The unmoved mover

Cypress said:
Aristotle conceives of a cosmos, a hierarchically ordered world in which things have their places. Human being is the highest animal of all. The highest being of all is God, the unmoved mover of the entire world. God is pure actuality and contains no matter. God is pure thought.

In the Physics, Aristotle argues that there must be a highest being.
He argues that if there is movement in the world, there must be an original source of that movement.
The original source of movement cannot itself be moved. If it were moving, it, too, would require a cause to move it.
There is thus one, primary, unmoved mover.

Aristotle’s God is not like the God of the Jews, Christians, or Muslims.
Aristotle’s God has no moral virtues. It is not generous or loving or just. To be moral implies some sort of lack.
God lacks nothing. Hence, God cannot be moral.
Aristotle’s God is pure thinking, which is the highest activity.

Aristotle’s views on these matters have been debated for centuries. The basic takeaway is Aristotle's views give affirmation to his conviction that the world is an intelligible cosmos. By having a first principle, an unmoved mover, it ultimately makes sense.



sources used:
David Roochnik, Introduction to Greek Philosophy
Robert Bartlett Masters of Greek Thought: Socrates, Plato, Aristole
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Aquinas follows it up and makes a strong case for God. The first cause.
 
Yakuda said:
Aquinas follows it up and makes a strong case for God. The first cause.
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Aquinas' "First Uncaused Cause" does have a problem at its core. It requires that there be one "special" item which can exist without a cause. But the only reason it has to exist is in order to make the argument.

Why is it NOT OK for everything else to require a "cause" but it's OK for God?

If the answer is "God is special" then it really just becomes a matter of definition. Just defining God that way by fiat doesn't actually answer any questions.
 
Daylight63 said:
Aquinas' "First Uncaused Cause" does have a problem at its core. It requires that there be one "special" item which can exist without a cause. But the only reason it has to exist is in order to make the argument.

Why is it NOT OK for everything else to require a "cause" but it's OK for God?

If the answer is "God is special" then it really just becomes a matter of definition. Just defining God that way by fiat doesn't actually answer any questions.
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You seem troubled but the concept of God. That's irrelevant.

You need to rephrase that question. I think you mean, why doesn't God require a cause but everything else does? The first fact is nothing we see creates itself yet everything we see exists. If there is no "first uncaused cause" then nothing would exist things exist. You don't like the term God, then formulate a better hypothesis. Whining about arguments no one has made is a bad hypothesis
 
Yakuda said:
You seem troubled but the concept of God.
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Why do you say that? All I did was basically walk you through the standard philosophy class rejoinder to Aquinas' argument of the first uncaused cause. You learn it in intro undergrad philosophy class.

Yakuda said:
You need to rephrase that question. I think you mean, why doesn't God require a cause but everything else does? The first fact is nothing we see creates itself yet everything we see exists. If there is no "first uncaused cause" then nothing would exist things exist. You don't like the term God, then formulate a better hypothesis. Whining about arguments no one has made is a bad hypothesis
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That doesn't really answer the question. This is something called "special pleading" in logic. It is a case where someone posits something to explain things but doesn't require that the thing they posit follow the rules. If the goal is to say that ALL THINGS REQUIRE A CAUSE then it becomes VERY hard to justify something that DOESN'T as a way to support the claim that everything requires a cause.
 
Cypress said:
Aquinas was famously keen on using Aristotelean logic, and his uncaused first cause was undoubtedly riffing off Aristotle's unmoved mover reasoning.
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Yes. As St. Thomas makes clear, the God of Christian theology is not Aristotle's God.
 
Cypress said:
Aquinas was famously keen on using Aristotelean logic, and his uncaused first cause was undoubtedly riffing off Aristotle's unmoved mover reasoning.
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Aristotle's definition of God as thought thinking thought (Metaphysics) is succinct.
 
Hume said:
Aristotle's definition of God as thought thinking thought (Metaphysics) is succinct.
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It's fine with me, because I don't see how a lawfully ordered and rationally intelligible universe just pops into existence out of nothing for no reason. An underlying purposeful and rational organizing principle - like an unmoved mover, an eternal logos, or whatever you want to call it - makes more sense.
 
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