Thomas Aquinas Gradation Argument

Yousef Madouh

Professor: Jacob N. Bauer

PHIL103-43

September 17th, 2015

Gradation Argument

Thomas Aquinas is one of the theologians who developed the Christianity structure over the past. He discussed most of the problematic religious issues, which is uncertainly about the existence of god. The purpose of this essay is to analyze the Gradation argument that Aquinas argued that proves that god exists. This argument from gradation of being can be considered problematic because of the conflict of this concept.

Thomas Aquinas gradation way to prove the existence of god is to divide all creatures according to their quality. As Aquinas said, all things can be compared, and establish a gradation. They can be evaluated to each other by goodness and

true, so there will be there will be such things better than others in their same class, or even worse than them. The degree must have version and uttermost version. Aquinas argues that there must be a creature who reaches the highest level of trueness and goodness. That he possess the top spot of gradation by being a perfect absolute being. To clarify Aquinas position it’s vital to highlight the example of fire he mentioned. He uses the concept of heat where the highest degree of heat in this category is fire. By being on top of the category can be described as truest and can influence other things by making them hot. Similarly, god can be characterized to be truest and noblest absolute being because he possesses the top spot of the goodness category. As the fire example and how it is the complete form that influence on other things. God is also the complete form of his that he can influence on others.
There is some apparent weakness on Aquinas gradation argument that can be highlighted by different aspects. At the beginning, we have to note some conflicts in Aquinas theory. According to Aquinas, he said that things are organized by degree according to their quality in their class. Each genus has a complete form that is uttermost and can influence on others. As on the fire example that can make things hotter. However, each thing has different qualities, which cannot be limited to one degree. So, there is problematic to evaluate which thing is uttermost. Also, he does not describe how the measurement was taken. For example, there would be a problem to compare the goodness of two plants. Furthermore, a plant and animal cannot be compared to each other since they are different. The next weak side of the gradation argument is the debate how to assess things bad or good. For instance, fire sometimes could be beneficial for warmth and cooking food. On the other hand, it can cause serious damage to people or even burn houses, so here it would be considered bad. If we want to compare water and fire as fire possess the top degree. Water can turn into ice, so in comparison with fire it would possess the lowest degree. The last weak side on this argument is how come there is no perfect absolute bad being as same as god. So, if god possesses the highest degree then who possess the lowest degree? There must be a perfect absolute bad being that possess the lowest degree. Hence, the devil must be that being that is the worst and be such kind. But, it’s important to know that the devil was an angle before and angles are one of the best beings. Therefore, all weak sides of Aquinas gradation argument proves that his argument is problematic to prove that god exist.