Where is the efficient cause in Aristotle's natural motion?

[thinkandmull]

Aristotle I think would say that an effective cause in “giving a push”, would be changed itself by being the pusher. His God is more future than past (behind). Linus pointed this out several times on this forum. This points out a paradox in Aquinas’s position. Aquinas said that because an intellect can only think of one thing at a time, God knows things through one thought. How is this possible however when there is God’s necessary thoughts on one hand and His contingency to create on the other. I haven’t found where Aquinas actually addresses this specific point. I think the answer may be that ,next to God’s necessity, contingency is nothing. And yet God’s thought of us is not an accident. I think that makes sense

 

[thinkandmull]

I think its certainly a sin to believe there could be an infinity of past causes. Regardless of the strange mind bending certain famous philosopher experienced on this, it is clearly against the intuition and the principle of sufficient reason. I don’t see how one can believe that, and yet have a leg to stand on in believing the world is contingent. The temporality of the world and its contingency are natural law truths

I clearly prove there is a God on this page: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=966025&page=4

 

[Richca]

Some in the Scholastic period take the generans cause to be some sort of ontological formal cause which makes natural motion a property of the stone itself.

 

[Richca]

Aristotle I think would say that an effective cause in “giving a push”, would be changed itself by being the pusher. His God is more future than past (behind). Linus pointed this out several times on this forum. This points out a paradox in Aquinas’s position. Aquinas said that because an intellect can only think of one thing at a time, God knows things through one thought. How is this possible however when there is God’s necessary thoughts on one hand and His contingency to create on the other. I haven’t found where Aquinas actually addresses this specific point. I think the answer may be that ,next to God’s necessity, contingency is nothing. And yet God’s thought of us is not an accident. I think that makes sense

Change or motion involves a transition from potency to act. The first unmoved mover or God is pure act. God causes and moves things without a change in himself because there is no potentiality in Him. He is pure actuality. Only a being in act can reduce a potentiality to act. Being that God is pure actuality, he can reduce a potentiality to act.

 

[laircy]

Has anyone here compared different translations of Aristotle? Are they basically the same?

Since Aristotle is so succinct, each word can have quite a bit of weight, and the confusion comes when different translations use different words. McKeon seems to make the most sense out of any I’ve read, however, the drawback is that he sometimes adds words that do not exist in the Greek, and that might cause a few misunderstandings.

 

[Richca]

Aristotle I think would say that an effective cause in “giving a push”, would be changed itself by being the pusher. His God is more future than past (behind). Linus pointed this out several times on this forum. This points out a paradox in Aquinas’s position. Aquinas said that because an intellect can only think of one thing at a time, God knows things through one thought. How is this possible however when there is God’s necessary thoughts on one hand and His contingency to create on the other. I haven’t found where Aquinas actually addresses this specific point. I think the answer may be that ,next to God’s necessity, contingency is nothing. And yet God’s thought of us is not an accident. I think that makes sense

The creation of the world depended not only on God’s knowledge but also his will, for God’s knowledge united with his will is the cause of things. God was free to create the world as the CCC says and a number of church councils, he did not create the world out of necessity, for the will of God necessarily wills only Himself. God possesses the fullness of being and all perfections in and of himself which he has had for all eternity. See ST, part I, q. 46, art.1. There is no contingency in God for he is pure act and Being itself. God’s being or existence is necessary.

 

[thinkandmull]

Does not God know that He choose to create? This knowledge is based on His contingent decision. His knowledge is Himself, so the contingency changed Him. That is the conclusion you are led to, unless we say that the contingent is nothing compared to the necessary, which is what I am saying, although Aquinas didn’t address this point dead on

 

[thinkandmull]

dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles1.htm#55

[7] Moreover, succession cannot be understood without time nor time without motion, since time is “the number of motion according to before and after.” But there can be no motion in God, as may be inferred from what we have said. There is, therefore, no succession in the divine consideration. Thus, all that He knows God considers together.

[9] Every intellect, furthermore, that understands one thing after the other is at one time potentially understanding and at another time actually understanding. For while it understands the first thing actually it understands the second thing potentially. But the divine intellect is never potentially, but always actually, understanding. Therefore, it does not understand things successively but rather understands them together.

 

[thinkandmull]

The only way to reconcile Aquinas and my post right before it is to that the God’s knowledge of His contingent acts is nothing to Him because they are not necessary

 

[thinkandmull]

Since Aristotle is so succinct, each word can have quite a bit of weight, and the confusion comes when different translations use different words. McKeon seems to make the most sense out of any I’ve read, however, the drawback is that he sometimes adds words that do not exist in the Greek, and that might cause a few misunderstandings.

