HI-45
The Flaws in Aquinas's Five Proofs
According to 13th-century philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas, the existence of the natural world requires the presence of God. He uses five proofs to justify his theory that God exists and that the natural world can only exist if God is real. However, Aquinas's arguments about the unmovable mover, perfect image, and master designer are deeply flawed. His attempt to confirm the existence of an almighty creator through the five proofs is unconvincing due to multiple faults.
Aquinas's argument shows to be lacking in his first three proofs, the cosmological argument. According to Proofs 1 to 3, Aquinas tries to come up with a reasonable premise; however, his conclusions make false assumptions about the universe. He states that nothing moves without a mover. To eliminate this infinite series of movements, the only escape is God. If an initial force is needed to start the motion, the initiator is God. However, various other causes besides God could have created the universe. For example, the Big Bang, a massive collision of dense matter, could have made the universe and started the chain reaction of movements.
Additionally, if God is moved by no other (Aquinas, 249), how could an immovable Being move others without moving Himself? Newton's Third Law of Motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. If God exerted a force to create the universe, he would not be able not to move. These flaws prove that Aquinas's argument about Proofs 1 to 3 is not convincing.
Furthermore, Proof 4 expands upon the notion that humans are judged based on varying degrees of perfection, the highest being that of God. Aquinas claims that more and less are predicated on different things according to their resembling something, which is the maximum (Aquinas, 249). Humans, however, are complex beings and exhibit many characteristics; they may have good and bad traits, all existing simultaneously. Therefore, no human being can achieve this level. Also, humans differ from each other in how they pursue truth. Some are believers and try to accomplish the fact through faith, whereas others are believers in reason and try to achieve the truth through logic. Since these two modes of thinking contradict each other, God cannot be a pinnacle for both. Thus Aquina...
