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Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought: Chapter 7: The Proofs Of God's Existence Archived 2015-10-23 at the Wayback Machine by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange; Kreeft, Peter (1990). A Summa of the Summa: The essential philosophical passages of St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica. San Francisco: Ignatius Press. ISBN 0-89870-300-X.
The argument from degrees, also known as the degrees of perfection argument or the henological argument, [1] is an argument for the existence of God first proposed by mediaeval Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas as one of the five ways to philosophically argue in favour of God's existence in his Summa Theologica.
Thomas believed that the existence of God can be demonstrated. Briefly in the Summa Theologiae and more extensively in the Summa contra Gentiles, he considered in great detail five arguments for the existence of God, widely known as the quinque viae (Five Ways). Motion: Some things undoubtedly move, though cannot cause their own motion.
The argument from degrees, also known as the degrees of perfection argument or the henological argument, [104] is an argument for the existence of God first proposed by mediaeval Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas as one of the five ways to philosophically argue in favour of God's existence in his Summa Theologica.
The Summa includes five arguments for the existence of God, which are known as the "five ways" (Latin: quinque viae). [11] The five ways occupy only one of the Summa 's 3,125 articles. Reception
Thomas Aquinas, while proposing five proofs of God's existence in his Summa Theologica, objected to Anselm's argument. He suggested that people cannot know the nature of God and, therefore, cannot conceive of God in the way Anselm proposed. [ 72 ]
Chapters 10 to 13 are concerned with the existence of God, followed by a detailed investigation of God's properties (chapters 14 to 102). When demonstrating a Truth about God which can be known through reason, St. Thomas gives multiple arguments, each proving the same Truth in a different way.
The fifth of Thomas Aquinas' proofs of God's existence was based on teleology. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), whose writings became widely accepted within Catholic western Europe, was heavily influenced by Aristotle, Averroes, and other Islamic and Jewish philosophers. He presented a teleological argument in his Summa Theologica.