Arguments For or Against the Existence of God Essay

Arguments For or Against the Existence of God - Essay ExampleMainly, the argument is based on induction. It begins with Aquinas believing that there is an graze of efficacious features in this world (Reichenbach, 2012). This means that motive exists in this world and that this causality has a sort outicular order, where one thing accepts other and this bmd thing also causes a nonher thing. Aquinas then proceeds by assuming that nothing fanny cause itself because it would be insurmountable for it to be prior to itself. This then leads Aquinas to think that everything is caused by another thing other than itself (Reichenbach, 2012). This part of the argument is rather self-explanatory but Aquinas makes it clear to his audience that causality works and that the lawfulness of causality exempts nothing. He also makes it clear that in this series of causes, it is impossible for one issuing to cause itself, or for one thing to cause its own existence. Aquinas is doing this while at the same clip leading his reader to believe that there moldiness be one cause that first caused completely these series of causes but that this cause itself was not caused by any(prenominal) other cause. He does this while in some way postulating that only God can cause Itself to exist. Moreover, the significance of this particular assumption is that if one thing can cause itself, then there would not be any first cause, for if one thing could cause itself, then there would not be any need for this first cause to cause the event next to it. In short, if a cause could cause itself, then each cause could be unconditional of each other and there would be no series. Aquinas then assumes and states that in matters of efficient cause, it is not possible to go to infinity (Reichenbach, 2012). The purpose of this part of the argument is to convince the reader that there must have been a definite beginning to this series of causes. Otherwise, if this series of causes went on to infi nity, then there would not be any first cause but only an endless series of causes. However, without giving any create or any other insight, Aquinas somehow just considers this assumption on the absence seizure of infinity a priori, and expects his audience to simply just accept this. What Aquinas has presented instead in order to prove his statement that it is possible to go to infinity with matters of efficient cause is rather an ontological proof. This proof is that, if there were an infinite number of causes, then there would neither be a first efficient cause nor an ultimate effect (Reichenbach, 2012). However, since these two things exist in nature and in reality, then there must not be an infinite series of causes. The last part of the argument is when Aquinas states that it is and so necessary to admit a first efficient cause, which Aquinas believes everyone would call God. In summary, therefore, the argument of Aquinas, therefore, is that causality exists and that one thi ng causes another but cannot cause itself. This is to discount the possibility that an event is dependent on its own cause and is therefore independent of adjacent causes. Moreover, Aquinas assumes that it would not be possible for a series of causes to go on infinity, and he does this for the same reason that he assumes that one thing cannot cause itself. He then also proves ontologically that if there were an