Discussion 11

For every effect, there must be a cause. Anything that happens always has a cause preceding it. For example, when a person decides to do something or make something, they must have a motivation for it. Nothing in the world can just come into existence randomly or without a cause. In today’s world, human beings come up with solutions to problems. The problem can be termed as the cause, and the solution is the effect. Everything that is in existence must have had a cause even if the cause happened a long time before. One cause precipitates many effects that come after it.

To give a few examples of the cause and effect theory, take a close look at the life of human beings today. Houses were built to shelter humans from extreme weather and other dangers that come with living in an open space. The cause is the need for shelter from the elements, and the effect is the houses that were constructed. Secondly, people eat food because they are hungry. In this case, hunger is the cause and eating is the effect of the feeling of hunger. When a person sees a snake, they sense danger and usually flee from the snake. The cause is the dangerous snake, and an effect is a person fleeing to safety. It is apparent that every action or thing is an effect with a cause behind it.

Thomas Aquinas agrees with the viewpoint that every effect must have a cause; he uses this reasoning to explain the existence of God and how the universe came into being. God created the universe; hence God is the cause, and the universe is the effect (Fairweather). Thomas explains that everything in the world must have a cause; nothing can come into being without first having a cause. If there is no cause, then there can be no effect that will come after. For the subsequent effects of existing, the cause must come first.

The universe today can be seen as an effect, and the only probable cause of its existence is God. There can be no other logical explanation as to how the world came into being except the fact that it must have been created by God (Green). Therefore without God, the world would not exist. To deny God’s existence is illogical since there is no way that the world was created except by God. God is the cause, and the universe is the effect.

Works Cited

Fairweather, Alan M., ed. Nature and grace: selections from the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Vol. 11. Aeterna Press, 2016.

Green, Tom. “On the Knowledge of God and the Metaphysics of Aquinas.” Aristos 4.1 (2018): 3.