Two hundred years later in a short section in a very long book called Summa Theologica, another Italian saint, Thomas Aquinas (1225–74), outlined five arguments, the Five Ways that were meant to demonstrate that God exists. These Five Ways are now much better known than any other part of the book. The second of these was the First Cause Argument, an argument which, like much of Aquinas' philosophy, was based on one that Aristotle had used much earlier. Like Anselm, Aquinas wanted to use reason to provide proof for God's existence. The First Cause Argument takes as its starting point the
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