The Summa Contra Gentiles (Illustrated)
And if this again passes from potentiality to actuality, it must be preceded by something else, whereby it can be brought from potentiality to actuality. But we cannot go on thus to infinity. Therefore we must come to something that is wholly actual and nowise potential. And this we call God.
Saint Thomas Aquinas • The Summa Contra Gentiles (Illustrated)
Therefore God is both potential (none being) and actual (being) ... The very process of becoming from nothing into something cannot repeat itself into infinity, so we have to come to the conclusion that the principle behind it is thing that transcends non-being and being. He is nothing and everything at the same time - or NO thing. God is the very reason for why nothing becomes something, He is the one inbetween.
The first way is as follows. Whatever is in motion is moved by another: and it is clear to the sense that something, the sun for instance, is in motion. Therefore it is set in motion by something else moving it. Now that which moves it is itself either moved or not. If it be not moved, then the point is proved that we must needs postulate an immova
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The question is what makes everything move? Why is everything, even atoms in constant motion? What is the cause, the principle behind motion? What makes things move itself primarily without the reliance of "other" separated or individual parts. How can it move itself without moving? God, an immovable mover.
Now every necessary thing either has a cause of its necessity from without, or has no such cause, but is necessary of itself. But we cannot go on to infinity in necessary things that have causes of their necessity from without. Therefore we must suppose some first necessary thing which is necessary of itself: and this is God, since He is the first
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Source is the first principle of all things. What comes after lies in the realm of subjective: to exist and not exist, to be caused or not caused. God Himself is above all of that.
For matter, such as it is, is in potentiality.
Saint Thomas Aquinas • The Summa Contra Gentiles (Illustrated)
Isnt matter "real"? Unless if youre talking about the infinite possibility of matter changing its form
the human intellect is incapable by its natural power of attaining to the comprehension of His essence: since our intellect’s knowledge, according to the mode of the present life, originates from the senses: so that things which are not objects of sense cannot be comprehended by the human intellect, except in so far as knowledge of them is gathered
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U cannot comprehend the structure when you are within it.
Nothing is at the same time in act and in potentiality in respect of the same thing. Now whatever is in motion, as such, is in potentiality, because motion is the act of that which is in potentiality, as such. Whereas whatever moves, as such, is in act, for nothing acts except in so far as it is in act. Therefore nothing is both mover and moved in
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Again. Although that which is sometimes potential and sometimes actual, is in point of time potential before being actual, nevertheless actuality is simply before potentiality: because potentiality does not bring itself into actuality, but needs to be brought into actuality by something actual. Therefore whatever is in any way potential has somethi
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God has no latent, or any underlying potential, because He is everything, prior and after. He is beyond any potential (necessarily or possibility) or actuality (fulfillment or realization).
Therefore if God, Who is the first cause, is the material cause of things, it follows that all things exist by chance. Further. Matter does not become the cause of an actual thing, except by being altered and changed.
Saint Thomas Aquinas • The Summa Contra Gentiles (Illustrated)
Therefore God is the first cause and creation behind all things material, and within material you can know thag that is God too, even in differentiated or separated objects.
A thing is not moved by itself if it is moved accidentally, since its motion is occasioned by the motion of something else.
Saint Thomas Aquinas • The Summa Contra Gentiles (Illustrated)
Motion cannot be brought forth by external causation, but something within. The man who thinks they are moving their hands are in actuality moving them not because of neural activations, but by a "mover" that transcends beyond any structure or system.