The Roman Catholic Church considers the first three ways of Aquinas (collectively called The "Cosmological Arguments" ) as conclusive evidence for establishing the existence of God. However, should his arguments be valid, the existence of God would be an established fact on par with many of the discoveries of modern science. Thus by themselves these arguments cannot establish the existence of God with complete certainty. Sense experience can never be infallible. Aquinas' Five Ways are based ultimately on sense experience. By contrast, Anselm's argument is based purely on an a priori definition of God. Aquinas' arguments are therefore a posteriori in nature. It should be noted that Aquinas' arguments are based on some aspects of the sensible world. Thus Aquinas' five ways defined God as the Unmoved Mover, the First Cause, the Necessary Being, the Absolute Being and the Grand Designer. * The fifth way argues that the behavior of things in the world implies a Grand Designer or architect, God. The existence of such gradations implies the existence of an Absolute Being as a datum for all these relative gradation. * The fourth way shows that there exist gradations in things, for example more noble and less noble, more true or less true. To account for all existence, there must be a Necessary Being, God. However, if all things are contingent, there could not have been anything as at one time all these could be non-existent. * The third way notes that every existing thing does not owe its existence to itself. For the series of causes and effects, that we see in the world, to make sense it must have a beginning. * The second way involves the notion of efficient cause. The fact, to Thomas, that every moving thing needs a mover shows that God, the Unmoved Mover, exists. * Thomas' first way involves the evidence of motion. We will be presenting all the arguments in more detail a little later, at present we will give a brief rundown of all five arguments. In his major work Summa Theologica, widely considered as the highest achievement of medieval systematic theology, Aquinas presented his five proofs of God's existence known as the Quinque Viae (Latin for "Five Ways"). Thomas Aquinas (c1225-1274) is arguably the most important Catholic theologian in history.
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