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July 19, 2023

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What is of interest is the misunderstanding and accusations of Aquinas. They seem endless and unhinged from his actual writing.

Let's look at what he wrote.

From above
"We see in the world around us that there is an order of efficient causes. Nor is it ever found (in fact it is impossible) that something is its own efficient cause."

This is simply a statement of scientific fact. The dependent variable cannot be its own independent variable. All science proceeds from this foundational premise.


" If it were, it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. "

Another statement of fact. Nothing can both exist and exist prior to its own existence. This is purely logical.

Aquinas continues

"Nevertheless, the order of efficient causes cannot proceed to infinity, for in any such order the first is cause of the middle (whether one or many) and the middle of the last. Without the cause, the effect does not follow."

Aquinas points out that the cause most proceed the effect, and therefore be independent of it. That's pure science. The independent variable must preceed the dependent variable.

To argue that this procession proceeds from infinity is simply to claim there is no independent variable to the entire system.

Infinity within a system may exist but cannot explain the initial formation of that system.

Again, Aquinas logic is flawless and this concept has been the basis of many modern astrophysics and quantum theories.

Aquinas continues

"Thus, if the first cause did not exist, neither would the middle and last causes in the sequence. If, however, there were an infinite regression of efficient causes, there would be no first efficient cause and therefore no middle causes or final effects, which is obviously not the case."

You cannot claim an infinite regression of causes caused the system itself. Notice that Aquinas does not actually state that there isn't the potential for an infinite series of events. He only points out that this possibility can only explain intermediary causes, and not the source of the whole system.

Again, it is flawless logic that adheres entirely to modern science, and that is because Aquinas writings were contributions to the philosophy of science.

" Thus it is necessary to posit some first efficient cause,"

Here again Aquinas uses pure logic to conclude there must be an independent cause to all that proceeded from it, including any system of time or infinite causes and effects. This is flawless logic.

Aquinas doesn't say this proves God exists. It only proves that something outside and independent must have caused all this. He is using the entire argument to disprove as entirely illogical the use of an infinite series of events to claim God doesn't exist. In this he succeeds completely.

He adds
" which everyone calls ‘God.'”

Here again Aquinas doesn't say this proves God. We don't know what that cause is. He and those around him label it God. He openly acknowledges that this original cause can't be known, just as modern astrophysics also struggles with attempting to model what came before the big bang. He simply accepts the label common in his own culture.

Aquinas does discuss this labeling in detail to point out this isn't a proof, that it is simply a common premise of believers like himself. Indeed he points out it can only be a mental concept except someone choose to believe otherwise... But he is certainly free to point out the flawed arguments against God by others and does so flawlessly.

"Perhaps not everyone who hears this word 'God' understands it to signify something than which nothing greater can be thought, seeing that some have believed God to be a body [Aquinas earlier disproved this, indicating God cannot be a definable body]. Yet, granted that everyone understands that by the word 'God' is signified something than nothing greater can be thought, nevertheless, it does not therefore follow that he understands that what the word actually signifies exists actually, but only that it exists mentally. Nor can it be argued that it actually exists, unless it be admitted that there actually exists something than which nothing greater can be thought; "

Aquinas points out that this premise is the basis of his argument, that God is something so great an idea that nothing greater can be thought. That is basically saying it is beyond comprehension. And it is entirely a choice whether to believe that or not...
" and this precisely is not admitted by those who hold that God doesn't exist."

He points out that Atheists simply don't acknowldge this premise, and believers do. Very straightforward. Again, he is stating the fact that it comes down to the premises you believe. But as to arguments that God doesn't exist, they are based upon flawed logic that is based upon a premise that what is beyond thought doesn't exist. All science disproves this daily.


Actually we’ve already discussed Aquinas at some length here, Brian, at least twice that I remember.

One of those discussions would be in this thread: https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2023/04/people-cant-define-god-any-way-they-like.html#comments.
(Actually this one touches on Aquinas, and the cosmological arguments as well, but isn’t about those arguments per se.)

And another time as well, unless I misremember, we’d discussed Aquinas, and in fact focused directly on his cosmological arguments. Except I can’t find that other thread using the search thing.


-----


Aquinas is completely infantile nonsense, Brian. (I refer to the bilge that is his set of five arguments, where he sets out to prove the existence of God using logic.) Like I was saying in the other thread, this bilge is either written by a fool, or else written for consumption by fools. I wouldn’t know about what he’s written other than these “arguments” of his, and his larger body of work may indeed have merit for all I know; but as far as these “arguments” of his, Aquinas comes off as either an idiot, or else a charlatan out to mislead a bunch of ignorant rubes.

At its most fundamental, each one of Aquinas’s “arguments” is simply a case of begging the question. Complete circularity, beginning to end. It doesn’t even need too much thought, to directly see the blatant circularity for what it is.

That apart, there is a whole bunch of logical errors that are specific to each of his individual arguments. All said, those arguments aren’t just wrong, after all anyone can be wrong; Aquinas’s arguments are so utterly wrong, at each and every stage, as to be completely nonsensical, especially considering that his entire project here was a specifically logical discussion and proof of God, and further considering that the elements of logic were completely well established back during Aquinas’s day.

The logical errors apart, there’s a host of completely elementary scientific errors in Aquinas’s arguments. These scientific errors we won’t hold Aquinas to, obviously, because these scientific facts and principles were discovered well after the man was dead and gone. But absolutely, we can and will hold his present-day fanboys to them.


-----


You’ve discussed the causality argument of his here, Brian. Spence and I had started discussing a different argument back in the other thread, the Prime Mover thing. So maybe we could carry on that comment discussion of ours over here in this thread then, seeing this one’s about Aquinas, even though that discussion was about a different “cosmological argument” than the causality thing you talk about here.

BTW
My citations of Aquinas come from.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theological I, First and Second Articles

As for the title of this blog,
"Religion hates mystery. Science loves mystery."

For Aquinas it is the exact opposite..

The Atheist argung against Aquinas uses the flawed argument of the closed system when they claim an infinite regression is all there is, that there is no actual primary cause to all these effects and their intermediary causes

The believer must embrace the mystery of what cannot be understood in order to appreciate the possibility of what else that is beyond explanation actually exists. That is the love of exploration, the love of science.

Aquinas attempts to prove that what is beyond explanation must exist, and all science adds evidence to support this every day. And that refutes the closed system argument of Atheism.

He only adds that he chooses to call this God, as a Beloved placeholder for what he himself says cannot be fully, understood, but only partially understood by examination, and observation.

It is the true enlightened believer, such as Aquinas, who openly acknowledges and embraces the mystery. And science.

Hi, Spence.

Check out what I said in the other thread, please, if you haven't already. Like I said there, I'm copying my critique here, as well as the actual statement of Aquinas's prime mover argument.

Go!

My complete critique of Aquinas’s Prime Mover argument, copied verbatim from my earlier comment addressed to um:

(Link: https://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2023/07/einstein-it-is-the-theory-which-decides-what-can-be-observed.html?cid=6a00d83451c0aa69e202c1a6cddd76200b#comment-6a00d83451c0aa69e202c1a6cddd76200b)


“ (…) There’s no reason, at all, why that causal sequence shouldn’t go on indefinitely. There’s no reason for it to stop someplace. And even should it stop someplace, it doesn’t follow, at all, that that should be just the one thing. Even should there be Prime Movers, there’s nothing in that reasoning that shows that there’s just the one Prime Mover: there may well be two, or ten, or a hundred thousand. And finally, even should there be just the one Prime Mover, even then there’s zero connection between that entity and what we commonly know of as “God” --- and to claim that is to take a compete gravity-defying flying leap. (Let’s not forget he’s basically arguing for the Christian God here. When he presents similarly lame arguments about …Perfection, for instance, then again that font of Perfection is, as he argues, “God” --- without explaining why the Prime Mover should be the same entity as the Perfect Thing (even granting him these cross-eyed ideas about the Prime Mover and the Perfect Thing). (…)


(…) It is completely erroneous that the stationery state is the “normal”, starting state of every body. That’s completely wrong. A body that’s at rest continues to be at rest, and a body that’s in motion continues to be in motion. That’s Gravity 101, that’s Isaac Newton 101. There’s no reason why there shouldn’t be bodies eternally moving: that’s what a moving body does, it keeps moving. That’s what inertia means. Aquinas’s “argument” falls flat right at the get-go.

Not to forget Relativity. Not only is the stationery state not the normal starting point for every body; but there’s no such thing, in absolute terms, as body-at-rest and body-in-motion. And given that there's no absolute reference frame, therefore the whole idea of a Prime Mover itself becomes completely nonsensical. That's Albert Einstein 101. (…)”


----------------------------------------------------


And here’s the text of Aquinas’s Prime Mover argument, copied verbatim from Aquinas’s Summa Theologica:

(Link: https://ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa/summa.FP_Q2_A3.html#:~:text=The%20first%20and,to%20be%20God.)


“The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.”

Hi AR
I've addressed most of the points you've made, along with adding citations directly from Aquinas in support.

You have not addressed my specific replies to your specific comments.

Hi AR
I've addressed most of the points you've made, along with adding citations directly from Aquinas in support.

You have not addressed my specific replies to your specific comments.

-------


Haha, for once would you read my comment for comprehension, Spence? Just this once? It's even in caps, so you can't possibly miss it.

Hi AR:

As you requested, your entire comment as you reposted it in quotes ..with my comments from before added in brackets:

You wrote:

“ (…) There’s no reason, at all, why that causal sequence shouldn’t go on indefinitely. There’s no reason for it to stop someplace. And even should it stop someplace, it doesn’t follow, at all, that that should be just the one thing. "

[ If you are implying that time stretches on from and to infinity, there is zero evidence for that. Any measurable event has a beginning and an end. Therefore there is every reason to suggest, and indeed all of science, whatever you point to has had a beginning and will have an end. To suggest otherwise has no logical basis]

"Even should there be Prime Movers, there’s nothing in that reasoning that shows that there’s just the one Prime Mover: there may well be two, or ten, or a hundred thousand. And finally, even should there be just the one Prime Mover, even then there’s zero connection between that entity and what we commonly know of as “God” --- and to claim that is to take a compete gravity-defying flying leap. (Let’s not forget he’s basically arguing for the Christian God here. When he presents similarly lame arguments about …Perfection, for instance, then again that font of Perfection is, as he argues, “God” --- without explaining why the Prime Mover should be the same entity as the Perfect Thing (even granting him these cross-eyed ideas about the Prime Mover and the Perfect Thing). (…)"

[ You failed to understand Aquinas argument. Every effect has its cause, and that includes whatever started all this. . Whatever that is, Aquinas points out, it's a priori. He writes it is impossible to make any commentary on that at all, except to acknowledge that something that was not part of the potentiality which it instigated, started all this movement of creation. Independent as in independent variable, the basic foundation of science. Call that what you like. Aquinas says it's what people call God, even though he also acknowledges it cannot be known.

[ To suggest what that prime mover is, as you have done above, introduces pure speculation without evidence. What you have accused Aquinas of, only you are guilty of.

[ But to prove there must be a start, an independent start is pure logic. And Aquinas ' argument for that is flawless and has become a foundational argument within the philosophy of science.

" (…) It is completely erroneous that the stationery state is the “normal”, starting state of every body. That’s completely wrong. A body that’s at rest continues to be at rest, and a body that’s in motion continues to be in motion. That’s Gravity 101, that’s Isaac Newton 101. There’s no reason why there shouldn’t be bodies eternally moving: that’s what a moving body does, it keeps moving. That’s what inertia means. Aquinas’s “argument” falls flat right at the get-go.

[ Nowhere does Aquinas write what you wrote, that the stationary state is the" normal" status, or the starting state of every body. He never says that.

In fact he says everything we see is the effect, in essence it is all in motion in a chain of cause and effect. He uses common metaphors of motion to help explain that to every effect there is a cause that is separate or independent from the effect. He also uses the metaphor of one fire igniting another fire in another piece of wood which then ignites. He isn't simply talking about physical motion but cause and effect. He goes further to explain the potential energy in the wood that becomes active, or kinetic energy, once ignited or moved. Again, Aquinas elucidates the concepts of independent and dependent variables, and their distinct relationship, as well as the concepts of potential and kinetic energy that are in fact distinct. He describes the two distinct states of energy, potential or kinetic, that Newton, Einstein, Heisenburg and others have used in their work: the very foundational principles of science and physics. Even quantum physics, which is largely the mathematics of how energy moves from potential to kinetic states through the effect of independent variables upon dependent ones.]

"Not to forget Relativity. Not only is the stationery state not the normal starting point for every body; but there’s no such thing, in absolute terms, as body-at-rest and body-in-motion. And given that there's no absolute reference frame, therefore the whole idea of a Prime Mover itself becomes completely nonsensical. That's Albert Einstein 101. (…)”

[ This argument depends upon your own invented interpolation, that Aquinas says all bodies start at rest, and therefore your argument is false.

Aquinas merely points out that there must be a first cause to all this and it must be independent, just as each dependent variable is acted upon by a separate independent variable. The dependent variable cannot be its own independent variable. Nor can the potential energy exist once it has been transformed into kinetic emery. Not according to Aquinas nor relativity nor quantum physics, nor any branch of science.]

You will note also earlier I cite Aquinas directly, word for word, for further elucidation.

Thank you! Didn't take you long, did it?! And you do see how this makes for clarity, don't you?

I'll respond to this in one piece now, cheers.

@ Spence

>>Aquinas merely points out that there must be a first cause to all this and it must be independent, just as each dependent variable is acted upon by a separate independent variable.<<

To me, without any academic capacity or interest in philosophy, readings this my reaction is .. as a crow can only sing as a crow, so can a human.

OR .... as humans are made like many other things , to act, he cannot but THINK that there must be an actor behind the creation.

He says ... there MUST be ... he cannot say nor did he say ...THERE IS

And to my common sense nobody can, did or ever will be able.

To think and to state there is an actor is an handsome tool to give meaning and direction to liife...nothing more nothing less.

And those that believe that narrative in good faith and are not driven by any negative emotion, will enjoy the fruits of their believe, their faith

Blessed are those that believe.

It is not about the ACTOR, the creator etc but all about the BELIEVER
There is no god that has any interest in a believer


All right, Spence, here goes:

I’m numbering these sections to make for ease of reference, and to make it easy for you to respond, section by section by section. This first section will be, hmm, let’s see, what can we call it, how about “Section-I”?


(SECTION – I)


“You wrote:

“ (…) There’s no reason, at all, why that causal sequence shouldn’t go on indefinitely. There’s no reason for it to stop someplace. And even should it stop someplace, it doesn’t follow, at all, that that should be just the one thing. "

[ If you are implying that time stretches on from and to infinity, there is zero evidence for that. Any measurable event has a beginning and an end. Therefore there is every reason to suggest, and indeed all of science, whatever you point to has had a beginning and will have an end. To suggest otherwise has no logical basis]”


……….Spence, Aquinas argues that “whatever is in motion, is put in motion by another”. That’s completely wrong, but I’ve addressed that error of his in a separate portion of my comment. For now, I’m granting him that, simply for the sake of the argument.

Whatever is in motion, is put in motion by another. That’s our starting point for this stage of the argument.

How Aquinas takes it from there, is by arguing, “But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover …”

Don’t you see the circularity of it? It’s right here, plain as day! This cannot go on to infinity, he protests, because then there would be no first mover. That’s as blatant a case of begging the question as I’ve ever seen!

Even if we accept that whatever is put in motion, is put in motion by another, even then, there’s no reason at all why there should necessarily be an end to it, none at all. The one does not logically follow from the other.

