Essays Tagged: "Aquinas"
Questions of Omnipotence including a possible reply to The Rock paradox vs. Gods Omnipotence with relation to Mavrodes and physics
Questions Concerning Omnipotencen Aquinas, Mavrodes, Frankfurt and Kenny1. Define Omnipotence. Does it mean to be able to do anything ... eate a square circle could he not suspend the laws of contradiction to do so? p 413 - foot notes.3. Aquinas changes his definition of Devine Omnipotence to state that 'God can do whatever is possible. ...
Subjects: Humanities Essays > Philosophy
Aquinas' Proofs for the Existence of God - Paper explaining Aquinas' 5 proofs for the existence of god, and raising questions to their validity.
Aquinas' Proofs for the Existence of God -In Aquinas' first proof for the existence of God, he begin ... ith out cause. He defines motion as "...the reduction of something from potentiality to actuality" (Aquinas 25). In this he stipulates that potentiality cannot cause motion, only actuality has this ab ... it and lit at the same time is absurd. The cigarette can, though, be potentially cold. Seeing this, Aquinas says that prior existing acts, as to reduce the potential to the actual, must establish all ...
Subjects: Humanities Essays > Philosophy > Classical Philosophy
Aquinas' view of kingship and the Aristotelian response. Quotes are from "St. Thomas Aquinas on Law and Ethics," ed. Sigmund
St. Thomas Aquinas takes many of Aristotle's ideas from The Politics in order to create his idea of the best re ... or province for the common good" (17).Kingship is beneficial because it is the rule of one person. Aquinas states that the correct and most useful way to carry out an objective is "when it is lead to ... his definition, the most effective government would lead the people to their appropriate end, which Aquinas believes is unity. In this sense, Aquinas believes that obviously something that "is itself ...
Subjects: Humanities Essays > Philosophy > Classical Philosophy
How Aquinas and Ockham relate and differ in Faith-Reason and The Problem of universals.
Final ExamQuestion # 4Faith Reason:Aquinas worked out a highly articulated theory of theological reasoning. St. Bonaventure, an immedia ... ut a highly articulated theory of theological reasoning. St. Bonaventure, an immediate precursor to Aquinas, had argued that no one could attain to truth unless he philosophizes in the light of faith. ... one could attain truths about religious claims without faith, though such truths are incomplete.Aquinas claimed that the act of faith consists essentially in knowledge. Faith is an intellectual ac ...
Subjects: Humanities Essays > Philosophy > Classical Philosophy
Comparison between the law in Golding's "Lord or the Flies" and Aquinas's Concept of Law
ully, and doing what is morally "right" and disregarding the rules and gratifying one's own desires.Aquinas's concept of law would not have been applicable to the society constructed by the boys stran ... have had to be given what he wants and in this case everyone wanted something completely different.Aquinas says "to lay an obligation a law must be applied to the men who have to be regulated, and th ...
Subjects: Literature Research Papers > Creative Writing
Explanation and reflection of Aquinas's "Five Ways"
In the first and second explanations in Aquinas's "Five Ways", Aquinas takes a very logical and simple approach to explaining the existence ... ld move itself." This is a seemingly complicated quote that, when broken down, really sums up what Aquinas is trying to say in this whole "potentiality" and "actuality" thing. He uses the example of ... g can move by itself, so therefore, God must have moved the first thing, causing all other motion. Aquinas takes it a step further by adding the element of potentiality and actuality before putting i ...
Subjects: Humanities Essays > Philosophy > Classical Philosophy
How did Aquinas resolve the conflict between Aristotelian philosophy and the Christian Doctrine of the beginning of the world?
In brief Aquinas was able to resolve the conflict between the Aristotelian notion of a world that out of logi ... as, secondly, outline what possible positions there were to take on the issue, and the way in which Aquinas sought to find a resolution of the problem. In the thirteenth century the Christian d ... , it was not created out of nothing; there was something there as well as God. These three problems Aquinas was able to resolve, that the world had a temporal beginning Aquinas would say, "That the wo ...
Subjects: Humanities Essays > Philosophy > Classical Philosophy
Disproval of proof of God from Aquinas' Meditations
Looking at Aquinas' Arguments for the Existence of God In Summa Theologica, Question 2, Article 3, Aquin ... ssed here, and continues on to state five arguments for the existence of God. I intend to show that Aquinas' first three arguments are unsound from a scientific standpoint, through support of the Big ... rt of the Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe. In the first and second arguments Aquinas begins by stating that some things change and that the changes to these things are caused by ...
Subjects: Humanities Essays > Philosophy > Classical Philosophy
How Aristotelian is Aquinas's conception of the human soul?
