Aquinas Flaws

Aquinas tried to prove the existence of God by providing five ways which are the arguments of motion, nature of efficient causes, necessary and possible being, degrees of perfection, and intelligent design. Although Aquinas’s arguments are considerable, many of them have major flaws which needs to be discussed. Aquinas first argument of the five ways to prove Gods existence is the argument from motion. Aquinas believed everything must have a mover to be moved, if we didn’t, we would find ourselves in an infinite regress (a chain in events to which has no beginning) which Aquinas believed was impossible. Everything in the world has motion and Aquinas thought that there must have been a time were nothing was in motion until a static being caused

Aquinas believed that in the natural world everything has an efficient cause and no efficient cause could be the cause of itself. Again, he believed the idea of an infinite chain of causes without a first cause is impossible. He thought the chain must be in order, the first cause, the intermediate cause, and the ultimate cause. Without a first cause, there is no intermediate cause, and with no intermediate cause there is no ultimate cause thus God must be the first cause since in his first argument God is the unmoved mover. Some people may argue against this idea, they may say his logic is destroying his own argument by saying if everything that moves must be put into motion by something else why is God the only exception. Aquinas’s idea of an unmoved mover is a good argument for Gods existence. We as humans have very limited understanding about the universe and I think that God being an unmoved mover is very much possible even though we may not understand it. Just like Neil deGrasse Tyson’s story with the blind man and the elephant, we may feel and understand some of it, however, we can’t fully grasp or understand all of

It is said there are somethings in this world that are better than other things for instance, something might be more good than some other things and these things represents what can be called the maximum for example, something cold nearly represents something that is the coldest. Accordingly, there is something that is truest, noblest, and uttermost. Aquinas believed that the thing in which is most of something is the cause of other things, just like the hottest heat is the cause of other hot things. Aquinas stated in his essay “Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.” (P. 113) This idea would be a good argument if he expanded on his ideas and his examples are lacking. In his example with heat, Aquinas states the ultimate source of heat is the cause of all other things that are hot, however this isn’t exactly the case for example, a simple match can cause a massive amount of heat with just a spark yet, the match itself is not nearly as hot as an ultimate source of