The Views of Aristotle’s Idea of the Prime Mover Vs. the Judaeo Christian's Idea of God
The traditional theist Judaeo Christian belief of God is in many ways
very similar to Aristotle’s ideas and explanations of the Prime Mover.
However, although very similar in many situations, the beliefs about
God and the Prime Mover can also be very different and varied. Yet,
both ideologies of theists God and Aristotle’s Prime Mover follow the
same foundations - they are both eternal and responsible for change in
the world.
In Aristotle’s view, the Prime Mover is the common source of all
substance; it is the cause or purpose of change, but it itself remains
unchanged. Aristotle’s argument was that, because everything physical
was subject to change, there must be an immaterial, immutable mover,
causing movement without being changed itself during the process. This
is the Prime Mover. In a similar was, Judaeo Christians believe that
God is invariable and eternal. These traditional theists think God is
the creator of the world, and creates ex-nihilo, but is unaffected by
these creations. He is purely a sustainer of the world and all things.
By stating this, Judaeo Christians are saying that it is logically
impossible for the creatures to be or become the creator - God. They
believe that God is transcendent, and is completely distinct from all
people and creatures in everyway.
Resembling this idea is Aristotle’s belief that the Prime Mover is
totally set apart from creatures or any substance with physical matter
subject to change. This is because, although the Prime Mover is the
purpose and cause of all processes of change; like God in theist
...
... middle of paper ...
...thing else for his existence.
Even though Aristotle’s and Judaeo Christian beliefs vary about the
necessity of the world, the idea that God is eternal is equal to
Aristotle’s teachings of the eternal Prime Mover. Because the Prime
Mover is eternal, like God, it must be very good as there can be no
defects in anything that exists eternally and necessarily. God is
eternal so he is said to be complete perfection. He is also said to be
omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. This suggests that he is not
limited by space or time. Similarly, the Prime Mover is not limited by
space or time either, as it is immaterial and unaltered by things with
the potential to change. Like God’s total knowledge, the Prime Mover
knows itself, and therefore knows all things, as the Prime Mover is
The Final Cause, and nothing pre-existed it.
The Sermon on the Mount, we should look at the different beliefs the two have about life, and virtue by asking questions such as; what are we all pursing in this life? Or, what exactly is virtue, and how does Aristotle’s and Jesus’s view compare to each other? Another question that presents its self when reading about these two is, what exactly makes somebody 's character truly virtuous or moral? Although there is no one for sure answer to these questions, both Aristotle and Jesus devoted their lives to study and teach about what they believed were the right answers. Both stories bring two very different but very interesting points of views on how Greek and Christian viewed
A foundational belief in Christianity is the idea that God is perfectly good. God is unable to do anything evil and all his actions are motives are completely pure. This principle, however, leads to many questions concerning the apparent suffering and wrong-doing that is prevalent in the world that this perfect being created. Where did evil come from? Also, how can evil exist when the only eternal entity is the perfect, sinless, ultimately good God? This question with the principle of God's sovereignty leads to even more difficult problems, including human responsibility and free will. These problems are not limited to our setting, as church fathers and Christian philosophers are the ones who proposed some of the solutions people believe today. As Christianity begins to spread and establish itself across Europe in the centuries after Jesus' resurrection, Augustine and Boethius provide answers, although wordy and complex, to this problem of evil and exactly how humans are responsible in the midst of God's sovereignty and Providence.
Logos plays a relatively minute role in this paper due to logos being about rational or logical appeal and because this essay is about Thomas’s religious beliefs and the belief in God is not based rational or logical facts, it is based on faith and faith does not fall under logos. Also logos is hard to have in this case because everyone has different religious beliefs causing a religious statement to be true fact for some and ghastly lie to other. This makes religion views seen as that of opinion which ...
One of the arguments against this is: why does God have to be the first mover? The reason is that God is just the first being – logically there has to be a first. If there were no first mover then it would have been impossible to start motion. God is not a ‘specific’ mover, the title of God simple belongs to the being that is the first mover. Going off this argument, another questi...
Three equals one. Out of all of the statements made by the Christian faith, perhaps none is more confusing. The Doctrine of the Trinity has been questioned for decades and many Christians do not even understand it. Colin E. Gunton argues that this does not have to be so. Instead, he calls the Western Church to learn from Eastern Orthodoxy and allow Trinitarian thinking to permeate every aspect of the church. It is when the Western Church embarrasses “The Forgotten Trinity” (the name of the chapter) in thinking and in worship, that we not only learn the nature of God, but how we should live in light of it.
...nection with Descartes’ physics, God is the first cause of motion, and the sustainer of motion in the world. Furthermore, because of the way he sustains motion, God constitutes the ground of the laws of motion. Finally, Descartes held that God is the creator of the so-called eternal truths. In a series of letters in 1630, Descartes enunciated the view that ‘the mathematical truths which you call eternal have been laid down by God and depend on Him entirely no less than the rest of His creatures’ (letter to Mersenne, 15 April 1630; Descartes 1984–91 vol 3: 23), a view that Descartes seems to have held into his mature years. While it never again gets the prominence it had in 1630, it is clearly present both in correspondence (for example, letter to Arnauld, 29 July 1648; Descartes 1984–91 vol 3: 358–9) and in published writings (for example, in the Sixth Responses ).
