The Fourth Way

[1holycatholic]

good luck!

 

[JDaniel]

good luck!

You’re not going to help me?

jd

 

[Charlemagne_II]

I’ve tried. My own head is about to explode! :banghead:

 

[Charlemagne_II]

*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 Metaph. 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. ***

I’ll try again.

It seems to me that the locus of the syllogism Aquinas tried to produce is in the blackened lines. The previous lines are by way of definition as to what a maximum is for any genus.

MAJOR: All beings have a maximum (highest perfection) that causes their being (Example: fire is the cause of all heat).

MINOR: The universe is all beings. (This is implied, he never uses the word universe) but rather all beings)

CONCLUSION: The universe (implied, really all beings) must have a maximum (highest perfection – we call God) that causes its being.

I still have a problem. The Minor, as I said before, doesn’t really exist. Every statement in a syllogism (which has to have at least three parts) has to have a subject and predicate that are different. When Aquinas says (or rather implies) that “The universe is all beings,” he is really only saying that “all beings are all beings.” The minor therefore goes nowhere and is useless. So the fallacy of excluded middle prevails.

The syllogism appears to be invalid. Say it ain’t so!

Or take me out and shoot me!

 

[1holycatholic]

*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 Metaph. 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. ***

I’ll try again.

It seems to me that the locus of the syllogism Aquinas tried to produce is in the blackened lines. The previous lines are by way of definition as to what a maximum is for any genus.

MAJOR: All beings have a maximum (highest perfection) that causes their being (Example: fire is the cause of all heat).

MINOR: The universe is all beings. (This is implied, he never uses the word universe) but rather all beings)

CONCLUSION: The universe (implied, really all beings) must have a maximum (highest perfection – we call God) that causes its being.

I still have a problem. The Minor, as I said before, doesn’t really exist. Every statement in a syllogism (which has to have at least three parts) has to have a subject and predicate that are different. When Aquinas says (or rather implies) that “The universe is all beings,” he is really only saying that “all beings are all beings.” The minor therefore goes nowhere and is useless. So the fallacy of excluded middle prevails.

The syllogism appears to be invalid. Say it ain’t so!

Or take me out and shoot me!

peterkreeft.com/topics/first-cause.htm
Fourth, there must also be a first cause of perfection or goodness or value. We rank things as more or less perfect or good or valuable. Unless this ranking is false and meaningless, unless souls don’t really have any more perfection than slugs, there must be a real standard of perfection to make such a hierarchy possible, for a thing is ranked higher on the hierarchy of perfection only insofar as it is closer to the standard, the ideal, the most perfect. Unless there is a most-perfect being to be that real standard of perfection, all our value judgments are meaningless and impossible. Such a most-perfect being, or real ideal standard of perfection, is another description of God.

 

[fhansen]

How about:

Imperfect beings cannot be uncaused
All known beings are imperfect
All known beings must be caused by another, perfect, being, and this cause we call God.

Too simplistic? I’m still not sure about that major anyway.

 

[punkforchrist]

It’s important to note that when Thomas talks about the “hottest” causes heat, and so forth, he’s just using this as an analogy. Obviously, Thomas wasn’t saying that God is the supremely hot being. Rather, the Fourth Way can be simplified if we focus on the claim that God is Supreme Truth. For, there are some things that are more true than others. Hence, we have “degrees” of perfection with respect to truth. So, the argument could be put into the form of a reduction ad absurdum:

Prove A: There exists a Supreme Truth.
Assume ~A: There is no Supreme Truth.
~A → B: If there is no Supreme Truth, then nothing can be known to be false, or less true.
~B: Things are known to be false, or less true.
Hence, ~~A: by modus tollens.
Therefore, A: There exists a Supreme Truth.

(~A → B) is the key premise. Think of C.S. Lewis’ analogy. You wouldn’t call a line crooked, unless you knew what a straight line looks like. So, in order to determine that one thing is truer than another, we have to have some standard by which we determine this. This “standard” is the Supreme Truth. The Supreme Truth must be one, since everything that is true participates in the singular attribute of truthfulness.

Note that parodies involving a smelliest being, and things like that, are inapplicable, since truth is inherently intangible.

