Unmoved mover

[JDaniel]

I still don’t understand. The distance is going to get smaller and smaller until infinity. (this is a potential infinity) However it cannot actually reach infinity and form a set. Calculus can make use of actual infinities, but it doesn’t suggest that they exist in the real world.

For, Zeno, he created his so-called paradox by losing sight of the speed constant. If the speed is constant, as geometer stated, then cutting the distance up into smaller and smaller pieces does not matter. In fact, it would not enter into the final equation. For the paradox to hold conceptually, the speed would have to be non-relative. Otherwise, you would have to change the entire set of parameters for the relativity each time you sliced the roadway. Now, we know we don’t - and can’t - do that. So, it’s not a real paradox.

In reference to your comment, concerning the distance becoming smaller and smaller, that cannot even be described by the language of a “potential” infinity. If it was a potential infinity, the driver would drive forever, as he would never arrive at a destination. As he was just about to get to the end, someone would further divide the roadway. And on, and on, and on.

A potential infinity is the same as an actual infinity, except the potential infinity is finite at any stopping point, whereas, there can be no stopping points on real continuum that is infinite. What people actually mean, when they speak of infinity, is really a potential infinity. They’re simply confused by thinking that an actual infinity can exist.

jd

 

[Detales]

Matthias123~~“Motion means metaphysical motion”

I don’t know where this comes form. Metaphysics to me is the statement of Principle and its hierarchy of idea pertinent to Truth and therefore have to do with what is immovable and unchanging. So what is metaphysical motion? If there is movement, there is change, the measure of which is time. And Eternity has no component of time. So I find what you are saying in post #1 a bit confusing.

 

[Matthias123]

Matthias123~~“Motion means metaphysical motion”

I don’t know where this comes form. Metaphysics to me is the statement of Principle and its hierarchy of idea pertinent to Truth and therefore have to do with what is immovable and unchanging. So what is metaphysical motion? If there is movement, there is change, the measure of which is time. And Eternity has no component of time. So I find what you are saying in post #1 a bit confusing.

What about in the hartle-hawking state in Hawkings big bang model, where imaginary time moves to normal time that we experience. That is a motion that does not require time.

metaphysical motion = any change.

 

[Detales]

I’m thinking that at that level “moving” may not have the same sense it does to us in our 4-D perceptual frame. And if it is properly “movement,” another word than “metaphysical” would apply.

 

[JDaniel]

Matthias123~~“Motion means metaphysical motion”

I don’t know where this comes form. Metaphysics to me is the statement of Principle and its hierarchy of idea pertinent to Truth and therefore have to do with what is immovable and unchanging. So what is metaphysical motion? If there is movement, there is change, the measure of which is time. And Eternity has no component of time. So I find what you are saying in post #1 a bit confusing.

Detales:

I believe he is speaking of motion in relation to metaphysical actuality, such as Being. Being, even as Being, must come to be. The exigency of coming-to-be is instantaneous, but, it is involved in time, in a sense. It is apropos of the Now. The Now is real, but, it is not a slice of time, nor even the smallest slice of time one could possibly think of. The Now is that which divides slices of time no matter how small they are. It is the terminus of the prior time-slice and the beginning of the next ensuing time-slice.

Thus, when one considers coming-to-be, one considers that which occurs at the moment of the annihilation of privation, or, the potency in matter, by the possession or, acquisition, of Form.

jd

 

[Matthias123]

Is any change possible without time?

 

[Detales]

Not that I am aware of. Time and change are synonymous, both referring to description and experience, or meaning and form. The wave-front of the kind of time w experiences collapse across its entirety as this moment and produces the set of probabilities of the next, but it is more like a vibration than an on-off, though some claim it is a dipole function, including the Rishis, who claimed to be able to slow their perceptions to the point of observing it. who knows? they are no longer here to teach that, AFAIK. But you raise an very interesting question: How does the Eternal precipitate manifestation and yet remain unchanged?

One explanation is that time, or change, is an illusion of awareness attuned only to certain aspects of certain dimensions. Remember, we have our consensus reality by agreeing on a tiny portion of our shared world. The brain tends to ignore things outside that consensus. That is why the current studies on stage magic relative to human awareness have such an interesting implication on the critical study of religion as a phenomenon.

