When faced with the complex philosophical question of the existence of God, it can become quite complicated to reach a consensus on what the truth is. Nowadays, there are more and more people who believe exclusively in what they can experience with their senses or understand logically. It is to our advantage that there have been over 2000 years of reflection and teaching, as we now have access to many philosophers and their theories supporting the existence of God. A particularly strong explanation is that of St. Thomas Aquinas, who he was able to successfully demonstrate the existence of God in his Summa Theologica. He devised five arguments for the existence of God, commonly known as the Five Ways, which have proven effective and influential over time. A particularly strong argument of Aquinas is his second argument. His second argument for ascertaining the existence of God turns out to be feasible because it is based on a universal truth about natural phenomena and advances towards the existence of a creative source of the universe, the first cause, which Aquinas identifies as God Simply put, Aquinas's second way, the efficient cause, is a type of cosmological argument for the existence of God. Looking at the coherence of his second argument about the efficient cause, a popular objection to this argument, and the reasons why this objection does not hold up, we can support the existence of God and the reasoning behind it. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The second of the five ways God's existence is argued comes from the notion of efficient cause. A world in which no causal force exists is intrinsically a world in which nothing happens. Based solely on the fact that things happen, we know that it must exist. It is logically impossible for a being to be an efficient cause of itself and as such a being cannot come into existence. In essence, nothing can be the cause of its own existence, since nothing can be prior to itself. For example, a ball of clay will not take the shape of a vase, it will only become one if someone molds clay into it. If we call a being X, because a being cannot bring itself into existence, another being, Y, must then bring X into being and Z must cause Y, etc. Likewise, things cannot give themselves capacities or powers that they do not previously possess. Likewise, a relatively inactive or powerless thing can nevertheless cause another being by reacting to what happens to itself. To put things in perspective, consider dominoes, one can knock over another by reacting to being knocked over. However, this ordered series of causalities cannot continue indefinitely, since no first cause does not give rise to an intermediate cause, and without an intermediate cause there is no ultimate or proximate cause. Any series of reactions arises exclusively from some primordial agent whose cause initiates the series. If we were to deny this, we are essentially denying the basis of everything that is currently happening. Therefore it is essential to recognize that there must be a first efficient cause, an uncaused cause of everything that exists. Reflection reveals that this first efficient cause is God. A common objection to this second argument is the belief that Aquinas begs the question when he declares the actuality of a causeless cause for all that exists. This objection implies that if the sequence of causes can go back infinitely, the influence of this argument can be avoided. It's argued that the series could go back forever and so the need for something to cause this chain reaction would be eliminated entirely.All. While this objection appears to have potential, it misses the point. God is the first cause as the crucial basis of everything. If we were to say one thing causes another, we are intrinsically saying that the second depends on the first. We must think in terms of the force of cause rather than the sequential order of what follows what in time. This is difficult to understand since the series of events and the chain of causes often persist simultaneously and are easier to differentiate when considered in isolation. An example to clarify the series of events concerns the process of animal reproduction constantly repeated over time. There is an obvious way in which the members of the series are derived from previous members, and in principle, this series could go back forever. It should be noted that there is no need for an original act at the beginning of the series as the causal force comes from the sun instead of the previous members of the series. Light, in the form of increased day length, is the main stimulus for animal reproduction. In general, the series of events can go back infinitely while the chain of causes cannot. Once again referring to dominoes, we have seen that one knocks over another after being knocked over by itself and so on. Once watched, people imagine that the series can go back in time forever. This is true, however, not as a chain of causes, but as a series of events. The domino knocking on others is simply instrumental to the hand that pushed. From the perspective of the tile being tapped, the other tiles are intermediate between it and the hand. Being hit is the result of the original act, leaving the rest of the things to happen as a result of the act. If the original act were removed, then nothing would happen since things do not simply happen as a result of nothingness, as the real world functions as a result of the force of causes. People often confuse the case in which the causal power comes from outside the series, such as reproduction based on sunlight, with the circumstance in which the chain of causes runs through the series, like dominoes. Also, sometimes people confuse the series of events with the chain of causes. Because of these confusions, one imagines that the chain of causes can go back forever, but this is a serious mistake that will crumble once the confusions are clarified. These two cases are different because in the case of animals, previous generations do not motivate subsequent generations to act in the same way that the first dominoes cause the subsequent ones to fall. However, in every case there is an efficient or first cause. Currently, there is an unusual application of these points on infinite series versus infinite regress. Stephen Hawking proposed a complicated stratagem for the configuration of time that establishes no need for any beginning. This theory allowed that time did not have to go back forever, but it also stated that there was no starting point. The idea behind this theory was that if there was no beginning, there would be no need for a first cause. Even if time has this structure, this would not exclude Aquinas's argument. Causal dependence would still exist, so a first cause would be needed to sustain the dependence. As Thomas Aquinas explained, this origin would be outside the series. The idea might be that the world process would loop back on itself, so it would be self-sustaining. The problem is that this would be an unusual version of making the effect cause the cause, which we have already established is not possible. As mentioned above, the series of events can fold back on itself, but the chain of causes cannot, since as a result there would be.