Introduction
Humans remain at liberty to search for the truths regarding God’s existence as it informs their inherent capacity to interrogate religion rationally. Indeed, the concept of God has eluded and fascinated humanity for generations despite the speculations and religious doctrines used to conceptualize this aspect. Nevertheless, no definitive proof shows that God is real, and many philosophers have endeavored to prove or disapprove of God’s existence. Despite the conflicting philosophical ideologies, St. Thomas Aquinas and Rene Descartes, in their publications, provide elaborate arguments regarding God’s existence. This essay identifies the arguments and the differences in their approaches to this phenomenon.
St. Aquinas maintains that God exists since humans can experience Him through their senses, live up to His purposes, and be guided by His perfect will. In the famous third article, St. Aquinas elaborately proves God’s existence through the Five Ways approach. In the first argument, Aquinas argues about the unmoved mover relating to motion (Aquinas, 2010). From the observations, only physical actions can cause other movements. He applies this law to the world and asserts that something must have started the movement in the first place and not have been caused to move by something else. Thus, to Aquinas, this something is God.
Aquinas’s second argument is of the first cause. This argument is similar to the first and involves causation. From the philosopher’s perspective, everything in the natural world has a cause and provides an example of the domino chain. Aquinas, through this example, believes that God must have started the cause-and-effect chain (Aquinas, 2010).
The philosopher’s third argument encapsulates contingency. Aquinas acknowledges that things in the natural world depend on other things for existence. Since everything depends on something else for its existence, that something is God.
Further, Aquinas argues about the degree of good things. From his perspective, there is a need to scale the value of things, whether bigger or smaller, greater or lesser, as opposed to worse. However, the measurement system must be of the highest perfection, goodness, and truth (Aquinas, 2010). Only God has these qualities. Lastly, Aquinas argues about completion or the teleological argument. The philosopher maintained that everything in nature moved predictably. As a result, God must be directing humans toward their final goal as something intelligent is needed to accomplish such a feat.
Correspondingly, Rene Descartes also presents an argument regarding God’s existence. He provides two arguments regarding this phenomenon. The philosopher’s first argument involves a cosmological argument through a mathematical approach using the concept of infinity. From Descartes’ perspective, there cannot be a concept of something without its opposites, such as light and darkness, and, therefore, the concept of finitude cannot exist without infinity (Descartes, 2013). Through the element of formal and objective reality, Descartes asserts that the mere fact of human existence and the perfect being, which is God, shows that God, too, exists.
Descartes’ second proof of God’s existence is ontological. He opines that some things are necessary. He applies mathematics; a triangle’s “three angles are equal to two right angles.” No sense is needed to determine if this is a fact, and intellect alone can be used to prove the fact. Besides, Descartes cannot imagine “God except as existing,” indicating that such existing is necessary (Descartes, 2013). Ideally, existence remains superior to non-existence, and since God is a perfect being, existence is inevitable.
Differences in Approach
Both philosophers believe that God exists. However, their approaches to proofing God’s existence contain notable differences. Aquinas’s arguments are cosmological, where each begins with a general truth regarding natural phenomena, proceeding to the existence of an ultimate creative source of the universe. The philosopher examines the natural world using natural laws to explain God’s existence. In contrast, Descartes uses a mathematical approach in his arguments. Essentially, Descartes’ proofs rely on the belief that by existing and being born an imperfect being, one must accept that something of more formal reality must have created humans.
Conclusion
St. Aquinas and Rene Descartes maintain that God exists. While humans remain limited by their understanding of God’s existence, the two philosophers’ attempts to explain the existence of a supreme being may not be entirely understood through human imagination. In this regard, humans must believe in such an existence since no other can be conceived, and God’s non-existence conflicts with human individuality and life convictions.
References
Aquinas, T. (2010). Summa Theologica: Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican province. MobileReference. https://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/1225-1274,_Thomas_Aquinas,_Summa_Theologiae_%5B1%5D,_EN.pdf
Descartes, R. (2013). Meditations on first philosophy. Broadview Press. https://openlibrary-repo.ecampusontario.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/123456789/1248/Meditations-on-First-Philosophy-1645641253.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y
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