The difference between the Fourth Way and St. Anselm’s ontological argument is that the former first observes that there is some truth, whereas the latter attempts to prove God’s existence a priori by demonstrating the reality of God based on the idea of God. In other words, Thomas’ Fourth Way is a posteriori. Interestingly, Anselm does provide another argument, one very similar to the Fourth Way, in the beginning of the Monologium. I personally think that’s his best work.

 

[1holycatholic]

Note that parodies involving a smelliest being, and things like that, are inapplicable, since truth is inherently intangible.

I don’t think it is a parody. It’s apparently the best he’s got, which is to say nothing. I’m embarrassed for him, but even more so for those that would offer up Dawkins’ laughable argument as a refutation for the fourth way.

St. Thomas’ example of fire isn’t a good one, but bad physics doesn’t mean bad philosophy. St. Thomas’ fourth way has not been refuted.

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?
Richard Dawkins’ Failed Rebuttal of Natural Theology
The Argument from Degrees of Perfection
In the fourth way of his Suma Theologica, Aquinas argued thus:

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 [Aristotle’s] Metaph. 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.

In Aquinas’ own words, the fourth way appears to be made up of two overlapping syllogisms:

• 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
• so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being
• Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus
• 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

After merely summarizing Aquinas’ fourth, Dawkins attempts a reductio ad absurdum (a “reduction to absurdity”):
That’s an argument? You might as well say, people vary in smelliness but we can make the comparison only by reference to a perfect maximum of conceivable smelliness. Therefore there must exist a pre-eminently peerless stinker, and we call him God.
Unfortunately, Dawkins fails to notice that Aquinas’ argument works with “great-making properties”, a class of properties into which “smelliness” - the subject of Dawkins’ rebuttal - simply does not fall. Christopher F.J. Martin observes Aquinas is concerned with the existence of more and a less in terms of properties that by definition admit of an intrinsic and logical maximum, rather than a merely de facto maximum.

As E.L. Mascall explains: “Goodness, so the argument claims, demands as its cause a God who is good; while heat, though it necessarily demands a God whose knowledge of possible being includes an idea of heat, does not demand a God who is hot as its cause, but only a God who can create.”

In modern philosophical terminology, Aquinas is arguing along the following lines:

• Things exist in the world around us that exhibit finite degrees of great making properties (e.g. being, goodness, truth, beauty)
• The existence of something exhibiting a great making property to a finite degree implies the existence of something that possesses the property in question to a maximal degree
• Therefore, all great making properties possessed in finite degree by beings in the world around us, including being, are possessed to a maximal degree by something
• An effect cannot exceed the greatness of its cause
• Therefore, there exists a maximally ontologically secure being that possess every great making property possessed by its effects to a maximal degree; and this we call God

It should at least be clear that Aquinas’ argument is logically valid, and consequently that, pace Dawkins, this line of thought cannot be dismissed with a jeering reference to smelly people.​

*

 

[Charlemagne_II]

1holycatholic

Unless this ranking is false and meaningless, unless souls don’t really have any more perfection than slugs, there must be a real standard of perfection to make such a hierarchy possible, for a thing is ranked higher on the hierarchy of perfection only insofar as it is closer to the standard, the ideal, the most perfect.

Well then, C.S. Lewis derives his argument from Aquinas. I always thought Lewis was more derivative than original. I have seen passages from him that seem to plagiarize Chesterton. Shameless. But I still like him.

I follow you, but an atheist won’t. If we are trying to use the fourth argument to persuade an atheist, his answer might be: "You are begging the question. How do you know there is a standard of perfection (Aquinas calls it the “maximum of any genus) for such things as truth, beauty, virtue? We may have a standard that’s very high, as opposed to very low, but how do we know that it’s supreme?” As I said in an earlier post, Aquinas’ own example shows the flaw in his reasoning … especially to a modern day atheist. Fire is not the cause of all that is hot. The molten lava within the earth and the fire called the Sun is (more or less) the cause of most heat on earth. But even they are not the “maximum in their genus,” as there are greater fires in other parts of the universe that produced our Sun (according to current science). So the atheist could argue there is no discernible maximum for the genus heat. The same would then be true of all other things, including the “maximum for all beings” to be called God. The atheist will want to insist that we have no reason to believe the chain of being is not infinite and eternal, and that, applying Occam’s Razor, as Bertrand Russell often did, the uncaused maximum might just as well be the universe itself as God.

