Authors:
  • Whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.

    Saint Thomas (Aquinas), Peter Kreeft (1990). “A Summa of the Summa: The Essential Philosophical Passages of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica”, p.41, Ignatius Press