A Bellowing Ox and a Roaring Lion — part two
Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways to Prove the Existence of God
The First Way: Motion.
‘The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is moved is moved by another, for nothing can be moved except it is in potentiality to that which it is moved; whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is an act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality. Thus that which is actually hot, as fire, makes wood, which is potentially hot to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved by another. If that by which it is moved be itself moved, then this also must needs be moved by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and consequently, no other mover, seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are moved by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it moved by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, moved by no other; and this everyone understands to be God’.
- Thomas Aquinas, (1225–1274), ‘Summa Theologica’
To summarise:
1. Our senses tell us that there is some motion in the world.
2. All things moving must be moved by something else.
3. Motion is the change from potentiality to actuality.
4. It is not possible to be potential and actual in the same respect (e.g., hot).
5. Therefore, the mover cannot also be the moved.
6. There cannot be an infinite regression of movers.
7. Therefore, there must be a first, unmoved mover.
I answer that:
Aquinas’ Five Ways are cosmological arguments in that they begin with a premise the truth of which can be recognised a posteriori (we recognise its truth based upon observations or experiences. It is a premise about the universe, hence cosmological, from the Greek cosmos, universe or world (as opposed to an ontological argument in which the premises are allegedly established a priori, that is, established prior to experience, based upon theoretical deduction)). If one is to set about refuting a philosopher’s argument it is well worth taking one’s time to make sure the argument is properly understood, out of respect to the philosopher, nor would one want to come across as someone who has merely skimmed through a beginner’s, or even worse a bluffer’s, guide to philosophy, and because to be refuting an argument that no one is making is a complete waste of time and makes oneself look preposterous. And we wouldn’t want that.
‘Our senses tell us that there is some motion in the world’. By motion (motus) Thomas means change, and in particular he means a potential becoming actual, and this can involve motion, that is, when an object’s potential location becomes its actual location, as happens with the throwing of a ball, or it can involve intrinsic change, for instance liquid water’s potential to become solid ice is actualised by cold air, my potential to become coarse and incoherent is actualised by the imbibing of a bottle of vodka, and so on. The point that Thomas is making is that the potential for the ball to move or the potential for the water to freeze or the potential for me to become coarse and incoherent cannot be actualised by the ball itself or by the water itself or by … well me myself (an object lesson here in philosophy concerning the giving of examples to explain the notions playing a central role in one’s argument, perhaps the examples one happens to give may be accepted but what about others? See below for problems with thinking of motus as change.). Something else has to have actualised the potential or to have set the moving things in motion. But note the first premise is confirmed by experience and as we will see you can spot when his argument has not been properly understood when it is re-formulated in such a way that a premise that is confirmed by experience is lacking.
Although, concerning the premise ‘our senses tell us that there is some motion in the world’, I cannot resist quoting a parallel passage from Thomas’ ‘Summa contra Gentiles’ aka ‘Liber de veritate catholicae fidei contra errores infidelium’, (‘Book on the truth of the Catholic faith against the errors of the unbelievers’):
‘Patet autem sensu aliquid moveri, ut puta solem’.
‘It is obvious to the senses that some things are in motion, for instance the sun’.
By way of illustration of my point concerning how one should make sure a philosophical argument is properly understood before attempting to refute it here is a video by a YouTuber risibly named Rationality Rules in which he saw fit to give Thomas a dunce’s cap while proceeding to refute an argument that Thomas never made (so who is the dunce now?), albeit he is critiquing Thomas’ argument through Peter Kreeft’s, (1937- ), poor presentation of it, and this is a useful video given the object lesson it provides on how not to do philosophy:
‘Even so the clouds of my melancholy were broken up. I saw the clear sky, and regained the power to recognise the face of my physician. Accordingly, when I had lifted my eyes and fixed my gaze upon her, I beheld my nurse, Philosophy, whose halls I had frequented from my youth up’, wrote St. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, (c. 477–524 AD), in his ‘Consolation of Philosophy’. Lady Philosophy who gave Boethius wings so that his mind can fly aloft, what disrespect and abuse she has had to suffer over the ages and especially so now that we have YouTube, and so I feel duty bound to write this article painful though it is for me to have to subject myself to this stuff, because her honour has to be defended and restored.
