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St. Thomas Aquinas's Argument Analysis

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1. God is said to be omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent. Many arguments have attempted to prove the existence of God and in my opinion, none of the arguments succeed in actually proving the existence of such a god. However, there is one argument that, if it worked, would be the best in proving the existence of God which is Saint Thomas Aquinas’s argument. Aquinas tries to prove God’s existence in five ways with the first being the argument from motion. He points out that everything was set in motion by something else. He claims that it is impossible to go on infinitely because there has to have been a “First Mover” that did not require anything to set it in motion. Aquinas claims that God is the First Mover and did not need to be set in motion by …show more content…

This tries to prove God’s existence by saying that all natural things were created for a purpose by an intelligent designer; this is much like Paley’s Teleological Argument. This argument does not work because it does not prove that the intelligent designer of natural things must be God. Overall, Aquinas’s argument fails to fulfil its only purpose: prove that God exists. If an argument cannot prove that God is all knowing, all good, and all powerful, then it does not prove the existence of a god at all. Another main reason why this argument and many other arguments for God’s existence does not work is because of the problem of evil. The problem of evil can be stated with just one question: if God is omnibenevolent, why does evil exist? Aquinas tried to explain this by saying that because God is all good, he allows evil in the world to produce something good out of it. This explanation is confusing and raises more questions than it answers. If God is omnibenevolent, why did he let the evils of the Holocaust to occur? What good was produced from the genocide of millions of

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The question that is asked time and time again is whether or not god exists. It is evident that people hold different beliefs. It is evident that through some of the beliefs of J.L. Mackie that it could be argued that God does not actually exist. I find this argument to be more agreeable. In Mackie’s Evil and Omnipotence, he argues many points to support why it should be believed that god does not exist.

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Anselm’s argument is based on this known definition of the concept of God alone. Descartes’ argument for the existence of God is based on his foundation of knowledge, logic. Humans have the idea in their minds of infinite perfection. Humans also have the idea of themselves as inferior to this idea as imperfect. For humans to have the idea of infinite perfection, there must be truth in the reason for them having this idea.

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In Saint Thomas Aquinas argument the second way, Aquinas argues for the existence of God, making use of efficient causes and premises to help us conclude that God exists. In the following words I would argue that Saint Thomas Aquinas’s argument formulated in the second way leads to a valid argument, which concludes that there must be a first cause and that God exists. Aquinas second way is an argument that God is the first cause and he is essential to everything on earth because nothing would have the power to fuel its self without the intermediate cause which is God. An example is a painter using a paintbrush to paint as he moves his hand, paint is applied on the wall but if he stops, the paint would not fly from the brush to the wall, stopping

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The argument for God’s existence is that God is a perfect being, he is infinite, independent, supremely intelligent, and supremely powerful. Descartes goes on to talk about how God exists because he can conceive of him as better than himself (AD 40). God is perfect and perfect at everything, and was the first thing that sent everything into motion (AD 45). God is the ultimate cause.

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The foundation of Judeo-Christian beliefs is the existence of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God. This belief is held in absolutes, even in the face of evil and tragedy. Those outside of religion see these beliefs as contradicting, arguing that God cannot be all-good and all-powerful while at the same time allowing evil to occur. The “argument from evil”, often used by those who are agnostic or atheist, are a set of premises that have stumped theists in the argument for an all-good and all-powerful God in the presence of evil (Pojman 117). However, the belief of an all-good and all-powerful God can be defended by considering what the meaning of the word “good” is in the first place and how it relates to God’s influence on humanity.

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The problem of evil takes into account three defining features of God: all-good, all-knowing, and all-powerful and questions whether such a God would permit evil and not interfere. Sinnott-Armstrong discusses his stance by countering responses he coins as the Glorious Response, the Modest Response, and the Overriding Response. Whereas, Craig counters the arguments made by Sinnott-Armstrong. The Glorious Response Thus response suggests evil is

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In this essay, I will set out to prove that Thomas Aquinas’ First Cause Argument does not show that God exists and the conclusion that God exists does not follow from the premises of the first cause argument. I do think that the conclusion is valid and could be sound/or has the potential to be, but the premises fail to provide the basis upon which to reach such a conclusion. Hence, I will be raising some objections to the premises and will try to disprove any counter-arguments that could be raised in its defense. This would be done by examining Aquinas’ First Cause Argument and trying to disprove it whilst countering arguments in its defense.

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The existence of God has been presented by a multitude of philosophers. However, this has led to profound criticism and arguments of God’s inexistence. The strongest argument in contradiction to God’s existence is the Problem of Evil, presented by J.L Mackie. In this paper, I aim to describe the problem of evil, analyse the objection of the Paradox of Omnipotence and provide rebuttals to this objection. Thus, highlighting my support for Mackie’s Problem of evil.

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Among the many points raised in these readings I was particularly interested in the five proofs of the existence of God that Aquinas puts forward in the Summa Theologiae. I was particularly interested in the first proof that Aquinas makes. In his first proof of God he suggests that our senses show us that things are in motion and the only way something moves is if a potential motion changes to actual motion. Since only actual motion can convert potential motion then things cannot be potential and actual at the same time and thus each thing placed in actual motion is done so by something else in actual motion. This sequence of transferring potential to actual motion cannot continue on forever and thus something or someone must have been the

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There have been an innumerable amount of arguments for the existence of God for hundreds of years. Some have become much more popular due to their merit, and their ability to stay relevant through changing times. Two arguments in particular that have been discussed for a very long time are the ontological and cosmological arguments. Each were proposed in the period of the high middle ages by members of the Roman Catholic Church. They each have been used extensively by many since their introduction.

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In chapter three of Aquinas for Armchair Theologians by Timothy Renick, Aquinas’s philosophy on evil in the world and the free will of humans is heavily discussed. Renick describes a very complex topic and transforms it into something the average person can read and understand. Aquinas answers the questions of whether evil exists, did God create evil, why does evil exist, and if evil exists, who or what removes it. He also answers the questions of whether humans have the free will to make decisions or has God predetermined every decision and its outcome according to his plan. While I found this article somewhat easy to follow, I can understand how some of Aquinas’s arguments can lead to debate or confusion on the nature of God, evil, and free will.

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The Problem of Evil is about reconciling the existence of evil with that of an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God. An argument from evil, however, is focused on demonstrating an inconsistency in the definition of abovementioned God. 1.

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In other words, Anselm stipulates that God must exist since we can’t think of something greater than God but Descartes says the main reason why God exists is because he is a perfect being. St. Anselm and Descartes arguments are without doubt the most important arguments to the existence of God. They formed the basis for further discussion both by those that agree to these schools of thought as well as those that saw the arguments as weak and decided to show why. Both philosophers agreed that the comprehension of the concept of God was sufficient for anyone to believe in the existence of God even though Anselm argument was skewed towards our inability to conceive a more powerful being while Descartes mainly concentrates on the perfect nature in

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