The unmoved mover (Ancient Greek: ὃ οὐ κινούμενον κινεῖ,[1] ho ou kinoúmenos kineî, "that which moves without being moved") or prime mover (Latin: primum movens) is a concept advanced by Aristotle as a primary cause or "mover" of all the motion in the universe.[2] As is implicit in the name, the "unmoved mover" moves other things, but is not itself moved by any prior action. In Book 12 (Greek "Λ") of his Metaphysics, Aristotle describes the unmoved mover as being perfectly beautiful, indivisible, and contemplating only the perfect contemplation: itself contemplating. He equates this concept also with the active intellect. This Aristotelian concept had its roots in cosmological speculations of the earliest Greek Pre-Socratic philosophers and became highly influential and widely drawn upon in medieval philosophy and theology. St. Thomas Aquinas, for example, elaborated on the unmoved mover in the Quinque viae.
Another Aristolean illustration for the SOUL uses is the eye. If the eye were an animal, sight would have to be its soul. When the eye no longer sees then it is an eye in name only.
aRISTOTLES TELEOLOGICAL BENT
What is important for Aristotle is the end purpose of something – an axe chops, an eye sees, an animal is animated…etc. This is what is meant by ‘teleology’ from the Greek teleoV meaning end.
Another Aristolean illustration for the SOUL uses is the eye. If the eye were an animal, sight would have to be its soul. When the eye no longer sees then it is an eye in name only.
aRISTOTLES TELEOLOGICAL BENT
What is important for Aristotle is the end purpose of something – an axe chops, an eye sees, an animal is animated…etc. This is what is meant by ‘teleology’ from the Greek teleoV meaning end.
Criticisms of Aristotle
Aristotle dismisses Plato’s Realms saying there is no clear evidence for them. Instead he appeals to our senses, claiming that it through them that we experience reality. However, we are still left with the problem that there is no clear evidence that our senses are reliable. A religious person might argue that we know the world through faith and revelation.
There is no clear evidence that everything does have a final cause. Some philosophers deny that there is any purpose to the universe. Such philosophers claim that the universe has no intrinsic purpose other than existing.
The concept of the an Unmoved Mover - or Prime Mover depends upon the argument that everything must have a cause. The argument then contradicts itself by claiming that God does exactly what it claims is impossible.
Aristotle does not adequately explain how God as a thinking force could be responsible for causing movement. On the one hand he stresses that real knowledge beings with the senses but the concept of something being moved just through thought is not what most of us experience.
Aristotle's Influence on Christian Thought
Aristotle’s philosophy found new found interest in the writings of Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century. Just like Plato, theologians tend to pick and choose the bits that they like. Christian theologians have adopted:
- God is eternal, beyond space and time, immutable
- The universe has a purpose
- God is the Final Cause – the Unmoved Mover – the Christian cosmological argument for the existence of God
- Aristotle’s teleology supports Aquinas’ Natural Law
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