Problems with Thomas Aquinas aguments for the existence of God

[robrecht]

He also doesn't use the idea that the past was finite, as a premise in anyway. And thanks I'm very slowly getting better.

I agree. He merely accepted it as a matter of revelation.

[JimL]

A chair is more than energy and matter. If I melt it, a puddle of plastic and fibers results. And a puddle of plastic and fibers is not a chair. Their forms are not the same. Though you might be willing to bite the bullet and admit that there's no qualitative difference between a chair and a molten puddle, but that's quite a bullet to bite.

At any rate basic observation defeats this idea.

Not sure what your point is Leonard. What idea are you supposed to be defeating? It doesn't seem to be a refutation of the quote you are replying to.

[Leonhard]

Not sure what your point is Leonard. What idea are you supposed to be defeating? It doesn't seem to be a refutation of the quote you are replying to.

It was a chair, and ceased to be a chair. Anyway if you're looking for something more than an emperical argument against what you're saying look at the other post.

[JimL]

This would be monism if it wasn't pure sophomoric goobledegook you'd pick up in a lot of bars around campus.

Hmm, why so condescending Leonard. I don't go to bars, and I have never been to college. Heck, I didn't even know there was a term denoting the idea. Monism! Thanks for that anyway.

Your answer falls into one of two wrong camps, both of which predate Socrates, and were both considered wrong by that time. On your side you'd have Parmeneides, who denied that substances changed, ever, that all motion was an illusion. If your eyes told you differently, well, then your eyes were deceiving you. He reasoned this from the impossibility of something coming from nothing. A bird moving from one place to another, would essentially mean that the bird had ceased to exit in one place, and come into existence in another place. Since this was impossible, then contra the senses, he was forced to conclude that nothing moved. As a correlary it follows that there's no distinction between anything, all is one great substance, threads in a big mesh.

Well, that is very interesting, but that is not what I believe. I do believe though in what you call monism, i.e. that everything is of one and the same fundamental substance,

On the other side you have Heraclitus arguing for constant change everywhere. His view was entirely atomistic and dynamic. You couldn't step down in the same river twice. Everything is motion, change, and there's nothing static. You can't even sensibly talk about Heraclitus as that's a moving target. No unity, all change.

I basically agree with Heraclitus then.

Both were right and both were wrong. One couldn't deny what the eyes told you, change existed. Yet there also seemed to be static forms. We can talk about Heraclitus, even if he undergoes change. There's permanence, even though there's change.

And what are those seeming static forms?

That was the problem to be dealt with. Either you deal with it or you don't, and pretend that any philosophy that came later never happened, and think yourself ahead of the game because of it. Or you realize this is a serious problem to deal with.

Then came Aristotle, who solved it. It requires a metaphysics more complex than what either Heraclitus or Parmeneides suggested, but no more than needed. One thing that was needed was a distinction between actuality and potentiality.

Now something that actually exist that comes into existence, exists because of something else that exists. This is a problem.

It is only a problem if that which comes into existence, is a thing distinct from that which already exists. There is no distinction between the actual and the potential in my view.

Because why then would anything exist at all?

Why is there something rather than nothing?

Saying A exists, because B exists. Doesn't answer the question, if B itself is the type of thing that needs something else that exists.

Again, if the actual and the potential are of one and the same substance, then it doesn't make any sense to say that the thing coming into existence needed something else that existed prior to it. It is that thing itself.

We can't put it into a ring. And we can't make an infinite chain of existence granters, since that wouldn't answer the question why that chain exists either, it itself would require a cause of its existence, since it could possible not have been.

This is a common assertion, and one that I disagree with. If there is no such thing as nothingness, which is what makes the most sense to me, then existence is both infinite as well being one thing. And if the nature of existence is one of change, then ala Heraclitus, it can change infinitely.

There is one and only one solution to this problem. There exists something that is purely actual. Without any potentiality at all. Something that simple exists.

Everything else owes its existence to this existing thing.

Yes, and in my humble opinion, everything is purely actual, since everything is merely different forms of one and the same thing.

[JimL]

It was a chair, and ceased to be a chair. Anyway if you're looking for something more than an emperical argument against what you're saying look at the other post.

The chair ceased to be, yes, but the substance of the chair did not cease to exist.

[shunyadragon]

Shunya commenting on St. Thomas Aquinas. He doesn't understand modern physics, so he's going to have an even harder time tangling with the great master of philosophy.

Is that all you have to say?

[MaxVel]

Most if no all contemporary apologist arguments for the existence of God originated with Thomas Aquinas, based on a foundation of Aristotle's logic. All are flawed in a similar was as the argument for an 'Efficient Cause' for everything making priori assumptions for the existence of God.

All the arguments for the necessity of Design and a Designer like wise originate from Thomas Aquinas.

