...However, there is one simple question that brings nations together; does God exist? This is an inquisition that Has stumped many and has resulted in the emergence of countless theories to prove the existence of a Supreme Being. Following the three different arguments, defended and criticized by numerous philosophers, the ontological, cosmological, and teleological argument are indisputable proof of the existence of God. The idea of God has been around for thousands of...
Words: 1527 - Pages: 7
...THOMAS AQUINAS Introduction Saint Thomas Aquinas is one of the most famous saints of the Catholic Church. He is called a 'Doctor of the Church' and was a theologian, and philosopher. His parents sent him to a monastery when he was five years old and his teachers were surprised by how quickly he learned and his great faith. But when Thomas announced that he wanted to become a Dominican, his family tried to stop him. His brothers captured him and locked him up in a castle. His mother, sister and brothers kept him there for two years. Thomas was a very big man with a kind and humble manner. Because he didn't talk very much, people thought he was stupid and therefore called him 'the ox.' When they heard him preach, however, everyone realized how wise Thomas really was. After he became a priest, Thomas studied in Paris and taught at universities in many cities of Europe. He wrote more than 40 books and several beautiful hymns. All of his work praises God and helped many people understand faith better. At the end of his life, Saint Thomas stopped writing and he had a vision of Heaven. Because of this experience, Thomas decided that compared to the great glory of God, his writing was 'like straw.' Three months later, on his way to see the Pope, he died. Thomas Aquinas’ Early Life and Eduacation He was born in Italy in 1225, the son of a count. When he was five years old, his parents send him to study with the Benedictines of Monte Casino. There, and later at the university...
Words: 2468 - Pages: 10
...cosmological arguments The ontological and cosmological arguments Does God exists? Has been asking this question over and over, but there may not be an exact answer to this question. Over the time this topic has been disputing among the philosophers and the people who tried to answer it. . There are many questions and issues that are related to this question. Depending on the people if they are believers or not? Or what are the essences of a person religion? There is no specific answer to any of these questions and therefore one would ask. When people are asked about God existence, from their answers we can classify them in to two groups, the first group would be the believers whom answers will be yes based on the person’s believes. The second group would be the atheist who does not agree on God existence. However, whether a person is a believer or an atheist, there cannot be a significant prove that God exist or not. There two argument to the question of whether God exist or not. The Ontological Argument and the Cosmological Argument. The ontological argument is presented by St Anselm and the Cosmological Argument is presented by Saint Thomas Aquinas. In this essay I am going to explore both argument. The Ontological Argument The first argument I am going to explore is The Ontological Argument explained by St Anselm. In exploring St Anselm argument we can summarize it in the following characteristics. The first characteristic of Anselm ontological argument is that God is a perfect...
Words: 1076 - Pages: 5
...God existence In the Middle Ages the existence of God was unquestionable to theologians. They simply knew that He was not an invention of humans. Even so, many of them tried to prove that God was real. The main conflict in the XI century was between two social groups: First of all, those who saw theology as a Bible commentary –and said that God was unreachable and a mystery-. Secondly, those who thought that rational analysis would be better -and were in favour of a more empirical and rational knowledge-. Religion and philosophy were largely mixed. The task of philosophical theology was to clarify, determine and explain the existence of God. How were philosophers supposed to do it? What are the different approaches taken by two of the most important medieval thinkers –Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas-, and how do they differ? ***** Both Thomas Aquinas and Anselm of Canterbury identified God as a supreme being with a large number of attributes, necessary for life and the cause of the universe. They acted as mediators between the philosophical problems of their time. Anselm of Canterbury defined God as "that than nothing better can be thought" -meaning that we think of God as the most perfect being, the supreme being-. He considered it possible to demonstrate the existence of God from the mere intellectual understanding of the concept of God. He rejected the observation of the world. The existence in reality is greater than in the mind alone...
