st thomas aquinas - five arguments

Question 1

What does Aquinas try to prove with his Argument from Efficient Causation? What are the argument’s premises and what conclusion does he draw from them?

Answer 1

-Efficient causes exist.
Something cannot be its own efficient cause.
But the series of efficient causes cannot go back to infinity.
There musty be an initial efficient cause that was itself uncaused.
Only God can be such a cause.
Therefore, God exists.

Question 2

why does aquinas think that a series of causes go back to infinity?

Answer 2

-

Question 3

Reconstruct and evaluate Aquinas’s argument that if everything could fail to exist, then there would have been a time at which nothing existed (the “argument from possibility and necessity”)

Answer 3

-There are things that can either exist or fail to exist (contingent things).
If something can fail to exist (is contingent), there was a time when it did fail to exist.
If everything could fail to exist (is contingent), then there would have been a time when nothing existed.
The Argument from Possibility and Necessity

But, if there were such a time, then there would be no world right now, since nothing can come out of nothing.
But the world does exist.
So, there must be something that cannot fail to exist (a necessary thing).
This thing is God.
Therefore, God exists.

Question 4

How does Aquinas argue in favor of God’s existence in his Argument form the Government of the World (also known as the Teleological Argument, the Fifth of his Five Ways)? What are some characteristics of God, according to the argument? What is a possible objection to the argument?

Answer 4

-All things (even inanimate ones) act for a purpose because they always act in the same way, and tend towards what is best.
So, they achieve their ends on purpose and not by chance.
This can only be done if everything is directed by something conscious and intelligent.
This is God.
Therefore, God exists