“Aquinas’ first three ways show that we should believe in God”

1. Way from motion

1. Way from motion

• Aquinas states that the world has been put into motion and that there is continuous motion in the world, because there cannot be infinite regress there must be an unmoved mover who initially started the movement ff in the first place- suggesting there was a time where there was nothing

• However- Aquinas assumes that there is just one reason for motion when there could be several, there are alternative reasons for movement within the earth than God- such as evolution, the Big Bang etc.

2. Way from causation

• Aquinas states that everything has been caused in the universe- cant be infinite regress, must be an uncaused causer

• David Hume argues that we can not argue that B, will always without a doubt follow from A and that B has to be caused by something else- the only reason we believe this is because this is how we view the world

• Aquinas presumes that the causal principle is valid- Humes fork tells us the causal principle is not analytic- claims based on experience cannot be known for certainty as we have not experienced all events

• Argued that the causal principle is known through induction- can’t apply it to the universe as a whole as the information from “induction” is gained from within the universe

3. Way from contingency

• Argues that God is necessary

• However Hume argues that for something to be “necessary” we must have experienced them first

• Bertrand Russel questions the belief that God is necessary- what makes God necessary and why do we have to assume that just because our existence is reliant on another being, why do we have to assume that the world has also been created- composition of fallacy.

• Bertrand Russel- “the universe is a brute fact”

• Principle of sufficient reason- there are sufficient explanations to explain everything however they are unknown to us.

Conclusion :

• Aquinas’ three ways do not provide sufficient evidence to belief in God as he commits a leap in logic and assumes that just because the world is the way it is, it applies to the universe as well

• Whilst Aquinas attempts to prove Gods existence through science and empiricism as science has advanced we know have other explanations for the 3 ways