The unmoved mover

Hume said:
Aristotle's definition of God as thought thinking thought (Metaphysics) is succinct.
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Since we were just talking about "pantheism" as a form of ineffible thought in the universe, this sounds like it might be a related concept.

What does "thought" actually entail here?

The reason I ask is because "thought" as one generally understands it is the output of a brain (or some other, perhaps less "physical" thing). But at the end of the day what was Aristotle getting at if he had the idea of "God as Thought Thinking Thought"?

That sounds pretty interesting but I'm having difficulty with getting my head around it.
 
Cypress said:
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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Yet for Aristotle the universe has no material beginning. No "pop."
 
Daylight63 said:
Since we were just talking about "pantheism" as a form of ineffible thought in the universe, this sounds like it might be a related concept.

What does "thought" actually entail here?

The reason I ask is because "thought" as one generally understands it is the output of a brain (or some other, perhaps less "physical" thing). But at the end of the day what was Aristotle getting at if he had the idea of "God as Thought Thinking Thought"?

That sounds pretty interesting but I'm having difficulty with getting my head around it.
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Right, because science convinced you that you are not allowed to think of world as anything but a physical process.
 
Cypress said:
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. A 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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But we can all agree that that a "purposeful" "unmoved mover" must have come into existence in order to make the universe, correct? Or is it "eternal"?

What is the "nature" of this organizing principle? Is it a "being", does it have "a will", does it make "decisions" and "choices"? Or is it merely, for instance, the "nature of math" or some such non-being concept?

I can see that if one were to say "the nature of the physical laws is eternal and that organizes the universe" that's pretty reasonable, but those things don't have a "will" or make "choices".

I think that brings the discussion back to the nature of the proposed God. If it has a "will" then the questions get a lot more complex.
 
Daylight63 said:
But we can all agree that that a "purposeful" "unmoved mover" must have come into existence in order to make the universe, correct?
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Wrong. Prime Mover is just the principle of motion.

Christian theology, St Thomas, obscures Aristotle's own ideas.
 
Hume said:
Right, because science convinced you that you are not allowed to think of world as anything but a physical process.
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Not necessarily! I'm open to something else. But I also think discussions like this can easily get off track if the foundational terms aren't really described in more detail so that all parties kind of know what is being said.

The reason I raise that is, I think you will agree, there are a ton of new age folks who bandy about random phrases that sound really deep but really are just a mish-mash of concepts that they can't put a finger on but which they will extrapolate to explain everything. At the base of it, if we all understand what the terms mean then it gives meaning to the discussion.
 
Daylight63 said:
Not necessarily! I'm open to something else. But I also think discussions like this can easily get off track if the foundational terms aren't really described in more detail so that all parties kind of know what is being said.

The reason I raise that is, I think you will agree, there are a ton of new age folks who bandy about random phrases that sound really deep but really are just a mish-mash of concepts that they can't put a finger on but which they will extrapolate to explain everything. At the base of it, if we all understand what the terms mean then it gives meaning to the discussion.
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I don't care what New Age people think.
 
Cypress said:
Aristotle agrees with me and he wasn't a Christian. He looked at an intelligible and organized cosmos, and logically surmised it was the result of a rational unmoved mover.
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Wrong. Aristotle states there is no origin to either the physical universe or realm of thought.
 
Hume said:
Wrong. Prime Mover is just the principle of motion.
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That I think I can be down with. As I said to another poster: if we are looking at the concept of God it is good to get a sense of the nature of that concept. If it is just the principle of motion then it doesn't have a "will" or can make "choices". It just is.

It is like a "God" that has no choice but create the universe.

That's easier to understand

 
Daylight63 said:
That I think I can be down with. As I said to another poster: if we are looking at the concept of God it is good to get a sense of the nature of that concept. If it is just the principle of motion then it doesn't have a "will" or can make "choices". It just is.

It is like a "God" that has no choice but create the universe.

That's easier to understand
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And Prime Mover is not cause of the universe. The world always existed, for Aristotle.
 
Hume said:
And Prime Mover is not cause of the universe. The world always existed, for Aristotle.
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Ahhhh, now we are getting closer to an atheistic form of things. IF the universe has always existed then there is no need for a creator. If the laws of nature are simply inherent in the universe then it requires no "mover".

This is also, in some ways, unsatisfying as well, though. It replaces the concept of an eternal God with the concept of an eternal Universe. I think a lot of people would find that insufficient for them.

Usually when someone raises, say Aquinas' First Uncaused Cause as the definition of God the usual response is that if one can make a special pleading for God to be an eternal uncaused thing, why couldn't one simply assume the universe is eternal and uncaused? (We can hand wave away for the moment some of the issues around the Big Bang....so what I actually mean by "the universe is eternal" is that "Whatever the universe banged out of is eternal and this is just "phase" of that eternal thing's existence.)
 
Daylight63 said:
Ahhhh, now we are getting closer to an atheistic form of things. IF the universe has always existed then there is no need for a creator. If the laws of nature are simply inherent in the universe then it requires no "mover".

This is also, in some ways, unsatisfying as well, though. It replaces the concept of an eternal God with the concept of an eternal Universe. I think a lot of people would find that insufficient for them.

Usually when someone raises, say Aquinas' First Uncaused Cause as the definition of God the usual response is that if one can make a special pleading for God to be an eternal uncaused thing, why couldn't one simply assume the universe is eternal and uncaused? (We can hand wave away for the moment some of the issues around the Big Bang....so what I actually mean by "the universe is eternal" is that "Whatever the universe banged out of is eternal and this is just "phase" of that eternal thing's existence.)
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I find the idea of the universe always existing rather easy to comprehend. The idea of creation never made sense.
 
Hume said:
The Prime Mover is only the cause of motion.
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Without motion there is no time. Time without motion is meaningless.

Without motion and time it is meaningless to talk about the cosmos, therefore Aristotle's unmoved mover is the first cause, or uncaused causer of the universe.
 
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