Thomas Aquinas Work to Prove the Existence of God Essays

Being a devout Christian, Thomas Aquinas naturally believed in God, but he wanted to prove Gods existence to those who could not accept things on faith alone. As a result he made five proofs, which he claims, prove the existence of God. With each proof there is always a beginning, a starting point, Aquinas claims it must be God that is the beginning of each. The first proof does not do complete justice to Aquinas’s claim that God exist, while the fifth proof could be used alone to prove Gods existence. One of Aquinas’s proofs is based on the idea of a first mover and another is based on the idea that intelligence is necessary to direct non-intelligent objects. St. Thomas Aquinas first argument tries to prove that there must be a†¦show more content†¦We also see that non-intelligent things cannot move toward their end unless directed by an intelligent being. As an example, St. Thomas Aquinas uses an arrow. An arrow will not achieve its purpose (that of reaching its mark) unless directed to do so by an archer. Obviously, humans are the intelligent beings that direct the small objects of our world, but there must be a greater intelligence that directs the larger bodies of the universe, such as the stars and the planets, since we obviously have no control over them. This higher intelligence is what we call God. These two arguments approach the problem of proving Gods existence in two completely different ways. One goes the route of saying there must be something that started everything, and the other says there must be something that controls the things that are here, even if it did not create them. Both of these arguments seem, at first, to be good and valid in their separate approaches. However, the first does have one major flaw. St. Thomas Aquinas says that the line of movers cannot go on to infinity, which common sense would tell you to be true. He thus establishes the arbitrary endpoint of God. The problem is that this argument could always be tested to be false by asking the question, What Moved God? St. Thomas Aquinas would probably answer that nothing moved God because God has always existed. I personally believe this to be true, but, to prove his first argument, St. ThomasShow MoreRelatedSt. Thomas Aquinas Essay823 Words   |  4 PagesSt. Thomas Aquinas, was a Dominican monk, wh o generally one of the greatest Scholastic writers of all times. He used ancient philosophy to prove religious propositions. One of the ancient philosophers that St. Thomas Aquinas used to prove religious facts was Aristotle. One of the greatest works that Aristotle did was to prove that god really exists. St. Thomas Aquinas used the forms that Aristotle and Plato used to prove the same philosophical question, does god really exist? St. Thomas AquinasRead MoreThomas Aquinas vs. Descarates Essays673 Words   |  3 PagesTHOMAS AQUINA’S V. 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