Where can I find a formal refutation of Aquinas' 'Five proofs of God', the 'Quinquae viae'?

Question

His arguments are ridiculously shoddy - almost puerile - especially in the light of recent discoveries and cosmological models. Their fallacy should be obvious to anyone with a brain.

Yet despite this, Aquinas seems to receive very good press hereabouts, and is frequently trotted out proudly as if unassailable by theists.

Does anyone know of a site/source where the Quinquae viae 'proofs' are properly demolished? I'd like to see what the experts make of them.

CD

For what they're worth, my own inexpert attempts yielded the following in ten minutes' work:

1) The 'Unmoved Mover' fails at "everything that is moved is moved by a mover". This is untrue in the quantum world at least, and even without this hole, there is no necessity for the Prime Mover to be supernatural.

2) Ditto the 'First Cause' argument fails at "everything that is caused is caused by something else", which is untrue in the quantum world, where uncaused events are commonplace. Again there is no requirement for a First Cause to be supernatural.

3) Contingency fails at "something can't come of nothing", which applies only in the world of Classical Matter. Virtual particles don't obey this, and the Big Bang may be a similar event. Both the 'parallel universe' and current M-Theory models don't obey this.

4) The 'Degree Argument' is particularly absurd: first, the notion of 'perfection' is anthropocentric; and even allowing this notion, 'ultimate perfection' is neither implied, nor assumed, nor required at all.

5 The 'Argument from Design' has been comprehensively demolished elsewhere. It assumes that the appearance of design must imply design, which is both anthropocentric and wrong.

CD

Answer 1

http://www.religionislies.com/godnoevidence.html

And when they use "Hoyle's Probability" to prove that the Big Bang or couldn't have occurred because of the high improbability, merely ask them to show you the mathematical probability that their God exist (have them show their work). I have yet to have a "taker" on that one.

The problem is many cut and paste these arguments without even reading them to see if they are valid, let alone have an understanding of their flaws.

Answer 2

I think the _God Delusion_ tore them up.

The bar isn't set very high when it comes to Christian champions, is it?

Good ol' "paul h" here did the believer's favorite trick; he rolled out the standard song and dance about how Hume did a death bed conversion.

I hate Christians because they lie all the time and tell these apocryphal stories of death bed conversions. I had a waiter at a restaurant tell me that he heard that Darwin begged God for forgiveness on his death bed.
DIRTY B*STARDS!

If Hume did convert on his death bed then he is the only one, EVER.

Here is an irrefutable equation:
Christian = LIAR

The evil in caring about souls is that it trumps all other things. There is no evil that a Christian will NOT commit to "save" a soul.

Killing scientists and doctors and children; 9/11; the Crusades; the Holocaust; not to mention "little" evils like circumcisions and slavery. All these were/are acts sanctioned and encouraged by churches. This isn't even open to debate, it is the truth and only "good" deed that any church can point to is the brainwashing of children to believe in monsters and magic, i.e. "saving souls."

Religion kills rational thought and is therefore evil.

Answer 3

the most important refutation of aquinas is on the 'unmoved mover' (proof #1).

aquinas argues that 'nothing can be in motion unless it has been moved'. but this is a pre-newtonian notion, since newton showed that the actual law of motion is that nothing which is already in motion can alter that motion unless impeded.

there are philosophical refutations to aquinas (there were when his proofs were first advanced) but the devastating force of this objection to the first proof is that since god knew newton was just around the corner, why did he permit aquinas to make such an utter fool of himself?

two possible answers:

#1 aquinas is satan's muppet, always was.

#2 god doesn't know his ars from a hole in the ground.

....

choose either (or both if it's your birthday).

Answer 4

You should look at Kant and Hume, since they are the classical philosophers that are most associated with refutations of Aquinas. (Technically Kant thrashed the Ontological argument, but it's also been seen on here...)

Answer 5

David Hume absolutely thrashed the Quinquae Viae. Look him up.

Any person who trots them out as though they were valid still has proven they have no love of Truth.

Answer 6

Hume "converted" to Christianity rather than forfeit his life in a rather funny but telling story given here:

"Hume told his friend Mure of Caldwell of an incident which occasioned his "conversion" to Christianity. Passing across the recently drained Nor’ Loch to the New Town of Edinburgh to supervise the masons building his new house, soon to become No 1 St David Street, he slipped and fell into the mire. Hume, being then of great bulk, could not regain his feet. Some passing Newhaven fishwives seeing his plight, but recognising him as the well-known atheist, refused to rescue him until he became a Christian and had recited The Lord’s Prayer and the Creed. This he did and was rewarded by being set again on his feet by these brawny women. Hume asserted thereafter that Edinburgh fishwives were the "most acute theologians he had ever met".
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume

And he held racist views of the inferiority of Negroes and other races. Quote:
Race
A footnote appears in the original version of Hume's essay "Of National Characters":

"I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all the other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the whites, such as the ancient Germans, the present Tartars, have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negroe slaves dispersed all over Europe, of which none ever discovered any symptoms of ingenuity; tho' low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In Jamaica indeed they talk of one negroe as a man of parts and learning; but ‘tis likely he is admired for very slender accomplishments, like a parrot, who speaks a few words plainly."
This should be understood in its historical context, of course, such views were all but ubiquitous in the intellectual establishment (as elsewhere) of the time, and indeed would continue to be for a century after his death. Unlike many others of his day and much in advance of his time, in 1758, Hume condemned slavery at great length."

Some modern views of evolution hold the same or similiar views on race. The Bible says that mankind is all one race or "blood" which is scientifically found to be true.

People throughout history want God to conform to their reason rather than they conform to Him. That is evident in the multitude of religions we see today.
An eternal, supernatural Creator will not be provable in scientific, observable means other than by His creation or in His Word which is what we have in the God-inspired scriptures of the Bible. A creator that sets up the laws of nature is not subject to them although we are.... nor can our finite reasoning fully explain or understand an infinite, omnipotent, omniscient God who resides outside of time and space as we see it.
The evidence of a creator God is found in all the enormous complexity and variety in nature and the universe, the fundamental laws of nature, the code of DNA, the human brain which is more complex than the rest of the universe combined, the enormous complexity in a single cell which our bodies have trillions of, the origin of life through abiogenesis, which is life from non-living materials...science has yet to demonstrate a natural cause for this to occur and, statistically, it is believed by some to be outside the realm of possibility.

Answer 7

You really can't refute them. Your thoughts about the big bang and such are theories as well. You can't use another theory to definitely refute the Quinquae viae.

Answer 8

http://mb-soft.com/believe/txn/summa.htm

This should help.

It does a pretty good job of providing both sides.