The First Mover in Aristotle and Mulla Sadra

By: Dr. Sayyid Mustafa Muhaqqiq Damad

The earlier philosophers viewed motion as one of the qualities of things and, therefore, considered it as an issue in the field of physics. If, for some reason, they had to deal with motion in metaphysics, they tried to justify this by bringing some excuses. Bahmanyar says:

We discuss motion and its consequences, because it is the same as interaction, which we will discuss later. Although, motion is a physical issue, we will discuss it here (as a theological issue) so that students may grasp the point better.[1]

In the above-mentioned sentences, Bahmanyar subcategorizes motion under physics; however, he tries to justify its use in metaphysics.

Ibn Sīna, too, believes that motion belongs to the domain of physical issues. In his al-Mabda' wa'l ma'ad he says:

"The philosopher (Aristotle) has discussed motion related issues in two books: one, in general issues of natural things (physics), and the other, in general issues in metaphysics.[2]

In his commentary on the metaphysics of al-Shifa, Mulla Sadra writes:

Our magnanimous book, Asfar, includes a series of metaphysical discussions. There I have tried to discuss the problems following an ontological and metaphysical approach so that other metaphysicians would not need to have recourse to particular sciences in similar cases.[3]

In his Asfar, as well as in his other books, Mulla Sadra has discussed motion under metaphysics, because he regards motion as one of the different types of existence (wujêd). In other words, he maintains that existence is of two types: immutable (thabit) existence and fluid (sayyal) existence. In fact, he believes that existence is either perfect or on its way towards perfection. The perfect existence is immutable and immaterial and the non-perfect existence, which yearns for perfection, is material. And since Mulla Sadra regards motion as being inherent in the substance of things, he introduces flow as a prerequisite to existence. By the way, in his view, motion is the mode of existence and among al-umêr al-ammah or general  metaphysical issues.

One of the issues that Aristotle has posed on the topic of motion is the existence of the First Mover. He believes that the source of the main first movement is an immaterial thing.

Of course, Aristotle’s argument was later proposed as an argument for the existence of the Necessary Being in philosophy. It goes without saying that the Necessary Being is not discussed in natural sciences or physics, and Aristotle has never introduced it in this way. The reason is that physics does not discuss the absolute “is” and “is not”, and instead of the existence or non-existence of things, it talks about their accidents and properties. Later metaphysicians used this argument and since the principles of this argument are discussed in physics, it was known as the argument of natural philosophers (tabiiyyên). Sabziwarī says: “Ìabi'iyyên approach the Truth through motion”. Also in his Asfar, Mulla Sadra says: "Ìabi'iyyên, however, follow other ways which are inspired by change and transformation."[4]

After proving that there should be a specific body functioning as the origin of the production of force and the source of the main motion, he maintains that the main force does not exist; moreover, the body which is the source of the main motion requires another mover to have created motion for the first time in that specific body. This motion is later transmitted to other bodies under certain conditions.

He proves that the body causing motion should be in motion itself to be able to transfer motion to other things; however, bodies are motionless by themselves and serve as the means through which motion is transferred.

Being moved means that a thing itself moves and its movement causes motion in other things through connection and force. Hence, knowledge deals with three things:

1. The Mover (the creator of motion);

2. The intermediary for motion (the first moving things);

3. The moving thing (the matter of sensible things)

In other words, existents are of three types:

1. Things that cause motion but do not move themselves;

2. Things that are in motion but are immortal (by an immortal moving thing he means the primary matter, since he believes that there is no change in the essence of matter and all changes take place in attributes and states of matter;

3. Things that move but are mortal.[5]

By the third type, Aristotle means those bodies which are made of matter, and thus he continues in this way:

Therefore, we must necessarily consider three things as the sources and reasons for motion:

1. Primary matter

2. The essence of things (their very forms)

3. The first mover[6]

Then he stipulates: “A mover which is not natural and does not receive motion lacks motion and has been in existence before all existents.” [7] He believes that the main mover is always constant and there is no change in its essence and attributes, and that if it moves, it should possess matter. He rejects these ideas by bringing some reasons.

