Thomas Aquinas's Demonstration

[jascowhiz0]

Hi, I'm new to the board. This is my first post. I saw the thread on how do you know your God is right and read a bit on it.

Well, in my Philosophy Class my teacher (I'm still in high school) taught me the demonstration for the existence of God. The explanation is much too long to post here, and I probably did not take detailed enough notes to recant it correctly. The demonstration takes place, in passing, in the De Ente et Essentia.

My question is do you agree with this demonstration and if you don't why. Also, if you agree, wouldn't this mean there is only one God, so only one religion would be correct (based off the thread which God is right).

[loser]

...The demonstration takes place, in passing, in the De Ente et Essentia. My question is do you agree with this demonstration and if you don't why. Also, if you agree, wouldn't this mean there is only one God, so only one religion would be correct (based off the thread which God is right).

Here's just a tidbit from On Being and Essence (DE ENTE Et ESSENTIA) by Thomas Aquinas:

"...For if animal named just a certain thing that has a perfection such that it can sense and move by a principle existing in itself, without any other perfection, then whatever further perfection may supervene would be related to animal as a component part, and not as implicitly contained in the notion of animal; and in this way animal would not be a genus. But animal is a genus in that it signifies a certain thing from the form of which sensation and motion can proceed, whatever this form may be, whether a sensible soul only, or a soul both sensible and rational.

Therefore, the genus signifies indeterminately the whole that is in the species and does not signify matter alone. Similarly, the difference also signifies the whole and does not signify the form alone, and the definition, or even the species, signifies the whole. But these nevertheless signify the same thing in different ways. For the genus signifies the whole as a certain denomination determining that which is material in the thing without a determination of its proper form, whence the genus is taken from the matter, although it is not the matter. This is clear in the case of bodies, as we call something a body in that the thing has a perfection such that in the thing three dimensions can be designated, and this perfection is related materially to some further perfection. Conversely, the difference is like a certain denomination taken from the determined form, beyond the first conception of the form by which the matter is determined. So, when we say something is animated (that, in other words, it has a soul), this does not determine what the thing is, whether it is a body or some other thing. Hence, Avicenna says, Metaphysicae V, cap. 6, that the genus is not understood in the difference as a part of its essence but only as a being beyond its essence, even as a subject is with respect to the concept of a passion. And thus the genus is not predicated per se of the difference, as the Philosopher says in III Metaphysicae cap. 8 (998b24) and in IV Topicorum cap. 2 (122b22-26), unless perhaps as a subject is predicated of a passion. But the definition or the species comprehends both, namely, the determined matter that the term genus designates and the determined form that the term difference designates.

From this is it clear why the genus, the difference, and the species are related proportionally to the matter, the form, and the composite in nature, although they are not the same as these things.

and:

"...Since human nature, considered absolutely, is properly predicated of Socrates, and since the notion of species does not pertain to human nature considered absolutely but only accidentally because of the existence the nature has in the intellect, the term species is not predicated of Socrates, for we do not say that Socrates is a species. We would have to say that Socrates is a species if the notion of species pertained to man arising from the existence that the nature has in Socrates or from the nature considered absolutely, that is, insofar as man is man. For whatever pertains to man insofar as he is man is predicated of Socrates.

But to be predicated pertains to a genus per se, because being predicated is placed in its definition. Now, predication is completed by the action of the intellect in compounding and dividing, and it has as its basis the unity of those things one of which is said of another. Hence, the notion of predicability can be subsumed in the notion of this intention that is the genus, which is itself completed by an act of the intellect. Still, when the intellect attributes the intention of predicability to something by compounding it with another, this intention is not that of genus; it is rather that to which the intellect attributes the intention of genus, as, for instance, to what is signified by the term animal.

We have thus made clear how the essence or nature is related to the notion of species, for the notion of species is not among those that pertain to the essence considered absolutely; nor is it among the accidents that follow from the existence that the essence has outside the soul, as whiteness or blackness..."

I'll not even get into the "quiddity" and "God" of this piece. It should now be as clear as mud that God's existence does not depend on the rantings of maniacs, though such glossolalia of schizophrenic, demon-possessed individuals does confirm certain truths as presented in scripture.

Good grief, brother...there's no way you could have paid attention to that drivel. If you had, you would have winded up being as looney tunes as the author.

