Thomas Aquinas Argument For The Existence Of God

There are many philosophers that had questioned Aquinas’s theory of making his conclusions too fast and the God he is talking about seems ambiguous. There are two problems with his proof that I will be discussing. One of his major problem with his proof is that he jumps to the conclusion to God way too fast. He concluded that everything that started it begin with God. It could have been the Big Bang Theory that happened, and that started the first cause. Which caused the planets, stars, and the universe to expand. As he mentions in his five ways, he ends up saying, God caused these things to happen, and God is the first omni-being started the first cause. Aquinas does not mention who this God is, and it can be anything or anyone. There is not enough substantial evidence who God can be, and he jumps to the conclusion too fast that God is the first cause of the beginning to happen.

god. The fifth and final argument argues that because we give things with no purpose or “lack of knowledge” a purpose, there is a god for there must have been a thing which directed a being with the intelligence to utilize a thing with none and this direction being given by god. Aquinas then ends his claim with a rebuttal to his previous objections he list in the beginning of the article. Here he uses a more direct approach of supporting his claim. The argument of “why is there evil if there is a god?”, is shot down by the philosopher in a romantic way. Aquinas goes on to rebuttal that god in fact does not allow evil and all evil will eventually produce good simply because god does not allow evil. He finishes the article with a last rebuttal of the causation of nature. He claims that because the causation for this is unreachable it must be traced back to god. Aquinas structures his arguments using the socratic method, giving broad claims that many would support forcing them to then except his conclusions for his five arguments for if you were to disagree then you would then be contradicting

Thomas Aquinas was a famous philosopher and theologian from the 1200’s who dedicated his life to praising and explaining the existence of a higher being, God. Aquinas presents his evidence for the existence of a higher being through five distinct ways in the Summa Theologica. These ways give reason for God’s existence through the cause, existence and final cause of different events and objects. The two first ways made by Aquinas are the most influential sources I found that provide good evidence for the existence of God and are the ways I will be analyzing. Aquinas first way explains that there must be an unmoved first mover who initiates change in reality but is not itself changed while his second way explains that there is a first cause to everything, which causes a chain of causes that cannot go on to infinity. These two ways presented by Thomas Aquinas provide, in a way, some evidence up front for people to conclude that indeed there is a higher being who is God. However, Aquinas first and second ways need to be deeply explained and ridded of objections to truly convince everyone, instead of just some, that there is a being who is the unmoved mover and first cause of everything.

The evaluation of the five arguments made clear that a perfect being, God, must exist in all possible circumstances in order to satisfy the definition of perfection. The Argument from Motion, The Argument from Efficient Cause, The Argument to Necessary Being, The Argument from Gradation, and The Argument from Design are considered the five ways Thomas acknowledge if God does or does not existence. Through reading Aquinas’s work, it is hard to determine which one proves that God does or does not exist. Logically, each argument can be denied or accepted. Consequently, people can choose to believe whatever they want. However, it is a personal belief that The Argument from Necessity is the most agreeable at this time. The other four arguments do not provide relevance to why people die if God is perfect.

Religion is one of the most debatable topics of all times. There are many who are for the existence of God and many who are against the existence of God. To debate on this topic is pointless because we all have strong beliefs. Religion is a belief in a spiritual entity, which some believe there’s a higher power in a creator. Religion is having faith and something in something or someone that isn’t here physically.

Thomas Aquinas uses a five methods to prove God’s existence. The first he uses consist on the belief that, because of all the shifting and effects from one to another, then God must be the stable force controlling or causing it. Second method is that God was the originator or beginning, and each creation began at God. You have God first then each individual was created by the previous, and the first ones were created by God. The Third method is that God is this self-sufficient source which cares and nurtures all these creations because they are reliant on God. This would be like a momma bird caring for her chicks. The fourth method consist of Aquinas’ view that since the world was filled with brilliant creations, like humans, there must

If wood is rubbed together it can cause friction which results in fire, the change cannot be caused by the wood itself, instead an agent would be needed to act upon the wood. There can be no infinite chain of past movers or motions, thus there must have been a first mover which things are attracted to, For Aquinas this was God. Aquinas second way was that everything has an efficient cause as nothing can be efficient in itself as it would have to exist “prior to itself” which is clearly impossible. Aquinas repeats the later part of his first point by saying once again that infinite regress is not the efficient causes, and thus the cause is the uncaused causer. For Aquinas this was

A contingent thing might or might not exist, but they do not have to exist, and they all eventually cease to exist. For example, the chair that you are sitting on exists, but it has not always existed. There was a time when the chair was not. Aquinas also observe that for something to move from not being to being, that action had to be brought about by something that was being. In other words, for the chair to exist, it had to be carved and manufactured. To manufacture something there must be a manufacturer. Something that does not exist cannot make something exist. This idea would be illogical and irrational. Basically Aquinas argument is that it is not feasible to conceive a time in which nothing whatsoever existed because, there would be no place for something to come into existence from or move to. So with this logic, one can interpret that the only way anything would cease to exist is if something had always been in existence and was not created by anything. Aquinas concluded that "there must be something whose existence is necessary and not just possible, there needs to be some reason that what is possible actually happens, in short, God's existence is necessary" (Soccio 233). However, if something can’t cause its own existence, how is God’s existence

Similarly, in the fifth argument, Aquinas addresses what he views as the improbability that objects in nature without rationale (animals, plants, etc) can perfectly fulfill their given purpose, without someone manipulating and planning it. Therein, Aquinas finds a foothold to help prove the existence of God. However, as we will see in the fourth argument, Aquinas has a hole in his reasoning––namely through his groundless assumption that there is a manipulator/planner of the world and that said planner is God.

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.

Aquinas asserts, “For, at whatever instant a thing exists, at that instant it can begin to act, as is clear in the case of all things that come to be by generation.” In time, effects are preceded by the efficient cause. Therefore, in time, if the effects are preceded by the efficient cause, then that would mean that there would be a time in which the world did not exist. Aquinas answers that God’s demonstration of creation is not progressive, but instead instantaneous, and an impact of an instantaneous act does not need to have a starting point. For instance, Aquinas uses fire as an example, demonstrating that at the precise moment there is fire, lighting occurs, proving that simultaneously the beginning of the action and the end of the action are identical.

To get to this conclusion, he states that “there is an order of efficient causes” (470). By this, he means there is a chain of efficient causes because one thing cannot be the efficient cause of itself. Something must come before it. But he also says that the efficient causes cannot become an infinite line or chain. Something must be first to cause everything or at least start the chain of efficient causes.

Aquinas did not say anything in either of the first two proofs mentioned before about things being moved or caused by earlier motion or causes. The various motions and causes he is talking about are simultaneous meaning occurring, operating, or done at the same time. In Aquinas 's opinion, there is no philosophical reason that the chain of causes could not go back infinitely. His line of reasoning is that things must be caused by something earlier, and because this chain of causes cannot go back infinitely, for that reason, it must have a first cause, and it is God.

St. Thomas Aquinas is considered to be one of the greatest minds of the western world as well as one of the greatest theologians. In his work Summa Theologica, which he revised many times over the course of his life, he explored the existence of God, and there are essentially five ways in which St. Thomas Aquinas argues the existence of God. The first way is the argument from change, the second way is the argument from causation, the third argument is the argument from possibility and necessity, or the reductio argument, the fourth way is the argument from gradation of being, and the fifth way is the argument from harmony. These arguments for the existence of God are presented in his work Summa Theologica.

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