"The most mysterious thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible." Albert EinsteinIn Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas provides 5 proofs for the existence of God. These are called in Latin the Quinque Viae.
The first proof is that of showing that God is the unmoved Mover. Before stating Thomas's brief proof, I will set the stage with some thoughts about motion.
The entire universe is in perpetual motion. Every motion is relative to another motion. Every frame is relative to another. This is true at both the level of astrophysics and at the quantum level.
Motion is measured in relation to relative stillness. The runner of the hundred yard dash is in movement, and his movement is observed in relation to the still track field. His time is measured in relation to the distance between the fixed starting blocks and the still finish line.
Of course, the track field is only relatively still. It is upon the earth, spinning at thousands of miles per hour. A plane might fix its path in relationship to the north pole. The fixed point of the North pole is its reference point. Yet the north pole is also moving, as the earth hurtles through space, circumorbiting the sun. The sun itself is moving in the Milky Way Galaxy.
At the atomic level, the electrons circle the nucleus which is their relative still center. The still center is only relatively still, because the atom, with its nucleus, ( say, on the wrist of the runner in our example) is in motion.
1. Everything is in motion.
2. At the quantum level and at the astronomical level, things move around a still center. The earth revolves around the sun. The electron circles the atom. The bicycle wheel spins around the hub. The hub is still. Yet as we know it is only relatively still.
Logic dictates that the universe itself revolves around a still center. Physicists who dare not violate causality and empirical common sense will not say that the universe is an amorphous mass, though I can see that that is where they may go with plasma fields. They speculate, (and because it cannot be validated or proved false, it does not even rise to the level of conjecture) that the universe began with a singularity from which it is now expanding in all directions. Thus the universe's center is said to be somewhere billions of years ago.
This incredibly dense mass magically appeared from somewhere, in space and time that could not yet have existed, and then exploded in a big bang. Somehow, even though there are some black holes from which nothing can escape including light, somehow everything was able to get away from the densest mass that ever was.
Either it will keep expanding forever or it is stable (which would be a most remarkable random chance balance of interstellar engineering, or it will fall back into itself.
Either of the outcomes of ever expanding or falling back into itself is undoubtedly okay with atheistic and positivistic scientists and amateur scientists, as well as agnostics, who deep down don't like the idea of God.
Dr. Stanley Jaki, eminent historian of science, has shown that science was still born over and over again in cultural settings which ascribed to the notion of an eternal universe-- eternal in Hellenistic terms, or eternal in terms of an endless wheel or endless cycle.
There are many reasons why this idea, coming from a pantheistic or primitive worldview, is an infertile ground for sustained scientific development. I cannot elucidate them here, but I refer you to Stanley Jaki's work. But I will say that the idea of an eternal universe is at base pessimistic and lends itself to superstitious and fanciful notions. It takes on an air of unknowability, and all the more so when a deity is ascribed to material creation itself.
Collectively and individually, such cultures, with a world view of eternal cycles, shrug their shoulders and say what's the use.
Christianity introduced a very nice alternative to a pessimistic or animistic world view. For the Christian, there was a beginning and there will be an ending. Moreover, the spiritual and the natural are knowable. Created in the image and likeness of God, we have reason and the capacity to discover, deduce and infer. And our very rationality makes us aware, at a very basic level, that if God exists, He is rational. He likes math and science.
And He even sent His Son to explain His ways to us, so that we could know the Father.
If anyone is to be accused of a deus ex machina, it is the current crop of physicists and astronomers who just have to insist on a big bang from a mass that has magically always been there until it suddenly blew up, or else it suddenly appeared, again magically, and immediately violated the laws of physics by somehow permitting all of itself to escape the most dense density that ever was.
The universe had a beginning. But it was not a big bang. It was a big whoosh. This article is for the purpose of introducing the unmoved Mover and taking another look at the logic of Thomas Aquinas. I address the creation mechanism elsewhere. Here I will just say that there are two images to keep in mind (Einstein thought in pictures when he made some of his discoveries).
The two images to keep in mind (either one will do) when contemplating the creation of the universe are the hurricane (which NASA generously provides many pictures of online). The hurricane revolves around a still center, and storms form at the periphery (they still don't know exactly how hurricanes form, though there are viable theories). The image of the winds circum-orbiting the still center is useful when thinking of how God began the universe.
