Thomas Aquinas Work to Prove the Existence of God Essays

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.

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.

This argues that everything in this world has possibility to be and not to be.

An important argument to try and prove the existence of God is the Cosmological Argument brought on by observations of the physical universe, made by Saint Thomas Aquinas, a thirteenth century Christian philosopher. The cosmological argument is a result from the study of the cosmos; Aquinas borrows ideas from Aristotle to make this systematically organized argument.

In the article, “The Five Ways,” from Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas argues whether God exists, which

Than there has to be something that already existed to make everything exist and for that to happen that had to be someone, so that is God. Aquinas also pointed one in one of his earlier proofs of the First Mover. Aquinas says that anything moved is moved by another, so there must be a first mover (a mover that is not itself moved by another) and that first mover is God. Both of the philosophers used great methods to come to their conclusion about how god came into existence. They both used different thinking methods to get to their well respected arguments but did come to the conclusion that God does “exist”. I believe the key difference about the two philosophers was the time difference between the philosophers, Thomas Aquinas wrote his proofs in the medieval ages around the 1200’s while ( with no disrespect) Rene Descartes wrote his meditation in the 1600’s. There is a big 400 year gap between ideas are compared but that came down to the same conclusion

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.

The second argument is for the notion that the existence of God can be demonstrated. It states that everything has a cause. He claims that by using the theory of cause and effect we can demonstrate the existence of God. If we say that every effect has a cause, we can go further and further to infinity. But because of our own logic, we know that this is not true. We know that it must end somewhere. That somewhere is a first cause, and that cause is God. This is very similar to the idea of the unmoved mover. He goes on to say that through the effects, we can demonstrate that God does exist, but we cannot know what God is like.

Aquinas' second proof is similar to his first in that it relates to cause and effect. St. Thomas reasoned that in a world of order there is an order to all cause and effect. And , since there is a cause for the existence of all things there must be a cause that caused all things and had no cause itself. He points out that nothing in creation existed prior to itself and the causality cannot be traced back infinitely. If the efficient or first cause did not exist then nothing would exist. That first or efficient cause is God.

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.

The final crucial proof of the existence of God is Aquinas fourth proof. This proof looks at qualities of humans; all humans possess many different attributes which we consider unique to each individual. This is when standards are formed humans began to have a certain criteria for how or what someone with a given attribute should act or how they should portray themselves. The only way this standard could come into existence is to believe that there is a perfect creation possessing all qualities and expressing them in the most precise and perfect way. This perfect creation is God, the person in which humans get the laws at which the obeyed by. Aquinas five proofs of the existence of God are much more extensive but just looking at the proof of motion and the proof of perfection it becomes unquestionable that there is an almighty creation. This superior creation creates laws at which

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.

The first argument derives from motion. This argument holds incredible significance for the following reasons, including that St. Thomas Aquinas inadvertently draws attention to the connection between how modern day science lends legitimate evidence, to the creation story, suggesting a degree of accuracy.Thomas Aquinas states the following “It is certain and evident to our senses that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality towards which is in motion”(CTR p. 335). Despite the fact that St. Thomas Aquinas lived an estimated 400 years before the great scientist Sir Isaac Newton and his laws of physics, he had a relatively accurate concept of what motion is and its nature in regards to the world around us. After all, motion, or movement, is the active changing of physical location, state, or position (Merriam Webster). If one refers to its physical science definition, the term of “motion” becomes a little more complex but remains relevant: motion is the conversion of one form of energy to another form of energy, such as potential energy changing to kinetic energy (Encyclopedia Britannica). Everything in existence has energy to some degree, whether it is potential or kinetic and all matter is made of energy according to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. With this in mind, according to

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

Aquinas's fifth proof relates more directly to "Science Finds God." This article states that the complexity of the natural world is more evidence that God must exist. Thomas says that there is some pure act of intelligence that causes all other acts of intelligence. As an archer shoots an arrow towards its target, God aims everything to its ultimate end. Everything is ordered towards an end and that end is determined by a being we call God. Using empirical sciences, it is evident that everything has its purpose and functions for