The Apologetic Ways of Thomas Aquinas

Cosmological Arguments

In the first of a series of apologetic arguments, lets first deal with some classics. There are many different apologetics and most people are familiar with at least a few of the cosmological ones. So let’s check those premises, abandon ad-hominem attacks and proceed! Here are Aquinas’ Cosmological Ways arguments:

Aquinas’s First Way: Unmoved Mover

1. Some things are moved.

2. Whatever is moved is moved by another.

3. There cannot be an infinite series of movers.

4. So, there must be an unmoved mover (God).

Aquinas’s Second Way: Uncaused Cause

1. Some things are caused.

2. Whatever is caused is caused by another.

3. There cannot be an infinite series of causes.

4. So, there must be an uncaused cause (God).

Aquinas’s Third Way: Necessary Being

1. Whatever is contingent at one time did not exist.

2. If everything is contingent, then at one time nothing existed. 3. If at one time nothing existed, then nothing would exist now. 4. Something does exist now. 5. So, not every being is contingent. 6. So, there is a necessary being. 7. Either the necessary being gets its necessity from another, or exists necessarily of itself. 8. There cannot be an infinite regress of necessary beings that get their necessity from another. 9. So, there is a necessary being that exists necessarily of itself.

We will go further on other contingency arguments in future posts. The basis of this site is that God is the only necessary being. Everything else, including the universe, is contingent, because it requires a cause to exist. Now you way think that God isn’t the only explanation, the flying spaghetti monster could have created the universe. However, the FSM is an absurdity and not a reasonable explanation. While God can’t be proven to exist or not, we must base our philosophical thinking toward the most probable. Science is valuable for explaining the hows, but not the whys.

#apologetics #aquinas #contingency #cosmological