The first mover itself should be immobile, since it does not transfer motion, but grants it to other bodies from itself. Such an unmoving mover does not require touch or force, since it neither moves nor receives motion, nor transfers motion to bodies through exercising force. Rather, it is the creator of the essence of absolute motion which does not belong to a specific body. The first mover creates the eternal motion in the infinite time, thus it lacks mass and gravity and is indivisible.

In the above theory, Aristotle agrees with materialist philosophers and atomists in that matter lacks the ability to influence and is the first mover. However, he goes further by acknowledging that being absolute motion does not mean being the cause and there must be another cause.

"Democritus says that things have always been the same as they are today. In a criticism of his ideas, Aristotle argues:

This explanation does not suffice to account for the quality of the occurrence of the absolute motion, since it does not explain the real reason for its existence and, in fact, it refrains from such an endeavor. I do not say that the principle in which Democritus believes (certain things exist without having any cause) has no single case of application; however, I say that it is not necessary for this proposition to be equally applicable to everything everywhere. For example, it is an invariable and proven fact that all triangles have three angles which are equal to two right angles; however, we should not blindly insist on this characteristic. Rather, we should try to seek for the reason for such an invariable characteristic of all triangles, because there is an ulterior cause for the eternity of this truth, whereas first principles are eternal and have no ulterior cause.[8]

As we can see, Aristotle disagreed with atomists in that they did not maintain a cause for the existence of the essence of existence. He believed that motion should depend on a source and force. Atomists talked about mere chance or the motion of revolving rings in a mechanical sense. Aristotle absolutely rejected this idea and admired Anaxogras for proving the existence of a cause for motion, considering it as arising from an outer body and calling it the act of mind. To sum up, he considers the spiritual powers as the main source of motion.

In the last century, Bertrand Russell, in supporting Aristotle’s predecessors, criticizes him as follows: “Explaining the motion of revolving rings in a mechanical sense rather than attributing it to an act of mind, was a step forward in its own time.”

And a few lines below, he says:

“It is true that Leucippus does not provide any reason as to how the world should have been created in the way it was, and this could not be attributed to mere chance; however, when the world came into being, its further development was invariably based on mechanical principles … Aristotle and others criticized Leucippus and Democritus for not accounting for the original motion of atoms; however, atomists were more knowledgeable than their critics in this regard. The reason was that the cause should inevitably start from somewhere, and wherever it starts from, no cause can be maintained for the initial cause. The world may be attributed to a Creator, but even in this case, the existence of the Creator Himself is not accounted for. The theory of atomists is in fact closer to the theories of modern science than all the theories propounded in ancient times.”^[9]

It goes without saying that Russell's criticism of Aristotle's theory is not justified. The quoted sentences from Aristotle indicate that he had taken notice of this flaw and replied that in some cases it might be true that "there can exist a thing without having a cause".

It would also be useful to mention that Russell has misunderstood the motion in nature through supernature or, as he puts it himself, "the action of mind". He believes that Aristotle’s point is that there is a certain power in the supernature which causes motion in the world of matter. That is, nature is motionless in its essence and there is an external force which causes its motion, exactly in the same way that the fingers of an old woman cause the spinning wheel to rotate.

Such an idea was also common in the Islamic world, and even there is a åadith saying that one day the Holy Prophet and his companions saw an old woman who was working on a spinning wheel. He asked her: "How did you know God?" The old woman stopped spinning and naturally the wheel stopped, too. The old woman said: “As this spinning wheel requires a hand to move it, the great wheel of the world of being, which is always in rotation, requires a powerful hand.” It was then that the Holy Prophet said to his companions: “"Follow the path of this old woman". This event was later narrated in Persian literature.