Do you have any examples in mind?

 

[Peter_Plato]

**I think its certainly a sin to believe there could be an infinity of past causes. **Regardless of the strange mind bending certain famous philosopher experienced on this, it is clearly against the intuition and the principle of sufficient reason. I don’t see how one can believe that, and yet have a leg to stand on in believing the world is contingent. The temporality of the world and its contingency are natural law truths

I clearly prove there is a God on this page: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=966025&page=4

Why could God not bring about an infinity of simultaneous causes such that the effects are simultaneous with the cause, not in time, but absent time, i.e., in eternity?

It may boggle our temporally constrained minds, but why would that be illogical or impossible, necessarily? The possibility may highlight that our minds would require time to follow the series of causes, but that would not be a constraint on God, would it?

If you think it would, please explain because I don’t see the necessity.

 

[oldcelt]

Why could God not bring about an infinity of simultaneous causes such that the effects are simultaneous with the cause, not in time, but absent time, i.e., in eternity?

It may boggle our temporally constrained minds, but why would that be illogical or impossible, necessarily? The possibility may highlight that our minds would require time to follow the series of causes, but that would not be a constraint on God, would it?

If you think it would, please explain because I don’t see the necessity.

Why this, why that…and so on…anything is possible under certain belief systems. Not so much under others.

John

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Well, this isn’t quite true. Aristotle and Aquinas would point out that some entities are composed of parts (are divisible) and the principle of “what is moved is moved by another” simply applies inside the “system” to the workings of those parts. One part is moved by another part. The principle holds because one part, technically, is “outside” another part even though it is within a wider system of parts.

I think you need to read Feser’s Aquinas or his newer book of Scholastic Metaphysics.

I am not sure what you think I said that contradicts your above principles?

Yes I am aware that a substance can be composed of parts to solve this conundrum when I said “unless it can be shown there is an inside other.”

What I am observing is that a “mineral soul” would qualify as a separate “part” that we might validly call an “internal motor.” Such is how Aristotle seems to see how the celestial bodies could be locomoted.

But an accident of “motion” would not as I do not believe the distinction between “accidents” and “substance” may be considered a division of “parts” if we consider the “motor” simply an accident of “motion”…

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Aquinas and Aristotle thought of an eternal motion as going in a circle, as the heavenly bodies. In meditating on this, they could not see how the motion could go on like this with something spiritual (Aristotle perhaps did not believe it had to be conscious and intellectual). I have a hard time NOT seeing what they argued on this point too. However, if you think of the eternal causes as an infinite dominoes series, or an eternal free fall FROM an ever infinite material power (like a line getting closer to a point), or that each domino doesn’t just impart its motion to the next one, but ignites the next’s dormant energy, than I think you have a materialistic system that is internally consistent. This ignores the fact however that an eternity of material causes MAKES NO SENSE even positing an eternal supernatural mover

I prob don’t disagree with any of your insights here.

As you say Aristotle appears to posit that the eternal natural motion of the celestial bodies is due to a spiritual efficient cause because no material agent was perceived.

Now Newtonian physics, and indeed all observations to date of matter in motion, inducts that the positing of spiritual efficient causes is not necessary as a material efficient cause can always be found or at least be reasonably inferred. (That is not to say spiritual substance may be demanded as some other type of cause).

But that flaw with Aristotle aside, why does he not posit the same explanation for the natural motion of mineral substances (as opposed to celestial ones).

I increasingly think he implicitly does (ie a mineral soul) though he does not use the word soul.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

The inanimate thing such as a rock does have a principle of its natural motion within it. This formal principle is an accidental form in it such as weight or I believe Aristotle called it gravity (gravity here is synonomous with weight). This is the secondary cause of its motion while God is the first cause. So, God is using secondary causes whether they be one or several in the natural motion of inanimate things. The natural motion of inanimate things is caused by their very nature which nature was given them ultimately by God who is the first efficient cause and first mover. Aristotle did not ascribe to inanimate things an efficient causality or motor principle within themselves because it is quite evident that inanimate things such as rocks do not move themselves about as animate or living things do.

I am trying to understand your interpretation…
I think you are saying
(a) natural motion involves an accident of the mineral substance (which suffers the act of an unmoved mover). Isn’t this then a passive material cause not a formal cause?
(b) the efficient cause of every natural motion is directly from the unmoved mover (a spiritual substance).