Words: 1291 - Pages: 6
...Aristotle Name: Aristotle Occupation: Philosopher Birth date: c. 384 BCE Death date: c. 322 BCE Education: Plato's Academy, Lyceum Place of birth: Stagira, Chalcidice, Greece Place of death: Chalcis, Euboea, Greece Synopsis Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle was born circa 384 B.C. in Stagira, Greece. When he turned 17, he enrolled in Plato’s Academy. In 338, he began tutoring Alexander the Great. In 335, Aristotle founded his own school, the Lyceum, in Athens, where he spent most of the rest of his life studying, teaching and writing. Aristotle died in 322 B.C., after he left Athens and fled to Chalcis. Early Life In Athens, Aristotle enrolled in Plato’s Academy, Greek’s premier learning institution, and proved an exemplary scholar. Aristotle maintained a relationship with Greek philosopher Plato, himself a student of Socrates, and his academy for two decades. Plato died in 347 B.C. Because Aristotle had disagreed with some of Plato’s philosophical treatises, Aristotle did not inherit the position of director of the academy, as many imagined he would. After Plato died, Aristotle’s friend Hermias, king of Atarneus and Assos in Mysia, invited Aristotle to court. During his three-year stay in Mysia, Aristotle met and married his first wife, Pythias, Hermias’ niece. Together, the couple had a daughter, Pythias, named after her mother. Teaching In 338 B.C., Aristotle went home to Macedonia to start tutoring King Phillip II’s son, the then 13-year-old...
Words: 1228 - Pages: 5
...moral philosophy and metaphysical philosophy. Philosophy is a system of principles for guidance. So how do philosophy and the Christian life intersect? One of the ways to understand that is to look at the early church philosophers that have shaped our knowledge and understanding of the scriptures. In the following paragraphs we will examine the philosopher Thomas Aquinas. Thomas had a way of understanding God that you may or may not agree with but hopefully will learn about him in the paragraphs ahead. Thomas Aquinas was an Italian Dominican theologian and philosopher that is believed by many to be one of the most influential thinkers of Scholasticism and is also know as the father of the Thomistic school of theology. Thomas Aquinas was born in the year 1225 in Roccasecca, in the Kingdom of Sicily also know as present day Italy. He combined the theological principles with the principles of reason and he is ranked by many as one of the most influential thinkers of medieval Scholasticism. Thomas was the son Landulf of Aquino and is believed to be born in his father’s castle. At the age of five Thomas began his education at Monte Cassino to train among Benedictine monks. He remained there until he was around the age of 13 when political tempers began to flare and that forced him to move to Naples. It was while he was studying at the Benedictine house in Naples that he was introduced...
Words: 2371 - Pages: 10
...philosophers Thomas Aquinas and Bertrand Russell. Each of them argues about the existence of God, and both have different opinions on it. Aquinas’ argument is about efficient causation, whereas Russell’s is the first-cause argument. I believe that Thomas Aquinas’s argument was validly challenged by by Bertrand Russell’s argument. I believe that Russell’s argument and Aquinas’ argument were both very well put together but I do believe that Russell’s argument is more valid than Aquinas’ because there is more hard evidence and facts that prove he is right, compared to Aquinas’ argument, which is more mind based and harder to grasp. There are less reasons proven to believe Aquinas’ argument over Russell’s argument. Aquinas’s argument is based on efficient causation. Efficient causation is easily understood by saying that for x to be the cause of y is for x to bring about y, or to explain y. Aquinas says that efficient cause comes in series, or causal chains. We basically cannot prove or see that something has its own efficient cause. If something happens, then something before it caused it to happen, and so on. Aquinas says “Therefore, if there were no first efficient cause, then there would be no last or intermediary efficient causes.” (Aquinas, 45). Aquinas argues that without this or any chain of events, then things would not happen. But he says that there has to be a first efficient cause. “We must therefore posit a first efficient cause, which everyone understands to be God.” (Aquinas...
