Prime Mover: St. Thomas Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument

Aquinas’s proofs start from some general feature of the world around us and argue that there could not be a world with this particular characteristic unless there was also the ultimate reality which we call God. (20)

Aquinas uses the existence of motion to demonstrate the existence of God. He argues that since everything in the world is in motion -- for instant, the earth in constant movement -- therefore, whatever is in motion must have been set into motion by something else, or in Aquinas’ words, “Whatever is moved is moved by another” (Hankim 199). This is to claim that nothing that moves is itself self-generated. Aquinas argues that whatever is in motion, before it moves, has the potential to move; for example, a ball has the potential to be in motion and once it is in motion that potential for motion has been actuali

zed. Once the ball starts moving, it no longer has the potential to move because it is now actually moving, or as in Aquinas’ words the ball has gone from “potentiality to actuality”.

Aquinas rejects out-of-hand the notion of an infinite regress because it doesn’t seem right – intuitively, theologically, or logically – that the world, reality or events are set up this way. His argument doesn’t show that an infinite regress is either physically impossible or logically impossible; rather, he rejects this notion on theological a ground which is clear from his statement that what he calls the “Prime Mover” is God. The “Prime Mover” could have been identified as the cosmic Big Bang or by any other terms for that matter. Furthermore, although he does not state this explicitly, Aquinas presupposes the existence of God as a fact. Because by definition, God has always existed, since He is eternal. Aquinas’ first way argues from motion to a “Prime Mover” or an “unnamed mover”, which by definition, is eternal because it comes before or is prior to other events, and therefore, nothing exists prior to this “unnamed mover”. Then, the “Prime Mover” seems to be a synonym for one of the attributes of God; that is, His eternality, rather than God, and Aquinas’ argument hasn’t proved that God exists. He merely showed that t

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