The Existence of God
The world is definitely the most marvelous and exciting gift ever received. Though everyone is constantly facing various hardships along the way and has to overcome rather complicated challenges, it is still worth living for. Nothing could be compared to the possibility of admiring sunsets, walking in the rain or simply inhaling the smell of the flowers around. The whole universe is ready to present its breathtaking wonders and reveal all mysteries to those who are ready to experience the unknown and set off on an unforgettable and adventurous journey. The biggest mystery is surely the creation of the planet itself. People have always tried to find answers to this secret question and explain the reasons of different things and phenomena surrounding them. However, there are things which will never change no matter how much time actually passes and how radically the person’s views can modify. Even now the human beings are wondering who is that skillful architect of the entire universe and how did he manage to create such unspeakable beauty.
Nowadays peoples’ opinions concerning this rather complicated question have been divided into those who do not believe in the existence of God and those who prefer to think that God really exists and that he is responsible for the locating of the bright sun, moon and stars, the animals and plants in their correct place and for the creation of the whole mankind. The main philosophical problem about this controversial topic consists in providing quite truthful and convincing arguments either for or against the existence of God. Let’s now discuss this question in details and try to choose one of the positions basing upon Aquinas’ five proofs of the existence of God.
The most famous Catholic philosopher and theologian of the thirteenth century St. Thomas Aquinas is widely known for his book Summa Theologica. Here he described his five argumentative ways concerning the existence of God. The philosopher agreed that it was almost impossible to demonstrate the existence of God simply by considering the notion of God. Any mortal finds the idea of God’s being self-evident to believe in. Aquinas claimed that in order to convince people, it was necessary to pay attention to the natural world and examine the reasons of God’s existence as the initial cause of everything. Though some of the theologian’s proofs contain indeed considerable weak points and have been criticized by many philosophers, they still are believed to be efficient arguments for the existence of God. To my mind Aquinas’ first two ways could be seen as the most compelling evidences that secured their object of showing the existence of the greatest original Being. Thanks to this Being, humans’ universe was virtually created and all living creatures and natural phenomena began to exist. That’s why people should comprehend and appreciate such Being as true God.
The philosopher was fully aware that a lot of humans doubted the existence of God because of their common sense that did not let them support this rather implausible hypothesis. Thus, the first two arguments of Aquinas tried to prove the existence of God concentrating on those people who could not believe in him just on the basis of their faith and were looking for some logical and rational explanation of this eternal question.
Aquinas’ first and the most obvious argument was attempting to prove the existence of God by taking into consideration the fact that some natural things were in motion. On this assumption there obviously should exist the first mover that had to be steadfast. No matter what was in the motion, it was definitely moved by something else and vice versa if the first mover did not exist, nothing in the world was able to move at all. After the attentive observation of the world, it became quite apparent that things were incapable of moving by their own and could be put into action only by that first thing that was not moved by anything and anybody. The important condition of the movement was the interaction of the object with some other thing that would cause it to move. For example, as soon as the child swung his leg and kicked the ball with his foot, it started to move. Though the ball had the potentiality to move, it could get to the actuality only by the thing that had already stayed in actuality (Bonnette 45). Thus, the thing is that this first mover should be in fact an infinite being that does not require others to entail it to move. Aquinas asserted that such thing really existed and that it was God.
The second argument of proving God’s existence resembles the first one. If previously described way was based on the movement from potentiality to actuality, this proof was focused on cause and effect. According to Aquinas, everything in world was evoked by something else. In other words any object could create itself and was depended on other things. Every effect had its own cause. That’s why there obviously existed the first indispensable cause that was prior to all other members and was not itself made. This original cause the philosopher called “God” (Bonnette 56).
These two similar arguments demonstrated that any object in this world came from nothing. Furthermore, the whole universe actually existed due to that moving cause which made another state of something and that efficient cause which created existence. It is up to everybody to decide whether those arguments could be reliable or not but without them there would be any chances to the existence of the world and the concept of time at all.
Speaking about three others proofs, they were not so convincing as the first two but still deserved to be mentioned here. The third argument dealt with the question of being and considered God the significant condition of each human’s existence. All things existed only in a certain period of time and had to be manufactured by something real. However, God was the only entity with his own essentiality that had always existed. The fourth way suggested that God was the standard and the top of gradation of all things (Burrell 76). As natural objects were compared to the degree of truth or goodness, God was believed to be the peak of perfection that could never be excelled. The last argument asserted that different entities without mind such as trees were governed by those who possessed the consciousness. This intelligent and consummate designer was surely God who directed all natural things to their end.
Finally, the biggest objection regarding Aquinas proofs lies in demonstrating that God has existed forever, that’s why nothing could move him. However, in order to manifest this idea the philosopher needed to prove that God existed at all and that made the whole thing even more complicated. In conclusion, though Aquinas gave rather pointful proofs for the existence of God, the logic and arguments would never solve the task. Every person should at first grasp the question with his faith and only after that with the common sense (Jenkins 81). So, if the element of faith is not present, it will never be possible to manifest the existence of God at full.
Works Cited
Bonnette, Dennis. Aquinas’ Proofs For God’s Existence, The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972.
Burrell, David. Aquinas: God and Action. Notre Dame: University of Notre, Dame Press, 1979.
Jenkins, John. Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
