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Proofs for the existence of God according to Aquinas 1

Proofs for the existence of God according to Aquinas

Robert Verrill OP

December 3, 2024 at 12:30 pm

Much has changed in the realm of philosophy and theology since the 13th century, when St Thomas Aquinas presented his Five Ways to prove the existence of God. In the next few issues of the Herald I'll be looking at each of these ways to consider whether they still have the same power to convince us as they had 750 years ago.

Aquinas begins his first proof for God's existence with the seemingly obvious fact that some things in the world move. Following Aristotle, Aquinas tells us that movement is nothing other than the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality. As an example, one could consider holding a ball and letting it go: the moment you let it go, the ball is actually very close to your hand, but it has the potentiality to be on the ground. The ball's movement as it falls is therefore just the actualisation of its potentiality to be on the ground.

In the next step of his argument, Aquinas claims that nothing can be reduced from potentiality to actuality except by something already in a state of actuality. Aquinas explains this by using the example of fire and wood: wood which is potentially hot is made actually hot by fire which is itself actually hot. Since it is not possible for something to be both potential and actual in the same respect, it follows that every moving thing must be moved by something other than itself.

That other thing must either be unmoved or put into motion by some third thing that moves it, and so on. But if there is to be any movement at all, this series of movers/actualisers can't go on forever. There must therefore be an unmoved mover at the beginning of this series. Aquinas has in mind the case of someone moving a staff – the hand moves the staff, the arm moves the hand, the muscles move the arm, the person's will moves the muscles, but eventually this sequence of movers must terminate in an unmoved mover, whom we call God.

People who have studied Newtonian dynamics may well be unimpressed by this argument. According to Newton's first law of motion, an object will move at a constant velocity unless it is acted upon by an external force. So according to Newtonian dynamics, it is not obvious that moving things, such as things moving with constant velocity, need to be moved by something other than themselves.

However, such advocates of Newtonian dynamics miss the point of what Aristotle was getting at when he defined motion in terms of potentiality and actuality. Aristotle's theory of motion was a response to a philosophical theory that claimed motion was impossible, a claim that Aristotle rightly thought to be absurd.

Understanding Aristotle's motivation in defining motion is important, because if we don't we are likely to make the same mistake as those philosophers who denied the reality of motion. This mistake happens when a physicist thinks that mathematics can provide a complete description of physical reality.

When the physical world is considered from a purely mathematical perspective, time is treated just like another spatial dimension. So, instead of thinking of the universe as something three-dimensional that changes, the universe is thought of as something four-dimensional that doesn't change.

Having a 4D mathematical model of the universe can be very useful, for it can sometimes be possible to calculate the physical properties of one region of a 4D model universe from the physical properties of another region. But what the 4D model universe doesn't capture is the distinction between potentiality and actuality. If we were to suppose this 4D mathematical model perfectly described the universe, we would therefore have to deny there was any objective reality to motion, since motion depends on there being a real distinction between potentiality and actuality.

In this 4D mathematical model, we can't truly speak of one state of affairs changing into another state of affairs. We can only speak of one state of affairs occurring before, after, or simultaneously with another state of affairs. Accordingly, time is not taken to be a measure of change, but rather, time is just taken to be another dimension of a four-dimensional motionless universe.

Anyone who denies the objective reality of motion is not going to be convinced by Aquinas's first way of proving God's existence, for if nothing is really moving, then we don't need to posit any being that moves it. But if you agree with Aquinas that it is evident to our senses that in the world some things are in motion and that it would be absurd to deny this, then you should take very seriously the theological conclusion Aquinas draws from this fact: namely, that God exists.

Photo: The Santuario [Sanctuary] Madonna della Corona is a centuries-old chapel built into a vertical cliff face on Mount Baldo, Italy. (Credit: Unsplash.)

This article appears in the October 2024 edition of the Catholic Herald.

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Proofs for the existence of God according to Aquinas 1

Proofs for the existence of God according to Aquinas
https://catholicherald.co.uk/proofs-for-the-existence-of-god-according-to-aquinas/

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