Existence Of God Analysis

One of the most popular arguments for the existence of God belongs to St. Thomas Aquinas. In his “Five Ways” writing, Aquinas discusses five arguments for the existence of God. Thomas Aquinas uses what is known as a posteriori argument, which uses information from experience to form the argument. It is important to note that Aquinas was a strong believer in God to begin with, as he was Catholic. He is recognized as a Saint by the Catholic Church. His argument for the existence of God was controversial at the time of its writing, but is now highly regarded as the definite philosophical explanation of the Catholic faith. Aquinas felt that it was only necessary to have five arguments for the existence of God in order to prove his existence. The first way discusses the Argument from Motion. The second talks about the Argument from Efficient Cause. The third regards the Argument to Necessary Being. The fourth explains the Argument from Gradation, and the fifth is about the Argument from Design. For this paper, I am going to analyze Aquinas’ second way, the Argument from the Efficient Cause.

The argument for efficient cause says, “The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in 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 is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is t...

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...ready a strong believer in God, he produced a pretty well written argument. He wrote this at a time where this topic was quite controversial. This argument has actually become an important part of Catholic faith, while the topic of the existence of God is still quite debatable. Only one of the premises in this argument is questionable, but this premise could still be true. Arguing for the existence of God is not something that is very easy, especially with the posteriori argument method because you are using experience to explain your argument, and not everyone is going to easily believe something that is controversial. Although I do not believe that this argument is sound based on the uncertainty of the first premise, I still find it very impressive that St. Thomas Aquinas was able to develop such a convincing argument for the existence of God in just five ways.