A paper I wrote for my Philosophy class in 2012
The Nature of God
St. Thomas Aquinas once said, “If the hand does not move the stick, the stick will not move anything else” (Stokes 51). These words are famously part of his argument of the Five Ways which endeavor to prove the existence of God. Aquinas’s argument of the Nature of God is to further explain and bolster this view. One might consider this to be a lofty goal, and an unpopular one among many philosophers. But as a Catholic, it was of high importance to Aquinas to reconcile his religious beliefs with his philosophical ones.
The most valuable thing that I have learned in philosophy is Aquinas’s Argument of The Nature of God. While it might seem more practical to stick with the Five Ways which establishes the argument, the Nature of God was what struck a thought provoking cord within me.
This paper will delve into the core of Aquinas’s argument of The Nature of God. There are five points made to explain his philosophy. The first point is to clarify the laws of cause and effect. There are rules of physics in play here that cannot be ignored, but also a twist of faith that works to complete his theory. The second point is that of knowing what God is and is not. He describes how we can know what God is by knowing what He isn’t. Another point is to understand how and why God cares about world. What is His connection that drives the sentimentality? Seeing God’s reflection in His creation is the fourth point. By recognizing the semblance of God in nature we can understand the Creator a bit better. The final point is that analogies are a good and efficient way to convey the complexity of philosophical arguments.
Cause and Effect
The First Mover is Aquinas’s answer for the problem that arises from cause and effect.
“Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by another….therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that way which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also much needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover….therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God. (Birch and Emeric 166)
Aquinas held on to the belief that there must be something or in this case someone who began the chain of events that resulted in creation. This comes from our nature to reason why things come to be. We may not understand what the cause is exactly, but we know there to be one. Christians favor this argument in their quest to prove God’s existence.
But Aquinas thinks that logically there must at some point have been something that set everything going in this chain of cause and effects. If he’s right about that, there must have been something that wasn’t itself caused that began the series of cause and effect which has brought us to where we are now: an uncaused cause. The first cause, he declared, must have been God. God is the uncaused cause of everything that is. (Warburton 49-50)
Aquinas shared the same idea as Aristotle saying that a spontaneous event could not have been the start of the universe. Everything, every thought, motion, change, instant, needs some sort of cause. “Whatever motion we point to, whether in some part of another physical thing or not, is the motion of some portion of matter. Any part of matter can never move itself; it must always be moved by something else” (Birch and Emeric 160). Plato had similar views. “Now everything that becomes or is created must of necessity be created by some cause, for without a cause nothing can be created” (Birch and Emeric 155).
What God Is
“Aquinas suggests that if no description or ‘name’ of God is readily available to us based on our experiences, then we can at least obtain some knowledge of God’s nature by understanding what God is not” (Birch and Emeric 168). This is the subject of many philosophical as well as theological debates. How does one describe something that has never been seen? Aquinas uses the process of elimination to come to his conclusions. He theorizes the attributes of God through natural reason. This list includes God’s simplicity, morality, unity, infinity, aseity, immutability, and eternality. For the sake of this paper we will explore only one of these, aseity which means self-existence.
God is Pure Actuality, with no potentiality in His being whatsoever. Whatever has potentiality (potency) needs to be actualized or effected by another. And since God is the ultimate Cause, there is nothing Him to actualize any potential (i.e. ability) He may have. Nor can God actualize His own potential to exist, since this would mean He caused His own existence. But a self caused being is impossible, since it cannot create itself. Something has to exist before it can do anything. Even God cannot lift Himself into being by His own ontological bootstraps. Thus, God must be Pure Actuality in His Being. (www.ovrlnd.com)
Aquinas argues that we can say things of God that are true and know that they are true without the fullest understanding of why it is so.
“To understand him, it helps to note the difference between knowing (or having good reason to think) that what one says is true and knowing what it is that makes one’s statements true” (Davies 68). My doctor could inform me that I have a rare disease that allows me only two additional months to live. I know this to be true even though I don’t understand what gives it truth.
