>>562465
Thanks for your reply, anon, which I never thanked you for before. Sometimes I follow this reasoning, other times I don't get my head around it (like now for example). I believe there is some bit of information that is missing for it to click and fall into plcace, and am just not learned enought yet. Reading the sources in Aquinas sounds like a good idea, I'm sure I'll look into them at some point.
To elaborate on my autism, I'm naturally inclined to respond to the following point thusly:
>But infinite regress is impossible because there still needs to be single first move- each mover requires a previous mover
Agree with the second clause which still allows for the infinite regress, but don't see how it relates to the first and why that is the conclusion at this point
>so in the infinite chain of movers there is a previous mover to each mover
ok as above
>however this cannot go on for infinity as without a prior mover
assuming this should read ultimate first (i.e. uncaused) mover rather than simply prior, as the infinite regress provides a mere prior mover also?
>as without [the uncaused, ultimate first cause/mover] the mover would be inert and therefore could not do anything
>therefore an infinite chain of movers could not exist as it would be entirely inert to begin with
Maybe this is where my gap in knowledge is, would you mind explaining why this is the case? I'm sorry I'm being such a brainlet it's just I'm desparate to be able to clearly explain this to my unbelieving friends without kidding myself that I'm regurgitating stuff I myself don't actually understand (which when they pick up on the fact speaks for itself in terms of the intellectual weakness of my position)
>The first mover would have to be actual in and of itself
Aha, I get this. It makes sense, in terms of arriving at and describing a facet of the nature of God, but it assumes the necessity of the (ultimate, unmoved) first mover in the first place, which is the question I'm pribing at, and which it doesn't tackle.
S-sorry if I'm being a hyperdense no-brain dingobat. If there's any vids that anyone can reccomend that explains it for people like my would be much appreciatively received.
In actual fact, having just seen vid in >>>/christian/570274 which says that "a fraction of infinity is zero," this abstract fact may prove a more useful way of explaining/conceptualising it if true, as it seems to make the exact same claim as the impossibility of the infinite regress. I did google it to find out more assuming that it was a commonly known and simple mathmatical fact but the results all look pretty complicated (with formulas and suff) to someone not familiar with maths beyond the vague remnants of a school boy a decade ago filtered through a weed-induced memory shot brain.
Thanks for putting up with this