Argument from Motion

00:00 – CA (Host)
What are the five proofs of God’s existence according to St Thomas Aquinas? Today we’re going to talk about the first of the five, the argument for motion. Now, in the first episode of this short series Proof that God Exists I talked how there are two different kinds of evidence. Well, I first said that proof is a judgment we pass on the evidence. Proof is a judgment informed by the evidence. Okay, so proof doesn’t mean it’s absolutely so or it’s absolutely not so that’s not really what proof is. Proof is a judgment passed on the evidence. The evidence informs that judgment. Sometimes the judgment could be wrong. There are criminals who are proven guilty or found guilty by reason of the evidence, and then they turn out to have been not guilty and their convictions and sentences reversed and expunged, or overturned and expunged.

So proof doesn’t mean a certainty. It means we can assign trust and credibility to the conclusion, to the claim, based on the evidence provided. Could we be wrong in saying, yes, this proves X. Yes, this proves Y. Could we be wrong in saying yes, this proves X. Yes, this proves Y. Could we be wrong? We could be, but at a point it becomes less and less likely that we’re wrong. If you haven’t heard the first episode. I encourage you to go back and listen to it. I gave an example of my dog eating food from my plate on the table. I sit down with a plate of food at the table. I get up to get a fork. When I come back, the food is gone. Well, it either vanished on its own or the dog ate it. What’s more likely to be true? The dog ate it. Could I be wrong in that judgment? I could be, but it’s highly unlikely that I’m wrong. Wrong in that judgment? I could be, but it’s highly unlikely that I’m wrong. Highly, highly unlikely.

Now, if I have two dogs, one named Rocky and one named Adrian, and I say this is evidence that Rocky ate my food, could I be wrong? It’s possible. It’s more possible now that I could be wrong. That is now more possible. Maybe Adrian ate the food, maybe not Rocky. I would need more evidence to convict Rocky of the crime of eating my food. I would need more evidence, for that Proof is a judgment we pass on the evidence this evidence proves or this evidence does not prove or fails to prove. Okay, I’m not going to rehash everything that I stated or taught in that episode. It was about five, six minutes. Really, you should go back and listen to it. Now. We’re going to talk about five proves of God’s existence, according to St Thomas Aquinas. Brilliant philosopher and theologian, st Thomas Aquinas, pray for us. So the first of Aquinas’ five ways is the argument from motion.

03:11
Aquinas observed that our senses perceive motion in the world. Objects move, change and interact with one another. Something that I want you to take from this, by the way, is motion includes change. Motion includes change. You might also call that dynamism. So Aquinas observed that our senses perceive motion in the world. Objects move, change and interact with one another.

03:39
However, every motion is caused by something else. For instance, a ball rolling down a hill is set in motion by an external force. Something causes it to move in the first place. This chain of motion cannot go on indefinitely. There must first be a first mover. Everything set in motion is set in motion by something else, and the something else that sets it in motion is something that is standing still. It’s something that has the power and capacity and facility to set something else in motion.

04:15
So a ball rolling down the hill is evidence. Remember that word evidence. It’s evidence that something set it in motion. Is it evidence that someone set it in motion? No, it might have been blown by the wind. The wind is not a someone. It might have been something that was at the top of the hill and a strong wind blew, nudged it just forward enough to allow gravity to take over and roll it down the hill.

04:47
A ball rolling down the hill is evidence that something caused it to move. It’s not necessarily evidence that someone caused it to move. A person threw the ball down the hill. It’s not necessarily evidence of that. We would need more evidence to conclude that right. But it is evidence that something caused it to move, because we know a ball can’t roll down the hill by itself. Maybe it was an animal knocked into it. Maybe something fell from a tree and bounced against the ball, kind of like pool balls, like on a pool table and that knocked the ball down the hill. Maybe it was the wind, maybe it was a person.

05:25
All we know is it’s evidence that something caused it to move. What that something or someone might be, that has to be established with more and more evidence. But what do we have evidence in front of us for so far? Let’s say the wind did it. Well, what caused the wind to move Pressure. Well, what put those rules in place? That air moving from low pressure to high pressure, which I think is what causes wind, air moving from low pressure to high pressure? Um, is wind, right, okay, so what? What? Where did those rules or laws in nature come from? Who wrote those? Why do they? So, even if we say it’s just the wind, we’re still seeing evidence of movement and change. And all of this movement and change happens from something that causes it all.

06:28
Is it an accident? Did an accident cause it all? That’s hard to argue that an accident did it or that chance did it, because, in the chain of events, what we’re seeing is order and precision. Order and precision. What causes the ball to roll? Gravity, the hill? What formed the hill? What formed the earth? If it was wind that did it, how does wind work? Why does it work that way? We’re seeing order and precision. We’re not seeing a calamity inherent in nature. We’re seeing order and precision. Where does order and precision come from? Accidents, chance, or does that come from minds? It comes from minds, right?

