Thomas Aquinas Fourth Argument

Jonathan Edwards in his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry G-d,” proposes one very significant question. What can man do to achieve perfection? Edwards states that:

As we all are perfect, we all are imperfect as well. We aren’t born to know how to be

He is the designer of the whole universe and is perfect in every way. God has numerous attributes that reveal to us his great character. God reveals these attributes through his word and his mighty

We can't make ourselves perfect but, we can be who we

     Aquinas’ third way argument states that there has to be something that must exist, which is most likely God. He starts his argument by saying not everything must exist, because things are born and die every single day. By stating this we can jump to the conclusion that if everything need not exist then there would have been a time where there was nothing. But, he goes on, if there was a time when there was nothing, then nothing would exist even today, because something cannot come from nothing. However, our observations tell us that something does exist, therefore there is something that must exist, and Aquinas says that something is God.

I am a perfectionist and I have a vision of how the world should look to be perfect. However, I am an imperfect person trying to make perfection in an imperfect world. The only person who can make perfection is God. He is the only one with any real control. This is a hard truth for people like me and Orual to swallow.

Aquinas claims that “once [those things that are above human reasoning] are revealed by God, they must be accepted by faith” (q.1 a.1 Obj. 1). How does this incorporate itself into the human spirit of curiosity? As Aquinas also points out, there are many things that humanity still does not understand; however, we are still working to understand them through new academic avenues. Once divine revelation is handed down and distributed, does Aquinas expect those who hear it to ignore the ever-present sense of curiosity in their minds? Also, if the truth is still only revealed to a few through divine revelation, albeit without the “admixture of many errors” that would arise had the information been gleaned through philosophical reasoning alone, how is it to be spread rationally (q.1 a.1)?

Due to this to say that God is perfect is to suggest that he has an infinite degree of formal reality. Therefore, he has an infinite degree of objective reality. He doesn’t require or rely on anything for his own existence. He has always existed and will keep on

Thomas Aquinas’ five ways are his arguments of the five proofs that God exists in some form, these five ways have standard abjections. The arguments are named as follows: argument from motion, arguments from causation, arguments from contingency, argument from gradations of goodness, and the argument of governance. These are Aquinas’ theories of why things change, whatever is changing is being changed by something else.

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

He believed in natural theology and thought that man could not understand God without God's assistance and guidance. The foundations of his proofs of God’s existence were based on his five basic beliefs about God. Aquinas wrote that God was: 1) simple as in having no parts, 2) perfect therefore lacking nothing, 3) infinite having no beginning and no end, 4) immutable as in never changing, and 5) one in essence and existence.

This phrase means that the being about which we are talking, is more perfect in all aspects than anyone else. That being is the perfection at which one can reach maximum. As we understand an every property and every functionality of every object in the world, we can think about the perfection of that property of that object. So there should be the maximum limit to every property of that particular object. As every object we can see in our surrounding has some faults, that every object in our surrounding is not perfect in every single aspect, so as considering maximum possibility of the existence of God, ultimately there can be a single object, which is perfect in all aspects and to that being or object we can call as ‘God’.

Firstly, the conception of God is discussed by identifying the various qualities an all-perfect God would have based on orthodox theology. The reading outlines these qualities that God holds: being omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing), perfectly good, incorporeal (non-physical spirit),

Question:     Briefly summarize Aquinas’ Fifth Way of proving the existence of God. What counter-argument does Hume cite in answer to this argument from Design? What is John Hick’s answer to Hume’s argument from Evil? Is he right?

considered a perfect being unlike humans or any other world subject. The fact that he is perfect