Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways

St. Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican priest, theologian, and philosopher, is considered to be one of the greatest Christian philosophers in history. He believed that reason was not an enemy of faith (as philosophy and reasoning had been commonly used to counter the Church's beliefs, leading the Church to commonly tag such ideas as heresy) attempted to prove this through his Five Ways

First Way: The Argument from Motion

• Aquinas concluded that an object that is in motion is put in motion by some other object or force. He believed that ultimately there must have been an unmoved mover (in this case God) who put things in motion in the first place
  

Second Way: Causation of Existence

• Aquinas concluded that through common sense and observation, it is evident that no object can create itself, and that instead, some previous object must have made it. There must have been an uncaused first cause (again, God) who started the chain of existence for all things.

In my opinion, this argument is valid. Since nothing can make itself, and nothing can make God, this makes God our starting point, our first domino. As God makes more and more of his creation, more dominos are added, until eventually we have all the dominos set up (in this case the dominos are the universe). The dominos couldn't have put themselves there and since nothing made God, this makes God the maker of the universe.

Third Way: Contingent and Necessary Objects

• Aquinas believed that the extence of contingent beings (objects that can't exist without a necessary being causing its existence) would inevitably need an already existing being (God) in order for all of the contingent beings to exist.
  

Fourth Way: The Argument from Degrees and Perfection

• Aquinas concluded that for any given quality, there has to be a standard of perfection from which all such qualities are measured. In other words, there has to be a form of perfection (God) to which we can compare
  

Fifth Way: The Argument from Intelligent Design

• Aquinas states that by the way the universe works, it can be concluded that it was designed by an intelligent designer (God)