Q. 43 | GATE 2025, English – XH-C4 (INDIA)

Q. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, God exists as a supremely perfect and necessary being. Which among the following options is/are in accordance with his concept of God?

(This is a multiple-select question a.k.a. MSQ.)

(A) Knowledge of God is innate in human beings

(B) True happiness is found in God

(C) Human beings have a priori knowledge of God

(D) God is known only by reflection

The correct answer is:
(B) True happiness is found in God
(D) God is known only by reflection

Which subject(s) is this question from?

Philosophy	Western Philosophy
Era	Medieval Philosophy (5th–15th centuries CE) – The Period between Late Antiquity and the Renaissance. – Dominated by the integration of Greek philosophy (esp. Aristotle and Plato) with Christian theology. – Other key medieval thinkers: Augustine, Anselm, Avicenna, Averroes, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham.
School	13th Century CE (High Scholasticism) – The “golden age” of medieval philosophy. – Scholasticism = method of rigorous logical debate and system-building, harmonizing reason and faith. – Aquinas (1225–1274) is the greatest representative of High Scholasticism.
Country / Region	Italy (but also France / broader Catholic Europe) – Aquinas was born in Italy (Roccasecca, near Naples), studied in Naples, Cologne, Paris, taught at the University of Paris, and worked across Catholic Europe. – So while Italian by birth, his philosophical context is pan-European (Latin Christendom).,
Philosophical Subfield	Philosophy of Religion / Metaphysics – The concept of God, proofs for the existence of God, and ultimate happiness in God fall under: — Philosophy of Religion → arguments for God’s existence, God’s nature, and relation to human happiness. — Metaphysics → God as necessary being, pure act, first cause. —Secondarily: Epistemology → how we know God, via reflection, not innate/a priori.
Philosopher & his works	Thomas Aquinas – Central text: Summa Theologiae (1265–1274). Concepts directly tied to the question: – God as a necessary being, a perfect being. – Knowledge of God via reflection (a posteriori proofs). – Rejection of Anselm’s ontological argument. – Beatific vision: true happiness in God. The Five Ways (natural proofs of God’s existence).

Western Philosophy → Medieval Philosophy → 13th century → Italy / Latin Christendom → Scholasticism → Philosophy of Religion / Metaphysics → Thomas Aquinas.

Explanation:

On Aquinas’s view the best answers are (B) True happiness is found in God and (D) God is known only by reflection. However, that “only” needs careful qualification. Below, I have given a careful, point-by-point, textual and philosophical explanation of why these options fit Thomas Aquinas’s thought, how he treats proof for God, why he rejects (in practice) the ontological path, and what his five demonstrations actually are.

Thomas Aquinas’s the basic picture of God:

Aquinas blends Aristotelian metaphysics with Christian theology. A few central claims that frame everything else:

• God is “pure act” (actus purus): unlike all created things, God has no potency; there is no unrealized possibility in God. God is fully actualized being.
• God is necessary and simple: God’s existence is not contingent on anything; God’s essence and existence are not distinct the way they are in creatures (for creatures, “what they are” ≠ “that they are”). For Aquinas God is ipsum esse subsistens — the very act of being itself.
• God is the first cause/unmoved mover: everything contingent or changing points back to a ground that itself is uncaused and unchanging.
• God is known analogically: when we predicate “good,” “wise,” “powerful” of God we do so analogically, not univocally (not in exactly the same way as we use those terms for created things).
• Two repositories of knowledge: natural reason (creation → Creator) and revelation (Scripture, grace). Natural reason can establish God’s existence and certain divine attributes; revelation discloses mysteries (Trinity, Incarnation) that natural reason cannot reach.

This metaphysical framework underlies his approach to proofs, to how God can be known, and to why God is the ultimate object of human happiness.

