Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae | Five Ways for Proving God's Existence | Philosophy Core Concepts

This is a video in my new Core Concepts series -- designed to provide students and lifelong learners a brief discussion focused on one main concept from a classic philosophical text and thinker.

This Core Concept video focuses on Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, First Part, question 2 "On The Existence of God". This video focuses in particular on his discussion in article 3, which sets out the famous "Five Ways," each of which is a separate argument for the existence of God, conceived in some specific manner. Each of these is intended to be an a posteriori argument

The first way focuses on motion or change, and argues that God is the Prime Mover. The second way focuses on efficient causality, and argues that God is the First Cause. The third way focuses on possibility and necessity, and argues that God is Necessary Being. The fourth focuses on degrees of being, and argues that God is supreme goodness, being, and every other perfection. The fifth way, a design argument, focuses on order and governance within the world, and argues to God as the governor or orderer of all things.

In this article, we also consider a version of the Argument from Evil, and a discussion about adequacy of explanation that prefigures Occam's Razor

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#Aquinas #Thomism #God

[clintonlefort]

Dr. Sadler, thanks for taking the time to bring St. Thomas to a level that can be understood in a short video like this.

[byaringan]

i'm an engineer moonlighting as a philosopher :) thanks to awesome videos like these!

[thebicameralmonk]

I really enjoy your videos. They are very interesting, especially with regards to theology and ethics, something I've been pondering a lot recently.

[carlosmantilla]

Absolutely delightful Profesor Gregory..I feel the understanding as well as the intellection.One thing I did not understand.At 12:49 you say an objection would be the God of scripture.I always understood the God Yaweh/Elohim/I AM to be all those reasonings that Aquinas argues.The only Eternal, self causing Creator of all that is, whome effects all the Universe.His understanding is infinite.He stretches the Heavens and He will roll them back up again like a scroll(loose paraphrase.The worship of Deity entails the intelligent aknowledgement of all truths attributes glories metaphores etc, ...The Hindu conception on the other hand, as understood in Vishnu, Brahma and Siva tell of a eternal, always existing creation that unfolds for 311 trillion years and then collapses into utter darkness non being for an equivalent amount of time, whereupon Vishnu once again lays down in the InfiniteCausal Ocean to meditate, and dream the galaxies and all the cosmos into being.There never was a no infinity, there never was a non eternal.The distinction is that God is the Artificer of the causal ocean whereas vishnu partakes of something perhaps other, although I could be mistaken about that.

[kylepatrick]

Procrastinating writing my philosophy paper...