Aquinas' Proofs of God

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was one of the most brilliant theologians and philosophers of the Middle Ages and all of human history. Aquinas famously believed that the existence of God could be proved by reason alone and he provided five arguments to this effect. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at each of the five arguments alongside the counter-arguments and will also consider what Aquinas’ philosophy tells us about his conception of God.

A Q&A and discussion will follow the presentation. Please send your questions on the live chat.

Lecture topics include:

Existence of God,
Theism and Atheism,
Medieval Philosophy,
Thomas Aquinas,
Summa Theologica,
Scholasticism,
Reason and Religion,
Cosmological argument,
Ontological argument,
Teleological argument,
Intelligent Design,

#lecture #cofchrist

[Greenfrog]

Aristotle's causation is not really about temporality. An eternal universe doesn't have an infinite regress of causes. It has one cause: the Prime Mover. Meanwhile, the Prime Mover has only one cause, which is itself.

If the Prime Mover is eternal and unchanging, it wouldn't make sense for it to spontaneously cause the cosmos on a particular date at a particular time. The cosmos can go through many drastic changes, but the process by which it is changed stems from an eternal cause.

Personally, I find a finite date of creation much stronger evidence for infinite regress than an eternal universe, as it simply raises the question: "what caused the Prime Mover to change its behavior from 'not creating' to 'creating'?"

[unrecognizedtalent]

I a simple man. I see Centre Place video, I click.

[opengnosis]

Thank You so much for your lectures or presentations. In this modern world, I almost look forward to your unbiased, without additives, just pure presentions of knowledge and truth. These moments in these "worlds away" heals what this modern world taints, being a part of daily, by persuasions to convince to sell or for usury. Again, TY. Sorry to be so brass, but this compliment and gratitude should have been expressed many lectures ago and many times over by me in every video watched and appreciated.

[shanejohns]

We studied this Ontological Argument in one of my philosophy classes, rather in-depth. While that was close to 3 decades ago, I do remember there being a rather witty reply from a MONK (Gaunilo of Marmoutiers) who made a "Perfect Island" analogy/parody. I'd recommend people look it up, especially if they're the least bit persuaded by this bit of sophistry from Anselm:

"Parodies of the Ontological Argument
One problem with this argument is that it invites parody. Parallel arguments purporting to prove the existence of any perfect thing at all can be constructed.

This objection was first raised by one of Anselm’s contemporaries, the monk Gaunilo of Marmoutiers, who constructed an ontological argument for the existence of the perfect island in his On Behalf of the Fool.

The perfect island, this argument goes, is the island than which no greater can be conceived. Any island that does not exist, though, cannot be the island than which no greater can be conceived, for it could be conceived to exist which would be greater. Anyone who thinks that the perfect does not exist, then, is confused; the concept of the perfect island entails that there is such a thing.

Similar arguments for the existence of the perfect baseball pitcher, or the perfect husband—for the existence of any perfect thing at all—can be constructed. If any of these arguments is sound, it seems, then they must all be sound.

Clearly, though, these arguments are not all sound; the perfect baseball pitcher does not exist, and neither does the perfect husband. There is something wrong with the logic of these arguments. Each of these ontological arguments, though, uses the same logic. They must therefore all be unsound.

The fact that there is no perfect island, and no perfect baseball pitcher, then, shows that the logic of the ontological argument for God’s existence is flawed."

[JRMan]

Perhaps God is time, existence is when time formed sound, brought us shape.

[steverorison]

I wish John was my neighbor, I wonder if he is MapleLeaves fan, ????

[GhostScout]

John Hamer, thank you for you lectures.

[GuitarJimBourke]

I read Summa Theologica once, of course, to understand you have to read twice or several times.
thanks for the refreshing lesson on Thomas Aquinas ' writings.

[notrueflagshere]

Sure, if you define God as Truth, then God exists, but what does that mean for us? Why do we need two words for truth? Because "God" brings along more meaning to add to "truth, " making truth relevant to us with its added god associations.

[Artteacher]

Collin Francis, the head of the Federal Genome Research Team ( responsible for successfully mapping out all our DNA ), is a Christian. He was appointed by three different U.S. presidents to head the highest chair of biology in the country. He wrote two books and lectures on them: The Language of God ( religion ) and The Language of Life (Biology). He finds no conflict and recognizes them both as relevant to their own domain. He was an atheist in medical school and in his early years, though when treating patients, he saw in the religious patients a special sense of healing that science did not provide, leading him to become a Christian . He also sees that many atheists hid behind science while knowing little of its findings. He invited those to read the findings even though it would take 21 yrs 24/7. Dr. Collins confidently says he can't be fooled about biology. And there is no DNA for consciousness and spirit, that is something coming from the outside( efficient cause)

[mathewsawyer]

Man, I wish there was a meet up like this around me!

[jfurl]

A word salad , I have listened to a lot of lectures on this subject for many years and I cannot see that any of them have progressed beyond a first year students theories , except of course the words have multiplied.

[markballantyne]

Then those who attempt to prove the existence of God, dont exhibit a self evident proof, nevertheless all peoples on earth in pre history lived their lives believing inn the existence of God, and when theologians contemplate the existence of God the created the opposite of belief Doubt, so the church led the worldfrom beliefs to doubt, and is not God.