On the contrary, there expressly CAN’T, there expressly WON’T, be such. If nothing can move without itself having been moved, then a Prime Mover simply cannot exist. Because a Prime Mover cannot, also, move, or cause something to be moved, basis the premises of this argument.

In other words: What Aquinas is doing here, isn’t “arguing”. What he’s actually doing here is simply POSTULATING a Prime Mover. And covering up that blatant ipse-dixitism within a mass of logicky-sounding words that seeks to simply camouflage what he’s doing.

He might simply have not said any of this, and simply announced, “There exists a Prime Mover.” In effect that’s what he’s doing, postulating the existence of this Prime Mover, and hiding his brazen postulation in a mass of meaningless words and pseudo-arguments.


----------


(SECTION – II)


"Even should there be Prime Movers, there’s nothing in that reasoning that shows that there’s just the one Prime Mover: there may well be two, or ten, or a hundred thousand. And finally, even should there be just the one Prime Mover, even then there’s zero connection between that entity and what we commonly know of as “God” --- and to claim that is to take a compete gravity-defying flying leap. (Let’s not forget he’s basically arguing for the Christian God here. When he presents similarly lame arguments about …Perfection, for instance, then again that font of Perfection is, as he argues, “God” --- without explaining why the Prime Mover should be the same entity as the Perfect Thing (even granting him these cross-eyed ideas about the Prime Mover and the Perfect Thing). (…)"

[ You failed to understand Aquinas argument. Every effect has its cause, and that includes whatever started all this. . Whatever that is, Aquinas points out, it's a priori. He writes it is impossible to make any commentary on that at all, except to acknowledge that something that was not part of the potentiality which it instigated, started all this movement of creation. Independent as in independent variable, the basic foundation of science. Call that what you like. Aquinas says it's what people call God, even though he also acknowledges it cannot be known.

[ To suggest what that prime mover is, as you have done above, introduces pure speculation without evidence. What you have accused Aquinas of, only you are guilty of.

[ But to prove there must be a start, an independent start is pure logic. And Aquinas ' argument for that is flawless and has become a foundational argument within the philosophy of science.


……….On the contrary, Spence. It is you who’ve failed to appreciate Aquinas’s illogic, and to recognize his blatant sleight of hand.

Here’s what you say: “Every effect has its cause, and that includes whatever started all this.”

Where did this come from, this “whatever started all this”?! Within the bounds of this argument, this simply doesn’t follow. This has been plucked out of thin air, and simply postulated. This isn’t logic, this is sleight of hand hiding under a pretense of logic.

Every body that moves, has been set in motion by another body. From that we don’t, at all, get to “something that started it all”, unless it is simply postulated into existence.


You’re completely wrong. Aquinas’s logic is not only not “flawless”, but it is so utterly wrong, that it is completely nonsensical. It is no more than sleight of hand, with an ipse-dixitism smuggled in by the back door, with a Prime Mover simply randomly arbitrarily postulated out of thin air.

Like I said, this is pure bilge, written by a fool, else for consumption by fools.


----------


(SECTION – III)


Although you quote this portion of my comment, Spence, but I see that you don’t actually address it, at all. This:


“And finally, even should there be just the one Prime Mover, even then there’s zero connection between that entity and what we commonly know of as “God” --- and to claim that is to take a compete gravity-defying flying leap. (Let’s not forget he’s basically arguing for the Christian God here. When he presents similarly lame arguments about …Perfection, for instance, then again that font of Perfection is, as he argues, “God” --- without explaining why the Prime Mover should be the same entity as the Perfect Thing (even granting him these cross-eyed ideas about the Prime Mover and the Perfect Thing).”


Should I take it, then, that you agree with this?

And that, by the way, is what I meant by asking you to try to make this discussion rounded.

You’ve read the other arguments of Aquinas, haven’t you? Every time he produces a pile of bilge, and ends with, “and this we call God”. Leaving aside the erroneous reasoning leading to “and this we call God”; and even granting him that for the sake of argument; there’s nothing that links those separate entities, and nor does that speak to the Christian God in any shape or form. He simply assumes that, without explaining why he does that. That’s …completely nonsensical.

Are we agreed on this? Or would you now like to go and do what you could have done already, which is pen down your response to this argument of mine?


----------


(SECTION – IV)


" (…) It is completely erroneous that the stationery state is the “normal”, starting state of every body. That’s completely wrong. A body that’s at rest continues to be at rest, and a body that’s in motion continues to be in motion. That’s Gravity 101, that’s Isaac Newton 101. There’s no reason why there shouldn’t be bodies eternally moving: that’s what a moving body does, it keeps moving. That’s what inertia means. Aquinas’s “argument” falls flat right at the get-go.

[ Nowhere does Aquinas write what you wrote, that the stationary state is the" normal" status, or the starting state of every body. He never says that.

In fact he says everything we see is the effect, in essence it is all in motion in a chain of cause and effect. He uses common metaphors of motion to help explain that to every effect there is a cause that is separate or independent from the effect. He also uses the metaphor of one fire igniting another fire in another piece of wood which then ignites. He isn't simply talking about physical motion but cause and effect. He goes further to explain the potential energy in the wood that becomes active, or kinetic energy, once ignited or moved. Again, Aquinas elucidates the concepts of independent and dependent variables, and their distinct relationship, as well as the concepts of potential and kinetic energy that are in fact distinct. He describes the two distinct states of energy, potential or kinetic, that Newton, Einstein, Heisenburg and others have used in their work: the very foundational principles of science and physics. Even quantum physics, which is largely the mathematics of how energy moves from potential to kinetic states through the effect of independent variables upon dependent ones.]


……….This part’s about present-day science, so this part isn’t on Aquinas, who can’t have known any of this. However, it is very much on present-day fanboys of Aquinas, like you, who have no excuse not to understand this elementary bit of science.

Aquinas does not say in so many words that “the stationary state is the normal state”, but he very clearly implies it, he clearly works with that base assumption, when he says, “whatever is in motion is put in motion by another”.

That first starting clause of his is utter nonsense: the part where he says, “Whatever is in motion is put in motion by another.” Complete nonsense, that. There’s zero difference between being stationary and being in motion. Both states are inertia. A stationary object remains stationary unless acted on; and an object in motion remains in motion unless acted on. No difference between the two. Isaac Newton 101.

Aquinas is simply channeling what was known in his day. I think that’s Archimedes, although I’m not sure, I’ll need to check. Again, not his fault. What else could the poor man do, but use the knowledge available to him? But you and I, in this day and age, know better, or should know better.

To tie this back to where we started this section from: In saying that “Whatever is in motion is put in motion by another”, in suggesting that being stationary is something that does not need a cause but that being in motion is something that does need a cause, Aquinas betrays ignorance of the principle of Inertia. Not his fault, but still, elementary Newtonian physics refutes that argument of his right at the get-go.


----------


(SECTION – V)


"Not to forget Relativity. Not only is the stationery state not the normal starting point for every body; but there’s no such thing, in absolute terms, as body-at-rest and body-in-motion. And given that there's no absolute reference frame, therefore the whole idea of a Prime Mover itself becomes completely nonsensical. That's Albert Einstein 101. (…)”

[ This argument depends upon your own invented interpolation, that Aquinas says all bodies start at rest, and therefore your argument is false.

Aquinas merely points out that there must be a first cause to all this and it must be independent, just as each dependent variable is acted upon by a separate independent variable. The dependent variable cannot be its own independent variable. Nor can the potential energy exist once it has been transformed into kinetic emery. Not according to Aquinas nor relativity nor quantum physics, nor any branch of science.]

You will note also earlier I cite Aquinas directly, word for word, for further elucidation.


……….As I hope you now see, now that I’ve opened your eyes by spelling this out for you slow and easy in the section immediately preceding, this isn’t my “invented interpolation” at all. It’s what is clearly implied by the very first words that Aquinas speaks here, it is clearly the base assumption Aquinas is working with, except you were not able to see this despite it sitting there plain as day. To repeat, to recap: “Whatever is in motion is put in motion by another”, which is how Aquinas begins his piece, directly implies that there’s a difference between being stationary and being in motion; and that being in stationary needs no cause, while being in motion does need a cause. Which is clearly refuted by Newton, as we’ve already seen. But beyond that, seen from a relativistic perspective, that’s completely nonsensical, because what is at rest in one frame of reference is in motion in another frame of reference, and vice versa.

Again, not something Aquinas can be faulted for not knowing. But certainly, present-day fanboys of Aquinas can and should and will be faulted for not appreciating this elementary bit of physics.

And there’s another spanner that Einstein throws in Aquinas’s apple cart, if I may mix metaphors, beyond just the above. The Prime Mover is defined as not in motion. Which is complete nonsense, because there is no fixed frame of reference at all, basis relativity. Something that is stationary in X frame of reference, will be in motion in Y frame of reference. Therefore, the Prime Mover also is in motion, no less than any other thing, depending on which frame of reference you’re using. The very concept of an absolutely unmoving Prime Mover is completed refuted by Relativity.

Whatever exist, is described can be described, is an unique variation of the same.

No description of the unique variation, no attributed value or meaning, no study will disclose the nature etc of the "sameness"

Science is the study of the endless variations of the unique and is an ongoing evolution of ever refining descriptions ...in short there is no end to what science can and will discover, it will go on and on without ever being able to say a word let alone explain the sameness behind the unique variation.

The old ancestors knew it, and described it in their way, others will follow them and there descriptions will be different but what they have to say will remain the same.

Behind everything is sameness and that sameness they state is experiencable.
That is all they have to say.
That is all they can say.

Otherwise there is nothing tos say about that sameness and how the unique variations are related to that sameness.

Elephant in the room, Aquinas' flawless logic leads us to accept the Catholic framework with all of its doctrinal baggage--creation in six days, Adam and Eve, virgin birth, angels, the devil, Jesus rose on the third day and wrought our savation, rituals, sacraments, papal authority, etc.

Have ye Aquinas fans followed the science and converted to Catholicism?

I recently mentioned the name of Thomas Aquinas merely as an addition to the list of premodern thinkers that Brian cited who certainly rejected philosophical materialism. Though Aquinas was a theist, his "classical" strain was what I think of as "monist-esque" to the extent that it was a kind of weak panentheism . I discovered this site by happenstance because of my interest in spiritual thought. As I read through some posts, I was fascinated by a perspective that clearly appreciated spirituality while at the same time rejecting its metaphysical basis. That's not to say that a materialist can't be "spiritual" , at least in a psychological sense, but not in a genuine sense. Tear down the spiritual super structure that supports it , "spirituality" loses it raison d'etre. On to the Angelic Doctor.

Bertrand Russell was a great thinker , but were his comments on Aquinas on point . No. I think Russell's assumption that Aquinas' religious belief is independent of reason is wrong, or at best, unevidenced. Of course, being raised Catholic , Aquinas will have been religious before he was able to give any reason to be, but this doesn't imply that his later, mature faith was not rational. As he grew older, and became capable of reasoning about religion, and the world in general, it seemed to him that evidence confirmed his beliefs, but if it had not, it seems very unlikely that he would have remained Christian.

Aquinas is famous for his insistence on the importance of reason, even in the face of certain church authorities , who claimed that it ought to be subservient to faith; his reasoning was that if the Christian religion is true and reason leads to truth, then it makes no sense for the two to be in conflict. If he had found them to be in conflict- if, for instance, he was not convinced by his own Five Ways, and found contemplation useless, or the problem of evil irresolvable, and so on, then there is good reason to think he would have abandoned religion.

If this is true, then his religious belief is really no different, and no more intellectually suspicious, than the vast majority of the beliefs held by everyone- learnt, pre-rationally, in childhood, and later confirmed or rejected on the basis of mature reflection and experience. This does not, of course, show that his belief is justified- I've said nothing yet about whether the reasons for his belief are any good. It does, however, suggest that if Aquinas is to be criticized, it must be because of the quality of the evidence he uses, and not on the basis that his religious faith is independent of it . Perhaps we would do well to emulate Aquinas, who famously always made sure to treat his opponents charitably rather than Russell when we have criticisms to deliver.

I will try to get back soon to deal with the objections to Aquinas' arguments .

@ Umami

What the personal intention of aquinas was I do not know but what i do know is, that everybody, whoever he was an whatever power at his possession, had, if he wanted to say something, present what he had to say as fitting within the frame work of the all powerfully church or otherwise handed to the forces like the inquisition.

Only after the WWII that power of the Christian clergy over everythingg in society has diminished

The works of St John of the cRoss make it clear that he after having all sorts of inner experiences, had to frame and hide his words in poetry in order to stay out of prison although he himself was a monk.

So against this background one has to decide whether aguinas was out the strenghthen the power of the church or not

Hi Appreciative!
Thanks for the thoughtful reply.

I'm not sure we are any closer, but you have provided opportunity to at least clarify what you are saying. I think at least we can get to a point of understanding what Aquinas actually wrote, and hopefully actually meant, and then opine on what we think about it.

For the sake of thoroughness I'll address all your points. For the sake of brevity, I'll break them into separate posts following the sections you have created.


I'm placing your comments in parentheses, and my new comments in double brackets, for clarity, and so you can scroll down to read whichever portion you like. Items in single bracket are my prior remarks .

"All right, Spence, here goes:

"I’m numbering these sections to make for ease of reference, and to make it easy for you to respond, section by section by section. This first section will be, hmm, let’s see, what can we call it, how about “Section-I”?

"(SECTION – I)

“You wrote:

“ (…) There’s no reason, at all, why that causal sequence shouldn’t go on indefinitely. There’s no reason for it to stop someplace. And even should it stop someplace, it doesn’t follow, at all, that that should be just the one thing. "

[ If you are implying that time stretches on from and to infinity, there is zero evidence for that. Any measurable event has a beginning and an end. Therefore there is every reason to suggest, and indeed all of science, whatever you point to has had a beginning and will have an end. To suggest otherwise has no logical basis]”


"……….Spence, Aquinas argues that “whatever is in motion, is put in motion by another”. That’s completely wrong, but I’ve addressed that error of his in a separate portion of my comment. For now, I’m granting him that, simply for the sake of the argument."

[[ Scientific Methodology separates as distinct the independent variable and the dependent variable in precisely the same way Aquinas speaks of the Cause and the Effect. Whatever is in motion is in fact put there, kept there, or moved to a different state / place by other forces. The Independent variable is indeed entirely independent in its effect upon the Dependent Variable. Aquinas is correct. Your statement lacks an understanding of this basic concept.

[[ 'In research, variables are any characteristics that can take on different values, such as height, age, temperature, or test scores.

'Researchers often manipulate or measure independent and dependent variables in studies to test cause-and-effect relationships.

'The independent variable is the cause. Its value is independent of other variables in your study.

'The dependent variable is the effect. Its value depends on changes in the independent variable.

'Example: Independent and dependent variables
'You design a study to test whether changes in room temperature have an effect on math test scores.

'Your independent variable is the temperature of the room. You vary the room temperature by making it cooler for half the participants, and warmer for the other half.

'Your dependent variable is math test scores. You measure the math skills of all participants using a standardized test and check whether they differ based on room temperature.
https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/independent-and-dependent-variables/

[[ When you refer to quantum mechanics, consider the electron. It doesn't move itself. It moves based on forces, independent forces, impinging upon it. Those forces exist whether or not the electron is there. The electron being there doesn't create the mass of the nucleaus, nor even the acceleration of the particle, nor even the photons it emits as a result of excitation.

[[All subatomic particle and waves are explained as a result of other forces upon them. They don't create themselves.

