e. motion, contingency and causation. So Aquinas believes God is de re necessary - necessary in and of himself and cause of himself. We do not know what God is, but whatever God is, God is whatever is necessary to explain the universe's existence. Aquinas's jump from this Being to establishing it as God is something that can be criticised. This spurred Pascal to state "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - not the God of the philosophers". Aquinas" being that he names God may be closer to the "God of the philosophers" than to the living, loving, suffering God of the Christian tradition. Aristotle's Prime Mover appears radically different from the God of most Christians. If we said that God was "whatever sustains the universe in existence" we would be somewhere near to what Aquinas was saying, but this "whatever" may be some way from the traditional view of God. By labelling this uncaused, necessary being on which all depends as "that which all men speak of as God", Aquinas does no argue for the claim and given that Aquinas" God is metaphysically simple, having no body or parts. Is timeless, spaceless and wholly immutable, this may be detachable as some hold that personality, love and the ability to suffer with creation are defining features of God and these are features that cannot be univocally be applied to Aquinas" God. This is the first weakness in Aquinas argument. .
The second is that he claims to arrive at something which is de re necessary (necessary in and of itself). However, this could be the universe itself or could be God. Aquinas only assumes that it is God, there is no factual evidence for this and so must e considered partial evidence. .
Also there is a direct weakness in Aquinas second point following on from "in nature, things can either exist or not exist" to "if this is so, given that infinite time, at some time everything must not be." Aquinas was unaware of the "Principle of the conservation of energy" whereby matter and energy change their state and do not go out of existence.