The primary aim to grasp is the necessity of the mover itself.

And just to clear up the jargon there, being outside "natural impulse" means that he is not subject to the law that everything must have a cause?

And i've heard people use the term "good" in theology but I'm not sure what it means in that context

grrrr stop having a complex discussion on theology christcucks!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leK2WkAHLYk

He is not subject, per se, as He was the cause itself. However, His acts as first mover is necessity for the secondary cause. In other words, without the movement, there would be no secondary cause.

Without His act, there would be no result. This said as He created the Natural Law, how then could we say He is bound by it? If one is extra-natural, how then can one be Natural?

That makes sense

But what I'm not understanding is why this argument is any more convincing than the argument that there is no plane outside of the natural world and there is just an infinite series of causes

From a Thomistic perspective, infinity in the Natural world is implausible.

And not to go down the road of science, but I'd say that is also decently held to be the same in that field.

Can you enlighten me on why infinity is not possible from that perspective?

Wasn't aquinas willing to concede that it is possible that the linear cause of the universe could be infinite just for the sake of argument?

Well let us go back to Aristotle, he posited correctly with regards to his rivals the Pythagoreans, that "objects of sense" (i.e. Nature) cannot be infinite. How can there be an infinite amount of causes in a natural world? How could something naturally exist forever? If this isn't the case, how then could something come from nothing without an extra-natural act by something unnatural?

The Angelic Doctor conceded plenty, however he felt with regard to this that the only way that could be is if God had always and infinitely was with the universe, but he certainly didn't accept that notion, and I don't find it well grounded in Thomism.

True

which is why i said he just did it for the sake of his argument

But my answer to your first message

I hold him in extreme esteem, but in some matters he was repudiated by the magisterium. Example being, the Immaculate Conception.

would be that as far as I know mass/energy can't be created or destroyed

Not naturally.

right

So if it can naturally exist forever

isn't it plausible that it has always existed forever?

Lofi Hip-hop to study and beat minorities to

And I apologize that I'm not very well educated in this field

But I promise I'm arguing out of good faith here

Again infinity has largely been discredited as, for lack of a better word, paradoxical and illogical. Even physicists have deemed it so. Example being Georges Lemaitre, university of Louvain in Belgium.

No need to apologize.

I'm still learning about what Aristotle meant by the difference of potential and actual infinity.

Mathematic theory isn't my strong suit, but I love how he related the two, it shows his general brilliance if anything.

So is this infinity in concern to the passing of time or is it everything?

Infinity, being never ending, not expanding either. So this particular infinity deals with all of creation which is guided and defined by time.

No infinity has not at all been discredited by physicists

I never said all of them.

I simply gave examples where it has been.

Where?

George Lemaitre, one of the theorists behind the theory of the big bang, seen here.

You realize even the most basic calculus relies on infinities

Almost every branch of physics that we even study in undergrad has infinities within the theory

Infinity in theory or infinity in practice? That is, infinity for hypothesis, or infinity with regards to metaphysics?

That question doesn’t really make sense