5 Ways in Context

The historical and literary context for the Five Ways of proving the existence of God found in the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas. The video describes his life, his joining the Dominican Order of Preachers and the discovery of Aristotle in 12 th century Europe after the crusades, along with Islamic philosophers' commentaries. It outlines Aquinas' resolution of the tension between faith and reason, and explains why he offers proofs for God's existence in a work of theology.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Saint
• Thomas
• Aquinas
• Five
• Ways
• proof
• God
• exists
• medieval
• university
• Islamic
• philosophy
• Aristotle
• faith
• reason
• science
• Christianity

[jessrocked]

i dont understand what you meant by "the truth which God reveals through scriptures can never be contraindicated by the truth of reason".. can you elaborate pls?

[BosMutusCatholic]

This basically means that Aquinas believes that science/philosophy (reason) cannot disprove (contradict) what God reveals. So reason cannot prove there is no God, he did not create man, there is no soul or that it dies with the body. If reason appears to prove that, there is a mistake somewhere. Aquinas believes this as a matter of his Christian faith. If reason does prove something (earth moves), our understanding of Scripture must be revised, so long as it's not central to faith (God exists).

[Guinizelli777]

A very good introduction to the "Five Ways" of St. Thomas Aquinas! Thank you very much for posting this. 

[DrJ824]

lol Coldplay

[bersa888]

"God could have engraved the Ten Commandments on the Moon. Large. ten kilometers across per commandment (....) people would say, "How could that have gotten there?"(...) Or why not a hundred-kilometer crucifix in Earth orbit? God could certainly do that. Right? Certainly, create the universe? A simple thing like putting a crucifix in Earth orbit? Perfectly possible" - C. Sagan

[Hexznutznig]

I believe St. Thomas Christianized Aristotle and St. Augustined Plato.

[CELIBERICO]

an AMAZING , SAINT.........

[MrCofet]

This is a great video that let me know what Summa Theoligica is about. I heard about it in world history and I always thouth about this kind of stuff before and there has been a book about it for 800 years and i didnt even know it!

[wowzers5432109]

Short answer to a deep question: Aristotle was closer to the truth than Plato. Hence, St Thomas' choice of Aristotle. If you'd like details on WHY St Thomas chose Aristotle vs. Plato, I'd have to write a small treatise.