In this chapter, White presents Aquinas’ answer to these questions by of the divine nature of God (q. 2–26 in Summa), which Aquinas thought would facilitate the greatest insight into the mystery of God as a Trinity of persons (q. 27–43).
The Thomistic Approach to Philosophy and Theology
- Avoid Either/Or Extremes: (1) Philosophy – exalt natural use of reason & denigrate divinely inspired faith (e.g., Kant & Hegel); (2) Theology – exalt divinely inspired faith & denigrate natural use of reason (e.g., Luther & Barth).
- Both/And Integration: Philosophical reasoning can be placed at the service of theological reflection in helping us to think more clearly and deeply about the mystery of God.
Context for Aquinas’ 5 Ways
In the famous “Five Ways” of ST I, q. 2, Aquinas makes philosophical arguments for the existence of God.
- BOTH possible to interpret these “5 Ways” without their theological context (b/c they derive from philosophical premises). Guiding question: What can be known of the nature of the one God by means of natural reason operating at its summit?
- AND important to see these “5 Ways” in proper context, since in Q.1 of the Summa, which precedes his “5 Ways,” Aquinas makes clear that he is conducting an exercise in sacra doctrina, that is, theology as a science of revelation: an organized body of knowledge that is concerned with a unified object, God, who is revealing himself to humanity. Therefore, sacra doctrina can and should make use of philosophical argumentation, but that it does so within the context of the more ultimate explanatory science of theology (philosophical reason blossoms within divine revelation).
Philosophical approach of Aquinas’ 5 Ways: Quia demonstrations
2 ways philosophers typically approach theoretical demonstration:
- Propter quid demonstration: From knowledge of a cause to demonstration of its effects. Aquinas? No.
- Quia demonstration: From knowledge of effects to demonstration of a cause. Aquinas? Yes.
Knowledge from quia demonstrations = logical + mystical
The goal with this procedure is not to apprehend immediately what God is, but first only to establish that something we typically name “God” exists.
“However dry this line of reasoning may appear initially, it is not only logical and rational, but also apophatic and mystical. We simultaneously affirm the necessity of God’s existence, but also his transcendence and incomprehensibility. To follow the path of reason in considering the transcendent origins of the world is to be led right into the heart of a philosophical “mystery.” There is a mystery at the periphery of ordinary reality—or in the depths of this reality—that calls out to our reason and reveals to us that reason itself terminates in mystery” (201).
1st Way: The Argument from Movement
The Argument from Movement (or Ontological Change) is based on the existence of “change” in all the realities we experience. “Change” not in the Newtonian sense (falling apples) but the Aristotelian sense (a change from potency to act = ontological alteration).
Starting principle: Whatever is “changed” or “moved” is moved by another.
Everything physical undergoes a process of change is changed from potency to act by another, or others.
Therefore, every physical reality in the universe is subject to changes of place, quantity, quality, or generation or corruption that are due to the actual activity of others.
Aquinas is arguing in the first way not chronologically (Big Bang idea – that’s a per accidens argument) but metaphysically, from causal dependencies that are actually existent. We cannot adequately explain what is changing or moving in the world actually simply by having recourse to an interminable series of dependent causes.
Therefore, there must then exist a first, unmoved, unchanged source of movement, who is pure actuality, and this is what we call “God.” As pure actuality, God is not inert, static, or passive and reactive, but perfectly active. Consequently his reality completely transcends our experience and our comprehension. Furthermore, the affirmation that God is an unmoved mover does not imply that God is indifferent, or morally removed from creation; in fact, in many respects, it even proves the contrary. Because God is pure actuality, there exists in him a plenitude of perfection in the order of being, wisdom, and love, one that is not subject to diminishment from any created thing, and one that gives being and life to creatures not from any need, but by pure gift (206).
2nd Way: The Argument from Efficient Causality
Aquinas’s second way is concerned with causal explanation for the very existence of things.
Starting point: Each being we experience comes to be or is given existence only as a result of the activity of another or others. All that exists depends upon another for its existence.
Since this process cannot continue on infinitely, for then everything would receive existence, but nothing would possess it of itself (i.e. the problem of infinite regress).
