Aquinas’ Contingency Argument: Why God Must Exist

I agree with Aquinas’ “Contingency” argument that proves the existence of God. In fact, in the universe today, we witness a mixture of things, some of which are not possible to be and others that are possible to be. This can well be understood by looking at the term perishable. Some products are perishable while others are not. Therefore, the argument implies that if all things were considered contingent and thus possess the ability to get out of existence, then, given unknown time, this option would be achieved and nothing would be existent presently. However, it is clear that things now exist. This, therefore, means that there is at least something that is necessary and not perishable in the universe, and that is God. This theory is unquestionably very correct (Arp, 2016). 

In a broader and detailed perspective, everything in the argument seems to predict the presence of a necessary force that is never perishable. Firstly, it is right that almost everything comes into existence and vanishes with time, including human life, trees, animals, cars, rivers, buildings, and many others. However, if everything happened through this mechanism then at some point in life nothing would ever exist, and the world would be empty. This is not the case presently, implying that there is that unique and special thing that does not have any chance of going out of existence. This can be interpreted as the cause of the existence of other things, which possibly replaces things that get wiped out (Arp, 2016). This necessary thing that is eternal and never perishes is God. Therefore, this implies that God is not contingent and does not depend on anything for existence. His “necessary” presence makes it very difficult to proceed to infinity based on the ‘efficient cause’ theory. God is an eternal cause in the universe and explains why things never completely get extinguished. 

References 

Arp, R. (2016). Revisiting Aquinas’ proofs for the existence of God. Boston: Brill Rodopi.