God Is The Final Cause Essay

In verse 15, Paul writes, "We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners" Paul seems to be telling his gentile reader that the Torah has no bearing on their salvation. I feel that he purposely or inadvertently gives the law merit more merit than intended by suggesting that Jews are not sinners because they received the law. He draws a distinction between himself and "the gentile sinners" yet he is telling his audience that the ways, some of which are still a part of his own way of life, are irrelevant. He seems to almost make a separation of culture and religion. He seems to be saying that the rectitude of the Jews dates from birth, because the Jewish religion is a part of their culture. Peter claims to

can be the cause of something else and so on and so on. Yet nothing can be the

The belief that morality requires God remains a widely held moral maxim. In particular, it serves as the basic assumption of the Christian fundamentalist's social theory. Fundamentalists claim that all of society's troubles - everything from AIDS to out-of-wedlock pregnancies - are the result of a breakdown in morality and that this breakdown is due to a decline in the belief of God. This paper will look at different examples of how a god could be a bad thing and show that humans can create rules and morals all on their own. It will also touch upon the fact that doing good for the wrong reasons can also be a bad thing for the person.

According to Aristotle, things are seen as taking course and will eventually come to a stop when potential is reached. The entire process of potential to actuality is call causation. Aristotle sees human life as the search for happiness and term happiness as the fulfillment of all potential. We are molded through the decisions we make. I see this as a cycle and

For my book review I chose The Reason for God by Timothy Keller. I have read this book before, but I wanted to go through again, summarize and analyze it. The purpose of this paper will be to summarize The Reason for God and analyze it’s writing style and arguments. The Reason for God defends knowledge of God and is naturally an apologetic work. Interestingly enough though, it reads more like a pastoral than it does an apologetic work.

Faith and reason can be viewed as opposites. Faith is an element of belief, something an individual does not necessarily require a reason for accepting without reason. For example, an individual’s reason for believing in God may not seem too rational when they are trying to explain them. They may not even stand up to criticism. On the other hand, reason is constructed as a formula. Faith is basically something we believe in, like something we learn in church. Reason is something we learn in school, such as a math formula.

Aquinas' second proof is similar to his first in that it relates to cause and effect. St. Thomas reasoned that in a world of order there is an order to all cause and effect. And , since there is a cause for the existence of all things there must be a cause that caused all things and had no cause itself. He points out that nothing in creation existed prior to itself and the causality cannot be traced back infinitely. If the efficient or first cause did not exist then nothing would exist. That first or efficient cause is God.

Aristotle’s understanding of the four causes begins with the assumption that is present in all Greek philosophy, the notion of pre-existing matter. He observed the world around him and noticed that it was in a state of constant motion, a movement from potentiality to

In Metaphysics XII, Aristotle elaborates on a need for a “first mover that initiates motion without being moved” (Met. 12.7, 1072a26). This primary, or unmoved mover, he believes is the source of all motion in the universe. In this essay, I will explain his conception of such a mover. I will then elaborate on how this unmoved mover initiates motion. Finally, I will explain his rationale for believing there is such a mover.

The third, fourth, and fifth premises comprise a major questionable area. The third premise, The human function is unique to only humans themselves, was indirectly introduced as a goal in what Aristotle was looking for in terms of a function, without explanation of why the human function must be unique. Does Aristotle think in unsupported anthropocentric terms and feel it was not questionable to ascribe a special function to humans? Or does Aristotle have an ecological view and think that every

In order to prevent an infinite regression of argument, Aristotle came up with the his famous idea of the "Prime Mover," which exists outside the earth somewhere in the heavens and is ultimately responsible for all change on earth.

The Final Cause causes movement and gives purpose to everything in the universe. It could be argued that the final cause given by the Prime Mover is for everything to simply change. However, Aristotle describes the prime mover as God, implying that it obtaining goodness is our purpose. Therefore, it is God that attracts everything to himself while remaining unaffected. Aristotle supposed God’s existence to be necessary, inferring that God does not depend on anything else for existence. He lacks the potential and therefore does not change, exists outside our temporal reality, making him eternal. Aristotle stated that eternal beings are essentially good; there can be no imperfection in something that existing necessarily. Evil originates from a lack of, something which should exist. This would have to be the mere absence of ‘actuality’ that Aristotle stated God

Aristotle specifically separates causes into four different categories, material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, and final cause. He defines these causes as “that from which, as a <constituent> present in it, … the form i.e., the pattern, … the source of the primary principle of change, … something’s end” . Respectively, these describe what something is made of, the form or pattern to which is corresponds, the original source of change (closest to what we would associate with a “cause”), and the purpose of the change. Using the creation of a sculpture as an example, Aristotle provides the bronze of a statue as a material cause, the shape of the state as the formal cause, the actual sculpting of the statue as the efficient cause,

The bible was written as an account of what many viewed that God had accomplished so his actions and words could be passed on for generations. Some believe it is a literary account and some believe it is a historical account. The word of God in the bible comes in many forms and is left up to interpretation by the reader. Some believe that the word of God should be the only word and should be strictly followed. Some believe that the words are meant as a guideline to help us through life. Whatever your belief is you can always seem to find the meaning behind your belief through the word of God in the Bible.

In Physics II, Aristotle speaks to the four causes that can explain any changes in the science of nature. First, he says there is a cause that explains what something is made of, such as the bronze of a statue (194b25). Second, there is a cause which is related to the form to which a thing is made into (194b27). Third, there is the original, primary source of change. It is what makes of what is made and what causes change of what is changed, like that of the father to a child (194b30). Lastly, there is the end cause, which is the intended purpose of the change or the reason behind why a thing is made or done (194b35). An example of this would be health, which is the cause of walking around.