St. Thomas Aquinas’ First Two Ways in Proving the Existence of God

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potentiality.

For instance, what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot, though it may

simultaneously be potentially cold. So, it is impossible that in the same respect and same

manner anything should be both mover and moved. In this, Aquinas means that nothing

can move itself. Therefore, if something is in motion, it must have been put in motion by

something else, which must have been put in motion by yet another thing, and so on.

However, this cannot go on to infinity because there would never have been a first mover

and, consequently, no subsequent movers. After all, second movers do not move except

when moved by a first mover, just as a stick does not move anything except when moved

by a hand. Thus, this leads to the conclusion that there is a first mover which is not

moved by anything, and this first mover is what we understand to be God.

Summarizing Aquinas’ first way, the argument states that objects are in motion,

and if something is in motion, then it must be caused to be in motion by something

outside of itself. That is, an object in motion is put in motion by some other object or

force. There can be no infinite chain of movers/movees so there is a first, unmoved

mover. Therefore, in conclusion, the unmoved mover exists and is called God.

Aquinas’ second way in proving God’s existence is based on the nature of

efficient causation. Now, causation itself is “making to be” in the sense that the cause

makes there be the result. Efficient causation, however, is the production of the result, or

the activation from being merely possible or potential into accomplished fact. Thus, the

efficient cause is what brings about the result to be effectively realized as actual. In the

observable world we discover an order of efficient causes, but no case is found, or ever

could be found, of something efficiently causing itself. S...