Thomas did not believe that we could prove that the universe had a beginning albeit there is an ultimate cause of the universe even were the past to be eternal without a beginning in time, for just conceive of an infinite series of railway carriages on a rail track, if they are in motion then there is nothing that can account for the motion in virtue of the fact that railway carriages cannot move themselves and an infinite number of them does not change that fact, rather something is needed, a locomotive, that provides motion to everything while itself receiving motion from nothing. This is simply an analogy given that locomotives rely upon other things to actualise their potential for motion. A more fitting analogy to make the point would be a series of gears whereby every gear is needed to be spinning to account for the motion of the series, remove a single gear from the sequence and the motion grinds to a halt, a logical gear sequence so to speak in which there is a first cause but not in a temporal sense such as there is with a series of dominoes whereby the first domino is pushed and the rest fall and continue falling even were the first domino to be destroyed. God is the foundation supporting everything else, not so much the first cause that starts everything but the explanation of all the change that is occurring right at this very moment, the first gear being in the centre and spinning with a practically infinite number of gears at an ever expanding distance from the central gear.
Rationality Rules has put ‘everything that exists is in motion’ as the first premise in the argument (rather than ‘our senses tell us that there is some motion in the world’) and this is certainly not a premise the truth of which can be known a posteriori. How could we possibly know through observation or experience that everything that exists is in motion? And based upon something that Thomas never said he can then enquire what moved God? Or if everything has a cause then what caused God? All the argument requires for its first premise us that we observe some things to be in motion, which is a fair enough observation to make (albeit we may be deceived given the relativity of motion, as Thomas was with the motion of the sun). Everything in motion is caused to be in motion by something else, an objects potential to be moved can only be actualised by something else, some thing must have existed without a cause, an infinite chain of things moving other things cannot explain why motion exists at all, ergo, there must be a cause that actualises the potential of all things while not itself actualised by anything.
All motion is accounted for by a simple cause that is not moved by anything else in the way that matter may be ultimately divided whereby every part is made of something but the ultimate parts of reality are not made of anything (?) and Thomas’ first way holds if the universe had a beginning in the finite past because the potential for the universe needs to be actualised by something else. This is not intended as a scrupulously watertight proof for God’s existence but from the conclusion of an unmoved mover one can deduce some of the key attributes of God, for instance, it has pure actuality, (?), it has no potentials for anything to actualise, pure actuality with no potential for spatial or temporal motion, therefore spaceless, (?), timeless, (?), never going from potential to actual and thereby immutable, changeless, (?), but this cause also has causal power, (?), and if it lacks potentials it cannot only potentiality be able to do certain things it must actually be able to do them for it is all powerful. (?). (See my article A Bellowing Ox and a Roaring Line — part one for problems with thinking of God in this way if indeed there are any thoughts there at all).
Such a kind of cause is purportedly awkward for an atheistic world view. A cause that is causing all motion right at this present moment, with no potential for non-existence because it has no potentials for anything (?) and hence it exists right at this present moment albeit it is being in that it causally effects all other beings (?) albeit God is not a being but He is real (?) and exists hence is being or existence itself (?) and must be conscious because it is immaterial and causally effective (?) and the only immaterial things are minds (are minds immaterial?) or abstract objects like numbers but abstract objects are causally powerless for numbers cannot make things happen in the physical world (can they not?) and so an immaterial mind must be the ultimate cause of the universe. (?). A real mare’s nest there then. See below for how Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel, (1770–1831), tries to sort this mess out (though he does not address Aquinas or his proofs specifically).
