Metafizikos Onus Probandi
Onus Probandi of Metaphysics

Summary/Abstract: The third article of the set deals with the third way to prove God‘s existence as it is presented in Summa Theologiae and Summa Contra Gentiles by Thomas Aquinas. After analysis and comparison with other proofs, it comes to conclusion that the third way is unnecessary derivation from the second proof, the result of language game, and as such demands Ockhms blade to be used. Moreover, in the course of consideration it appears that notions of necessary cause, efficient cause, and cause of being are convertible. If this is true, then the third proof can be reduced (correspondingly, derived from) to the proof based on being as it is formulated in the Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 3 q. 1 preface. In this case we have circulus vitiosus: being of relatively necessary being is used as the premise to prove the being of absolutely necessary being which substantiates the former. Hence the third way seems extremely week and very doubtful.

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