Such a misunderstanding of the issue necessitates presupposing the nature as being motionless in essence and requiring an external force to put it into motion. Such a conception of Aristotle’s words led many Europeans to think that Aristotle believed in the eternity of matter and world. Therefore, they concluded that he was not a theist, for he believed that God had not created the world and was only the cause of its motion. They consider Aristotle a dualist rather than a monist. He is said to believe in a receptacle which receives these forms and motion, but like God, matter itself is created by no power. They also maintain that in Aristotle’s view God has put the universe in motion, but He is not its creator. Here, the relation between God and the universe is like the relation between the old woman and her spinning wheel. In short, in their view, Aristotle believed in two origins for the universe: an efficient origin creating form and motion, and a material origin receiving forms and motions.

To tell the truth, there is some ambiguity in Aristotle’s words and one cannot interpret them clearly and with assurance. In general, there are some vague points in the words of Greek philosophers, which everybody had interpreted in line with his own beliefs and ideas. On the issue of "trans-substantial motion" in Asfar, Mulla Sadra brings some quotations from Thales, Anximander, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Plato, Aristotle, Democritus, Epicurus and others, and maintains that their words involve some ambiguities and metaphors whose real meanings the translators and narrators have not been able to perceive correctly. Mulla Sadra himself interprets these words in favor of his theory of trans-substantial motion.[10]

It seems that the secret lies in understanding Aristotle’s matter of matters (primary matter). What did he really mean by primary matter? Did he mean a natural, physical, and actual thing? If so, this group’s understanding of the world’s being not created and its eternity and, as a result, Aristotle’s dualism, is correct. However, there are certain pieces of evidence in his words that do not conform to this perception.

Islamic philosophers, such as Ibn Sīna and Farabī, who were followers of Aristotle’s school of thought, interpreted his view of matter in a way that introduces him as a perfect muwahid. They say that Aristotelian matter is pure potency which is almost the same as non-existence, and its existence depends on actuality. Such a thing has to be created because it depends on a created thing. In Aristotle’s philosophy, the existence of the universe is explained through potency and actuality, meaning that being is pure potency at its lowest level and, at its highest level, it is pure actuality, and that there are other beings in the middle of the different levels of potency and actuality. The lowest level of being is “primary hyle”. This term, which has been coined to refer to the matter of the universe, has a Greek origin and means "receptacle".

In order to prove his claim, Aristotle resorts to many premises, the most important of which is that every natural mover is also a moving thing. Through using the principle of the absurdity of the vicious circle and regression, he infers the existence of the First Mover or the intellectual mover which is an unmoved mover. By the natural mover, he means natural forces or the natural substance of the universe. He hypothesizes that the origin of all motions in nature is a faculty which is intrinsic in nature and is directly related to the intellectual mover.

Now, the question is: “How is the natural mover related to the primary intellectual mover? In other words, “What has the intellectual mover done to nature?” Has it caused the nature to move? If so, the nature of the world should be a reality which has received motion. It is here that the theory of duality comes to the fore, since the motion of nature in this case will be an accidental one and, technically speaking, its relation to its cause will be of the kind of “composite” and not “simple” making (ja'l).

The problem has been solved in Mulla Sadra’s philosophy by posing the theory of trans-substantial motion, and the point has been discussed in some other way. Mulla Sadra believes that the nature of matter is essentially fluid and motion has not occurred to it. In other words, the nature itself is the same as motion, and while motion and the moving thing are conceptually and rationally different from each other, they are the same ipseity in the external world.

It is necessary to emphasize that when Mulla Sadra uses the term “trans-substantial motion,” he does not mean that the substance of the world is moving. The reason is that in Aristotle’s categories and classifications, substance is among the quiddities; while in Mulla Sadra’s theory, motion has nothing to do with quiddities and is specifically limited to entity and existence. This is because according to Mulla Sadra, quiddity is mentally-posited and is united with and the same as existence in the external world, and thus motion is attributed to substance.

