St. Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways

Friday, February 27, 2009

St. Thomas Aquinas was born in 1225 in Italy. He was one of the greatest medieval thinkers, being both philosopher and theologian. Thomas Aquinas was initially a Benedictine priest, but later decides to become a Dominican priest. Thomas Aquinas produced lots of works, but did not write after December 6, 1273 when he had a religious experience. Thomas Aquinas died in 1274 in Italy, and was canonized in 1323.

St. Thomas Aquinas strongly believed that religion can be existant along with philosophy and science. Like the Muslim philosopher, Averroes, Aquinas argues that reason and religion should converge. It is here that we get his famous book Summa Theologica and its most important section containing "Five Ways" or "Quinquae viae".

First Way consists of the argument of the Unmoved Mover, where God who is the Unmoved Mover had put everything into motion.
Second Way consists of the argument of the First Cause, that God who is the uncaused first created everything to being and existence.
Third Way consists of the argument of the Contingency, in which God is the necessary being to cause the contingent beings to existance.
Fourth Way consists of the argument of Degree, where God is the most perfect being of all given qualities (e.g. goodness, beauty, knowledge)
Fifth Way consists of the argument of Intelligent Design; it states that all physical laws and the order of nature and life were designed and ordered by God, the intelligent designer.

From the Five Ways given by St. Thomas Aquinas, I would say that the First Way and the Fourth Way are the most unreasonable. In First Way (the argument of Unmoved Mover), St. Thomas Aquinas directly states that all motions are caused by a mover. I would disagree with this idea because not all motions have a mover. When a person walks, he is not moved by anything unless let's say God. If that is the case, then, the First Way would make whole lot of sense. However, the fact that we do not know that God really exists or not clearly defeats the idea, however. I also disagree with the Fourth Way where God is the most perfect being containing the best of all qualities. Who's to determine the best from any qualities? Every human being on Earth has different views and therefore, we cannot know how God is like because our views on perfection would all differ.