Another strength is that the way Aquinas has explained his argument, is hard to disprove because it is simple and very easily understood, and most importantly, logical. It is not logical for something to cause itself, and therefore must be caused by something else (i.e. God).
Unfortunately, there are many more weaknesses and criticisms to this argument than there are strengths. One criticism is that Aquinas contradicted himself. He said that everything must be caused by something else, but then he said that there must be an uncaused cause or a First Cause.
Another weakness is the fact that if God is self-explanatory, then the universe could also be self-explanatory. If it is possible for God to be a brute face, then it is also possible for the universe to just ‘be’. There are many philosophers who have said that the universe just exists, or that the universe created itself, and Aquinas said that God just exists or that God created itself (depending on the interpretation), so couldn’t it be possible for Aquinas’s God and the universe to be one and the same?
This argument technically states that ‘something’ created the universe, but that does not necessarily mean the God theists believe in created the world. This therefore is not proof that God exists; it is proof that the world was created by something. There is no evidence in this argument that falsifies the possibility of a fairy, a leprechaun, a demon or even Santa Clause creating the world.
Taking these reasons into consideration, my view on this particular argument is that this argument consists less of logic and more of faith, and therefore, I do not believe this argument is legitimate.
I believe this because firstly, I do not believe anything that contradicts itself. The first and most obvious weakness is the fact that Aquinas contradicted himself. Also, Aquinas jumped to conclusions without having an open mind. He ruled out infinite regressions of causes, because he thought that was logically impossible, but an infinite chain of causes is not more illogical than the existence of an uncaused cause, or God.
Also, Aquinas exhibited a giant leap of faith when he said that God created the world, when all he technically proved was that ‘something’ created the world. I do not agree with this because, to make me believe in this argument, I need hard facts, not leaps of faith.
Even though I acknowledge the fact that there are some aspects of this argument that are true and do have hard evidence, such as the fact that everything was caused by something else, I can also see that I would need more evidence to put my faith fully into what Thomas Aquinas said.
Therefore, in answer to the question originally posed at the beginning of this essay, I do not believe this argument is a good argument as it is contradictory, it has most of its proof in faith than fact, and it was not made with an open mind.