Mulla Sadra believes that motion is one of the analytic accidents of the moving thing and, therefore, it is only the faculty of reason that is able to carefully distinguish motion from the moving thing.

In other words, the relation between the subject or receptacle of motion and motion itself is not like the relation between the accident and what receives the accident, or between whiteness and what is white. Rather, it is like the relation between whiteness and white, which are merely two rational considerations that are the same in the external world. There is no subject to which motion has occurred; rather, there is an essence which is the same as motion.

Here, Mulla Sadra’s philosophy has to deal with a great problem which, of course, it seems to be capable of solving in the most efficient way. The problem is: “if the essence of the nature of the world is identical with motion, why does it require a moving cause?” In other words, “What is wrong with saying that the nature of the world is the same as motion, or claiming that since motion is essential to the world and since an essential thing is needless of a cause, the universe is independent and does not need a cause?”

Mulla Sadra’s answer to this question is based on his analytic theories of the relation between the cause and effect, which is called “making” (ja'l) in Islamic philosophy. Briefly speaking, Muslim philosophers maintain that the cause-effect relation is of two kinds: composite and simple. In composite making, the cause changes a thing in a specific manner through having a state occurring to it; for example, it whitens something which is not white itself. Here, what is whitened and whiteness are two distinct and independent things and the role of the cause is to establish a relation between the two, and what is emanated from the cause here is only a copula.

This is not the case in simple making. Here, what is emanated from the cause is the essence of the existence of effect, i.e., the cause has made (created) the very existence of effect. In other words, the cause has created something in simple making, while in composite making it changes the form of the effect.

Mulla Sadra believes that motion is the same as the essence of the world, but it does not mean that such an essence is the Necessary Being to be needless of a cause; rather, since its existence is possible in itself, it needs a cause. What is needless of a cause is an essence for whom existence is necessary. In other words, the existence of the Necessary Being is needless of a cause, while the existence of the essence of the world depends on possible things, and thus it needs a cause. However, what is emanated from the cause is an existence which is the same as motion, not something for which motion is an accident.

In short, in Mulla Sadra's philosophy, the moving nature of the world needs a cause and its relation with the cause or he first mover, which is an intellectual and immobile thing, is of two types: final relation and efficient relation.

In his Asfar, he says: "The unmoved Mover causes the things to move in two ways: either He is the immediate first Mover causing motion in the moving thing, or there is in Him a telos for which the things are yearning, and He is in fact the Beloved."[11]

To put it more clearly, the first Mover is related to the world and makes it move in two ways: first, through an efficient cause, and second, through telos. In the first way, He grants an immediate mover to the moving thing. By the immediate mover Sadra means the material essence of thing which is the same as motion. Through this relation, the entire nature comes into motion and does not remain the same even for a single moment. This relation means that a super-nature has created the nature, that is, it has created a being whose mode of being is flow. In other words, the super-nature’s being the mover of the essence of the world is the same as its being the creator of the world; a world whose motion is identical with its essence.

As mentioned before, in the second way motion is created through the telos. According to the definition provided by Aristotle for motion:  "Motion is the first perfection[12] for what is potential due to its being potential,[13]” and according to the definition given by Mulla Sadra: "motion is the continuous actualization of the limits of the potential thing."[14] By the way, motion is entelechy (moving from potentiality to actuality) or the telos of a moving thing. And since the essence of the world is continuously in motion, its telos is a thing which is the same as perfection and absolute actuality and is free from any kind of potentiality. This motion originates out of desire and is towards the Mover, in the same way that a beloved causes the lover to move while not moving herself.

Mulla Sadra’s theory on explaining the existence of the world is very useful in solving the problem of the temporal origination of the world.

