[Avodah] sun and moon

[Zev Sero]

On 26/08/2011 4:00 PM, Micha Berger wrote:

>  It is, however, not because the sphere has a soul, that it moves in
> this manner; for animate beings move either by instinct or by reason....

Um, doesn't this contradict your entire thesis?  Animals move by instinct,
so why couldn't the galgal do the same?  What comes after the elipsis?


> The Rambam doesn't actually say the moon has an intellect.

Yes, he does.  Explicitly.  *All* the stars *and* spheres are intelligent,
and they're all more intelligent than humans.  That's certainly not needed
merely to keep moving in a steady orbit, even in Aristotelian physics.


>> It's Hashem, he says, that keeps the galgal moving; not the galgal
>> itself.  Asserting intelligence on the part of the galgal tends to
>> undermine his argument rather than support it...

> And yet he explicitly says it, repeatedly.

That's exactly my point.  Since it's a raaya listor, he can't possibly
be saying it in order to prop up his argument.  Rather, he must be saying
it because it's the truth, even though it *weakens* his argument for the
existence of a Prime Mover.


-- 
Zev Sero        If they use these guns against us once, at that moment
zev at sero.name   the Oslo Accord will be annulled and the IDF will
                 return to all the places that have been given to them.
		                            - Yitzchak Rabin