Aquinas’ First Cause argument is one of a number of Cosmological arguments that aim to prove the existence of God. A Cosmological argument is based on observation and entails the insistence of Gods necessary existence in order to explain the existence of the Universe. The Fist Cause Argument uses the cause and effect of material objects going back into the past in order to find the first cause. It comes to the conclusion of the first cause being an uncaused cause which is said to be the traditional Christian, all-knowing, all-loving and all-powerful, God. There are a number of arguments and objections to the First Cause but I will argue the success of the objection ‘God is More’ objection which objects to the conclusion of the argument that states that the Christian version of God ,with its attached attributes, exists. The second objection is the ‘Immaterial-Material Causation’ objection which questioned how an immaterial being can be able to cause material existence. The prove of the success of these arguments will therefore weaken the success of The First Cause argument.
The First Cause argument states that “for anything at exists, there must have been something else that caused its existence in the past. There cannot be an infinite chain of effects and their causes, going back infinitely into the past. So, there was a first cause that was uncaused. So, God exists.” (Chapman, 2018: slide 6) This cause and effect can either go back infinitely into the past or can
I have to admit that Zimmerman’s talk was hard at times for me to comprehend. I would love feedback if I understood his divine argument wrong, because I have had a few discussions about it with my peers and many took away different views from his final argument for a divine being, and in this paper I will explain how I understood his final argument. To come upon the divine being of God, he had to eliminate all the other contingent and necessary options believed by other philosophers and scientists through reasoning. He explained how it wasn’t possible for their to be no answer for the cosmos, nor were any of the contingent explanations of science, philosophy, or an infinite past made any sense.
Aquinas differs from Paley by arguing that nothing happens by chance and that all things have means and ends. He also believed in a master powerful creator (God) that directed things to their natural end. While, Paley’s arguments did not include the bible or religion. Although, since Aquinas believed that things that don’t have minds can accomplish goals but only if it is controlled with something that does have a mind with intelligence and knowledge.
The objection addressed the validity of the argument which had the premise 1, nothing is the efficient cause of itself except God and premise 2, a chain of causes cannot be infinite. The argument thus concludes there must be a first cause. This conclusion agrees with my thesis that Saint Thomas Aquinas’s argument formulated in the second way leads to a valid argument, which concludes that there must be a first cause and that God
Instead the belief revolves around the idea that natural causes are sufficient to explain everything that exists in the
Introduction Many arguments or testimonies for the Existence of God have been proposed by philosophers, theologians, and other thinkers. These arguments have an epistemological dimension and an ontological dimension. The watchmaker argument states that we know life must have been created as it is complex, just as a watch is complex, it draws that watches are created by intelligent life, so, therefore, life must have created by an intelligent being. This argument has many flaws, many questions still yet to have a sound answer, the soundness of this argument, or better fit, analogy, will be discussed throughout this essay. This writing will start by outlining in the first part the origin of the theory/analogy, the in the second part the flaws surrounding the theory, then finally in the third part, the contradictions with other theories such as the one proposed by Charles Darwin.
There have been an innumerable amount of arguments for the existence of God for hundreds of years. Some have become much more popular due to their merit, and their ability to stay relevant through changing times. Two arguments in particular that have been discussed for a very long time are the ontological and cosmological arguments. Each were proposed in the period of the high middle ages by members of the Roman Catholic Church. They each have been used extensively by many since their introduction.
In this he questions the attributes of God that are traditionally used to describe him. He claims that there is a lack of foundational evidence to prove that God is not only the creator of the universe but is the All Mighty God that he is described as (Speaks). Rather than Hume arguing that Paley’s argument is false, he focuses heavily on if God even exists or if he is the higher figure that he is painted as. Another argument that can be used against Paley is the theory of the Big Bang Theory.
Despite this, because of reason and what God is envisioned to be, I agree with conclusions that Aquinas has made. Renick begins by asking the question “Why is there evil in the world?” The answer given by many Christians is that Satan is the reason evil exists since he corrupts God’s creation and history through Eden. Initially, I believed the same thing.
In his first-cause argument, he states that everything we are able to observe has a cause and that nothing can cause itself. In order for something to cause itself, it would have to exist prior to itself, which is impossible. Nor can something be caused by an infinite regress of causes. (Vaughn, Lewis. Pg.
The objection against premise three states: “There can be an infinite series of numbers; why can’t there be an infinite series of past causes (PowerPoint 384)?” Thomas Aquinas is a famous philosopher who is well known for his theological writings. Here, Aquinas steps in to defend this premise saying that “if there were an infinite regress of causes, we could not have gotten to the present moment because we would have had to go through an infinite series to get here, and it is impossible to go through an infinite series (PowerPoint, 384).” William Lane Craig then comes in and discusses the claim of premise three and Aquinas’ defence and states that, “the idea of an actual infinite number of anything leads to contradictions. Both Thomas Aquinas and William Lane Craig’s defence claims help show that premise three is true, proving that the first half of the first cause argument is a sound
PAPER #2 History of philosophy: Philosophy 20B Thomas Aquinas reasons that “God is one” in the Summa theologiae, part one, question eleven, article three. Using three proofs, one on “Gods simplicity,” the second on “the infinity of Gods perfection” and the last based on “the unity of the world.” The following will be Dissecting and providing explanations along with criticism. As well, what it is meant by “God is one”.
So the first cause argument proves that God does not exist assuming the first cause argument is sound then there must be some other cause because it is not God. In summary the notion of omnipotent is a miss-name because it implies the potency, power, causality when in fact all that it does is imply logical entailment, it implies that if it wills something you can deduce from the statement that something exists, you do not need a causal step, it is a logical deduction and therefore the first cause argument argues from causes in the world
In this argument we already assumed that there may be possibility that God exist and finally we reached where we started. So this argument does not give us the exact information about existence of God. There are many objections on this argument but still it is a powerful argument. In my opinion, this argument is not much satisfactory. It describes that existence is greater than imagination.
Thomas Aquinas is the second critique of Anselm’s position. Take note that Aquinas assumed that the existence of God is obvious. He supported cosmological argument to prove that God exists. The cosmological argument uses the physical things that exist in the universe to demonstrate God’s existence. In his criticism of Anselm’s argument, Aquinas disagrees with the use of the word “God” and argues only some who hear the word “God” understands what it means (Himma, 4).
The debate of the existence of God has always been a controversial topic and has been going on for centuries. Till this day it is still a debate. We have people who strongly believe in God and others who questions his existence. Those who have strong faith will try to convince everyone who does not believe in God that he exits. They will try to come up with arguments to show he is real and good.