Don't let your education (read as indoctrination) corrupt your mind. Learn to glean (spit out the poison).

But yes, there is only ONE God.

[Jack]

Don't let your education (read as indoctrination) corrupt your mind. Learn to glean (spit out the poison). But yes, there is only ONE God.

So you disdain intelligence and consider it anathema to faith. So I'm not surprised that you misused the word glean, which means to gather or harvest.

It should now be as clear as mud that God's existence does not depend on the rantings of maniacs, though such glossolalia of schizophrenic, demon-possessed individuals does confirm certain truths as presented in scripture.

Getting a little carried away there.

[Zhavric]

Quote by: jascowhiz0 My question is do you agree with this demonstration and if you don't why.

Well, it's hard to agree or disagree with something I'm not familiar with. You really should try to summarize your teacher's argument if you want to discuss it.

If you're talking about Aquinas' five ways, well... these are very easy to rebut.

Going from the above link, the first three arguments all establish an infinite regress and then parade out god as the magical end of that regress without any explanation of why or how god is able to terminate that regress. God absolutely requires such explanation as we know that things as complex & powerful as god allegedly is don't just happen / aren't lying around / etc. Aquinas' first three arguments all have this same contradiction: "everything has a cause" yet "god doesn't have a cause".

The fourth argument, the argument of degree, has to it a playground level of intellect. "The most perfect thing that could exist would have to have 'existence' as a quality. God is the most perfect thing. Therefor god exists. Now let's go play dodgeball!" There's really nothing to rebut here because it's challenging to take this argument seriously. Our ability to conceptualize a thing does not evidence that thing exists.

The argument from design fails because we know that complex things (like humans) can come into being WITHOUT a design or designer. Natural selection & evolution keenly demonstrate this. as for the rest of the universe, there is no evidence of design. There is (on the part of theists) the ASSUMPTION of design, but this is nothing more than god of the gaps reasoning.

So, nothing that I've seen from Aquinas has impressed me as being in any way compelling. Like all theists, his arguments are thick on assumption and thin on evidence.

[jascowhiz0]

The demonstration is not the 5 ways. He said the 5 ways don't prove anything.

Ok, I have the Major Premise and the Minor Premis:

Major, All being in which esse and essence are distinct is a being in which esse is an accident.

Minor: Whatever is held accidentally is caused.

Basically if those two premises are true, you have to accept a subsistent being that necessarily exists. Or think everything is absurd.

In order for us (the class) to understand this he taught us what the Greeks thought (Aristotle's change) and Avicenna's real distinction between esse and essence.



He said what makes the demonstration so hard to understand is the fact that it presumes Aristotle's change and Avicenna's real distinction when you read it.

You have to have studied it to truly understand it and why you would think its wrong. Me telling you won't do it justice.

[jascowhiz0]

I just realized that the major and minor premise look like some of the 5 ways. I don't know it well enough to argue its position. I was hoping someone had studied it, and if they disagreed why.

Even though Aquinas calls esse an accident it isn't an accident in the way Aristotle meant it. The difference is that esse is prior to everything, where accidents are posterior.

[Zhavric]

At best this is the re-writing of the five ways. At worst, it's esoteric drivel. Is there a website that pertains to this?

Quote by: Zhavric "The most perfect thing that could exist would have to have 'existence' as a quality. God is the most perfect thing. Therefor god exists. Now let's go play dodgeball!"

With the exception of the dodgeball game, this is Descartes ontological argument for the existence of God. Paraphrasing, "Because I can imagine nothing greater nor more perfect than God, then God must exist."

Well, of course, the obvious problem is the informal logical one. Just because someone can imagine something it's not logically entailed that the thing imagined exists. Even more obvious, it's not entailed that the Christian God in particular exists. Aquinas, Descartes and other Christian thinkers all suffer from the same impediment. They begin with the answer, "God", and then proceeded to develop premises and fudge evidence to prove God's existence. Then they defend the evidence by saying, "Well God is true, therefore the evidence must be true." In philosophical jargon this is both teleological and tautological.

If one starts with the evidence, whatever that may be, and has neither a vested interest, indoctrination, nor pre-conceived notion of the answer, the existence of a god or gods is not entailed.

Regards
S.