaused. A temporal example would be, the “point.” The “point” is not the cause of a line. It could not be as it is dimensionless: how can one attribute “direction” from that which is without dimension. Fortunately, (3) has no cosmological counterpart: everything in the material world is moved, and is moved by something other than itself. Even with self-moved mobile beings, when analyzed, we discover movers upon which their motion is dependent.

You say that it’s this terminological change which causes problems. So, it seems you’re granting my argument(i.e., it causes problems) but saying it’s irrelevant because I don’t have good grounds for such a change.

Of course the use of equivocation in phrasing arguments is relevant! I could agree with your argument and attribute it to the world but, only if the words used represented the real state of things. “Unactualized” infers more than “not having been brought into existence, (by anything before it)” it infers that it may not, in fact, be actualized, i.e., in existence.

Saying “uncaused actualizer” lessens that proscription. And, saying “unmoved actualizer” does so as well. I am amazed that you don’t see the difference? In any event, in my opinion, the argument does not work using “unactualized” and “actualizer” together as a modified noun.

Since my argument is logically valid, if its premises are true, its conclusion is necessarily true. So, unless your objection about my terminology demonstrates one of my premises to be false, this objection isn’t good reason for rejecting my conclusion.

And, if it is true, to what does it refer? It does not refer to St. Thomas’ God. I was under the impression that that was one of your purposes, from my reading of the OP.

Note my definition of actualization. It’s simply a modified understanding of ‘motion.’ So, I’m going to contend that if my definition is nonsensical then so is Aquinas’ ‘unmoved mover’.

I’m not sure that that was as clearly stated as you have just done, but I’ll go back and look.

God bless,
jd

 

[empther]

Perplexity, the King of Quibbling, can keep up this game forever, as I predicted.

It all comes down to this question. Can the past extend back to infinity?

If the answer is no then we have to conclude there is a God.

 

[Ghosty]

I detest analytic philosophy so I may be missing something, but there is one major flaw in the definitions. Act is not an obtained potency, but rather is simply the state of being. By saying it is obtained potency you are begging the question because you seek to prove what you’ve already assumed in your definition.

D2 should say that act is being, without presupposing a logically prior potency.

Peace and God bless!

 

[JDaniel]

Perplexity:

You could resolve the problem by saying “*non-*actualized actualizer.” That would take the in-existence of the subject out of the picture. But, then your conclusion would not follow. Your conclusion was, if I remember correctly, “Therefore, God does not exist.” You have affirmed the consequence within your argument, but not because of it.

jd

 

[Perplexity]

Perplexity, the King of Quibbling, can keep up this game forever, as I predicted.

It all comes down to this question. Can the past extend back to infinity?

If the answer is no then we have to conclude there is a God.

Your insulting attitude seems to stunt this thread, if I’m honest. But, I’ll continue to try to sift through that and just stick with the points (otherwise, the thread loses purpose).

I’m really not sure what a temporal infinite regression has to do with my argument; but, if you have objections to such a regression I’d entertain them.

 

[tdgesq]

I detest analytic philosophy so I may be missing something, but there is one major flaw in the definitions. Act is not an obtained potency, but rather is simply the state of being. By saying it is obtained potency you are begging the question because you seek to prove what you’ve already assumed in your definition.

D2 should say that act is being, without presupposing a logically prior potency.

Peace and God bless!

Perplexity made a similar charge in another thread here to Aquinas’ first way. I asserted there that this all has to do with whether the premise can be accepted without objection. I see Perplexity’s premise the same way, although he must know it will be challenged.

W.L. Craig provides and argument against it in his Kalaam variation as follows:

(1) A collection formed by successive addition cannot be actually infinite.
(2) The temporal series of past events is a collection formed by successive addition.
(3) Therefore, the temporal series of past events cannot be actually infinite.

This is more of a second way argument, but I think it’s applicable to this discussion as well.