Lucretius And Aquinas

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.

1. The Cosmological Argument for the existence of God is based on the principle of cause and effect. What this basically means is that the universe was the effect of a cause, which was God. One of the oldest and most well known advocates of the Cosmological Argument was Thomas Aquinas who outlines his argument for the existence of God in his article entitled The Five Ways. The first way in his argument is deals with motion. Aquinas says that in order for something to be in motion something had to move it because it is impossible for something to move without the presence of some sort of outside force upon it. Therefore the world around us, nature, and our very existence could not have been put into motion without the influence of the

vi. Saint Aquinas attempted to explain God as the first mover, and that all things followed after God’s initial cause. But also, It was Adam the first man, who chose to bring sin into the world, God did not cause that to be, and neither did anything outside of Adam, and therefore it was Adam’s self determinant choice to sin against the laws of God.

Lucretius, a Roman philosopher, was greatly inspired by the teachings of Epicurus. In Lucretius’s book, On the Nature of Things, he expands on many Epicurean principles and at times even alters them. “Nothing comes from nothing”, the first principle that Lucretius endorses, is essential to his argument for the origin of the world. Using this principle, Lucretius against the accepted Roman religion by adding the concept that “divine intervention” is not the root of creation, instead he gives credit to atoms. These atoms, or beginnings of things, he reasoned, came together to form masses called bodies.

For him to say that there could possibly be more good than evil in absurd because how could he know this. Then to assume that the goodness will be infinite we have to assume there is an afterlife that we will be conscious for. These arguments are based on the fact that someone already believes in god so they do work in favor of the argument he is trying to provide. Both Leibniz and Anselm offer arguments that only work if you already believe and do nothing for people who do not believe in the

Aquinas states that everything has a first cause. The first cause for everything, as Aquinas argues, is God. Aquinas shows through his version of the cosmological argument that God is the first cause. An infinite regress of causes is not possible, and nothing can cause itself, then the question of how the first cause, God, was caused arises from Aquinas argument.

In contrast, the Epicurean, Lucretius, establishes the idea of order as arising from chaos, manifested through atoms and their motions in space. As opposed to Plato, Lucretius provides a naturalistic explanation of universal phenomena by reconciling Parmenidean reasoning with experience where the world is eternal and has unity, consisting of many atoms and empty space or ‘the great inane’. “In effect, Lucretius illustrates the creation of the material universe as a result of the union of elementary particles that had existed for eternity rather than the divine act of a creator. As such, all objects and structures are seen to be formed by the combination of atoms and their chaotic motions in space. Hence, the unity in the uniformity of the atoms

On The Nature of Things (Lucretius) by Walter Englert On the Nature of Things is a first-century BC didactic poem by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius (c. 99 BC – c. 55 BC) with the goal of explaining Epicurean philosophy to a Roman audience. We know practically nothing; beyond what little can be gathered from the poem itself, of Lucretius' biography. Lucretius insists human happiness is incompatible with belief in gods that control nature, follow their own agendas (open or hidden), and constitute human ends. Humans must, he insists; unchain themselves from misconception, foolish fears, and echoing pieties.

Thomas of Aquinas was born in Roccasecca, Aquino county, Kingdom of Sicily—about 75 miles SE of Rome—to Landulf and Theodora. His family were nobles. Since Aquinas was a younger son, he was to join the Church, as that was the primary means of advancement available to younger sons under the laws of primogeniture. Nonetheless, Thomas was not sent to any provincial monastery, but the great school at Monte Cassino. This was the same Monte Cassino originally founded in the 6th century by St. Benedict, the monastery which founded Western monasticism—and at which his uncle was the abbot.

Moreover, the cause of the existence of things, which was not itself caused to exist, justifies the existence of God (Aquinas' Five Ways, 2009). Finally, Aquinas makes the assertion, in which I agree, “To take away the cause is to take away the effect”, holding for an infinite regress of causes since there is no cause taken away (Archie,

The universe cannot be its own cause and effect but it can be created by an uncaused causer.This being has the power to exist within itself and therefore would

Aquinas argument is not set up to believe that there is one God. At the end of his demonstration of consistency he explains that the Prime Unmoved Mover is God. However, God can be a lot of different things to different people. Not every religion worships the same God. They might think of different things and people as God, but ultimately the Prime Unmoved Mover is God, even if God is a different thing/person to different religions. He does not succeed in demonstrating the point that there is a Prime Unmoved Mover. He states that everyone works towards and end without knowing what the end will be. However, natural bodies in my opinion do not move without knowing or expecting a specific outcome. For example, I drive knowing where I will be going

To say that X is made from nothing means that it is not made from anything. Further, Aquinas states, “A creature does not have being, however, except from another, for, considered in itself, every creature is nothing, and thus, with respect to the creature, non-being is prior to being by nature.” Essentially, Aquinas postulates that non-being precedes being by nature because something needs to be caused by something else. Further, Aquinas asserts, “the nature of the creature is such that, if the creature were left to itself, it would be nothing.” Aquinas is saying that if something in itself is considered you can consider it nothing because it cannot cause itself.

In Thomas Aquinas' Summa Teologica, Aquinas develops an argument, constituted by five independent pieces, in an effort to prove the existence of God. While working independently, each of the arguments approaches different aspects of the Christian God and attempts to prove the existence of something in the universe that must fit the definition associated with God. In this paper, I will reconstruct his argument of existence through contingency—the third of his five arguments—before presenting an objection based on the premise of existence due to observability, using atomism to show that an object that is not observable may still exist. Furthermore, I will present a defense on behalf of Aquinas, refuting the idea of vision as the only form of observability and highlighting the fact that atoms can also fail to exist. Finally, I will continue with the emphasis on modern science, as opposed to models of the 11th century, to use the current definition of energy to challenge both the initial premise and the conclusion of Aquinas' argument.

Aristotle begins his argument for God as an unchanging ‘first mover unmoved’ on a concept established in an earlier section of the Physics: that motion is necessary and unceasing. This unceasing movement requires an object that imparts this motion, an object that is unmoved and unchanging. But, Aristotle notes, there are many objects that possess within themselves a principle of self-movement. However, these objects pass in and out of existence and their movement is not necessary. The ultimate source of movement cannot be something that comes into and passes out of existence, for this would include it in objects subject to change that gain their principle of change from a source exterior to themselves.