Thomas Aquinas Proof For The Existence Of God

The Existence of God
One of the most prominent topics that Aquinas chose to focus on was the idea of the existence of God. In his opinion, the existence of God was not self-evident, rather it had to be proven and discovered. Aquinas states that God “is that which no greater can be thought;” yet not all shared the same conclusive idea; therefore, God needed to be both defined and proved, in Aquinas’ opinion. We as humans, cannot start with the idea of God or with the definition, and by that supposition prove the existence of God. Rather, Aquinas determined that there are certain proofs that can be reached in order to prove the supernatural and in turn, prove the existence of God. It is important here to clarify that in Aquinas’ opinion there
Expounding on this, Aquinas states that there are five “proofs” for the existence of God; these being: movement/motion, causation, existence of contingency, gradation, and order tendencies of nature. Anything in motion is in motion because a previous motion. Aquinas uses this principle specifically for his first explanation as to the existence of God: “Whatever is in motion, must be put in motion by another.” In other words, things do not just move on their own, something has to be the causation and starter of that motion. The theory of infinite regress states that there must then be a start, or there must be an unmoved mover that started the chain of effects. Therefore, from this Aquinas points to the existence of God, as the first unmoved mover, the being that first started motion. “Therefore, it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.” Aquinas’s second proof for the existence of God, is founded upon Aristotle’s third cause, the efficient cause. Everything has a cause and anything that is caused has to have a creator; therefore, due to infinite regress
Romans 1:20 states that: “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” Aquinas’ philosophy on this matter I find effectively correlates what Paul is talking about in Romans 1:20. I agree with Aquinas in the idea that there is proof for the spiritual world, and that existence of the spiritual world is all around us and undeniable. The idea that there is an uncaused caused, or an unmoved mover, has had an impact on my own philosophy. I believe that as Aquinas states the world and the structure of it prove there is a being outside of it. There is a cause that created and caused something else which led to a domino effect, and as Augustine I too believe this is God. However, I believe that we have to take a leap, that faith is required. In class we discussed how there are steps to point to God in the ontological argument, but as Kierkegaard states, unlike Aquinas, there is a leap that needs to be taken from the supernatural to the belief in God. At some point there is a jump that we as philosophers have to make in order to get to the existence of God and Faith is