Aristotles Prime Mover

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  • Aristotle's Prime Mover
    • What causes the different objects in the world to actualise their potential?
    • He said that the cause of the universe was the Prime Mover (unmoved mover)
      • Christians inherited the idea that God is changeless
      • God is restricted of time and space so the past and future are the same for God
    • The Prime Mover does not depend on anything else for its existence
      • God has no potential, meaning he has no capacity for change
      • He must exist independantly
      • If God relied on the sun and it fizzled out, he would cease to exist
    • He must be ETERNAL
      • Because of this lack of potential
      • If God cannot change then he cease to be
        • If he exists then he must always have existed
    • God must be IMMATERIAL
      • All matter is capable of being acted upon, so God can not be made of matter
      • Therefore, God can not create any kind of activity, and cant actually do anything.
        • God must be purely spiritual and pure thought
          • And not thinking about anything that could cause him to change
          • God must think of only himself and his own perfect nature
    • The Prime Mover relates to Aristotles ideas about CAUSATION
      • PM is the final cause of everything that exists in the Universe
        • He is the ORIGIN AND PURPOSE of everything
      • He is NOT the efficient cause because he cant do anything
      • He is the FINAL CAUSE
        • In terms of him being desired and loved
          • Drawing everything to itself without being affected
        • He is the ultimate reason and Telos for everything else
        • The final cause of movement is a desire for God, everything in the universe is drawn towards Gods perfection and wants to imitate it
          • So by this great attraction the PM causes movement in everything else
            • PM causes change and motion by attracting everything towards itself
    • God must be perfectly Good
      • Baddness is related to some kind of lacking
        • an absence of something that ought to be there
          • If God is pure actuality, then he must contain everything that ought to be there
            • So he MUST be perfect
  • The final cause of movement is a desire for God, everything in the universe is drawn towards Gods perfection and wants to imitate it
    • So by this great attraction the PM causes movement in everything else
      • PM causes change and motion by attracting everything towards itself

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