more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
All natural things can be reduced to one principle, which is nature; and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle, which is human reason, or will. Therefore God does not exist.
Gist of Idea
Non-human things are explicable naturally, and voluntary things by the will, so God is not needed
Source
Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologicae [1265], Ia,Q02,Art3,Ob2)
Book Ref
'The Existence of God', ed/tr. Hick,John [Macmillan 1964], p.82
A Reaction
Not, of course, the opinion of Aquinas. So the possibility of naturalism (assuming the human will can be further reduced to nature) was a clear option in the thirteenth century. In reply Aquinas cites his Fifth Way.
Related Idea
Idea 21273 Way 5: mindless things act towards an obvious end, so there is an intelligent director [Aquinas]
21268 | Non-human things are explicable naturally, and voluntary things by the will, so God is not needed [Aquinas] |
20127 | Laws of nature are universal, so everything must be understood through those laws [Spinoza] |
24151 | I only want thinking that is anchored in body, senses and earth [Nietzsche] |
20123 | First see nature as non-human, then fit ourselves into this view of nature [Nietzsche] |
18391 | 'Naturalism' says only the world of space-time exists [Armstrong] |
3509 | Externalism may be the key idea in philosophical naturalism [Papineau] |