But now the modern atheist has more of a problem defeating Aquinas than the medieval atheist might have had because the modern atheist has to deal with the Big Bang and Intelligent Design, which more and more are suggesting something like what Aquinas called the maximum in the genus of causes and the maximum in the genus of designs. Although his cosmological and teleological arguments are more appropriately connected respectively to the Big Bang and Intelligent Design … it could be argued they overlap somewhat the fourth argument as well.

?

 

[Touchstone]

In Aquinas’ own words, the fourth way appears to be made up of two overlapping syllogisms:

• 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
• so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being
• Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus

Fallacy of composition.

• 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

After merely summarizing Aquinas’ fourth, Dawkins attempts a reductio ad absurdum (a “reduction to absurdity”):

That’s an argument? You might as well say, people vary in smelliness but we can make the comparison only by reference to a perfect maximum of conceivable smelliness. Therefore there must exist a pre-eminently peerless stinker, and we call him God.Unfortunately, Dawkins fails to notice that Aquinas’ argument works with “great-making properties”, a class of properties into which “smelliness” - the subject of Dawkins’ rebuttal - simply does not fall. Christopher F.J. Martin observes Aquinas is concerned with the existence of more and a less in terms of properties that by definition admit of an intrinsic and logical maximum, rather than a merely de facto maximum.
​

I think the objection points right at a fundamental problem in the formulation of the fourth way – the problematic nature of a logical maximum/minimum. As a tautology, it’s not a problem: we say that a “300” score in bowling is a perfect score because we have defined the game that way.

But mapping notions of a logical maximum/minimum to the reality takes more than definitional license, and Aquinas errors in reference to fire are a good example. It may be that a "perfectly stinky’ being is a kind of category, but if so, that problem obtains from the semantics of “perfectly” rather than “smelly”. Aquinas, apparently as confident about fire and its place in the grand scheme of things as many other aspects of reality addressed in the Five Ways, identifies fire as both the logical maximum for heat, and the “cause of all hot things”.

That error, dismissed above as simply some kind of “goof”, should be instructive beyond just a mistake about physics. It is the same casualness, the same informality in offering the unwarranted claims about fire and heat that get deployed in arguing the Five Ways. “Maximally good” are “maximal being” are no more qualified as actual aspects of reality than fire is as “maximal heat”, or, per Dawkins, “maximally smelly”.

As E.L. Mascall explains: “Goodness, so the argument claims, demands as its cause a God who is good; while heat, though it necessarily demands a God whose knowledge of possible being includes an idea of heat, does not demand a God who is hot as its cause, but only a God who can create.”

But Aquinas makes no such distinction. If Dawkins is faulted for running into trouble with the idea of “maximal”, then so does Aquinas, on his own terms. We may understand from Aquinas that the notion of fire as “maximal heat” may have (and surely did) sound perfectly sound at the time, but this was ignorance, all the same. By what measure would Aquinas, or anyone here, qualify “goodness” as immune from a similar kind of confusion that Aquinas fell into with fire? Intuition? That’s what got Aquinas into error with the fire analogy.

In modern philosophical terminology, Aquinas is arguing along the following lines:

• Things exist in the world around us that exhibit finite degrees of great making properties (e.g. being, goodness, truth, beauty)
• The existence of something exhibiting a great making property to a finite degree implies the existence of something that possesses the property in question to a maximal degree
• Therefore, all great making properties possessed in finite degree by beings in the world around us, including being, are possessed to a maximal degree by something
• An effect cannot exceed the greatness of its cause
• Therefore, there exists a maximally ontologically secure being that possess every great making property possessed by its effects to a maximal degree; and this we call God

It should at least be clear that Aquinas’ argument is logically valid, and consequently that, pace Dawkins, this line of thought cannot be dismissed with a jeering reference to smelly people.

I think this response ignores the basic force of Dawkins’ objection. If a “300” score is perfect in bowling, does that establish a Supreme Bowler, whom we might call God? That variation of the argument avoids any quibbling over the physics of odor, and points to a tautological maximum – a Supreme Bowler would just be racking up 300s, one after the other, at will, on demand. If the objection is then raised that “goodness” is not a tautology, then we will have opened the door to an interesting question. What separates “goodness” from a bowling score in terms of tautology and empirical verification from the world around us?

