Ways of Thomas Aquinas

The 5 Ways of Thomas Aquinas

1. The Argument from Motion

• If we look around, all life is motion.
• Like a wind-up toy sitting on a desk, this existence would have never been put in "motion" unless something, God, conciously did it.
• Therefore, he called God the "First Mover".         

2. Arguement from Causes

• Nothing causes itself to be.
• Everything in existence is caused by something else.
• Similarly to the first arguement, this chain of causes can't be traced back infinitely.
• There must be a first cause.
• He called God the "First Cause".

3. Arguement from the Possibility and Necessity

• This arguement looks at something existing before all else.
• It zooms on the fact that existence, while possible, was not something that needed to happen.
• If at one time nothing existed, then nothing could have come into existence unless something made it.
• This something must be a being that is necessary, a being that has always existed, that made existence nessecary.

4. Arguement from Degrees of Perfection

• In our understanding of existence, we qualify things as being good or bad.
• When we are thinking of something as good, we are essentially comparing it to our idea of what the "most good" or "perfect" things would be.
• God is the place where this line of thinking stops.
• In other words, in calling something "good", we are using "perfect" as a frame of reference. God is that "perfect".

5. Arguement from Governance

• Events that occur randomly are often senseless.
• Things that are intellegently created display regular patterns and form comprehensive wholes.
• When unintellegent things display intellegent patterns, like the planets orbiting or laws of physics, it is hard to believe that it was a random occurence.
• Therefore, something must have intellegently arragnged the world around us, somehow. That Absolute Intelligence is God.

Divine Revelation vs. Salvation History

Divine Revelation

• the spiritual truths we know that we could not know without God having communicated them.
• Divine Revelation goes past simply observing the natural world.
• It involoves the works of Prophets, Evangelists, and the founding fathers of both Judaism and Christianity.

Salvation History

• the story of God's plan to save all people from the consequences of sin.
• God did not reveal himself to mankind all at once.
• It has been revealed gradually throughout the history of man.
• Man's sinful nature is revealed in the story of Adam and Eve, where as the process by which we can come closer to God and overcome this tendency has been outlined in a number of steps:

                1. First, in the covenants with Noah, Abraham, and Moses.

                2. Then, through many prophets that spoke of a final Messiah.

                3. Finally, God's revelation is fulfilled through the life, death, and                                     Resurrection of Jesus.

Sacred Tradition vs. Sacred Scripture

Sacred Tradition

• Whether written or oral, entrusted by Christ to the Apostles and their successors and which has been transmitted by teaching to each generation of Christians through Apostolic Succession.
• God's revelations were meant to be shared for all time.
• The combinitation of Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture is called the "Deposit of Faith".
• Includes the writings of the early church father, the practices and beliefs of the Early Church, and the content of what has been taught by the Church.
•  Sacred Tradition predates Sacred Scripture, because many of the books of the Bible were oral traditions before written.

Sacred Scripture

• Bible; the books that contain the truth of God's Revelation and were composed by human authors inspired the Holy Spirit.
• God did not dictate the words of the Bible word for word.
• The bible is divided into two sections:

                1. The Old Testament - 46 books - Tells the story of salvation from the creation of the world to just before Christ's time.

                2. The New Testament - 27 books - Begins with the life of Christ and ends with the writings and events of the early Church.

Establishing the Canon

• Christianity began without a written record.
• The bishops of the early Church decided, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, what books were to be considered "canon".
• "Protocanonical" books are books that were immediately accepted.
• "Deutercanonical" books are books that were later accepted after a verrification process.

                1. Apostolic - written by an Apostolic or an Apostle's associate

                2. Orthodox - faithfully teaching ideas that match up with what was handed down orally from the Apostles.