Thomas Aquinas’s the basic picture of God:

Aquinas blends Aristotelian metaphysics with Christian theology. A few central claims that frame everything else:

• God is “pure act” (actus purus): unlike all created things, God has no potency; there is no unrealized possibility in God. God is fully actualized being.
• God is necessary and simple: God’s existence is not contingent on anything; God’s essence and existence are not distinct the way they are in creatures (for creatures, “what they are” ≠ “that they are”). For Aquinas God is ipsum esse subsistens — the very act of being itself.
• God is the first cause/unmoved mover: everything contingent or changing points back to a ground that itself is uncaused and unchanging.
• God is known analogically: when we predicate “good,” “wise,” “powerful” of God we do so analogically, not univocally (not in exactly the same way as we use those terms for created things).
• Two repositories of knowledge: natural reason (creation → Creator) and revelation (Scripture, grace). Natural reason can establish God’s existence and certain divine attributes; revelation discloses mysteries (Trinity, Incarnation) that natural reason cannot reach.

This metaphysical framework underlies his approach to proofs, to how God can be known, and to why God is the ultimate object of human happiness.

Why, for Aquinas, the existence of God requires proof : two reasons

Aquinas explicitly addresses why demonstrations of God’s existence are necessary. He says the proposition “God exists” is not self-evident to us for two main reasons:

1. We do not grasp God’s essence directly.
   In itself the term “God” implies being; but human intellects do not have an adequate, immediate idea of God’s essence (we do not intuit what God is). A proposition that is self-evident in itself (i.e., its predicate is contained in the concept of the subject) is only self-evident to us if we actually know that concept. Since we don’t know God’s essence as God is in Himself, the proposition “God exists” is not immediately obvious to human minds. The human intellect, being finite and fallible, cannot know God’s essence directly, since we learn by abstraction from the sensible world and God is not a sensible object; knowledge of God is not innate or a priori.
2. Demonstration is required for persuading and instructing others.
   Even if someone could see the self-evidence of God’s existence from a divine standpoint, other human beings who lack that insight need a route to conviction. So Aquinas insists that proofs drawn from effects — things we do perceive — are required to bring the truth to human understanding. For most people, God’s existence is not self-evident; to establish the reality of God, one has to reason from effects (the world and its order) back to the cause (God).

Put simply: God’s existence might be self-evident in a metaphysical sense, but not self-evident to finite human minds. Hence Aquinas builds natural theology on a posteriori demonstrations (from observed effects back to their cause).

Aquinas and the ontological argument : who proposed it, and why Aquinas rejects it (as a public demonstration)

Who first made the ontological argument?
The classical ontological argument was formulated by St Anselm of Canterbury (11th century) in the Proslogion. Anselm’s formulation: God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived”; existing in reality is greater than existing only in the understanding; therefore, if God exists in the mind, He must also exist in reality.

Aquinas’s response:
Aquinas does not simply deny every ontological move; rather, he objects on epistemic and methodological grounds:

• It doesn’t start from what is better known to us. Aquinas’s model of demonstration requires beginning from premises better known to us (sensible effects) and moving to what is less known (first causes). The ontological move tries to prove existence by analyzing a concept—i.e., from essence to existence. In contrast, for human demonstration, Aquinas insists on proceeding from effects (which we know) to causes (which we do not directly know).
• It won’t persuade the unbelieving or the one who lacks the concept. The ontological argument is persuasive only to someone who already accepts and fully understands the premise (that the concept of God entails existence). Since most people do not have that immediate grasp of God’s essence, such an argument fails as a demonstrative tool for human beings who need reasoning from observed reality.
• Methodological limitation rather than metaphysical impossibility. Aquinas allows that if we had a complete intellectual grasp of God’s essence, the existence of God might be evident. But human cognitive limits make the ontological route insufficient as a public demonstration. (Later thinkers like Descartes and Kant reframe and critique the ontological argument in different ways; Aquinas’s rejection is primarily about epistemic method, not the later Kantian claim “existence is not a predicate.”)
• Conceptual Diversity: Not everyone shares or fully understands the concept of God as the absolutely greatest being; some may have materially false or limited concepts, so the argument cannot be universally convincing.
• Illicit Transition: Even if one holds the idea of the greatest conceivable being, it does not follow that this being exists in reality; one cannot validly deduce existence solely from a concept in the mind (the leap from mental existence to actual existence is invalid).

So Aquinas refuses the ontological argument as a proof suited to human reason, not simply by denying the intelligibility of the idea of God.

