----- Original Message ----- From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu>
Aquinas' famous "five ways" (from the beginning of his beginner's book on theology) are sketches for five arguments to show that a certain kind of question about the universe is valid: Why is there anything instead of nothing? This is a question, in Aquinas' jargon, about the *esse* of things -- their being over against nothing, not just their being over against some alternative or over against potentiality. Aquinas wishes to say two things: (1) that here we have a valid question, and (2) that we don't know how to answer it; or (1) God exists, and (2) God is an incomprehensible mystery.
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Well there is a contestability problem with 1 and, if God is 'himself' something rather than nothing, it is difficult to understand how this terminates the iterativity of our asking the question/request for an explanation.......