The greatest American thinker , Charles Sanders Peirce , distinguished , from inductive and deductive reasonning , abductive or retroductive reasonning... Science after him keep this third form of reasonning...
This implies a circle , or a spiralling set of hypothesis at the end encompassing everything...Peirce created semiotics , the science of signs with this abductive idea , and it takes three steps in this science to encompass the infinity...The Percean triads..
We must read Aquinas 5 proofs of the existence of God all 5 TOGETHER in this Percean abductive context...
- the argument from "first mover";
- the argument from universal causation;
- the argument from contingency;
- the argument from degree;
- the argument from final cause or ends ("teleological argument").
But at the end the Source being an evidence only need the mind eye directed on the right direction at the right time...
I will add to Aquinas 5 ways my sixth way : the absoluteness of number theory and the Nicolas of Cuses proof of the absolute infinity , before Cantor , which inspired Cantor to create the first universal mathematical theory...
In science one differentiates between in- and deductive hypotheses. Hopefully I am not insulting anybody in assigning this to the former and perceiving some distance to Thomas of Aquinas‘ attempted proof.