History final was a 100%

I’ll post the second part of it like I promised now. And note it omits the question.

(Note, this will spawn a rant about word.. in the next post, which catches up on the endless work cataloguing, adds a few things)

The excerpt lists his five arguments as listed in Summa Theologica.
•    The first argument can be summarized thusly: since things were in motion, some cause must have started this. This cause is God.
•    The second argument can be summarized thusly: some causes must have started the chain. This cause is God.
•    The third argument can be summarized thusly: Not everything can exist and not exist at the same time. The first being that must exist and cause other beings is God.
•    The fourth argument can be summarized thusly:  the only being that can be perfect and cause of other beings is God.
•    The fifth argument can be summarized thusly: Some being must direct things to their end. This is God.
All of these arguments rely on a logical argument known as reduction to absurd (reductio ad absurdum), which is to dismiss an argument by having it lead to grounds that are clearly absurd and not possible (Rescher)
Many also employ the cosmological argument.  This argument draws conclusions from observed facts and derives a unique being as the end conclusion of the argument. (Reichenbach) This argument has several weaknesses, and philosophical arguments continue over whether or not this could be a valid argument.

I started evaluating the arguments with the first.

The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another, for nothing can be in motion except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is in motion; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e. that it should move itself. Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God. (Aquinas)

There are a few problems with this argument and they apply equally to the second, and especially to the third, but before we can articulate them, we must first simplify the passage. The argument runs thus:
I.    Some things are in motion.
II.    Something must have put things in motion.
III.    Things cannot move itself (although this is a flawed premise)
IV.    So there must be a chain of infinite movers
V.    But movers cannot exist into the past ad infinitum
VI.    There must have been a first mover, and this is God.
As Ernest Negel notes
“For if everything must have a cause, why does not God require one for His own existence? The standard answer is that He does not need any, because He is self-caused. But if God can be self caused, why cannot the world itself be self-caused? Why do we require a God transcending the world into existence and to initiate changes in it?” (Negel 185)

The fourth one is a different argument, called the ontological argument. It has many different forms, but the general form of an ontological argument is that reason alone proves God exists. They do not rely on information at all (Poppy).  The form Aquinas uses is that “something must exist that is entirely perfect.” He says it must because something exist that is hottest.  Nagel notes that this has been criticized severely and possibly best by Kant’s criticism. “The substance of Kant’s criticism is that it is just a confusion to say that existence is an attribute, and that though the word existence may occur as the grammatical predicate in the sentence, no attribute is being predicated of a thing when we say that the thing exits or has existed.” (Negel 185)
The last argument that Aquinas uses is effectively from design. That is, some being must have designed things that do not move by chance, and that designer is God.  This argument is also the Watchmaker Hypothesis, and is the fore leading idea behind Intelligent Design.

For example:
The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection. ID is thus a scientific disagreement with the core claim of evolutionary theory that the apparent design of living systems is an illusion. (Intelligent Design Network)

This is the same form of argument as the one Aquinas uses. As Nagel writes
“The conclusion for this argument is based on an inference from analogy…But is this analogy a good one? … The answer is plain. We have never run across a watch that was not been deliberately made by something. But the situation is nothing like this in the case of the innumerable animate and inanimate systems with we are familiar… And once this point is clear, the inference that the existence of living organisms to the existence of a supreme designer no longer appears credible.” (Negal 186)
Nagel then goes on to note in a large case that Darwinian Biology largely explains what happens better than this theory and has a lot of evidence (Negel 187).
Therefore, I do not find any of Aquinas’s proofs attractive; in fact, I hold them all equally unattractive and wrong. On top of that, with the first three arguments being the same thing, it is much like reading the same argument restated repeatedly.
However, other arguments to support the existence of the Christian God have arisen. For example, the argument of intelligent design has recently been assigned to mathematics simply because of some emerging patterns. The issue with this is simply that patterns can arise in any system, even a highly chaotic system (Negel 187).
However, with the advent of other ways to support the existence of God (Pascal’s Wager, Kant’s hypothesis, the “look at <x>, it happened to him”) it is somewhat surprising to learn that both the forms of ontological and cosmological arguments continue to rage on in the philosophical community.  For example, a recent paper stating that the Big Bang is the proof of the Cosmological argument (that is, it proves ex nihilo, which is out of nothing, a principle frequently attacked) was written in 1994. A book dealing with the Ontological Argument is supposed to be out soon, but a book supporting it was written by R. Mydole and released in 2003, called “The Logic of the Ontological Argument”.
There appears to be no resolving of the question, it appears there never will be as theist’s debate this with other theists, and atheists and theists continue to debate it. It may be one of our questions without an answer.

Works Cited
Aquinas, St. Thomas. “Aquinas: Five Ways to Prove God Exists.” 1274. Theodore Grayck’s Web Page. 13 June 2008 <http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/aquinasFiveWays.htm>.
Grayck, Theodore. “Aguinas: Five Ways to Prove that God exists – The Arguments.” 2004. Theodore Grayck’s Home Page. University of Minnesota State. 13 June 2008 <http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/aquinasFiveWays_ArgumentAnalysis.htm>.
Intelligent Design Network. “Intelligent Design Network.” 2008. Intelligent Design Network. 13 June 2008 <http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/>.
Kagan, Donald, Steven Ozment and Frank M. Turner. The Western Heritage. 9th Edition. Vol. 1. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2007. 2 vols.
Nagel, Ernest. “Does God Exist?” Cahn, Steven M. Exploring Philosphy. 2nd edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 183-191.
Oppy, Graham. “Ontological Arguments (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philsophy).” 12 July 2007. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philsophy. 13 June 2008 <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ontological-arguments/>.
Reichenbach, Bruce. “Cosmological Argument (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosphy).” 16 September 2004. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosphy. 13 June 2008 <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/cosmological-argument/>.
Rescher, Nicholas. “Reductio ad Absurdum [Internet Dictionary of Philosphy].” 2006. Internet Dictionary of Philosophy. 13 June 2008 <http://www.iep.utm.edu/r/reductio.htm>.

~ by tigerplushie on June 17, 2008.