Aquinas Research Paper

The works of Italian philosopher Thomas Aquinas still hold prominent to this day. Influenced by the works Greek philosopher Aristotle, he was convinced to find evidence of the existence of a God. Through the first two “ways” of Gods existence, he explored the relationship between the cause and the resulting phenomenon of the world’s occurrences. In this paper I will argue that, Aquinas’s first two ways do very little to effectively suggest that a God actually exists.

The first way of Aquinas is the argument of motion. Through general observation, Aquinas noted that an object that is in motion (e.g., a rolling stone) is put into motion by another entity or force. From this, Aquinas believes God is the entity putting things into motion. Let …show more content…
For example, an apple that is on a tree has potential energy due to its high position. The tree is what gives this apple its potential energy, so if there is not a first mover that created the tree to what it is now, than there cannot be any motions. To a certain degree, I agree with this, however, Newton’s first law of physics has shown that the premises of “any movement requires a cause” to be false. The first law of physics states that “an object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion continues to move in a straight line at a constant speed until an external unbalanced force acts upon it”. This argument loses its strength due on the phenomenon of acceleration. Aquinas premises speaks of the supporting work God has in keeping motion constant, not about the changes that the universe creates on an object when it is in motion. Cosmologically, it is also possible that an unconscious force was the first unmoved mover. The big bang theory hypothesizes the universe as ever expanding that was created by chance through an explosion and subsequent cooling allowed for particles to be formed. There is a belief that it is through …show more content…
Aquinas believed that events that occur have a cause that precedes their effects. He states because there are causes, there must be a God that causes the first event. From this, Aquinas credits God as the force that allows things to happen. At first glance, this seems like a very effective way of explaining the existence of a higher power. It makes a strong case for a higher power because we as human beings do not precisely know how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. If we all come from one cell, what created that cell? If that cell came from the big bang, what gave the big bang its starting force? These are questions that give strength to this, because we just do not completely know the answers. However when broken down further, this argument has flaws that can be debated. First, by saying that there is a single entity commanding all the causes of the universe, he is ultimately disregarding the possibility of infinite causes. Human beings are not all knowing, and cannot accurately confirm or deny something that corresponds to the totality of the beginning of time. Although this may not seem entirely possible, in mathematics, it is possible to have infinite numbers of regression, going from positive to negative infinity. By saying this I am trying to convey that “global why” questions are not possible to independently confirm or deny. So by completely refuting the possibility of an infinite chain of