Richard Dawkins answers that:
According to Richard Dawkins, (1941 — ), in ‘The God Delusion’: ‘The five ‘proofs’ asserted by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century don’t prove anything, and are easily — though I hesitate to say so, given his eminence — exposed as vacuous. The first three are just different ways of saying the same thing, and they can be considered together. All involve an infinite regress — the answer to a question raises a prior question, and so on ad infinitum’. And he summarises Aquinas’ first argument thus: ‘The Unmoved Mover. Nothing moves without a prior mover. This leads us to a regress, from which the only escape is God. Something had to make the first move, and that something we call God … All three of these arguments rely upon the idea of a regress and invoke God to terminate it. They make the entirely unwarranted assumption that God himself is immune to the regress. Even if we allow the dubious luxury of arbitrarily conjuring up a terminator to an infinite regress and giving it a name, simply because we need one, there is absolutely no reason to endow that terminator with any of the properties normally ascribed to God: omnipotence, omniscience, goodness, creativity of design, to say nothing of such human attributes as listening to prayers, forgiving sins and reading innermost thoughts’.
[I am finding having to go through this so excruciatingly disagreeable given that Dawkins is a terrible writer as well as a sloppy uninformed thinker, but as he is widely read and taken seriously (by Rationality Rules for instance and the other YouTuber he mentions, Cosmic Sceptic whose scepticism is rather selective, the lack of sophistication or penetration into the heart of the matter is evidence of his influence), and is largely responsible for the charge that atheists don’t understand Aquinas’ arguments then I have to get through this. ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me’. (‘Philippians’, 4:13). I will soldier on, Lady Philosophy expects no less of me, the things I do for the sake of her honour].
He continues: ‘To return to the infinite regress and the futility of invoking God to terminate it, it is more parsimonious to conjure up, say, a ‘big bang singularity’, or some other physical concept as yet unknown … Some regresses do reach a natural terminator. Scientists used to wonder what would happen if you could dissect, say, gold into the smallest possible pieces. Why shouldn’t you cut one of those pieces in half and produce an even smaller smidgen of gold? The regress in this case is decisively terminated by the atom. The smallest possible piece of gold is a nucleus consisting of exactly seventy-nine protons and a slightly larger number of neutrons, attended by a swarm of seventy-nine electrons. If you ‘cut gold any further than the level of the single atom, whatever else you get it is not gold. The atom provides a natural terminator … It is by no means clear that God provides a natural terminator to the regresses of Aquinas. That’s putting it mildly … ‘
I answer that:
For the terminator, (which has nothing to do with Arnold Schwarzenegger, (1947 — ), see Hegel below.
Dawkins’ brief summary of an already brief argument is a rather dismal half-hearted effort to capture Thomas’ actual points. What happened to the premise the truth of which can be recognised a posteriori?
Re: ‘[an] entirely unwarranted assumption … there is absolutely no reason to endow that terminator with any of the properties normally ascribed to God’. Thereby proving that Dawkins has not read Thomas who makes no unwarranted assumption for such properties, for they follow from the analysis of an essentially ordered causal sequence, as Thomas explains, for upon delivering the five ways he then proceeds to argue philosophically for why the terminator has the traditional divine attributes. Dawkins is charging Thomas with giving no reasons for them but rather just assuming them, thereby revealing that he, Dawkins does not know about them. Or is ignoring them rather than addressing them, but I think his not knowing about them is more likely. Whatever one thinks of the arguments, Thomas’ position is that God does not know the world by a kind of observation, God is outside of time and of space altogether, like an author coming up with a novel in one single thought thereby knowing the world by knowing his or her own mind thus knowing him or herself as cause and God knows the world in one single act, (albeit he is a pure act of being etc.) and so on.
