IgnorantSeeker wrote:

Hey everyone, I'm not the most knowledgeable on the arguments from motion, causation, and contingency, so my objections might be a little foolish, but that's why I'm here. Why, for example, do the laws of physics not resolve these arguments? They are immaterial, that is to say outside of space and time, and they are clearly not God since they lack any intellect, will, or unity. 

The laws of physics are just descriptive. They presuppose a changing world. The nature of change isn't to be found in the laws of physics. Any physical law presupposes the act-potency divide. For this objection to work I think you would have to give a definition of the laws of physics that can stand without presupposing a metaphysical foundation. The Thomist would argue that they are a shorthand for describing how things behave given their particular natures.

Last edited by RomanJoe (12/13/2018 3:30 pm)

RomanJoe wrote:

The laws of physics are just descriptive. They presuppose a changing world. The nature of change isn't to be found in the laws of physics. Any physical law presupposes the act-potency divide. For this objection to work I think you would have to give a definition of the laws of physics that can stand without presupposing a metaphysical foundation. The Thomist would argue that they are a shorthand for describing how things behave given their particular natures.

Thank you for your reply, but I find that a lot of atheists and scientists treat the laws of physics as if they prescriptive rather than descriptive. Dr. Lawrence Krauss' theory "a universe from nothing" is really "a universe from the law of gravity." It might be annoying to listen to Krauss reassuring everyone that no matter, energy, space, or time is nothing, but I still find his theory disturbing since it does credit the origin of the universe to something immaterial which is not God. 

Ok, so I have looked more thoroughly into divine simplicity and am more confused than ever. It seems to be begging the question to say that God must be simple because otherwise He would be imperfect. It sounds like the Ontological argument, which I find even more difficult to accept. Theologically speaking, how can divine simplicity work with a Trinitarian God? I've also realized further problems with the original arguments such as how intercession can work with an unmoved mover. How can we even have free will? I am really beginning to see the lure of personalism, although that would be heresy in my Church,

IgnorantSeeker wrote:

Ok, so I have looked more thoroughly into divine simplicity and am more confused than ever. It seems to be begging the question to say that God must be simple because otherwise He would be imperfect. It sounds like the Ontological argument, which I find even more difficult to accept. Theologically speaking, how can divine simplicity work with a Trinitarian God? I've also realized further problems with the original arguments such as how intercession can work with an unmoved mover. How can we even have free will? I am really beginning to see the lure of personalism, although that would be heresy in my Church,

No problem buddy. Aquinas does the same thing in showing that his argument can **only** entail God and his properties in Summa Contra Gentiles Book 1 here (https://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles1.htm#17) questions 13 through 49

Last edited by Noble_monkey (12/14/2018 12:56 am)

IgnorantSeeker wrote:

RomanJoe wrote:

It doesn't matter if one puts forth the laws of physics as a temporal genesis of the universe. The Aristotelian-Thomist isn't beholden to a temporal prime mover, rather he tries to reason towards an ontologically fundamental prime mover--one that grounds the existence of the universe here and now at every moment. Even if the universe began via some secular notion of scientific laws, the universe itself would still contain essentially-ordered causal series of essence and existence, act and potency. One could also invoke an argument from contingency by the fact that the universe consists of composite beings and is itself metaphysically composite.

Besides, according to a Artsitotelian-Thomistic account of physical laws, such laws can't exist in a vacuum--they are contingent on real beings because they are abstractions of how real beings operate given their nature. Therefore, to argue that phsycial laws are responsible for the genesis of the universe would be to get things backwards because, according to the AT proponent, those physical laws only exist in virtue of there being real phsycial natures to describe.

You've successfully sold me on the Aristotelian-Thomistic account of physical laws, but I'm still lost as to why there cannot exist a multiplicity of unactualized actualizers that might govern different parts of the universe in the here and now. For example, one unactualized actualizer might actualize gravity; another would actualize electromagnetism; a third would actualize the strong force; and a final would actualize the weak force. These four would together actualize the whole of the universe, without one being supreme over the others. This multiplicity of unactualized actualizers could not properly be called God, since they only govern a particular domain of the universe. I know that such a philosophy is unprovable, but I don't see how it is impossible.

Aquinas writes that God cannot be constituted of multiple parts because to say that would be to say that some parts are only potential while other parts are actual. The unactualized actualizer cannot be actualized in any way, so it cannot be a composite of parts. That being said, I think my theoretical solution resolves this by postulating multiple uncaused causes which are not the same because they only have influence over a particular domain.

Why is god A actually that which governs law X and not law Y? Why is god B actually that which governs law Y and not law X? Your demigods are distinct from each other because each of them is actually operating within one role and potentially within another--in short, they are metaphysically composite, a division of act and potency. 

Analagously, four numerically distinct plastic spheres can be delineated from each other because each sphere instatiates certain actualities and stands in potency to the actualities that the other spheres have. If you have two spheres that actualize the same potentials then they would be the same thing. So if there are numerically distinct things the AT proponent would argue that each member stands in potency to the actualities of the other members.