Does God Exist?: Aquinas' Argument From Contingency Explained

This video explains Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas' third argument for God, the Argument from Contingency.
Have questions? You can reach me at [e-mail].

[@user-gv7xi5zs4r]

great video

[@Testimony_Of_JTF]

You will not cease existing as anihilationism is a hersesy.
Good video

[@DonaldFranciszekTusk]

Great explanation. Can you record video about why God exists? Why exist something rather than nothing?

[@Thomas-Cahill]

Stay tuned!

[@timothyschmidt1828]

A more accurate conception of contingency is the interconnectedness of everything. Look at the notebook you used in your presentation. It is contingent on the tree which it was made of, on the sun, the water , the carbon dioxide that the tree used to grow; on the animals that breathed out the carbon dioxide; the logger who cut down the tree, the tools he used, the truck that transported it to the mill; the mill workers, the ancestor who invented the process to make paper; the store you purchased it from; the person who taught you to drive the vehicle you drove there. You are contingent on the thousands of ancestors whose lives led to yours, the farmers that grew the food that has kept you alive for decades; to Ikea where you got that shelf, from the Brady Bunch where you got your "look." Every book you ever read, every teacher, every friend and rival, millions of events that have occurred that you were not even aware of. Your faith in Christianity is contingent on the country you grew up in and who your parents were. We are all interconnected to one another. There is no objective cause and effect, every cause is an effect, every effect another cause.

[@davidpetersonharvey]

Faith in Christianity is not contingent on country, as evidence by people from non-Christian countries covering to Christianity. I will say that I don't find contingency a valid argument for the existence of God but the argument from geography is a straight up logical fallacy.

[@timothyschmidt1828]

This is an argument of contingency at the macro level. The idea that is "Thomas" may cease to exist, his heart may cease to beat, he may cease to breathe the same air that Aquinas did, that those extinct dinosaurs did, his organs shut down, the synapses that produce his perceptions and consciousness may cease to function, but the molecular components of his body will continue on. They may one day form those Jurassic Park dinosaurs. So all of those future T-rex's, on the molecular level already exist. Every potential lifeform from the future exists right now. And on the quantum level particles continuously pop in and out of existence. It's a rhetorically interesting argument but ultimately BS.

[@Thomas-Cahill]

I'm trying to understand your objection to the argument better. Can you please explain what you mean when you say that "all of those future T-rex's, on the molecular level, already exist?"

[@beijingbro2]

this argument comes directly from al ghazali's book moderation in belief. first treatise, first proposition. aquinas didn't come up with it. you really need to study the guys aquinas sourced his ideas from.

[@Thomas-Cahill]

Interesting, I'll look into it. But even if other thinkers articulated the argument first, Aquinas uses it pretty prominently as his Third Way in the Summa Theologica, so I think I'm fine attributing the argument to Aquinas, at least for a summary video like this one.

[@beijingbro2]

@@Thomas-Cahill you would need to read his sources before you can make that conclusion.