Religion is an area of experience we approach as *meaning *from our side and our consensus group, and as form relative to the religion of those outside our consensus group. It is apples and oranges. One of the most difficult things is to view our own religion, that is to say our belief system including faith as a phenomenon relative to history that implies mistaken meaning, and to ascribe meaning to someone else’s faith beyond our rejection of its form relative to our meaning. Th think rationally about faith, or tie it to a broader history than we might find comfortable in terms our internal meaning, is exceptionally difficult. That is why many conversion experiences involve some sort of shock, coupled with what might be in that persons memory banks as symbols for ultimate meaning. The chance that those symbols, given diversity of culture, etc, are in Fact Universally True, is small. The conversion experience has to be profound, on the order of a destructing of one’s personal reality, in order to form a new understanding on more universal terms, because then the mid id jogged out of tis habitual self referencing and validating mode. Try it some time. Very revealing.

Few shocks are of the nature that a view of the brain’s awareness’ basic operating system is experienced. But it is only at that level, as far as I can tell, that we can make any sort of experiential tie to the non-duality of the Unchanging and the manifest. Franklin Merrell-Wolff makes a remarkable exegesis of his own experience in this area in his second work. Math might describe it from the outside, up to a point. That is form. Insight is by experience, and that is meaning. They can go together as and experience of Unity.

But the nature of the world view held by one who has such a shock can distort it, and even precipitate denial. That is unfortunate, because similar to having two languages with distinct grammars yielding a deeper understanding of the nature of symbolic communication, having even a taste of another mode of awareness allows for the building oaf another paradigm of dimensional interpretation afforded to few. It is from that deeper world view that such questions as the “movement” from the Eternal to the manifest may have significant meaning.

 

[Cecilianus]

I’m coming into this a little bit late, and the first post seems to have been deleted. Nonetheless I had three brief remarks about the previous posts, and a question that I’m hoping someone could answer for me.

@hatsoff: I think you might be misunderstanding the argument, since Aquinas DID in fact believe it possible for time to extend back into infinity, and impossible to rationally prove otherwise - in other words, in his view the creation of the universe at a point in time is a matter of faith alone. (You should know that he was wrong, however - we know from science that it did begin in a point of time 13.7 billion years ago.)

My understanding of motion, which I got from a college natural theology class, was that for Aquinas it was a change which was caused simultaneous with its cause (e.g., when I lift a heavy object, my act of lifting is simultaneous with the being-liftedness of the object) - this is what distinguishes the First Way from the Second Way. (That is, we wouldn’t describe an event today as being “moved” by the Big Bang, even though that was how it came into existence 13.7 billion years ago.) However, I believe that hatsoff’s remark about the only change he knows of being physical change extended over time is true in our modern, physical understanding of the world, since atoms and energy can only move at a finite speed.

Second point I wanted to make to you: Logic and mathematical realities are universally true and exist outside of our mind. I say this because you can’t do science without them. As a student of physics I cannot make sense of what I do without assuming the truth of mathematics. Even if there were nobody around to think about it, 2 + 2 would still equal 4.

@Detales: Metaphysics is the study of being, and as such there is an ambiguity: By Being do we mean God, or do we mean the world of beings around us maya? In scholastic philosophy the words Being and Metaphysics are used to describe both, with God being the summit of the science of Metaphysics (in the order in which we study them) and the Principle of the subject of Metaphysics (in the order of reality). Since God is eternal and unchanging, motion (change, in the medieval use of the word) occurs only in the world, not in God; but God is viewed as the origin of motion while Himself being unmoved (the “Unmoved Mover”), hence we call it “metaphysical motion”. I would agree with your statement that the term “metaphysical” is technically less than perfectly correct, however.

@Zeno and calculus: I don’t think that calculus employs actual infinities; I always understood a limit as a potential infinity, and infinite series are certainly potential infinities. If calculus did use actual infinities, then it WOULD follow that they exist in the real world, since the real world can be modeled by calculus. As a branch of mathematics, calculus is true just as logic is true.

Even if you could and did actually divide up a space of time into an actual infinity, it’s still a finite amount of time you’re carving up, and when you sum up an infinite number of infinitely small pieces you get a finite answer. (We do this every time we solve a definite integral.) Furthermore, the quantum nature of reality poses an additional problem for Zeno.

