The five ways in Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica is an elegant and complete logical proof of God's existence so how is it possible that there are still doubters? Are they just ignorant on purpose?
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No.
>proof of God's existence
Wrong, the demonstrations are proofs of first causes, unmoved sources of motion, necessity, etc., but note that they all end with "and we call this God." What isn't argued here is whether any of these five ways are 1) applicable to the Biblical God, and 2) whether, if one affirms that, say, an unmoved mover is "God", whether all other Biblical attributes or any such thing follow.
What's more, *Aquinas knew these weren't sufficient for belief in the Biblical God*, hence there's a substantial but separate set of arguments in the Summa trying to establish that.
An example of why the Five Ways don't take you all the way: you can argue your way to, say, the big bang, and follow with, "and this I call God." Cool, but that doesn't tell someone anything else than that you associate the word "God" with origins in general, and doesn't tell me whether what you call a God has a providential interest in mankind, whether there's a requirement in how I should live, whether how I live will be rewarded or punished, etc.
>but note that they all end with "and we call this God."
This is called a definition, anon. Maybe language is just intersubjective, y'know?
>What isn't argued here is whether any of these five ways are 1) applicable to the Biblical God, and 2) whether, if one affirms that, say, an unmoved mover is "God", whether all other Biblical attributes or any such thing follow.
True, but you say that as if thomists don't explicitly claim that natural theology cannot prove the biblical god.
>This is called a definition, anon. Maybe language is just intersubjective, y'know?
The *definition* isn't demonstrated, just asserted at the end. What's *demonstrated* are whether there's a first cause, an unmoved mover, etc., but, strictly, this would be akin to demonstrating *anything whatsoever* and following it with, "and this we call God." I.e., there's five demonstrations, but only of the five topics, but with respect to whether they prove the existence of the Biblical God, they're only dialectical arguments by Aristotle's meaning, i.e., probable based on opinions, but not certain.
>True, but you say that as if thomists don't explicitly claim that natural theology cannot prove the biblical god.
I was already aware of that, hence why I said that Aquinas knew it wasn't sufficient.
>The *definition* isn't demonstrated, just asserted at the end.
That's how definitions work though. How the hell would someone demonstrate a definition?
>That's how definitions work though. How the hell would someone demonstrate a definition?
That's how *some* definitions work; cf. Aristotle's treatment of definitins in the Posterior Analytics. Some definitions may in indemonstrable, which is the worst case scenario for knowing a thing; in the best cases, it's a product of demonstrative proofs. In most cases, you have to start from opinions about this or that definition and test them and see what stands up to scrutiny.
>may in indemonstrable
*"may be indemonstrable"
first post already destroying thomists
one thing I don't understand with religious freaks is that even if we assume these "5 proofs" prove god, where the frick does the israelites, rabbi yeshua, circumcision, homophobia, sea shells and funny hats come from? they can only prove deism at best and nothing more, everything else can be discarded
I don't get it, you're angry because a theist argument is not also a lesson on the history of christianity? This doesn't make sense to me.
>theist argument
oxymoron
>Provide five (5) proofs of something
>"But those aren't proofs of something else!"
Thomas Kirk wept
>homophobia
go back troony
>transphobia
/misc/ is thataway man
I mean, how is the Primary Mover (pure actuality) not God? Don't we characterise God as omnipotent, omniscient, non-physical, perfect, eternal, immutable and only one? And isn't the Primary Mover omnipotent because it's purely actual as not being able to do something is to have an unrealised potential? And as the grounding for all true propositions it would not just have knowledge but be knowledge itself, and to lack knowledge is to have an unrealised potential, thus also being omniscient? And isn't it non-physical because physical substances can change location, form, etc., all of which are unrealised potentials? And isn't it perfect, because flaws and imperfections are potentialities? And isn't it eternal since something purely actual cannot come into or go out of being? And isn't it immutable since changeability involves unrealised potentials? And isn't it only one since the only way to tell the difference between two purely actual things is if one of them had something that the other lacked, and something of pure actuality does not lack anything? There's a part of you that's aware of the miserable case of cognitive dissonance you're demonstrating, but the rest of you is so absorbed in pretending to be confident in this matter that you'd rather go down the easier, dismissive route and perform your programmed command line -- 'now prove it's your god!!'. Give it a think. You never know, perhaps your IQ might improve towards double-digit status.
>everything has a cause
>NO NOT THAT EVERYTHING ELSE
Some people saw actual miracles in front of their eyes and didn't convert.
Even in the Bible, some people saw Jesus resurrecting a dude. They wanted to kill the dude who was resurrected to not increase Jesus' popularity.
There is direct evidence of the miracle of Fatima, hundreds of people saw it. If you don't believe after countless stuff like that then you deserve damnation in my humble opinion
We can't judge others, anon... But that said, the miracle of Fatima was what I had in mind
>The rain, at the pre-announced hour, ceases to fall; the dense mass of clouds break up and the king star — a frosted silver disc — at the height of its zenith appears and begins dancing in a violent and convulsive ballet, which a large number of people imagined to be a serpentine dance, so beautiful and brilliant colors successively covered the solar surface.
