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Single Idea 21269

[filed under theme 28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / a. Cosmological Proof ]

Full Idea

A thing can only be reduced from potentiality to actuality by something actual. A thing can never be in actuality and potentiality in the same respect. So what is moved must be moved by another. But this cannot go on to infinity, with no first mover.

Gist of Idea

Way 1: the infinite chain of potential-to-actual movement has to have a first mover

Source

Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologicae [1265], Ia,Q02,Art3,Reply)

Book Ref

'The Existence of God', ed/tr. Hick,John [Macmillan 1964], p.83

A Reaction

[compressed] This relies on the Aristotelian ideas of potentiality and actuality. We might talk about things moving, but lacking the 'power' to move. This is almost identical to Plato in 'The Laws' (which I guess Aquinas knew nothing of).

The 21 ideas with the same theme [existence of nature proves God exists]:

8144 Brahman is the Uncaused Cause [Anon (Upan)]
21257 Self-generating motion is clearly superior to all other kinds of motion [Plato]
21258 The only possible beginning for the endless motions of reality is something self-generated [Plato]
21261 Self-moving soul has to be the oldest thing there is [Plato]
5699 If matter wasn't everlasting, everything would have disappeared by now [Lucretius]
5760 The power through which creation remains in existence and motion I call 'God' [Boethius]
5614 If you assume that there must be a necessary being, you can't say which being has this quality [Kant on Aquinas]
21269 Way 1: the infinite chain of potential-to-actual movement has to have a first mover [Aquinas]
21270 Way 2: no effect without a cause, and this cannot go back to infinity, so there is First Cause [Aquinas]
21271 Way 3: contingent beings eventually vanish, so continuity needs a necessary being [Aquinas]
21272 Way 4: the source of all qualities is their maximum, so something (God) causes all perfections [Aquinas]
22124 We can't infer the infinity of God from creation ex nihilo [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
3634 We can't prove a first cause from our inability to grasp infinity [Descartes]
12566 We exist, so there is Being, which requires eternal being [Locke]
19418 Mechanics shows that all motion originates in other motion, so there is a Prime Mover [Leibniz]
2099 The existence of God, and all metaphysics, follows from the Principle of Sufficient Reason [Leibniz]
21254 A chain of events requires a cause for the whole as well as the parts, yet the chain is just a sum of parts [Hume]
1435 If something must be necessary so that something exists rather than nothing, why can't the universe be necessary? [Hume]
5598 If you prove God cosmologically, by a regress in the sequences of causes, you can't abandon causes at the end [Kant]
6205 To know if this world must have been created by God, we would need to know all other possible worlds [Kant]
20706 A distinct cause of the universe can't be material (which would be part of the universe) [Davies,B]