Now is my question: The biggest “sticking point” I get caught up on in the First Way is the move from my soul to God. Let’s say we trace the order of causality from the motion we started with to its proximate mover, and keep going back. Eventually we are going to get to my soul, if it happens to be a motion I am performing. (Let’s say I am lifting that heavy object again - this is a perfectly good example of a motion in the sense that Aquinas is talking about.) I chose to perform that motion; what is it about my soul that prevents IT from being an “unmoved mover”? Nobody today seriously believes that the moon is moving my soul (as Avicenna thought, and - incidentally - as was taught by one of the Upanisads!), and I can’t accept astrology for scientific, philosophical, and religious reasons. It certainly seems to me like I am originating the motion; that’s why I believe I have free will. How can you show me that God is moving my soul?

 

[warpspeedpetey]

How can you show me that God is moving my soul?

an excellent exposition, it seems to me though that if one is the originator of his own motion, that implies he is a necessary being, as any soul might not have been one can demonstrate its contingency. therefore, one cannot stop at his own soul in the cahin of contingent beings.

 

[Detales]

Cecilianus~~"@Detales: Metaphysics is the study of being, and as such there is an ambiguity: By Being do we mean God, or do we mean the world of beings around us maya? In scholastic philosophy the words Being and Metaphysics are used to describe both, with God being the summit of the science of Metaphysics (in the order in which we study them) and the Principle of the subject of Metaphysics (in the order of reality). Since God is eternal and unchanging, motion (change, in the medieval use of the word) occurs only in the world, not in God; but God is viewed as the origin of motion while Himself being unmoved (the “Unmoved Mover”), hence we call it “metaphysical motion”. I would agree with your statement that the term “metaphysical” is technically less than perfectly correct, however.

I would contend that genuine metaphysics is the statement of propositions derived from experiencing Being/being at a root or radical level. While Catholicism is an “ascending” religious form, therefore primarily an exoteric expostulation proposing faith as its “go to” methodology, there is another way. That is a way that neither tradition, Scriptures, faith, or rituals contain, though those may rightfully be used as pointers to those who have eyes and ears for the hidden teaching that Jesus can be attributed as pointing to, as well as some of the early Fathers of the church. However, as Augustine implied in his City of God, that Way is for the few, not the many. If we subscribe intellectually to that Way, let alone have experienced it, then we know either by postulate or by Identity, or somewhere in between, that by “Being” we mean both God and the world taken as a Unity. In that schema what an exotericist might call God might correspondingly be called, though not equal, “The Ground of Being” or “Ishwara,” an hierarchical term not know by many in the West.

So, in a sideways sense, I suppose that all movement could be called metaphysical movement. But that takes us to the use of terminology in this whole matter. In that regard it is necessary to remember that our dialogs and discussions here are about parts or facets of our own mental maps regarding the structure of awareness and its contents. Our maps are not the territory, those mental equivalencies being symbolic representations themselves. And this is the defect of the ascending form of religion which claims that the map is the territory, in the sense that faith based on Scriptures, etc. constitutes the necessary component of salvific action. It does not, though it may point to it, and indeed foster it, though it is not *per se *the accomplishment.

So, for those who are incapable or uninformed of the ascending/descending dynamic, and the possibility of acting in the world from a balanced experiential knowledge of these, we do make the distinction between God and Creation. This is yet useful while a person is capable only of subject/object relative awareness, and has not, as some say, gone “beyond the mind.” Of course, for someone who hasn’t, such a concept is dismissed outright. For someone who has, it is clearly seen as the foundation of the esoteric aspect of the Abrahamic religions, as well as the the descending forms of religion found int e East. In this area of competency we can find an actual agreement between East and West, because the scope of such Knowledge knows neither directions, locations, nor attributes, and yet is the unmovable ground for metaphysical assertions.

 

[Cecilianus]

an excellent exposition, it seems to me though that if one is the originator of his own motion, that implies he is a necessary being, as any soul might not have been one can demonstrate its contingency. therefore, one cannot stop at his own soul in the cahin of contingent beings.

Let’s say God creates my soul at a point in time (my conception), but that within time that is the only time when God gives being to my soul. (My understanding is that since God is eternal and acts eternally, He creates the soul and sustains it in one act of creation - occasionalism violates the apparent stability of creation and also God’s ability to truly create, and I see no need for God to “continue” to sustain the existence of something in time as a separate act from creation, since things naturally tend to keep existing. Annihilation would be a miracle, not the natural result of what would happen should God abstain from acting.) When I perform an action now, why would God need to initiate that individual action? Isn’t it sufficient to say that God created the soul in the beginning, and that later motions I performed began with me?

