My natural inclination is Aristotelian. Aristotle said that natural state of inertia is rest. I couldn’t agree more that’s the way things seem to me. Unless something pushes me, I’d rather stay in bed each morning. That’s what I do unless pushed That pushing can come from a person (often my wife, who has tasks for me to do), or a spiritual force like guilt. Guilt nags: Why are you wasting my day lying in bed? But it’s so comfortable and warm, especially on cold days, under the covers. Eventually, though, I’m pushed.
When it comes to understanding the Heavens, I believe in angels. What keeps the planets in their motion around the sun? I think, like Thomas Aquinas and other scholastics, and the great Muslim physician and philosopher Avicenna, taking their cues from Aristotle, that it’s angels. The great physicist Richard Feynman agrees with me – sort of. What he said was that the idea of angels pushing the planets “was not very far from the truth.” The only difference is that the angels are pushing the planets toward the sun, not around it.
What Aristotle got wrong, unfortunately, was inertia. Inertia doesn’t only keep an object at rest, as Aristotle thought. Inertia also keeps an object is in motion. Absent friction or other forces, an object in motion will continue on in a straight line forever. This was Newton’s great insight. I understand how Aristotle missed this. Nowhere on earth could he observe anything going in a straight line forever, just as I can’t imagine enjoyment in getting out of bed in the morning. Newton had a greater imagination than both Aristotle and me.
You may reject angels. You probably think that reason that planets go around in circles, is, first, because something set them off in motion, and since there’s no friction in space, they want to go in a straight line forever. However, a force called gravity keeps the planets from zooming into space. Their motion is balanced, at a certain distance from the sun, they start going around in circles (or ellipses).
Yet what is this thing called gravity? Why do all objectives show an attraction towards each other? It’s a mystery, and until a scientific theory that’s better shows up and, I’m going to say it’s angels. Prove me, and Feynman, wrong. I admit that Feynman continued to use the term gravity, not angels pushing things together,
Angels are certainly as real as gravity is. So why did the apple hit Newton on the head? Angels, to help him developed his theories? Why are we firmly grounded on the earth and don’t just fly off? Angels. It’s angels everywhere, since angels and gravity are the same thing, aren’t they? Prove me wrong.
References:
Richard Feynman, “The Character of Physical Law,” 1964, lecture, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEx-gRfuhhk
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, “Treatise on the Angels”
