Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was a medieval monk and saint whose life work was to merge the rigour of the philosophy of Ancient Greece with the teachings of Christianity. Aquinas had a HUGE impact on Christian thinking, especially in the Roman Catholic Church which continues to base a lot of its teaching around "Thomism" (the study of Thomas Aquinas). His master work is the Summa Theologica (1274), which roughly translates as "Religion For Dummies".
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the most saintly of learned men and the most learned of saints - Cardinal Bessarion
Design, Order & Regularity
Aquinas was one of the first thinkers to set out the Design Argument as an actual argument. Summa Theologica sets out his “Five Ways” of proving that God exists. The Fifth Way is based on the order and regularity we observe in the world. His version goes like this:
P1 There is a BENEFICIAL ORDER in the world, with things working towards a definite purpose
(like the migration of birds or the fertilising of flowers by bees)
P2 This beneficial order couldn’t happen by chance
P3 Many objects and creatures don’t have the intelligence to work towards this purpose by themselves
C Therefore, a Supreme Intelligence must be at work, directing everything towards this beneficial order
Aquinas finishes his arguments by announcing “et hoc dicemus deum” – AND THIS BEING WE CALL GOD. In other words, only the God of the Bible ‘fits the bill’ for this supreme intelligence.
P1 There is a BENEFICIAL ORDER in the world, with things working towards a definite purpose
(like the migration of birds or the fertilising of flowers by bees)
P2 This beneficial order couldn’t happen by chance
P3 Many objects and creatures don’t have the intelligence to work towards this purpose by themselves
C Therefore, a Supreme Intelligence must be at work, directing everything towards this beneficial order
Aquinas finishes his arguments by announcing “et hoc dicemus deum” – AND THIS BEING WE CALL GOD. In other words, only the God of the Bible ‘fits the bill’ for this supreme intelligence.
Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God - Thomas Aquinas
Aquinas claims that beneficial order in the world is evidence of a guiding intelligence.
Challenging Design
Some critics challenge the Design Argument with Occam's Razor: a good explanation is simpler than the thing it explains, but God (say the critics) is more complex than the thing he is supposed to explain.
Thomas Aquinas argued the opposite, that God possesses "ontological simplicity". He explains it like this:
Thomas Aquinas argued the opposite, that God possesses "ontological simplicity". He explains it like this:
God is the same as his essence - Thomas Aquinas
What Aquinas means is that most creatures and objects possess characteristics. For example, I possess the characteristic of "being a human" and tomatoes possess the characteristic of "being red" and "being round". You can break creatures and objects down into the characteristics they possess, which is why they are complex.
You can't consider one of God's attributes separately from the others or imagine what God would be like without one of them, the way you can imagine a blue tomato. Or a square one.
For religious believers who follow Aquinas on this, if God is "ontologically simple" then he's the simplest explanation for the way the universe is - much simpler than multiple universes or the laws of physics.
You can't consider one of God's attributes separately from the others or imagine what God would be like without one of them, the way you can imagine a blue tomato. Or a square one.
For religious believers who follow Aquinas on this, if God is "ontologically simple" then he's the simplest explanation for the way the universe is - much simpler than multiple universes or the laws of physics.
Cosmological Arguments
In his Summa Theologica, Aquinas presents '5 Ways' (quinquae viae) of proving the existence of God. The first 4 Ways are variations of the Cosmological Argument and the 5th is the Teleological (Design) Argument. Most of Aquinas' arguments are based on those of the Ancient Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato.
ARGUMENT FROM MOTION (EX MOTU)
P1 Everything in the world is moving or changing.
P2 Nothing can move or change itself.
P3 There cannot be an infinite regress of things changing other things
C1 There must be a first changer (a Prime Mover)
C2 The Prime Mover is God.
P2 Nothing can move or change itself.
P3 There cannot be an infinite regress of things changing other things
C1 There must be a first changer (a Prime Mover)
C2 The Prime Mover is God.
The chain of movers cannot go on to infinity because then there would be no first mover and consequently no other mover - Thomas Aquinas
ARGUMENT FROM CAUSATION (EX RATIONE CAUSAE EFFICIENTIS)
P1 Everything in the world has a cause
P2 Nothing causes itself
P3 There cannot be an infinite regress of causes
C1 Therefore there has to be a First Cause to start it all
C2 The First Cause is God.
P2 Nothing causes itself
P3 There cannot be an infinite regress of causes
C1 Therefore there has to be a First Cause to start it all
C2 The First Cause is God.
ARGUMENT FROM CONTINGENCY (EX POSSIBILI ET NECESSARIO)
P1 Everything in the world is contingent (it can either exist or not)
P2 If things exist, there must be some time when they didn't exist
C1 There must have been some time when NOTHING existed
P3 Things exist now
C2 There must be something that everything depends on for its existence - something that ensures everything else exists but is itself necessary (not contingent)
C3 This Necessary Being is God.
P2 If things exist, there must be some time when they didn't exist
C1 There must have been some time when NOTHING existed
P3 Things exist now
C2 There must be something that everything depends on for its existence - something that ensures everything else exists but is itself necessary (not contingent)
C3 This Necessary Being is God.
ARGUMENT FROM DEGREE (EX GRADU)
Many philosophers consider this to be a Cosmological Argument too, but it's rather different in approach and isn't usually treated as one of the 'classic' Cosmological Arguments. Aquinas makes an observation about the qualities of things. For example, some things are more beautiful than other things. One has a greater degree of beauty than the next. This is referred to as degrees of quality (or value judgments). Aquinas concludes that for any given quality (e.g. goodness, beauty, knowledge), there must be a perfect standard by which all such qualities are measured. These perfections are contained in God.