PHILOSOPHICAL LANGUAGE & THOUGHT
The medieval saint and philosopher Thomas Aquinas set out the philosophy behind the Christian faith (or at least, the Catholic version of it) in his Summa Theologica. In particular, he 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. |
The chain of movers cannot go on to infinity because then there would be no first mover and consequently no other mover - Thomas Aquinas
YES
Aquinas' arguments go to the heart of the Cosmological Argument, which is the idea of contingency. We are forced to choose between an infinite regress (which would involve the universe not existing at all - which is clearly wrong) or some sort of Being which doesn't obey the normal laws of nature: a Being that is changeless, uncaused, non-contingent and perfect. It's perfectly reasonable to identify this Being with the God of religion.
Aquinas' arguments also support our belief in logic and science. He believes we can find out what the universe is really like. We are right to recognise cause-and-effect in things and to explore this causality and work back to find the origins of the universe. This is exactly what science does. Critics who insist the universe is a brute fact are like passengers jumping out of a taxi before paying the fare - the Taxicab Fallacy.
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NO
Aquinas is too quick to identify 'God' as the changeless or uncaused thing. Why does it have to be the God of religion? Isn't it possible that the universe itself is unchanging and uncaused? Saying that the universe must have a cause because everything inside it has a cause is committing the Fallacy of Composition. The universe could be a brute fact - something that needs no further explanation.
Aquinas is too simplistic. He never gives serious consideration to the possibility of a universe that is infinitely old. Although scientists today support the "Big Bang" Theory, they accept the possibility of another explanation and we may go back to the older idea of an infinite universe. Scientists tell us it is wrong to suppose that cause-and-effect works in the same way at the 'singularity' of the "Big Bang". We should accept there may be limits to what the human mind can understand.
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