(a) Present a critical exposition of different arguments offered by St. Thomas Aquinas to prove the existence of God also known…

Aquinas’s Five Ways: Exposition and Critical Appraisal

St. Thomas Aquinas formulated the Quinque Viae (Summa Theologiae) to demonstrate God’s existence a posteriori, grounding natural theology in Aristotelian metaphysics of act and potency (actus et potentia).

The First Way (Motion/Change) argues that whatever moves is moved by another; to avoid an infinite regress in an essentially ordered series, there must be a First Unmoved Mover (Primum Movens Immobile). The Second Way (Efficient Cause) asserts that nothing can be the efficient cause of itself; hence, an uncaused First Efficient Cause is necessary. The Third Way (Contingency) observes that contingent beings can either exist or not exist. If all things were merely contingent, at one time nothing would exist, implying nothing could come into being; thus, an absolute Necessary Being (ens necessarium) must exist. The Fourth Way (Degrees of Perfection) posits that varying degrees of goodness, truth, and nobility require a maximum standard that is the exemplar cause of all perfections. The Fifth Way (Teleology/Governance) observes that non-conscious natural bodies act for an end, requiring an intelligent Governor to direct them.

Critically, the first three (cosmological) assume the impossibility of infinite regress and transition from empirical causation to a transcendent cause, while the Fourth Way risks reifying abstract predicates, and the Fifth Way anticipates the design argument.

The Third Way from Contingency is philosophically the most interesting. Unlike physical arguments from kinetic motion or biological design, it directly engages the radical ontological question of why contingent reality exists rather than nothing. By invoking the Principle of Sufficient Reason, it demonstrates that a chain of dependent entities, regardless of temporal length, cannot explain its own collective existence, logically necessitating a self-subsisting being whose essence is existence itself (Ipsum Esse Subsistens).

God and Self in Rāmānujācārya’s Viśiṣṭādvaita

Rāmānuja conceives the relation between Brahman (Īśvara) and the individual self (jīva) through the framework of Śarīra-śarīri-bhāva (body-soul relation), underpinned by apṛthaksiddhi (inseparable relation).

Rāmānuja defines a body (śarīra) as any substance which a conscious soul completely controls (niyāmya), supports (dhārya), and uses for its own purposes (śeṣa). The finite jīva is thus an eternal, conscious mode (prakāra) of Brahman, while Brahman is the Supreme Self and Inner Ruler (Antaryāmin or śeṣī).

This organic unity avoids Advaitic illusionism and Dvaitic absolute separation. Although the jīva is ontologically dependent on Brahman as an aṃśa (part/attribute), it retains real individuality, cognitive agency (kartṛtva), and moral responsibility. Brahman provides the underlying ground and initial permission (anumati), but the actual volitional choice to act belongs to the individual self, preserving moral culpability and spiritual striving (bhakti/prapatti).

Divine Creation and Moral Responsibility for Evil: Critical Examination

The thesis that absolute divine creation absolves human agents of the responsibility of evil assumes that an omnipotent, omniscient Creator is the causally sufficient ground of all effects, rendering human acts mere deterministic extensions of the divine will.

However, this argument is logically deficient because it conflates God’s primary ontological sustenance of being with the secondary, efficient moral agency of finite creatures:

First, Alvin Plantinga’s Free Will Defense shows that creating creatures capable of genuine moral goodness logically necessitates bestowing significant free will—the freedom to choose between good and evil. God cannot logically create genuinely free agents and simultaneously determine them to only choose good.

Second, the Augustinian tradition demonstrates that moral evil is not a created positive substance, but a privatio boni (privation of good), an ontological defect resulting from the disordered volition of the creature. John Hick’s Irenaean soul-making theodicy further shows that an environment containing moral challenge is necessary for finite spiritual maturity.

Third, in Indian philosophy, the doctrine of Karma explicitly exonerates Brahman from partiality (vaiṣamya) and cruelty (nairghṛṇya). Creation is beginningless (anādi), and individual suffering is the fruition of the jīva’s own self-generated karmic residues, not arbitrary divine infliction.

Therefore, the claim must be rejected: God’s absolute creation establishes the ontological precondition for agency, but moral responsibility rests squarely on the finite human agent. Divesting humans of moral responsibility reduces free agents to automata and dissolves ethical normativity.

Conclusion

Thomist natural theology, Rāmānuja’s qualified non-dualism, and theodicies of free agency collectively establish that divine absolute sovereignty does not eradicate creaturely distinction. God remains the transcendent-immanent ground of existence, while the moral agent retains authentic freedom and moral accountability.