["Apart from a cause, it's impossible for anything to have a coming to be... The first thing about it one must investigate is the very thing set down at the beginning whenever one has to investigate anything: whether it always was, having no beginning of a coming to be, or whether it has come to be, having begun from some beginning." Plato's Timaeus 28B-C.]
Everything in our experience has had a beginning... Material things have a beginning, a middle, and an end. But God is not a material and created thing.
It is impossible for it to be any other way. There must be a First, uncreated and uncaused cause of all other things. Let me go over a concept first employed by Aristotle:" McManaman
"Of the things that are, some are by nature, others through other causes: by nature are animals and their parts, plants, and the simple bodies... all of them obviously differ from the things not put together by nature. For each of these has in itself a source of motion and rest, either in place, or by growth and shrinkage, or by alteration; but a bed or a cloak, or any other such kind of thing there is, in the respect in which it has happened upon each designation and to the extent that it is from art, has no innate impulse of change at all (Aristotle's 'Physics' Book II 192b)..."
Basically, there are things such as plants that have always changed on their own by growing or blooming; while, there are some things such as an engraving which does not change on its own (but, only by weather or other effects upon it).
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"People with experience know the what, but do not know the why, but the others are acquainted with the why and the cause. For this reason we also think the master craftsmen in each kind of work are more honorable and know more than the manual laborers, and are also wiser, because they know the causes of the things they do, as though people are wiser not as a result of being skilled at action, but as a result of themselves having the reasoned account and knowing the causes. And in general, a sign of the one who knows and the one who does not is being able to teach, and for this reason we regard the art, more than the experience, to be knowledge, since the ones can, but the others cannot, teach.
Further, we consider none of the senses to be wisdom, even though they are the most authoritative ways of knowing particulars; but they do not pick out the why of anything... So it is likely that the one who first discovered any art whatever that was beyond the common perceptions was wondered at by people, not only on account of there being something useful in his discoveries, but as someone wise and distinguished from other people... it is likely that such people as were discoverers of the latter kind were always considered wiser...
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All people assume that what is called wisdom is concerned with first causes and origins. Therefore, as was said above, the person with experience seems wiser than those who have any perception whatever, the artisan wiser than those with experience, the master craftsman wiser than the manual laborer, and the contemplative arts more so than the productive ones. It is apparent, then, that wisdom is a knowledge concerned with certain sources and causes...
We have, then, such and so many accepted opinions about wisdom and those who are wise. Now of these, the knowing of all things must belong to the one who has most of all the universal knowledge, since he knows in a certain way all the things that come under it; and these are just about the most difficult things for human beings to know... What are most knowable are the first things and the causes, for through these and from these the other things are known, but these are not known through what comes under them (Aristotle's 'Metaphysics' 981a-982b)..."
"In many ways human nature is slavish, so that, according to Simonides, 'only a god should have this honor,' but a man is not worthy of seeking anything but the kind of knowledge that fits him... One ought not to regard anything else as more honorable than this knowledge. For the most divine is also the most honorable... For the divine seems to be among the causes for all things, and to be a certain source, and such knowledge a god alone, or most of all, would have. All kinds of knowledge, then, are more necessary than this one, but none is better...
What, then, is the nature of the knowledge being sought, has been said, and what the object is on which the inquiry and the whole pursuit must alight.
Since it is clear that one must take hold of a knowledge of the causes that originate things (since that is when we say we know each thing, when we think we know its first cause), while the [other] causes [will be talked about in another post]... of which one is thinghood [leading up to godhood] (Aristotle's 'Metaphysics' 982b-983a)..."
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"The basic principle of Aristotle's argument is that everything that is in motion is moved by something else... A self-moving object must (a) have parts, in order to be in motion at all; (b) be in motion as a whole, and not just in one of its parts; and (c) originate its own motion. But this is impossible. From (b) it follows that if any parts of the body is at rest, the whole of it is at rest, then the motion of the whole body depends upon the motion of the part; and thus it does not originate its own motion. So that which was supposed to be moved by itself is not moved by itself [Aristotle's logic here does have two minor fallacies explained in Kenny's book]...
Aristotle goes on to derive from the premiss that everything in motion must be moved by something else the conclusion that there must be a first mover[or, a first uncaused cause (as seen above)]...
Having established to his satisfaction that nothing is in motion without being moved by something else, Aristotle has a number of arguments to show that there cannot be an infinite series of moved movers: we have to come to a halt with a first unmoved mover which is itself motionless...
There must, he says, be an eternal motionless substance, to cause everlasting motion. This must lack matter--it cannot come into existence or go out of existence by turning into anything else...
What is the nature of this motionless mover? Its life must be like the very best in our life: and the best thing in our life is intellectual thought. The delight which we reach in moments of sublime contemplation is a perpetual state in the unmoved mover--which Aristotle is now prepared to call 'God'... 'Life, too, belongs to God; for the actuality of mind is life, and God is that actuality, and his essential actuality is the best and eternal life. We profess then that God is a living being, eternal and most good, so that life and continuous and eternal duration belong to God. That is what God is'...
What does God think of? He must think of something, otherwise he is no better than a sleeping human; and whatever he is thinking of, he must think of throughout, otherwise he will be undergoing change, and contain potentiality, whereas we know he is pure actuality. Either he thinks of himself, or he thinks of something else. But the value of a thought is dictated by the value of what is thought of; so if God were thinking of anything else than himself, he would be degraded to the level of what he is thinking of. So he must be thinking of himself, the supreme being, and his thinking is a thinking of thinking (Kenny's Ancient Philosophy p.296-301)..."
Aristotle's god may only leave one in search for a sort of deism or perhaps polytheism. This distant and narcissistic god is no where near as loving or complete as the true Judeo-Christian God. But, that I'll save for another topic.
(I hope this still managed to make some sense without explaining Aristotle's four causes first.)
Need more Aristotle?
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