APRIL KITZ S.
SUAN AB-POLSCI I
Understanding the Self
According to St. Thomas Aquinas' well-known treatise, the Summa Theologiae. The three main sections of Summa
Theologiae are: (1) God's Presence in Creation; (2) God's Presence by Grace in the souls of the Just; and (3) God's
Presence in Christ and in his mystical body, the Church.
As for him, one of the most pressing concerns of all time is whether God exists. Thomas tackles this issue with his
well-known list of five arguments for God's existence. But first and foremost, as we begin to have confidence in the
Bible, which led us to have a faith in God. Thomas, however, did not simply stop at how or what the Bible says as it
is because he believed that the Bible wants us to know there is another method to recognize the existence of God. He
did hold the opinion that people have a natural knowledge of God, or, to put it another way, that people can know
that God exists by utilizing their natural reason or human intelligence. Aquinas didn't claim that we always have
explicit, understandable, or accessible knowledge of God. Also, he didn't say that the presence of God is beyond
dispute; rather, he claimed that those with the necessary time, interest, and intellectual aptitude can acquire natural
knowledge of God at various stages of cognitive development. Thomas also came to the realization that there are
numerous barriers to the development of our natural understanding of God. Depending on the cultural context,
people will generally develop it to some extent but not to its complete potential. However, he added, a select few
people will eventually improve their natural knowledge of God to the point where they are able to provide
intellectually sound arguments for the presence of God and respond to all challenges to those proofs with
exceptional dialectical skill. He addresses this in both his famous chapter on the five methods and other more in-
depth writings on the subject.
The underlying tenet of the five methods is that we can know that God exists because of our experiences with the
natural world and our quest for an all-encompassing explanation of it.
For instance, when you encounter intangible things like seeing smoke rising from another mountain even though you
haven't yet seen a fire, you may draw the inference that there is a fire there. The natural world is what we see or
experience all around us, just as it is with our understanding of God. GOD IS INVISIBLE. Although we can't see
him, we can infer that someone must be in charge of everything from what we observe and experience in the natural
world. The world's magnificence, beauty, and order are the result of something. According to Aquinas, this
conclusion that the existence of someone responsible for the world's order follows logically from the world's order is
so basic that almost everyone makes it. However, he also understood that this implication or defense was merely a
tiny seed. The inference's seed has the potential to grow and develop via study and the application of the intellect to
the numerous philosophical questions involved, but it also has the potential to be destroyed by attachment to sin,
purposeful self-denial, erroneous ideologies, and other unfavorable circumstances. As a result, we are not firmly
convinced that atheism and agnosticism are not feasible. They might even become common in some civilizations,
but we are adamant that humans can practice natural theology. And St. Thomas Aquinas is an illustration of
someone who attained a very high level of this natural understanding of God. Because of what he accomplished,
which was to work through the broad argument from the order of nature along much more detailed lines.
And these specific lines are the following five ways:
(1) ORDER OF MOTION IN NATURE – there must be a first mover or
unmoved mover or an ultimate source of CHANGE in things.
We start with our experience of the order in the motion or change of things around
us in nature, and careful study of what motion and change are leads us to conclude
that there must be a first mover or unmoved mover or an ultimate source of
CHANGE in things.
(2) CAUSE AND EFFECTS – in order for there to be causes at work, there must
be a first cause or uncaused cause.
We start our experience of an order of cause and effect in things around us. For
when we reflect carefully on what causality is, we learn that in order for there to
be causes at work, there must be a first cause or uncaused cause.
(3) CONTINGENT BEINGS- things exist that don’t need to exist. There must be
a source of the existence of contingent beings that cannot NOT exist. The
source simply is.
We start by considering the order of contingent beings, things that exist but do not
have to exist. When we reflect on things that exist but do not have to exist, we
naturally ask why do they exist? This leads to the conclusion that there must be a
source of the very existence of contingent beings and the source cannot not exist.
The source simply is.
(4) DEGREES OF PERFECTION- differing grades of perfection of being lead to
the conclusion that there must be a perfect being, the source of being in
everything else.
We look at how things around us exist in grades of perfection and the grades of
perfection lead to the conclusion that there must be a perfect being, the source of
being in everything else.
(5) THINGS WITHOUT INTELLIGENCE ACT FOR THE SAKE OF ENDS-
things without intelligence cannot work for the sake of end, unless a higher
intelligence is directing them.
We find in nature that the things without intelligence act for the sake of ends. For
example, honeybees work to produce honey even though they do not have
intelligence properly speaking. Again, things without intelligence cannot work for
the sake of an end unless a higher intelligence is directing them. This leads us that
there must be a supreme mind or intelligence behind it all.
To wrap things up, as for me from what I’ve got in the video is that aside from our
natural knowledge when it comes to the existence of God, this five(5) ways of
Thomas helps us a lot in viewing, realizing and having more faith in God in which
he really did exist. Therefore, these has a lot or take a huge part in adding more to
our basic knowledge in our faith in God.