Arguments for God's Existence from Contingency

[Edwardo Piet]

Source: http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.co.uk...thing.html

You just couldn’t resist could you?

Resist providing a source for where Aquinas is thoroughly debunked? Yeah, so what?

You have simply taken 1 part out of 5 and saying “Aquinas didn’t argue for that,”, again and again and again, which is simply untrue. Don’t  blame Aquinas just because you cannot be bothered to read the next 4 paragraphs.

Aquinas doesn't argue for a God, he argues for a "prime-mover" which turns out to be nothing more than an uncaused cause. None of the paragraphs successfully argue for anything like a god. Just because I recognize that the paragraphs fail to argue for a god and you don't doesn't mean I haven't read them.

In question 1 of the Summa, well before the 5W, Aquinas distinguishes between natural revelation and special revelation. He very explicitly states that natural reasoning cannot take you anywhere near the Christian God. But it does get you, in Question 2, to the God of Classical Theism – full stop – which is as follows:

Immutable (1W)
Eternal (2W)
Ground of Being (3W)
Perfection (4W)
Intelligence (5W)

So apparently *I* don't read things and you didn't even bother to read the fact that I stated on more than one occasion that Aquinas fails to even succesfully argue for a deist God. I know he's not bringing Christianity into it. I never suggested otherwise. But all he successfuly argues for is 1W and 2W (and 3W if all that means is "uncaused cause" (again, misleading language loading with theological bullshit is used for no good reason)). 4W and 5W are not remotely successfuly argued for. There's absolutely no reason to believe that the first unchanging and eternal uncaused cause is perfect and intelligent.

What Aquinas is really saying is equivalent to seeing the shadow on the wall and recognizing that it is a man’s shadow apart from knowing the exact identity of the person casting the shadow. Natural revelation reveals to everyone - Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Pagans alike – that there is a god without specifically identifying which god. I don’t know why that isn’t obvious to you from a plain reading of the text.

Aquinas is doing nothing of the sort because rattling on about an uncaused cause doesn't get you to intelligence, perfection, a mind or any kind of god. I never suggested anywhere that Aquinas merely fails to argue for the Christan God, I have stated more than once that Aquinas doesn't even get you to deism.

So going back to your assertion that Aquinas has been debunked, you certainly haven’t debunked part 1 of 5.

Again, the "Everyone understand this to be God" part is bullshit. I have no quibble with an uncaused cause, and in fact I believe in an uncaused cause, but everyone most certainly does not understand that to be God. That is one of the many properties of God and it doesn't get you anywhere near God by itself. People understand God to be much more than merely an uncaused cause. I believe in an eternal and immutable uncaused cause. Do you think that makes me a theist?