Aquinas Cosmological Argument Analysis

St. Thomas Aquinas’s first cosmological argument, the prime mover, defines things in the world as being either in a state of potentiality or in a state of actuality. Those things that are in potentiality are things that have the capability of being reduced to another form. Such as a boy is potentially a man, or tree is potentially a house. Things that are in a state of actuality are things that are currently reaching their potential; such as that boy becoming a man, or that tree becoming that house. Aquinas observed that all things in a state of actuality had to have been put into that state by something that was already in actuality. In thinking about this he concluded that there would have to be an infinite regress of actual things making potential things actual. He concluded that this would be impossible because given that, there would be no first mover. He instead, postulated that there must be a first mover. A being that never had potential but only has existed in a state of infinite actuality. That what we call God.

Well unfortunately some believe their (omnipotent) God has all the answers and knows of every person’s next moves and what’s yet to come. I can somewhat agree with that but I don’t believe it is my duty to judge or prove the existence, and the all mighty power God has. I certainly am a believer of faith and that the existence of good and evil lies in all of us, regardless of the control God has over us. My opinion relates to how Aquinas believes that everyone’s consequences and endings they choose are because of the free choice God gives us all. As mentioned in the book, a great example that I find makes a perfect analogy is when he states, “He can create in a multitude of ways, No

Therefore, it is more believable that the universe had a beginning and a personal creator. The third of Aquinas' ways is the argument of contingency. The world consists of contingent items- items that have a property are items referred to as 'being.' These items are generated and perish; they have a beginning and an end.

Many philosophers have posed the question: How can I prove that God exists? Thomas Aquinas attempted to prove the existence of God in a rational way through his Cosmological argument. Aquinas argued that every event as we observe it has a cause and a casual chain cannot be infinite. Therefore, a first cause is necessary and this cause is God. Aquinas’ argument is unsuccessful because it assumes that God is a necessary being, fails to prove that the world is not an infinite chain of events, and undermines the basis of his argument by saying that God is infinite.

Frederick Copleston was a priest, and historian of philosophy who supported Aquinas’ rejection of infinite regress. Copleston reformulated the argument by concentrating on contingency, which he discussed in depth during a radio debate with Bertrand Russell in 1947. Copleston, like Aquinas, argued that there are things in the universe which are contingent, for example, us – we would not have existed if our parents had not met. All things in the world are similar to this, nothing in the world is self-explanatory, and everything depends on something else for its existence. Therefore, we are forced to search for an external explanation. The explanation must lead us to a cause which is self explanatory, i.e. one which contains within itself, the reason for its own existence – a necessary being. The conclusion must be God. Copleston argues that if we don’t accept the existence of an ‘unmoved mover’, like Aquinas suggested, there is no explanation for the universe at all. Copleston believes the universe is gratuitous without a first cause, because without an explanation, nothing has meaning – “Everything is gratuitous. This garden, this city, and myself; when you suddenly realise it, it makes you feel sick and everything begins to drift… that’s nausea”.

Some of the three major arguments for the existence of God are cosmological, ontological, and teleological arguments. Cosmological argument is the reasoning that the being of the universe is powerful proof for the existence of a God who made it. There are two main forms of cosmological argument, the modal and temporal. Modal cosmological argument, also known as the argument from contingency, recommends that because the world may not have existed, we then need some clarification of why it does exist. When there is more than one likelihood, something has to decide which of the possibilities is understood clearly. Therefore the world is contingent, because there has to be a logical reason for its existence. This form of argument also claims that the only type of existence that doesn’t need any clarification is a being that does not failed to exist such as God. Temporal cosmological argument, also known as the Kalam argument, contends that all evidence are that there is a point in life at which the world began to exist, and that this starting must either have been caused or uncaused. The cosmological argument used by Aquinas declares that since nothing originates from nothing. Therefore the world must have been brought into reality by something outside it, which can be called "God".

