Comments on Aquinas (was '[lbo-talk] The "A" lives, apparently' and '[lbo-talk] The Argument from Design and Polytheism)'

[C. G. Estabrook]

Not exactly.  Aquinas thinks it possible that the universe could be a
(temporally) infinite series of beings.  It is impossible to prove
philosophically that the universe had a starting point in time, he thinks.

He's interested in a different question -- not how the universe came to
take its present form (a question for what we would call science), but, as
Stephen Hawking put it, "You still have the question: why does the
universe bother to exist?  If you like, you can define God to be the
answer to that question" -- and that's exactly what Aquinas does. --CGE

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004, Jon Johanning wrote:


> On Dec 17, 2004, at 6:32 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
> > To say that we have a valid question (one with an answer) is to say 
> > that God exists; for
> > what we mean by "God" is just whatever answers the question.
> 
> So if the answer is "what exists exists," then "what exists" is God 
> (Spinoza's position, roughly). (See my concurrent post in the Argument 
> from Design and Polytheism thread.) Of course, Aquinas would reply that 
> existing things of the ordinary sort, chairs, tables, plants, animals, 
> humans, etc., are "contingent beings," which need a "necessary being" 
> apart from them to give them their being. But there are familiar 
> arguments against that position, which I shall not bother to repeat 
> here, but could if you want. (I'm sure you know them as well as I do.)
>