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The Five Ways

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Matt Stefon
Matt Stefon was a religion editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica. He earned B.A. degrees in English and American studies from the Pennsylvania State University and an
M.A. in religion and literature and an...
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Alternative Title: Quinquae Viae

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The Five Ways, Latin Quinquae Viae, in the philosophy of religion, the five arguments proposed by St. Thomas Aquinas
(1224/25–1274) as demonstrations of the existence of God.

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Andrea da Firenze: The Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas

The Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas, fresco by Andrea da Firenze, c. 1365; in the Spanish Chapel of the church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence.
Image: SCALA/Art Resource, New York

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Aquinas developed a theological system that synthesized Western Christian (and predominantly Roman Catholic) theology with the
philosophy of the ancient Greek thinker Aristotle (384–322 BCE), particularly as it had been interpreted by Aristotle’s later Islamic
commentators. In his Summa Theologica, which he intended as a primer for theology students, Aquinas devised five arguments for
the existence of God, known as the Five Ways, that subsequently proved highly influential. While much of Aquinas’s system is
concerned with special revelation—the doctrine of the Incarnation of God’s Word in Jesus Christ—the Five Ways are examples of
natural theology. In other words, they are a concerted attempt to discern divine truth in the order of the natural world.

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St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas, from the Demidoff Altarpiece, tempera on poplar by Carlo Crivelli, 1476; in the National Gallery, London.
Image: Art Collection/Alamy

Aquinas’s first three arguments—from motion, from causation, and from contingency—are types of what is called the cosmological
argument for divine existence. Each begins with a general truth about natural phenomena and proceeds to the existence of an
ultimate creative source of the universe. In each case, Aquinas identifies this source with God.

01:29 05:20

Aquinas’s first demonstration of God’s existence is the argument from motion. He drew from Aristotle’s observation that each thing
in the universe that moves is moved by something else. Aristotle reasoned that the series of movers must have begun with a first or
prime mover that had not itself been moved or acted upon by any other agent. Aristotle sometimes called this prime mover “God.”
Aquinas understood it as the God of Christianity.

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The second of the Five Ways, the argument from causation, builds upon Aristotle’s notion of an efficient cause, the entity or event
responsible for a change in a particular thing. Aristotle gives as examples a person reaching a decision, a father begetting a child,
and a sculptor carving a statue. Because every efficient cause must itself have an efficient cause and because there cannot be an
infinite chain of efficient causes, there must be an immutable first cause of all the changes that occur in the world, and this first
cause is God.

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Aquinas’s third demonstration of God’s existence is the argument from contingency, which he advances by distinguishing between
possible and necessary beings. Possible beings are those that are capable of existing and not existing. Many natural beings, for
example, are possible because they are subject to generation and corruption. If a being is capable of not existing, then there is a
time at which it does not exist. If every being were possible, therefore, then there would be a time at which nothing existed. But
then there would be nothing in existence now, because no being can come into existence except through a being that already exists.
Therefore, there must be at least one necessary being—a being that is not capable of not existing. Furthermore, every necessary
being is either necessary in itself or caused to be necessary by another necessary being. But just as there cannot be an infinite chain
of efficient causes, so there cannot be an infinite chain of necessary beings whose necessity is caused by another necessary being.
Rather, there must be a being that is necessary in itself, and this being is God.

Aquinas’s fourth argument is that from degrees of perfection. All things exhibit greater or lesser degrees of perfection. There must
therefore exist a supreme perfection that all imperfect beings approach yet fall short of. In Aquinas’s system, God is that paramount
perfection.

Aquinas’s fifth and final way to demonstrate God’s existence is an argument from final causes, or ends, in nature (see teleology).
Again, he drew upon Aristotle, who held that each thing has its own natural purpose or end. Some things, however—such as
natural bodies—lack intelligence and are thus incapable of directing themselves toward their ends. Therefore, they must be guided
by some intelligent and knowledgeable being, which is God.

