Thomas Aquinas' Proofs

[Pope_Noah_I]

Let me preface the following remarks by stating that I am a philsophical, scientific layman without little to no understanding of their basic principles. Go easy on me.

Okay, now. I have two very good friends, both staunch, uncompromising atheists. Often, as philosophically-opposed individuals usually do, we get into fights about the true nature of the universe. As a Latin Catholic, I tend to take refuge in Thomas Aquinas’ first proof of God, the argument from causality. My friend Ryan, the most intellectually inclined of the three of us, argues that the Saint’s proofs have been proven wrong by quantum mechanics. I wish I could describe his arguments in full to you, but, unfortunately, I fail to grasp most of it. Which brings me to my question. Have Thomas Aquinas’ proofs been disproved, and, if so, what are we to do about it?

 

[James_S_Saint]

Let me preface the following remarks by stating that I am a philsophical, scientific layman without little to no understanding of their basic principles. Go easy on me.

Okay, now. I have two very good friends, both staunch, uncompromising atheists. Often, as philosophically-opposed individuals usually do, we get into fights about the true nature of the universe. As a Latin Catholic, I tend to take refuge in Thomas Aquinas’ first proof of God, the argument from causality. My friend Ryan, the most intellectually inclined of the three of us, argues that the Saint’s proofs have been proven wrong by quantum mechanics. I wish I could describe his arguments in full to you, but, unfortunately, I fail to grasp most of it. Which brings me to my question. Have Thomas Aquinas’ proofs been disproved, and, if so, what are we to do about it?

Quantum Mechanics??? – Hahaha… well, Thomas right or not, I can guarantee that QM has nothing to do with the proof of it.

QM is about using statistical math to predict probable outcomes. The ONLY thing it could even begin to suggest would be that dear Thomas was “probably wrong”.

Haha… I can’t believe the Quantum Magi are trying to say QM disproves anything.

{well, I guess I can…they say anything that works …“might be true in a possible world”}

 

[Julian0404]

Post # 2 is correct, Quantum Mechanics is the “mathamatical description” of reality, and is recognized as being “unreasonable” in many instances as to how humans actually see reality.
However, Quantum Mechanics still does not counter the “first cause” position nor replace it. Your intellectual friend simply does not have an answer as to “how” everything showed up from nothing, so he falls back to parroting what he has been taught. He is intellectually pulling a smoke screen. Rather than truly attempting to answer “everything from nothing”, he is posing to you a question you can’t answer, but here is your answer:
Quantum Mechanics followed creation. It did not create. So, tell me how did Quantum Mechanics come into existence? Start from where he is comfortable.
Then, as he explains the history of Quantum Mechanics simply keeping asking, who, what, when, where, how and why moving backward in time with each answer he provides, until literally he is at the beginning of time and he is attempting to explain where that “old reliable spark” that ignite the floating cloud of “stuff” came from, in other words, the first cause.
If he refuses or gets tired or bored because he see’s where you are leading him, simply let him know that the “first cause” can explain the creation of Quantum Mechanics, but the reverse is not true, because Quantum Mechanics is “math” and it cannot create, only explain.

 

[James_S_Saint]

The Quantum Magi would resort to “things don’t have to have a reason to exist. They just randomly appear on a picoscopic scale.” and “The fact that your computer works is proof of it.”

 

[Rhubarb]

I’m afraid I don’t know much about quantum mechanics. But I’m pretty sure Aquinas wasn’t very concerned with anything on a picoscopic scale. As I recall, quantum mechanics can’t reconcile with general relativity in a unified theory. (Look up quantum entanglement) There is some impasse between the two. And according to a few engineer friends, we simply don’t know yet why everything works the way they do vis-a-vis quantum mechanics. (like why wave forms collapse when they are observed as per the Double Slit experiment)

In the end, as others have said, science and religion answer two separate questions. Science may be able to explain HOW something happens, but it can never ever ever never explain WHY something happens.

 

[James_S_Saint]

(like why wave forms collapse when they are observed as per the Double Slit experiment)

Just a side note;

That “wave” that collapses is merely a statistical graph that displays what is statistically not known and thus when something is measured, what is not known changes and thus the statistics change. It has nothing at all to do with anything physical changing.

 

[Matthias123]

Let me preface the following remarks by stating that I am a philsophical, scientific layman without little to no understanding of their basic principles. Go easy on me.

Okay, now. I have two very good friends, both staunch, uncompromising atheists. Often, as philosophically-opposed individuals usually do, we get into fights about the true nature of the universe. As a Latin Catholic, I tend to take refuge in Thomas Aquinas’ first proof of God, the argument from causality. My friend Ryan, the most intellectually inclined of the three of us, argues that the Saint’s proofs have been proven wrong by quantum mechanics. I wish I could describe his arguments in full to you, but, unfortunately, I fail to grasp most of it. Which brings me to my question. Have Thomas Aquinas’ proofs been disproved, and, if so, what are we to do about it?

Absolute garbage. This atheist most likely has only read Aquinas in brief and has not actually STUDIED him. If you do not study him you are going to have no idea what he is talking about.

There is nothing in Quantum mechanics that causes problems.

 

[punkforchrist]

As other have already mentioned, quantum mechanics have no effect whatsoever on the Thomistic argument. Even granting that there is some kind of indeterminacy on the quantum level (not even all physicists agree with that - see David Bohm, for example), we don’t have something coming from nothing. Rather, these fluctuations appear spontaneously out of the energy that already exists within the quantum vacuum. And, of course, energy is something.

It’s always helpful to keep in mind that Thomas’ version of the cosmological argument does not require that the universe had a beginning. An eternal house would still have to have a foundation, or else it would collapse. By analogy, even if nature is eternal (most evidence points to a beginning, anyway, though), it still has to have a First Cause. I recommend asking: can something come from nothing? If he says yes, then you’ve already won the argument. If he says no, then continue with the house analogy, or something similar.

Just keep in mind that QM has absolutely no bearing on Thomas’ argument. The fact that this objection is made so often is a kind of back-handed compliment to the cosmological argument. After all, the only reason anyone would say that something could come from nothing is to specifically avoid the conclusion that a First Cause exists.