Words: 1116 - Pages: 5
...Thomas Aquinas was an Italian priest who were the pioneers of theological teachings and famous for his Eucharistic hymns in church. Aquinas is a distinguished saint honored by the Catholic Church for his contributions in natural reasoning and several teachings of theology. The papal that undergo training go through his teachings and the pope of the Catholic Church has ordained him as the doctor of the church and the greatest philosopher and theologician of all times. Aquinas was considered a philosopher by his mates but he strongly objected and criticized other philosophers who pagans that the missed the massive wisdom available in the Christian revelations. Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher who formulated the theory of ethical deontology (Fagothey) Kant was a strong proponent of enlightenment rationalism which basically meant that for something to be good , it must be from a good will so and that the action just follows the will and the moral law. He also perpetrated the principle of universibility and strongly believed that for an action to be permissible by the society, must equally apply to all the people in the same manner and not biased. He also believed in the theories of perfect and imperfect duty and advocated that the perfect duty should an obvious thing in the eyes of the humanity such as committing murder is a criminal to both the mind and the soul and can be referred as a perfect duty. Imperfect duty such charitable works can be substantiated and simply bases...
Words: 686 - Pages: 3
...Cosmological Argument An important argument to try and prove the existence of God is the Cosmological Argument brought on by observations of the physical universe, made by Saint Thomas Aquinas, a thirteenth century Christian philosopher. The cosmological argument is a result from the study of the cosmos; Aquinas borrows ideas from Aristotle to make this systematically organized argument. Aquinas’ first point begins with the observation that everything is moving. Aquinas’ says that everything that moves must be moved by another moving thing, which has to be moved by another moving thing and so on. This cannot be infinite though, because consequently the motion of the series would have no origin, and the origin of this series cannot be moving because then there would have to be something moving it. Therefore, God, being a perfect, unmoved, uncaused being, would have to be the unmoving origin, “The First Mover”, of the series of moving things. The second point made by Aquinas’ is that everything is caused and what is caused to exist has to be caused by another thing because nothing can cause its own self to exist. This chain of caused things caused by another thing cannot be endless because that would mean there would be no beginning to cause the existence therefore, the existence of the origin of this chain of caused things would have to be uncaused. So God would have to be the first uncaused, non dependent origin of all the other existing caused things. Regarding Aquinas’ first...
Words: 654 - Pages: 3
...the confidence one must have in God through other worldly experience, yet treat tactile data altogether different. Aquinas, in spite of Augustine, was a remarkable empiricist. As he drew on Aristotle, who was additionally an empiricist, Aquinas trusted the faculties are that through which we discover reality. Aquinas, alongside Aristotle, trusted that deliberation is a procedure that happens in the human personality. A man, subsequent to seeing numerous material articles, for example, a wicker bin ball, will have the capacity to extract the general type of the item, along these lines having the capacity to build the conceptual thought of a b-ball in their brain, which would be a procedure done by the "dynamic mind". Aquinas developed Aristotle's thoughts of the astuteness and how we comprehend data. Aquinas contended that the brains comprehend "ghosts", or inside duplicates of what we see, by abstracting. The "aloof keenness" is the part of the insightfulness that knows material protests, what Aquinas accepted is the means by which we know all items. To comprehend ghosts, we require the detached brains to comprehend what we are seeing. The dynamic judgment is the part of the acumen ready to digest from learning of the inactive. Both Aquinas and Augustine concur upon the way that God is the object of extreme learning. The logicians would see eye to eye on the way that one can know God through reason, while nobody can know or comprehend God completely in light of the fact...
