Beginning of Essay
Efficient Cause Who and what is God? Why do some people adamantly conclude that a God exists? St. Aquinas goes from believing that there must be an efficient first cause to the conclusion that God is that cause. Why must Aquinas make such an extraordinary jump ....

Middle of Essay
.... any being to be the efficient cause of itself because then it would have to bring itself into being, and to bring itself into being, it would have to exist before it existed. If a being exists, it is because some being before it caused it to exist. Therefore, if no first cause exists, neither will any other being exist. Therefore, there must be an efficient first cause -- God. St. Aquinas’s argument assumes that a first cause is needed to explain the existence of anything. St. Aquinas also assumes this first cause to be God. How can anyone rationally conclude that there is a God from the simple statement that a first cause is necessary for ....