Aquinas

Question 1

What was Aquinas trying to do?

Answer 1

He was trying to use natural laws to explain how and why God existed.

Question 2

What were Aquinas’ 5 general arguments?

Answer 2

1. The unmoved mover
2. The argument of the first cause
3. The argument from contingency
4. The argument from degree
5. The argument from final cause.

Question 3

What is the argument of the unmoved mover?

Answer 3

Aquinas argues that recounting the causative effect of motion back to its source will run into an abundance of causes until one arrives at the first mover—God himself.

Question 4

What is the argument of the first cause?

Answer 4

The first cause argument is based around cause and effect. The idea is that everything that exists has something that caused it, there is nothing in our world that came from nothing.

Question 5

What is the argument from contingency?

Answer 5

Aquinas’ argument hinges on the idea that the existence of contingent beings requires a necessary being to avoid an infinite regress of causes and to explain the existence of anything at all.

Question 6

What is the argument from degree?

Answer 6

If an object has a property to a lesser extent, then there exists some other object that has the property to the maximum possible degree.

Question 7

What is the argument from final cause.

Answer 7

We see various objects that lack intelligence in the world behaving in regular ways. This cannot be due to chance since then they would not behave with predictable results. So their behavior must be set.