In the article by P. T. Greach, Omnipotence, we are faced with the issue of whether God, by the Christian understanding of him, is omnipotent, or almighty, by the true definitions of the word and the English understandings of them. He proves the statement that God is omnipotent, meaning that he can do anything at all, is false. HE proves this statement by using many examples from both the importance of the stability of the Christian belief, and by making statements that are contradictory to the entire view of the concept of God. Being that God's promise to the race of man is deliverance from this Earth to eternal life in Heaven, and that there is an afterlife for man. By this statement of the perfection, being the lack if imperfections, or rather the omnipotence being the lack of impotence is false because God can not break his promise, and he can not lie, or the entire religion of Christianity falls out beneath them. Being another example is that God can not create something that he can not destroy, because the idea of something that God can not destroy is in conflict with the idea that "anything God can make, it's maker can destroy." Because by very definition that something that God created is indestructible. My favorite points that he makes is that God as God cannot have a body or be a man, become tired, oblivious, angry, sorrowful, become violence or be overcome, or be corrupted. God the Son has done these things, but this discussion is about God as God, not God as Man.
...e ultimate cause of everything? While its minor problems are resolved quite easily, Aristotle’s argument for the unmoved mover is predicated on a premise of unknown stability: philosophy. At the heart of the issue is the very nature of philosophy itself and its ability to tackle questions of any magnitude. If everything is knowable, and philosophy is the path to knowledge, then everything must be knowable through philosophy, yet the ad infinitum paradox Aristotle faces is one that shows that the weakest part of his argument is the fact it relies on the abovementioned characteristics of philosophy. If any one of those is wrong, his proof crumbles and the timeless God in which he believes goes along with it, but if they are all right, then there is one God, immovable and actuality, for as Aristotle says, “The rule of many is not good; let there be one ruler” (1076a).
In Aristotle’s Metaphysics, he discusses what he believes to be the theory of origin. One must differentiate Aristotle’s theory with that of creation. The word “creation” implies a biblical idea. Aristotle was not familiar with the biblical text and therefore did not understand the concept of “creation” in the biblical sense. Rather he was more interested in the “origin” of the world.
This paper will try to discuss the three Philosophical Positions on the Existence of God namely, the Theism, Agnosticism, and Atheism. Why do they believe? Why don’t they believe? How do they believe? What made them believe? Who helped them believe? These are just some of the questions that this paper will try to give answers and supply both believers and non-believers the enough indication that whatever their position may be, the responsibility in their hands of whatever reason they have must be valid and intellectual.
Aquinas’ first proof says anything currently in motion was put in motion by another thing. This “mover,” as he calls it, cannot also be the “moved.” The mover transfers its own actuality of motion into the moved, which until then only has the potentiality of motion. Since nothing can have both actuality and potentiality at the same time, the mover and moved cannot be the same thing. Since the universe is motion, it could not have been something from the universe which put it into motion. Therefore, there is a God who first put the universe into motion.
In this essay, the discussion explores the views of Saint Augustine, who lived in the Roman Empire. He serves as a prominent figure in the world of philosophical discussion (St. Thomas, 1911, p.n.d.). The discussion elaborates the views of Saint Augustine about the existence of God. Further, it examines how St. Augustine employs “reason” as a tool to second his thoughts and ideologies about the existence of God. The essay contrasts the opinions of Augustine with St. Thomas, about the existence of God. Lastly, the essay presents a conclusion, which summarizes the whole discussion.
Aristotle is a well-known philosopher, who lived from 384 BC through 322 BC, having been born and spending most of his life in Greece. According to William Turner, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, his father was physician to the King of Macedonia, and other ancestors of Aristotle’s likely also held this position. Aristotle’s parents probably planned for him to receive a medical education so he also could become a physician, but both of his parents died while he was still a child. As he approached the age of 18, he was sent to school at the university of another great and well-known philosopher, Plato.
Metaphysics comes from the Greek terms μετά, or metá, meaning above beyond or after, and φυσικά, or physiká, meaning physics. So at its roots, Metaphysics is the study of everything that lies above physical reality, and of what relationship those things have with it. However, one question arose repeatedly with almost every major metaphysical thinker, which narrowed the scope of metaphysics' targets. In contemplating that which lies after the corporeal, metaphysical minds began to wonder why things existed at all. After all, if things did not have existence, then there would nothing to consider. So, being and existence, which were before just two metaphysical concepts, became the highest powers presiding over the rest of reality, and the first philosopher to completely delineate these concepts would become equally important. This is how the quest for the cause for being began.
Aristotle’s discussions on free will came from his theory of the prime mover. In his book Physics, Aristotle theorized that everything is always in a constant state of change, or movement. When a pen falls of a table, it is changed because it is in a different location than it was previously and also possibly scuffed up from falling to the floor. If something is moved, or changed in its composition, there has to be an ultimate higher power, or mover, responsible. This is what Aristotle called the Prime Mover, referring to God. Aristotle believed the Prime Mover to be unchanging and infinite. He exists because in order for something to be changed, there must also be a master, unchangeable thing. There needs to be a start to the chain of events that is caused by the primary, unmoved mover, or God. Therefore, God is necessary for ...