So we can’t stop with the soul ultimately, since we need to explain where the soul came from, but in that individual action, it is unmoved. (I wouldn’t deny that the soul is influenced - by subconscious desires, by environmental influences, by divine grace, by temptation, etc. - but they do not force our hand, and our soul is more than the sum of its influences.)

 

[Cecilianus]

I would contend that genuine metaphysics is the statement of propositions derived from experiencing Being/being at a root or radical level. While Catholicism is an “ascending” religious form, therefore primarily an exoteric expostulation proposing faith as its “go to” methodology, there is another way. That is a way that neither tradition, Scriptures, faith, or rituals contain, though those may rightfully be used as pointers to those who have eyes and ears for the hidden teaching that Jesus can be attributed as pointing to, as well as some of the early Fathers of the church. However, as Augustine implied in his City of God, that Way is for the few, not the many. If we subscribe intellectually to that Way, let alone have experienced it, then we know either by postulate or by Identity, or somewhere in between, that by “Being” we mean both God and the world taken as a Unity. In that schema what an exotericist might call God might correspondingly be called, though not equal, “The Ground of Being” or “Ishwara,” an hierarchical term not know by many in the West.

So, in a sideways sense, I suppose that all movement could be called metaphysical movement. But that takes us to the use of terminology in this whole matter. In that regard it is necessary to remember that our dialogs and discussions here are about parts or facets of our own mental maps regarding the structure of awareness and its contents. Our maps are not the territory, those mental equivalencies being symbolic representations themselves. And this is the defect of the ascending form of religion which claims that the map is the territory, in the sense that faith based on Scriptures, etc. constitutes the necessary component of salvific action. It does not, though it may point to it, and indeed foster it, though it is not *per se *the accomplishment.

So, for those who are incapable or uninformed of the ascending/descending dynamic, and the possibility of acting in the world from a balanced experiential knowledge of these, we do make the distinction between God and Creation. This is yet useful while a person is capable only of subject/object relative awareness, and has not, as some say, gone “beyond the mind.” Of course, for someone who hasn’t, such a concept is dismissed outright. For someone who has, it is clearly seen as the foundation of the esoteric aspect of the Abrahamic religions, as well as the the descending forms of religion found int e East. In this area of competency we can find an actual agreement between East and West, because the scope of such Knowledge knows neither directions, locations, nor attributes, and yet is the unmovable ground for metaphysical assertions.

Good exposition of the esoteric/exoteric distinction the way I understand it. This looks promising for a fruitful discussion intellectually helpful to both of us.

1. Historically the Way (as you called it) was identified by the early Church Fathers with the sacramental life of Catholicism. They usually called this “gnosis” (which they - St. Irenaeus and St. Clement of Alexandria - distinguised as being true knowledge, against the false “Gnosticism”). As I am not a historian and nor is there room here to give a full historical thesis, I would recommend Jean Borella’s study “Guenonian Esoterism and Christian Mystery”, which was written to correct the historical treatment of Christian esoterism given by Rene Guenon. The book is published by World Wisdom Books.
2. Esotericism are not devoid of rituals and tradition; rather, they are conveyed through them. For non-Christian examples, see the Hindu initiation rituals (such as the Shaivite initiations), Masonic (especially Rosicrucian) rituals, Sufi dhikr, Sikh khalsa, the Elysinian mysteries, and Taoist temple magic. These all claim to be the esoterism of a religion - Shaivitism and Sikhism claim to be esoterism of Hinduism, the mystery religions esoterism of Greek polytheism, and Christianity is the esoteric meaning hidden within - that is, foretold by - Judaism. Christianity does have the character of an initiatic religion - we have the Sacraments. It is the Sacraments that initiate man into the Mystical Body of Christ; they convey divine grace.
3. Identity in the sense of numeric identity is not an accurate description of mystical union in most religions. For Hinduism, look at the episode in the Chandogya Upanisad where Maghava/Indra is studying with Prajapati. His final, consummate enlightenment comes when he realizes the distinction between the Divine atman - God - and the human atman - the ground of being in the soul, which as Meister Eckhart and Angelus Silesius taught is “uncreated and uncreatable” as it is a participation in Being (to use a scholastic phrasing). (We are not identified with this “ground of being”, however, since in Upanisadic passages that deal with atman use a separate term for the ego - I believe the Sanskrit term was “hamsa”.)

