The Summa Theologica, written by Saint Thomas Aquinas between the years AD and , is one of the most extensive summaries of Catholic theology ever written. Meant to serve as a compendium of all known learning of the time, the Summa Theologica still holds valuable insight for understanding Catholic theology.
One of the many “questions,” or segments, posed in the book is the question of God’s existence. Specifically, Saint Thomas Aquinas examines rational proofs for the existence of God, using five examples to make his point.
Proof 1: The Argument from Motion
Saint Thomas’s first proof is based principally on cause and effect. To phrase it like Isaac Newton, “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.” Although Newton wasn’t even born for close to another four hundred years, Aquinas had a good understanding of the same general principle: nothing acts unless it is first acted upon.
For Saint Thomas, this provokes a question: What is the first thing to put other things in motion?
While he framed it using terms like motion, there’s still an understanding in modern science that energy is not created or destroyed but is simply moved and transferred. And when Saint
On the Five Ways of Proving the Existence of God of Saint Thomas Aquinas
The Five Ways of Proving that God Exists &#; Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 2, a. 3.
(See also Aquinas&#; other discussions of God&#;s existence and his Natural Theology).
Explanations, Analyses and Assessments of the Five Ways
&#;This Everyone Calls God&#; &#; How Aquinas identifies the object of his proofs as the Christian God.
Links to Other Explanations/Analyses of the Five Ways: (arranged in ascending order of detail and sophistication)
- Cosmological Arguments (including Aquinas&#;) &#; by Stephen A. Richards
- Revisiting the Argument from Motion (The First Way) by Bp. Robert Barron (Word on Fire Ministries)
- Problems of the First Cause by Fr. William Most, from the electronic library of EWTN.
- Explanation of the First Way &#; by Philip A. Pecorino. Also includes other cosmological arguments and objections, especially in the light of Big Bang cosmology.
- To Follow the Second Way of Aquinas &#; by David McGraw. An explanation of the proof from efficient causality (dynamic punch) and a defense of identifying the First Cause with God.
Thomas Aquinas&#;s Five Proofs for God Revisited
In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas revitalized Christian theology by applying principles of Greek philosophy to the explanation and defense of the Christian faith. Thomism, or the philosophical application of Aquinas’s thought, has a privileged place in the Catholic Church and has been embraced by a growing number of “Evangelical Thomists.”1 Among non-Christians, Aquinas is usually encountered in first-year philosophy textbooks via excerpts of his five ways of proving the existence of God from his Summa Theologica.
Since the Summa was intended to be an introductory guide to theology, the five ways constitute only a few pages of text, which is perhaps why Richard Dawkins writes of them in The God Delusion: “[They] don’t prove anything, and are easily — though I hesitate to say so, given his eminence — exposed as vacuous.”2 I intend to argue that Dawkins and critics like him think the five ways are vacuous proofs because they misunderstand them. While space does not permit a full-fledged analysis of these arguments, we can correct common misperceptions many critics have about them.
THE ARGUMENT FROM MOTION
Daw
The Saint
by Catholic Editor, Faith Addington
In honor of St. Thomas Aquinas week, what better way to prepare for the commemoration of our beloved namesake than by learning one of his most monumental contributions to Christian theology: Aquinas’ five proofs for the existence of God.
The first argument is “The Argument from Motion.” In this first proof, Aquinas argues that everything in the world is in a state of motion/change, whether it be displacement, growth, or any form of change, and for anything to change, there must be a cause of that change. A candlestick does not simply fall off the table without something causing it to fall. Because this chain of motion cannot regress infinitely, Aquinas states that there must be an Unmoved Mover; in other words, a being that is the cause of all change without being subject to change itself: identified as God.
The second argument is “The Argument from Efficient Causes.” Similarly to The Argument from Motion, Aquinas asserted that everything has a cause. Because there cannot be an infinite regress of causes, there must be a First Cause: identified as God.
The third argument is “The Argument from Contingency.” Aquinas
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