Trent Promoted Feser

I think his book is not the best resource on the Five Ways.

What Killed the "New Atheism"?
The Counsel of Trent | 19 March 2025
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhsXOKlXe5M

16:48 While firefighters are serving one noble function (the one they get their name from), they have some other sides professionnally too.

If in Paris someone is taken to shrinks, from the street or his home, it's firefighters who do it.

In Paris recently there was a rape case, the firefighter got acquitted ... however, in the LA fires hundreds of firefighters got out of prison to fight the LA fires. Yes, I said, hundreds of firefighters were in prisons in Southern California. It's hard to get leave from prison if you aren't in prison, right?

18:40 like "village atheism" ... I'm reminded of the phrase "village idiot" and Dixit insipiens ....

19:05 I stopped paying attention to Feser when he decided to not read and respond to my comments.

Matthieu Lavagna, my better paid colleague in France as Catholic Apologist, reads books by you, Akin, Heschmeyer ... fine. He also reads Feser.

Where exactly in that volume, which I suppose you have read, does Feser acknowledge that Prima Via involves Geocentrism?

Riccioli, a fellow Geocentric, but an "empty space" one denied that God moved all of Heaven each day, saying only angels move each celestial body each day. He concluded that Aquinas' proof for God was factually wrong, and preferred Descartes' Ontological argument.

Now, if Feser were to respond to the historical fact, well, he might say any movement or change at some point returns to some kind of first mover. Fine and dandy, so to speak, but what about God being one (not denying the Trinity, but He's one in relation to creation)? You see, in I P, Q 2, A 3, Thomas is saying about every concluding remark in the five ways "which all call God" ... but he has not argued whether God is one ...

Go to Q 11, A 3. St. Thomas has three ways to show that God is one. The third concerns Prima Via and Geocentrism:

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.

In other words, St. Thomas is saying that Sirius and Virgo, Saturn and Venus, just as much as Moon and Sun are part of the ecosystem we live in. That eco-system being one, the one who turns it around each day is also one. However, if you humoured the ultra-scepticism of Seneca (a pantheist) who asked whether "deus" turns the heaven around earth each day or "deus" turns the earth around itself each day, the good translation of "deus" in the latter scenario might not be God, but rather "a god" ... a skillset not too unlike Superman's plus added immortality might be adequate for first mover of Earth's rotation and also orbitation.

So, if you read Q 2 A 3 in wider context, even without the text version "Certum est enim, et sensu constat, aliqua moveri utputa sol" or Certum est enim, et sensu constat, aliqua moveri in hoc mundo, utputa sol" like the context of Q 11 A 3, it's apparent Riccioli was not just right about the historical fact, but also actually about implicative force.

Meaning Feser, who to the best of my knowledge never replied to Sungenis' "The Bible reveals the Earth is stationary" with "no, the Bible presumes the Earth is stationary, like it presumes music can appease and dance can arouse" ... i e it's not a mystery of the faith that Saul could feel appeased when King David played the harp, or Herod Antipas could feel aroused when Salomé danced, and equally it's not a mystery of the faith that Earth is still and Sun, Moon and the far off visible stars go around Earth each day-and-night ... in fact, this is probably what St. Paul was talking of.

In case Feser might respond "but this is such a crude argument" ... (i e, unworthy of Aquinas), I get a suspicion Feser has a more Aquikantian than Thomasic epistemology. And if you ask why I don't adress this to Feser, but to you:

1) you are promoting him
2) he is so eager to not promote me that he doesn't answer my comments.