Tully Minoski and Dr. James Siebach, Philosophy
My paper was essentially a comparative analysis of Thomas Aquinas’ proofs for the existence of God and Aristotle’s proof(s) for the existence of God. This topic, while it seems to be quite dull primae facie, is actually quite interesting and engaging. For example, it is almost a dogma that Aquinas developed his proofs for the existence of God from Aristotle, as well as much of his theology. This is because Thomas Aquinas Christianized Aristotle. However, a more detailed analysis shows fairly extreme differences between the two individuals—at least in relation to their respective proofs for the existence of God.
I took the following approach in exploiting these differences. I first gave a big picture of the paper—that is, I first discussed why I wrote the paper, namely because, first, many believe, without proper analysis, that Aquinas’ proofs for the existence of God are necessary implications (consequents) of Aristotelian thought and because, second, there is reason to believe that, since there are major differences in Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ respective worldviews—as Aristotle was pagan and Aquinas was Christian—that the relationship between Aquinas’ and Aristotle’s proofs may not be so clear cut as most people believe. In fact, there is reason to believe that the tension produced from the differences in Aristotle’s pagan and Aquinas’ Christian worldview caused radically different proofs, which I, in fact, attempt to show in my paper.
After explaining the purpose of the paper, I illuminated the relevant Aristotelian proof(s) for the existence of God and then followed by creating, defending, and evaluating the relevant parts of the criteria such that a proof can be considered truly Aristotelian, namely that the proof asserted must be well-founded upon Aristotelian doctrine (must be based upon Aristotelian doctrine), must properly use Aristotelian doctrine (must not use Aristotelian doctrine to distort the conclusions that Aristotle arrived at from it), must be Aristotelian or not Aristotelian by Aquinas’ own volition, and must be consistent within Aquinas’ own worldview. I finally ended the paper by first establishing each Aquinas proof and then making separate arguments for each Aquinas proof on whether or not it is Aristotelian and, second, argued, based on the previous arguments, that only Aquinas’ first proof, namely the argument from motion, is truly Aristotelian.
During my research, I encountered several problems. The first and perhaps the most significant was the lack of literature on this topic. Because the common dogma is such that Aquinas’ proofs for the existence of God are intimately connected to Aristotle’s proof(s) for the existence of God, not many academics have thought about—let alone written on—this issue. So I was breaking some new ground, which was difficult but exciting. And, while the amount of literature that I had to read was rather limited, as it was merely the proofs written by both of the scholars and the underlying assumptions (framework) surrounding those proofs, the literature was somewhat obtuse and translation difficulties distorted the meaning of some important parts of the text. Another difficulty was publishing my paper. This was difficult for two reasons. First, it is rather difficult to publish on ancient philosophy, as most academic journals want to publish on contemporary philosophy that seems more directly applicable today. Second, it was difficult to time the finishing of the work such that it could be published before the ORCA deadline.
But, with the help of my mentor, I overcame these difficulties. Although background literature was scarce, the formal philosophical classroom training in conjunction with helpful discussions with my mentor helped me overcome the problem and, in fact, forced me to overcome hurdles I would not have had to otherwise, thus strengthening my critical thinking and analytical reasoning ability. The same is true of the second problem, namely that the literature was somewhat obtuse; however, again, my philosophical background, discussions with my mentor, professor Siebach, who knows how to translate both Greek and Latin, helped me and gave me confidence that my analysis of and extrapolation from the text was correct. Regarding the publication, I did not finish a comprehensive draft in time, but I decided to submit it for publication at Ex Nihilo—the University of Texas at Austin student journal of philosophy—coming in seventh (where six were published). As such, I revised the draft and will be re-submitting over the winter 2007 semester. I think it now has a great chance of being published.
Overall, the project was a great success, gave me great insight into religious and philosophical matters. It further gave me a chance to do what I will be doing the rest of my life, namely researching and writing argumentative essays. It was a great experience!