This still sounds like partial divine occassionalism to me. It seems half way between (a) respecting the independent self-mobile nature of the substance (like plants and animals that move themselves) and (b) being quite independently moved by an outside mover (eg a stick moving a ball or an angel a celestial body.

I say your interpretation is “half-way” because it seems to posit that a narrow single accident (“gravitas”) of the mineral is moved by the unmoved mover instead of the form/substance as a whole.

So I would say that there is really no active secondary cause at all, just a passive material one. So “god” is the only real active (ie efficient cause) in every example of natural motion. That sounds like occassionalism because no secondary nature/agent or principle seems present. This is usually regarded as a “god of the gaps” explanation and is therefore prob suspect by reason of Ochkams razor.

Aristotle did not ascribe to inanimate things an efficient causality or motor principle within themselves because it is quite evident that inanimate things such as rocks do not move themselves about as animate or living things do.

You might be right but I don’t think this is “quite evident.” Aristotle holds that minerals would actively move if they weren’t restrained by other objects.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Change or motion involves a transition from potency to act. The first unmoved mover or God is pure act. God causes and moves things without a change in himself because there is no potentiality in Him. He is pure actuality. Only a being in act can reduce a potentiality to act. Being that God is pure actuality, he can reduce a potentiality to act.

Sure, but we need to zoom in on this and explain the efficient causality involved.
You seem to be suggesting there are no other substances/agents, no instrumental chains of motion, no other secondary natures involved in imparting natural motion to a falling mineral?

That sounds like occassionalism as below.

 

[thinkandmull]

Why could God not bring about an infinity of simultaneous causes such that the effects are simultaneous with the cause, not in time, but absent time, i.e., in eternity?

It may boggle our temporally constrained minds, but why would that be illogical or impossible, necessarily? The possibility may highlight that our minds would require time to follow the series of causes, but that would not be a constraint on God, would it?

If you think it would, please explain because I don’t see the necessity.

An infinity of simultaneous causes in time from God’s eternity? How can there be more than one motion at a time with time? As soon as you have a division of several movements, there you have none-simultaneousness within time. Anyway, saying there is an infinity of domino like effect actions from the past boggles the mind and the mind rejects it as unreasonable. If you have been conditioned to think it is possible, that is because your imagination and fondness for Aristotle has gotten in the way of letting your pure intellect think about the question. If such infinity is possible, there is no way to prove that God exists, or prove anything else for that matter

 

[thinkandmull]

I prob don’t disagree with any of your insights here.

As you say Aristotle appears to posit that the eternal natural motion of the celestial bodies is due to a spiritual efficient cause because no material agent was perceived.

Now Newtonian physics, and indeed all observations to date of matter in motion, inducts that the positing of spiritual efficient causes is not necessary as a material efficient cause can always be found or at least be reasonably inferred. (That is not to say spiritual substance may be demanded as some other type of cause).

But that flaw with Aristotle aside, why does he not posit the same explanation for the natural motion of mineral substances (as opposed to celestial ones).

I increasingly think he implicitly does (ie a mineral soul) though he does not use the word soul.

Newtonian physics really has nothing to do with this situation because we are not talking about motion in a vacuum. The eternal past motion could be like a dominoes series, especially if we take out of the equation momentum primarily and say that each energy ignites the one it connects to follow up. The circulating movements of the heavens are seen within these parameters, although the details can be variously understood. Aristotle’s imagination went to the necessary being, when it could have gone to these mechanistic explanations. He didn’t need Newton for that.

An animals soul is a mineral soul? I think so. Its a physical soul, a power, not a spiritual form

 

[thinkandmull]

“Aristotle holds that minerals would actively move if they weren’t restrained by other objects.”

Move how? Where did he write that?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Newtonian physics really has nothing to do with this situation because we are not talking about motion in a vacuum. The eternal past motion could be like a dominoes series, especially if we take out of the equation momentum primarily and say that each energy ignites the one it connects to follow up. The circulating movements of the heavens are seen within these parameters, although the details can be variously understood. Aristotle’s imagination went to the necessary being, when it could have gone to these mechanistic explanations. He didn’t need Newton for that.

Why do you think I am making use of Newtonian physics when critiquing Aristotle?
I am critiquing him, I hope, on his own terms.

An animals soul is a mineral soul? I think so. Its a physical soul, a power, not a spiritual form

You’ve misunderstood me. In Aristotle there is a descending order of souls with correspondingly more and more limited powers of “motion” (in the widest sense) …intellective, sensitive, nutritive…and I am suggesting - mineral.

I suggest the only form of “motion” that a mineral soul can impart to inanimate matter is natural motion.