“God is known only by reflection” : what Aquinas means (and what he does not mean)

When the MCQ says “God is known only by reflection” it is pointing to Aquinas’s insistence that natural knowledge of God proceeds by reflecting on created things — i.e., reasoning from the effects (motion, causation, contingency, gradation, final order) back to a first cause.

• “Reflection” = intellectual examination of sensible experience and the order of nature. We observe change, causation, dependence, purpose, degrees of perfection. By reflecting on these features we are able to infer a necessary, uncaused, intelligent source.
• This is natural theology. Aquinas’s five ways are paradigmatic reflective arguments: they proceed from what we observe to the existence of God.

Important qualification: Aquinas does not mean that reflection is the only way God can be known in an absolute sense. He holds three levels of knowledge about God:

1. Natural reason (reflection on the world) — establishes God’s existence and certain attributes (unity, simplicity, omnipotence, goodness) by a posteriori proofs.
2. Revealed theology — truth about Trinity, Incarnation, and beatific mysteries are known through Scripture and grace.
3. Beatific vision (in the life to come, or via infused knowledge by grace) — the soul’s direct intuitive knowledge of God, which is a kind of immediate knowing not attained by mere natural reflection.

So (D) is correct when read as saying: from the standpoint of natural human reason, God is known by reflection on creatures. But Aquinas allows further, non-natural modes (revelation and grace) to disclose truths beyond natural reflection.

Aquinas’s Five Ways : detailed exposition (each as an a posteriori demonstration)

Aquinas’s five ways (Summa Theologiae, I, q.2, a.3) are not five independent proofs of the exact same property; each stresses a different aspect of the world and leads to the conclusion that there must be a first principle — God. Each is rooted in Aristotelian metaphysics (act & potency, cause and effect, teleology).

Way 1 — Argument from Motion (Unmoved Mover)

• Observation: Things in the world undergo change (motion), where “motion” = actualization of potential (Aristotle’s change, not only locomotion).
• Reasoning: Whatever is in motion is moved by something else (nothing actualizes its own potential without an actualizing cause). This produces a chain of movers.
• Conclusion: There cannot be an infinite regress of actualizers, because an actualizer is required to explain each change; thus there must be a first mover that itself is not moved — pure actuality — which Aquinas identifies with God.
• Philosophical underpinning: Act/potency schema: only a being without potency (pure act) can be the ultimate source of motion.

Way 2 — Argument from Efficient Causes (First Cause)

• Observation: We observe causal sequences in time (a father causes a child, one event causes another).
• Reasoning: Every efficient cause is caused by something else; nothing is the cause of itself. An infinite regress of causes fails to provide a sufficient explanation (nothing would start the chain).
• Conclusion: There must be a first efficient cause that itself is uncaused — the ultimate source of causal series: God.
• Note: Aquinas distinguishes different senses of “cause” (per se vs per accidens series) and argues that for hierarchical causal chains an originating cause is necessary.

Way 3 — Argument from Contingency and Necessity (Contingent Beings Require a Necessary Being)

• Observation: Things come into and go out of being (they are contingent); their existence is not necessary.
• Reasoning: If everything were merely contingent, then at some time nothing would exist; but if at some time nothing existed, nothing would exist now (since nothing brings itself into existence). Therefore there must exist something that cannot not exist — a necessary being which has its necessity from itself and which causes necessity in others.
• Conclusion: There must be a necessary being (not caused to exist) — God — which grounds the existence of all contingent beings.

Way 4 — Argument from Degrees (Gradation of Perfection)

• Observation: In the world we find varying degrees of goodness, truth, nobility, etc. Some things are more or less good, true, perfect.
• Reasoning: Degrees imply a maximum: when we say something is “better” we are comparing to a standard. The gradation in things points to the existence of an ultimate standard — a being that has maximal perfection in every way.
• Conclusion: There is an entity that is the fullness of being and goodness — the maximum — which causes/perfects lesser perfections in created beings: God.

Way 5 — Argument from Final Cause / Teleology (Order and Governance of the World)

• Observation: Non-intelligent natural bodies act for an end (we see regularity and order in nature; things behave so as to attain their proper ends).
• Reasoning: Non-rational things act toward an end not by chance but by being directed; this directedness implies governance by an intelligence. (Think arrow + archer: the arrow’s directedness presupposes an archer.)
• Conclusion: There must be an intelligent director of natural order — God, who directs all natural beings to their ends.

