Unmoved mover

[warpspeedpetey]

I mean that, regardless of how I came into being when I was conceived, I am the unmoved mover of everything I do now. God is not pulling on my strings to get me to type this post, for example; saying that He is the mover of that action because He created me years ago seems to me to be stretching the meaning of the term “mover”.

oh, i see.

no, He is not that, would be a denial of free will, but you would be unable to type the post if you were not caused or “moved” yourself, and i think that is the relationship to which people refer.

 

[JDaniel]

I mean that, regardless of how I came into being when I was conceived, I am the unmoved mover of everything I do now. God is not pulling on my strings to get me to type this post, for example; saying that He is the mover of that action because He created me years ago seems to me to be stretching the meaning of the term “mover”.

I would not go so far as to say that you were an “unmoved” mover, but, you are certainly a first mover - in this very simple context.

However, if God is sustaining your being, or existence, then He is a prior mover. Even at the most mundane level, substances within you are being substantially changed. Foods are being substantially changed in order for them to be absorbed and used by the body. Wastes are being produced, etc. These might well be examples of God’s actions to sustain life and being, don’t you think?

jd

 

[Cecilianus]

The very helpful explanation of the argument you all have been given me seems irrefutable, but it collapses into a creation-of-the-soul argument. If this is what Aquinas meant by the First Way, then okay; but I wouldn’t be able to argue this to an unbeliever, and I wouldn’t phrase it as an argument from motion; I’d argue that there must be a God to create the soul in order for it to explain where it came from.

If we cut out the soul and just talk about a mechanical chain of motions, then we get back to the Big Bang and therefore to God. In that respect, it does just seem to be another angle to look at the Second Way

 

[JDaniel]

The very helpful explanation of the argument you all have been given me seems irrefutable, but it collapses into a creation-of-the-soul argument.

Why? It, or at least my explanation of motion and Prime Mover/First Cause does not collapse into a creation-of-soul argument. If anything, it collapses into the absolute necessity of a First Mover and a First Cause. Beyond that, it doesn’t say more.

If this is what Aquinas meant by the First Way, then okay; but I wouldn’t be able to argue this to an unbeliever, and I wouldn’t phrase it as an argument from motion; I’d argue that there must be a God to create the soul in order for it to explain where it came from.

If we cut out the soul and just talk about a mechanical chain of motions, then we get back to the Big Bang and therefore to God.

Forget about the Big Bang; it’s not relevant here. The argument for a Prime Mover is simply a demonstration that a series of essentially subordinated movers cannot be infinite, nor can it be the cause of its own motion. That being the case, we then move to why we call this First Mover and this Supreme Cause of all causes, “God”, which we didn’t get into because you hadn’t asked.

In that respect, it does just seem to be another angle to look at the Second Way

I don’t agree that that is the reason.

jd

 

[warpspeedpetey]

The very helpful explanation of the argument you all have been given me seems irrefutable, but it collapses into a creation-of-the-soul argument. If this is what Aquinas meant by the First Way, then okay; but I wouldn’t be able to argue this to an unbeliever, and I wouldn’t phrase it as an argument from motion; I’d argue that there must be a God to create the soul in order for it to explain where it came from.

If we cut out the soul and just talk about a mechanical chain of motions, then we get back to the Big Bang and therefore to God. In that respect, it does just seem to be another angle to look at the Second Way

non-theists dont believe in a soul, i use the argument from contingency the most myself

 

[Cecilianus]

No one can. But one could, given a little time, show you that He moved your soul into existence. That is an example of a series of essentially subordinated movers. It is the motion of a Whole by a Whole, as opposed to the motion of a part by another part. You are self-moved, but, only because you consist of parts, with one part moving another, then another, etc. – and, in time. The movement of a Whole by an extrinsic First efficient cause or, Prime Mover, Whole, is what St. Thomas is talking about.

But, only a Whole can move a Whole in an essential way. Even if science figures out how to combine all of the ingredients to “make” life, the scientist will not be the Prime mover or First Cause. He will merely be an intermediary efficient cause, or accidental mover.

jd

As to why it collapses into a creation-of-the-soul argument, because you said that “He moved your soul into existence” and then identified this with “the motion of a Whole by a Whole”. I took this to mean that if my soul is the “prime mover” then we are separating it out from the body which is the “moved”; if you want to ask “what moves the soul”, then the only answer I could give is “God, when He created it.”

If you mean something else by a “Whole”, then I didn’t get it. I’ve never seen a soul-and-body package moved in unison by something; the soul moves the body. (And in other acts, such as learning and sensation, the body moves the soul. The soul moving the body is characteristic of the will, and the body moving the soul is characteristic of the intellect.)

 

[Cecilianus]

Forget about the Big Bang; it’s not relevant here. The argument for a Prime Mover is simply a demonstration that a series of essentially subordinated movers cannot be infinite, nor can it be the cause of its own motion. That being the case, we then move to why we call this First Mover and this Supreme Cause of all causes, “God”, which we didn’t get into because you hadn’t asked.

If you look back through the chain of mechanical motions (putting the soul aside), you’ll get back to the Big Bang eventually. I don’t get why philosophers are so wary about even mentioning an event so intimately relevant to any causality argument; any causality we can trace ourselves or the current state of the universe back to is going to go through the Big Bang before it reaches God.

 

[antunesaa]

I take this as a roundabout way of saying that time is finite. Okay, but why is it impossible for time to extend infinitely into the past? Because Aquinas says so?

What exactly is metaphysical change which does not require time? The only change I know about is physical change across a nonzero time interval.

No math concept exists in the physical world except insofar as physical brains may conceive them and think about them. But so what? How does that prevent time from extending infinitely into the past?

The intuition that time has somehow a beginning was not popular in the late XIX century among physicists. Most of them espoused the steady state cosmological view, which stated that the universe had existed forever and would exist forever. This was more in line with the rationalist and atheistic ideas among illustrated people of the time. Then the big bang theory was put forth in an attempt to better explain the data. This was a serious blow to the left-uncensored view of time, and still is. Currently most physicists think time is indeed left-censored. Modern physics theory corroborate Aquina’s intuition of the impossibility of infinite regression.

 

[Cecilianus]

Modern physics theory corroborate Aquina’s intuition of the impossibility of infinite regression.

Aquinas did not regard an infinite regression back in time as impossible, however, because past events “don’t exist any more” and therefore they’re only “potential” - as if the past could somehow be unreal.