Aquinas Five Proofs

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.

Sir Thomas Aquinas and William Paley present two arguments for the existence of God. Aquinas defines God as omnibenevolent (all good) for his argument, and he continues in “The Five Ways” to present arguments to prove God’s existence (Rosen et al. 11). Paley, on the other hand, primarily defines God as a designer worthy of our admiration for his work (Rosen et al. 27). During class discussion, defining God involved three major qualities: omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. Both Aquinas and Paley are attempting to prove the existence of the (Christian) God associated with these qualities. Although Aquinas’s “Cosmological Argument” and Paley’s “Argument from Design” have different premises, both have a similar logical gap in their

The first part in which one can prove that there is a God is based on change. In the first part, Aquinas mentions that things change and that there has to be something which brings about that change, but at the same time is changeless. Aquinas states that “a thing in process of change cannot itself cause that same change; it cannot change itself” (Aquinas 45). For example, he gives an example about wood and fire. The wood is able to be hot but simply cannot make itself change without having an outside source that will cause it to become hot. The fire, that is naturally hot, will indeed make the wood hot and as a result, will change the wood.

God and the problem of evil is treated by most philosophers as a paradox to be resolved by creating a theodicy. A theodicy is an attempt to explain or answer the question of how God could allow bad things to happen. So, is there an adequate theodicy? B.C. Johnson argues there is no adequate theodicy, and therefore that there is no perfectly moral God. However, Augustine argues that there is an adequate theodicy, and therefore human are incapable of choosing good without the assistance of God's divine grace. Both natural and moral evils are ultimately the result of the actions of free rational beings who sin. Augustine's theodicy attempts to protect God from responsibility for the existence of evil. The dialogue addresses these and related questions.

To achieve this Supreme Being, one must have a faith in him. He can do this by knowing the five routes in which Aquinas demonstrates that there is a God. He trusted that these five ways would surely discover this higher being. The principal way is known as the contention from movement. He expressed, as did Aristotle, that a protest that is in movement is put into movement by another question or compel. Thus, he trusted that the whole development more likely than not been started by some compel. This constrain was God, the "Unaffected Mover". The second route in which he demonstrated that there must be a God is known as the Causation of Existence. He expressed, as all know, that no protest can made itself. In this manner, there probably been something, God, who was the first to make things. The third way is known as the Contingent and Necessary Objects. He saw that there are two sorts of articles that exist in the universe. They are unexpected creatures and fundamental creatures. An unforeseen being can not exist without a vital being bringing on its presence. The important being that can do this is God. The forward way is known as the Argument from Degrees and Perfection. He saw that things have differing degrees of value. One can tell the contrasts between these degrees by judging the thing against a question that has the ideal quality, God.

The atheist position that there is no God has gained popularity as the decades have gone by. However, many highly intelligent philosophers and thinkers have made arguments to prove God’s existence. Eleventh-century philosopher Thomas Aquinas created Five Proofs for the existence of God that were published in his book, Summa Theologica. While each argument is convincing due to their basis in reason, Aquinas’s Argument from Motion is the most evident. Aquinas's first argument is the Argument from Motion.

It is difficult to arrive at a conclusion when debating for the existence of God, in my opinion. However, between the readings I would have to consider Aquinas’ proof to be the most compelling. This is mainly because when trying to defend the existence of God, all I usually hear is that He is the creator of everything, period. Aquinas however put different scenarios into his writing to defend this idea. God, must have been the first to create motion, the first to create a cause, the first to not exist from another being, He must be the only one to have created beings, and is an all- knowing being to which everything in the world is directed to. Aquinas, analyzes the idea that some things would be impossible without the presence of a higher

For the world to operate, he argues the world is in motion. Assuming the world is in constant motion, it supposes the idea of the existence of a ‘mover’. Hence, if every motion is moved by a mover, to avoid an infinite number of movers which is impossible, it must mean there is one true mover. Aquinas therefore argues this ‘first mover’ is God. God is also moved by nothing because he is the creator. “God is not included within common being”, he exists on a plane beyond the human world (Schindler 597). He exists to move others, but there cannot be something that moves him. If God is the greatest thing imaginable or non-imaginable, it must mean God cannot be moved by others. Velecky adds on, “Aquinas thinks that God is the unique self-existent form which cannot be realized in a material way” (Velecky 39). This is to say, regardless of a material form, God exists. Because the world is in constant motion, Aquinas argues this is proof of God’s existence. Human knowledge acknowledges “God [directs] and [moves] the world” as factual (Di Blasi 349). No one else can be true source for the world and natural things to be in movement. To conjure up anything beyond the idea of God is impossible. While not explicitly stated, Aquinas seems to imply the thought of something besides God is God. Similarly, Carpenter argues “there is no objective difference between what we call God, quiddity of God and qualities of God” (Carpenter

At a first glance Aquinas’s argument, for the existence of God, appears to be persuasive. However, his argument that nothing is capable of creating or causing itself, he creates a similar probable with his explanation for the creation of god.

Saint Thomas Aquinas is famous for his five intellectual proofs describing the existence of God. Aquinas’ five proofs are famous amongst Catholics and are widely viewed as evidence of Gods existence. The basis of Aquinas’ fifth proof is that all things work towards a final cause, and act in a manner that is generally harmonious. An entity must direct this universal harmony, and that entity is God. Aquinas’ fifth proof from “Intellectual design”, specifically fails to definitively prove the existence of God based on lack of scientific proof, as well as overall logic. Darwinism overpowers the idea of creationism because creationism is based completely off of trust and love, neither of which is valid.

How in such a scientific and empirical world could such a proponent for an architect God, namely Tomas Aquinas, still hold credence in the realm of metaphysics today. If his only contribution to the field is the addition of a creator God to the thoughts of Aristotle, then there is not true medieval mind that advances philosophical thought until the humanist revolution of the renaissance, leaving a void in time between classical thought and modern thought, ultimately this void leads to Aquinas even if contemporary minds disagree with his conclusion. Aristotle himself concludes there must be a “eternal, unmoved substance…without parts and indivisible” (The Metaphysics, pg. 375) but he cannot formulate a proof of this being’s existence through

St. Aquinas has compiled 5 proofs to demonstrate the existence of God. The first three causes are together known as the “cosmological arguments,” and deal with motion, efficient cause and necessary being. The fourth proof deals with degrees of perfection and the last one is to do with design and order. Aquinas’ 5 proofs of God’s existence clearly show a lot of influence of Aristotle’s four causes for the process of change as discussed below.

Aquinas had a difficult time with this argument though he too believed that God exists indisputably. He decided to approach the issue of God’s existence through a cosmological argument based on the evidence found in the natural world (Bonevac). In particular, he wanted to provide evidence outside of his own personal persuasions as support for God’s

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.