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Thomas Aquinas proof of God's existence
Thomas Aquinas proof of God's existence
Thomas Aquinas proof of God's existence
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Aquinas’ second proof for the existence of God is a sound argument. Aquinas’ argument about the efficient/agent cause is philosophically persuasive because it is easy to apply to things. The second proof is based on the notion of the efficient cause. The efficient cause is based on a chain of cause and effects. Aquinas does a suitable job in proving God’s existence through the order of caused causes through the world of sense. To begin with, in order to find Aquinas’ second proof to be a sound argument one must explain the chain of cause and effects that help explain the efficient cause, which is God. There are always things that cause other things. Every effect has a cause, if an effect did not have a cause it would not have been able to exist. Everything could not have come to exist from nothing there has to be a first maker that makes the first being to come to be. God becomes the first efficient cause which starts the chain of cause and effect in which every other thing that is not God depends on Him. Everything that exists from this chain of cause and effect come to be because t...
Examining the two works against each other as if it were a debate makes it a bit clearer to compare. Aquinas, reveals his argument under the groundwork that there are essentially two methods of understanding the truth. One being that it can be surmised through reason an logic, and the other being via inner faith. On the surface at this point it could be argued that this ontological determination a bit less convoluted than Anselm, yet I tend to think it could be a bit more confusing. This is what leads him to the claim that the existence of God can be proven by reason alone or “a priori”. Stemming from this belief he formulated his Five Proofs or what he called the “Quinquae Viae”. The first of which is fairly simple based on the fact that something in motion had to have been moved. Agreeing that something set it in motion therefor there must have been a...
Anselm’s argument can be summarized as, “1. God does not exist. (assumption) 2. By “God,” I mean that, than which no greater can be conceived (NGC). 3. So NGC does not exist. (from 1 and 2) 4. So NGC has being only in my understanding, not also in reality. (from 2 and 3) 5. If NGC were to exist in reality, as well as in my understanding, it would be greater. (from the meaning of “greater”) 6. But then, NGC is not NGC. (from 4 and 5) 7. So, NGC cannot exist only in my understanding. (from 6) 8. So NGC must exist also in reality. (from 5 and 7) 9. So God exists. (from 2 and 8) 10. So God does not exist and God exists. (from 1 to 9) 11. So Premise 1 cannot be true. (by 1 through 10 and the principle of reduction ad absurdum) 12. So God exists. (from 11)” (262). This quote demonstrates how Anselms ontological proof is “God is that, than which no greater can be conceived” in understanding and reality by stating that a contradiction would be made if God didn’t exist in both (262). Aquinas cosmological proof stated that the existence of God could be confirmed in five ways, The Argument- “from Change”, “Efficient Causality”,
In the first part, Aquinas states that the existence of god is not self-evident, meaning that reason alone without appealing to faith can give a good set of reasons to believe. To support this claim, Aquinas refers to “The Argument of Motion”, proposing that:
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.
The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. Due to the fact that the world relies on sense, Aquinas believed that there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case that is possible where a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself, so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. As for efficient causes, it is not possible to go on to infinity because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate cause is the cause of the ultimate case. This is whether the intermediate cause is several or only one, it does not change. If you were to take away the cause it is the same as taking away the effect. If there was no first cause among the efficient causes, there will be no ultimate nor any intermediate cause. Although if it were the case that if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes. Thus, recognizing that all of which is false. Therefore it is in fact necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which Aquinas believes that everyone gives the name of God.
The Proof of the Existence of God There are many arguments that try to prove the existence of God. In this essay I will look at the ontological argument, the cosmological. argument, empirical arguments such as the avoidance of error and the argument from the design of the. There are many criticisms of each of these that would say the existence of God can’t be proven that are perhaps.
Descartes second argument for proving God’s existence is very straightforward. He has four possibilities that created his existence. Through process of elimination he is left with God being his creator.
Have you ever walked 9000 miles? Well Thomas Aquinas did on his travels across Europe. Thomas had a complex childhood and a complex career. Thomas Aquinas has many achievements/accomplishments. History would be totally different without St.Thomas Aquinas. There would be no common law and the United States Government would not be the same without the common law.
While I do agree with some of Aquinas’ claims. Such as the idea that nothing comes from nothing. I believe something has to happen to become. It could be the efficient cause, causing the world to start. Although still having the question what made such a cause to effect everything in the
Secondly, the first and second arguments are invalid because the way the Big Bang happened and the universe was created was left to a good deal of chance and it would have been illogical for God to have created it that way. If God did create it in this form then it would be contradictory to Aquinas' idea of a completely rational, benevolent, and omnipotent God. Aquinas' third argument is unsound because he states that not every entity can fail to exist, but during singularity all of the matter in the universe is suspended in one lawless and unlocatable point. The lack of governing laws and any way to tell where that point would have been is proof that it may not have existed. The scientific proof of the beginning of the universe renders Aquinas' first three arguments from Summa Theologica unsound.
Instinctually, humans know that there is a greater power in the universe. However, there are a few who doubt such instinct, citing that logically we cannot prove such an existence. St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologica, wrote of five proofs for the existence of God. The Summa Theologica deals with pure concepts; these proofs rely on the world of experience - what one can see around themselves. In these proofs, God will logically be proven to exist through reason, despite the refutes against them.
St. Thomas Aquinas does give arguments that work, but it still does not prove that God exist. Also, in a chain of existence, at one point a cause did take in part causing itself, since it is a cycle. He says God is the first cause but he does not give an explanation to why God is the first cause, or how he knows God is the first cause. There is always an explanation to causes. If there is no first cause there would be no ultimate or intermediate cause and there is no explanation to why they are those things. This second argument demonstrates good arguments to causes, but it truly does not explain the existence of God. There should be further explanation to why nothing has caused God to exist, why he is the uncaused, and be the first cause of everything, that is why it is still unclear that God exits.
It is my view that God exists, and I think that Aquinas’ first two ways presents a
Aquinas’ Cosmological Arguments The Cosmological Argument for the existence of God, as propounded by Thomas Aquinas, 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 is because it’s possible for everything both to exist and not to exist, therefore both possibilities must have been fulfilled at some point. He phrases it in those terms, but I believe his argument is better understood by saying everything which exists must have come into existence, and therefore didn’t exist before that. Since something cannot spontaneously come into existence, he believes, another being gave everything else existence. This is called a “necessary thing,” meaning its existence is necessary for the existence of other things. Aquinas believes a being bestowed its necessity onto itself and did “not [receive] it from another.” What was a paradox before, an object being both the cause and effect, is now the logic. This object is God, and gave existence to all other