Samkara, the best expositor the Vedanta, devotes much of his commentary to distinguishes Brahman from the individual in Upanisadic passages.

For Sufism, look at al-Ghazali’s explanation of Abu Yazid’s ecstasy. Abu Yazid in his individuality is not God; rather, the meaning of his utterances - and Al-Hallaj’s “Ana-l Haqq” - is that God is speaking through him; he is so much abased in himself that he is invisible as it were, with God shining through him. This really happens when anyone does anything perfectly, even outside the realm of sanctity - I was reminded of Pope’s couplet, “Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night,/ God said ‘Let Newton be’, and all was light.” It’s as if Newton didn’t even exist; God revealed physics to us in the act of creating Newton.

For Christianity, read St. John of the Cross and the Greek Fathers. The Catholic doctrine of theosis - which is truly a mystical doctrine, just as much if not more so than those of the Sufis and Advaitists - preserves both the created individuality of the soul and the complete transformation of the soul by divine grace, or divine being, or (in Palamist parlance) “divine energies” (though this could convey an undesirable anthropomorphic notion of grace on the pattern of biological vitality or electromagnetic forces).

1. What characterizes Christianity as a unique religion is precisely its “descending” character - specifically, the Incarnation of the God-Man. Other religions are “ascending”, that is, striving up to understand God. In Christianity, God came down and became united to our nature.

 

[Cecilianus]

I would contend that genuine metaphysics is the statement of propositions derived from experiencing Being/being at a root or radical level.

There are two ways of doing metaphysics. One is rational and starts with empirical philosophy; the other is mystical and starts with the intuition and vision of God. The latter way is only open to saints, however. The two ways should meet in the middle, since Truth is one.

1. Quick note: Ishwara is the “personal God” which the Yoga school of Hinduism recommends the devout to imagine or posit for themselves in order to encourage them towards moksha, but it is strictly an upaya (I don’t know the Hindu term for this; upaya is a Buddhist word) or useful fiction; that is, an “exoterism” through-and-through. You may have meant a different term.
2. Distinction between God and Creation: You are right in one sense, that this distinction is relative and not Absolute - there would be no distinction if there were no creation, and created reality is not necessary. If you consider only that which is Absolute, there is no distinction - there is only God. But from our perspective, we exist separate from God (we are not God), so even though God created us and is present in us through His creation (and through the fact that everything we receive comes from Him), He is separate from us. Creation is good - otherwise we would not have been created - and it is likewise good for us to contemplate creation, so I wouldn’t say that the God/Creation distinction is in any way “lower” than knowledge of God alone. Furthermore, we cannot have “Absolute” knowledge that ignores the distinction between God and Creation - we must first set aside creation as distinct from God in order to contemplate God as the Absolute. This presupposes that distinction.
3. Final point:

In this area of competency we can find an actual agreement between East and West, because the scope of such Knowledge knows neither directions, locations, nor attributes, and yet is the unmovable ground for metaphysical assertions.

Yes. Sufism and the Vedanta at their highest meet Catholic mystical theology in perfect concord, though the former are very difficult to understand correctly and are often misunderstood. Truth is one wherever it is found.

 

[JDaniel]

I do not believe I was being “snooty” or disrespectful. I never knew Aquinas. I have read only snippets of his work.

I merely disagree with his conclusions, and regard his reasoning as unsound.

You’ll have to agree that there was a disdainful attitude expressed in you statement. However, since you have clarified it with merely disagreeing with his conclusions, perhaps you can point out one of two important conclusions you disagree with.

jd

 

[JDaniel]

Is any change possible without time?

For God, anything He does is without time, per se. For us, no. Even in simultaneity there is time.

jd

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Let’s say God creates my soul at a point in time (my conception), but that within time that is the only time when God gives being to my soul. (My understanding is that since God is eternal and acts eternally, He creates the soul and sustains it in one act of creation - occasionalism violates the apparent stability of creation and also God’s ability to truly create, and I see no need for God to “continue” to sustain the existence of something in time as a separate act from creation, since things naturally tend to keep existing. Annihilation would be a miracle, not the natural result of what would happen should God abstain from acting.) When I perform an action now, why would God need to initiate that individual action? Isn’t it sufficient to say that God created the soul in the beginning, and that later motions I performed began with me?

i wouldnt say that G-d sustains or continues the existence of beings in a temporal sense, but rather time is an artifact of our limited processing power, a restriction which wouldnt seem to apply to an omniscient, omnipotent G-d, who would necessarily be able to act on and process all information simultaneously. making existence a timeless now. it is simply easiest to describe it in temporal terms. but thats just my opinion.