[winstonbarquez]

Godel's proof for the existence of God is an ontological argument stated in mathematical theorems. It was like saying that goodness exists, but God is good, thus God exists.

[markballantyne]

God is good a d perfect, nor ca he create anything that is not good or perfect so how can God know evil, only by creating good and then allowing good independence from himself, so we are outcasts from God in order that God can know evil, we can defy God and continue being good, but it is God's will that we are evil, freewill therefore because God cannot create evil then ultimately evil is good making good and evil one and the same

[scienceexplains]

God X is defined as the most purple being conceivable, and since it would be more purple for it to exist than not exist…

This “works” for almost any adjective.

[zrobo]

This was a pretty good overview. I enjoyed it.

[oscarmudd]

Why go to all the trouble? Your members just lie.

[Darisiabgal]

The quest of what exist and what is true came up. It is interesting that in scoence we do not often use the word truth, though science is tgat which brings forth knowledge. Let me address the truth issue first. Lets say you are hunting for something in the dark, that is some unknown truth, you have three men, but each man has only one eye, and they have no idea how big or small the thing is. A light flashes, each man turns his one eye to the thing, and each man calls to the next man. Realizing tgat he has only conveyed the thing exist. So then each man rethinks the problem and calls out the angle between the next man on each side and the thing. Through a series of light flashes they manage to describe the profile of the think from each man's point of view. Person one says it round, person two says ots skinny, person three says its ovoid. Person #1 says is white, person two says its grey, person three says they can barely see it. Truth does not exist as an entity, instead its a collection of descriptions, from the trivial to the relevant.

For example
what if ask is it true that the surface of the earth is flat?
Depending on where you are standing and how closely you inspect the earth it can be true.
what if I ask is the moon silhouette a circle.
what if I ask is the earth round?
Have you not heard that the Earth is gravitationally rounded?
The earth is an oblate spheroid, you hear this one alot. But is i a mathematically definable oblate spheroid? It very much depends on the number of digits you want to use.
As we can see there are no perfect truths about the earth, and so we have to accept an imperfect definition of the earth. Eventually you come up with an elevation map, a cartesian map, a gravitational map, a magnetic field map, ect.

When all is said and done we cannot see the truth of the earth but for all the minute demonstrations of what the earth is. (We cant see the forest for the trees). These are the nature of scientific truth.

What exists, does god exists, can god be defined.
So here in lies the problem. I like to phrase it this way, I believe in all gods and none.
I believe in a god so that I might better understand the god, but i disbelieve in that god so that I can understand the next god. In comparing all gods there are no uniformities except one, they are all entities that are/were believed, but do not exhibit a natural existence. I can create a place holder god and then define this god as P1 I can then convince 100 people to believe in my god rewarding them each time I got a certain nonverbal response, but I dont ask people what they belive for 200 generations. When I come back to ask they tell me it god P1.1 to P1.50, P2 and subvariants, P3 and its subvariants.
in fact, if we had gone from household to household during the first Babylonian empire we might have found 3000 gods from an initial 4 to 6 gods.

So lets say I propose a god PXL, theos maximus, the biggest badist god that can exist. Im going to call this god Aquinus1. A greek scholar 1000 years earlier proposes the same god, but of indoeuropen origin and calls it Jupiter the Great. Then a chinese scholar does the same. The Indians have tgere god which is infinitely old, wise and poperful. So lets just state up front there is a great achetect of the universe (borrowing from the scottish rite). Which of the descriptions of the greatest god is correct.

Lets say Aquinus is correct, then why is this creator god not the Indian god, the Indian god better reflects the state of the universe. Why is his god the omnipotent one?
Second question. Lets say Yahweh, via the word of christ, is the true creator. At what point did Yahweh reveal his divine abilities. Did he reveal them truthfully in Uruk or Eridu, did he teveal his truths to the Canaanites, who followed both gods El and Ea. Did he first reveal the majesty to moses, did he revesl his majestic creation to Jesus, to Paul.
When did Yahweh reveal that he himself created a universe beyond all imagination, that the earth was just a speck in a speck in a speck called a galaxy in the nearly infinite cismos?

So if the Yahweh-Jesus transubstantiation is the creator, when did he reveal this. Jesus is not memtioned in Genesis, even if he was genesis is not truthful. He dies not reveal his creation in the best attested sayings of Jesus. Nor dies it appear whether Jesus is at all interested in the creation question.

So the conclusion when scrolling through possible creation gods Yahweh ranks fairly low on the list.

[ogsus]

this series of lectures is an absolute god send. trying to get into philosophy as a hobby, you quickly find out there's a nebulous amount of works and knowledge that you have to not just read study dilligently. and so getting even a basic background is hard. which is all the worse when i'd prefer speeding through the ancient, medieval and what not period so i can get to the existentialists haha. but it feels like i'm travelling light years in a blink through what was supposed to be a bog (of course, i'm not expecting this to be a replacement for the study and effort but it does speed it up tremendously).

absolutely invaluable. you guys might want to consider setting up a patreon too or something similar. just a suggestion. but keep up the great work.