Thomas Aquinas Five Ways: Proving The Existence Of God

Thomas Aquinas’ “Five Ways” attempts to prove what no one has been able to: the existence of God. Aquinas strives to do this through the use of human rationality and his arguments have formed to be called the “Cosmological Argument” which is the basis of three of his five arguments. The “Cosmological Argument” is based on the assumption that everything came to be through a higher power that started a chain of cause and effect and that everything is dependent on something else for its existence. To quote Aquinas’ writing: “Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect.” His arguments are centered around the belief that infinity cannot exist and there is always a maximum which is the figure we call God. In his fourth argument, Aquinas

The final way is slightly different from the other arguments and states that everything has purpose because God gave them a reason to exist. Aquinas adds that everything that exists must have a purpose or else it ceases to exist.

The arguments in “Five Ways” have various strengths and weaknesses. Aquinas does a great job staying mostly scientifically accurate, especially as he writes during the 13th century when scientific research wasn’t largely reliable. His understanding of cause and effect isn’t too far from the theories that are pursued today such as the theory of the Big Bang and evolution. His ideas also don’t contradict these theories because we have learned, through scientific studies, that nothing can come into existence without there being another force acting upon it. Aquinas also creates a logical explanation when he speaks of purpose. It seems that everything in the universe has been designed intricately to play a role in the big picture of our