Proof	Description	Aquinas’s Reasoning
Argument from Motion	Every motion is caused by another; chain needs a First Mover : – God	Infinite regress impossible
Argument from Efficient Cause	Every effect has a cause; there must be an uncaused first cause : -God	Infinite regresses in causation denied
Argument from Necessary Being	Contingent beings exist, but so does a necessary being who causes their existence : – God	Universe can’t be only contingent beings; must be something necessary
Argument from Gradation	Things have varying degrees of qualities like goodness; must be a maximum/source: – God	Ultimate source of perfection
Argument from Design	Order and purpose in nature imply intelligent design: – God	Order cannot arise by chance; design points to intelligence

What the Five Ways establish : scope and limits

• What they do show (for Aquinas): The five ways demonstrate that there is a being on which the whole chain of motion/causation/contingency/perfection/teleology depends; they show that this being is first, necessary, uncaused, purely actual, and intelligible cause of order and goodness.
• What they do not prove (for Aquinas): The full Christian doctrine (Trinity, Incarnation, specific moral law) is not derivable from these proofs alone; such mysteries require revelation and grace. Nor do the ways give a full conceptual knowledge of God’s essence — they give knowledge of God’s existence and some attributes by analogy.

How “true happiness is found in God” (option B) fits Aquinas

Aquinas’s moral-psychological account of happiness (beatitudo) ties directly to metaphysics:

• Human final end: Every human action aims at some good; the ultimate end (the highest good) must be something that is self-sufficient and final. Created goods are limited; they cannot satisfy the intellect’s desire for complete truth nor the will’s desire for complete goodness.
• Beatific vision: For Aquinas, true and complete happiness consists in knowing and loving God — ultimately in the beatific vision (the direct, intuitive vision of God enjoyed by the blessed). Only God, as ipsum esse subsistens and infinite goodness, can fully satisfy the human desire for happiness.
• Hence (B) is Thomistically correct. Natural desire and reflection point toward God as the last end; therefore “true happiness is found in God” is central to Aquinas’s anthropology and theology. (This also connects to Augustine’s famous line Aquinas often echoes: the human heart is restless until it rests in God.)

Why options (A) and (C) would be wrong on Aquinas’s view

• (A) “Knowledge of God is innate in human beings.”
  Aquinas does not hold that explicit knowledge of God’s existence is innate in the sense of being a built-in, fully formed idea present at birth. Rather, humans have a natural inclination to seek God and the intellect is disposed to know God via reflection; but explicit knowledge of God’s existence must be achieved by reasoning from experience (or be received by revelation). So the claim of innate, explicit knowledge is too strong for Aquinas.
• (C) “Human beings have a priori knowledge of God.”
  Aquinas rejects the idea that we have a full a priori knowledge of God’s existence (i.e., knowledge independent of experience) available to ordinary human reason. His five proofs are a posteriori: they proceed from observable features of the world to the existence of God. (Again, the one qualification is that if one already possessed a divine sort of intellect that grasped God’s essence, God’s existence would be obvious; but that is not our condition.)

Thus (A) and (C) mischaracterize Aquinas’s epistemology.

Why B and D are the correct choices (with nuance)

• B (True happiness is found in God) — Correct. For Aquinas the human final end (beatitudo) is union with God; only God can satisfy the deepest human longing for perfect good and truth.
• D (God is known only by reflection) — Correct when understood in Aquinas’s natural-theological frame: natural human knowledge of God arises by reflection on the created order (the five ways). Nuance: Aquinas allows additional ways (revelation, infused knowledge, beatific vision) by which God is known beyond natural reflection; but as to natural human reason, reflection (from effects to cause) is the route.

Aquinas rejects the ontological argument as a public demonstration (the formal ontological move was first made by Anselm), because human demonstration must begin from what is better known to us (sensible effects) and proceed to first causes; the ontological route presupposes knowledge we do not possess.

Finally, Aquinas’s five a posteriori ways (motion, efficient cause, contingency, degrees, teleology) are his canonical demonstrations — each grounded in his act/potency metaphysics and each pointing to a necessary, simple, unmoved, intelligent first principle: God.