8. Aristotle's Prime Mover

[@AbbeyJanis134]

Hello, I wanted to say a big thank you for all the effort that goes into your videos. I struggle with RE A Level and finding your videos has been such a big help! I'd love to see some more if you can.

[@JestEducation]

I’m so glad they’ve been helpful. I would love to make some more, so watch this space and best of luck with your exams :)

[@irfanh6691]

Yes its nice. I like to join some group i like to express some of my understandings.. Examples.

[@lusterbug7003]

Thank you for making this!

[@JestEducation]

You are very welcome!

[@DarkInuyasha12]

Hey, I really enjoyed this video. You did a great job.

[@JestEducation]

Thank you :)

[@fosgnosis6336]

I’m a bit confused... it appears that later Aristotelians like St. Thomas Aquinas argue the prime mover to be the ultimate efficient cause... but it seems Aristotle would’ve rejected this? That the prime mover is only the ultimate final cause? Wouldn’t walking for the sake of health be an efficient cause and a final cause?

[@JestEducation]

Yes. That's right. There are one or two scholars who think Aristotle could have meant an efficient cause but this doesn't fit with him s claim that matter is eternal, so is generally rejected. However, the Christians who took on many of his ideas saw God, naturally as an efficient cause and used this in their cosmological cal arguments, for example, including and perhaps especially Aquinas.

[@fosgnosis6336]

@@JestEducation thank you for the reply. You wrote, "this doesn't fit with him s claim that matter is eternal." Even if matter is eternal, there'd still be a hierarchical series of efficient causes, yes? As I'm aware, Aristotle's prime mover does not at all cause potentials to be actualized, it's just their ultimate telos? Aquinas gives an example of a hand moving a staff. Would Aristotle have rejected this view of the prime mover?

[@fosgnosis6336]

@@brianbachinger6357 He seems to be saying that thinking involves moving others? This sounds confusing to me... I will have to look into Bradshaw's work :)

[@thomassmith350]

@@JestEducation Yes! This is a big confusion that seems to have afflicted medieval theists. The prime mover is a, or rather the, final cause--that full actuality toward which everything moves.

[@claudiasenyungule6221]

This video was sooo helpful! thank you so much!

[@JestEducation]

You’re very welcome.

[@Pansilinos]

Hello, quick question please, Did Aristotle call the prime mover “God”?

[@jankopandza1072]

They had a pantheon of Gods = Deities . Hence he called what we see as one God aka Source of all life The Prime Mover.

[@Philokalic_Energeia]

Yes

[@aditya-lr2in]

"Thinking on thinking", so like we are inception :)

[@JestEducation]

Nice.

[@iordanneDiogeneslucas]

A circle has no beginning, silly 'stotle

[@PaxAmericana__]

it is not in a cicles nature to inherently exist, something caused the circles to form

[@JestEducation]

Great debate going here! This makes me think of the cosmological argument for the existence of God...

[@jeffford6705]

@@JestEducation When you have seen the image of God in the Holy of Holies and His Holy city you don’t need proof of anything. IT shows you The Ultimate.

[@PaxAmericana__]

@@jeffford6705 I agree with you, but we don’t have the privilege to see it with our own eyes currently, some people come to God through methods such as these

[@jeffford6705]

@@PaxAmericana__ Gotta disagree. You can generate the “Divine within”. You have to have a tool catapult you into The “Transcendant” (experience) if you set it up right and have faith and believe.

[@SebikIsOfficial]

Sigma

[@petterhouting7484]

Causality is an illusion

[@Philokalic_Energeia]

So you made this comment for no reason? Hahaha

[@kamelkani4051]

In Islam we say God (the first cause) nothing is like him so we can't conceptualize him , he is the first and the last all knowing all powerful, and he is the one who made this universe and designed it , and of course God is one and only

[@Next_Great_Depression]

Something cannot cause itself to occur hence any physical object in the chain of infinite regression caused nothing as no object can cause itself to move as there nothing causing itself to move