Aquinas and Searching for God and His Relationship with...

Aquinas and Searching for God and His Relationship with the World The search for God and His relationship with the world was as fundamental in the Middle Ages as it was at any time during the history of Christian thought. At the time of Aquinas, Augustinianism was the most appreciated doctrine in the school of philosophy at the University of Paris. In virtue of illumination, which is the central point of Augustinianism, the human soul could have an intuitive knowledge of God. Indeed the intellect had only to reflect upon itself to find the presence of the Divine Teacher. Thus the existence of God was proved a priori by means of necessary reason. Obviously, if the presence of the ideas of absolute truth and good in our mind must†¦show more content†¦It is interesting to note that Aquinas uses the Aristotelian principle of the priority of act over potency for the first three arguments. Where there is a being in change, i.e., passing from potency to actuality, there must be another being actually existent, outside the series in change, whether this series is considered to be finite or infinite. Aquinas formulates this principle in three different ways according to the three aspects of reality taken into consideration. For the first way the formulation is: What is moved, is moved by another; for the second way: It is impossible for something to be the efficient cause of itself; for the third way: What is not, cannot begin to be, unless by force of something which is. The fourth way takes into consideration many aspects of reality, which, when compared with one another, show that they are more or less perfect. The principle of intelligibility is the following: What is said to be the greatest in any order of perfection is also the cause of all that exists in that order. The fifth way takes into consideration the order of nature: Where there is a tendency of many to the same end, there must be an intellectual being causing such an order. Let us set forth the schematic structure of the five ways:  · (1) Our senses attest to the existence of movement or motion. But every motion presupposes a mover which produces that movement. To have recourse to an infiniteShow MoreRelatedSimilarities Between Aristotle And Aquinas1207 Words   |  5 Pages Both Aristotle and Aquinas were prominent philosophers who wrote profound works that discussed the concept of the highest human good and how humans can achieve it. In Aristotle’s, Nicomachean Ethics, the highest human good is a state of constant seeking knowledge as a way of achieving full capacity as a human. The writings of Aquinas are similar to Aristotle, but, in Treatise on Law, he discusses the type and elements of law. 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