Explaining the ontological argument

[Linusthe2nd]

St. Thomas’ Fourth Way is probably the most rigorous proof for God’s existence, but also the most difficult to understand. And unfortunately, St. Thomas makes only a brief outline in the Summa and expects the reader to fill in the details. It is certainly Platonic (more precisely, Neoplatonic) in flavor, but it relies on concepts that neither Plato nor Aristotle had developed, at least not explicitly.

(In particular, neither Plato, nor Aristotle, nor the pagan Neoplatonists had an adequate understanding of creation.)

I don’t think it is the degrees of perfection that interest St. Thomas so much as the fact that these degrees of perfection are evidence of a participation of creatures in the being (Latin: esse) of the Creator. Or, conversely, it is evidence of God’s communication of his esse to His creatures.

All of the perfections mentioned in the Fourth Way (goodness, truth, nobility) are properties that Thomas calls transcendentia, but that subsequent Scholasticism calls “transcendentals.” They “transcend” the division of being into Aristotle’s ten categories: in other words, they can be properly attributed to any being, although of course their meaning changes according to the type of being. (It is not exactly the same thing to say “God is good” as to say “Charles is good,” or even to say “this pizza is good.” Nevertheless, the meanings are not completely divergent; there is something in common among all of them.)

The important thing here is that the transcendentia are in proportion to what Thomas calls esse (the Latin infinitive for the verb to be). For Thomas esse is not simply “existence,” the mere “fact” that something exists, but is much more profound than that: it is the fundamental act of every being. (What does this rock do? Well, before it does anything, it is.)

This act comes in various intensities, and it is precisely the intensity of the act that explains the differences in goodness, truth, and nobility in the world: a thing is good to the degree that it is, and so on.

As regards a proof for the existence of God, the variability in intensity of goodness, truth, and nobility that we find in the world is evidence of the variability in intensity of esse. This, in turn, indicates that the esse in the world is always limited (otherwise, it couldn’t be any greater than it is). A being with a limited esse does not have the power to communicate its own esse to another being, nor can it give itself its own esse, nor can it be eternal (because limitation is only possible when there is a potential principle in the being, and that potential principle has to be put into act by something outside itself).

It follows that all beings in the world have received their esse directly from Something that is the Source of this esse, that possesses esse as His own (not as received from something else), and that possesses esse in an unlimited way.

We could sum it up like this: “There are all kinds of good/true/noble things in the world. They could, however, always be better/truer/nobler (or worse/less true/less noble). Things are good/true/noble to the degree that they are, hence things in the world possess an intensity of being (esse) that could always, in theory, be greater (or less). Hence, the being (esse) of the things in the world is limited. But being (esse) is a type of act, and acts can only be limited by potencies. Moreover, potencies don’t just become “activated” all by themselves: some other thing in act has to come and activate them. Hence, the things in the world are not the source of their own being (esse). (That is, they participate in the esse of Something else.) The esse of everything in the world must, therefore, be communicated by a (unique) Source that possesses its own esse to an unlimited degree.”

As I said, rigorous, but somewhat difficult to understand.

Pretty good analysis. The point is that " they " would not " be " unless God " was. " It needs to be stressed that to " participate " first means not " to be " the other. We participate in God’s Esse in that he has given us our own esse, a dim reflection of His own Esse.

Would be nice to see more of our clergy come in here and keep us straight. But there is such a demand on their. Hey, its better than watching T.V.
Linus2nd

 

[DanAl]

But isn’t maximally great subjective? Who defines what a maximally great being would do or be capable of? And if we could somehow argue what the features of God are, how do we use this as a Christian God arguement and not just a deist argument?

I don’t know what you mean by subjective. There are many things that seem, at first glance, obviously better to have than not have. is free-will good to have? is omnipotence and omniscience good to have? what about being impervious to change or corruption? take these things that seem good to have and make them part of the notion of a maximally great, perfect and infinite being.

As for deism, Plantinga’s argument explicitly says that a property of a maximally great being is moral goodness. It is hard for an indifferent God to fit in this argument. Now, whether this part of the argument is valid -I disagree with plantinga that moral goodness, as he describes it, is a property of a maximally great being- is another question. But this illustrates that you can have an ontological argument that is not limited to deism.

But you can mix the ontological arguments with other arguments -say a cosmological argument- to bypass deism.The fact that the universe is contingent or could have been different shows that the universe was freely chosen by God to be this way. Or the fact that a contingent thing cannot exist on its own without fading into nothingness shows that God takes an active role in sustaining the universe, for example. I am oversimplifying a bit, but I am just illustrating some arguments that can be incorporated into ontological arguments.