P
Pious_Mat
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We all ought to recall some peculiarities about the Angelic Doctor.
First, nothing he ever wrote, especially part of ST, exist in a vacuum, part Aquinas’s peculiar and highly intellectual style of expression. For example, if you’re reading Article 86 of ST, St. Thomas assumed that you’ve read the first 85 articles, plus all of Aristotle, Augustine, and numerous other works.
That said, if we look at the way the five ways are presented, they are not intended to be proofs. At the outset, St. Thomas says that the existence of God can be argued for in five ways. At least, this is the most literal translation from the Latin. What St. Thomas is essentially doing is saying that the existence of God can be argued for in such a way merely for arguments’ sake. They were never meant to be conclusive, or so Thomist scholars tell us.
Why wouldn’t he have formulated conclusive arguments for the existence of God? There was no need, since it was a universally acknowledge in his circle that God existed. Even the most out-there people St. Thomas would have encounted (Averoeists and other heretics, Jews, and Muslims) all believed in God, and the vast majority believed same God he worshipped–the God who spoke to Abraham and made a covenant with him.
In short, there is no tract by St. Thomas that can be carried around in one’s back pocket that can prove the existence of God. If God’s existence is proved conclusively in ST, it is done over the course of many, many assertions which build upon each other.
First, nothing he ever wrote, especially part of ST, exist in a vacuum, part Aquinas’s peculiar and highly intellectual style of expression. For example, if you’re reading Article 86 of ST, St. Thomas assumed that you’ve read the first 85 articles, plus all of Aristotle, Augustine, and numerous other works.
That said, if we look at the way the five ways are presented, they are not intended to be proofs. At the outset, St. Thomas says that the existence of God can be argued for in five ways. At least, this is the most literal translation from the Latin. What St. Thomas is essentially doing is saying that the existence of God can be argued for in such a way merely for arguments’ sake. They were never meant to be conclusive, or so Thomist scholars tell us.
Why wouldn’t he have formulated conclusive arguments for the existence of God? There was no need, since it was a universally acknowledge in his circle that God existed. Even the most out-there people St. Thomas would have encounted (Averoeists and other heretics, Jews, and Muslims) all believed in God, and the vast majority believed same God he worshipped–the God who spoke to Abraham and made a covenant with him.
In short, there is no tract by St. Thomas that can be carried around in one’s back pocket that can prove the existence of God. If God’s existence is proved conclusively in ST, it is done over the course of many, many assertions which build upon each other.