Therefore, there must exist some being for whom existence is necessary, whose nature it is to exist. This being does not receive its existence from others, but gives existence to all others. If God exists by nature, as one who has existence in virtue of what he is, then we can also say that it is of God’s essence to exist. God is truly “He who is.” To be in a way that can know no diminishment or alteration—characterizes the essence of God.
3rd Way: The Argument from Contingent Possibility and Necessity
The third way begins from the experience of contingent realities in the world around us.
The argument is based on an appeal to modality: the relation of possible beings to necessary being.
It begins with the observation that all the things we experience in this world are materially corruptible and therefore merely contingent. The vast world of material beings we experience is composed of “contingent beings,” meaning beings that are subject to generation and corruption.
There cannot be an infinite series of dependent realities that exists on its own, so there must be a necessary reality that exists eternally and that causes the universe of contingent things to be. This is the reality we call God.
4th Way: The Argument from Degrees of Perfection
The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But “more” and “less” are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaphysics II.
Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.
Aquinas’s perfections are transcendental in kind.
- Such transcendental terms include the notions of being, essence (res), unity, truth, goodness, and beauty.
- Everything that exists, insofar as it exists, is characterized in some way by these transcendental characteristics, which are present in every genus and species of being.
Also – there is an ontological scale of gradations present within the world (degrees or scales of perfection exist in things).
- Some beings have natures or essences of greater nobility than others, as in the case of human beings compared with animals, or living things compared with non-living things.
- Truth
- Goodness
- Beauty
Since none of the individual things we experience possesses the transcendental perfections perfectly, none of them explains sufficiently why there is a scale of perfection in being, which they themselves participate in. Consequently, we must look to a transcendent exemplary cause that possesses these perfections most intensively and that effectively causes them in others.
God, who contains in himself to a maximum degree those perfections found in all other things, and who communicates those perfections to all others.
5th Way: The Argument from Teleological Order
Aquinas’s argument begins with the observation that things of all kinds in the world possess intrinsic tendencies, or natural inclinations, toward certain final goods or states that characterize those realities.
Example 1: human beings naturally desire to know the truth, and seek happiness.
- That this is naturally inevitable is seen from the fact that human beings do not like to be deceived, and that they act through reasoned deliberations in view of what they take to be genuine goods, and seek to avoid what they take to be evil or harmful (even if they may be confused about the content of the true and the false, the good and the harmful).
Example 2: Animals and plants are naturally inclined to nourish themselves, grow, struggle to repair after injury, reproduce, and flourish as a species.
Example 3: Inanimate realities tend to maintain and preserve stable forms. They have characteristic qualities or internal organizational patterns that characterize what they are and that produce predictable actions and effects
From these various inclinations in things we gain insight into their respective natures. Each thing is characterized by natural capabilities and activities, of which we can make sense by appealing to principles of potency and act.
A seed has the potential to become a tree, a child has the potential to become an adult human being, a violist has the capacity to become a virtuoso. Moreover, each of these realities can potentially attain its end or purpose but is capable also of being impeded in its movement toward its end and so may not achieve it.
Where does this intelligible order of nature come from?
Order is the sign of intelligence
God. His wisdom is the ultimate transcendent source of the intelligible order we find present in natural realities. He is the source of their intrinsic teleological inclinations.
Conclusion
What can we conclude cumulatively from the Five Ways?
“They alert us to the existence of a transcendent cause of the physical cosmos, a cause that is immaterial and not subject to physical alteration, whom we call God. God gives existence to all things that come into being or cease to be. He exists of necessity and accounts for those realities that are possible and contingent. God is a hidden exemplar who must be the transcendent cause of all creatures that fall within a spectrum of formal perfections. He is the primary source of the teleological inclinations and intelligible order we find in creatures, and is therefore wise and provident” (215).
“Although these 5 ways are intended as philosophical demonstrations—that is, they do not depend on any revealed premises—and yet they operate here within a properly theological context. Aquinas seeks to employ genuine metaphysical arguments to illustrate how the human mind already enlightened by faith can move by its natural powers within faith toward the creedal profession of the “one God.” From here it can make use of philosophical reasoning in the service of theology so as to study the divine nature, and the mystery of the Trinitarian persons” (215).
Prodigal Catholic 