-TS

 

[1holycatholic]

Fallacy of composition.
I think the objection points right at a fundamental problem in the formulation of the fourth way – the problematic nature of a logical maximum/minimum. As a tautology, it’s not a problem: we say that a “300” score in bowling is a perfect score because we have defined the game that way.

That error, dismissed above as simply some kind of “goof”, should be instructive beyond just a mistake about physics. It is the same casualness, the same informality in offering the unwarranted claims about fire and heat that get deployed in arguing the Five Ways. “Maximally good” are “maximal being” are no more qualified as actual aspects of reality than fire is as “maximal heat”, or, per Dawkins, “maximally smelly”.
​

It wasn’t dismissed as a goof. It was an appropriate example for St. Thomas Aquinas to make given the knowledge of the nature heat at the time, which was thought to be a qualitative property. We know now that Aquinas’ analogy is quantitative and not qualitative. History of the knowledge of thermodynamics shouldn’t have escaped someone who professes to be knowledgeable about science like Dawkins.​

 

[Touchstone]

It wasn’t dismissed as a goof. It was an appropriate example for St. Thomas Aquinas to make given the knowledge of the nature heat at the time, which was thought to be a qualitative property. We know now that Aquinas’ analogy is quantitative and not qualitative. History of the knowledge of thermodynamics shouldn’t have escaped someone who professes to be knowledgeable about science like Dawkins.

That’s why I suggested you had missed the force of Dawkins’ objection. Do you think heat dynamics somehow escaped Dawkins? That doesn’t make sense at all as an explanation. Rather, that the background knowledge needed for determining that some property is fundamentally “quantitative” or “qualitative” or amenable to a “logical maximum” rather than just de facto maxima is a daunting epistemic problem, and one that not only tripped up Aquinas in the fire analogy (and elsewhere), but remains a big problem for us today. That’s one reason the Fourth Way fails as a strong argument – it relies on brute intuition for fundamental premises that govern the entire argument, premises that may seem as intuitionally appealing to us now as “fir is maximally hot” did to Aquinas way back when.

Intuitional premises are epistemically weak ones, all on their own. Sometimes, we have little else to go on, but the witness of many centuries since Aquinas has shown that man’s intuitions are at many points a very poor indicator for the nature of reality. Of course we see that the earth is fixed and the heavens rotate around it – no wait! – of course motion is a property of an entity – no wait! – after Einstein, we have learned that motion doesn’t exist as an intrinsic property at all a measure of movement through a fixed medium – the aether. Motion is now found to be a function of references frames, requiring a second party (frame) to make “motion” a coherent, meaningful term…

Many intuitions have held up well over that same set of centuries, but many have not, that’s a big problem to intuitional arguments. Aquinas intutions about fire are not significant because they were mistaken, but because he had no epistemic controls in place to demand support and validation for his intuitions. They were just… sufficient, because that was his intuition. That’s one of the epistemological innovations of science – skepticism toward intuition. The history of science in many ways is the overturning, or at least correction of a great many “truths” that were only “truths” by intuition. In the Fourth Way, Aquinas intuits gradations to a logical maximum. Forget for the moment that he also posits a necessary reification of that maximum (God). It’s a problem just asserting that “goodness” or “being” or “heat” or “smelliness” is a scalar bound to a logical maximum. It’s a possibility, but it’s not a necessity, a priori, any more than fire is such a maximum.

-TS

 

[JDaniel]

What we seem to have done is forgotten a key point in St. Thomas’ argument. That point: St. Thomas defined the meaning of “suprem-est”, or, “perfect-est” with regard to the argument.

If you would indulge me, please write the word “hottest” on the top left-most side of a piece of thin paper (tracing paper, if you have it). Then write the word “coldest” on the top right-most side of that same piece of paper, directly across from the word “hottest”.

Take another piece of thin paper and write the word “fire” on the top leftmost side of that piece of paper. You do not need to write anything directly across on the other side of the paper.

