A Summary Of Thomas Aquinas's Argument

Presented by Thomas Aquinas are five a posteriori arguments that, Aquinas considers, prove that God exists. Herein, I shall endeavor to summarize those arguments, and show that each argument is either folly or insufficient as inductive proof that God exists. In doing so, I do not necessarily disprove the existence of a supreme being, but rather intend to emphasize the importance of well-founded argument when the subject matter is so dire.

The Argument From Change: Aquinas observes that things in the world are in motion. Motion, wherever it is observed, always has a cause, and any thing that moves was first moved upon by another thing, which was in turn set in motion by yet another thing. Up until this point, the argument is sound. With his

The Argument From Harmony: Aquinas here determines that things in general tend to work towards an end, even when they lack knowledge, and do so with some efficiency. Because of this, he states, things must be guided by someone or something that possesses intelligence, and this he calls God. He makes the assumption here that things tend towards disorder when left to their own devices, a premise that he neither addresses nor defends, and that in order for them to be work towards an end there must be a God guiding them. Here he begs the question, assuming that all things are being helped by a supreme being, and that this help is what causes disorder not to occur, and that furthermore, the fact that things are not tending towards disorder proves that there is a

God.

These five a posteriori arguments presented by Thomas Aquinas are clearly insufficient. In the first, as in the second, he contradicts himself, accepting that there must be a first mover or causer, when all things must have a cause. In the third, he assumes that the possibility of nonexistence indicates the inevitability of nonexistence at some point in the past. In the fourth, he has a good argument, but it does not