Saturday, January 6, 2018

Unmoved Mover, Causality, Critique of Religion

Aristotle's Unmoved Mover 1. is self-moving; 2. is unmoved by anything else; 3. moves everything else.  Now, the Causality involved in #3 is Teleological, i. e. it is the obect of desire of everything else.  However, it is unclear if, or how, the Causality involved in #1 is Teleological, or is any of the other three, for that matter.  Regardless, there is no Causality involved in #2.  So, while this concept seems internally indeterminate, and perhaps incoherent, it is valuable in one respect.  It serves as a critique of any religion constituted by any Causality other than unilateral Teleological, e. g. by human prayer or ritual, on the one hand, and divine reward and punishment, on the other.  The critique thus applies not only to pagan religions, but also to those the Theology of which draw upon Aristotelianism.

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