Thomas Aquinas

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Tom liked books and making model buildings, apparently.

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 1274) is a Roman Catholic saint. His massive Summa Theologica makes Das Kapital look like beach reading. It is renowned as the epitome of theology and philosophy by theists, most especially catholics. He endorsed natural theology - knowing God by studying "his creation" (the universe), a fusion of science and religion. This actually led to a social revolution, and people started to think, read Aristotle, and study nature - after a thousand years of European scientific and philosophical limbo, caused by the Church. Thanks for that, Tom![1]

For all his logical prowess, he was constrained by the fact that no part of his reasoning could bring him into disagreement with Scripture, and often trumped opposing arguments by nothing but a quotation from the Bible or Church Fathers.

Another eristical device of his was redefining certain terms by saying "X may be understood in two ways". He then used the less obvious understanding when it suited his cause.

Contents

[edit] Life

For our purposes, you really only need to know he was a medieval monk. Meaning he had no access to the microscope, germ theory, Darwin, or any other tools to serve him in any form that could be called scientific. The Summa is his point-for-point summation about what he thought God was and, as such, how the universe worked. His original seed thought, of God as the un-caused Cause, thus explodes into multiple volumes detailing every tenet of faith upheld as dogma since by the Roman Catholic Church.

[edit] Quinque viae

In his monumental Summa Theologica, Aquinas puts forth five rather conspicuous arguments that are supposed to, together, prove the existence of God (Richard Swinburne argued that these arguments are only strong when collected together: individually, each of them is weak). Even if one accepts every single one of his premises, he only manages to prove that anything resembling a deity exists with the Fifth Way (the last argument): the other ones are pretty much useless for the God question. He still did not prove that the Christian God exists.

[edit] The Argument of the Unmoved Mover

See the main article on this topic: Argument from first cause

This argument says that God must be the cause things are moving in the Universe. Aquinas argues that an infinite regress of movers is impossible, thus there must be an unmoved mover that initiated all motion. He says that this mover is what he calls God. It's a cosmological argument. Of course, you might as well call this mover "Charlie" or whatever floats your boat, since it does not prove that this mover has any of the characteristics that are usually associated with the concept of God, such as conscience, benevolence, omnipotence, or that it intervenes in our universe. It obviously doesn't prove that the Christian God exists.

[edit] The Argument of the First Cause

This is EXACTLY the same argument as the Unmoved Mover. Same steps, same order, same leap of logic from common sense to assumptions about the nature of the universe, same special pleading for god.

[edit] The Argument from Contingency

To try to explain why something exists rather than nothing (and try to prove that God exists), Aquinas formulated this argument. According to Aquinas, the universe could conceivably not exist (meaning it is contingent), thus it must have a cause for existing, and this cause must not be something that is also contingent (duh), but rather some that whose existence is necessary. And this is what he calls God. This argument has the exact same problems as the Unmoved Mover argument: it just defines God as the original cause of everything, when the concept of God includes many other attributes.

[edit] The Argument from Degree

Aquinas argues that there must be an ultimate standard of perfection to compare everything else to. So perfection must have a pinnacle, which he calls God. Yes, this one has the same problems as the other ones, and this one also does not even prove that a maximally perfect being exists: it only proves that its concept exists. Aquinas also forgot that, following this stupid logic, there must also be an ultimate standard of smelliness, thus there must be a pinnacle of smelliness to which we compare everything else to... which also proves nothing.

[edit] The Teleological Argument

Unintelligent objects (such as rocks) act towards an end (such as falling to the ground). However, unintelligent objects cannot act towards an end unless they are directed. Therefore, Aquinas claims that a single being with intelligence directs everything towards its end (call this thing God). The conclusion does not follow, as there is no reason that each individual object cannot be guided by a unique being.

[edit] Flaws In Aquinas's Science

Summa Theologica is an honest attempt by a would-be scientist to explain how the world works. But the fact is, Aquinas is contradicted time and time again by modern biology and medicine, to the point any school child who grasps mammalian reproduction can rip his teachings apart.

[edit] Biology

Aquinas believed honestly that the sperm gamete was the only one required for impregnation to occur in a woman. In his version of reality, there is simply no such thing as the egg cell. As such, the gender role of women as a mother is not just denigrating enough, on top of it the poor woman is to be seen as nothing but some sort of repository or dumpster for men doing God's work.

[edit] Sexuality

Aquinas formulated the idea of Natural Law, a mainstay of Roman Catholic theology which says the human body should be only used in accordance with the Laws of Nature (As According To Thomas). Obviously we see where this is going quickly. Unlike the Kama Sutra, whose authors knew how to throw a party, for the ever-celibate monk Thomas, everyone on earth is made "naturally" to be drawn to the opposite sex and engage in missionary-style procreation. Female sexuality in a heterosexual sense is missing, and Thomas quickly sends all Sodomites to the Other Place for violating the Natural Law.

Of course, to some modern homo sapiens, this still seems like a perfectly sane way to think reality functions.

[edit] References

  1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM9RUzYjArs

[edit] See also

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