From the word “fire”, on the second piece of paper, write several hot things but placing things less and less hot as you go to the right and dropping down one line for each new thing, so that, the word on the far right might be “chilled ember”, for example. Our drawing might look like the following:

Fire →
…hot ember →
…warm ember →
…cool ember →
…cold ember →
…chilled ember

Now, place one piece of paper on top of the other so that the word “hottest” is directly on top of (or, beneath) the word “fire”. This depiction of the relation of the words is central to Aquinas’ thought in this regard. Fire perfectly resembles the predicate, hottest. That is the “perfection” that Aquinas is talking about when he says,

“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…”

The perfection Aquinas is talking about is perfection arising precisely because the “being”, in this case “fire”, perfectly resembles the maximum of all its predicates, which is “hottest”. It is the identicalness of “fire” to “hottest” that defines the being’s perfection. The further away a being is from identicalness with its maximum predicate, i.e., the less it resembles it, the less perfect it is. So, cool ember is farther down the gradient and thus far less resembles it.

“Stinky-est”, on the other hand, falls prey to two problems. First, it is almost completely personal, or subjective. In other words, stinky-est is in the nose of the beholder. Second, there is no “being” that resembles “stinky-est” as fire resembles hottest (unless you say publicly that it is your teenage son’s feet, at times.) Thus, this refutation fails completely. Most low-predicates simply do not have, nor do they require, a “real being” counterpart, as does “fire” and “hottest”, or, “God” and “most good”.

Among the gradations of “beings” (within the genus) there are no counterparts that perfectly resemble their maximum predicate. Furthermore, Aquinas says that the perfect-est “being”, being that is identical with (most resembles) its maximum predicate, is the cause of the genus, just a fire is identical with hottest and the cause of all hot things. And, these things we know to be on a gradient, per above.

Since the genus of “being things” does, in fact, exist, we know there must be a cause of it. But, we see no cause on the physical level. Therefore, we posit that the cause is identical with First Cause, or God.

jd

 

[Charlemagne_II]

TS
*
That’s one of the epistemological innovations of science – skepticism toward intuition. The history of science in many ways is the overturning, or at least correction of a great many “truths” that were only “truths” by intuition.*

Yes, but in the case of the cosmological and teleological arguments, Aquinas is on stronger ground. Intuition brought him there, but science has at least partly buttressed, rather than corrected, his intuition if we take the Big Bang and Intelligent Design (both mathematically fortified concepts) as more than just mere intuition.

Naturally, Dawkins and many other atheists are not going to see any such connection at all. But that needn’t be because they see clearly past these more recent developments in science and math, so much as that they are committed to faulty or at least unproven intuitions of their own – such as Einstein’s commitment to an eternal and infinite universe that persuaded him to introduce the cosmological constant in relativity, thus blinding himself to the math that would otherwise have led him to the Big Bang, a mistake that George LeMaitre (a Catholic priest – oh, heaven forbid!) corrected, much to Einstein’s chagrin. Ultimately Einstein accepted that the universe had a first cause … namely the Big Bang … even though the real First Cause posited by Aquinas was still undetected by science.

Dawkins’ own refusal to see in Intelligent Design a principle behind evolution is, I think, another case similar to Einstein’s, where the science is used to rebut Aquinas’s intuition of an Intelligent Designer (but mainly because, like Einstein, Dawkins is uncomfortable – no … cringing – at the notion that evolution just happened, thus, as he argues, disposing of God altogether – even the deist God of Einstein).

It may turn out, if you can find a scientist open-minded enough to admit the possibility (you know, someone other than Dawkins) that the case for the cosmological and teleological arguments will improve as time goes by. If the case does improve, the fourth argument may be improved as well … since what Aquinas really wants to point out is that all “beings” find their “maximum” perfection in the God who hides from science somewhere behind the veil of Creation.

In the end, all science and philosophy begin with intuition. Don’t mock it.

And Dawkins is not a gentleman to mock Aquinas.

 

[1holycatholic]

That’s why I suggested you had missed the force of Dawkins’ objection. Do you think heat dynamics somehow escaped Dawkins? That doesn’t make sense at all as an explanation. Rather, that the background knowledge needed for determining that some property is fundamentally “quantitative” or “qualitative” or amenable to a “logical maximum” rather than just de facto maxima is a daunting epistemic problem, and one that not only tripped up Aquinas in the fire analogy (and elsewhere), but remains a big problem for us today. That’s one reason the Fourth Way fails as a strong argument – it relies on brute intuition for fundamental premises that govern the entire argument, premises that may seem as intuitionally appealing to us now as “fir is maximally hot” did to Aquinas way back when.