[[ Therefore, considering the entirety of creation, what is that independent force that moved the creation into being? Aquinas is merely extrapolating this immutable principle that is the foundation of all science. And further, he is pointing out the illogical argument, using "infinity" which is beyond measurement, that somehow all the lesser intermediary forces, that are themselves subject to previous independent variables, cannot explain God, as the greatest good that can be conceived. If there is a circular argument, AR, you are making it here.

[[ At best science can explain the intermediary forces. But Aquinas, as one of the Fathers of the philosohy of Science, rightly states that by the effects we see, something indeed can be learned about the causes including the proposed initial one. Indeed, this is the way to learn about whatever caused an event, deeper study of the results.

[[ Aquinas writes "Demonstration can be made in two ways: One is through the cause, and is called a priori, and this is to argue from what is prior absolutely. The other is through the effect, and is called a demonstration a posteriori; this is to argue from what is prior relatively only to us [these are still effects of other things that were truly a priori but may also be causes of things that come after]. When an effect is better known to us than its cause, from the effect we proceed to the knowledge of the cause. And from every effect the existence of its proper cause can be demonstrated [For example, subatomic particle trajectories used to extrapolate the other particles and forces impinging upon them], so long as its effects are betyter known to us [Aquinas, one of the Fathers of Science, advocating that independent variables can only be understood by study of their dependent variables]; because since every efect depends upon its cause, if the effect exists, the cause must pre-exist."

[[Any argument that dismisses science, therefore is without merit. And so the argument of infinity cannot be used as an explanation for how things came to exist. Only for how they may work today. Even so, Aquinas states that something can be known by carefully studying the effects. As I pointed out earlier, this is precisely what physicists are doing today, to understand what the conditions and forces were that created the big bang, or whatever actually happened. That very effort and all its results refutes as false any claim that the forces and effects we see today existed as they are and have for infinity. There is simply nothing in science to support that claim. It is unfounded.

[[ However, there is much science to support what Aquinas wrote...whatever started this creation, in whatever form, had to be independent of what it started. Or, you might say, that the conditions that resulted from that initial force changed into something different, what we see interacting today.


[[ When Aquinas distinguishes the independent variable, the cause, from the dependent variable, the effect,as in fact independent, he is echoing the fundamental basis for scientific inquiry.

[[ Aquinas also acknowledges the chain reaction of cause and effect that we see in two different ways and in doing so introduces a second foundational principle that has become one of the foundational premises of modern science:

[[He writes: "Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. "

[[First, Aquinas introduced the concept of independent variable and dependent variable, with the clear declaration that what the independent variable is in fact, independent of the dependent variable which it impacts. Now he introduces the concept that Newton initially expanded upon: Potential Energ, Kinetic Energy and the force that moves energy from a potential state into a kinetic state:

[[ "Potential energy is the stored energy in any object or system by virtue of its position or arrangement of parts. However, it isn’t affected by the environment outside of the object or system, such as air or height.

[[ "On the other hand, kinetic energy is the energy of an object or a system’s particles in motion. Contrary to potential energy, the kinetic energy of an object is relative to other stationary and moving objects present in its immediate environment. For instance, the kinetic energy of the object will be higher if the object is placed at a greater height.

[[ "Potential energy isn’t transferable and it depends on the height or distance and mass of the object. Kinetic energy can be transferred from one moving object to another (vibration and rotation) and is dependent on an object’s speed or velocity and mass.

[[ https://justenergy.com/blog/potential-and-kinetic-energy-explained/


you wrote:
"'Whatever is in motion, is put in motion by another. That’s our starting point for this stage of the argument.

"How Aquinas takes it from there, is by arguing, “But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover …”

"Don’t you see the circularity of it? It’s right here, plain as day! This cannot go on to infinity, he protests, because then there would be no first mover. That’s as blatant a case of begging the question as I’ve ever seen!"

[[ The circularity is actually in your argument that the cat can chase its tail and the tail therefore chases the cat. Aquinas, and all of science, says that can't actually be. The tail chases nothing. The tail may sweep the floor in the process, and raise a lot of dust, and the dust can gather on the window and counters, but that dust, coming after, did not force the cat to chase its tail. You can follow all the dust particles the tail whips up, but you cannot claim therefore that this causes the cat to chase its tail. Certainly this dust came after and can't be used in some sort of time loop to claim the dust the cat raised was the independent variable causing the cat to chase its tail to begin with. Aquinas rightly argues this is nonsensical and false. ]]

You write:

[[ Even if we accept that whatever is put in motion, is put in motion by another, even then, there’s no reason at all why there should necessarily be an end to it, none at all. The one does not logically follow from the other.]]

[[ No where does Aquinas propose an end to all these cascading effects we see. That is a non-sequitur.

You write:
"On the contrary, there expressly CAN’T, there expressly WON’T, be such. If nothing can move without itself having been moved, then a Prime Mover simply cannot exist. Because a Prime Mover cannot, also, move, or cause something to be moved, basis the premises of this argument."

[[ You have gotten yourself into a tangle. You write " If nothing can move without itself having been moved, then a Prime Mover simply cannot exist." That is precisely why Aquinas proposes a true independent, a prior, variable. In defining the independent variable he points from above out that in what we can see, all things are a posteriori, so what appears to us is just one effect, one dependent variable acting to cause another dependent variable to move. That first variable is a dependent variable from another one up the chain, though it is an independent variable only relative to the next dependent variable down the chain. It isn't the prime, truly independent variable further up the chain. But he claims rightly, there must be one for any motion to have begun at all.


"In other words: What Aquinas is doing here, isn’t “arguing”. What he’s actually doing here is simply POSTULATING a Prime Mover. And covering up that blatant ipse-dixitism within a mass of logicky-sounding words that seeks to simply camouflage what he’s doing. "

[[ He is attempting to Demonstrate, not argue nor prove, and he does this flawlessly by defining independent variable from dependent variable, and potential from kinetic energy.

" He might simply have not said any of this, and simply announced, “There exists a Prime Mover.” In effect that’s what he’s doing, postulating the existence of this Prime Mover, and hiding his brazen postulation in a mass of meaningless words and pseudo-arguments."

[[ Actually Aquinas is making an observation about potential and kinetic energy and independent and dependent variables that all science proves and further depends upon. A simple knowledge of this is all that is required to see that claiming "infinity" in a world of cause and effect, without actually understanding both effects and cause, is actually a resignation from the facts of science.

[[Aquinas honestly points out at best we can get only a middle understanding of God using the very practices that are used in all branches of science today.

[[ "When the existence of a cause is demonstrated from an effect, this effect takes the place of the definition of the cause in proof of the cause's existence. "

[[ Aquinas then applies this to his demonstration when he writes..

[[ "This is especially the case in regard to God, because, in order to prove the existence of anything, it is necessary to accept as a middle term the meaning of the word, and not its essence, for the question of its existence follows on the question of its existence [with each discovered cause the question can be asked, "Is this God, if not, what caused, and is that God? ad infinitum"]. Now the names given to God are derived from His effects; consequently demonstrating the existence of God from His effects we may take for the middle term the meaning of the word "God."

[[ Aquinas isn't attempting to prove anything. He is demonstrating how definitions and concepts about God get started, and suggesting by demonstration that God, whomever he/she/it is, must be whatever that truly independent variable that must exist must be (though it may be many things, as Science tends to unveil). And this is only so if you accept the definition of God not as some corporeal person, but as an infinite greatest good that can be conceived. It is a beautiful, elegant, entirely logical bit of poetry. ]]

Hi AR:

Here is the second section you wrote and my comments

You wrote:
----------


"(SECTION – II)


"Even should there be Prime Movers, there’s nothing in that reasoning that shows that there’s just the one Prime Mover: there may well be two, or ten, or a hundred thousand. And finally, even should there be just the one Prime Mover, even then there’s zero connection between that entity and what we commonly know of as “God” --- and to claim that is to take a compete gravity-defying flying leap. (Let’s not forget he’s basically arguing for the Christian God here. When he presents similarly lame arguments about …Perfection, for instance, then again that font of Perfection is, as he argues, “God” --- without explaining why the Prime Mover should be the same entity as the Perfect Thing (even granting him these cross-eyed ideas about the Prime Mover and the Perfect Thing). (…)"

[ You failed to understand Aquinas argument. Every effect has its cause, and that includes whatever started all this. . Whatever that is, Aquinas points out, it's a priori. He writes it is impossible to make any commentary on that at all, except to acknowledge that something that was not part of the potentiality which it instigated, started all this movement of creation. Independent as in independent variable, the basic foundation of science. Call that what you like. Aquinas says it's what people call God, even though he also acknowledges it cannot be known.

[ To suggest what that prime mover is, as you have done above, introduces pure speculation without evidence. What you have accused Aquinas of, only you are guilty of.

[ But to prove there must be a start, an independent start is pure logic. And Aquinas ' argument for that is flawless and has become a foundational argument within the philosophy of science.


"……….On the contrary, Spence. It is you who’ve failed to appreciate Aquinas’s illogic, and to recognize his blatant sleight of hand.

"Here’s what you say: “Every effect has its cause, and that includes whatever started all this.”

"Where did this come from, this “whatever started all this”?! "Within the bounds of this argument, this simply doesn’t follow. "This has been plucked out of thin air, and simply postulated. "This isn’t logic, this is sleight of hand hiding under a pretense of logic."

[[ See Independent Variable and Dependent Variable discussion above]]

You wrote

" Every body that moves, has been set in motion by another body. From that we don’t, at all, get to “something that started it all”, unless it is simply postulated into existence."

[[ Actually, AR it is the only logical conclusion. Aquinas writes..

[[ "Therefore whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which is put into motion be itself put into motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as a staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand."

[[ Logically, there can be no independent force that initiates this creation unless it is separate from whatever series of events, even infinite series, takes place after. This is precisely what the work of modern theoretical physics is all about: What are the different forces that existed and acted before the big bang? Science has already proven they can't be the forces that are in effect today. The issue I think that is hanging you up is the notion of Independent Variable. Aquinas points out that simply saying another variable caused this one begs the question of what caused that other one? If you summate this to infinity, as Calculus does, you must have a starting point. And having a starting point, what was that? What was that "primary mover"? Aquinas makes zero claim about that, only to say he believes it's god.

[[ The point of the Primary Mover argument is to effectively, logically, dismantle the false argument that everything can be explained by what we see and know, claiming it was always this way, it is just a perpetual motion machine that never actually started but somehow is in motion. Aquinas proves this is false. And science proves that every day a new independent variable is discovered.


You wrote:
"You’re completely wrong. Aquinas’s logic is not only not “flawless”, but it is so utterly wrong, that it is completely nonsensical. It is no more than sleight of hand, with an ipse-dixitism smuggled in by the back door, with a Prime Mover simply randomly arbitrarily postulated out of thin air."

[[ A deeper understanding of the method and philosophy of science will certainly help you to appreciate the elegance of Aquinas, and his contributions to the foundations modern of science.

You wrote:
"Like I said, this is pure bilge, written by a fool, else for consumption by fools.


----------

Hi AR

Here is the section III you wrote and my comments:

"(SECTION – III)


"Although you quote this portion of my comment, Spence, but I see that you don’t actually address it, at all. This:


“And finally, even should there be just the one Prime Mover, even then there’s zero connection between that entity and what we commonly know of as “God” --- and to claim that is to take a compete gravity-defying flying leap. (Let’s not forget he’s basically arguing for the Christian God here. When he presents similarly lame arguments about …Perfection, for instance, then again that font of Perfection is, as he argues, “God” --- without explaining why the Prime Mover should be the same entity as the Perfect Thing (even granting him these cross-eyed ideas about the Prime Mover and the Perfect Thing).”


"Should I take it, then, that you agree with this?

[[ If you read what I cited from Aquinas’s Summa Theologica I, section 1, you will see that Aquinas isn't attempting to prove the Christian God at all. Your statement is false. He believes in scripture and it inspires him, but he only goes so far as to use the conceptual definition of God as that which is the greatest good that can be thought of, not to define God beyond that. Indeed he argues that we can't really know God's essence, only some inferences from the effects we can observe. And as we observe better, we get to know better. And getting to know those better, we understand better about what made all this...Pure science. He was an advocate for observation, understanding and reason.

[[ As for "one prime mover" Aquinas doesn't make any statements at all about how this takes place, what multitude of other forces were put into action and how they worked. He simply argues that for this to exist and move, something had to give it potential and activate it into kinetic movement. And that something has to be independent of what it moves, just like an independent variable must be independent of the dependent variable.

[[ It's a simple and elegant argument. It is certainly limited. He is quite clear on those limitations, that we can't actually know. But he does a wonderful job defining key elements of science and dismantling the argument that a series, whether infinite or not, must have a beginning, and an independent mover, independent of all these downstream dependent variable must be the primary cause.


you wrote:
" And that, by the way, is what I meant by asking you to try to make this discussion rounded.

" You’ve read the other arguments of Aquinas, haven’t you? Every time he produces a pile of bilge, and ends with, “and this we call God”. Leaving aside the erroneous reasoning leading to “and this we call God”; and even granting him that for the sake of argument; there’s nothing that links those separate entities, and nor does that speak to the Christian God in any shape or form. He simply assumes that, without explaining why he does that. That’s …completely nonsensical."

[[ Aquinas is not actually, nor ever attempted, to defend a Christian God. He uses his belief in God to apply reason based on what he sees. He never claims he has proven God exists, only that something must be there by disproving arguments against God. He is, in his logical arguments, a true agnostic, though his personal belief and the inspiration for his demonstrations is Christian.


You wrote:

"Are we agreed on this? Or would you now like to go and do what you could have done already, which is pen down your response to this argument of mine?"

[[ Yes, we do not entirely agree. Some of the things you write I agree with, but you have confused or not acknowledged Aquinas' agreement with those very things, and other things it is clear reflect a need to better understand scientific principles. ]]

Hi AR

Here are the remaining sections (IV and V) You wrote and my comments:

You wrote:
"(SECTION – IV)


" (…) It is completely erroneous that the stationery state is the “normal”, starting state of every body. That’s completely wrong. A body that’s at rest continues to be at rest, and a body that’s in motion continues to be in motion. That’s Gravity 101, that’s Isaac Newton 101. There’s no reason why there shouldn’t be bodies eternally moving: that’s what a moving body does, it keeps moving. That’s what inertia means. Aquinas’s “argument” falls flat right at the get-go.

[ Nowhere does Aquinas write what you wrote, that the stationary state is the" normal" status, or the starting state of every body. He never says that.

[ In fact he says everything we see is the effect, in essence it is all in motion in a chain of cause and effect. He uses common metaphors of motion to help explain that to every effect there is a cause that is separate or independent from the effect. He also uses the metaphor of one fire igniting another fire in another piece of wood which then ignites. He isn't simply talking about physical motion but cause and effect. He goes further to explain the potential energy in the wood that becomes active, or kinetic energy, once ignited or moved. Again, Aquinas elucidates the concepts of independent and dependent variables, and their distinct relationship, as well as the concepts of potential and kinetic energy that are in fact distinct. He describes the two distinct states of energy, potential or kinetic, that Newton, Einstein, Heisenburg and others have used in their work: the very foundational principles of science and physics. Even quantum physics, which is largely the mathematics of how energy moves from potential to kinetic states through the effect of independent variables upon dependent ones.]

You wrote:
"……….This part’s about present-day science, so this part isn’t on Aquinas, who can’t have known any of this. However, it is very much on present-day fanboys of Aquinas, like you, who have no excuse not to understand this elementary bit of science.

