Atheist Returns With His BEST Objections to the Argument From Motion

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Uh, he's talking about change. That's what motion is talking about. He's just talking about change.

[00:00:05]Not like things moving around.

[00:00:10]He's talking about change.

[00:00:12]Uh, so What's up, man? What's up?

[00:00:17]Uh, I'm worth Uh, I got two questions real quick. But first, I want to kind of um, kind of want to finish up that argument for motion. I had looked into it a little bit more and I came across two two problems with it. I'd like for you to try to justify. Okay. And The first problem I I ran into when I was researching it was that it says that Thomas Aquinas came to this conclusion with his argument and he was using uh, Aristotelian physics, which is um, considered to be outdated and no longer correct.

[00:00:55]Um, you can fact-check me on that or you were to chat.

[00:01:00]Um, that's one cuz I believe uh, in Newton's laws of inertia or laws of motion, it states that anything at rest remains at rest and anything in motion remains in motion in motion unless acted on by an external unbalanced force.

[00:01:18]Uh, so by that definition, something can already be in motion and something can already be at rest without being acted upon.

[00:01:28]That's just one one problem I ran into and then the second problem lastly, probably most important, is that um, even if I grant you that your argument is true and that it it makes sense, it doesn't prove that it leads back to the Christian God. You know, the only way you come to that conclusion is if you assert that is the Christian God, but in reality, it doesn't prove which God, if any. And that's my only two points on that.

[00:02:03]Um, okay. So for the first point, um, motion there is going to be picking out two different things. So when you're talking about like the law of thermodynamics and or Newton's law, whichever one you're talking about, that's talking about like uh, like kinetic energy, like like movement like that. When Aquinas is talking about Aristotelian metaphysics, uh, he's talking about change. That's what motion is talking about. He's just talking about change.

[00:02:33]Not like things moving around. Um, He's talking about change.

[00:02:39]Uh, so motion there isn't going to be picking out the same thing.

[00:02:44]Um, when you're talking about that and now you're saying that oh, a thing can, you know, begin to I guess exist or begin to change and then just continue changing.

[00:02:56]Um, I mean that's that's fine.

[00:03:00]Um, the argument for motion is dealing with simultaneous change. It's not talking about um, a sequence of events like this thing happened and then that, you know, this thing happened in the future. But it's talking about simultaneous change. So that's the thing there. It's when you ask like chat GPT questions like that, a lot of times chat GPT itself doesn't really understand the argument for motion. So then they'll put forth objections that aren't actually dealing with the argument at all at all.

[00:03:32]Um, so I'm glad that you did come and ask. And then in regards to it doesn't really get you to uh, any type of God, that's not that's not true at all. Um, what the argument for motion gets you to is that there is a being that is purely actual. A being that is purely actual is what common theistic traditions are going to hold to as God. Because a purely actual being can be proven to show that it is immaterial, it is eternal, um, it is all powerful, it is all knowing and there can only be one.

[00:04:08]So when we talk about that, that's obviously what what uh, Christians or whoever is going to be, not really Islam, depends on the sect of Islam, but that's what a lot of people are going to be referring to when they talk about God.

[00:04:21]Now, in regards to the Christian God, we would use other evidences to show that this God that is all powerful and that is the one God of the universe and since there's only one God, directly has interacted specifically through the people uh, that are revered in in Christian theology. These people are going to be the prophets. The way in which God would um, you know, be able to reveal himself, one of the ways would be like telling the future with pinpoint accuracy. Which is one of the things that is said in the scripture. Like he's like, I could tell the beginning, I could tell the end from the beginning. Like that's how you going to know that it's me for real.

[00:05:04]So we could look at these prophecies and we could go to show that like, oh, only God could have did something like this with pinpoint accuracy. Like he told this situation hundreds of years so that we can know that this is actually him that's interacting with creation.

[00:05:19]Um, and then we have the resurrection of Christ and the historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ. Both of those things would be um, proof of the Christian God being the one God that is proved through the argument for motion.

[00:05:35]So does that mean that this argument alone doesn't prove God's existence? It it relies on other arguments or other like claims in order to connect it back?

[00:05:45]No, it it proves God's existence. Um, now you're saying, okay, how do we know that it's the Christian God?