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…by Aquinas known as the Five Ways—the argument from motion, from efficient causation, from contingency,
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philosophy of religion

Philosophy of religion, discipline concerned with the philosophical appraisal of human religious attitudes and of the real or
imaginary objects of those attitudes, God or the gods. The philosophy of religion is an integral part of philosophy as such and
embraces central issues regarding the nature and extent of human…

St. Thomas Aquinas

St. Thomas Aquinas, ; canonized July 18, 1323; feast day January 28, formerly March 7), Italian Dominican…

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Home  Philosophy & Religion  Philosophical Issues

Philosophy
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WRITTEN BY
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content
or via study for an advanced degree....
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Philosophy, (from Greek, by way of Latin, philosophia, “love of wisdom”) the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of
reality as a whole or of fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience. Philosophical inquiry is a central element in
the intellectual history of many civilizations.

Raphael: School of Athens

Plato (centre left) and Aristotle surrounded by philosophers, detail from School of Athens, fresco by Raphael, 1508–11; in the Stanza della Segnatura in the
Vatican.
Image: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, New York

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BRITANNICA QUIZ
What’s In a Name? Philosopher Edition
Philosophers are often referred to by their surnames only. Do you remember the given names of these famous philosophers?

The subject of philosophy is treated in a number of articles. For discussion of major systems of Eastern philosophy, see Buddhism;
Chinese philosophy; Confucianism; Daoism; Hinduism; Indian philosophy; Jainism; Japanese philosophy; Shintō; Sikhism.

For biographies of major Eastern philosophers, see Buddha; Confucius; Dai Zhen; Han Feizi; Laozi; Mencius; Mozi; Nichiren;
Nishida Kitarō; Wang Yangming; Xunzi; Zhu Xi.

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For historical coverage of Western philosophy, see Western philosophy. For discussion of philosophies associated with the major
religious traditions of the West, see Christianity: Christian philosophy; Islam: Islamic philosophy; Judaism: Jewish philosophy.

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For discussion of major Western schools, movements, and systems, see atomism; analytic philosophy; Continental philosophy;
deconstruction Eleaticism; empiricism; existentialism; idealism; materialism; phenomenology; positivism; postmodernism;
pragmatism; rationalism; realism; Scholasticism; skepticism; Stoicism; utilitarianism.

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For biographies of major Western philosophers and treatment of their associated movements, see Aristotle and Aristotelianism;
René Descartes and Cartesianism; Epicurus and Epicureanism; Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Hegelianism; Immanuel Kant
and Kantianism; Karl Marx and Marxism; Plato and Platonism; Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism.

For discussion of other major Western philosophers, see Peter Abelard; St. Anselm; St. Thomas Aquinas; St. Augustine; Noam
Chomsky; Jacques Derrida; Duns Scotus; Michel Foucault; Jürgen Habermas; Martin Heidegger; David Hume; William James;
Saul Kripke; Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; John Locke; John Stuart Mill; Friedrich Nietzsche; Hilary Putnam; Jean-Jacques
Rousseau; Bertrand Russell; Jean-Paul Sartre; Socrates; Benedict de Spinoza; Bernard Williams; Ludwig Wittgenstein.

For coverage of the particular branches of Western philosophy, see aesthetics; epistemology; ethics; ideology; logic; metaphysics;
philosophical anthropology; philosophy of biology; philosophy of education; philosophy of history; philosophy of language;
philosophy of law; philosophy of logic; philosophy of mathematics; philosophy of mind ; philosophy of physics; philosophy of
religion; philosophy of science.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

This article was most recently revised and updated by Brian Duignan, Senior Editor.

LEARN MORE in these related Britannica articles:

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Buddhism, religion and philosophy that developed from the teachings of the Buddha (Sanskrit: “Awakened One”), a teacher
who lived in northern India between the mid-6th and mid-4th centuries bce (before the Common Era). Spreading from India to
Central and Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan, Buddhism has played a central…

motivation: Physiological, psychological, and philosophical approaches

Motivation has been studied in a variety of ways. For instance, it has been analyzed at the physiological level using electrical
and chemical stimulation of the brain, the recording of electrical brain-wave activity with the electroencephalograph, and
lesion techniques, where a portion of…

relativity: Philosophical considerations

In 1925 the British philosopher Bertrand Russell, in his ABC of Relativity, suggested that Einstein’s work would lead to new
philosophical concepts. (Russell’s thoughts were also expressed the next year in the 13th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica;
see the classic article “Relativity: Philosophical…

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Philosophy

KEY PEOPLE
Socrates
Aristotle
Plato
Francis Bacon
John Locke
St. Augustine
Immanuel Kant
Karl Marx
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Hegel
Voltaire

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