Why Does God Care
“Another, rather serious, problem arises from saying that God is not a composite being or is simple and without parts. If this is the case, how can God know-and care-about the world?” (Birch and Emeric 168).
Even after one accepts the existence of God, the next step will be to decide how involved one believes Him to be in His creation. Many religions believe in a god but a vast difference is how they interpret his association with the world and those who inhabit it. Christians carry the mindset of a God who continues to show interest in His creation even after the initial work has been accomplished.
But every creature has its own proper form, in which it is like God. It follows, therefore, that God knows the form or idea of every creature as it is modeled after Him. Perfect knowledge involves the ability to distinguish one thing from another. That is He knows not only what things have in common (esse) but how they differ (essence). Therefore, God knows all things in their individual essences. But all things pre-exist in God’s knowledge. Therefore, all things pre-exist in God’s knowledge, not only with regard to their existence but also with regard to their individual essences. (www.ovrlnd.com)
It is impossible for someone to create something and not know the very details of its being. The same can be said for God. As His creation, He would know the fine points of why we are the way we are.
God is a Reflection of His Creation
“All created things reflect God’s nature, exemplifying His excellence and goodness. To say that man, for example, is created in God’s image means that man, like God has intellect, although man’s intellect is limited and finite, capable of knowing only material things” (Birch and Emeric 169).
In Aquinas’s Five Ways, his last argument is from design. One has cause to wonder why even consider God’s existence to begin with. Isn’t the case for evolution substantial enough to counter any religious thoughts of a creator? Intelligent Design is a theory, though an unpopular one amongst science, that claims the only explanation for the world’s existence is through design. “The world as we observe shows signs of design and purpose. This overarching design and purpose indicates a designer whom we call God” (Johnston 65).
In the book The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow inadvertently make the case for Intelligent Design.
The laws of nature form a system that is extremely fine-tuned, and very little in physical law can be altered without destroying the possibility of the development of life as we know it. Were it not for a series of startling coincidences in the precise details of physical law, it seems, humans and similar life forms would never have come into being (Hawking and Mlodinow 161).
It appears that though even though they are not directly attributing the designer to be God, they are acknowledging that the physical world as we know it is far too complex to be accidental and even the slightest variation would have resulted in a lack of existence. They go on to say, “The universe and its laws appear to have a design that both is tailor-made to support us, and if we are to exist, leaves little room for alteration” (162).
Analogies
Abstract ideas tend to be less difficult to grasp when one uses an analogy. Aquinas recognized this and used the form to help reinforce his theories to the common man. “Aquinas thus thinks that using analogies makes it possible to arrive at a kind of positive knowledge of the nature of God that goes beyond what is arrived at via the negative” (Birch and Emeric 169).
Personally, I can always arrive at a more involved understanding when I can relate to something else in my life. With cause and effect the following analogy has proven useful. Say that you are in your kitchen and you pick up a piece of aluminum foil, if you told me that you threw it on the ground and it suddenly became a can of Coke, I would laugh in your face. That is simply impossible. So many questions would arise from that story. What bent the foil in a cylinder manner? Where did the color for the can come from? Most importantly, where did the soda come from to fill the can? The world is infinitely more complex than a can of soda, yet it is far easier for some to believe that the world came to be through a spontaneous collision with some unknown force. If we can’t believe that a can could be created like that, then how is the world different?
Consider the case of my typing a word by striking the keys on my computer keyboard. The appearance of the word on my computer screen has a casual story behind it, starting with me. I type a key, this connects with something else (maybe other things). Then we get a letter on a screen. And so on, until a word is formed. But what caused the word to be formed? (Davies 96).
In the same way a story is brought to life on a screen, the world must have been designed with some sort of purpose.