[00:05:54]Now, you can do that through multiple ways. Like cuz oh, how do we know it's the Christian God and not the God of Islam, right? Uh, okay, that's a good question. So now we're going to have to deal with the text. We're going to have to see the claims of the Christians and the claims of the Muslims and figure out if the claims here align with what we would expect from the one God that we just have proven to exist.

[00:06:24]So we're trying to figure out if this one God interacts with creation, right?

[00:06:32]Okay, can we see evidence of this one God interacting with creation? And if we do see evidence of it, then um, where?

[00:06:40]And I'm saying that we see evidence of this one God interacting with creation in Christianity specifically.

[00:06:49]Um, I'm going to have to look more into that one, man, cuz that's kind of like a lot to I have a swallow at once. I have a full um, here, bro.

[00:07:02]So I have a full series coming out, right?

[00:07:09]Hold on, 1 second. I'll pull this up just for just for you, bro.

[00:07:16]I have a video already on TikTok.

[00:07:20]Um, like just going through the argument for motion to help you understand.

[00:07:27]Oh, not you specifically, but just people >> [laughter] >> Yeah. to help people understand. But then I'm I have it as well for um, I'm making it for YouTube. So right now I'm working on the um, the objections video.

[00:07:49]Um, but I could show you.

[00:07:57]Hey, maybe I should just show you the argument for motion.

[00:08:04]I don't know if I should reveal this actually.

[00:08:10]Um, Let me make sure You got it. You ain't got to mad if you ain't you're not about to already. I mean, it can wait. All right, yeah, all right. I mean, I could reveal it, but then you you guys aren't going to understand everything because we have a like a lot of ground to cover before we get to the argument for motion.

[00:08:33]Um, I think I showed a light already, though.

[00:08:36]Oh my God, this is so beautiful.

[00:08:40]It's funny.

[00:08:41]Um, so it's 10 minutes, though. Like I'll put it on times two.

[00:08:51]Um, I and I see if we can rock with it. Let me pull it up on my other computer.

[00:08:59]Cuz I'd rather you better understand the argument.

[00:09:03]Okay. And hopefully whenever this does drop, people still watch the video.

[00:09:12]Or they going to be like, I already seen it. I don't need to watch it.

[00:09:17]Uh, all right.

[00:09:25]So we going to pull this up to make sure that you can hear and we going to put it in times two.

[00:09:31]And then, yeah, yeah.

[00:09:37]Baby girl, let me see you do your dance. Let me see you twirl.

[00:09:43]Uh, Vinland Saga, hmm.

[00:09:47]I'm going to play it in the background anyway.

[00:09:51]I'm a W mans like that. I appreciate that, Solar.

[00:09:55]Solar locked.

[00:09:57]All right.

[00:10:02]Okay.

[00:10:03]All right, let me see if I can open this up for you. Pause. Woah.

[00:10:10]That's crazy work.

[00:10:16]Um I apologize, chat. This is a Just give me 1 second.

[00:10:30]Where is this thing at?

[00:10:37]Oh, I'm stupid.

[00:10:40]I'm stupid.

[00:10:44]Okay.

[00:10:53]Um This play capture.

[00:11:03]All right.

[00:11:07]Can you see?

[00:11:11]Yeah, I can see.

[00:11:12]What that look like to you?

[00:11:15]It says argument from motion.

[00:11:18]Yeah, it uh it don't got the thing, though.

[00:11:26]All right.

[00:11:29]Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. All right, you see now?

[00:11:32]Are you see my full screen?

[00:11:35]Yeah, it's like all this extra stuff.

[00:11:38]Yeah, now it just look regular?

[00:11:41]Yeah, it's regular now. All right.

[00:11:44]So, we on Hey, my name is Elijah Johnson and welcome back to thinking about God.

[00:11:48]Now, a lot of people when they hear the argument from motion, they think of movement in a physical sense. They think me waving my arms or pushing something, running or jumping or whatever. But, that's not what we mean by motion when we talk about motion, we mean change.

[00:11:58]Something going from potential to actual. Now, potential just means what something could be but isn't yet. And actual means what something actually is right now. So, motion is just the movement between potential and actual or change.

[00:12:06]>> You can't hear it?

[00:12:08]No, I can't hear it.

[00:12:10]Hey.