Source: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm#article3

The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

© Copyright Original Source

The lack of scientific knowledge and explanations for the nature of our physical existence and life made this argument very convincing at the time of Thomas Aquinas. The logical conclusion without a possible natural explanation was that the nature of the natural world required an intelligent source. The weakness of the argument remains in the arguments for Design today is that the a priori assumption that our physical existence requires a Design and therefore a Designer, most definitely a 'circular argument,' and an 'argument from ignorance.'

Modern Design arguments proposed the problems of the complexity of life and the claim of the lack of a scientific explanation for this complexity as the criteria for the necessity of Design and a Designer. The Discovery Institute and some other Christian scientist pursued the goal of finding a scientific basis for the necessity of Design for the complexity of Design.

First, the problems they faced were that none have been able to come up with a falsifiable hypothesis that the complexity of life leads to the conclusion that Design is a necessary conclusion.

Second, they were faced with the fallacy of the appeal to ignorance, assuming that the lack of an explanation leads to the conclusion that there is not a possible explanation for particular examples of complexity.

As the knowledge of science advances the argument for the existence of God by the necessity of Design is fading with the Discovery Institute offering only futile nostalgic claims of vain hope for a scientific basis for Design.

Ummm... Aquinas was arguing for God as an explanation of the teleology that we observe in nature, not for 'God as Designer' in the contemporary sense.

Ed Feser, one of the more prominent current Thomist philosophers argues strongly against ID and arguments like Paley's design argument.

[shunyadragon]

Ummm... Aquinas was arguing for God as an explanation of the teleology that we observe in nature, not for 'God as Designer' in the contemporary sense.

Ed Feser, one of the more prominent current Thomist philosophers argues strongly against ID and arguments like Paley's design argument.

Source: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm#article

The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

© Copyright Original Source

The requirement of an intelligence is the same as the requirement for an Intelligent Designer. The problem remains regardless of the wording. The presupposition that 'some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence' is required for nature to 'move forward' is a a priori assumption that God exists.

The modern argument is basically the same, an intelligent being is necessary life to 'move forward' and become complex.

"The Teleological Argument." Teleology is the study of purpose, ends, and goals in natural processes. A teleological explanation accounts for natural processes in accordance with purposive or directive principles.

The modern argument for design may not be worded the same, but it remains that the modern argument for 'Intelligent Design' evolved from the Aquinas argument. The argument is equivalent. Both attempt to require an intelligent being endowed with knowledge and intelligence.

[shunyadragon]

These Teleological arguments may change over time, but tigers do not change there spots.

[seer]

The modern argument for design may not be worded the same, but it remains that the modern argument for 'Intelligent Design' evolved from the Aquinas argument. The argument is equivalent. Both attempt to require an intelligent being endowed with knowledge and intelligence.

Yet you believe Shuny, according to your religion, that this universe is intelligently ordered by God, that there is an inherent teleology.

[shunyadragon]

Yet you believe Shuny, according to your religion, that this universe is intelligently ordered by God, that there is an inherent teleology.

Yes, but these proofs are inadequate as a convincing argument for the existence of God based on modern philosophy and science. Our world of knowledge and science evolves and changes. This is acknowledged in the Baha'i writings. I consider them more statements of belief and not effective arguments in today's world.

[shunyadragon]

The chair ceased to be, yes, but the substance of the chair did not cease to exist.

This is an important point in the fate of the chair. The basic elements of the chair remain, and only changed form. For example: ancient plants change form and end up as oil, gas and coal. The oil, gas and coal, may be used to make the chair. The form may change but nothing is post or gained. The ultimate source for the energy in our solar system is the sun and the internal heat of the earth for these changes in form. Eventually our sun and earth will change form and dissipate into the zero-point vacuum quantum energy. Nothing is lost or gained. All the energy is still there at the lowest entropy at absolute zero.

[MaxVel]

Shunya, what exactly is a "circular argument"?

[seer]

Yes, but these proofs are inadequate as a convincing argument for the existence of God based on modern philosophy and science. Our world of knowledge and science evolves and changes. This is acknowledged in the Baha'i writings. I consider them more statements of belief and not effective arguments in today's world.

But the FACT is Shuny this universe has both an inherent teleology and is intelligently ordered - just because science is clueless doesn't change that FACT.

[shunyadragon]

Shunya, what exactly is a "circular argument"?

Source: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/education/think/circular.htm

This is proving something (at the end) by making logical deductions from premises that themselves contain the conclusion. Looping from the end to the beginning that way is called circular reasoning. Circular reasoning often sounds right, but it is invalid nonetheless. ... It is often hard to recognize reasoning as circular because the steps between the first and last may be many."

© Copyright Original Source

"Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence"

Assumptions: ". . . whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence."

Those who do not believe such an 'intelligent being exists' would not accept these assumptions.

Example from modern Intelligent Design arguments that argue for 'fine tuning.' The assumption is that Natural Law is not capable of the fine tuning required to produce life and natural result of the existence of humanity, therefore an Intelligent Being is necessary for results of evolution.

Those who do not believe such an 'intelligent being exists' would not accept these assumptions.