A month of surprises.
I have this weird thing of basing how the month would go on common things that happen on the first day of the month- It happened when I noticed to do lists on first days of months and how the months added up to the first days.
Anyways, 8th month of the year, August, started of with windows popping open with rain and wind, someone's surprise birthday party and thus, some hope for an exciting month- So, I predict surprises this month. (:
Labels: dadoo
I hope these various 'educational-like blogs don't make me sound preachy. I was procrastinating on the net when I stumbled across the work of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Aquinas believed that there were two ways to arrive at 'the truth', one through reason and logic and the other through faith. He also believed that it was possible to prove the existence of God
a priori, through reason alone. He then went about to try and do so. Though this may seem like intellectual suicide to most people, he did an absolutely fantastic job. Some go as far as to say that all modern philosophy is a reaction, either against or for, Aquinas's work. The church today hold him as a model for those studying for priesthood, and Pope Benedict XV even declared, "The Church has declared Thomas' doctrine to be her own."
The Quinque Viae, or Five Ways, are how Thomas set about proving God.
1) The unmoved mover (or first mover).
We can argue that anything that is moving today is because something set it into motion. Think ball, bat, hand, muscle, electric signal, brain, birth, evolution, earth, universe, big bang (what caused the concentrated matter that exploded in the big bang to explode in the first place?)
Aquinas argued that for something to be moving there has to be something else moving it. Therefore, at the beginning there has to be something that set the first object into motion that is itself unmovable.
2) First cause.
Anything that has been created has to have been created by something else, because nothing can create itself. But if nothing could create itself, then nothing would have ever been created, and the universe would fail to exist. Therefore, there must have been a Creator, itself not created, who created everything else (anyone know how the concentrated matter that exploded in the big bang got there in the first place?)
3) From contingency.
This argument is 'til today the Church's Ace of Spades. Scientists simply cannot understand how the very first matter got there in the first place, and if it was condensed energy, they cannot understand how the very first energy was created.
Nothing in the universe is really necessary, the universe would function fully well without anything. In fact, the universe itself is not essentially necessary (necessary meaning, it did not always have to be there. In fact, because of the big bang and the theory of the 'heat death of the universe' we know that the universe, like everything else, has an age and is not infinity). Seeing as nothing is necessary, there has to be a point in the past when nothing existed. However, something exists now so we must assume that at least one entity is infinity, and existed when nothing existed so it could bring something into existence.
Another way to read this is that if nothing was necessary, nothing would exist, and for something to exist there has to be something that is necessary and that is God.
4) From degree.
For us to judge if anything is good or bad, we must compare it with something better (or worse, but apparently Aquinas was not interested in proving the existence of the Devil). For these comparisons to be anything but entirely arbitrary (based on personal opinion) there must be something that is the best possible thing (Ice cream is cold and liquid nitrogen is colder. Absolute zero can tell us how cold they actually are).
5) Teleological argument.
Everything in the universe (alive or otherwise) works towards some kind of goal, whether it is aware of it or not. This goal may be something as simple as death. Since everything has a goal, there must be a supreme entity directing the whole show.
My goal is to pass the IB. The IB teachers' goal is to feed their children. The goal of the human race is to continue. The goal of the earth is to provide its inhabitants with resources. The goal of the sun is to provide the earth with energy. The goal of the universe is to provide space for the sun. And so on, until we reach God.
Labels: Anadi, God
