Religious Studies

Unit: Introductory Philosophy

Lesson 7: Aquinas

Learning Outcomes:
1. To gain a basic understanding of who Aquinas was and what his
contributions were to Philosophy and Theology
2. Understand the basic structure of a philosophical argument, as well as the
difference between deductive and inductive arguments
3. Explain and critique one of Aquinas’ five arguments for the existence of
God
Assessment
Unit Outlines
There is an updated version of the Unit Outline coming. The main change will be that the In-Class assessment set for
Week 16 will now be an “at home” task. More details will come and you will have the task at least four weeks before the
due date.

Essay Feedback
In light of the drafts that I’ve seen so far, here is some general advice:
- Do not use first person (“I” statements) in an academic essay. E.g. Instead of: ‘I believe that free-will is…’ Use: ‘It is
evident that free-will is…’
- Write your body paragraphs first, then your conclusion, then your introduction. You can’t introduce something if you
don’t know what you’re going to say. An introduction should summarise the key points coming up (you don’t need to
reference these as they will be referenced in the body) and hint at your conclusion. Your conclusion should not include
anything new (that you haven’t already explored in the body). It is also OK to say what argument/s you are most
convinced by even if you aren’t wholeheartedly devoted to one in particular. What is most compelling from the
evidence?
- Tertiary students only: A key part of your rubric is to analyse (11T) or evaluate (12T) the “importance of the key concept
to people…” This means you need to say why your sources (philosophers, theologians, psychologists) think this idea is so
important; provide some context as to why they have bothered to investigate this idea / argument. This doesn’t have to
be a big thing, but can just be a phrase / sentence here or there and in how you introduce your sources of information.
Revision
Last two lessons we…

• Discussed a thought experiment which asked us to consider who / what is responsible for suffering (evil);
i.e. moral or natural evil.
• Brief overview of Augustine. He saw Philosophy and Theology as one and the same.
• Watched a video about the “problem of evil” and understood key ideas:
- Evil (moral / natural)
- The logical problem…
- The evidential problem…
- Theodicy (Incl. Free-Will Defense)
• Theodicy analysis and research task
– Genesis, Augustine, other…
Forum Discussion (on Portal)
Post a response to the quote below (in bold) on the Portal in the Forum
component of our class page.

Feel free to either agree, disagree or give an “it’s complicated” sort of

response. Just make sure you given reasons for your position.

Quote:
“Belief in God is a matter of faith, not reason. So it is not the sort of thing
that we should be arguing about – the whole point of belief in God is that
you should believe it without needing any evidence or arguments.”
Are Arguments for God
Worthwhile?
The main positions on the question of the existence of God are three:
• Theism, the belief that God exists.
• Atheism, the belief that God does not exist.
• Agnosticism, not believing that God exists and not believing that God does
not exist.

The connection of these three positions to arguments for the existence of God
is not entirely straightforward.
- For example, suppose that we do not find any good arguments for
God’s existence. Does that show that theism is false?
- Or suppose that we do not find any good arguments against God’s
existence. Does that show that atheism is false?
- Suppose again that we do not find any good arguments for God’s
existence. Does that show that belief in God is irrational, or baseless?
- Or suppose that we do not find any good arguments against God’s
existence. Does that show that atheism is irrational?
 Aquinas (1225 - 1274)

• Full name: St. Thomas Aquinas, known as the “Angelic Doctor”

• An Italian Dominican theologian and worked against a background of
fixed religious dogma to solve general philosophical problems.
• He developed his own conclusions from Aristotelian (of Aristotle)
premises in metaphysics of personality, creation and providence. 
• Through two of his works -  Summa Theologica (Summary of Theology)
and Summa Contra Gentiles (Summary Against the Gentiles) – he
created a system for Latin theology. He also wrote many poems and
hymns.
• He was the first to assert that: “Christ was either liar, lunatic, or Lord.” 
• He established five arguments for the existence of God.
• He is recognised by the Roman Catholic Church as its foremost
Western philosopher and theologian.
Watch - Philosophical Reasoning
Thomas Aquinas used “deductive reasoning” to formulate his five arguments for the existence of God. They each follow this format:
Premise + Premise + Premise = Conclusion.

Watch the following video to gain some further understanding of “deductive reasoning” and how it differs from “inductive reasoning.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRcNQkWNWNk
Research - Aquinas’ Five Arguments
You will need to conduct research into Thomas Aquinas’ five arguments for the existence of God. They include:
- Argument from motion (cosmological)
- Argument from causation (cosmological)
- Argument from contingency (cosmological)
- Argument from degrees (cosmological)
- Argument from harmony (teleological)

You should complete the following for each argument listed above in a Word document:
1. Explain each argument in your own words.
(There is a PDF available on the Portal of the arguments as they were originally written, translated into English called ‘St
Thomas Aquinas’ Five Arguments for God.’ Find it in the Files component of our Class Page. I have also provided a link to a
video from Crash Course Philosophy on the Cosmological Arguments. Of course, you may look at other summaries online to
help you).
2. Critique each argument using ideas from research as well as your own (be sure to differentiate between researched
ideas and your own ideas). What are the problems with these arguments?
3. Answer this question: Do you find any of these arguments compelling? Why / why not?

At the end of our lesson you will need to put your Word document into the File Drop Box on our Portal Class Page.
How did we go?
Learning Outcomes:
1. To gain a basic understanding
of who Aquinas was and what
his contributions were to
Philosophy and Theology
2. Understand the basic structure
of a philosophical argument,
as well as the difference
between deductive and
inductive arguments
3. Explain and critique one of
Aquinas’ five arguments for
the existence of God