First Critique of the existence of God

Overview and comments on Thomas of Aquinas. 

In his work Summa Theologiae(1265–1274) Thomas of Aquinas presents and then proceed to refute two of the common critique for the existence of God. This is the first......

Critique 1: 

It seems there's no God. If from two mutually exclusive things if one of them exists with not limit, the other would cease to exist.

The first critique is pretty straightforward and bases itself on the fact that God is perceived to be infinitely good. If the good derived from God is infinite it should remove all evil. But we know and see that evil exist which would mean that God doesn't.

Response: 

The response of Thomas of Aquinas is based on Augustine’s argument: 

"Because God is supremely good he will not permit any evil in his works unless he is sufficiently almighty to bring good even from evil”.

Thomas says:

“It’s a mark of the goodness of God that he permits evils to exist and draws from them good”

Comment:
What Thomas boils the argument down to is that God is good beyond our conception. So much so that he can allow for the existence of evil for the express purpose of bringing good trough it. In many respects, the logic that Thomas follows is that without darkness there's no light. As people wouldn't be able to comprehend what is light without the opposite. So in order to bring good to the people and for them to able to comprehend it evil is necessary and thus allowed by God. To that end, the critique doesn't disprove Gods existence.

                                                                                                         Carthago delenda est...