' Aquinas does not say in so many words that “the stationary state is the normal state”, but he very clearly implies it, he clearly works with that base assumption, when he says, “whatever is in motion is put in motion by another”.

[[ I understand your confusion. But if you realize that nothing in motion exists without independent forces that put it there and keep it there, then you will see this is correct. It is not a statement about static condition at all. You infer that, but Aquinas already has written, as I quoted above, that effects may cause other effects, so that what you see is continuous motion. Aquinas argues that what you see in motion is actually moving due to the effect of other independent variables that have (past tense) acted upon it and continue to do so.

You wrote:
"That first starting clause of his is utter nonsense: the part where he says, “Whatever is in motion is put in motion by another.” Complete nonsense, that. There’s zero difference between being stationary and being in motion. Both states are inertia. A stationary object remains stationary unless acted on; and an object in motion remains in motion unless acted on. No difference between the two. Isaac Newton 101.

"Aquinas is simply channeling what was known in his day. I think that’s Archimedes, although I’m not sure, I’ll need to check. Again, not his fault. What else could the poor man do, but use the knowledge available to him? But you and I, in this day and age, know better, or should know better."

[[ You have failed to understand the causal relationship Aquinas points to between independent and dependent variables. He uses examples that include both stationary object, like the walking stick, and objects that are in motion and force other objects to be in motion as well, when he refers to effects that cause other effects.

[[ AR, if you know of an object that has been in perpetual motion without any identifiable beginning at all, please share it. It doesn't exist. Even astronomical, atomic and subatomic particles have their origin. And they act today due to independent forces acting upon them, just as Aquinas wrote. The point you are making is entirely unscientific.


You wrote
"To tie this back to where we started this section from: In saying that “Whatever is in motion is put in motion by another”, in suggesting that being stationary is something that does not need a cause but that being in motion is something that does need a cause, Aquinas betrays ignorance of the principle of Inertia. Not his fault, but still, elementary Newtonian physics refutes that argument of his right at the get-go."

[[ I think you may have argued yourself into a corner, AR. All objects are in motion, if not absolute then, as Aquinas himself wrote, Relative motion. They exist as a result of a Prime Mover, he writes.

[[ Your effort to bring in "static" is a concept that Aquinas and then accuse Aquinas of claiming anything is static is a circular non-sequitur . Indeed Aquinas is explaining all creation as the product of a primary mover. Therefore, all things move. The argument you are inferring for static state is your own. Aquinas is doing the opposite, demonstrating that all things are in motion, and have a beginning.

----------

You wrote:
"(SECTION – V)


"Not to forget Relativity. Not only is the stationery state not the normal starting point for every body; but there’s no such thing, in absolute terms, as body-at-rest and body-in-motion. And given that there's no absolute reference frame, therefore the whole idea of a Prime Mover itself becomes completely nonsensical. That's Albert Einstein 101. (…)”

[ This argument depends upon your own invented interpolation, that Aquinas says all bodies start at rest, and therefore your argument is false.

[ Aquinas merely points out that there must be a first cause to all this and it must be independent, just as each dependent variable is acted upon by a separate independent variable. The dependent variable cannot be its own independent variable. Nor can the potential energy exist once it has been transformed into kinetic emery. Not according to Aquinas nor relativity nor quantum physics, nor any branch of science.]

You wrote:

"You will note also earlier I cite Aquinas directly, word for word, for further elucidation.
[[ As have I above...

You wrote:
"……….As I hope you now see, now that I’ve opened your eyes by spelling this out for you slow and easy in the section immediately preceding, this isn’t my “invented interpolation” at all. It’s what is clearly implied by the very first words that Aquinas speaks here, it is clearly the base assumption Aquinas is working with, except you were not able to see this despite it sitting there plain as day. To repeat, to recap: “Whatever is in motion is put in motion by another”, which is how Aquinas begins his piece, directly implies that there’s a difference between being stationary and being in motion; and that being in stationary needs no cause, while being in motion does need a cause. Which is clearly refuted by Newton, as we’ve already seen. But beyond that, seen from a relativistic perspective, that’s completely nonsensical, because what is at rest in one frame of reference is in motion in another frame of reference, and vice versa.

[[ I think I see where you have slipped. You wrote that Aquinas starts with "“Whatever is in motion is put in motion by another” and then he goes on to prove there is a Prime Mover of all things. Everything is in motion, according to Aquinas. There aren't some things that didn't have a mover, as you have invented. All things started by a Prime Mover, according to Aquinas' demonstration. You are attempting to claim he has said something entirely contrary to what he is saying. I get it.


You wrote:
" Again, not something Aquinas can be faulted for not knowing. But certainly, present-day fanboys of Aquinas can and should and will be faulted for not appreciating this elementary bit of physics."


"And there’s another spanner that Einstein throws in Aquinas’s apple cart, if I may mix metaphors, beyond just the above. The Prime Mover is defined as not in motion. Which is complete nonsense, because there is no fixed frame of reference at all, basis relativity. Something that is stationary in X frame of reference, will be in motion in Y frame of reference. Therefore, the Prime Mover also is in motion, no less than any other thing, depending on which frame of reference you’re using. The very concept of an absolutely unmoving Prime Mover is completed refuted by Relativity."

[[ Hm. Your understanding of relativity needs some work. Time, matter and space exist as posteriori events to creation, and fall right in line with Aquinas' demonstration. Therefore one object can be stationary, though only relative to another. Since Aquinas doesn't postulate a stationary object ever, even the Prime Mover, it makes no sense for you to invent this little wrench to throw into the machine you have invented.

[[ It's an interesting conjecture, but again, a non-sequitur.

um,
You mean to tell me St John of the Cross had to hide his religious experiences from other religious people? Imagine his surprise!

@ Umami

He was the mentor / teacher of Teresa of Avila in a nearby monastery who is considered to be enlightened.. From reading his explanation on the flight of the soul in spiritual ecstasy to be found in the translation of his collected works I have here., and the explanation of the authors of the book on the circumstances of his life and his time, I got that impression... that his experiences did not correspond with the theology of those days and that he had to work around them to teach the nuns and stay out of the hands of the theologians ..he did spend some time in prison

Moreover, i found in his poems and explanations of them, hints about listening to and hearing inner sounds, celestial harmonies.

@ Umami

In general said, all mayor religions and in particular with Christianity and even more with the protestant offshoots of Calvin and Luther, become more or less state-religions in these parts of the world, mysticism is, to say it polite, "discouraged" and often made seen from the pulpit as "works of the devil".

Religious establishments is always about books, law and order, mental control, power.

Roman Catholics were not even supposed to read the bible and for the protestants the bible is a book of law.

In western Europe where Protestantism was born we still feel the pain of the iconoclast , when the protesters started there REFORMATION and rivers of blood were shed.

Only the last decades that animosity between the two has calmed down ...in Ireland that fire of hate is still alive.

Anyway both official interpretations shun mysticism as the pest. certainly for the lay people and those that are recluse are locked away and excomunicated if they dear to explain anything other than the dogma's of the church.

Imagine how that must have been in the middle ages.

"If someone has to resort to dredging up some bit of pre-scientific philosophizing by Aquinas in an attempt to prove the existence of God, this shows that there is zero evidence for God other than what exists in the empty words of holy books and the equally mental gyrations of people desperate to convince others that God is more than a fantasy."

Bullocks .

Quentin Smith, one of the most prominent atheist philosophers of the 20th century once said " the great majority of naturalist philosophers have an unjustified belief that naturalism is true and unjustified belief that theism is false." For their naturalism rests on nothing more than an ill-informed "hand waiving dismissal of theism" which ignores the "erudite brilliance of contemporary theistic philosophizing ." Smith continues :

" If each naturalist who does not specialize in the philosophy of religion( i.e., over ninety-nine percent of naturalists) were locked in a room with theists who do specialize in the philosophy of religion and if the ensuing debates were refereed by a naturalist who had a specialization in the philosophy of religion , the naturalist referee could at most hope the outcome would be that ' no definite conclusion can be drawn regarding the rationality of faith,' although I expect the most probable outcome is that naturalist , wanting to be a fair and objective referee, would have to conclude that the theists definitely had the upper hand in every single argument or debate ."

I agree . Not that Quentin Smith is some kind of ultimate authority like Bertrand Russell. I'm still trying to get to the straw man criticisms of Aquinas' and do a little gyrating .


Lots of people - probably most people who have an opinion on the matter – think that Aquinas’ cosmological argument goes like this: Everything has a cause; so the universe has a cause; so God exists. They didn’t have no trouble at all poking holes in it . if everything has a cars, then what caused God? Why assume in the first place that everything has to have a cause? Why assume the cause is God? Etc.

Here’s the funny thing though. People who attack this argument never tell you where they got it from. They never quote anyone defending it. I think there’s a reason for that. The reason is that none of the best known proponents of the cosmological argument in the history of philosophy and theology ever gave this foolish argument. Not Plato, not Aristotle, not al-Ghazzali not Maimonides, not Aquinas, not Duns Scotus, not Leibniz, not Samuel Clark, not Mortimer Adler, not William Lane Craig, not David Bentley Hart. and not anyone else either, as far as I know. And yet it is constantly presented not only by popular writers but even by some professional philosophers as if it were “the “basic version” of the cosmological argument and as if every other version were essentially just a variation on it.

What defenders of the natural theology of Aquinas do say is that what comes into existence has a cause, or that what is contingent has a cause . These claims are different from “everything has a cause” as “Whatever has color is extended “ is different from “Everything is extended “.

Defenders of Aquinas’ Five Ways also provide arguments for these claims about causation. You may disagree with these claims – though if you think they are falsified by modern physics you are sorely mistaken – but you cannot justly accuse defenders of the cosmological argument either of saying something manifestly silly or contradicting himself when he goes on to say that God is uncaused.

Philosopher of religion Robert Koons explains that this argument in its most historically influential versions “ is not concerned to show that there is a cause of things which just happens not to have a cause. It is not interested in “brute facts” - if it were, then yes, positing the world as the ultimate brute fact might arguably be as defensible as taking God to be. On the contrary, the cosmological argument- again , at least as its most prominent defenders present it- is concerned with trying to show that not everything can be a “brute fact”. What it seeks to show is that if there is to be an ultimate explanation of things , then there must be a cause of everything else which not only happens to exist , but which could not even in principal have failed to exist . And that is why it is said to be uncaused – not because it is an arbitrary exception to a general rule, not because it merely happens to be uncaused , but rather because it is not the sort of thing that can even , in principle , be said to have had a cause , precisely because it could not even in principal have failed to exist in the first place .” And the argument doesn’t merely assume or stipulate that the first cause is like this ; on the contrary , the whole point of the argument is to try to show that there must be something like this.

But why assume the universe had a beginning at all ?

“…Whatever is in motion is in fact put there, kept there, or moved to a different state / place by other forces…”.


No, Spence. Whatever is stationary continues to be stationary, and whatever is in motion continues to be motion, is all. That’s base-level-elementary physics.

As for the rest of that skin-crawlingly disingenuous and literally nonsensical attempt at misdirection: Ick!

Although science, philosophy and religion can be interesting and perhaps throw some light on the questions that life throws up, apart from the technical issues of science, philosophical musings on these three subjects ultimately do not help. What they do support and strengthen is the idea that we are a particular self and mind and that we are/have a separate, autonomous mind and self – concepts that open the door to all manner of supernatural interpretations.

To wake up in the morning, experience having a wash, and perhaps tea and breakfast. Also, to step outside and experience the coolness of the morning air, the various sounds and sights – and basically, sense the body and the world as it presents itself at that moment. All these presentations that are natural.

Perhaps certain memories and thoughts arise, also natural. In fact, everything that is experienced is natural, none of it is ‘super’ natural, unless that is, if the past information we have absorbed contains various abstract ideas, beliefs and concepts – all natural processes – though beliefs and ideas that we may choose to label ‘above’ nature.

Nothing we experience through the senses, including the cognitive thoughts, memories and the conscious experience is unnatural. It is only the contents of consciousness – the information that is the mind and self – that desires to impose other-worldly causes for natural phenomenon.

Alongside the need for physical security and survival, it seems we humans have developed the need to similarly maintain our self-structures (our egos). This we do through various ways of making ourselves right, best achieved by making others wrong, it gives the self-structure a certain sense of meaning, of its importance. When it is realised that there is no self to realise and maintain, then nature – and the person – can return to feeling and being natural.

@ Ron E.

The ego is not a man-made construct, it is a natural suurvival tool, like the senses, the arms and legs etc.

And yes
We can use, the self for what it was meant for, like eating and procreation was/is, or we we can manipulate it for pleasure making it a goal instead of a means.

You've missed the point somewhat um. Never mind, this subject will come up again l'm sure.

@ Ron E.

What was it that I missed?

Ron . Maybe so . But that’s still philosophy .

"When it is realised that there is no self to realise and maintain, then nature – and the person – can return to feeling and being natural."


I think it's a bit more ...involved, than that, Ron.

I mean, I agree with what you say, absolutely. But it actually goes way way way beyond that, doesn't it? This goes to the very root of how we might conduct our life. What we expend time and effort on. Everything!

If truly internalized, this thing about us not having a self, it is something that can actually turn our lives upside-down, is what I'm thinking.

Which of course is a good thing, even should that happen. At least in the abstract. It can never be healthy to live a lie. Besides, that subsequent upside-down situation will almost never be actively malignant, is what I tentatively think about this.

But even so: At the individual level certainly, and collectively as well I suppose, if this understanding is completely internalized, as opposed to merely appreciated at a surface level as it were, then ...there's much that we might stop doing that we now carry on doing as a matter of course. I'm not sure how that might pan out for most people, who're still in the hurly burly of life.

@ AR

self to realize etc

That are all ideas of others.
You are not born with them
Why bother?

Not sure I follow, um. Why bother about whether we have a self or not, do you mean?

@ AR

If nobody had spoken to you about selfs and certainly not about getting rid of it, you would not have known.

Now you know you have to go through so many teachings that speak about the self etc.

Almost with every reaction of me it is about ... why do I, others do things, have toughts about them etc.

Why do people in the first place read books about mystism, go to guru's etc etc .. because they have a reason and that reason has nothing to do with the self, these teaching, these guru's.

So better address what is inside FIRST

"So against this background one has to decide whether aguinas was out the strenghthen the power of the church or not"

um,

Who knows? Maybe he was just a guy following his natural proclivity to think and write working with the clay at his disposal. The Church wasn't a monolith. There were politics and infighting and competing philosophical strains. His family locked him away to keep him with the Benedictines, but he had ecstacies and visions and was going Dominican no matter what! Good story. I'll copy and paste from Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas
"At the age of nineteen, Thomas resolved to join this Dominican Order. Thomas's change of heart, however, did not please his family.[31] In an attempt to prevent Theodora's interference in Thomas's choice, the Dominicans arranged to move Thomas to Rome, and from Rome, to Paris.[32] However, while on his journey to Rome, per Theodora's instructions, his brothers seized him as he was drinking from a spring and took him back to his parents at the castle of Monte San Giovanni Campano.[32]

"Thomas was held prisoner for almost one year in the family castles at Monte San Giovanni and Roccasecca in an attempt to prevent him from assuming the Dominican habit and to push him into renouncing his new aspiration.[29] Political concerns prevented the Pope from ordering Thomas's release, which had the effect of extending Thomas's detention.[33] Thomas passed this time of trial tutoring his sisters and communicating with members of the Dominican Order.[29]

"Family members became desperate to dissuade Thomas, who remained determined to join the Dominicans. At one point, two of his brothers resorted to the measure of hiring a prostitute to seduce him. As included in the official records for his canonization, Thomas drove her away wielding a burning log—with which he inscribed a cross onto the wall—and fell into a mystical ecstasy; two angels appeared to him as he slept and said, "Behold, we gird thee by the command of God with the girdle of chastity, which henceforth will never be imperiled. What human strength can not obtain, is now bestowed upon thee as a celestial gift." From then onwards, Thomas was given the grace of perfect chastity by Christ, a girdle he wore till the end of his life. The girdle was given to the ancient monastery of Vercelli in Piedmont, and is now at Chieri, near Turin.[34][35]"


He wrote and wrote and wrote, spoke and spoke and spoke, prayed and prayed and prayed. In prayer sometime he was seen to levitate (purportedly). During a Mass six months before death he had a vision so powerful that he gave up writing. "Reginald, I cannot, because all that I have written seems like straw to me." He believed in the supremacy of the Church. On his deathbed: "I have written and taught much about this very holy Body, and about the other sacraments in the faith of Christ, and about the Holy Roman Church, to whose correction I expose and submit everything I have written."


