Invitation for Atheists to Debate a Christian via Skype

[Jehanne]

It’s a good analogy, thank you. 

Thank you!

It's all a bit counterintuitive for us moderns, I think. Not because science has disproved it, but because our use of the word "cause" has narrowed over the last 1000 years or so. For Aristotelians, if A is necessary for B to exist, A can be called a cause. Even if it takes no action. 

I agree that actions in the absence of space-time would be an interesting topic for discussion.

This is also a tricky part of the argument. 

It's essential for Aristotle that the First Cause takes no action. 

It is eternally unchanging, actus purus, entirely without potential for change. It is called a cause not because it reaches down and pushes something, but because (they argue) it has to be there for even space-time to exist. 

Another way to say it is that the First Cause is existence itself. Not a thing that exists, but existence. Without it -- without existence -- there would obviously be nothing. 

And of course lots of other arguments are necessary if they want to show that the First Cause is also intelligent, good, etc.

It needs to also be pointed out that Aristotle, even though he was an empiricist who believed that heavier objects fall faster than do lighter ones, rejected Aristarchus' model of a moving Earth.  Now, it is possible to detect the motion of the Earth (Foucault pendulum or dropping a ball down into a deep hole near the equator), but no one had done those experiments because they lacked the physics, and hence, any motivation to do the experiments.  In fact, the Greeks universally accept Euclid's parallel postulate, and it was not until the 19th-century that non-Euclidean geometry was discovered:

Wikipedia -- Non-Euclidean geometry

This fact alone should end any and all appeals to "Aristotelian philosophy"; it does not matter what Aristotle thought, rather, only what matters is what modern philosophers and scientists think, and most of those do not believe in a personal God, or for that matter, any god:

Philosopher survey
Nature -- Leading scientists still reject God