The argument from degrees or the degrees of perfection argument is an argument for the existence of God

Existence of God

Arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by philosophers, theologians, scientists, and others. In philosophical terms, arguments for and against the existence of God involve primarily the sub-disciplines of epistemology and ontology , but also of the theory of value, since...

 first proposed by mediaeval Roman Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...

 as one of the five ways

Quinquae viae

The Quinque viæ, Five Ways, or Five Proofs are five arguments regarding the existence of God summarized by the 13th century Roman Catholic philosopher and theologian St. Thomas Aquinas in his book, Summa Theologica...

 to philosophically argue for God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

 in his Summa Theologica

Summa Theologica

The Summa Theologiæ is the best-known work of Thomas Aquinas , and although unfinished, "one of the classics of the history of philosophy and one of the most influential works of Western literature." It is intended as a manual for beginners in theology and a compendium of all of the main...

. It is based on ontological and theological notions of perfection. Contemporary Thomist scholars are often in disagreement on the metaphysical justification for this proof.

Aquinas's original formulation

Syllogistic form

A syllogistic form collected by Robert J. Schihl follows:

Rebuttals

A common argument

Argument

In philosophy and logic, an argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something, or give evidence or reasons for accepting a particular conclusion.Argument may also refer to:-Mathematics and computer science:...

 is that it is not evident that simply because we can conceive of an object with some property in a greater degree, that such an object exists.

In response to this objection, defenders of the argument usually cite Axiom S5

Axiom S5

Axiom S5 is the distinctive axiom of the S5 modal logic and states that if possibly p, then necessarily possibly p. It also states, perhaps less intuitively and more controversially, that if possibly necessarily p, then necessarily p...

, and this is how this argument links into Anselm's well-known ontological argument.