07:13
It’s reasonable to conclude that this chain of events was started by something unmoving and that something unmoving was a mind. And who has minds, persons, persons, someones, not some things. This chain of motion cannot go on indefinitely. There must be a first mover, a first mover that initiated all motion. Something standing still, unmoving, unchanging. That first mover is what we call God. So what do we have here?

07:47
Aquinas observed that our senses perceive motion in the world. Objects move and change and interact. We can see that, we perceive that. We can study and analyze that right, that’s true. That happens. Objects move, change and interact with one another. I’ll call your attention again to the example of a pool table. If you’re the one who’s breaking, all of those balls move because the cue ball smashed into it. Somebody caused the cue ball to do that, right. Someone who was unchanging and unmoving, who was able, who had the power and capacity to do that.

08:21
Every motion is caused by something else covered, for instance, a ball rolling down the hill covered. This chain of motion cannot go on indefinitely. There must be a first mover. It’s impossible that a chain of motion can go on and on, and on, and on and on. What caused the ball to roll down the hill? Gravity and wind caused that to move? Well, what caused the air to move and result in a breeze or in a strong wind, blah, blah, blah. The climate, the atmosphere, the earth. What caused the earth to be Blah, blah, blah? The Big Bang, what caused that and what caused that? And what caused that?

09:01
As you go back on the line, back down the line or up the chain, I guess you have to, you have to arrive at something that always was, that put it all in motion, and that first mover is what we call God. As I said, there’s evidence, and evidence informs the judgment of proof. Is the ball rolling down the hill proof that God exists? The ball rolling down the hill itself is not, again, is not itself proof that God exists, but motion, motion is proof that God exists because something, something has to set it all in motion logically. Something has to set it all in motion Logically. Something has to set it all in motion. And when we look at what caused this to move, this did Well, what caused that to move, that did, and so on up the chain, what we’re seeing is order, order.

09:57
Even if we’re looking at an accident like the ball rolling down the hill, you might say but that’s an accident, yes, but the ball rolling down the hill, you might say, but that’s an accident, yes, but the ball rolling down the hill is following an order, the order of the geometry of the hill, in coordination with the order of how gravity works, why gravity works. We’re seeing order. We’re not seeing accident on top of accident on top of accident, even in a chain of events. You see this in a lot of action movies, where there’s a car chase, for instance. That might be very 80s, but there’s a car chase and the car smashes into another car, which smashes into a building, which goes through the window and out the other side, which crashes into whatever. Well, all of this, this chain of events, is a chain of accidents, right? This car chase, this chain of calamities in an 80s action movie? It’s a chain of accidents, but it’s still a chain of motion. That works the way it does because of order. Going back to the pool table that looks like an accident, but it’s all following order. Gravity, geometry, resistance. Going back to the pool table that looks like an accident, but it’s all following order. Gravity, geometry, resistance it all follows order, even if what we’re observing is technically a disaster, a disaster with a bunch of balls on a felt table, but it’s all following order. So where does order come from? Order comes from minds, not chance.

11:24
In part two of this series I’m going to talk about the argument from efficient cause, which I’m not going to get into now. The argument from efficient cause. I don’t want to get into it. I don’t even want to preface it now, because things start to overlap and then they start to get confusing, so I want to let each of these have their own moment in the sun. The argument for motion usually is critiqued by people who say well, that means something had to create it, something had to make it all go, something had to start the chain of events. Well, yes, of course something had to start the chain of events, but that doesn’t mean it was God. Okay, is it proof that it was God? Remember I said, proof is a judgment.

12:07
We pass on the evidence.

12:09
Is it absolutely proof that this chain of events was started by a divine person? Is it proof? No, but does something by itself? No, but does something else better fit the data? Well, what are some other possibilities? An accident? Well, does order come from accidents? What else? Well, just by chance just seemed to happen that way. But does order come from chance? What else fits the data? Nothing that I can think of and nothing that I have ever heard in 35 years of debate and discourse.

12:45
Is it proof that God exists? It’s not absolute proof. And the timeline of the accused in a murder trial? The timeline isn’t by itself proof that the person committed the murder. But if nothing else fits the data, it becomes more and more likely that the evidence being exhibited in, for instance, in a murder trial, it becomes more and more likely that this person did it.

13:09
So is it absolute proof of God’s existence? Well, no, but proof is a judgment we pass on the evidence. Does anything else fit the data when we look at the evidence, does any other conclusion fit the evidence? That answer is no. So what you are left with is something that is likely the truth that all motion starts with a divine being or a divine person. So that’s going to do it for this. First, I guess second episode in this short series on Thomas Aquinas’ five proves, or five ways. The next one, as I said, is going to be the argument from Efficient Cause. So that’s it for now. Thank you for being a member of my Locals community and especially you are a paying member, and I appreciate that very much. God bless you. God be with you all. Thank you again, bye-bye.