(August 13, 2020 at 11:54 am)The Grand Nudger Wrote: A cat is a logically equivalent stand-in for his un-moved mover as he formulated his argument. If I prove that a cat exists, and then say that we all understand this to be god, I've not proven that a god exists. I've proven that a cat exists, and then called it a god. IF I prove that the universe exists, and then call it a god...I've still only proven that the universe exists. We can repeat this experiment with absolutely anything. The only way to prove a god with a logical argument is to at least attempt to prove...a god.
Cats are no more or less arbitrary than first causes, no more or less arbitrary than universes, no more or less arbitrary than gods....this is not even remotely the issue. It's a non seq, that's the issue. Just as..and for the same reason as, the cat god is a non seq.
If you need me to explain this some other way, I will. If you don't, we can move on to the logical fallacy tom couldn't have helped but commit when he decided to make a cosmological argument. Literally baked in.
-and if we wanted to see a valid argument for god, for comparison, we can refer to plantingas mo.
Not quite, Gae. I really do think this is because of the wording of the summaries of these arguments that you are coming up with this type of response, but the metaphysics of Aristotle/Aquinas would never have allowed for something with potency like a cat to be the First Cause/Unmoved Mover/etc. You need to keep in mind that when you read Aquinas' Ways, you are reading summaries not all his reasoning fleshed out in one space. I strongly recommend to familiarize yourself further with his reasoning for properly understanding the context of his summarized arguments.
