St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas, was a Dominican monk, who generally one of the greatest Scholastic writers of all times. He used ancient philosophy to prove religious propositions. One of the ancient philosophers that St. Thomas Aquinas used to prove religious facts was Aristotle. One of the greatest works that Aristotle did was to prove that god really exists. St. Thomas Aquinas used the forms that Aristotle and Plato used to prove the same philosophical question, does god really exist?

St. Thomas Aquinas, first started by stating, is the existence of God self-evident.

Here he states that God because he is self-evident, he ahs his own existence. But since we don't know the true essence of God, this proposition is not self-evident to us. For us to see that God is self- evident we need to be demonstrated through things that we know more about. Aquinas, also say that, we know God exists but because is implemented to us by nature. Anything that is naturally desired by man, God naturally knows it.

Next, Aquinas asks the question "can it be demonstrated that God exists?" If the existence of God could be demonstrated it can only come from his effects. But the problem is that his effects are not reasonable to him because he is infinite and his effects are limited. Because of this Aquinas says that the existence of God can't be demonstrated. Aquinas also says that the name given to god comes from his effects, by deriving the name of God from his effects we can also prove that God exists but we cannot know him perfectly according to his essence.

Aquinas finally asks the question, Does God exists? Here he will prove the existence of God in five different ways. The first is taken form motion. Aquinas says that it is impossible for something to be moving and moved at the same time, in other words that something has to be moving itself. An object that is moving or being moved had has to be moved by another object. This cannot happen forever because at the end there won't be a primary or secondary mover. If a primary mover moves something this primary mover is understood to be God.

The second way is from the nature of efficient cause. Here, Aquinas tries to prove that if there is no first efficient cause there wont be no last efficient cause. Aquinas says that if it is possible to never come to an end in efficient causes there won't be no first efficient cause and there won't be know end or intermediate effect. Aquinas states that this is false. So we have to admit that the first efficient cause is God.

The third way is derived form the possible and the necessary. Aquinas begins by saying