Proof Through Motion

We're covering St. Thomas Aquinas's 5 proofs for the existence of God. Here is the first: motion.

Before any person was conceived in their mother's womb, that person was merely a potential being. They did not actually become real until the act that created their life. In the same way, everything now in existence was only potential at one point, since everything has a beginning. In other words, in order to get to the state of matter as it exists today, there must be an actual beginning-a start. At some point long ago, humans - or any form of matter, never existed.

Some force had to start the motion from potential existence to actual existence. Since science cannot account for potential miraculously forming into actual existence (some force had to cause it, which was caused by a previous force, which was caused by a previous force...you get the idea), this would not account for an actual "beginning" of the universe. Still, something had to create the universe as it exists here and now. Prior to the Big Bang, when the universe only existed as potential, what force caused the motion for it to become real? St. Thomas argued that the force was God, the Prime Mover. He moved the potential universe to become an actual one.