Essay on Aquinas? Fifth Way Of Proving

- St. Thomas Aquina interpreted Aristotelian philosophy from a Christian perspective. Aquina also gave five proofs for God’s existence; motion, efficient cause, possibility and necessity, degrees of perfection and design. The first way was natural things are in motion. If something is in motion, then it must be set into motion by something outside of itself. There

Aquinas’ Cosmological Arguments The Cosmological Argument for the existence of God, as propounded by Thomas Aquinas, is also known as the Third Way. It is the Third of Five ways in Aquinas's masterpiece, "The Summa" (The Five Ways). The five ways are: the unmoved mover, the uncaused causer, possibility and necessity, goodness, truth and nobility and the last way the teleological.

In this essay, I will be arguing against Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument that every motion can only be traced back to the creator of all motions and ultimately, the universe. First I will present Aquinas’ Cosmological argument regarding motion which directly concludes that a higher being, who is not dependent on the motion of any other thing or being, must exist to have caused the existence of the universe. I will also present opponents of this argument such as David Hume who argues that a “First Mover” might not even be needed to exist but rather that an infinite regress could be the explanation of the universe and that no explanation for what initiated this infinite chain of motions is required. Finally, I will disclose my personal opinion on the issue of how all of existence began. My standpoint will be much more inclined toward Hume’s argument against Aquinas but I will be presenting a new idea with a lot of scientific backup that neither of them could have possibly taken into account at the time.

In the article, “The Five Ways,” from Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas argues whether God exists, which

When it comes to studying St. Thomas Aquinas, one of his main philosophies were the five ways. The five ways are claims and conclusions based on Aquinas’s beliefs. Aquinas theory is broken into premises and a conclusion. In Aquinas’s first way he explains how whatever is moved must be moved by another, meaning that something must come from something before, and before that. Aquinas believed that nothing could go on for infinity without no “first mover”. Aquinas continues his explanation when he says “This Cannot go on for infinity, because then there would be no first mover” (textbook). Aquinas concludes that the first initial mover was God.

The dilemma theists are presented with is that if the world has imperfections due to the evil that exists, which serves no clear purpose, then God, the designer of the world, therefore must be imperfect. But this is not the image that is to be perceived of God if he were to exist. Instead, God, in the human mind, would only exist if he was a perfect being. Without the characteristic of a perfect being, one is able to claim that God does not exist as the designer of the world. However, the main criticism that Hume proposes is to not claim that it is impossible for God not to exist as a perfect being but rather our lack of experience in the creation of the world cannot allow us to claim that God is perfect. Because the design argument is an empirical argument for the existence of God, our experiences with the world, including those that involve evil, cannot allow us to possibly ignore the fact that God may not be a perfect being. If this this case, then God’s image

Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica represents one of the most famous attempts to prove God's existence. Aquinas wrote at a time in which people began to develop skepticism concerning the existence of God. In this regard, it is instructive to position Aquinas

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.

In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, David Hume challenges the existence of God by presenting three different arguments from the perspectives of three philosophers. First is that of the fideist, Demea, who presents the weakest argument. The reader is quickly aware that this perspective is the least believable according to Hume. Although Hume quickly dismisses the idea of faith as a basis for the existence of God, he uses faith as a wedge in the attempt to break apart the argument of for intelligent design presented by the second character Cleanthes. A majority of the Dialogues is dedicated to this cause, as the strongest argument is from the perspective of intelligent design. The third character, Philo, is the skeptic wielding the pickaxe, and believed to be the voice of Hume, has the most difficult time dismantling this concept. By the end of the dialogue, it is unclear as to the true position that Hume is taking concerning natural theology. It is my understanding that Hume would accept the existence of God through the perspective of natural theology, if it were not deterred by the misuse of a Deity through organized religion as a means to control the masses. Because of this misuse, it is understandable why Hume remained a skeptic (at least publically) for the duration of his life (Craig 486-512).

The fifth and final argument for the existence of God that Aquinas makes, explains natural law and order. To put it simply, there is order in nature. Since this order exits, there has to be a designer to this order. This being must be powerful and intelligent enough to have created the order in which we see in nature as we know it. The only explanation of this creator is God himself.

He believed in natural theology and thought that man could not understand God without God's assistance and guidance. The foundations of his proofs of God’s existence were based on his five basic beliefs about God. Aquinas wrote that God was: 1) simple as in having no parts, 2) perfect therefore lacking nothing, 3) infinite having no beginning and no end, 4) immutable as in never changing, and 5) one in essence and existence.

Aquinas and Ansel both argued on the existence of God. Aquinas believed that everything is put in motion by something. Nothing can move on its own because there has be a mover to be put things in motion. It’s almost Impossible to believe that there wasn’t a first efficient. Everything that exist only

In the "Summa Theologica", Aquinas describes five rational proofs for the existence of God, which are known as the "quinquae viae". The argument of the unmoved mover, simply stated, is everything that is moved is moved by a mover, therefore there is an unmoved mover from whom all motion proceeds, which is God. The argument of the first cause which is everything that is caused is caused by something else, therefore there must be an uncaused

Aquinas says we experience causality Nothing is the cause of itself causes are other than their effects. There cannot be an infinite regress of caused causes. If there were an infinite regress, the effects we experience here & now would not exist. Therefore, there must be some first cause and this we call "God." There is also the law of argument by design, we naturally work towards a goal, we also lack the knowing of the outcome, but we reach our goal by being pointed in the direction, therefore there is an intelligent being pointing us in the direction and that would be proof of “God”.

We began the discussion by going through all of the question that our classmates had posed the night before. We began with whether Aquinas presents evidence to provide Gods existence to a nonbeliever or if he expected his audience to already have faith in God. We came to the conclusion he expected his audience to have faith in God because all of his five proofs of God take it for granted and depend on the fact that you must believe in the God’s existence. We then moved onto whether Aquinas intended this for people who already believed in Christianity or for people who were considering Christianity. We came to the conclusion that Aquinas was trying to use a logical presentation of proofs of God, which was meant to reaffirm Christian’s beliefs