Intuitional premises are epistemically weak ones, all on their own. Sometimes, we have little else to go on, but the witness of many centuries since Aquinas has shown that man’s intuitions are at many points a very poor indicator for the nature of reality. Of course we see that the earth is fixed and the heavens rotate around it – no wait! – of course motion is a property of an entity – no wait! – after Einstein, we have learned that motion doesn’t exist as an intrinsic property at all a measure of movement through a fixed medium – the aether. Motion is now found to be a function of references frames, requiring a second party (frame) to make “motion” a coherent, meaningful term…

Many intuitions have held up well over that same set of centuries, but many have not, that’s a big problem to intuitional arguments. Aquinas intutions about fire are not significant because they were mistaken, but because he had no epistemic controls in place to demand support and validation for his intuitions. They were just… sufficient, because that was his intuition. That’s one of the epistemological innovations of science – skepticism toward intuition. The history of science in many ways is the overturning, or at least correction of a great many “truths” that were only “truths” by intuition. In the Fourth Way, Aquinas intuits gradations to a logical maximum. Forget for the moment that he also posits a necessary reification of that maximum (God). It’s a problem just asserting that “goodness” or “being” or “heat” or “smelliness” is a scalar bound to a logical maximum. It’s a possibility, but it’s not a necessity, a priori, any more than fire is such a maximum.

What you and Dawkins have missed is that it is an ontological argument, not an epistemological one.

 

[Touchstone]

TS
Yes, but in the case of the cosmological and teleological arguments, Aquinas is on stronger ground. Intuition brought him there, but science has at least partly buttressed, rather than corrected, his intuition if we take the Big Bang and Intelligent Design (both mathematically fortified concepts) as more than just mere intuition.

I do think the Fourth Way is by far the weakest of the five, logically. And there’s no doubt that the Big Bang is a positive development in terms of science for theistic intuition. But I suggest that if this has been reduced to the task of sorting through Aquinas’ intuitions and saying “well this part of that intuition was right!” then I think Aquinas has fallen a great ways. I’m happy to grant Aquinas all the intuitions he wants to right down as intuitions, as all we are dealing with intuitions at that point. It’s carefully reasoned argument buttressed by empirical support that makes a philosophy powerful as philosophy.

Naturally, Dawkins and many other atheists are not going to see any such connection at all.

I suggest that should signal an alarm, for the theist.

But that needn’t be because they see clearly past these more recent developments in science and math, so much as that they are committed to faulty or at least unproven intuitions of their own – such as Einstein’s commitment to an eternal and infinite universe that persuaded him to introduce the cosmological constant in relativity, thus blinding himself to the math that would otherwise have led him to the Big Bang, a mistake that George LeMaitre (a Catholic priest – oh, heaven forbid!) corrected, much to Einstein’s chagrin. Ultimately Einstein accepted that the universe had a first cause … namely the Big Bang … even though the real First Cause posited by Aquinas was still undetected by science.

The Big Bang does not, and never has had any cause attributed to it. It’s the “First Effect”, if we must cast this in 13th century scholastic terms. As I said, it’s a boon for theism that something like the Steady State hypothesis was falsified in favor of the Big Bang, but here in this paragraph, you’ve demonstrated the “whipsaw” effect of Aquinas-style indulgence in intution-without-warrant. Nowhere does science offer, or even contemplate offering a cause for the Big Bang; that’s metaphysics at t<=0, and the closest any scientist may come is theoretical conjecture, or even weaker, theology.

Dawkins’ own refusal to see in Intelligent Design a principle behind evolution is, I think, another case similar to Einstein’s, where the science is used to rebut Aquinas’s intuition of an Intelligent Designer (but mainly because, like Einstein, Dawkins is uncomfortable – no … cringing – at the notion that evolution just happened, thus, as he argues, disposing of God altogether – even the deist God of Einstein).

There may be a “guiding hand” behind evolution, of some supernatural kind. There’s no way to dismiss that possibility. But by the same token, it’s perfectly immune falsification – no matter what evidence comes up, you can always posit some divine teleology higher up the chain. So it’s theology. No problem with that, at least so long as we’re willing to call theology ‘theology’.

