Aquinas’ Cosmological Arguments Essay - 1631 Words

Aquinas’ Cosmological Arguments The Cosmological Argument for the existence of God, as propounded by Thomas Aquinas, is also known as the Third Way. It is the Third of Five ways in Aquinass 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. The first three ‘ways’ are different variations of the cosmological argument. The Cosmological argument is developed around a distinction between that which has necessary existence and that, which is contingent. A thing that has necessary existence must exist in all possible worlds, whereas a thing that is†¦show more content†¦Aquinas seems to presuppose the first of these two claims without argument. The argument for the second appears to be this: 1. An object can change from not having property G to having G only if the object is potentially G but not actually G. 2. The cause of an objects becoming G must itself actually be G. 3. Therefore, a thing cannot cause itself to acquire a property. He believed everything that is in motion (change) is moved (changed) by something else. Infinite regress is impossible. Therefore there must be a first mover (changer). His emphasis was on dependency; Christian theology has always taught that God sustains the universe. In other words, if God ceased to exist then the universe would also cease. Therefore there must be and an initiator of the change whose continued existence is depended upon. For example a play depends on the continued existence of actors. This type of casual relationship is what Aquinas had in mind. Overall the first cause argument is: a) Everything has a cause b) Therefore the universe (cosmos) has a cause c) That cause is God d) Therefore God exists. For this to follow Aquinas has to exclude the possibility of infinite regression; i.e. events with their previous causes going back in time forever).Show MoreRelatedExplain Aquinas Cosmological Argument652 Words   |  3 PagesExplain Aquinas’ Cosmological Argument The basis of the cosmological argument is that the universe cannot account for its own existence. There must be a reason, the argument says, for the existence of the universe and the reason has to be something which is not part of the physical world of time and space. The cosmological argument was used by Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) in his five ways, which were ways of demonstrating the existence of God through inductive argument based on observation and evidenceRead MoreWeak Arguments in Cosmological Argument by Thomas Aquinas692 Words   |  3 Pagesthat God exists? Thomas Aquinas attempted to prove the existence of God in a rational way through his Cosmological argument. 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