St. Thomas and Prima vs Tertia Via

Catholicism vs Evolution · St. Thomas and Prima vs Tertia Via

The Argument for God That Changed My Mind
Actually Catholic | 6.VIII.2026
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xilMR5kSQE

6:26 Noting that you switch between tertia via (argument from contingency) and now, when you object to infinite regress, as you should, you borrow it from prima via.

Railway carriages without a locomotive or with one is like the unmoved mover or lack thereof.

Apart from Geocentrism, an atheist could reply "but can we be sure they are all in the same train" or even "that they aren't all locomotives".

The series of changes in a wooden log burning to ashes has as first mover fire, but it's one fire of many fires. That's the equivalent of "the waggons are not the same train"

Heliocentric versions of Celestial mechanics tend to imply that the movers while never unmoved are also never purely passive, since they themselves exert some action by inertia (on themselves) and gravity (on each other) and there is no movement where this is completely subsidiary under a more general movement, like we Geocentrics see the Daily movement. That's the equivalent of "all the waggons are locomotives".

Apart from the text version "manifestum est et patet sensibus aliquid moveri, utputa sol" which I am sure that I have seen, even if I can't trace it online, St. Thomas confirms this was what he thought of in the Question whether God is one.

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.
Prima Pars, Q 2, A 3

Versus:

Thirdly, this is shown from the unity of the world. For all things that exist are seen to be ordered to each other since some serve others. But things that are diverse do not harmonize in the same order, unless they are ordered thereto by one. For many are reduced into one order by one better than by many: because one is the per se cause of one, and many are only the accidental cause of one, inasmuch as they are in some way one. Since therefore what is first is most perfect, and is so per se and not accidentally, it must be that the first which reduces all into one order should be only one. And this one is God.
Prima Pars, Q 11, A3

The first point of the three goes back to Q 3 on God's simplicity, where this is established in a way at odds with modern physics:

First, because no body is in motion unless it be put in motion, as is evident from induction. Now it has been already proved (I:2:3), that God is the First Mover, and is Himself unmoved. Therefore it is clear that God is not a body.
Prima Pars, Q 3, A 1

St. Thomas presumed, as per our senses, that Earth and bodies on Earth, are in fact absolutely still. Which remains valid in Geocentrism, also apparent to our senses.

9:28 The train is not as such helping the Kalaam.

St. Thomas never mentioned the Kalaam, at least not in the five ways. And the locomotive of the train can have been pulling it since forever, including in circles. Precisely as God could have had a coeternal universe in which He had always moved heaven around Earth, instead of doing so just since creation.

Either way, the Geocentric position involves that God has done this so many times now, we cannot presume His power to be ending. Hence "unending power" in Romans 1.

And, obviously, the train metaphor belongs to Prima Via, so to Geocentrism, even if your main argument is Tertia Via.

You are saying that the single most fundamental fact about reality that anything exists at all is the one thing that has no explanation while continuing to demand explanations for absolutely everything else

This is not the worst one can get.

The most fundamental fact is normally the basis for all explanation.

Explanations and proofs both have this in common they can't regress to infinity. At some point one has to come to a primary which cannot further be analysed.

That's why I'm perfectly fine with answering an Atheist asking "explain how God can be omnipotent" as if asking for a mechanism, that God's omnipotence isn't the result of a mechanism involving any more primary explanations (and certainly none of the type science usually is talking about), but is the fundamental explanation for anything about the universe.

Objection four, the half concession. Even if you get a necessary being, why call it God? Why is it personal? Why is it good? Why does it care? Why is it Jesus rather than an impersonal ground of being or a brute mathematical structure? This objection is correct, and I think apologists are dishonest when they wave it off.

This is why Prima Via interpreted as Geocentric is superior to Tertia Via, with or without a Prima Via interpreted by a Heliocentric.

One could say, the first three ways point to "matter and energy" which Atheists are not denying.

They may say the chair is contingent, but the atoms it's made from aren't, or the atoms are contingent, but the energy quanta they are made from aren't.

Just as one might say that with Heliocentrism, the "first mover" is a multiple, Earth and Sun moving each other.

With Geocentrism, the Prima Via provides a daily spectacle of a feat of power by something or someone who handles all this power with sufficient delicacy for stars in the sphere of fix stars to stay in place, relatively to each other, apart from minor adjustments like "parallax" (misnomer of the phenomenon on the Geocentric view).

One can say that with Geocentrism, the Quarta and Quinta Via join with the Prima Via.

As in "argument from design" (yes, that actually is one of the five ways).

And, unlike the flagellum of the bacterium, visible to the naked eye since the beginning of Creation.