Visions and ecstacies might be more to the point, and importantly, do Christian mystics meet Hindu gods?

It would appear that this whole ‘search’ and all our questions stem from a dissatisfied, perhaps insecure and confused mind. The confusion does not come from our organism with its physical and cognitive senses, they are natural and uncluttered, it comes from the abstract ideas that we have absorbed from our cultures and that have been and are, utilised by an assumed self in order to maintain its illusory structure

The body/brain naturally needs for its survival to distinguish between me and not me but it does not need a self that produces an ego aspect which effectively separates ‘me’ from every-thing and everyone else. This separation, one could say, is the prime reason we desire to unite with something other, often something esoteric.

Our ‘search’ is a search for that state of unity, perhaps unity with nature and our own natures which we often fight with in one way or another in wanting to be different, special and perhaps enlightened or eternal.

Oh! and no-self can be realised quite naturally - without philosophy etc.

@ Umami

It is my personal understanding, and I have mentioned it here several times, ALL inner experiences are individual.

Whatever is experienced, is related to the person that has these experiences and the problems he faces, be they internal or external.

Further it is important imhu that whatever a person experiences in terms of how to act what to do either for himself or the community at large is not repeated.
So the divine sources that appeared before the Hebrew elders of those days were ordered to go to Palestine, the land of milk and honey and that that land would be forever theirs as they were the lords chosen people. No reason to disbelieve such a thing did happen. These things do happen. The "problem" is however that IF .. read IF ... if there was a divine power outside the person receiving the order, that power failed to inform the elders of the tribes around the world.

Next St Jon wrote that if the divine wishes to touch the heart of somebody, he does so in "darkness" St John goes on to explain at length that although the temptation is enormous to believe they are, the visions that can go with that touch are NOT the touch of the divine. Moreover he says, the receptivity for these visions etc do open the door for all sorts of unwanted powers.

So Unami, I do not think people over here have visions of Hindu Gods.

After all we are Gora's and do not indulge in curries and chai

@ RON

>> It would appear that this whole ‘search’ and all our questions stem from a dissatisfied, perhaps insecure and confused mind. <<

How does anybody know, came to know that there was something to search for?

How can somebody get out of his house to search for a "treasure " if not FIRST somebody spread the message that there was an treasure to be found.

Without somebody speaking of inner worlds etc, nobody would have known.

And those that do not have these experiences better not seek based upon what they MADE of what they heard , whoever he is

Hi AR:

You wrote:
"No, Spence. Whatever is stationary continues to be stationary, and whatever is in motion continues to be motion, is all. That’s base-level-elementary physics.":

I'm sorry but you have misunderstood basic physics. Inertia doesn't explain how motion began. Yes, bodies in motion tend to stay in motion, and bodies at rest tend to stay at rest (although you could question what Newton's definition of Rest actually is...it is relative BTW). However, you have avoided what Aquinas wrote, how bodies actually become in motion. That is the result of independent forces...Again, your ignorance of independent variables suggests a gap in your understanding of science and physics. No problem, we are all learning, as we identify our gaps.


If you believe any body of matter, be it astronomical or subatomic, actually is in motion all on its own without having been put there, or maintained there, by independent forces, please provide some scientific example and reference.

@ Spence

You know what is there, but you will never know how it came to be there.
Humans can research and work with what is there for their welfare but more than that is not possible and not needed ... and ... has been prove by history a source of bloodshed.

And AR:

Just to save you some time, orbiting bodies do not in fact operate without external forces keeping them going. As you may remember from your basic physics class, a body moving in anything but a straight line is accelerating as it turns, and therefore external force is acting upon it. Every body moving in an orbit is accelerating into an infinite number of points as it turns. So, while inertia can explain why a body may continue in space in a straight line, without friction nor further impact from other variables, in contrast every moon, every electron turns in its orbit due to the independent variable of the gravitational pull of its nearby planet or nucleus, which is exerting an independent force constantly upon that object. In these matters, Aquinas spoke truthfully.

A physics class might benefit you. Or a course in the Scientific Method and its history. You will be astounded!

"Even if we accept this argument’s logic, all it proves is that there was a first cause. It does not prove that this first cause still exists today; it does not prove that this first cause has any interest in or awareness of human beings; it does not prove that this first cause is omnipotent or omniscient or benevolent."

The fact that anything exists proves there was a First Cause.
The fact that human beings exist as a result of this First Cause and have a moral nature that has benevolent interest in other human beings proves that this First Cause was moral.

Science has no explanation for how anything has come to exist. The universe's origin -- from nothing -- is a complete mystery.

Science has no explanation for how life began.

Now, to the claim that "Religion hates mystery. Science loves mystery." Seriously? Religion is all about loving Mystery!

Not merely Christianity, but all religions are essentially celebrations of the mystery of this First Cause. All religions recognize and revere this First Cause and inform us as to what that great fact tells us about our place in the universe, and how we may morally live our lives. This is true even of Buddhism, which though it doesn't recognize a Creator, does in its own way honor the apparent moral order of the universe.

Science only loves mystery in respect to mechanical questions of "how does this work." But the question of the really, really ultimate mysteries of how the universe began from nothing, and how life began from nothing? Many scientists seem to be frozen in rigid orthodoxy in their adamant refusal to even consider supernatural factors. That's hardly "loving mystery."

@ Sant Mat 63

>>The fact that anything exists proves there was a First Cause.<<

Not at all it proves NO-thing
and to love life it is not needed either

What the actual fuck, Spence.

Let it be. Just let it be.

I’ve no doubt we’ll have productive discussions again, another time. If you’ll forgive me for what is without doubt a lapse in courtesy on my part; and agree to engage with me again on another topic, another time, despite this. And if and when you choose to engage honestly.

For now, feel free to declare yourself the winner of the Internet debating cup. I don’t mind in the least.

@ AR
Do read hexagram 33 of the I ching

Just a random one ... there are many others.
https://www.cafeausoul.com/oracles/iching/tun-retreat

"If nobody had spoken to you about selfs and certainly not about getting rid of it, you would not have known."

Can't say that makes sense to me. Because that would apply to any and every thing under the sun. Including the pleasure we derive from a good mug of coffee. ...But that's okay, not to beat this sidebar to death!


"So better address what is inside FIRST"

How do you mean? How would one do that, in your view? (Do you mean meditation? If so, it doesn't have to be either-or, you know.)

@ AR

Do not take my words to strict and absolute.

If you sit down with some coffee and ponder about whatever you have stored in mind, and what you have stored there if you were not conditioned the first 25 years of your life to "hear upon others" , believing what you had to do with your life had to be told to you.

The world is a market place of interests. I do not say you should not go there but only for your own reasons.

How much of what you consider mentally yours is realy yours.?
Born from a deep mental hunger.

So why would anybody be interested in logic?
Why would anybody be interested in Buddhism?
Why would anybody Meditate?

After being involved for some decades in these movements, without any regret, I have come to realize that i embarked on a path without properly searching my own heart. first.

Yes if I would have done so probably I would never have spend a minute on any teaching and teacher and in do so I would have missed the interaction with the late MCS ... and that AR would be a great pitty, very great pitty.

So try to understand what i am hinting at.

Remember my dads words .. I did not educate myself why would you?

Do not make the mistake to take his words to mean I should NOT educate myself.

"Everywhere we look, causes lead to effects that turn into more causes and more effects. Aquinas, like most religious people of any historical time, is uncomfortable with the mystery of existence having always existed. Me, I'm with those who find this idea hard to grasp and mystifying, but I don't find it uncomfortable."

If someone is this discussion is uncomfortable, it's not Aquinas! But as is usual whenever this topic of the origin of the universe and life. it's those of an atheistic bent who squirm when trying to explain the mystery of How Anything Is.

They say, "the universe and nature probably always existed. Yeah, that's it."

But how is "it just was always here" a answer? Seems more like an avoidance of the question. Surely it's at least possible that an Intelligent First Cause could have been the reason for this incredible universe?

"SHUP UP!!! THERE IS NO GOD, THERE CANNOT BE GOD, NO, NO NO."

Well, they don't really say t h a t, but you can tell that's the bias that completely informs whatever they say on this topic.

Wish they'd just for once say "I don't know." Not that I care really. But this total lack of willingness to even consider God as a possibility makes this a church of atheist dogma rather than the openminded forum it pretends to be.

@ Sant Mat xx

Why do you want there to be a god?

Read history and see what that desire for an existence of a god has done in terms of misery?

Great Master wrote:
FIRST came men, later religions were instituted.
Why?
for the evolution of his soul.

I have no idea what at soul is and whether I have one

And would like to use MCS rhetoric question.
Brother what is YOUR concept of soul, god etc.

Mind you I am not saying a word about GOD .. only something aboyt the USE humans make about a concepted created by them.

Hi AR
You wrote:
"For now, feel free to declare yourself the winner of the Internet debating cup. I don’t mind in the least."

Brian attempted at one time to claim I lost a debate. My reply was that the game judge was drunk. Brian thought I was speaking of him, but no. We are all drunk, and the evidence is that here we are at the bar sipping hard alcohol of our own dogmas together, trying to claim the other is drunk but we are all.

There is no score. In the game of divine love there is zero score, and no barriers between anyone.

If there is connection, everyone wins. And the person who learned something new? They are actually the greatest winner. Both are winners if they can understand the opposite view better.

Your complaints about Augustine were good complaints from your perspective, and some of them remain solid statements, though Aquinas may not be the appropriate target. He didn't prove what the Prime Mover is...it could have been another series of events as you suggest. We know it had to be before all this, but that's as far as he can go. And he admits as much. All his personal choice in believing that's God is separate, and he is honest about that. His arguments are largely agnostic though he himself is a devout Christian.Yet, he contributed to the very foundations of science tools every scientist uses today.

Where Aquinas says we can only understand the causes by studying the effects, he is encouraging scientific inquiry and humbly resigns himself from attempting to prove any details about the creator at all, except that something came first and it had to be entirely independent of the creation. Logically that makes sense. Of course, your point that logic is bound and vulnerable to the premises we know is correct. Add a few new ones and what was entirely and elegantly logical may no longer be. But as for today, it is, and the conclusion we reach is that we should learn more about what we can observe and / or measure, whether within or in our world. Believe it or not, that is the only useful takeaway from Aquinas ' demonstration, and it is a conclusion I believe he would encourage.

@ Spense

The law of cause and effect is paramount in the universe that is available to all of us and to science.

It does not explain anything else beyond itself and the universe

Those that have tried to do that are like people that want to scoop water with a thieve
or the proverbial Baron Munchhausen that decided to pull himself out of the quagmire by pulling his own boots..... it doesn't water how eloquent the writer is, however praised as theologian, philosopher.

Humans tend to think as humans, in a human way about everything even about what they consider to be the creator of them.

They think they have to know, that they can know and to live a life as a hiuman being it is neither neccessary to pose that question let alone come up with an answer and fool the ignorant.

Why are atheists, atheists? Are they more intelligent and perceptive than the rest of us? Or do social factors have a major role in forming their lack of belief in God?

Bad or Absent Fathers can be a Strong Indicator of Atheism

This factor was present in the lives of famous atheists Freud, Marx, Feuerbach, Baron d’Holbach, Bertrand Russell, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, Schopenhauer, Hobbes, Samuel Butler, H. G. Wells, Carlyle, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, and Albert Ellis.

Paradoxically, Bad or Absent Fathers is also extremely common with those who join a cult. I've been a member of several fringe religions, and every single person I knew in those religions did not have a good relationship with their father.

Joining a cult then is an effort to find a replacement for the absent father figure. Atheism is an effort to express resentment at one's father.

@ Santmatt

So ... as they are born from a FATHER, the universe must be born from a FATHER.

Believers think there is one and those that according you, had not build an relationship with their biological father, do not want to believe that the universe has a father.

Funny ... time to make myself a cup of coffee.

I don't fucking believe this.

Spence, that last comment of mine, the one where I listed out all of your critiques in a single section, that was the end of it. That's not someone declaring themselves the winner, that actually was the end of it.

Cerntainly I'm willing enough to engage with you, that's what rational discourse is about.

But your subsequent comments, where you went through the motions of responding to the points made, that was so skin-crawling disingenuous as to be completely disgusting. It's ...skin-crawling, that ...flow of thought.

Do you seriously think that, THAT, was some kind of ...thing to be proud of? It would take no more than a sneeze to point out the absurdity of what you're saying, from that point on.

But only a fool engages with this kind of ...disingenuity, this kind of loathsome thought process. This is ... I mean, this is, completely ...sick!

-----

And now along comes that other complete lowlife, who calls himself SantMat64, saying that bad or absent fathers can be an indicator of atheism.

I mean, it's clear enough what that lowlife's alluding to. Clearly you've read past posts of Brian, you POS, and now you use his personal history to ...

This is ...totally, completely ...I lack words, to express my complete disgust.

SantMat64, you ...complete, total lowlife.

You lot shouldn't be allowed in through the fucking door. Uncivilized filth, the lot of you.

------

You, Spence, should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.

Yes, I've completely lost my cool. That's one kind of filth, that SM-whatsisname creature. And your disingenuousness, while it is a very very different thing than that, but that's yet another kind of filth. It's ...sick, diseased, this ...sheer disingenuousness.

It ...beggars belief, that you should ...come out here now after all this and, with a straight face, now pretend to gracefully talk about not worrying about winning and losing, and patronizingly telling me my complaints are good complaints.

--------

God help us all.

SM64 should straightaway be ejected out of here. IRL his nose should have broken, and then he should've been physically ejected from here. Online he should simply be thrown out, and not allowed to pollute civilized company.

Except Brian's much too ...fair, decent, to do what I'd have done had this been my place. So I guess there's no help to it, SM64 will continue infesting this place with his filthy presence.

And you, Spence, there's no grounds to eject you. All you are is dishonest.

But that is, certainly, grounds enough not to waste time on you.

And you know what? So far I've not ...gone this length. So far I've believed your tall tales, to the extent of believing you have those experiences. Nothing beyond that, but at least that much I've not doubted.

But someone so ...brazen in their disingenuity, it's ...silly, to continue to believe them, in any of their claims, and certainly so their more far-fetched claims.

----

God, I don't think I've ever been this ...incensed, over online interactions.

Fuck, Spence. To hell with SM64 and his kind. But you ...aren't you fucking ashamed of yourself? Haven't you a shred of actual honesty? All these years I've been taking you at face value and discussing things with you as one would a decent honest human being...

I'm ...completely furious, both at this disgusting display of yours, as well as this ...this lowlife SM64.

Heh, even while furious, I do see why you might admire Aquinas, Spence.

