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Thomas Aquinisas First way. Argument from Motion

Riveroaks said:
If rest is NOT the default condition of things, then SOME ENERGY must have been needed to place everything in the Universe in motion.

That Energy is God.

But even by skipping over getting to the motion phase, you are ignoring the creation phase.

If anything exists, something must have created it, because you did not create yourself nor did I create myself, nor could I create you, nor could you create me.

That Something is God.

So for anything to exist, there must have been a creation. And that requires a Creator.

And for everything created to enter into any motion relative to the rest of creation, that requires a prime mover. And that requires a God.

Then you still need to deal with the esthetics, which points definitively to an Artistic Artificer. That Artificer is God.

And you have to deal with the apparent purposefulness, and that requires a God too.

And because cogito ergo sum, I exist, and since I did not create myself, some kind creator must have created me. That requires a God too as Descartes the accomplished mathematician pointed out.

You can be as skeptical as you want, but skepticism is obsolete since Descartes.

Because you cannot doubt that you are thinking therefore you cannot doubt that you exist. And that requires a God.
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Again, you are making an assumption that the energy is God rather than simply energy.
 
RAMOSS said:
Thomas Aquinas' first way is the "Argument from Motion". It is as follows



Is this argument reasonable and rational? What are the weaknesses of this argument? What are it's strengths? Do you find this argument convincing, if so, why? If not, why not?
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It's drivel for the following reasons, amongst other I'm sure.

1, Our senses are not capable of telling us everything about the universe directly.

2, Things are always in motion. There is no stationary unless you happen to be going along with the same velocity as the fixed point of reference you are using.

3,
Only an actual motion can convert a potential motion into an actual motion.
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What????

4,
Nothing can be at once in both actuality and potentiality in the same respect (i.e., if both actual and potential, it is actual in one respect and potential in another).
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That actually contradicts it's self, demonstrating that the origional statement is false. And the author is a prat.

5, Light moves of it's own accord.

6, As far as we are aware there is a cause for all the motion we have observed so far.

7, Why not? Do you know that the universe has a start point? What happened previous to the big bang? If you have an answer how do you know this? If you can produce something that is convincing then you go directly to collect the Nobel prize.

8, How do you know it's what you call God???? Could just as easily be the previous Flying Spaghetti Monster that started this universe and set in motion the events that lead to the birth of our wonderful FSM!!!

Just wordy drivel.
 
Why would energy be god? And which god?
 
bg85 said:
is that supposed to be an argument?
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Actually that was a kiss goodbye to her.

She is a one trick pony. She learned it in the Navy.

Her one trick is called "never assume" but she knows nothing about philosophy so until she reads a few books about it the kiss is goodbye.

Religion is dogmatic.

Science is Empirical.

Philosophy is speculative.

She keeps saying over and over "youre assuming" ... well DUH! That's what philosophy is all about -- logical speculation.
 
Riveroaks said:
Actually that was a kiss goodbye to her.

She is a one trick pony. She learned it in the Navy.

Her one trick is called "never assume" but she knows nothing about philosophy so until she reads a few books about it the kiss is goodbye.

Religion is dogmatic.

Science is Empirical.

Philosophy is speculative.

She keeps saying over and over "youre assuming" ... well DUH! That's what philosophy is all about -- logical speculation.
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The problem is that Aquinas five ways are used to try to prove the existence of God. If you are talking about proof, then it isn't the realm of philosophy, but rather attempting a scientific argument. You can't have it both ways. You can't argue that something is proven with a philosophical assumption.
 
That's the one intrinsic fault to philosophy.

you really can not prove it.

You can only argue it.

It's up to the individual if they want to believe it or not.
 
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