Aquinas' conception of the nature of the soul consists of two main elements. Firstly, that as the fi ... as subsistent. The first element can be described as thoroughly Aristotelian; the second element is Aquinas' way of reconciling the Aristotelian notion of what it is to be a human, with the definite C ... efinite Christian insistence of the dual nature of human beings as spiritual and corporeal. Without Aquinas' theory of the subsistence of the human soul the two would be at odds with one another, howe ...
Subjects: Humanities Essays > Philosophy > Classical Philosophy
Language in Application to God
Maimonides and Aquinas, two incredible spiritual academics from many centuries ago, differ greatly in the names and ... begin to be expressed is through His actions, but these actions in no way reflect His true essence. Aquinas, on the other hand, disagreed with his counterpart. He felt that no words or articulation wo ... e Him is either an attribute of action or has the purport of negating its own absence." (81) Aquinas on the other hand, differed somewhat in how man can attribute things to and name God. He fel ...
Subjects: Humanities Essays > Philosophy
Aquinas in "Politics and Ethics"
Aquinas said "If it were left solely to reason to seek the truth about God, few men would possess a ... be tangible for us to determine whether an entity exists. Therefore God is above all intellectual. Aquinas replies by saying that "God is not said to be not existing as if he did not exist at all, bu ... elation. These truths surpass human reason; they cannot be proved rationally but are beyond reason. Aquinas states that "human reason is related to the knowledge of the truth and faith - in such a way ...
Subjects: Humanities Essays > Philosophy > Classical Philosophy
Does God Exist?
Anselm was the Archbishop of Canterbury and was a veryinfluential philosopher between Augustine and Aquinas. Heproposed his argument for God's existence. His ontologicalargument is based on the though ... fGod. One can also think of a orange island , but there is no waythat it can be proved.Saint Thomas Aquinas adds more proof to the existence of Godthrough the proof from efficient cause. "Thomas Aquin ...
Subjects: Humanities Essays > Philosophy > Classical Philosophy
Galileo
its power to defend its own security.The Catholic Church was very powerful and upheld the works of Aquinas and Aristotle (Hightower 14).At this time the Church was very powerful and some corruption e ...
Subjects: History Term Papers > European History
Ethics
ersus bad conduct. According to the Natural Law, an Aristotelian view that was later adopted by St. Aquinas, ethics must be based on concern for human good. Humans will do anything that is rational, w ...
Subjects: Businesss Research Papers
Aquinas
Saint Thomas Aquinas is most notably known for his Five Ways of Proving the Existence of God. Aquinas "believed t ... a conflict between them being impossible since they both originate in God" (Magee, http://www.aquinasonline.com/). Of Aquinas' strongest arguments is that of possibility and necessity. This incl ... gress cannot go on forever, it is postulated that the very first being must be God. Aquinas notes that "in nature things that could either exist or not exist, since they are found to b ...
Subjects: Literature Research Papers
Did the Universe have a beginning? Is there a necessary being?
g, nor is there a necessary being. This belief, as championed by Bacon, is in opposition to that of Aquinas, who believes that although the universe did not have a beginning, there is a necessary bein ...
Subjects: Literature Research Papers > Creative Writing > Persuasive Writing
How do we know if god exists
h Publishing, 1999 Kaufmann, "Critique of Religion and Philosophy" Princeton University Press, 1986 Aquinas' Five Ways was taken from "Core Questions in Philosophy" by Elliott Sober
Subjects: Humanities Essays > Philosophy
Thomas Aquinas lived from 1225 to 1274; this was a
Thomas Aquinas lived from 1225 to 1274; this was a critical time for Western Theology. This was a time when ... riod of time theologians were coming to apply Aristotle's principles of thought to Christian faith. Aquinas did not lead a very eventful life in the eyes of most people, but the man revolutionized Chr ... life in the eyes of most people, but the man revolutionized Christian Theology. At the age of five, Aquinas began his studies at Montecassino, a Benedictine monastery. Aquinas continued his studies at ...
Subjects: Humanities Essays > Philosophy > Classical Philosophy
Analysis of Meditation IV by John Donne
olled by God. God is the puppet master of all, and “…has fixed the order of nature” (Aquinas 79) . He has made man the only species with direct connection to Him. The Lord says, “T ... m.Works Cited: Donne, John. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. Ann Arbor, MI: U of Michigan P, 1990.Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Theologiae. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company.Boehrer, Bruce. Shakes ...
Subjects: Humanities Essays > Classical Studies
Traditional versus Modern Ethics
ough enjoyment and enhancing the ability to reason (Moore & Bruder, 2005, p. 261).Augustine and Aquinas expanded upon, and modified where necessary, Plato's and Aristotle's philosophies adding God ... God as the focal point (Moore & Bruder, 2005, p. 267 & 273). Importantly both Augustine and Aquinas continued with a metaphysic for their philosophy. Hobbes extended upon Aristotle's naturalis ...
Subjects: Humanities Essays > Philosophy