Aquinas has zero conception of logic. He only sees the outer form of it, of premises, and arguments, and conclusions, and people doing that, and arriving at conclusions. And he produces these arguments of his, that are, like I've clearly shown, a cargo-cult imitation of that process.

It's either that, or he's deliberately produced these arguments for rubes who've seen the outer form of logical arguments, but know nothing of what goes inside of them, and for their benefit produced that set of 5 infamous idiocies of his.

Likewise, you, Spence, have seen the outer form of rational discourse. You've seen people quote others' words, and respond to them, sometimes present outside references, then make a case. And you go through the motions of doing that, and pretend to arrive at a conclusion. I mean, all of your comments following that in-one-section critique of mine?

The similarity, the parallel, is uncanny. No wonder you admire Aquinas.

....Even now I can go back and show up every bit of your nonsense from that point on, easiest thing in the world. But only a fool would waste time on this kind of shit. For that matter, only a fool would waste time talking with you about this, which is what I find myself doing! And it isn't just wasting time, that sheer ...twisted flow of thought, it's ...repulsive to me, at some deep level, that dishonesty.

...Okay, I'll step back for now. Mustn't post online while furious like this.

But after this, I'll not make the mistake of addressing anything and everything and everyone I see up there, and take everyone at face value, and give everyone the time of day. No one does that IRL. It shouldn't be done online either.

“ Let’s agree with Aquinas that either the cosmos had a primal cause, or has existed forever. In no way does this point to a supernatural being , God. It points to either a natural primal cause, since nature is evident and God isn’t, or the eternal nature of, well, nature .

For something has to be eternal to avoid an assumption that the cosmos spring into being out of nothing- that eternal something is much more likely to be the observable physical world than an unseen God.

Aquinas’ objection to the possibility of an infinite regress is also poorly founded he claims that an infinite regression of causes could not exist because they would be no first cars but it shows a failure to understand the notion of an infinite series in such a series every individual event would have a perfectly good cause the event proceeding it.”

This objection is awful and borders on hilarity because it demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of Aquinas’ argument . His whole line of reasoning is concerned to show that there must be an uncaused cause even if the universe has always existed . Of course, Aquinas did believe that the world had a beginning , but that is not a claim that plays any role whatsoever in his versions of the cosmological argument. When he argues that there must be a first cause, he doesn’t mean “first” in the order of events extending backwards into the past. What he means is that there must be a most fundamental cause of things which keeps them in existence at every moment, whether or not the series of moments extends backwards into the past without a beginning .

In fact, Aquinas rather famously rejected what is now known as the “ Kalam” argument. He did not think that the claim that the universe had a beginning could be established through philosophical arguments. He thought it could be known only via divine revelation, and that was not suitable for use in trying to establish God’s existence. Here, by the way, is another basic test of competence to speak on this subject. Any critic of the five ways who claims that Aquinas was trying to show that the universe had a beginning and that God caused that beginning – as Richard Dawkins and many others do - infallibly demonstrate thereby that they simply do not know what they are talking about. This blog post is case in point .

“This objection is awful and borders on hilarity because it demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of Aquinas’ argument . His whole line of reasoning is concerned to show that there must be an uncaused cause even if the universe has always existed .”


……….Yes, that is indeed what was Aquinas’s “concern”. Yes, that is indeed what he set out to do. Yes, that is indeed what he intended. But he failed to do that. He failed abjectly to do that. He failed so completely to do that, that his attempt is nothing more than a parody of logic, nothing more than an empty cargo-cult imitation of the methods of logic.


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Cassiodorus, assuming YOUR criticism, at any rate, was honestly intended, allow me to point out the elementary errors in Aquinas’s “second way”, the causality thing. Brian’s done that already, and done that perfectly well; but maybe a fresh perspective might throw help throw more light. This is all completely obvious, but still, should you have honest sincere objections to what I say, and if those objections do actually make sense, then I assure you that I will, without reservation, acknowledge that; and applaud that as well, and welcome it as correction to my own understanding, should such be warranted.


1. Aquinas claims that every event must have a preceding clause; but that this cannot go back to infinity. I don’t see how he can possibly say anything about that, one way or the other. Cause follows effect, is all you can ever say, basis logic.

Here’s the reasoning he offers: “But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause.”

Can you not see the circularity, the blatant question begging, sitting there plain as day? This chain of causality cannot go on to back to infinity, Aquinas argues, because there will then be no first efficient cause; therefore, the chain of causality does not go back to infinity, and therefore there is a first cause.

That’s, like, a textbook example of question begging, of fallacious circular reasoning!


2. He says it is necessary to admit an efficient first cause; but again, directly assumes it is one singular first cause. Even should there be a first cause, even if we grant him that spurious reasoning: even then, there’s absolutely no reason, following that line of reasoning, why there shouldn’t be two, or three, or four, or a hundred “first causes”, each of which unleashes effects on to our universe, effects which intermingle with one another.

Do you see that? Why should there be just the one cause, why not two, why not ten? Why not a hundred “uncaused causes”, each uncaused, each unleashing effects without themselves having been caused?


3. If every event is causally linked to a preceding event (“preceding”, in terms of causality, like you argue): well then, why would the First Cause, whether unitary or multiple, whether just the one or a million, be outside of this chain of causality? Like Brian points out, that is classic, textbook and fallacious “special pleading”.

Look at Aquinas’s actual words: “There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible.” And yet he postulates a First Cause, that he already admits here is, basis his own reasoning, impossible. That’s …completely nonsensical, that’s something simply plucked out off of thin air, not reasoned out, that’s something simply wished into existence out of whole cloth.

Like I’d pointed out to Spence in connection with the first-way prime-mover argument, that’s simply POSTULATING, not arguing. In effect, in this case, Aquinas simply POSTULATES an ipse-dixitism, which is this first cause that is itself outside of the chain of causality and is itself not caused; and the rest of the words serve simply as verbiage within which to camouflage that plain fact.


4. Even granting a unitary first cause, that is outside of causality itself, we now come to the part where he says this is God. That again is fallacious. Because for something to be called God, it must necessarily have some attributes, like consciousness for instance; and maybe the usual Christian-God attributes of omniscience, omnibenevolence, etc. Even if none of those tri-omni attributes, as you’ve argued upthread, but even then, if this God isn’t at least conscious, then it’s silly to call it God. For instance, if that unitary first cause is quantum fluctuations, then it’s silly to call it God, isn’t it? “…(A) first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God”, concludes Aquinas --- except, no one, anywhere, ever, would ever refer to something that does not even possess consciousness, like quantum fluctuations for instance, as God.


5. Finally, like I’d said to you originally, and like I’d pointed out in my single-piece critique addressed to Spence, he’s arguing for a Prime Mover, and a First Cause, and the Completely Perfect Being, and so forth; and even if we grant those conclusions (which we have no reason to, but even if for the sake of argument we do that), even then there’s actually nothing connecting these five separate entities, other than Aquinas having arbitrarily labeled them all “God”. Why shouldn’t there be a first cause in the form of quantum fluctuations, for instance, and, separately from that entity, another entity that is the font of complete perfection from which emanates all goodness? (Yes, completely weird argument, insane even, that whole perfection argument; but still, granting him that for the sake of argument?)


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The cosmological argument that Brian’s chosen to criticize, and that you’ve responded to, does not, unlike the “first way”, that is to say the prime-mover argument, admit of direct scientific disproofs, as far as I can make out.

The prime mover is disproved also by inertia, and by relativity as well, as I’d pointed out to Spence; albeit we cannot blame Aquinas for not knowing that; but there’s no excuse for you and I not to know that. As far as I can make out, there’s no similar strictly scientific disproof of the Causality Argument. I’ve seen things like radioactivity and quantum effects sometimes suggested, but personally I would not put forward those arguments, because radioactivity can be thought to have a cause, actually, of a kind; and QM I do not understand well enough to rightly claim that the apparently causeless events we see are really causeless, so that’s best not introduced in a refutation of Aquinas, at least not by someone that does not know QM math and QM physics far better than I do. So yeah, this specific argument of Aquinas seems spared those science-based take-downs, as far as I can make out.


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You keep accusing Brian of putting up strawmen. If you wish to do that, and if you also wish to claim that I too haven’t properly understood Aquinas’s causality agreement, and that I’m attacking strawmen as well, then I’ll ask you to clearly show what you think is the strawman. I will not presume to speak for Brian; but should you see any strawmen in what I myself have said here in this comment, then do point it out; and if there’s merit to what you say, I assure you I’ll acknowledge it. Should any strawmen you point out, that appear valid, actually seriously demolish my critique, then I’ll go so far as to withdraw my critique as well, if it comes to that.

You say, in so many words, that Brian’s analysis “borders on the hilarious”. Maybe you find my objections hilarious, as well. Which is perfectly fine, except I’ll invite you to point out exactly what it is that is funny. Unlike many of his critics, Brian is no stranger to intellectual integrity. If you’re able to point out what is funny about Brian’s objections, and mine as well, then we’ll both join in the hilarity, and join you in laughing at the hilarious mistake that he and I have committed, and thank you for pointing it out to us. Seriously, I mean it.

One reason you’ve already pointed out, and that reason I’ve already shown to be spurious. One reason why you’re apparently given to laughter, is because Aquinas’s “whole line of reasoning is concerned to show that there must be an uncaused cause even if the universe has always existed.” I’ve already showed you that while he did set out to do exactly that, but he failed abjectly, he failed laughably, to do that. So that joke I’m afraid is on him, rather than on Brian, no?

Really, if you feel there are any other errors we’ve committed, either he or I, then do please point them out, clearly. We’ll both appreciate your efforts, and applaud you, if what you say sticks.


Dear Spence,

Have you read that book by Neal Stephenson, called Anathem? Excellent book, fiction, that I’d read, oh, a long time back.

It’s about this monastery for scholar-monks, whose pursuits are completely scholarly, and across disciplines. In that book, when some novice or some monk was found in particularly grave transgression of their rules and laws, then they’d be meted out a very interesting penance. They’d be ordered to retire in isolation to a cell, and were to remain there studying a Book. Book with a capital B, much like the Bible. The Book had 12 chapters, and depending on the nature and degree of transgression, the penance involved studying maybe just the first chapter, or maybe the first and the second chapter, or maybe the first six chapters, and so on. But every chapter was more difficult than the last, and the difficulty level increased not linearly but exponentially. And the sentence consisted simply of studying the prescribed chapters of the book, with a view to memorizing as well as completely internalizing the assigned portions. At the end of the sentence, spanning as long as it took the novice or monk to finish his study, he’d be subjected a detailed viva voce, where a group of senior monks would carefully assess whether he’d perfectly memorized as well as completely understood and internalized his assignment.

So what was it about this Book that made the study of it such a big deal, that simply the study of it was the harshest penance that the monastery prescribed for the most serious transgressions? Here’s how it’s described: There was no point at all to the book. The contents of the Book had been crafted and refined over centuries to be nonsensical, maddening, and pointless: flagrantly at first, and more subtly as the chapters progressed. It was a maze without an exit, an equation that after weeks of toil reduced to 2 = 3. The writings were nonsensical, but not even completely random, because even complete randomness can be made to fit to a certain rhythm through long practice. These writings almost but not quite made sense; they had internal logic, but only to a point. And the punishment lay in knowing that you were putting in effort into letting a kind of intellectual poison infiltrate your brain.

It was a crippling exercise, this penance, even for the seasoned scholar-monks; and in fact designed specifically to cripple the scholar-monks. Depending on how many of those exponentially-ever-worse chapters you had to study, the penance would last from days, to weeks, to months, to years. And those who had to do the full 10 chapters or more, were often left permanently crippled, and sometimes went completely off their mind.

This is all fiction, obviously. It’s simply a book of fiction. But a very interesting premise, that, isn’t it, that penance thing?


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So why am I discussing this with you? You can guess, right? It is because each and every comment of yours, made subsequent to that all-the-sections-in-one-piece comment of mine (posted July 20, at 7:23 AM), each and every post of yours, amounted to just that: chapters from the monks’ Book. I kept telling you they were “spine-crawlingly” disingenuous, right? So what made them “spine-crawling”, was that aspect of the nonsense you’d posted.

What you’d posted was nonsense. It wasn’t just wrong --- anyone can be wrong, there’s nothing …wrong, in sometimes being wrong! But everything you posted was not just wrong but arrant nonsense. It was clearly deliberately disingenuous, you’re too intelligent not to be fully aware of that: and it was posted specifically to mislead. And it was nonsensical in exactly the terms in which this Book in Neal Stephenson was nonsensical. It was a vile piece of work, that collection of those comments of yours, Spence. It was no more than a parody of rational discourse, no more than just a completely-empty-from-within and made-only -for-outward-show cargo-cult imitation of rational discourse.


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I’m saying all of this to you now, Spence, not to berate you, or insult you, or to attack you, I assure you! It’s exactly the opposite, actually, exactly the opposite! I wanted to first of all clearly explain to you why it is I found your comments so very loathsome, and why I snapped at you so. I regret that, Spence. Not the content of what I said, but how I said it. I should have said it gently, else I should have held my tongue.

I’m afraid I look back at our interactions, and see all through your comments a tendency towards this kind of disingenuity, that finds expression whenever you’re pushed to the wall, because for some peculiar reason you seem incapable of ever acknowledging that you’re wrong. But apart from those times, when being pushed to the wall brings out your disingenuousness, bar those times your comments are very engaging, brilliant even sometimes, often very erudite, sometimes wise even. I’ve learnt a great deal from you, Spence, over the years, a great deal. About RSSB, about Christianity, about Judaism, about general advances both in medical research and in science in general, and across so many other subjects. I’d regret it, very much, if that often beautiful experience, that to me is discussing things with you, were to come to an end. I hope that won’t come to pass. But nor will I walk back a single word of what I’d said to you in anger yesterday, other than the harsh and discourteous tone of it.

That makes for a very qualified apology, I realize that. But such as it is, I offer it to you, Spence.

Now: If you would like to go back to my comment, the all-the-sections-in-one-single-comment thing where I address your issues about Aquinas’s first-mover argument, and if you would like to HONESTLY address my comment, afresh --- I repeat, HONESTLY --- then I’ll be very happy to engage with you on it. And you know me well enough, Spence, to know very well that should there be any real merit to any objection you raise to anything I’ve said, then I’ll readily accept it, and in ringing tones acknowledge it, and what’s more sincerely thank you for it.

If you’re game, go!

If not, then no issues. But I still hope my qualified apology --- which is meant completely sincerely, but I’m afraid I can’t offer anything more than that qualified apology --- will assuage hurt feelings enough that, going forward, and on other subjects, we’ll be able to resume our interesting and productive discussions, and I’ll be able to learn again from your vast knowledge and understanding of such a vast range of subjects.

Cheers, Spence!

Aquinas was logical as fuck. He deduced we should kill heretics. He had me at "kill..."

"I answer that, With regard to heretics two points must be observed: one, on their own side; the other, on the side of the Church. On their own side there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the Church by excommunication, but also to be severed from the world by death. For it is a much graver matter to corrupt the faith which quickens the soul, than to forge money, which supports temporal life. Wherefore if forgers of money and other evil-doers are forthwith condemned to death by the secular authority, much more reason is there for heretics, as soon as they are convicted of heresy, to be not only excommunicated but even put to death."

https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3011.htm

It should be needless to say that to effectively criticize Aquinas’ cosmological argument , one needs , at the very least , a general grasp of the background Thomistic metaphysics . Concepts such as act and potency , analogy , form and matter, Divine simplicity , and Aristotelian causality are crucial for any serious discussion of Aquinas’s thought . Case in point …..

