The unmoved mover argument for the existence of God

I was reading Aristotles "Physics" and the argument is far stronger than any other argument I have seen. So if I were to summarise how I interpret the argument then it would go like this: It starts of with the fact that that every change has a cause. The world is constantly changing, one thing causing the next. We are subjects not objects. Our experiences constantly change yet we are still the same self, We know based on our own experiences of being conscious selves that we can act as "first causes" of things despite at our core not changing.

Conscious minds are the only thing we know for sure can be unmoved movers of things and first causes of things. Of course it is possible that there can be other things which are first causes and unmoved movers but there is only empirical evidence for one type of thing to be an unmoved mover and a first cause. A conscious mind.

POSIWID: The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does Shirt $21.68

The Kind of Tired That Sleep Won’t Fix Shirt $21.68

POSIWID: The Purpose Of A System Is What It Does Shirt $21.68

  1. 6 months ago
    Anonymous

    Cosmological arguments are among the best arguments for theism, and they're definitely taken seriously by professional philosophers of all stripes; but they're not conclusive because they rely on controversial premises, such as principles of sufficient reason, hylomorphism etc. all which have been independently questioned.

  2. 6 months ago
    Anonymous

    So conscious being like ourselves are an example of a unmoved mover and first cause. And we know from Aquinas that an unmoved mover can't have been caused by something else. So God can't have created us. If we aren't unmoved movers in the full sense then again you have no example of an unmoved mover. But I'm pleased you've moved away from the obvious stupidity of everything has a cause besides God crap.

    • 6 months ago
      Anonymous

      you didn't understand Aquinas

      • 6 months ago
        Anonymous

        >you didn't understand Aquinas
        Oh so an unmoved mover can be caused by something else? So what cause God?

        • 6 months ago
          Anonymous

          God will never reveal that of course
          what a moron

          • 6 months ago
            Anonymous

            I know what caused the universe. It wasn't God but that's all I'm going to tell you.

          • 6 months ago
            Anonymous

            i think it's the big potato bong

    • 6 months ago
      Anonymous

      moronic

    • 6 months ago
      Anonymous

      >So conscious being like ourselves are an example of a unmoved mover and first cause.

      I suppose the existence of free will would contradict the mind being a part of the cause-effect chain, BUT aren't the acts of the mind fundamentally contingent on God? I could choose A or B, but if I were not created by God, I could choose neither, so God is still the ultimate contingency.

      • 6 months ago
        Anonymous

        >BUT aren't the acts of the mind fundamentally contingent on God?
        From the post you're responding to
        >If we aren't unmoved movers in the full sense then again you have no example of an unmoved mover.
        If you equivocate about us being unmoved movers your destroy OP's argument that relies on us being examples of unmoved movers.

  3. 6 months ago
    Anonymous

    >

  4. 6 months ago
    Anonymous

    >I was reading Aristotles "Physics" and the argument is far stronger than any other argument I have seen.

    Interesting

  5. 6 months ago
    Anonymous

    modern physics reflects the unmoved mover. To be fair though, this argument has been around for aeons. Not to take away from Aristotle, but I believe it was Anaximander who posited the concept of the Unbounded, before Socrates. And someone likely did it before him
    But neither here nor there. These are the best arguments for God there is, because they're the most logical, they merge the material with the world of pure energy, ideas and potential.
    But tbh I find that the ultimate and most potent argument for God's existence is that its impossible for us to feel love without acknowledging our Creator.

    • 6 months ago
      Anonymous

      God bless you

      • 6 months ago
        Anonymous

        And you as well my brother. May he bless all the world so that it may heal.

  6. 6 months ago
    Anonymous

    >The fact that every change has a cause
    >Our experience constantly chnages
    >We are unmoved mover

    A is B
    C is A
    C is D

    .__.

    • 6 months ago
      Anonymous

      Wrong

  7. 6 months ago
    Anonymous

    >Some things are moved
    >Everything that is moving is moved by a mover
    >there is an unmoved mover from whom all motion proceeds
    >An infinite regress of movers is impossible
    >That mover is what we call God (The Father)

    • 6 months ago
      Anonymous

      >Everything that is moving is moved by a mover
      >there is an unmoved mover from whom all motion proceeds
      Blatant contradiction. If God is moving he needs a mover by your first assertion.

      • 6 months ago
        Anonymous

        God is not moving

        • 6 months ago
          Anonymous

          >God is not moving
          So God can't be a mover. Unless an unmoving thing can move something.

          • 6 months ago
            Anonymous

            God is a mover but he is moving you

          • 6 months ago
            Anonymous

            I'm a mover but that doesn't mean that I am moving using your own logic. These ridiculous word games are useless to cover up the obvious contradiction your working from. You can't claim everything moving has a mover and then just exempt God. You can claim everything moving BESIDES GOD has a mover but that's clearly just special pleading and no one will take you seriously. Not that anyone will take you seriously if you just insist on contradicting yourself either.

          • 6 months ago
            Anonymous

            >You can't claim everything moving has a mover and then just exempt God.

            I can do it

            everything has a mover but God is out space and time, thus he is not moving at all

            all i can see is hatred moving inside your brain, who do you think is moving that?

          • 6 months ago
            Anonymous

            >everything has a mover but God is out space and time, thus he is not moving at all
            Which directly contradicts EVERYTHING having a mover. Again you can claim that everything BESIDES GOD has a mover but like I said above that's clearly special pleading and a pathetic argument.

