Saint Thomas Aquinas and God

Paper Summary:

The purpose of this paper is to analyze articles 2 and 3 of question 2 of the first part (I, 2, 2-3) of "Summa Theologiae". The passage that is analyzed focuses on the question of the existence of God - in article 3, Thomas Aquinas expounds his famous five proofs for the existence of God. The paper attempts to understand Aquinas's own perspective of the text through a cohesive analysis. Both articles 2 and 3 are analyzed by identifying the question/problem that they are addressing, situating their historical and textual context, demonstrating the relevance of the question through historical content/Aquinas's work's inner logic/logic proper to the topic. The paper also delineates the conceptual tools Aquinas' worked with, to provide the essential content of the answer (summary) that inevitably includes and is intertwined with the logical structure that ultimately reveals the inner coherence of Aquinas' framework.

Outline:
Introduction
Question/Problem
Historical Context
Textual Context
Conceptual Tools Available
Summary of Solution & Aquinas's Logical Structure
Conclusion
Bibliography

From the Paper:

"The second article under the second question (ST, I, 2, 2) The Existence of God, deals specifically with the question: whether it can be demonstrated that God exists? Aquinas raises three major objections when answering the affirmative to the question. The first objection deals with the issue of faith versus scientific knowledge (reason). The objection proposes that God's existence is solely a matter of faith that cannot be demonstrated through scientific knowledge. The second objection deals with the essence of God. This objection suggests that one cannot demonstrate the consistency of God's essence but rather all one can demonstrate is what God's essence does not consist of. The third and final objection of article three supposes that if God does indeed exist, one can only demonstrate His existence through His effects. Moreover, since God's effects are finite and are not proportional to God's infinitude then God's existence cannot be demonstrated through God's effects. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Theologica. trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger Brothers, Inc., 1911.
• Clark, Mary T. An Aquinas Reader New York: Fordham, 2000.
• Gracia ,Jorge E et Noone, Timothy B. ed., A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages. Malden: Blackwell, 2003
• Owens , Joseph. St Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of God: Collected Papers of Joseph Owens. Ed. J.R. Catan Albany: State University of New York Press, 1980.
• Sillem, Edward. Ways of Thinking about God: Thomas Aquinas and the Modern Mind. New York: Longman & Todd LTd., 1961.

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