So we can’t stop with the soul ultimately, since we need to explain where the soul came from, but in that individual action, it is unmoved. (I wouldn’t deny that the soul is influenced - by subconscious desires, by environmental influences, by divine grace, by temptation, etc. - but they do not force our hand, and our soul is more than the sum of its influences.)

im not sure what you might mean here with the bolded part?

 

[Cecilianus]

i wouldnt say that G-d sustains or continues the existence of beings in a temporal sense, but rather time is an artifact of our limited processing power, a restriction which wouldnt seem to apply to an omniscient, omnipotent G-d, who would necessarily be able to act on and process all information simultaneously. making existence a timeless now. it is simply easiest to describe it in temporal terms. but thats just my opinion.

Agreed (except for the Kantian description of time - something which is objective and outside of us, a characteristic of the physical universe and not of our minds), but wouldn’t this collapse the First Way into the question “Where did your soul come from”?

im not sure what you might mean here with the bolded part?

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”.

 

[JDaniel]

@hatsoff: I think you might be misunderstanding the argument, since Aquinas DID in fact believe it possible for time to extend back into infinity, and impossible to rationally prove otherwise - in other words, in his view the creation of the universe at a point in time is a matter of faith alone. (You should know that he was wrong, however - we know from science that it did begin in a point of time 13.7 billion years ago.)

Cecilianus:

Aquinas was never absolutely sure that the universe was infinite. That being said, he did believe that in a series of movers that are only accidentally subordinated to one another, an actual infinity is possible. (Summa Theologica, I, q. 46, a. 2, reply 7.) However, he did not believe that a series of essentially subordinated movers could regress infinitely. However, now that we’re at least pretty sure that the universe is only about 10 - 20 billion years old, which St. Thomas could not have known, we can surmise that even an accidentally subordinated series cannot be infinite.

My understanding of motion, which I got from a college natural theology class, was that for Aquinas it was a change which was caused simultaneous with its cause (e.g., when I lift a heavy object, my act of lifting is simultaneous with the being-liftedness of the object) -

Close, but not quite. Think about it this way. If my arm moves a stick that, in turn, moves a ball along the ground, I have a simple example of a series of movers. As you can no doubt see, there are (at least) three exigencies of this motion: the arm (or first mover - in this example), the stick (or second mover), and finally, the ball, which is moved. The stick is being moved by the arm - and it is moved simultaneously. The arm is moving with the stick and the ball, simultaneously. The ball is being moved, simultaneously by the stick and the arm.

this is what distinguishes the First Way from the Second Way.

Not so. They are essentially two ways of explaining the same phenomenon. Aquinas explains “motion” first in order to more adequately explain causing, which then makes it easier to understand God as the Cause of causes.

(That is, we wouldn’t describe an event today as being “moved” by the Big Bang, even though that was how it came into existence 13.7 billion years ago.)

Although there are things that are moving today that were set in motion by the Big Bang. How inertia works may not be as well understood from Newton’s Axioms, as they seem to describe only that outside forces can modify forward motion. There are theories that describe what keeps a particular mass in motion, in the absence of external impediments. So, in that sense you are correct.

However, I believe that hatsoff’s remark about the only change he knows of being physical change extended over time is true in our modern, physical understanding of the world, since atoms and energy can only move at a finite speed.

All change is involved in time, in some way. That being said, change caused by an essentially subordinated series of movers is simultaneous change. But, in time, there is the exigency known as the Now. The Now is something very distinct from anything that is part of the continuum of time. Simply, it is the last exterior surface of the terminus of a time slice and the first exterior surface of the beginning of the ensuing, new time slice. We know that it exists, but, we cannot describe in any but those terms. We cannot even recall that nano-instant (for lack of a better word), yet we know that it just passed us by.

Second point I wanted to make to you: Logic and mathematical realities are universally true and exist outside of our mind. I say this because you can’t do science without them. As a student of physics I cannot make sense of what I do without assuming the truth of mathematics. Even if there were nobody around to think about it, 2 + 2 would still equal 4.

