Aquinas's Causal Argument

The Causal Argument strategy is an argument from Aquinas that utilizes the Causal Principle. Aquinas’s argument starts from some known effect, as in relation to cause and effect, and then argues that this particular effect must have been caused by God. Aquinas starts off his argument by asserting the existencce of something. He then states the Causal Principle. Later, Aquinas makes a claim about what must be the sufficient cause of the thing he asserts exists in the first claim. Finally, he concludes that God exists. Descartes cannot use Aquinas’s argument because use of Aquinas’s first premise, “the universe exists” would present a contradiction and Descartes would have to address or answer an earlier criticism to Aquinas’s argument …show more content…
I think he was successful because he was able to establish the existence of God without using his senses. Descartes did this by using the mathematical truth of infinity in order to state how God is an infinite being. Since infinity is a mathematical truth, it survives radical doubt, which helps Descartes’s argument survive doubt. Also, simple natures such as shape and quantity survive radical doubt. Like mathematical truths, these are innate ideas. Likewise, Descartes idea of God is an innate idea as well, which also shows that Descartes idea of God can survive radical doubt. I also think Descartes responded well to criticism by explaining that God represents having infinitude. God is not an ordinary person, he is the model for having an infinite level of power, goodness, and longetivity for example. We all have innate ideas of what infinity is. While it seems as though Descartes thought of his idea of God through the senses, Descartes used God as a representation to show what infinity represents. I like how Descartes mentioned that there must be a sufficient cause. This sufficient cause for a concept to exist because a concept cannot appear out of nowhere even though I have innate ideas. My innate ideas originate by interacting with the world around me and understanding patterns such as shapes and numbers that exist beyond the physical world. These ideas are always there, but they originate from thought processes of humans. This inspires the existence of God, since God originates from Descartes thoughts and understanding of his