PHIL 110 · Metaphysics — Necessity, Contingency, and the Existence of God

Led by Thomas Aquinas

The final module of the Cambridge Part IA Metaphysics paper, led by Thomas Aquinas. Is there a being that must exist — and can its existence be proved? Aquinas rejects the shortcut of the ontological argument and takes the long road from the world's effects: the Five Ways, from motion, cause, and contingency to a necessary being. The module weighs these against Hume's critique of the design argument and Kant's of the ontological, and ends where the whole paper has been heading — the distinction between contingent and necessary being.

1. Module 8 ○ Open

   Necessity, Contingency, and the Existence of God

   Led by Thomas Aquinas

   The question

   Is there something that *must* exist — a being whose essence is to be — and can reason demonstrate it? Aquinas argues that we cannot prove God from the idea of God, since we do not comprehend the divine essence; we must reason from what we see. So he offers the Five Ways: from things in motion to a first mover, from caused things to a first cause, from things that come and go to a being that cannot fail to be. The module sets these cosmological arguments, and the design argument from nature's order, against their great critics — Hume on design, Kant on the ontological argument — and ends with the distinction the whole paper has been circling: between what merely happens to exist and what must.

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