So in the end, Thomas Aquinas and Rene Descartes both attempted to prove the existence of God, but they differ in respect to the different thought processes to obtain the existence of God. An still to this day both Philosophers are regarded as key factor in the world of philosophy and their arguments were so influential that they were able to land a spot in our textbook “THE GREAT CONVERSATION”. But thanks to these gentlemen and their contributions to their works were able

Thomas Aquinas’ five ways are his arguments of the five proofs that God exists in some form, these five ways have standard abjections. The arguments are named as follows: argument from motion, arguments from causation, arguments from contingency, argument from gradations of goodness, and the argument of governance. These are Aquinas’ theories of why things change, whatever is changing is being changed by something else.

Aquinas' second proof is similar to his first in that it relates to cause and effect. St. Thomas reasoned that in a world of order there is an order to all cause and effect. And , since there is a cause for the existence of all things there must be a cause that caused all things and had no cause itself. He points out that nothing in creation existed prior to itself and the causality cannot be traced back infinitely. If the efficient or first cause did not exist then nothing would exist. That first or efficient cause is God.

Some argument can be true the way that it has been related but many of them didn’t make much effect into believing that god existed or god is the creator of the world we are living in. Although, the creation of earth is debatable on The Argument of First Cause, still there are lot of question that Aquinas has to answer in order to proves about it and the scientific reasoning should be provided. As well as, The Argument from Degree is not backed up by much evidences and proof to believe as I see this argument more of a hypothesis or opinion rather than fact. Overall, the five argument that Aquinas provided is somewhat still questionable and can be much disregarded as now many of the argument has been proved by science and other

A cosmological argument focuses on the notion of causation and that everything in the universe including us must have an initial cause, for nothing comes from nothing. Thomas

As discussed in class, modern scientific research provides alternatives to Aquinas’s presumed necessities. An infinite series of causes no longer seems impossible. This research disproves Aquinas 's third premise (P3), and his argument for God as the first cause is consequently unnecessary. Furthermore, the fourth premise still has a logical gap between the first cause and God. Aquinas offers no explanation as to why the first cause must be God or a supernatural being at all. The first cause may just as easily be a spontaneous event, or a first cause may not exist at all in an infinite universal cycle.

Thomas Aquinas theorized five different logical arguments to prove the existence of God utilizing scientific hypotheses and basic assumptions of nature. In the fifth of his famous “Five Ways”, Aquinas sets forth the assumption that all natural bodies move toward an end. Since bodies are constantly moving in the best way possible to achieve that end, the path must be designed. God, of course, is the ultimate designer of the universe.

Here Aquinas argues that everything that happens is the cause of something, but nothing can cause itself. If we trace back a cause all the way back to the beginning of the world, it could not have caused itself. Therefore, God must have been the first cause. Aquinas’ third proof is the Argument from Contingency. We see that everything here on earth is finite. People die, empires fall. All things must come to an end. That means things had to have a beginning where nothing was in existence yet. How did things come into existence? God. Aquinas’s 4th argument is the Argument of Degrees. Here we judge things to be a certain degree of good or bad. But what are we comparing that to? If they have a certain degree of good and bad, then what is the greatest degree of good? And that must be God. Aquinas’s final argument is his Argument from Design. Perhaps one of his strongest arguments Aquinas says that there must be an intelligent designer behind everything. Random objects don’t have any brains to act the way they do. But they are directed in the way they act by God.

St. Thomas Aquinas is a famous philosopher from the medieval period who believed there was a god. One of Aquinas significant works in philosophy was his argument that God exists. In Aquinas' argument, or also known as Summa Theologica, he uses five arguments to support the claim that God exist and four of them are cosmological argument. Cosmological arguments are arguments that try to reason that god exists because of the universe or cosmos leads to the conclusion that god exists. His first argument is the Argument From Motion. In the argument of motion Aquinas observed that we live in a world and universe that things are continuously moving, and he also noticed that to make something move something has to move or start it moving. To Aquinas this means that everything that is moving must have been moved by something or someone and there had to be a time when the thing wasn't moving. The mover for the beginning of everything in Aquinas' argument is God. The second argument is the Argument From Causation which is very similar to the Argument From Motion. Aquinas thoughts were that everything that is caused had to be caused by something else. Nothing can cause it's self so there must be an thing that is uncaused and to Aquinas that thing is God because it can't go back forever. The Third argument is The Argument From Contingency. Contingency is a future or thing that could have not existed and Aquinas believe that the world can't always be contingent because then it could have