It may turn out, if you can find a scientist open-minded enough to admit the possibility (you know, someone other than Dawkins) that the case for the cosmological and teleological arguments will improve as time goes by.

I don’t see how the case can improve, or needs to improve, as it’s not a scientific proposition, but a theological one.

If the case does improve, the fourth argument may be improved as well … since what Aquinas really wants to point out is that all “beings” find their “maximum” perfection in the God who hides from science somewhere behind the veil of Creation.

I’m aware of the thrust of Aquinas’ argument, but his basis for it is so faulty, that it seems quite irrelevant what comes about later on. If you are dealt a pair of kings in blackjack, with a 6 up on the dealer’s hand, and you split, you well may win, and win both hands. It’s definitely a possible outcome. But what you cannot say is that that double-hand-win was a kind of redemption for the choice to split your kings as the rational, well-reasoned choice. Even if it was ultimately a profitable, happy outcome, the basis for that choice lies somewhere outside rationalist analytics.

What I hear you saying is something like “well, you wait and say, maybe Aquinas did split his kings, but he might still win the hand”. He might. But it’s no triumph of analytics if so.

In the end, all science and philosophy begin with intuition. Don’t mock it.

And Dawkins is not a gentleman to mock Aquinas.

I realize this is a Catholic forum, but I am surprised at the level of emotional reaction to criticism of Aquinas, here, in the “Philosophy” section. It’s fine to have Aquinas as a philosophical hero or what not, but when it prevents you from fair assessment of criticism, it’s self-defeating, isn’t it?

Not all intuitions are created equal. That’s an important bit of observation, especially when looking at Aquinas. The intuition that “reality is real”, and that our perceptions generally reflect some approximation of the state of an objective reality around us is certainly an intution. But it’s a self-evident proposition, and more importantly, it’s an unavoidable proposition for any human that wants to live and survive in the world. Transcendentally, if you’ve made it far enough to post on this forum, you’ve demonstrably embraced that intuition, because you had to.

Aquinas’ intuitions, proferred in the Five Ways, at least, are not like that.

-Touchstone

 

[Touchstone]

What you and Dawkins have missed is that it is an ontological argument, not an epistemological one.

All arguments are epistemological arguments, else they aren’t arguments at all. I understand what you are driving at, but the epistemic holes Aquinas brings to the table here don’t leave any coherence for the ontology he envisions. The language in much of Aquinas is, you’re right, heavily “ontological”. But any argument, if we are treating it as philosophy, is liable to the question, “And how do you know that? What is your warrant?”

-TS

 

[1holycatholic]

All arguments are epistemological arguments, else they aren’t arguments at all. I understand what you are driving at, but the epistemic holes Aquinas brings to the table here don’t leave any coherence for the ontology he envisions. The language in much of Aquinas is, you’re right, heavily “ontological”. But any argument, if we are treating it as philosophy, is liable to the question, “And how do you know that? What is your warrant?”

Ontology trumps epistemology. Without being there is no knowing.

 

[Touchstone]

Ontology trumps epistemology. Without being there is no knowing.

How do you know that?

-TS

 

[JDaniel]

I do think the Fourth Way is by far the weakest of the five, logically.

Not so. St. Thomas’ entire argument is found in his enunciation of it. It has been mis-cast by some on the thread and elsewhere.

As a logical argument it is excellent. While his cause-effect argument has been ineffectively beaten up - in many quarters, by people with ulterior motives - the fourth argument has only been poorly stated. Read again Post 33 above.

In reality, we do compare virtually everything against some perfection of its being. A best result for a math problem, a best car, a best airline, a best life, a best wife, etc. All of these, plus all of the rest, have some standard to be compared against, even though many people will compromise for less than perfection. That process of compromising has led us to believe that there are no real standards by which we can compare.

As fire is to hottest, water is to wettest, and photon is to lightest, so, too, God is to that which is the “good-est”, or, “truest”, or, “wisest”, or, “most loving”. We could not have the higher genera without their highest causes, and their causes are not found here on earth. Their causes do not exist in the natural/physical realm. But yet, the genera exist. Any other surrogate standards fail utterly.

jd