simultaneously be potentially cold. So, it is impossible that in the same respect and same .
manner anything should be both mover and moved. In this, Aquinas means that nothing .
can move itself. Therefore, if something is in motion, it must have been put in motion by .
something else, which must have been put in motion by yet another thing, and so on. .
However, this cannot go on to infinity because there would never have been a first mover .
and, consequently, no subsequent movers. After all, second movers do not move except .
when moved by a first mover, just as a stick does not move anything except when moved .
by a hand. Thus, this leads to the conclusion that there is a first mover which is not .
moved by anything, and this first mover is what we understand to be God.
Summarizing Aquinas" first way, the argument states that objects are in motion, .
and if something is in motion, then it must be caused to be in motion by something .
outside of itself. That is, an object in motion is put in motion by some other object or .
force. There can be no infinite chain of movers/movees so there is a first, unmoved .
mover. Therefore, in conclusion, the unmoved mover exists and is called God.
Aquinas" second way in proving God's existence is based on the nature of .
efficient causation. Now, causation itself is "making to be" in the sense that the cause .
makes there be the result. Efficient causation, however, is the production of the result, or .
the activation from being merely possible or potential into accomplished fact. Thus, the .
efficient cause is what brings about the result to be effectively realized as actual. In the .
observable world we discover an order of efficient causes, but no case is found, or ever .
could be found, of something efficiently causing itself. Such a thing would have to be .
prior to itself, which is impossible. Now, it is impossible to go on forever in a series of .
efficient causes. This is because in every ordered series of efficient causes the first .
