He was a rationalist and not an empiricist. Those are terms that don't strictly apply, because they were invented to describe philosophers from the modern era, but the general idea fits Aquinas. read more
The five ways set out to prove one thing by reason: that the theory of multiple material principles is not sufficient to explain the phenomena we experience through the senses. In other words, matter does not explain the material world. I will not get into whether they are lazy or not. I certainly do not thinks so. read more
The Quinque viæ (Latin "Five Ways") (sometimes called "five proofs") are five logical arguments regarding the existence of God summarized by the 13th-century Catholic philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas in his book Summa Theologica. read more
Thomas Aquinas’s first three ways argue to an unmoved first mover, an uncaused first cause, and a metaphysically necessary being, respectively. Dawkins claims that these are all “just different ways of saying the same thing” (p. 77), but this is just false. read more