Thomas Alquilino

God existence
In the Middle Ages the existence of God was unquestionable to theologians. They simply knew that He was not an invention of humans. Even so, many of them tried to prove that God was real.
The main conflict in the XI century was between two social groups: First of all, those who saw theology as a Bible commentary –and said that God was unreachable and a mystery-. Secondly, thosewho thought that rational analysis would be better -and were in favour of a more empirical and rational knowledge-.

Religion and philosophy were largely mixed. The task of philosophical theology was to clarify, determine and explain the existence of God. How were philosophers supposed to do it? What are the different approaches taken by two of the most important medieval thinkers –Anselm ofCanterbury and Thomas Aquinas-, and how do they differ?

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Both Thomas Aquinas and Anselm of Canterbury identified God as a supreme being with a large number of attributes, necessary for life and the cause of the universe. They acted as mediators between the philosophical problems of their time.

Anselm of Canterbury defined God as "that than nothing better can be thought"-meaning that we think of God as the most perfect being, the supreme being-. He considered it possible to demonstrate the existence of God from the mere intellectual understanding of the concept of God. He rejected the observation of the world.

The existence in reality is greater than in the mind alone. Thus, if God was just in our mind, the definition of “than that nothing better can be thought”would be false –because “a being than which none greater can be conceived” must not only exist in our mind, but also in reality-.

The fool, for Canterbury, was the person who does not believe in God. At the same time, this fool has in his mind the idea of God as “that than nothing better can be thought". Because he understands and has in mind this statement, he comes to a contradiction lettingus know that God exists. In his discussion, Anselm also refers to the relationship between what we know (epistemology) and what something is (ontology). It would be Gaunilon who oppose Anselm’s point of view.

Anselm’s ontological argument represents the most known example of the demonstration a priori. St. Anselm was sure that he had proved God's real existence, because he had the concept inmind in which God is the maximum thought. Therefore, just because of thinking about it, necessarily must exist in the reality.
On the other hand, Saint Thomas argued from the sensitive experience. The being (finite and limited) was done by something superior and infinite. St. Thomas also wanted to prove God's existence, but through sensitive experience. He said: “Only rational creatures canpossess God by knowledge and love”.

Thomas Aquinas was one of the greatest medieval theologians of the Catholic Church. Aquinas rejected Anselm’s ontological argument holding that God’s existence is not self-evident to us. Therefore, God requires demonstration. He proved this in his “Five Ways”, offering five arguments for the existence of God. He said that the human being cannot know in animmediate way that God exists (this opposed medieval general thought). Thus, it is indispensable to take the sensitive as starting point. These “Five Ways” are based on empirical observations.
Five ways are argued following a similar method (based on Aristotle principles): first of all we start from data of the empirical world. Then we apply the principle of causality. Afterwards we reject theexistence of an infinite process. Finally we reach God as the cause of the observation of the empirical data.

The first way was the “mover not moved argument”. Senses show us that in the world there are things that change and that there is movement. Everything that can move is moved by something else. However, infinite sequence of engines is impossible. Then we must find a being that moves...