AR says he does realize that Aquinas is not arguing that the universe must have had a beginning. Still , he asks , in effect, why might a series of causes existing simultaneously all here and now , not be as infinite as a temporal regress of causes might be , by Aquinas’ own admission ? And if there must be a first uncaused cause in the order of simultaneous causes, why could it not be something other than God, such as basic material particles or gravitational forces?

The very asking of these questions shows that AR does not understand the distinction between causal series ordered per accidens and casual series ordered per se, on which the Thomistic arguments like other scholastic cosmological arguments crucially depend.

What is key is the distinction between instrumental and principle causality or second and first causality, a distinction which the language of per accidens versus per se better conveys. An instrumental cause is one that derives whatever causal power it has from something else. To use Aquinas‘s famous example, the stick that the hand uses to push the stone has no power to push the stone on its own, but derives its stone- moving power from the hand, which uses it as a “instrument “. Of course, the stick might have some other causual powers apart from the hand; the point is that relative to the specific series hand – stick-stone it has no independent causal power. A principal cause is one that does have its causal power inherently . The hand in our example can be thought of for purposes of illustration as such a cause , though of course ultimately it is not, since its power to move the stick depends on other factors. In any event, it is because all the causes in such a series other than the first are instrumental in this way that they are said to be ordered per se or “essentially “, for their being causes at all depends essentially on the activity of that which uses them as instruments . By contrast causes ordered per accidens or “accidentally “ do not essentially depend for their efficacy on the activity of earlier causes in the series. To use Aquinas’ example, a father possesses the power to generate sons independently of the activity of his own father, so that a series of fathers and sons is in that sense ordered per accidens rather than per se, though each member of such a series is also dependent in various other respects and causal series ordered per se.

Now to repeat , it is essentially ordered series rather than accidentally ordered series that necessarily have a first member. But again , “first” here doesn’t mean “the member that comes at the head of the line, before the second, third, fourth, etc. “. Rather, “first” means “fundamental “or “underived “. The idea is that a series of instrumental causes – causes that have their causal powers only derivatively, only in so far as they act as instruments of something else- must necessarily trace to something that has its causal power in a non- instrumental way, something which can cause without having to be made to caused by something else. And the argument from motion claims that only that which is pure actuality – which is, as it were, “already “ fully actual and thus need not (indeed cannot ) have been actualized by anything else – can be causally fundamental or underived in an absolute sense .

This does not require such a cause to come at the head of some metaphysical queue. Even if we suppose there to exist a series of instrumental causes that Regreses to infinity or loops around in a circle, there would still have to be a “first” cause in the sense of an underived or non-instrumental cause outside the infinite regress or loop, otherwise the infinite or circular series as a whole- comprised as it is of instrumental causes having no causal power of their own- cannot exist. As some Thomist have pointed put it, a paintbrush has no power to move itself, and it would remain powerless to move itself even if it had an infinitely long handle.

Ultimately, the trouble with this anti- Thomas critique is that it assumes that the thomist is arguing for a “first mover” in the sense of a mover coming at the head of a line. And as I’ve just explained, that is not what is at issue. Let a system of causes be as complex as you wish – an infinite series, a circle, a vast crisscrossing network - to the extent that they are instrumental in character, there will have to be something outside the system as a whole importing causality to it .


“Aquinas was logical as fuck. He deduced we should kill heretics.”


I didn’t know that! You did good to point that out, manjit. Clearly the man was not just an intellectual cretin, but a cretin in terms of morality as well.

Although, I suppose, and like I’ve said upthread, his wider works may perhaps reveal other, and redeeming, aspects of this thoughts and personality, that I’m not privy to, not having read anything of him other than his cosmological arguments. While that’s possible, but that still doesn’t take away from the enormity of his intellectual and moral paucity that we see on display here.

I think Brian goes to the nub of the issue when he says, “Aquinas wants to use philosophy to defend his faith, not to engage in a search for truth.” Aquinas does not, like Brian quotes Russel saying, go where evidence and logic lead him; but instead he tries to force-fit evidence and logic in order to somehow give the appearance of being logical, and pretending to ultimately arrive at the “conclusion” that had been his starting point all along. That’s …completely dishonest, that’s intellectual cretinism at its worst.


Cassiodorus, this is so weird. Why on earth are you speaking at me, rather than speaking to me?

I squarely addressed your objection to what Brian had said, and showed how your objection was completely misplaced. Why don’t you directly address that, if you’ve anything to say?

Again, given that you were speaking at length specifically on the Causality argument, I clearly outlined the gaping flaws in that argument of Aquinas’s. If you actually find anything amiss with what I say, then what stops you from clearly referencing my specific argument/s and clearly and directly discussing them?

Instead of directly addressing me squarely, as I address you, you suddenly start with this weird third-person narrative thing of talking at me, rather than to me. And instead of addressing the things I’ve said, you bypass them completely, including even the point you yourself had raised, as well as the rest of what I'd said, and instead raise these other issues to talk about. That's ...kind of weird, no?


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“It should be needless to say that to effectively criticize Aquinas’ cosmological argument , one needs , at the very least , a general grasp of the background Thomistic metaphysics .”


……….AR has decided to accommodate Cassiodorus, at least for the space of this comment, by going all third-person on him. AR hopes Cassiodorus is happy with this weird stilted third-person address, since that is the kind of style of address that Cassiodorus is apparently at home with.

Cassiodorus is completely mistaken in thinking that an understanding of metaphysics is important to assess the truth value of Aquinas. Aquinas’s cosmological arguments stand by themselves, and, in failing to stand, they fall by themselves. They’ve been clearly shown to fall, as clearly discussed by AR; and AR wonders why Cassiodorus does not squarely address those points; and indeed why Cassiodorus does not address even the very point he himself raised from Brian’s article, and that he claimed he found borderline hilarious.


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Cassiodorus, assuming you sincerely believe that Aquinas’s metaphysics directly does impact how we might assess their logical acuity and/or their truth value, then why don’t you just come out and spell out just how? Here’s a direct analogy that will make clear what I mean:

Aquainas’s prime mover argument is clearly refuted by intertia as well as relativity. But if I kept my comments unnecessarily cryptic and unnecessarily jargon-laden, and contented myself with simply saying, “Modern physics clearly refutes Aquinas,” Or, maybe, “Newton and Einstein refute Aquinas’s Prime Mover argument,” well then that wouldn't really make for clarity, would it? At least not unless those whom I'd addressing are already fully on the same page as I'm at?

Rather than doing that, isn't is so much better, and doesn't it make for much clearer communication, if I clearly explain what I mean, briefly yet fully, and in words free of jargon? Which is exactly what I did, in my comment addressed to Spence.

Why don’t you do the same now? If you believe Aquinas’s larger works, his metaphyiscs, whatever, is somehow germane to an assessment of his logic, and/or the truth value of his conclusions, then just spell it out yourself, in clear terms, why don’t you? Just reference my comment to you, and reference each part, and let me know if you agree with those parts, and if you don't agree, then just spell out --- briefly, clearly, and sans unnecessary jargon --- your reasons for not agreeing, including whatever points you might have that are drawn from Aquinas's metaphysics. This sounds so very straightforward!

But I hope you understand one thing, Cassiodorus. A purely metaphysical study is not nonsense, it does have academic worth in and of itself; but it is essentially a closed study. It is a bit like literature, where you study something within the parameters of that thing, and specifically for the sake of studying that thing. In those terms, sure, we’d need to know wider metaphysics to cogently address Aquinas. But in terms of directly assessing the worth of his arguments in terms logical, as well as in terms of their actual relation to reality, his wider metaphysics is completely irrelevant; or, if you feel it isn’t, then absolutely, and to revert to your odd stilted third-person form of address, AR hereby invites Cassiodorus to discuss how exactly Aquinas’s metaphysics affects how we might assess the logical worth, as well as the absolute worth (in terms of their truth value, in terms of how they actually relate to reality), of Aquinas’s argument.

That metaphysical argument you present in your comment, that was interesting. But I think I’ve already addressed that in my comment to you. What you say is a longer and more roundabout version of Aquinas’s own words, that I’ve already directly quoted and directly addressed. That this infinite regress is not possible without first having been actuated by an uncaused cause; and, most importantly, that such an uncaused cause does actually exist, that is distinct from other intermediate causes in this essential respect; both these are ipse-dixitisms that Aquianas has simply postulated, that he’s simply made out of whole cloth. They don’t follow from his arguments; instead, they’re postulated by Aquinas, is all. It’s completely circular, that argument, and a blatant ipse-dixitism.

Further, even if looked at via this metaphysical prism, there’s no reason at all why there should be just the one such primary cause, is there? Why shouldn’t there be a billion such, each of which is primary and uncaused, and each of which unleashes intermediate effects down the line? Besides, there is nothing to suggest that this primary cause, call it what you will in metaphysical terms, is possessed of intelligence and consciousness. If it happens to be something inert, like quantum fluctuations, that is neither intelligent nor even conscious, then no one in their right mind would call it “God”. And finally, even granted all of this, there’s nothing to connect the entity that is the conclusion of this argument, to the entities that are arrived at as the conclusion of the other arguments, the Perfection argument for instance, other than merely Aquinas having simply and arbitrarily attached the same label to them, which is “God”.


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“Ultimately, the trouble with this anti- Thomas critique is that it assumes that the thomist is arguing for a “first mover” in the sense of a mover coming at the head of a line. And as I’ve just explained, that is not what is at issue. Let a system of causes be as complex as you wish – an infinite series, a circle, a vast crisscrossing network - to the extent that they are instrumental in character, there will have to be something outside the system as a whole importing causality to it .”


……….I’ve already addressed this, Cassiodorus, but just to make sure that you don’t feel I’m deliberately sidestepping what you clearly is an important part of your critique (your critique of my critique), I’ll address this separately, even at cost of repeating stuff that I’ve already covered within this comment itself.

What you’ve said above, that no matter how complex a system, there must needs be something outside of the system that imports causality to the system, that is indeed what Aquinas is saying, true. Except he hasn’t actually argued it. He’s simply CLAIMING it, he’s simply POSTULATING it. He HASN’T actually shown, logically, that this follows.

Why should a system of causes have to have something outside of the system importing causality to the system? Where is the argument that comes to that conclusion? What are the premises of that argument? None! It’s merely Aquinas simply making that up out of whole cloth, and then hiding what he’s doing by camouflaging it in this whole mass of verbiage. He makes it seem like he’s argued this, he pretends that he’s argued this, but if you look closely, you’ll see that he’s done nothing of the kind, he’s simply stated this, he’s simply postulated this.

Do you see this, Cassiodorus? That is what Aquinas CLAIMS, POSTULATES. Not what he actually successfully argues, not what he successfully demonstrates. It’s COMPLETELY CIRCULAR. It’s textbook begging the question.

Further, even granted this, there’s nothing to show that there might not be more than one such “first cause” feeding causality into the system. There might well be a hundred billion such primary causes, whyever not? Each of those primary causes would themselves be completely independent, but their effects, that shoot out into the universe, would commingle and interact with one another. No reason to posit just the one Prime Cause.

Besides, Aquinas hasn’t shown that this “something”, this prime cause, is conscious. If it isn’t, at the barest minimum, even conscious, then, even if it exists, it’s completely absurd to call it “God”.

And finally, even granted the rest of it for the sake of argument, but there’s nothing linking this entity with the entities that are the conclusions from the other arguments of Aquinas, other than merely this, that Aquinas arbitrarily assigns to them all the same label, which is “God”.

I realize this is repetition of what I’ve already said, Cassiodorus, but like I said I wanted to make sure you didn’t go off thinking that I was sidestepping what you clearly believe is a crucial portion of your comment and of your argument.


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AR sits back in his chair, and stretches his legs out. He takes a long appreciative sip off of the mug of strong black coffee sitting on the side-table beside his desk.

AR’s kind-of sort-of had fun fooling around, a bit, with this weird third-person narrative thing of Cassiodorus’s, sure. But it’s now starting to wear a bit thin. If direct, cogent discussion is forthcoming after this, that directly address all of the points he’d raised in his previous comment to Cassiodorus, and that’s he’s now raised in this present comment, then Appreciative Reader will welcome it, and he'll be happy to take the time and effort to engage with it. But if not, then he’ll simply give up on Cassiodorus. AR has given him quite enough benefit of the doubt.

Not that that’ll worry Cassiodorus overly much, AR realizes that. If actually Cassiodorus isn’t doing this sincerely; if his basic intention in entering these discussions is not to sincerely examine and present his own views on the subject, vis-à-vis those with whom he’s interacting here, such as Appreciative Reader; and instead if all he wants is to air his unexamined thoughts and mindlessly proselytize his unexamined beliefs; in that case he, Cassiodorus, will likely simply be relieved at not having his words challenged any more. AR doesn’t mind that, at all. AR isn’t Cassiodorus’s keeper, after all.


(Even though your last post gives exactly that impression, but still, I hope that’s not the case, Cassiodorus. I’ll be here, in first person, if you choose to explore the issue sincerely along with me.)

Hi AR
You wrote
"Aquinas has zero conception of logic.."

I don't think you understand the logic he is using. He is not using Deductive reasoning, which is common among Theoretical scientists, designing a theory to explain apparently diverse observations; Nor Inductive nor strictly Reductive reasoning used by experimental researchers to gather large amounts of data to find patterns of causality, and filter out extraneous variation to arrive at the relevant independent variables.

Aquinas is using logic by analogy. Here something is explained by use of simile and metaphor.

Because this isn't deductive logic you don't get a proof, which is what you are looking for. You get, as Aquinas wrote, a demonstration, to explain.

He wrote that God cannot be fully understood for several reasons, but he ends up with an affirmative belief that we can understand something about the creator by understanding what he created better, just as scientists understand independent variables (causes) studying their effects (dependent variables). That isn't a deductive proof, but a logical analogy. And it is perfect reasoning because it adheres to basic foundational principles of science.

Aquinas goes on to state that just as independent variables, ("causes") are independent of the dependent variables they create ("effects") , so too whatever created (he chooses to label that 'God') all this must, in like fashion, be independent of the creation, which are all the effects now in existence.

This is reasoning by analogy. It is an explanation, and not a proof. But it is an entirely rock solid argument that whatever caused this creation must be independent of what we see now.

As it turns out Astrophysics today is moving forward based exactly on what Aquinas wrote.

Those independent conditions that were the prime mover(s) of this creation are currently being investigated by science, after science just proved in the last few decades that there must be prime mover(s) that is independent from the forces that are in fact the effects of that prime mover.

The Prime Mover, from an astrophysics perspective, could be a mix of forces.whatever they are, and just as Aquinas wrote, they predate the variables in our current universe and are independent of them.

Your second area of apparent misunderstanding is this basic foundational principle of science that all that is here is the result of an independent cause. You try to argue that it can all just be an infinite series that never had a beginning nor an end.

As I've pointed out earlier this is unscientific and groundless. In both Calculus and quantum mechanics series, including infinite series, have parameters that include a start, a minimum and a maximum value. The position and trajectory of subatomic, nuclear and atomic particles are defined within those limits. They have a start, even if, once started, they continue to proceed on to infinity. Having a start, they are the dependent variables of other independent variables. They are the result of other apriori independent forces.

So every particle, or astronomic body was put into motion by independent forces that came first. In the case of all such bodies that move in a curve, those forces continue to act, independently, upon those bodies to keep them in motion.

Both of these points you are most welcome to learn more about. Love of science and truth will take you there.


Dear Spence,

I’m very glad that you’re back here, and on this again! Cheers, old friend.

