St. Thomas Aquinas

Charleta Mason
The Medieval World
Professor Jay Reuscher
April 4, 2003
St Thomas Aquinas: Five Proofs of God’s Existence
In this paper, I will discuss the method St. Thomas Aquinas uses to prove God’s existence. In the Summa Theologica St. Thomas Aquinas asserts that God must be proven only by deduction according to human observations and he offers five proofs of God’s existence. These proofs were knows as the “Five Ways”. My paper will have five main headings, which will discuss the five proofs offered by Thomas Aquinas:
I. The argument of motion.
II. Nature of efficient cause.
III. Possibility and Necessity.
IV. Gradation of things.
V. Governance.

Proof I.
St. Thomas Aquinas offers the argument of motion as the first proof of God’s existence. He calls it the most obvious way. Motion is the changing state of things: going from ignorance to knowledge. Whatever is in motion Aquinas states, is moved by something else. So it is impossib...