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Single Idea 21270
[filed under theme 28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / a. Cosmological Proof
]
Full Idea
If there is no first cause among efficient causes, there is no ultimate or intermediate cause. That in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity is plainly false. So it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, which everyone calls God.
Gist of Idea
Way 2: no effect without a cause, and this cannot go back to infinity, so there is First Cause
Source
Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologicae [1265], Ia,Q02,Art3,Reply)
Book Ref
'The Existence of God', ed/tr. Hick,John [Macmillan 1964], p.84
A Reaction
[compressed] It doesn't seem to follow at all that the First Cause is God. There could be a single thing like the Phoenix, with unique self-causing properties. Or a quantum fluctuation.
The
21 ideas
with the same theme
[existence of nature proves God exists]:
8144
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Brahman is the Uncaused Cause
[Anon (Upan)]
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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]
|
21271
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Way 3: contingent beings eventually vanish, so continuity needs a necessary being
[Aquinas]
|
21270
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Way 2: no effect without a cause, and this cannot go back to infinity, so there is First Cause
[Aquinas]
|
21272
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Way 4: the source of all qualities is their maximum, so something (God) causes all perfections
[Aquinas]
|
22124
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We can't infer the infinity of God from creation ex nihilo
[Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
|
3634
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We can't prove a first cause from our inability to grasp infinity
[Descartes]
|
12566
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We exist, so there is Being, which requires eternal being
[Locke]
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19418
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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
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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
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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]
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