Intersecting Greek Rationality and Medieval Philosophy

Part One:

The “problem with Greek Rationality” stems from the quote, “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?” This quote subjects us to thinking that the medieval philosophers believed that there was a certain gap between their line of thought and the Greek line of thought. However, this gap is not the same distance for every one of the great medieval philosophers. Some thinkers from that period believed that their can use reasoning, like the Greeks, to prove the revelations were true. Anselm went as far as to create an ontological “proof” that a higher power exists. With this sort of “rational” viewpoint on the revelations, it almost appears to be in line with Greek thought. The gap that divides these two ways of thinking has more weight
The first step “By Motion” uses a series of logical points to create a claim. It starts of by saying that things must move. Thomas, being a realist, believed what what we perceive is reality. So if he saw something moved, he perceived that to be real. Since we see that things move, then things must move. After that, he says that whatever is moved must be moved by another. This must be true because of potentiality and actuality. If something has the potential to move, then it may move. The motion of this thing is the actualization of that potential. Potential things, not having any actuality cannot actualize other things, which also means that things cannot be potential and actual at the same time. Therefore, a thing may never move itself, because if it was not moving then it is potential, and if it’s potential, it has no way of actualizing that potential to move. This also helps to explain the next step. If a mover moves, then it must have been moved by another mover. Since we already explained that something cannot activate its own potential, it must mean that a mover cannot move without being moved by another mover. Following the trend, then for things to constantly move, this pattern would go on infinitely. However, Thomas disproves this in the next step. If there would be an infinite set of movers moving other movers, then we would have no initial starting mover. This starting mover is key, because if there is no starting mover, then there are no subsequent movers as there is nobody to move them. Continuing on, that would mean that there wouldn’t motion due to the fact that nothing is moving. Because we can see motion in reality, this fact cannot be true, which means that there must be a first mover. This mover must be “God”, a prime mover. Because this mover was the first, then that means that it was not moved, and since it wasn’t moved this being is beyond our reality. Something so