          • 6 months ago
            Anonymous

            You lost kakuzu

          • 6 months ago
            Anonymous

            God's supposed existence still needs an explanation, even though it might not be one on a traditional time scale. "God just exists" is a cop-out.
            You can claim that nothing can pop out of nowhere, but that's because you've never seen it happen, and likewise you've never seen god.

            Also god can't be completely out of space and time, as he had to interact with it at one point.

      • 6 months ago
        Anonymous

        To me it's like dark matter or dark energy. That is:
        >our models work just fine for everything
        >except in this one situation, where they don't work
        >but if we say there is this "x" thing that we can't detect, when we plug it into the equations, everything works again
        >therefore "x" exists
        >even though "x" breaks every rule that every thing else follows.

        In this case it is:
        >everything has a cause
        >except the whole thing breaks down into infinite regression
        >but if we say there is this God thing, everything works again
        >therefore God exists
        >even though God breaks every rule that every thing else follows.

        • 6 months ago
          Anonymous

          So just say the beginning of the universe has no cause. Same as saying God has no cause and by Occam's razor the preferable hypothesis. No need to make up some magical man in the sky just have the universe break your rule instead of your superfluous God.

          • 6 months ago
            Anonymous

            That is indeed a common argument against the cosmological argument:

            https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/#Obje1UnivJust

            >Interpreting the contingent being in premise 1 as the universe, Bertrand Russell denies that the universe needs an explanation (premise 2); it just is. Russell, following Hume (1779), contends that since we derive the concept of cause from our observation of particular things, we cannot ask about the cause of something like the universe that we cannot experience. The universe needs no explanation; it is “just there, and that’s all” (Russell 1948 [1964]: 175). This view was reiterated by Hawking (1987: 651).

          • 6 months ago
            Anonymous

            you are fricking degenerate and loser

    • 6 months ago
      Anonymous

      >That mover is what we call God (The Father)
      Do Christians actually not believe God is the first mover and instead that the first mover is one part of a triune God and that God moves parts of himself (son, holy spirit)? That's actually crazy. As a muslim I can't understand the justification for that.

      • 6 months ago
        Anonymous

        in Christianity Jesus was the son of God, not God himself

        • 6 months ago
          Anonymous

          Don't Christians believe in a Triune God? So the son, Jesus, is also himself God?
          Apologies if I said something wrong I am not a Christian.

          • 6 months ago
            Anonymous

            Depends, some Christians think that Jesus was just a prophet just like Mohammed or Moses

      • 6 months ago
        Anonymous

        There are no parts. The Christian theologians and philosophers who use the first mover argument either argue that the trinity is a mystery or they use a bunch of tricks to say that God is ultimately simple but still has 2 relations in Him that allow for the Son and Holy Ghost. Aquinas argues for that in the Summa Theologiae:

        https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1.htm
        In the "The Blessed Trinity" section you have his arguments.

        • 6 months ago
          Anonymous

          >argue that the trinity is a mystery
          Ah the throw-your-hands-up-in-the-air-and-admit- your-position-makes-no-sense form of argument. Truly the most based of all rhetorical forms. I call it stabbing yourself with your own sword.

        • 6 months ago
          Anonymous

          Work with me here anon. I read the link but I am a little bit confused, or am not exactly sure if my question was answered or not. So is the other anon incorrect in saying the father is the first mover, and instead the first mover is god who somehow has two relations in him?

          Also is there a logical reason you believe in the trinity instead of oneness like the muslims and israelites do? Or is it just faith?

          • 6 months ago
            Anonymous

            >So is the other anon incorrect in saying the father is the first mover, and instead the first mover is god who somehow has two relations in him?
            Exactly, at least for Aquinas. The reason Christians believe the trinity is that scripture has evidence of it. It was nothing arrived at by logic. Neoplatonists had similar ideas, but the intellect and world soul are separate things from the One, while Christians want to keep it all as one thing somehow.

  8. 6 months ago
    Anonymous

    >completely misses the point of faith and religion for the gorillionth time
    you people need to read more

    • 6 months ago
      Anonymous

      i missed it on purpose

  9. 6 months ago
    Anonymous

    >people don't change
    citation needed

  10. 6 months ago
    Anonymous

    How is this different from a machine with a timer inside which causes something to happen

    • 6 months ago
      Anonymous

      a machine cannot procreate consciousness

      • 6 months ago
        Anonymous

        How is that important to the argument?

        • 6 months ago
          Anonymous

          you don't see it?

          • 6 months ago
            Anonymous

            No, OP is talking about the causes of "things".
            How complex beings are created is a different discussion, and that gets explained by evolution.

  11. 6 months ago
    Anonymous

    >endless strings of gay words
    stfu, god doesn't exist

    • 6 months ago
      Anonymous
      • 6 months ago
        Anonymous

        I'm just wasting my energy trying to understand things that don't make sense anyway. I end up understanding the logical fallacies, mostly having to do with absurd arbitrary premises, and I learn nothing. I'm so tired of the mental gymnastics of religious people.

        • 6 months ago
          Anonymous

          its all mental gymnastics anon. atheism too. You can't definitively understand anything about God. You can accept this and then choose to either ignore it or to believe in it despite the lack of evidence. Anything else is wasted breath.

        • 6 months ago
          Anonymous

          You will not understand anything unless God allows you so

          Whether you like it or not, God exist
          All great minds liked this truth, if you are capable mind you wouldn't argue with mere anons about it

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *