Kaeyla Noble
Philosophy 101
13 October 2021
How Pessimism met Curiosity
Your mother grew up in a catholic house which meant you naturally will be brought up in one as well. Finally, you and your mom are tired of the outdated traditions of the catholic church and attend a Christian church. After accepting this church as your home, you become moved by the teachings and seek what you’ve been taught is a Christian life. Without questioning, you continue to read the bible and live out the teachings within it. All that changed the summer of 2019 when your dad gets into a skiing accident that leaves him incompletely paralyzed from the shoulders down. Your faith became the only thing holding you and your family together, but two years go by, and the same battle is still trying to be won. Now your faith is pushed back by pessimism disguised as realism, and you struggle to connect with what was once one of your strongest foundations. Tragedy is what pushed me to question God’s goodness, God existence, and whether true happiness could be obtainable or not. Thomas Aquinas is who challenged these exact ideas.
Challenging The Bibles stories and ideas was something I was repeatedly told was okay. However, it was easier to the live out my Christian life the best I could without questioning anything. Thomas Aquinas’s writing style offers any reader an invitation into his internal debate by explaining both sides of it. His writing offered me another look at how to handle confrontation given my previous way was to simply ignore the problem causing the conflict. For instance, in his Second Article he tries to answer the question “It Can Be Demonstrated That God Exists?”. Rather than writing about his answer he presents three objectives that each offer different ideas relating to the question, “Objective 1. …because a demonstration produces scientific knowledge, whereas faith is of the unseen. Therefore, it cannot be demonstrated that God exists,” (333) He continues with objectives 2 and 3 also stating that God’s existence cannot be demonstrated and follows that with his answer (333). Not only did his presentation of his philosophy challenge the way I handle confrontation, but his answer to that specific question also open my mind up to believing again that God does exist. Within the same article Thomas Aquinas writes, “From effects not proportionate to the cause no perfect knowledge of that case can be obtained. Yet from every effect the existence of the cause can be clearly demonstrated, and so we can demonstrate the existence of God from His Effects; though from them we cannot perfectly know God as He is in His essence,” (333). Through my tragedy my evidence towards God’s nonexistence was his lack of effect within my dad’s accident. My exact thoughts were if God is so good than why doesn’t he stop bad things, and since God doesn’t, he must not exist. This is exact idea was brought down by another one of Thomas Aquinas’s philosophy.
Thomas Aquinas specifically tries to answer the complex question that is “Whether God Exists?” through five different ways. Considering I had never stepped into trying to explain the existence of God I was surprised he found five ways to prove God’s existence. He explains how motion demonstrates the existence of God because, “whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another,” (334). He furthers this idea by explaining how there must be a first mover to which he states everyone understands is God (334). Another way he proves the existence of God is through explaining efficient cause. Thomas Aquinas believed if you took away the cause you took away the effect (334). He later realized efficient cause also cannot go to infinity, and from there he arrives at the conclusion that there must be a first efficient cause who ultimately is also God. These concepts were not easy to digest because I found them too simple to explain such a complex question.
My pessimistic attitude pushed back on the simplicity so much I wasn’t satisfied with his answers. However, his explanation of how governance of the world proves God’s existence was the idea that somewhat convinced me there must be something. According to Thomas Aquinas governance of the world proves God’s existence because there are things that have intelligence and there are things that do not. He writes, “Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by somebody endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer,” (335). He then concludes that an intelligent being exists that directs these things to their end who is known God. As morbid as it sounds, this convinced me a little more that God exists because it’s a complex process and he brought science and faith together. One thing I was told was that science and faith do not and will not ever get along. Once Thomas Aquinas explained governance of the world, I became convinced there was a way they could work together to prove the existence of God. I could not be further from finding the full answer, but Thomas Aquinas’s philosophies brought me close to unraveling the question that is “Does God Exist?”.
Now you’re in your early twenties and haven’t opened your bible in months. It doesn’t bother nearly as much as it used to, and now you take a general education philosophy class. You’re taught about various men and women who analyzed the world and documenting their thoughts about it. Your pessimism that sat so close doesn’t anymore because it’s now accompanied by curiosity.
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