Critical Analysis of Thomas Aquinas' "The Five Ways"

Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican monk, created five arguments that all are proving the existence of God. Before Aquinas explains why God does exist in the world, he provides the objections that are against the existence of God. With one objection dealing with if God has infinite goodness, then evil should not exist. But evil does exist in the world so this idea contradicts with itself and thus means that God could not exist (Pojman 51). The second objection Aquinas points out is the discussion of the existence of God requires little principles that manage to produce numerous things in nature. But nature proves that all of these principles can be accounted by other principles. With this in mind, all things in nature can be reduce to one principle. As all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle, which is human reason. In the end resulting that there is no reason to believe that God has an existence (Pojman 51). Aquinas decides to disprove both these objections with his five arguments.

Aquinas first argument is based almost on the idea of Isaac Newton’s third law of motion, which is for every action is a reaction. Aquinas discuss about how there must be some kind of cause that would later cause the creation of the universe. The “first cause” argument Aquinas argues that in order for the world to exist there must be some type of infinite being that must be the first cause. Since God would be that infinite being, then God would cause the world to come into existence. An example that Aquinas provides an example about fire and wood that related to the first cause argument. In order for movement or an action to happen, then a thing cannot be brought from potentiality to actuality without a thing that already exists in actuality. Hot is an actuality, like fire, makes wood hot in potentiality. But in order for wood to be hot actuality, then a cause must happen such as fire set the wood aflame in order for the hot become an actuality (Pojman 51). Aquinas believes that God is the first cause of the universe or even existence itself to be an actuality. This argument does make some kind of sense in the idea that in order to have a finite existence that some kind of infinite existence must exist in order for such a cause to happen. The one flaw that can be recognize in this argument is the idea of how is it possible to be against the idea of existence coming to existence due to random events that happen in the cosmos billions of years ago, but yet believe in the idea that a God has existed before the universe was created. Aquinas’ argument makes some sense if the argument is related to the idea of Newton’s third law of motion. The idea that in order for a finite existence to exist, then an infinite existence must exist for that first cause to take place.

The fourth argument presented by Aquinas discusses the idea of degrees in life. He believes that God must be the highest degree of nobility and goodness. That like the fire example, fire is hot at its highest degree. This would mean that fire is the first cause for anything to be hot (Pojman 53). This argument presented by Aquinas argues against the second objection for the principles in life. Aquinas’ fourth argument is like a tree diagram of some sort. With God being at the top of the tree diagram, the graph that branches out must be existence.

The fifth argument presented by Aquinas is the idea of harmony. Aquinas argues that it is hard to conceive the idea that these events in life that caused existence can not arrive at their goal simply by chance, but by purpose (Pojman 53). That thing in life that has no knowledge does not move towards a goal unless a knowledgeable being guides that unknowledgeable thing to the goal. Aquinas uses the example of an arrow and archer. The arrow has no mind or goal, it is just an arrow. But with the help of the knowledgeable archer, then the arrow has a purpose and a destination (Pojman 53). God is this being that is all knowledgeable and guides the unknowledgeable beings, such as the world, to a goal or purpose. This is what Aquinas calls harmony within the relationship of God and humans. This idea of harmony might seem to contradict the idea of God giving human beings the ability of free will. If God works like Aquinas explains in his fifth argument, then human does not truly have free will since God is directing the universe. So according to what Aquinas argues about, God might have allow evil to enter this world since he is the guiding the world.

In all of the five arguments that Aquinas uses to prove the existence of God, when any of these arguments are only look on the surface. Then they provide great reasoning of how God could actually exist. But when any of these topics are discuss even more and a critical analysis is applied to any of the arguments. Then flaws and contradictory appears in Aquinas’ text. Aquinas use arguments that can be supported if certain topics are avoided in the explanation of God’s existence. In Aquinas’s first cause argument, one would have to ignore the fact that even though Aquinas refuse to believe in the idea like the Big Bang theory since they can not comprehend the idea of a universe just having a spontaneous explosion that created life in the end. But yet in his first argument, he argues that God, an infinite being, must have created existence. This is some form of contradiction as if he could accept the idea of a being that has always existed before existence itself, then why is it so hard to believe in the idea of the universe to create itself? The totality of Aquinas’ five arguments makes some sort of sense, but these arguments can not be consider a fact since the arguments seem to contradict within itself.

Pojman, Louis P. Philosophy The Quest for Truth. Ed. L. P. Pojman. 6th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.