However, do not forget that as the human mind abstracts from physical reality, it must perform an additional abstraction in order to grasp the “matter” of mathematics. The first abstraction takes the mind from the sensible world to the order of individual intelligible matter. The second abstraction, takes us to the universal or common consideration of intelligible matter. In this sense, it is not physically real. Number does not burn; nor does it have any kind of texture, nor does it have mass. One cannot throw a circle and sever a head. Mathematics is the consideration of quantified substance, and though it may exist in the absence of man or, any other living creature that can count, it is utterly meaningless - except perhaps to God.

@Detales: Metaphysics is the study of being, and as such there is an ambiguity: By Being do we mean God, or do we mean the world of beings around us maya? In scholastic philosophy the words Being and Metaphysics are used to describe both, with God being the summit of the science of Metaphysics (in the order in which we study them) and the Principle of the subject of Metaphysics (in the order of reality). Since God is eternal and unchanging, motion (change, in the medieval [modern, too] use of the word) occurs only in the world, not in God; but God is viewed as the origin of motion while Himself being unmoved (the “Unmoved Mover”), hence we call it “metaphysical motion”. I would agree with your statement that the term “metaphysical” is technically less than perfectly correct, however.

This does not seem quite correct, but, I’m not sure why at this moment.

continued . . .

 

[JDaniel]

continuation from part 1:

@Detales: Metaphysics is the study of being, and as such there is an ambiguity: By Being do we mean God, or do we mean the world of beings around us maya? In scholastic philosophy the words Being and Metaphysics are used to describe both, with God being the summit of the science of Metaphysics (in the order in which we study them) and the Principle of the subject of Metaphysics (in the order of reality). Since God is eternal and unchanging, motion (change, in the medieval [modern, too] use of the word) occurs only in the world, not in God; but God is viewed as the origin of motion while Himself being unmoved (the “Unmoved Mover”), hence we call it “metaphysical motion”. I would agree with your statement that the term “metaphysical” is technically less than perfectly correct, however.

This does not seem quite correct, but, I’m not sure why at this moment.

Now is my question: The biggest “sticking point” I get caught up on in the First Way is the move from my soul to God. Let’s say we trace the order of causality from the motion we started with to its proximate mover, and keep going back. Eventually we are going to get to my soul, if it happens to be a motion I am performing. (Let’s say I am lifting that heavy object again - this is a perfectly good example of a motion in the sense that Aquinas is talking about.) I chose to perform that motion; what is it about my soul that prevents IT from being an “unmoved mover”?

Nothing. As a series of accidentally subordinated movers, your soul could well be, in fact, a prime mover. And, that’s what you are describing.

Nobody today seriously believes that the moon is moving my soul (as Avicenna thought, and - incidentally - as was taught by one of the Upanisads!), and I can’t accept astrology for scientific, philosophical, and religious reasons. It certainly seems to me like I am originating the motion; that’s why I believe I have free will. How can you show me that God is moving my soul?

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

 

[JDaniel]

Let’s say God creates my soul at a point in time (my conception), but that within time that is the only time when God gives being to my soul. (My understanding is that since God is eternal and acts eternally, He creates the soul and sustains it in one act of creation - occasionalism violates the apparent stability of creation and also God’s ability to truly create, and I see no need for God to “continue” to sustain the existence of something in time as a separate act from creation, since things naturally tend to keep existing. Annihilation would be a miracle, not the natural result of what would happen should God abstain from acting.)

Cecilianus:
I have experienced the same quandary. I think that there may be a somewhat adequate analogy that could be used to kind of get to an understanding of what it means for God to instantiate everything in one Now. Perhaps the best way to consider it is to think of it as a cascading, in time, yet a cascade to God, outside of time. From this, do you see the possibility that annihilation might not be a miracle should God discontinue maintaining the physical world? It is so easy for physical things to become not alive, or not existent. The fact that such a huge multitude of things exist is what makes it harder for it all to just cease to be; at least, in our minds.

When I perform an action now, why would God need to initiate that individual action? Isn’t it sufficient to say that God created the soul in the beginning, and that later motions I performed began with me?

Certainly.

So we can’t stop with the soul ultimately, since we need to explain where the soul came from, but in that individual action, it is unmoved. (I wouldn’t deny that the soul is influenced - by subconscious desires, by environmental influences, by divine grace, by temptation, etc. - but they do not force our hand, and our soul is more than the sum of its influences.)

But here we still get into the question of whether or not our choices are predestined.

jd