[00:12:12]Yo, can you keep this like gatekept?

[00:12:15]Like Bro, what are you doing?

[00:12:17]Oh, you don't you don't want me to drop it? Bro, please gatekeep this. I I don't know what you're doing. Stop. All right, for sure, for sure, for sure.

[00:12:26]Um For sure.

[00:12:29]Uh I can, but I have buds in.

[00:12:32]Hey, I didn't know that you can I don't know why you can't hear it.

[00:12:36]Um Yeah, I don't know why you can't hear it. Well All right, bro. All right, I mean I So, that'll drop >> [laughter] >> like that'll drop one of the days, but I do have a video of it on like my um my Tik Tok where you could just watch an argument from motion video.

[00:13:04]All right, yeah, yeah. I'm I'm going to check it out, trust. I'm going to check it. And then um lastly, my last question, man. I kind of wanted to uh touch on the divine hiddenness uh argument, right? Mhm.

[00:13:19]So, if the story of the Bible and how everything came about and you know, all of these miracles and supernatural claims just like every other, you know, belief system has um yeah, none of them has happened in recent time or in modern history. It seems like all of these supernatural events only has happened in a time where nothing was recorded and everything was kind of like hearsay and couldn't be fact-checked.

[00:13:52]Um why is it that it wasn't made clear from the jump who did this and why? Why is it so ambiguous and misinterpreted and so debated amongst people everywhere on the face of this planet?

[00:14:11]No, there's still miracles that happen today.

[00:14:14]Um There's a lot of miracles that have happened throughout history. You can uh there's a scholar, his name is Craig Keener. He has like a two-part series of this in his like scholarly work. It's literally called Miracles by Craig Keener.

[00:14:32]Um and he goes through miracles in ancient history and then miracles in like the New Testament and then miracles in modern history.

[00:14:42]And he gives like a bunch of of different instances of scientific miracles like where it's been confirmed by doctors or whatever where people were not there's no way that they could have gotten better and through prayer they literally got better.

[00:14:57]Um so miracles still do happen.

[00:15:03]Like yeah.

[00:15:05]I'm sorry about the the miracles. I probably misspoke. Let me say supernatural. Well, a miracle is supernatural.

[00:15:11]No, no, I mean that's not true. You know, you can have a miracle of you know, somebody surviving getting shot. I mean, actually you could call that a miracle, but I'm talking about something that is defying natural law. Yeah, and so that's what I'm that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about like there's situations in which people got into like a like this person got into a car accident and they had to get their intestines removed um in order like save their life. So, their intestines were removed. Um their friend told them, "Hey, come down to Brazil." Came down to Brazil, prayed for this person, and they grew their intestines back. It's impossible.

[00:15:51]Well, okay, remember last time we talked, man. I I I even said that if something is possible I mean, if something isn't impossible, then it's possible. No, that like that's like under natural No, intestines don't grow back.

[00:16:09]They don't grow back.

[00:16:12]So, you're saying this this happened? Is there like a study on this or something that I could look into? Yeah.

[00:16:18]Um this is all like all of this is documented in the Craig Keener book, though.

[00:16:24]If you go to Craig Keener uh book, Miracles um I think it's I think it's volume one.

[00:16:32]Uh but you'll go to the section on um like modern miracles. It's called something like that. I don't think I have the book on this computer.

[00:16:43]I'm going to look I'm going to look to see.

[00:16:56]Uh okay.

[00:16:58]Uh So, if you get this book uh Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts but he has Yeah, so then if you come to part three uh 11 he's going to go through like a grip of different miracles. I would suggest like reading the stuff before, but it is a long book. It's 1,000 pages.

[00:17:31]Um but and so then he he gives samples of individual healing reports um and you know, sources to all of these things and and all of that.

[00:17:43]He goes through a grip. And these are specifically supernatural claims in the recent West.

[00:17:49]This is like most of this is going to be like within like the past 100 years.

[00:17:56]But, I'm saying though, is it impossible because it's never happened or is it impossible because it just cannot happen?

[00:18:03]Like it's not su- it's not supposed to to happen like um things like this like I think he has one instance where somebody had like a hole in their brain or a hole in the heart. I think is one of the miracles.

[00:18:18]It's like it the heart doesn't just fix itself.

[00:18:22]Like that's not something that the heart does.

