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Aquinas follows the distinction found in Aristotle's Physics 8.5, and developed by Simplicius, Maimonides, and Avicenna that a causal chain may be either accidental (Socrates' father caused Socrates, Socrates' grandfather caused Socrates' father, but Socrates' grandfather only accidentally caused Socrates) or essential (a stick is moving a ...
An accidentally ordered causal series cannot exist without an essentially ordered series. Each member in an accidentally ordered series (except a possible first) exists via causal activity of a prior member. That causal activity is exercised by virtue of a certain form. Therefore, that form is required by each member to effect causation.
In Christian theology, the key philosopher influenced by Aristotle was undoubtedly Thomas Aquinas. There had been earlier Aristotelian influences within Christianity (notably Anselm), but Aquinas (who, incidentally, found his Aristotelian influence via Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides) incorporated extensive Aristotelian ideas throughout his ...
Craig argues that, though quantum indeterminism contradicts the proposition that every event has a cause, it is nonetheless consistent with the causal premise that "everything that begins to exist has a cause", encompassing the more modest view that objects cannot come into existence entirely devoid of causal conditions.
Causal efficacy cannot 'propagate' faster than light. Otherwise, reference coordinate systems could be constructed (using the Lorentz transform of special relativity) in which an observer would see an effect precede its cause (i.e. the postulate of causality would be violated). Causal notions appear in the context of the flow of mass-energy.
Important trichotomies discussed by Aquinas include the causal principles (agent, patient, act), the potencies for the intellect (imagination, cogitative power, and memory and reminiscence), and the acts of the intellect (concept, judgment, reasoning), with all of those rooted in Aristotle; also the transcendentals of being (unity, truth, goodness) and the requisites of the beautiful ...
The work was originally written circa 1256–1259, during Aquinas's first period in Paris. [2] [3] It is one of the few of Aquinas's works for which the original dictation (for questions 2 to 22) still exists. [3] This determination was made by A. Dondaine of the Leonine Commission in 1956, and is generally accepted by scholars. [4]
The argument from degrees, also known as the degrees of perfection argument or the henological argument, [1] is an argument for the existence of God first proposed by mediaeval Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas as one of the five ways to philosophically argue in favour of God's existence in his Summa Theologica.