St. Thomas Aquinas Third Way Modalized :: Aquinas Third Day Philosophy Papers

doubting Thomas Third counseling ModalizedABSTRACT The Third Way is the most interesting and insightful of Aquinas five arguments for the foundation of God, even though it is invalid and has close to false premises. With the help of a somewhat untoughened normal logic, however, the Third Way can be transformed into a argument which is certainly valid and plausibly sound. Much of what Aquinas asseverate in the Third Way is by chance true even if it is not actuall(a)y true. Instead of assuming, for example, that things which are contingent cheat to exist at some time, we need only assume that contingent things peradventure fail to exist at some time. Likewise, we can replace the assumption that if all things fail to exist at some time then in that location is a time when nothing exists, with the corresponding assumption that if all things possibly fail to exist at some time then possibly there is a time when nothing exists. These and otherwise similar replacements serve wel l to produce a cogent cosmological argument. Aquinas Third Way is a cosmological argument for the existence of God which is taken from possibility and necessity. It is surprise therefore that philosophers of religion have not shown much interest in applying modal logic to its digest. (1) There are a couple of reasons. First, Aquinas does not al fashions use the words possibility and necessity in the same way that they are used in modal logic. Second, cosmological arguments generally offer to build a twain between some property of this piece and a supreme being, making it unnecessary, it dexterity be thought, to appeal to modalized features of other thinkable worlds.Modal logic has of course been applied extensively to the analysis of ontological arguments. Ontological arguments purport to build a logical bridge between thought and a supreme being. Most ontological arguments run from the assumption that it is possible for God to exist. They then link this assumption with some rather strong and controversial principles of modal logic in pose to prove that God must exist in all possible worlds, from which it follows that God exists in the real world. (2) It might be possible, however, to prove the existence of God with the use of a weak and noncontroversial system of modal logic if we root the proof with some plausible possibilistic principles about what might be true of the cosmos. The Third Way is not sound per se.