Haha, I see you’re back to doggedly trying to defend old man Aquinas. Which is cool, which is great, which I absolutely welcome, as long as you do it upfront and straight, like this!

So let me get this clear: You’re now saying that the holes that I pointed out in Aquina’s logic, and the holes that I pointed out in his science, they aren’t relevant, because he isn’t attempting a logical proof per se, but instead an explanation, a demonstration, is that right?

(To be clear, I’ve been saying myself, throughout, while there are gaping holes in his science, but those holes absolutely ARE irrelevant to evaluating Aquinas himself, since no one in his right mind would expect that man from the Middle Ages to know about what Messrs Newton and Einstein would work out many centuries after he was dead and gone.)

Hi AR
You asked
"So let me get this clear: You’re now saying that the holes that I pointed out in Aquina’s logic, and the holes that I pointed out in his science, they aren’t relevant, because he isn’t attempting a logical proof per se, but instead an explanation, a demonstration, is that right?"

These are two different but related things.

Yes, Aquinas doesn't offer the kind of evidence to prove God exists as in a logical deductive proof, or even inductive or reductive as a scientific conclusion. You are right he doesn't do that. But you may be wrong to have expected that and criticize him for not meeting those conditions, since Aquinas isn't arguing to prove God and isn't promising that he has done so. In fact he says we can't really, fully, understand God from where we are.

He's only explaining by evanescence that some indescribable independent variable must exist to explain this system of effects that cause other down stream effects. He uses independent and dependent variables analogously applied to all creation and in so doing dismantles the argument that all this may have been going on for infinity. He points out that such statements are illogical in a creation where all causes are independent of their effects. He points out that there had to be an apriori cause to all this existence of cause and effect if in fact this is a model that can be applied to all of creation. It can. Modern astrophysics is dealing with the fact that you can't project backwards using current physics and arrive at a big bang that can be explained with current data. The conditions had to be different with forces that either don't exist anymore or are no longer predominant. Hence there really is a prime mover as Aquinas wrote, though we still have little idea what that looks like.

Oops, auto spell error, second paragraph above should read,

"He's only explaining by analogous reasoning that some indescribable independent variable must exist to explain this system of effects that cause other down stream effects. He uses independent and dependent variables analogously applied to all creation and in so doing dismantles the argument that all this may have been going on for infinity. He points out that such statements are illogical in a creation where all causes are independent of their effects. He points out that there had to be an apriori cause to all this existence of cause and effect if in fact this is a model that can be applied to all of creation. It can. Modern astrophysics is dealing with the fact that you can't project backwards using current physics and arrive at a big bang that can be explained with current data. The conditions had to be different with forces that either don't exist anymore or are no longer predominant. Hence there really is a prime mover as Aquinas wrote, though we still have little idea what that looks like.

Dear Spence,

Aquinas lived on a flat, stationary Earth with the sun, moon, planets and stars traveling overhead in a crystalline dome called the Firmament. How old was Creation? A few thousand years. It was a quaint little universe and much easier to picture as having been made in six days by an outside entity.

On the other hand, why can't an omnipotent God create an infinite series without a beginning and end? Shall we place limits on the omnipotent powers of the Omnipotent? So much for efficient cause. It's irrelevant! (Wow, I just proved God in a different way! The impossible cannot be done; hence, there is an Impossible Doer, which everyone calls God!)

Do atheists really take as "a premise that what is beyond thought doesn't exist?" I don't think so. They simply won't label it 'God.' Had Aquinas concluded with "...which everyone calls the Tao," we'd be having a very different conversation!

Use of the word 'God' implies a Being possessed of consciousness and intention. Aquinas went there in the argument from final causes. Roughly: natural bodies and natural beings act toward ends, but they lack knowledge; therefore, an intelligent being must exist to direct them. Meh. Not very convincing.

But in his pre-scientific society Aquinas was probably the next best thing to Einstein in that he embodied maximum knowledge, ruminated intensely, lectured and published. In that light old religions can be seen as the science of their day with theologians as the scientists modeling reality on the knowledge available. Over the centuries, however, with accumulating observational anomalies their paradigms fell. Just as geocentrism fell to heliocentrism and Newtonian physics to relativistic, Science has pushed Theology further and further to the fringes, and Deity has become less and less instrumental as a concept.

So it strikes me funny when you call atheists bad scientists or prescribe correct understanding of science as the cure for atheism. In my thinking religion and science are different animals. How does grass grow? Ask a biologist. Why does grass grow? Ask a holy man.

With that I'll conclude, there's nothing wrong with being a holy man AND a scientist. "Ride both waves," a friend once recommended, though in a different context, and if it means ecstacies, visions and travel within, all the better.

Yours sincerely,

Hi Umami
You wrote
"On the other hand, why can't an omnipotent God create an infinite series without a beginning and end?"

If we are talking about reality, then a stronger argument is based upon whatever principles of science can be utilized instead of limitless conjecture.

Aquinas did that with principles that have proven to be true. He says that all you see around you is a series of effects, each with a separate, independent variable. That became a foundational principle of the scientific method and proven in subatomic physics as well as astrophysics and indeed every branch of science.

Aquinas chooses to call this God, but he also acknowledges this is just a mental placeholder for something no one can fully understand.

Umami, you wrote

"Aquinas lived on a flat, stationary Earth with the sun, moon, planets and stars traveling overhead in a crystalline dome called the Firmament. How old was Creation? A few thousand years. It was a quaint little universe and much easier to picture as having been made in six days by an outside entity."

If you are claiming Aquinas wrote that he believed these to be scientific truths, please provide a quote and reference. I challenge you to do so.

" The e astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion—that the earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer by means of mathematics (i.e., abstracting from matter), but the physicist by means of matter itself.”

– Summa Theologica, Question 1, First Article

Spence,

Very interesting, the idea of a spherical earth was much more common than I realized! Thanks for that.
Some reading...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth


I see now. Aquinas was a scientist which everyone calls a theologian.

@ Umami

In any "totalitarian" society free-thinkers do well to speak out their truth in an embedded way, so that they remain free to speak and do not risk injury or even death.

The history books of Europe tells us that it was very dangerous to diverse from the official Christian teachings and only recently their power to control view points has diminished
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprimatur

On the other side .. will any mystic want to have people lend them their ears, they have to "speak the language" of the people.. That means that his teachings , the way he presents them, can not divert to much from what they have come to understand.

The late MCS made it clear that he used the examples of the Bible and Christianity as these were things they understood, to bring across what he wanted to say.

And ... one cannot talk to children in the same way as to adults ... and .. not even to all adults in the same way, nor can everything be said to all and everybody. What would be helpfull to say to one person, might scare another person to death.


“Yes, Aquinas doesn't offer the kind of evidence to prove God exists as in a logical deductive proof, or even inductive or reductive as a scientific conclusion. You are right he doesn't do that.”


……….Thank you, Spence, for that clear unequivocal admission! I appreciate your squarely owning up to this, particularly in light of what had gone before.

We won’t refer to that past discussion again; at least I won’t myself ever bring it up gratuitously, unless specific concrete points now raised end up harking back to what I'd said there. That page is firmly turned, and that exchange is all forgotten, as far as I’m concerned.


----------


Right, so moving on now, to this new tack you’ve introduced. I wanted to make sure, before going further into this, that we are indeed on the same page here. And what you say now clears that up fully, I think.

You’re clearly saying here, and you’ve confirmed this on my asking, that you believe what Aquinas was about was not logical proof per se, but only “explanation” and “demonstration”. As such, neither any strictly logical holes in his arguments, nor any scientific incongruities, ought to be brought to bear in a criticism of Aquinas. …And you know what, Spence? As far as this statement, I’m in complete agreement with you. That is, I completely agree that this paragraph is internally consistent, and that the second sentence is indeed the conclusion that logically follows from the premise that is the first sentence. And further, even as far as unqualified agreement regardless of any premise, I’m halfway there already, in having maintained, throughout, that no blame can attach to Aquinas for the scientific holes in what he argued.

It’ll be interesting to see how this approach of yours shapes up. It’s not one I’ve considered before, so this should be fun, exploring this with you! I’ll try my best to keep an open mind on this as I do that.

As earlier, and to make for ease of reference should this discussion go on beyond this short exchange (short exchange so far, I mean to say, on this new approach of yours), I’ll number my separate points.


----------


(1)

“Aquinas is using logic by analogy. Here something is explained by use of simile and metaphor. (…) Because this isn't deductive logic you don't get a proof, which is what you are looking for. You get, as Aquinas wrote, a demonstration, to explain.”

“Aquinas isn't arguing to prove God and isn't promising that he has done so. (…) He's only explaining (…)”


……….But doesn’t this very starting point of yours clash with what Aquinas himself says about what he’s out to do, Spence? After all, that’s how Aquinas starts out, by saying in so many words that “The existence of God can be proved in five ways.”

That what Aquinas is out to do is merely explain and demonstrate, not prove, is what YOU are saying. It is not only what Aquinas is NOT saying, at least not within the space of the statement of these arguments; but it is expressly the OPPOSITE of what he’s saying!

Like I said, I’m trying to keep an open mind on this, and to try to see where you’re coming from. But I don’t see how you can fit that square peg in that round hole?


----------


(2)


Even if we accept that Aquinas did not intend a logical proof, but only demonstration by analogy, and explanation by analogy: even then, I don’t see that that explanation really holds up, I don’t see that the demonstration or indeed the analogy actually hold up.

I guess these words of Aquinas will capture the essence of his “explanation” (assuming for now that you’re right in saying that that’s all it was, explanation not proof): “If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God”


He’s comparing the universe to a staff that is moved by someone’s hand, and he’s proposing a Prime Mover as the equivalent of the hand in that analogy.

The validity of that explanation, as proposed, will crucially depend on the validity of the analogy he’s using. That’s simply begging the question, yet again, this time by means of an analogy! He’s implicitly claiming that the universe is like a staff being moved by a hand. Where’s his defense of that comparison, where’s his defense of that analogy? It’s just his say-so!

Like Brian’s said in his leader article, this is completely circular! Even seen as explanation, not proof, even then this is merely an ipse-dixitism, this is merely a pronouncement, this is merely a bald claim, that is dressed up as “explanation”, and hidden within largely irrelevant verbiage. At least that’s how it looks like to me. I can clearly see at least three blatant ipse-dixitisms and circularities in there, I’m afraid. Let me list all three of them down:


Ipse-dixitism One, Circularity One: Aquinas’s implicit assumption that a stick being moved by a hand makes for a sound working model for the universe.
He hasn’t actually “demonstrated” that, at all. He merely claims that, implicitly, baldly, without explanation, that that is so.


Ipse-dixitism Two, Circularity Two: His implicit assumption that the stick is being moved by only one hand.
Even granted the stick-and-hand analogy, why shouldn’t there be four separate hands moving the stick, or four thousand four hundred forty four hands? Why just the one hand? Again, that’s just his bald say-so, slipped in completely sans actual explanation or demonstration.


Ipse-dixitism Three, Circularity Three: His bald claim, made without actual explanation or demonstration, that “it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other”.
See how he’s selectively dicing up that analogy: He’s following the analogy, of a stick that’s being moved by the hand. When it comes to the stick, he’s going by how the stick is being moved by the hand. But when it comes to the hand, he’s conveniently ignoring the fact that the movement of the hand itself is a function of a whole host of other variables. He’s claiming that it’s necessary that his Prime Mover be “put in motion by no other”, but he’s not actually “demonstrated” that, at all, has he? Even as demonstration and explanation, I’m afraid this special pleading (about the uncaused-ness of the Prime Mover itself) seems completely fallacious.


----------


(3)


Even if seen as demonstration and explanation, rather than proof, and even granting him that his demonstration/explanation is valid, even then I’m afraid his conclusion is arrantly wrong. I mean his conclusion that “this everyone understands to be God”. Even granted the rest of his argument, that simply doesn’t follow. Here’s why:

He’s not simply, as you claim, using “God” as merely a placeholder term. It’s not simply an equivalent of an ‘x’ or an ‘n’ or whatever. He’s saying that prime mover is what EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS TO BE GOD. He’s simply baldly stating that this Prime Mover that is the conclusion of his argument ---- granting him, for now, that the conclusion does follow (which in fact it doesn’t, not even when seen as merely demonstration or explanation) ---- is the same entity that everyone refers to when they use the term God. Which, in his particular context, is clearly the Christian God, or at the barest minimum some kind of a deist God. That’s, like, a MASSIVE leap, that he provides zero “demonstration” or “explanation” for!


----------


(4)


This fourth point actually is an expansion of the third point, above, but there’s specific elements to this expansion that it might be good to highlight separately.

(4)(a): If this Prime Mover entity isn’t, at the barest minimum, conscious, then no one would ever “understand (it) to be God”. Therefore, what he’s doing is implicitly assuming that the Prime Mover is conscious. But he’s not actually demonstrating it, or explaining why he says that --- that this Prime Mover is, at the barest minimum, conscious.

(4)(b): He ends every argument with that same conclusion, that this-that-and-the-other, everyone understands to be God. That is, he’s again simply assuming, simply claiming sans any kind of “demonstration” or “explanation”, that each of these “placeholder entities”, as you claim they are, refer to the one and the same entity.


----------


(5)


As I’ve shown in Points #1 to #4 above, we’ve already arrived at two big holes in this new approach of yours, Spence. The first would be that it’s YOU who’s claiming that Aquinas isn’t out to offer proofs but only demonstration and explanation, and not Aquinas himself; and in fact Aquinas himself is saying exactly the opposite of that. And the second hole is that the Prime Mover argument, even if we agree to see it merely as a demonstration and an explanation, even then that demonstration does not hold up, that explanation is sorely lacking.

And the third big hole in this would be the following: This is absolutely not the case, as I’ve shown above: but even if I grant you that, first, Aquinas did indeed set out only to explain and demonstrate, and not to prove; and, second, if I also grant you for the sake of argument that Aquinas does manage to demonstrate and explain himself well enough, given the state of knowledge back in his day; well then, what follows from that is that Aquinas himself stands absolved of the many gaping holes in his argument, agreed. But nevertheless, the holes themselves still remain, both the holes in logic, as well as the holes in the science.

So that, the best you can show, even if this new approach of yours worked --- which I’m afraid it doesn’t, at all, but still even if it did then all it would mean is this --- that Aquinas himself is then to be shown to be neither an idiot nor a charlatan. However, everyone who today falls back on Aquinas’s arguments as a proof of God, and there are many who demonstrably do exactly that, this doesn’t so absolve THEM. Those arguments are still wrong, basis logic, and basis science as well, regardless of whether we personally hold Aquinas to account for being wrong about them.

um,
Heretics all of us here! I raise my coffee cup!

@ Umami

hahahaha ... may it please.

Put a pinch of sald in it and it will taste ven beter ... no joke

@ Umami

I do not consider myself a heretic .. as heretics have different views on teachings etc and often want to change something for the "BETTER"

As far as I know I never wrote a word about the teachings and/or the teachers as I do not consider myself in anyway to be in a position that would allow it.

That said my personal opinions, which I do have, all tell something about me and how I digested spirituality as it has come to me.

More over, it is my personal impression that even the teachers of sant mat, in public have nothing to say about these teachings and themselves as teacher. They just try to deal with the "issues" seekers have with these teachings etc, issues that are mostly related to how they live their lives.

They invite people to find out things they believe for temselves ... they do not say what to believe and how to live.

I know .. many will protest .. but this is how I see it.

Lest .. the past has come and left me on its own accord and I do not look back in remorse, the opposite with joy and gratitude.

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