[00:18:25]Um and then like as they're going in for surgery it like oh, the hole's not there anymore. It's gone. Like it's like it's stuff like that where it's like that can't happen unless God intervenes.

[00:18:41]Well that's kind of like that's kind of shaky a little bit, man, cuz if it's something that is possible or is happening on this earth just cuz it hasn't happened before or nobody else has documented it, it doesn't >> So, what do you what do you think something supernatural is?

[00:19:00]To me, supernatural is like a donkey speaking to a human in the same language. That's supernatural to me.

[00:19:12]I mean, I I don't know any stories off the top of my head.

[00:19:16]Um And then like Ba- Balaam? Ba- Balaam? I I'm I don't know if I'm mispronouncing it.

[00:19:23]>> Yeah, I said but you're not going to take that as in in the scripture. So, but anything supernatural just means that it's like it goes against natural law in some sense that like if God didn't intervene, then everything would be the same.

[00:19:39]But, since God intervened, things are different.

[00:19:45]That's all it's saying. So, like in regards to healing, it's like when Jesus Jesus does these supernatural acts, right? Where oh, this was a paralytic person.

[00:19:55]Mhm. Um Oh, there's a paralytic person who's been paralyzed for either a long time or since birth, and now they're able to get up and just walk, full power to their legs.

[00:20:07]That's not possible unless God does that, like that doesn't happen but happen by natural means. That happens by supernatural means.

[00:20:20]There's been but no, there's people like that has testimonies of, you know, being paralyzed and regaining feeling and everything like today to this day. So, I don't quite consider that supernatural if it's possible. That That's kind of my point.

[00:20:32]>> Okay.

[00:20:33]Possibility is supernatural things are still going to be under the realm of possibility.

[00:20:41]Uh-huh.

[00:20:43]Like the things that are impossible are like contradictions.

[00:20:50]But in regards to possibility like almost anything is possible.

[00:21:01]Well, man, that's kind of like if a if a doctor can tell somebody exactly what they're going to do, how they're going to do it, and why they did it, and it works, you would say thank God or thank the doctor.

[00:21:14]>> Thank you.

[00:21:17]But, um you know, people can pray for a miracle and, you know, sometimes it happens, sometimes it's not.

[00:21:24]So, that's kind of like So, I I mean, I don't know what you I don't know what you would define as a miracle, bro, like um like it just seems like you're just saying that miracles are impossible. I keep saying miracle and I I got to keep I got to say super >> It just sound like you're just saying that the supernatural is impossible.

[00:21:45]Yeah, because it isn't that what supernatural is, is No. Supernatural just means like above natural law.

[00:21:53]That's it.

[00:21:55]So So, that sounds like there's no limit to anything being considered supernatural then if it's always possible only through divine intervention. It sounds like there's nothing that's actually impossible.

[00:22:07]>> No, you getting up and walking right now when you have full capabilities of doing that, you're not bedridden, you're not paralyzed in the neck down or whatever.

[00:22:16]That's not a miracle, gang, like all of that is just Steph Curry dropping 30, that's not a miracle, right? That's That's all of that is within natural law. Now, Bam Adebayo dropping 83 we we on the verge, right?

[00:22:31]We [laughter] This is getting you know, it's getting there, you feel me?

[00:22:38]Um But Nah, but those all of those things are within natural law, right? Now, um things that are like outside of of natural law or above natural law, that's what's supernatural.

[00:22:56]Right? So, like a chair moving by itself, right? We don't see anybody moving it. You Ever seen like Paranormal Activity?

[00:23:05]Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah, right, exactly. I don't believe none of that. Yeah, all right, cool, but like that's it, paranormal, right? It's not normal.

[00:23:13]Right? That chair moving by itself, that cup flying you know, me getting the No, you know, the covers pulled off of me in the middle of the night.

[00:23:22]All of that stuff is uh supernormal, like it's it's not normal, it's paranormal. It's uh So, it's just above natural law, pretty much.

[00:23:37]So So, like is it ever a time in in the future will I see a a donkey communicate with a human? I don't know what's in your future, gang.

[00:23:47]I got no idea what's in your future, bro.

[00:23:50]For sure. Nah, for sure, man.

[00:23:53]I'll uh that's all I have, man. I be back next time.