10. Aquinas' 5 Argumenmts for Go'ds Existence

Professor Thorsby reviews the 5 arguments for God's existence offered by Thomas Aquinas.

[Sinkh]

I think you didn't explain this too well, because you referenced event A causing event B, etc, which implies that Aquinas is arguing for a beginning to time. A first event. But he is expliclty not arguing for a first event, because he allows that a series of events could go to infinity: "...it is not impossible to proceed to infinity 'accidentally' as regards efficient causes; for instance, if all the causes thus infinitely multiplied should have the order of only one cause, their multiplication being accidental, as an artificer acts by means of many hammers accidentally, because one after the other may be broken."

The type of infinity he is arguing against is a string of concurrent causes in the present; the cause of BEING, not of BECOMING. The BECOMING of a lake is caused by the event of rain, but the BEING of a lake is caused by warm air. This is the type of chain he is talking about: "In efficient causes it is impossible to proceed to infinity 'per se'--thus, there cannot be an infinite number of causes that are 'per se' required for a certain effect; for instance, that a stone be moved by a stick, the stick by the hand, and so on..."

I just think this is a very important point that is too often glossed over and thus gives people the wrong idea of how the argument is supposed to work.

[randyphillips]

Very interesting material. Medieval philosophy makes historical sense.

[vicachcoup]

Hi Mark

The argument for an actual past infinite time is often brought up to support atheism. The way I see it, an infinite past time is logically impossible.
I'd value your opinion on my argument below:

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT TO DISPROVE AN INFINITE PAST TIME

Imagine an infinite past time.
Imagine going back to a point in time, an infinity of Planck times ago.
Is this possible?
Well if you believe in actual infinities then there must be some point of time an infinite number of Planck times ago.

Matter/energy  cannot be created or destroyed, correct?
So the matter/energy we have now 'comes from the past',   correct?

Therefore the matter/energy that makes you must have been present at the arbitrary point we chose an infinite number of Planck time ago. Correct?

So now explain how that matter/energy traversed that infinity of time to get to 2014 to end up in you.

Many thanks

[formerevolutionist]

If the past is infinite, then the present cannot be reached. If someone lives a mile away from me, then it will take him about half an hour to come to my house. If he lives two miles away from me, it will take him about an hour to come. If someone lives an infinite number of miles away from me, then he will never be able to reach me, no matter how fast he travels. Time must have a beginning because we have a present. However, atheists cannot accept the ide of a beginning because it must mean that something or someone started it. That something or someone must be infinite or else you have a serious chicken/egg problem. Since atheists don't believe in any infinite being, the best they can do is cast doubt on who Christians think that infinite being is.