My problem with all of Aquinas' arguments is that they all seem to go roughtly along these lines:

1) Something (be it order, or matter, or motion) cannot come from nothing
2) Everything was once nothing
3) But we have something now
4) Therefore, a Something caused everything

It seems to me that (4) must violate either (1) or (2), and without either of those the proof loses its teeth. In any case (2) is somewhat suspect; it seems to come from the Aristotelian (and wrong) notion that there can be no motion without external force to sustain that motion (External forces are required for a *change* in motion, but a particle can go along its merry way forever if no force acts to slow it down or change its direction).

(1) only holds true if we take "nothing" to be something even less substantial than the vacuum of space; even the vacuum has some energy associated with it. Additionally, as far as I know, (delta E)(delta t) >= (h-bar/2), so something can come from nothing whenever it wants, as long as it's not a lot of something or it doesn't stay very long.

Anyway, I'm getting away from my point. The reason Anslem and Aquinas don't seem to be very convincing is that they were really only trying to convince medieval Catholics that their faith was in some way supported by reason. (Anslem's argument was even in the form of a prayer) Aquinas especially was more concerned with justifying classical philosophy to believers than using philosophy to prove God's existence. Besides, these arguments, even if they prove the existence of some eternal being, do nothing to support the doctrines of any religion; they aren't inconsistent with God ceasing to exist right after the creation of the universe.

When you're preaching to the choir, you can take things for granted.

Bal"Oh, by the way, hi everyone"anthalus