The Logic of the Identity of Being and Goodness and a Moral Argument for Theism
Nov 23, 2024
About this article
Published Online: Nov 23, 2024
Page range: 33 - 48
Received: Apr 17, 2024
Accepted: Aug 06, 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ejsta-2024-0003
Keywords
© 2024 Timothy Mosteller, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
In section 1 of this paper, I consider the logical validity of four versions of Aquinas’ arguments to this conclusion that being and good are identical, as presented by Stump and Kretzmann. Subsequently, I formalize the arguments in order to make their validity logically explicit. In section 2, I show how the formal reality of the identity of being grounds moral arguments for theism. In section 3, I then consider the application of this formal reality, to a simplified contemporary “moral argument” for theism. I argue that Aquinas’ arguments for the identity of being and goodness should play a vital role in moral arguments for theism to militate against atheistic objections to them.