Aquinas's Third Way Revisited

What is it about?

The "Third Way" is an argument in which Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) attempts to prove the existence of God. The argument has two parts. In the first part, Aquinas argues that the transitory sorts of things we experience in the world, which he calls "contingent beings," cannot be the only types of things that exist. Instead, some eternally existing, "necessary beings" must exist also. Many philosophers think Aquinas commits some sort of logical error in this first part of his argument. My paper attempts to provide a plausible revision of the first part of the Third Way on which such logical errors are avoided.

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Why is it important?

Many commentators who defend the Third Way think that Aquinas simply assumes the infinity of time, but this assumption creates a consistency problem. I argue that, instead of assuming the infinity of time, the Third Way can be understood as an attempt to reduce to absurdity the assumption that all things are contingent. Instead of being assumed, the infinity of time can be inferred from this assumption.