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What religious truths did Thomas Aquinas believe human reason could demonstrate?
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Thomism
St. Thomas Aquinas Enthroned Between the Doctors of the Old and New Testaments, with Personifications of the Virtues, Sciences, and Liberal Arts, fresco by Andrea da Firenze, c. 1365; in the Spanish Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence.
In the theological system of St. Thomas Aquinas, human reason is capable of discerning certain divine truths through the observation of the natural world, a practice known as natural theology.1
Aquinas famously proposed the Five Ways as rational demonstrations of the existence of God. These arguments rely on the "natural light of reason" rather than special revelation:12
- Argument from Motion: Based on the observation that things in the universe are moved by others, necessitating a prime mover that is itself unmoved.1
- Argument from Causation: Reasoning that because there cannot be an infinite chain of efficient causes, there must be an immutable first cause.1
- Argument from Contingency: Distinguishing between possible and necessary beings, Aquinas concluded there must be a being that is necessary in itself.1
- Argument from Degrees of Perfection: Observing that things exhibit varying degrees of perfection, he argued for the existence of a supreme, paramount perfection.1
- Argument from Final Causes: Noting that natural bodies lacking intelligence are directed toward specific ends, he posited the existence of an intelligent being that guides them.1