Words: 2175 - Pages: 9
...especially of the Bible which was considered the main source of knowledge. Despite this scholasticism encouraged speculation and reasoning, as it involved a rigid logical framework and a schematic structure of debates[2] exposed rebuttals in order to prepare defenses. The heyday of scholasticism in the thirteenth century coincides with the foundation of universities and emergence the mendicant orders (Dominicans and Franciscans, mostly), from which come most theologians and philosophers of the time.[3] Undoubtedly one of the most influential scholastic is Saint Thomas Aquinas. His work, Summa Theologia accepted the Aristotelian concepts of empiricism and hylomorphism and the distinction between two kinds of intellect[4] . He developed a sort of Platonic-Aristotelian merger, Thomism[5], with its cosmological arguments for the existence of God. The demarcation between philosophy and religious belief held by Aquinas begins the process of independence of reason from the next century that will eventually...
Words: 782 - Pages: 4
...entirely governed by a God or some all powerful government. Now, this is not a representation of our world, because here we have the ability to choose and think on our own. However, because of this, people now have the ability to commit evil acts and cause chaos in people’s lives. In fact, evil is not even caused just by people, it is found within the order of the world itself, things like: weather, animals, natural disasters, etc. This is known as the Problem of Evil, or the idea that evil always exists despite the fact that there is an all powerful, all-knowing, all-good God....
Words: 1597 - Pages: 7
...James Anderson Professor Holman Philosophy 100 First Paper: Question One Saint Thomas Aquinas was a 13th Century Catholic Monk and Philosopher who was influenced by earlier philosophers such as Aristotle and Averroes. One of Aquinas’ most famed publications was his Five Ways in which he argues for the existence of God and his nature. One of the five arguments he writes about is called the “First Cause” argument. It establishes that the universe is a casual series of events that are all traced back to a first cause. Aquinas’ logical argument for the existence of the traditional monotheistic God and that He is the first cause of the universe convinces me because of the unbreakable logic of the argument and the consistency with modern day knowledge of the beginning of the universe. Aquinas’ “first cause” argument is one of the many cosmological arguments that try to answer the question about the origins of the universe. The first premise of the argument is that some things or events are caused. Followed by the second premise, which says that some things cause themselves or some things are caused by something other than themselves. We know the third premise is, nothing can cause itself. So the conclusion of the first 3 premises is that if something is caused, then it is caused by something other than itself. Therefore, if something is caused by something other than itself, then a causal series or a series of cause and effect is established. Thus, we know cause precedes its...
Words: 1056 - Pages: 5
...Does God Exist The question of God’s existence has lingered in the mind of man since the dawn of religion. The simple fact that billions of people consider themselves to have some allegiance to a deity means that this question deserves to be seriously considered. In this paper I will argue for the sake that God does exist and the reasons why. I will include many of the arguments found in our philosophy book and those covered in class as well as other subjects such as human suffering and the reasons God chose to make the world as it is today, also including examples from life and the movies we watched in class. St. Thomas Aquinas had many arguments for the existence of God and one of those was the fifth way. In the argument of the fifth way Aquinas says “The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that they achieve their end, not fortuitously, but designedly. Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is directed by the archer. Therefore, some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God”. Here St. Thomas Aquinas is basically saying that the existence of order and apparent purpose in the universe...
Words: 1494 - Pages: 6
...human law vs. divine law, and good government vs. bad government, are all things that hold strong influence over the people in society, and determine their behavior towards one another. Laws are created to maintain order amongst the people, and therefore, should be reflective of everyone as a whole. For those who cause trouble should be the only ones subjected to the law. And, despite the law holding so much power, many people still break it. In this paper, I will explore the religious, philosophical, and political views of St. Thomas Aquinas in relation to the law in society, through his following works: The Doctrine of Necessary Being, the Weakness of Will, and his views on the City, Province, and Empire in the Subsidiarity, Federalism, and Best Constitution. I will then explore his reasoning about why religion and state should co-exist independently, but overlap in the governing of the people. Thomas Aquinas is one of the most renowned Saints in the Dominican Order. He was born in Roccasecca, Italy in 1225. From the age of five to thirteen he attended a...
Words: 1763 - Pages: 8
