Aristotle’s Argument for the Formal Dependence of Nature on the Unmoved Mover

EXCERPT:

Aristotle’s Argument for the Formal Dependence of Nature on the Unmoved Mover

"The existence of God has been one of the most hotly discussed topics in the history of philosophy, and is no less so today. While it has been discussed in every century, that does not mean that it has been understood in each of those times. In fact, one of the main arguments for God’s existence, as a "First Cause," has often been turned into a simplistic caricature, shedding its true intellectual weight. The famous atheist and British philosopher, Bertrand Russell, in his essay, "Why I Am Not a Christian," says: "Perhaps the simplest and easiest to understand is the argument of the First Cause. … That argument, I suppose, does not carry very much weight nowadays … There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause; nor, on the other hand, is there any reason why it should not have always existed. There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination. Therefore, perhaps, I need not waste any more time upon the argument about the First Cause." Interestingly, the first person who truly proposed the philosophical argument for a first cause, Aristotle, would not have necessarily disagreed with some of Russell’s claims here regarding the universe being everlasting, but yet still held onto the necessity of that first cause. How can that be? The goal of this paper is to present the Aristotelian argument for the Unmoved Mover in a clear and concise manner in order to show that, despite errors in astronomy, the heart of Aristotle’s argument is still valid in today’s scientific world because of his novel understanding of (1) actuality, potentiality, and "thinghood," (2) which give an adequate understanding of causality, and (3) therefore make visible the formal dependence in being that the universe has on the Unmoved Mover."

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