The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great

by Ben Shapiro

Aquinas, like Maimonides and Muslim philosophers like Al-Farabi (872–950), concerned himself, therefore, with proofs of God’s existence. This was, in and of itself, somewhat revolutionary in the Christian world. Judaism offered no proof of God beyond revelation; God was simply the Creator. End of story. And Christianity offered no logical proofs for God’s existence; Jesus walked the earth and rose from the dead. End of story. But Aquinas sought to use reason to bolster faith. He offered several proofs of God’s existence, the most convincing of which was a form of the cosmological argument promoted by Aristotle. Essentially, Aquinas argued that all things in life are a combination of actual and potential—that a candle, for example, is a candle right now, and has the potential to become a pool of wax when operated on by fire.