[Serious] Criticism of Aquinas' First Way or of the Proof of God from Motion.

[Belacqua]

Modern people tend to imagine they're supposed to be persuasive as they stand, which they aren't and weren't intended to be.

I mean, persuasive in what way? If his conclusions follow-- the argument is sound (which is what I assume Aquinas was going for), then that ought to persuade people.

What do you mean they weren't intended to be persuasive?

They're more like summaries, or tables of contents. They're not intended as self-evident proofs, like a syllogism or something. You can't just read one and make up your mind unless you have the prerequisites.

So for example the First Way is an argument from motion. But what Aquinas means by "motion" isn't what the modern English word means. To understand even the basic drift of the argument a person has to know all that stuff about act and potency. These were intended for theologians and students who had a solid background in all of this stuff, or were working on getting one. 

The Five Ways seem obviously wrong to a lot of modern people because they don't understand the first thing about them. The OP was good because he knows enough to make serious arguments.

What Kaufmann says is true.

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the ancient Greeks were the first to coin the word "atom", but back then, it merely meant "the smallest thing one could emagine".

This is not true.