Aquinas’ 5 Proofs For God The Third Way: Argument from…

Aquinas’ 5 Proofs For God

The Third Way: Argument from Possibility and Necessity (Reductio argument)

1. We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, that come into being and go out of being i.e., contingent beings.

2. Assume that every being is a contingent being.

3. For each contingent being, there is a time it does not exist.

4. Therefore it is impossible for these always to exist.

5. Therefore there could have been a time when no things existed.

6. Therefore at that time there would have been nothing to bring the currently existing contingent beings into existence.

7. Therefore, nothing would be in existence now.

8. We have reached an absurd result from assuming that every being is a contingent being.

9. Therefore not every being is a contingent being.

10. Therefore some being exists of its own necessity, and does not receive its existence from another being, but rather causes them. This all men speak of as God.