Proofs of God's Existence For Atheists / Educational Documentary Video

An Introduction To Aquinas For Atheists / Educational Documentary Video. This educational movie explores Thomas Aquinas' three arguments (or proofs) for God's existence, using an analogy with cooking chicken. Aquinas' first way is often understood to be about motion, but this is not entirely accurate. Aquinas is actually talking about how things move from a state of potentiality to actuality, which he argues is something begun by God, and this is illustrated in this video by following the process of defrosting and then cooking a piece of chicken. This second movie outlines the second and third of Thomas Aquinas' three arguments (or proofs) for God's existence, using an analogy with new and old buildings. In the second way, Aquinas sets out how the idea of causation (things needing to have a cause), can lead us to the notion that God exists. This is illustrated with the way buildings are built. The third way considers how the idea of contingency (that do not have to be here but are), leads us to consider that God might exist. This 'proof' is explained using the idea of buildings falling into ruin. The last clip explores the notion of design, by using an analogy with a bridge. In terms of design arguments for the existence of God, these can be set out in two different ways. Firstly, there are arguments from design. These consider the way things are in the world, and whether this suggests that God created it. Secondly, there are arguments to design. These consider how things should be (or what evidence there would be), if the world had been designed and made by God. Both these approaches are explored by considering the different ways a bridge exhibits evidence of design, and how this applies to the question of God's existence.

The Quinque viae, Five Ways, or Five Proofs are five arguments for the existence of God summarized by the 13th century Roman Catholic theologian St. Thomas Aquinas in his book, Summa Theologica. The five ways are; the argument of the unmoved mover, the argument of the first cause, the argument from contingency, the argument from degree and the teleological argument. In the 20th century, the Roman Catholic priest and philosopher Frederick Copleston, devoted much of his works to fully explaining and expanding on Aquinas' five ways. The arguments are designed to prove the existence of a monotheistic God.

This clip was part of the programme 'Philosophy of Religion: A New Approach', which was produced for the Minneapolis Telecommunications Network (MTN), and was aired in October 2006. Producer: Stephen A Richards. Contact Information: Administrator@faithnet.org.uk. Creative Commons license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs