Aristotle 's Five Ways Of The Existence Of God

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.

Aquinas argued the existence of God with five main points. Aquinas began by saying that nothing can be a cause of itself; rather every event was caused by some prior event. Therefore event A causes event B that leads to event C and so forth. He believed in this cause and effect relationship but believed that there must be a first cause as a starting point. When contemplating this starting point Aquinas rejected the possibility of an infinite series of events. This means that the universe has not existed forever and there must have been something from which every single event stems. There must be an uncaused first cause, which Aquinas concluded to be God. The first cause is called the unmoved mover. The unmoved mover is what set all other events and beings in motion.

In Rene Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes is seeking to find a system of stable, lasting and certain knowledge, which he can ultimately regard as the Truth. In his methodical quest to carry out his task, Descartes eventually arrives at the proverbial fork in the road: how to bridge the knowledge of self with that of the rest of the world. Descartes’ answer to this is to prove the existence of God. The purpose of this essay will be to state and explain Descartes' Third Meditation: Proof of God's Existence by identifying relevant concepts and terminology and their relationship to each other and examining each premise as well as the conclusion of the proof and finally

One burning and enduring problem in philosophy to which we have given considerable examination is the question of the existence of God--the superlative being that philosophers have defined and dealt with for centuries. After reading the classic arguments of St. Anselm and St. Thomas Aquinas, the contentious assertions of Ernest Nagel, and the compelling eyewitness accounts of Julian of Norwich, I have been introduced to some of the most revered and referenced arguments for and against God's existence that have been put into text. All of them are well-thought and well-articulated arguments, but they have their holes. The question of God's true existence, therefore, is still not definitively answered and put to rest; the intensity of this

The central problem of this paper that I am going to try to convince my atheist friend is that god existed. I will argue in favor of a higher being by first presenting and evaluating two argument that will be used to persuade my atheist friend. First I will explain Pascal’s argument. Second I will explain one of the arguments of Aquinas’s that is in favor of the existence of god. Then I am going to explain what’s the central difference between the two arguments is. I will conclude by stating whether I was successful in converting my atheist friend.

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

Thomas Aquinas’ five ways prove that God exists in some form, his argument that God exists through motion is a sound theory that he created. There are objections

In this paper, I offer a reconstruction of Descartes argument for God’s existence in the Third Meditation. Descartes tries to prove the existence of God with an argument that proceeds from the clear and distinct idea of an infinite being to the existence of himself. He believes that his clear and distinct idea of an infinite being with infinite “objective reality” leads to the occurrence of the “Special Causal Principle”. I will start by discussing and analyzing Descartes clear and distinct idea of an infinite being and how it the classification of ideas and the difference between formal and objective reality Special Causal Principle. Finally, I will examine the reasons Descartes offers for his belief in Gods existence and I will indicate the drawbacks within the proof. It will be concluded that Descartes arguments are inadequate and don’t clearly prove the existence of God.

Rene Descartes’ third meditation from his book Meditations on First Philosophy, examines Descartes’ arguments for the existence of God. The purpose of this essay will be to explore Descartes’ reasoning and proofs of God’s existence. In the third meditation, Descartes states two arguments attempting to prove God’s existence, the Trademark argument and the traditional Cosmological argument. Although his arguments are strong and relatively truthful, they do no prove the existence of God.

As one of most valuable works on this topic one can name St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, in which he states that existence of God, can be demonstrated in five different ways.

The existence of God has always been an arguable topic. Descartes’ however, believed that he had proof of God’s existence through an intense analysis of the mind. Throughout this paper I will discuss what he has provided as proof and some of the complications that arise throughout his argument.

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.

The final crucial proof of the existence of God is Aquinas fourth proof. This proof looks at qualities of humans; all humans possess many different attributes which we consider unique to each individual. This is when standards are formed humans began to have a certain criteria for how or what someone with a given attribute should act or how they should portray themselves. The only way this standard could come into existence is to believe that there is a perfect creation possessing all qualities and expressing them in the most precise and perfect way. This perfect creation is God, the person in which humans get the laws at which the obeyed by. Aquinas five proofs of the existence of God are much more extensive but just looking at the proof of motion and the proof of perfection it becomes unquestionable that there is an almighty creation. This superior creation creates laws at which

When St. Thomas wrote this section of his ground breaking essay what he ultimately was claiming, was that through philosophy and observation, there is a way to see how the natural world points to there in fact being a God. Although to some it may seem absurd, modern day science based upon observation and experimentation, does not completely discredit or debunk the first, second, third, and fifth arguments from St. Thomas Aquinas’s Five Ways, but rather it suggests substantial evidential credibility, in regards to his theories on God’s existence.Concepts, theories, and laws drawn from the

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