The other image, and a beautifully haunting one is that of the spiral galaxy, especially the spiral galaxy with arms.
Now I must return to my topic at hand.
My reason tells me that there is a still center for the universe and that this still center exists just outside of time, in pre time moving stillness, the darkness.
From this pre time force, pre time wind, circumorbiting the still center, moved faster and fast with ever increasing circumference until suc
h a point is reached that matter comes into existence.This matter is like the eddies or whirlpools in a river. The river represents the pre time force moving at incredible velocity until little eddies swirl out, develop their own center, like a gyroscope, and like the eddies in a river (which cast a shadow), acquire a sort of solidity.
The whole universe was set in motion as matter formed, and along with matter, also energy, time and space. Matter begins to clump and larger structures are formed, moving spinning matter creates magnetism, and magnetism electricity. The pressure of the time wind upon its newly created little matter is the beginning of gravity. Larger structures experience more pressure from the pre time force wind.
All of the motion, from which all phenomena, including magnetism and electric fields, came from a still center--at the circumference of the force orbiting around the still creation center.
All motion came from this relative stillness. This stillness, the pre time stillness out of which came pre time motion, is itself relatively still. It is relative to the Creator, Who is the Ultimate Stillness. From His heavenly abode in the timeless realm, He willed action, and expressing Himself in love, He initiated all the movements we see around us.
At this very moment, He is still creating and still sustaining space time in which we live and move and have our being. The pre time wind still blows and it force comes from all directions enveloping the creation, in all its forms and motions. Even the spin of the protons and electrons, still spinning after all these years, is sustained by the ether wind which touches creation at the interface where time and timelessness, where matter and the mother field touch.
We cannot measure the pre time ether wind, but we, as humans with a still soul which belongs to the timeless realm, can sense the movement of time, which comes from timelessness.
Now please note what eminent historian Fr. Stanley Jaki has to say about the Aquinas proofs and why they are so brief.
"For example, the Sententiae of Peter Lombard, which Aquinas himself commented upon and which until the sixteenth century served as the standard textbook on theology, provided clear evidence of the conviction that the existence of God could be demonstrated rationally. But since the conviction was generally shared, there was no compelling reason to elaborate on the proofs in great detail. Even in the Summa contra gentiles the length of the proofs is puny in comparison with the total length of a work of apologetics which hardly carries conviction if the existence of God has not been demonstrated rationally.
To help reconcile oneself to the brevity of those proofs it might be useful to recall that on inertial motion, the basis of all physics, one finds only a paragraph or two even in the best textbooks. The assumption is, and rightly so, that those who cannot grasp the truth of inertial motion within five lines will not be helped by five hundred. Much the same holds true of Aquinas and his medieval colleagues in proving the existence of God. Lengthy discourse on the topic was unnecessary because only a few disagreed and, even more importantly, because the proofs were believed to be simple in substance."
Fr. Jaki's point is well taken. The existence of God is so clear that lengthy explanations, beyond the elegant simple logical proof, are not needed.
I must say that I read the first and second proofs--the proof for the unmoved Mover, and the proof for the first Cause--differently now than when I first encountered them in high school and my undergrad days. Then they were just something to remember for a test, then forget. Now they are clear as a bell. I see that they are just as true as if I were reading one plus one equals two. I appreciate their clarity and precision.
Here are the two beautiful proofs as provided by Wikipedia on the topic of the Quinque ViaeThe Argument of the Unmoved Mover
[The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.]
The Argument of the First Cause
[The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.]
These elegant, simple statements of logic are almost like math. Their important is, as I see it, not that they will convince someone who does not see, for himself or herself, the obviousness of a Creator. They won't.
The importance of these proofs (and the other three which I will address in future posts) is that they bind together reality and human logic, reality and reason.
The universe is comprehensible, as Dr. Einstein said. The universe is governed by laws, as Professor Stephen Hawking said.
Human reason is compatible with and capable of comprehending, studying, and describing reality. The other marvelous mystery is that our mathematics is able to describe, model, and measure reality.
Nature and the cosmos are knowable. Stable, consistent, logical, orderly, predictable laws govern nature. Only a very smart benevolent, consistent and thoughtful Father Physicist and Master Mathematician could have come up with such a place.
He made it, He sustains it, and He lets us discover it, study it and even major in it. Logic and reality, mathematics and what is, and religion and science are part of one whole - the comprehensible universe (which is actually the title of a physics book).
