These other objects, in turn, was put into motion by still another object preceding it, and so forth. This series cannot go on backward to infinity, though, since there would otherwise be no first mover and thus no subsequent movement. Therefore, we must conclude that there is a first unmoved mover, which we understand to be God. Second, we observe that everything has an efficient cause and that nothing is or can be the cause of itself. It is impossible, though, that the series of causes should extend back to infinity because every cause is dependent on a prior cause and the ultimate cause is thus dependent on a previous cause.
His First Way is based on motion, which, according to Aquinas, does not only include movement from one place to another but also the change of quantity and quality. Aquinas thought that al things within the universe are in motion and that an object only moved when an external force was applied to it, or in other words, nothing can move itself. However, he also firmly believed that this chain of movement or changes could not go back to infinity. According to him, infinite regress was an impossibility. Since nothing can move itself, he concluded that there must be a Prime Mover, a so-called first mover, which itself was unmoved.
Thirdly, Aquinas postulates that “motion cannot go on forever”. This alludes to ‘infinite regress’; the notion that a chain of events can go back forever. However, this does not appear plausible because there would need to be a first mover to begin the chain of cause and effect in the first place, for example a chain of dominoes can only begin by the movement of an external force such as a persons hand. Thus Aquinas concludes that “there must be a Prime Mover present which begins the chain of movement in the universe and does not need an efficient cause itself”. Prior to Aquinas, Aristotle stated the existence of a Prime Mover, a being that began the series of motion: “the series must start with something, since nothing can come from nothing”.
And thus Aquinas took this further claiming that motion or change cannot go back to infinity because then there would be no cause to spark this chain of cause and effect or from a state of potential to a state of actual. But he argued we observe motion in this world and thus there must be a first cause, resulting in the idea of a infinite regress or infinite chain to not be a possibility. And Aquinas called this first cause the unmoved mover, or as it is more commonly referred to as God. Aquinas’s second way, the argument for Causation, is very similar to his first, and once again he rejects the idea of an infinite regress or time. Within this
There are things in the world that do not have the reason or cause of their existence, this mean that some things in the world are contingent - they might have no existed. The world is the real or imagined of individual objects, and none of these have the reason or cause of there existence and they depend of other causes. The universes explanation therefore must be eternal and self explanatory to be complete, necessary being - God and he is his own sufficient cause. Copleston redeveloped Aquinas’ argument by concentrating on contingency: 1)There are things in this world that are
“Aquinas’ Cosmological argument proves that there is a God”. Discuss. Aquinas’ Cosmological argument, also known as the First Cause argument, is based entirely on sensory experience. In the argument, Aquinas states that things do not have to exist, but they do because something brought them into existence. He also says there are a chain of causes and effects leading back to the beginning of the Universe.
The past is not entirely part of the present and the past. It happened then, not now and ignoring it is never possible. The fact that it happened leaves no choice to forget it. Past events could influence the present and the future, but unlike the past, the future is yet to happen. Events in the past do not have to change the future.
Describe and Evaluate the Cue Dependent Theory of Forgetting According to Tulving (1975) cue dependent forgetting occurs when we have stored information but cannot access it because we lack the necessary cues to retrieve it. This theory argues that when we encode information we also encode details of the context and state that we were in at the time of encoding. These encoding cues act as extra information that guides us to the information we are trying to retrieve. Without these cues we find it difficult to get the information. The cue dependent theory of forgetting theorises that you never actually lose a memory, the memory is always there and that only the route to that memory is lost.
The saying ‘the more things change, the more they remain the same’ is related to each of these theories in different ways. When tackling the issue of change, Parmenides takes his theory of reality into account. Parmenides states that there is no such thing as change and that our senses are deceiving, and therefore, our perception of the world does not reflect reality. Parmenides believes in the ‘one’ being, which is unchangeable, immobile and eternal. Parmenides also says that everything is, has been and always shall be due to the importance he gives to thought and language.
Thus it’s problematic to claim that God is responsible for everything in such kind of universe. Another argument emphasizes the impossibility of an infinite number of past events. If the universe didn’t have a beginning, then there is an infinite number of past events up to now. As an infinite set should be unaffected by addition or subtraction of one, the past history should be unaffected if we add or remove some events. Yet it’s not plausible to say, for example, the history remains the same if we remove all the wars.