Explain Aquinas' Cosmological Argument

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.

To Aquinas things either exist or they do not, to Descartes things can be on levels of existence. One of Descartes' main reasons for the existence of God is that, God put the idea of himself in Descartes' head "Hence there remains only the idea of God, concerning which we much consider whether it is something which cannot have proceeded from me myself," (Third Meditation, pg 16). Aquinas' Five Ways are trying to prove the existence of God to others, while Descartes is trying to prove the existence of God to himself.

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.

The Cosmological argument asks the question Where did everything come from? For everything we live with today there is a time in history when it did not exist. If it did not exist at some point then it would need to be created by someone else or something else. Therefore, there would have to be something or someone that was existent first and did not need to be created. This someone or something that Saint Thomas Aquinas refers to is

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.

The cosmological argument is an a posteriori argument which intends to prove that there is an intelligent being that exists; the being is distinct from the universe, explains the existence of the universe, and is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnibenevolent. The basic notion of cosmological arguments is that the world and everything in it is dependent on something other than itself for its existence. It explains that everything has a cause, that there must have been a first cause, and that this first cause was itself uncaused.

Theories have arisen from many different philosophers trying to explain the existence of God; the Cosmological Argument is one such theory. The Cosmological Argument has been changed and reviewed for years; however, the focus has always stayed the same. The universe is a prime example that there is a God. A simple Cosmological argument states that:

Nothing can be the cause of its own existence. Secondly there can be no infinite chain of causes; the chain of causes of things coming into existence can’t be infinite. There is such thing as a cause of the existence which some things itself caused to exist. The first cause is “God” himself. God is the “infinite” no one or nothing has created him.

The cosmological argument is, “a family of arguments that seek to demonstrate the existence of a Sufficient Reason or First Cause of the existence of the cosmos.” Historians trace an early version of the cosmological argument to Ibn Sīnā (c. 980–1037), and philosophers commonly differentiate argument variations into three basic categories. The first, the KCA, seeks to establish the First

The cosmological argument sets out to prove that the universe could only have been created by God and that therefore he exists. In this regard, I believe that it fails and is not successful. The argument is: Everything that exists has a cause. The universe must have a cause. That cause is God.

Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument is a method for proving God’s existence and its foundation is based on the fact and observation that the universe exists. Aquinas states that in order for the universe to exist (an idea that we know to be true), there must also exist a cause that caused the existence of the universe. He concludes his argument by saying that God, an unperceivable image, is the cause of the universe, which further verifies His existence. This argument proves that in order to accept the factual, former claim that the universe exists, it is necessary to accept the latter claim that God exists as well.

I have an idea of God, and that idea of God has a cause because every idea is rooted in a cause. Every idea also possesses a degree of reality. My idea of God contains the highest degree of reality because the idea of an infinite substance is the most real. Because of the pre-containment principle (if X causes Y to be F, X must be at least as F as Y), the cause of my idea of God

According to Aquinas, the existence of God can be proven in 5 ways, namely through the arguments of motion, efficient cause, possibility and necessity, gradation, and governance of the world. Motion is regarded by Aquinas as a thing observable. Man can prove that with his senses that things are in motion. It is necessary to believe that movers are put in motion by another mover. Because that is, nothing can be both potential motion and actual motion at the same time in the same respects for either case.

that it is caused to exist by B, why may not B be caused to exist by

“Aquinas believed that truth becomes known through both natural revelation and supernatural revelation”(philosophy basics.com). He believed that we should learn things through our human nature or through our religion that we were taught. I would not agree with Aquinas on that “the truth becomes known through both natural revelation and supernatural revelation” because what if the way human nature taught us from our right or wrongs is not correct and sometimes our