>Miracle, as the people shouted? Natural phenomenon, the wise would say? I don't want to know now, but just want to tell you what I saw...
>The rest is up to Science and the Church...
I mean, that’s the whole point of the the ending to the story of the rich man and Lazarus, isn’t it?
Incorrect. The first, second, and third ways claim infinite regress can't exist without proving this (and the second way implies that God doesn't have free will, by the way). The last two are such obvious bullshit I don't care to point it out.
If you have faith, just have faith. Why do you have to commit crimes against logic just to justify what you would've believed anyway?
>The first, second, and third ways claim infinite regress can't exist without proving this
Premises are le bad now
sorry Black person, but I'm not going to accept your claim if you don't prove it. Why can't an infinite regress exist?
Whether God exists or not is such a boring question nobody actually cares about. The real question is why anybody should care whether God exists or not
>The real question is why anybody should care whether God exists or not
Is that a picture of your brain you posted?
five ways? there's only one way, through mohammad his prophet, pbuh, pbuh
Have you considered the possibility that the arguments just might not be as good as you think they are?
Yes
You should consider it some more.
Why?
If you think that the people who disagree with you on some controversial philosophical question are just being willfully ignorant, you've clearly gone wrong somewhere. It's much more likely that you're just missing something compared to the hypothesis that the legions of smart philosophers who disagree with you are all being intellectually dishonest.
Ad populum
Ad Latinum.
Not an argument
>God does physics so you should worship Jesus
It's a slam dunk if you're already a Christian.
Test
1-3. What moved/caused/was-necessary for God to exist? If God doesn't need something else why does the universe?
4. What is the largest number? There existing a measure of degree doesn't imply a largest element.
5. Argument from design. Teleology doesn't exist.
>Teleology doesn't exist
Teleology does exist, the issue is scale. A mouth is for the sake of taking in nutrition and material, which no one contests, the problem is deciding whether the animal with that mouth exists as it is for the sake of something, which is where arguments sprout.
>Teleology does exist, the issue is scale. A mouth is for the sake of taking in nutrition and material, which no one contests
Teleology doesn't exist. It is impossible to determine what the purpose of something is since purpose is totally subjective. Even your attempted proof relies on the popularity of a certain subjective opinion. At best you can refer to the evolutionary history of some biological feature and evolution frequently changes the "purpose" of something.
What do you use your mouth for besides sucking dick?
Aristotle's Physics is a joke. I'm sorry if that hurts your feelings. The planets do not orbit the earth because that is their purpose to do so. Rocks do not all to the ground because that is where they belong teleologicaly.
>The planets do not orbit the earth because that is their purpose to do so. Rocks do not all to the ground because that is where they belong teleologicaly.
That's what modern physics says though. Movement is relative, so it's as correct to say that the earth is the center of the solar system as it isn't. Gravity makes planets orbit and rocks fall, so Aristotle is right again. The real problem with his physics is its lack of a predictive framework, but the descriptions are on point with modern science.
>Teleology doesn't exist. It is impossible to determine what the purpose of something is since purpose is totally subjective. Even your attempted proof relies on the popularity of a certain subjective opinion. At best you can refer to the evolutionary history of some biological feature and evolution frequently changes the "purpose" of something.
Wrong, and trivially so. What you contest is exactly what I highlighted, whether an animal exists for the sake of something, but tools and structures trivially exist for the sake of whatever purpose we bring them about for. Another example: you're arguing about it with me for the sake of persuading me (or for the sake of (You)s, or for the sake of victory, or for the sake of, etc.), otherwise you'd be arbitrarily chattering, right? You disagree about scale, but not that there's purposiveness whatsoever, and even the subjectivity of purposiveness isn't a denial of purposiveness, just a disagreement over which purposes or how many there might be, since a subjective purpose is still a purpose.
>but tools and structures trivially exist for the sake of whatever purpose we bring them about for.
Your identification of tools and structures is subjective. There is no "purpose" for a mouth. All biology says anything about is the evolutionary history of that feature.
>Another example: you're arguing about it with me for the sake of persuading me (or for the sake of (You)s, or for the sake of victory, or for the sake of, etc.), otherwise you'd be arbitrarily chattering, right?
So you're starting to understand. The purpose of my speech is subjective to me. You can't objectively state what somethings purpose is because there is no objective purpose.
>So you're starting to understand. The purpose of my speech is subjective to me. You can't objectively state what somethings purpose is because there is no objective purpose.
This is literally what I said, and your insistence on purposes being subjective still presupposes "there are purposes." You’re playing word games at this point; if you accept that there are needs, desires, wants, then you accept that there purposes, *and disagree on scale*.
>This is literally what I said, and your insistence on purposes being subjective still presupposes "there are purposes."
I've never said there no purposes. There are as many different purposes as there are subjective viewpoints. What doesn't exist is teleology aka objective purpose.
God was there at the beginning, no one can understand but Him
They are so condensed that they lose much of their force. If Aquinas wasn't so committed to his formatting, he could have made them much more convincing. He also assumes a thorough knowledge of Aristotle (which makes one wonder who the "theological novices" he wrote the Summa for were!), which just isn't common today. The first and third ways are very much worth thinking about, though.