♠ Jack of Spades
the cosmological family
The Second Way (Efficient Causation)
St Thomas Aquinas — The Angelic Doctor
Summa Theologiae (Summa Theologica)
DemonstrativeConcludes that something exists.
- Argument form
- Regress argument (essentially ordered series of efficient causes cannot be infinite)
- Concludes to
- First cause (a first efficient cause, itself uncaused)
- Premise ground
- Metaphysical (an essentially ordered series of efficient causes cannot be infinite)
- Modal strength
- Actual
- What it licenses
- Period
- Medieval (1265–74)
- Tradition
- Thomist (Aristotelian)
Further reading
- Source text, public domain
Summa Theologiaehttps://www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth1002.html - A scholarly account
Read an exposition of the argument - A principal objection
Read the objection in full
This formulation is ours, composed from the primary source and compressed to fit the card; the argument admits of other statements. Objections have been made to every argument in the deck; where one is linked above, it is chosen by us, not written by us.
ergocards.com/second-way
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