Success of Aquinas’s Cosmological Argument

Thomas Aquinas is one of the Christian and Catholic churches most beloved philosophers and theologians. Throughout his 49-year lifespan, Aquinas combined the theological ideologies of religion with the logical concepts of reason. He did this most notably through his publication of the Five Ways, also known as the Five Proofs, which were written in his book Summa Theologica. In his Five Ways, Aquinas takes the cosmological approach to the argument over God’s existence. That is, each proof begins with an observation about the universe and connects the observations to the dependency of nature. For some action to occur, another action must push it into occurrence. For example, a ball cannot move from rest without an outside force acting on it. This links to the idea of God in that he is argued to be the outside force that initiated the universes existence. Aquinas breaks this argument down into the Arguments from Motion, Causation, Contingency, Degree, and the Teleological argument. Within this analysis, Aquinas’ Argument from Motion will be broken down into its parts, premises and conclusions, and criticisms countering his argument will be offered and explained.

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.

This argument about Aquinas’s cosmological argument for the existence of god has been popular and his using of logic on his argument is much like other scientists. Aquinas believed that we can learn about our world and the important qualities of certain things in our world through making a statement or just examining. He would do the same in which to examine the physical world around him in order to gain his knowledge or understanding of the world. The word cosmological is used to describe the reflection of sense data and instance of watching. I found that Aquinas used five arguments about using ideas like, the first mover, first cause, sustainer, the cause of excellence, and the source of harmony.

These substances move due to movers. One thing set into motion by something else. In order to prove that infinite regression does not exist Aquinas's argues that god is the first unmoved mover. The second argument that Aquinas states is the argument of causation. Everything happens because it is caused by something else.

It is impossible for something to move itself because an object can’t be both the mover and the moved at the same time. An object can’t have the potential to move and obtain the actual motion to move it at the same time. Something is either in motion or obtains the potential to move in the future. Another force is needed to cause the current object to be moved.

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.

The Cosmological Argument attempts to prove that God exists by showing that there cannot be an infinite number of regressions of causes to things that exist. It states that there must be a final uncaused-cause of all things. This uncaused-cause is asserted to be God.

The actual existence of God can be better disputed through Aquinas’ first argument of motion. Whatever is in motion must first be put in motion by another source, things can only be put in motion by its potentiality; for example, fire is hot and wood can be hot through the wood’s potentiality. For that wood to be made hot, there must be a mover and something to be moved. Therefore God is the mover of the first motion and that motion cannot be infinite considering the fact something that is infinite cannot have been first placed into motion. This proved God as universal change, this next way takes similar notions and understandings as the first to proof of God as the creator of the universe but through the nature of efficient cause. This concept is essentially reissuing the cause and effect idea but aiming towards a greater meaning applicable to the way the universe was created. Aquinas plays on a how a simple syllogism is relevant to the existence of God and creation. The third way deals with possibility and

In his composition on the five proofs of God St. Thomas Aquinas’ to me seems to work along with the precepts of Aristotle as far as his theory of motion is concerned. Thomas says that since everything that is in motion must be cast in motion by another there must thereby exist and unmoved mover therefore God that initially set everything into motion. His second argument for the existence of God is that of cause-and-effect, St. Thomas states that all the causes in the cosmos must have first been put into motion by a first cause, essentially stating that nothing happens or comes into being by chance or accident. Everything has a purpose, thus it must have been brought into being by an intelligent being or God. The third part of St. Thomas’s argument

During the Medieval Period, philosophers shifted their focus primarily to proving the existence of God, as well as other religious tenets. Two Saints of the Catholic Church, St. Anselm and St. Thomas Aquinas, developed their own respective proofs for the existence of God. These proofs have gained fame over the subsequent centuries and still face debate and comparison today. Although both St. Anselm and St. Thomas Aquinas offer proofs for the existence of God, the proofs differ drastically due to the distinct argumentative methods utilized by each author, as well as the differing overall strengths and weaknesses each proof yields.

Additionally, the structure for all the five ways that Aquinas presented had similar argumentative structure. First, an empirical fact is introduced which would lead to a conclusion which proved a ‘transcendent cause’ that relied upon these facts (35). A ‘transcendent cause’ is a cause that is not a part of the physical world but offers explanation of the existence and occurrences of this world (35). Aquinas believed we did not understand God’s essence, so he made the conclusion that God’s existence was not self evident to us, but it could be proven. Therefore, as stated earlier, he uses the observation of ‘motion’ to prove that God’s lack of existence would be demonstrably false rather than self-contradictory (35).

In this paper I am going to discuss the existence of God through Aquinas’ views, with the the argumentation he presents. Following the process of proving the existence of God through Aquinas’ views, I will present an objection or two to his argument. Aquinas’ views were highly influenced upon Aristotle’s prime mover. The problem that is trying to be solved is the existence of God. Aquinas most famous for proving the actuality of God is his argument, The Five Ways of the Summa Theologiae. However, St. Thomas had more to say about proving the existence of God, which will be further discussed. An objection to a part of his argument is that everything that moves has to be moved by another thing. Except, this chain of movers cannot go on to infinity, because if so then there would be no first mover. I will show that Aquinas proves the existence of the God, wrapping up with a few objections.

The first example that Aquinas uses is that of motion, this is the accessible of the proofs as it uses the physical example of motion. The premise of this proof is that an object cannot “be bother mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself.” This is a simple law of motion, which Aquinas states earlier by saying, “motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentially to actuality.” Thus an object cannot change the form of its energy without being acted on by an outside force. Aquinas draws the conclusion that God is the first mover, which was able to put itself in motion, as he says that the

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.