Justification
This argument for The Nature of God has definitely impacted me because it has brought together something I already believed to be true with science, logic and reason. It has reinforced my belief and also helped me to be able to explain my thoughts in a way that is backed by reason and not faith alone. I feel that knowing what you believe is very important, but if you don’t know why you believe it then you are setting yourself up to be swayed. Being sure of your philosophy will also give you confidence and encourage others in the belief that you are a sound-minded individual. That is what I want to be. Part of being sure where you stand is being familiar with the opposing side, which brings me to my final section.
Arguments
Sean Carroll, a cosmologist, suggests in his book, From Eternity to Here that:
Our universe may be just one in a series of boom-and-bust cycles of expansion and contraction of the universe, with ours being just one “episode” of the bubble’s eventual collapse and re-expansion in an eternal cycle. Therefore, “there is no such thing as an initial state, because time is eternal. In this case, we are imagining that the Big Bang isn’t the beginning of the entire universe, although it’s obviously an important event in the history of our local region.” (Shermer)
The Big Bang is what many science books attribute to the creation of the universe. While it is taught as a theory, it is universally accepted in public schools. Even though the complexity of the cosmos is acknowledged as being intricate and precise, it is not agreed that Intelligent Design is the only answer. Hume also has words on the issue.
Look at a house. It appears to be made by someone, but the maker and the product are both finite entities. The universe, on the other hand, is infinite. “If we see a house, Cleanthes, we conclude with greatest certainty, that is had an architect or builder; because this is precisely the species of effect, which we have experienced to proceed from that species of cause. But surely you will not affirm, that the universe bears such resemblance to a house, that we can with the same certainty infer a similar cause, or that the analogy here is entire and perfect.” (Birch and Emeric 179)
So of course, there will always be difference of opinion. The same outcome can be picked apart and remade to fit the eye of the beholder. This is why it is important to learn for your own self what is true and right.
Conclusion
Aquinas’s argument on the Nature of God is one that I have found to be enlightening and also thought provoking. I have often thought that philosophy was merely to reason God out of existence. While many take that stance, I’ve learned through this course that it is not the goal of philosophy but simply an important topic that must be considered on every angle.
The lessons that can be learned from this, is that the world is agreed to be of a complex nature, one that needed some assistance in its coming into existence. There will never been a time where all people believe in the same thing, but it will always be good to evaluate the certain positions and retain a stance.
My stance is that, with the argument on The Nature of God, I have a solid reason to believe that God is the sole creator of the universe. He is the Uncaused Cause. He has a connection to the world He created and holds intimate knowledge of each individual essence. In the same way, I believe a can of Coke cannot come into existence on its own or even a house assemble itself, I am far too complex of an organism to attribute my existence to be accidental.
This philosophy is valuable to me personally because it allows me to have a sense of self worth that cannot be taken from me. I believe that God created me and as His creation I am loved and have purpose in this world. These thoughts help me to know that I am here for a reason and that I can make a difference in my life and in others. Believing also that God cares enough for me to be continually invested in my life and reveals Himself in nature to remind me of His unchanging ways is a constant comfort. I am not afraid of anything when I know that I have a connection to the God who created the universe, who is outside of time and space. That knowledge is of greater value than anything that this world could offer. Why would I praise the painted works when I can boast that I know the artist who composed its beauty?
Works Cited:
Birch, Anthony and Emeric, Rex. Introduction to Philosophy. 2nd Edition. United States: Florida State College, 2011. Print.
Davies, Brian. Aquinas. London: Continuum, 2002. Print.
Johnston, Derek. A Brief History of Philosophy. New York: MJF Books, 2006. Print.
Poole, Charles P., Jr. “The Grand Design’s unintended arguments for the existence of God.”Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 64.1 (2012): 70. Religion and Philosophy Collection. Web. 20 Nov. 2012.
Shermer, Michael. “Nothing is negligible: why there is something rather than nothing.” Skeptic. Altadena, CA. 17.3 2012: 28+ Religion and Philosophy Collection. Web. 20 Nov. 2012
Stokes, Philip. Philosophy 100 Essential Thinkers. New York: Enchanted Lion Books, 2002. Print.
Warburton, Nigel. A Little History of Philosophy.
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