The issue of the temporal origination of the world is considered Kant’s first antinomy. In his view, antinomy consists of a pair of apparently contradictory propositions which have both been derived from the same premises, such as the following: For example, one might say, “a circle is a circular square,” and another might say, “A circle is not a circular square.” [15] In his book, he has opened two columns. On the left side, he has written the reasons given by the advocates of pure reason to prove the origination of the world (thesis), and on the right side, he has provided his own rational arguments (antithesis) to disprove the arguments on the left. In this way, he concludes that pure reason is of no use in dealing with such issues.

Thesis: The world has a temporal beginning and is spatially limited.

Antithesis: The world has no temporal beginning and is not spatially limited; rather, it is infinite in terms of time and space.[16]

He maintains that while it is claimed that these propositions are among absolute metaphysical truths, they contain some logical errors. To solve this problem, he says:

The amount of something deals with the temporal or spatial quantity of the world. When we talk about the quantity of a certain place or time, we assume that the process of measurement (the successive addition of units) can be actually completed. However, the completion of the process of measuring the world can never be actualized with regard to time and space. Thus the idea of the completion of this process is an intelligible form which is not compatible with any experience. Saying whether the world is spatially and temporally finite or infinite is the same as saying whether a square circle is circular or not."[17]

It is interesting to note that in his books, Ibn Sīna regards the same issue as an antimony. The only difference is that Kant believes that both sides have their own arguments, but are in opposition to each other. Yet, Ibn Sina believes that the issue is not demonstrative in essence, since according to Muslim philosophers, an argument is a reason posed to obtain the truth; otherwise, it will be a fallacy or of a dialectic nature. At the beginning of his al-Qabasat (Book of Embers), Mīr Damad says:

By employing the methodology of logic in the technique of dialectic in Kitab al-shifa, Ibn Sīna regards some of philosophical issues to be antimonies, and believes that sometimes there is no argument to prove or reject a statement; then the statement would merely be a dialectical and non-demonstrative one. The problem of the origination and eternity of the world is on of this kind."[18]

Through suggesting his theory of atemporal origination (al-åudêth al-dahrī), Mīr Damad, unlike Ibn Sīna, intends to demonstrate that the world is created and not eternal.[19] According to the theory of atemporal origination propounded by Mīr Damad, the world of nature is contingent upon the pre-natural worlds. That is, the intelligible world precedes the world of nature and, inevitably, the world of nature succeeds it and, consequently, it is created.

Mulla Sadra has solved the problem once and for ever by posing the theory of trans-substantial motion. Here, the conflict was between two groups of people. On one side, there were the followers of different religions believing that the idea of the eternity of the world is in contradiction with believing in God and the prophet’s teachings, and insisted on the temporal origination of the world. On the other side, there were philosophers insisting that the world, as a collection of all creatures, has always existed and not even for a single moment has the origin of creation refused to continue the process of making or effusion. This conflict had disrupted the peace in the scientific milieu for centuries.

According to the Sadrian theory of trans-substantial motion, nature is always in a state of motion, becoming, and essential evolution and, inevitably, every limit of its limits will be between the preceding and succeeding limits. And since the middle limits of motion never exist in the previous and subsequent limits, their existence is conditioned to the non-existence of their previous and subsequent limits. This is exactly like the measures of time (minutes and hours) which are connected to their previous and subsequent moments. This principle invariably holds true with respect to all particles of the universe. And since the infinite particles and creatures of the world have (and will have) this capacity for renewal and motion, temporal origination and evolution will be possible for an infinite number of units in infinite times. Once we accept that all the units and components of the world, however countless, are temporally renewed and created, we will have to agree that the entire world, which is nothing but a collection of these units and components, is temporally originated, that the creation of nature has never stopped in the realm of being, that at no moment has matter been doomed to absolute non-existence; and that the renewable nature of matter, while being created at each moment, is consistent with eternity.

In Mulla Sadra’s theory, the world is considered to be created while being eternal, and also to be eternal while being created, without there being any contradiction.[20]

Notes:

15. Korner, Stephan. Kant. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.

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