Pankow 1

Tyson Pankow
Mr. Izrailevsky
Philosophy
27 July 2014
What Thomas Aquinas was missing.
The works of Thomas Aquinas that interest me the most are his proofs for God's
existence. He took a stand quite different then most others when he decided to use natural reason
for his arguments. When reason is used, it makes a subject that is normally unapproachable a
great topic for philosophical debate. In his time Thomas Aquinas was a very educated man and
his ideas were eventually adopted by the church as one of the current cornerstones of modern
Christianity. Putting logic into faith does come with some shades of gray and those are going to
be the topic of my paper.
First off I want to summarize the arguments that Thomas makes, then I will try to explain
my rational thoughts of the augments both for and against each. To start we have the first
argument, the Argument from motion. Using a chain of cause and effect logic this argument
states that all motion has to originate from somewhere. For example for a tennis ball to be
soaring across a tennis court it must first had to have been hit by an already moving tennis
racket, this tennis racket was only induced into movement by way of a persons moving arm, that
person is in actuality in ani-motion by their already moving parents and so on. What looks like it
would be an infinite chain according to Thomas is actually impossible, that is where God is, the
original mover, the one who didnt require movement from anywhere to begin moving.
I want to point out something that I learned while researching this point, movement isnt
meant in the same manner as it is today. Movement to Thomas meant a change from potentiality

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to actuality, or in more layman's terms potential to change and having been changed. This is the
same idea that Aristotle held on cause and effect systems. One great point that is made in this
argument is that all of our existence is in motion, even more so than Saint Thomas could have
ever known. We hurdle around our universe at a blistering 1.3 million miles per hour! This level
of motion in our lives is amazing but I dont see how that leads to an irrational conclusion.
Just because traditional logic points to an infinite series of events, that logic isnt
necessarily wrong. Infinite series are not only acceptable answers, they are a proven
mathematical fact. There is also the possibility of any other variable having some effect on this
chain. Something like a sudden burst of energy from another dimension. That is just as likely and
some might argue more reasonable than pointing to an all knowing, all powerful, first mover
who moves himself without any reason. This arguments foundation in cause and effect is solid,
but in its conclusion it is flawed by an author who already thought he had the answer before he
even formed the question. How can logic of reason apply to something that by all definition
defies all logic and reason? Saint Thomas seems to address that problem at first in a rational way
then makes the necessary illogical jump to faith just so he can reach his predetermined
conclusion. To some an answer in faith is better then not knowing an answer at all.
I must caveat this scathing review of theological arguments with another valid thing I
learned in my research, Saint Thomas's arguments are meant to be parts of a whole, so I will at
the end critique them together as well. This doesnt excuse any other the logical fallacies in the
individual arguments, so will continue onto argument number two.
The so called Cosmological Argument, states that all of cause and effect must have an
original cause, no thing can be its own original cause for existence, as existence is dependent on
an outside force causing it. So again, to avoid the infinite series of what caused the first cause of

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existence, we turn to God, the first creator who didnt need to be created because he always was,
is, and shall be.
This cosmological argument has a very similar structure to the first argument from
motion and, unfortunately, most of the same faults. Saint Thomas starts his argument off with a
end goal in sight. It isnt ever about using the tool of logic to come upon a conclusion, whatever
that may be. It is a person paving a way to what they believe to be the truth. This goes directly in
the face of almost everything I have learned about philosophy to date . These statements are
easily refuted by high school level logic and rhetoric. Thomas is correct that all of the things in
the universe and even our universe itself did come into existence because of something else. But
to assume to know what that thing is without any proof or even a valid thought experiment to
hint at the true nature of what we know must have happened seems grossly irresponsible. If the
logical leap to it must be God is acceptable at any point in any chain of logical inquiry, then
the system we use to delineate the world into useful knowledge just breaks down at the seams.
To prove this point wrong sufficiently all we must do is look at the nature of subatomic
particles and the law of conservation of mass, if you define our closed system to be the universe
the amount of mass in it is constant even if the states of that mass change in form. That means an
individual thing like a tree can undergo significant changes without ever having to be its own
creator, all while still never making something out of nothing. All the mass was there to start
with, it was just reformed again and again throughout the life cycle of the tree. None of this ever
points a definitive finger at a creator God, but rather just a closed system of mass behaving
according to some very logical set rules. Not knowing the origin of those rules is scary, but it is
not a valid reason to invent a mythical solution with no evidence to support it.
Moving on to the third argument, the Argument from necessity. This argument is

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structured differently than the first two and is to me, one of his more persuasive points. It is
based on two different types of things: those that by nature are not necessary and things that are
without a doubt essential. This line in the sand is drawn to include everything we can imagine in
our entire universe as unnecessary or completely only in existence at this point in time due to
some circumstance, but could also be gone tomorrow. The universe itself might not exist
someday or might have not been in existence at some point in the past. It is a conditional
existence. The argument goes on to point out how no matter how hard we try we can't possibly
imagine a time in which nothing at all has existed. A void, to the best of my knowledge, is
something that is completely impossible to imagine in the human mind. The very thought of it
requires us to imagine something, which defeats the no-thingness of the idea. This is where Saint
Thomas's argument leaps to God again. He postulates that there must have always been
something in the void something which is by its nature necessary to avoid the paradox of how
can nothing have turned into something. God has always been and always will be. He is the
necessity that kept the void from being complete and will outlast the universe to keep existence
existing.
My thoughts on this argument are much less forceful due to my own inability to imagine
a void. However, I can stick to my guns about the illogical leap to the thing holding back the
void being God. Why couldnt it be something more akin to the multiverse theory in physics
where a bubble in space time was just a thin veil away from our current existence and all that we
know of burst through at the time of the big bang? I wouldnt state that as a fact because there is
a severe lack of empirical evidence for it, but I hope people can see a parallel between my
conclusion and Saint Thomass. They both solve the problem and both are unable to be proven.
Those first three arguments were based around proving the existence of a deity, but in no

