Page 14 - GALIET BEING´S KALEIDOSCOPE: The First Unmoved Mover: Aristotle IV

mover transcends the world. Because it is immaterial, it cannot be part of any of the spheres. The first alternative has the advantage that it makes it easier to comprehend the idea of motion in the other spheres, but it has the inconvenience that it makes it difficult to understand how an immaterial reality or entity can be in a fixed place. The second alternative favors the immateriality of such reality but it poses serious difficulties, as stated earlier, if one is to explain the transmission of motion effectively.
(b) Self-Knowledge versus Universal Knowledge
If the prime mover is self-moved, then it must be a living organism that has acted either voluntarily or involuntarily. Because it is difficult to imagine an involuntary causation of the universe, we tend to think that the first mover has primordial knowledge of its creation through the logos. If this is the case, does it have knowledge only of itself or does it also have knowledge of the events that occur in the universe? Aristotle doesn't seem to suggest that the unmoved first mover has providence or foreknowledge of future contingent events; however, if the first mover is self-moved and is the cause of motion in the cosmos, it has to posses some natural intelligence, some intuitive knowledge, some grasp of some greater form unintelligible to humans, and hence, it must know of events, otherwise we would be faced with an accidental or involuntary
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