St. Thomas Aquinas Reporting
St. Thomas Aquinas Reporting
St. Thomas Aquinas Reporting
(Gracyk, 2016)
Our senses prove that some things are in motion.
Things move when potential motion becomes
actual motion. Only an actual motion can convert
a potential motion into an actual motion.
Nothing can be at once in both actuality and
potentially in the same respect.
Therefore nothing can move itself. Therefore each
thing in motion is moved by something else.
The sequence of motion is moved by something
else.
We perceive a series of efficient causes of things in
the world. Nothing exist prior to itself. Therefore
nothing [in the world of things we perceive] is the
efficient cause itself.
If a previous efficient cause does not exist, neither
does the thing that results the effect. Therefore if
the first thing in a series does not exist, nothing in
the series exist.
Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient
cause, to which everyone gives the name of GOD.
We find in nature things that are possible to be and
not to be, that come into being and go out of being
i.e., contingent beings.
Assume that every being is a contingent being. For
each contingent being, there is a time it does not
exist. Therefore it is impossible for these always to
exist. Therefore there could have been a time when
no things existed. There at that time there would
have been nothing to bring the currently existing
contingent beings into existence. Therefore,
nothing would be in existence now.
There is a gradation to be found in things: some
are better or worse than others. Predications of
degree reference to the “uttermost” case (e.g., a
thing is said to be hotter according as it more
nearly resembles that which is hottest).
The maximum in any genus is the cause of all in
that genus.
Therefore there must also be something which is
to all beings the cause of their being, goodness,
and every other perfection; and this we call GOD.
We see that natural bodies work toward same goal,
and do not do so by chance.
Most natural things lack knowledge.
But as an arrow reaches its target because it is
directed by an archer, what lacks intelligence
achieves goals by being directed by something
intelligence.
Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom
all natural things are directed to their end; and this
being we call God.
Gratzie mille
->Philosophy: The World’s Greatest Thinkers
-Philip Stokes
-Arcturus Publishing Limited
-Year published: 2011