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way addressed the character that God would have. These last two of his famous arguments define
the quality and type of God we are discussing.
The fourth argument is called the Argument from Gradation. This is a very metaphysical
argument, it stems from the point of what is good if it is not measured against something.
How good are you? can only be asked if there is an ultimate good to stack up against. What is
the value of a worm? A tree? A human life? Saint Thomas states that there is a hierarchy of souls,
that goes from least complex life all the way up through complex life like us, then up through
angels and finally into the ultimate in complexity of life God. And, to be fair, this scale works
for anything, not just complexity. It is a scale of good and evil, ability, knowledge, and even
things like morality.
This argument is dependent on a firm belief in the soul, a belief that not everyone has.
Most of the other ways to measure the difference between us and a worm are dependent on how
highly you place yourself in the way of the world. If you subscribe to the Christian belief, we
hold dominion over all the earth. If you follow the teachings of Lao-Tzu, this is a gross affront to
the greatness of the Tao. The immense complexity of the universe around you should only point
out your own insignificance. If the Saint's argument is correct, then God would by definition be
the best of the good and the best of the kind. Unfortunately this argument has nothing to do with
empirical evidence, rational thought, or logic. I do not in anyway place myself above the life of a
dog, for why should I? I can think logically? Yes that is an amazing ability unmatched by another
creature on this planet. But I cant smell things on anything near the same scale a dog can. Who is
to say my ability makes me better?
The last point in the Five Ways is a argument about design and order called the
Teleological Argument. This argument is based upon viewing the telos of any object. The ends of

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an object or organism seem to contribute in an almost intelligent way to our world as a whole.
Rainforests rivers, and mountains, things that supposedly do not have any knowledge of
existence, all play a part to keep our world in balance. This leads to the though of a supreme
organizer that has put our universe into a logical and intelligent order. This seeming designer
must be no other than God.
I find some pretty good logic in this conclusion even though I still find it ultimately
flawed. This world does act almost strangely as one giant living breathing organism. The ebbs
and flows of the passage of time seem to only magnify the extreme nature of this level of order.
One would expect to find chaos in the vast emptiness of our universe if it wasnt manufactured
and maintained by a creator. That is where I find my distinction.
Our planet does seem to be unique in that it supports life so well, but this does nothing to
show the stark reality of the universe as a whole. Without much success we have been looking
for planets similar to our own out there in the void. And every time we do find something we
come upon conclusions like that planet is horrifyingly deadly, due to its massive layers of acidic
winds and subzero temperatures. or the always popular the gravity alone would crush us to
death. The universe is not a neatly ordered place. It is by definition the very chaos we would
expect without any creators guiding hand. Just because we can point out a couple of symbiotic
relationship systems here on earth doesnt prove anything about the universe as a whole. In fact,
it just misses the mark for our planet as well. There are few things more chaotic and disorganized
then human beings themselves. If there was a creator God why would he throw the worst
monkey wrench he had into the mix just to watch it all burn? If the universe was in perfect order
we would have never come into being. At the point of the big bang, while space stretched into
every possible direction, all matter would have stayed perfectly spaced apart in an ordered

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universe. This means the mass of the first stars would have never coalesced, planets and galaxies
would never have been conceived. If Saint Thomas's argument proves anything to me, it is that if
there was a all powerful being, he did only one thing for us as a whole and that was to break the
perfect uniformity of the galaxy. This, I suppose, is the very opposite of the point he was trying
to make.
Like I stated previously, Thomas's arguments are supposed to stand together, to help
define what God is to a layman. However, after careful review I find his logic to be lacking, his
reason to not be sound, and most importantly, his questions biased from the beginning. You
cannot delve into philosophy with an answer in hand and come out unchanged. If you have, you
surely have missed something important. I do really appreciate Saint Thomas Aquinas's attempts
to bridge the gap between the divine and the philosophical, but I still feel that the subject has not,
and most likely will not ever be settled.
I will conclude with a quote that I find fitting to this discourse, Most institutions
demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.- Robert King
Merton

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Works Cited
Merton, Robert King. Social theory and social structure. 1968 enl. ed. New York: Free Press, 1962.
Print.
Soccio, Douglas J.. "The Scholar: Thomas Aquinas." Archetypes of wisdom. 7th ed. Belmont, Calif.:
Wadsworth Pub. Co., 2010. . Print.
"ASP: How Fast Are You Moving When You Are Sitting Still?." ASP: How Fast Are You Moving
When You Are Sitting Still?. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 July 2014.
<www.astrosociety.org/edu/publications/tnl/71/howfast>.
"Quinque viae." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 13 July 2014. Web. 28 July 2014.
<en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinque_viae>.