Edward Feser answers that:
Thomist philosopher Edward Feser, (1968 — ), counters that the first three ways are not different ways of saying the same thing, albeit they end up with a conception of God as pure actuality, a purely actual cause with no potentiality, but they start from different places that Dawkins is not alert to given his lack of knowledge concerning the philosophical background against which Thomas is writing. The first way of course draws from Aristotle, (384–322 BC), whereby change is the actualisation of a potentiality. Dawkins thinks that Thomas means movement through space rather than change in general. Nor does he distinguish, as Thomas does, between an essentially ordered series of causes and an accidentally ordered series of causes. A linear or hierarchical or accidental causal series: ‘Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judah and his brethren; and Judah begat Perez and Zerah of Tamar; and Perez begat Hezron; and Hezron begat Ram; and Ram begat Amminadab; and Amminadab begat Nahshon; and Nahshon begat Salmon; and Salmon begat Boaz of Rahab; and Boaz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse; and Jesse begat David the king….’ (‘Matthew 1. 2–6). This is a series that extends forwards and backwards in time. But in an essentially ordered series, a hand which uses a stick to push a stone which may in turn push another stone and so on, here the causal action takes place simultaneously, the moment the stone is moved by the stick the stick is moved by the hand. The principle difference is that the cause and effect in a linear causal chain have independent causal power. Obed begat Jesse, and once Jesse is begotten by Obed if Obed dies Jesse can still grow up to beget King David. He does not need Obed to do the job, which is to say, he has built in causal or generative power. But as for the essentially ordered series the stick can push the stone but not under its own steam as it were, it has the power to move the stone insofar as it draws the power from the hand, and hence the difference between the two series consists in having a built-in causal power and a merely derivative causal power.
Thomas is concerned with things having causes in a derivative way, for when he says that the series has to have a first member he means that you cannot have series of causes with borrowed or derivative power unless there is something they borrow it from or derive it from. There cannot be any change going on now involving the actualisation of potential unless it is traceable back to a first mover, one potential is actualised by another thing until finally the ultimate responsibility for any potentiality being actualised at all rests with something that can actualise all those other members of a series without itself having to be actualised, for it is fully actual with no potentiality, it is giving causal power without receiving it, actualising without being actualised, for otherwise there is a vicious regress, a continuous deferring of explanation without ever arriving at an explanation.
So, it cannot coherently be denied that change occurs, change can occur only if things have potentials which are actualized by something already actual, hence, the hot coffee has the potential to be cooled, and that potential is actualized by the coolness in the surrounding air. And while a linear series of changes and changers might in principle extend backward in time without beginning, the members of these series must depend at any moment at which they exist upon a hierarchical series of actualizes, and that such a series must terminate in a purely actual cause or actualizer of their existence. And any such cause must be one, immutable, eternal, immaterial, incorporeal, perfect, omnipotent, fully good, intelligent, and omniscient, that is to say, it must have the key divine attributes, in brief, the things of our experience can exist at any moment only if sustained in existence by God.
And how do we arrive at the divine attributes on the basis of Thomas’ first way? Let us take just one of then, omniscience. Feser argues thus. The existence of anything that might exist can be traced back to one cause, the actual actualizer of the existence of things, and to cause a thing to exist is precisely to cause something of a particular sort, a stone rather than a tree for instance, which is to say say, to cause something to exist is just to cause something having a certain form or fitting a certain pattern, but the purely actual cause of things is the cause of every possible thing, every possible tree, every possible stone, it is for that reason the cause of every possible form or pattern a thing might have, and whatever is in an effect must in some way or other be in its cause, from which it follows that the forms or patterns of things must exist in the purely actual cause of things, and they must exist in it in a completely universal or abstract way, because this cause is the cause of every possible thing fitting a certain form or pattern, but to have forms or patterns in this universal or abstract way is to have that capacity which is fundamental to intelligence, and this cause of things is in addition not just the cause of things themselves, but of their being related in any way they might be related, which is to say, for instance, it is not only the cause of people but of the fact that all people are mortal, hence there must be some sense (what sense?) in which these effects too exist in their purely actual cause, and it must be in a way that has to do with the combination of the forms or patterns that exist in that cause, which is to say, the effects must exist in the cause in something like the way thoughts exist in us.
Hence, what exists in the things that the purely actual cause is the cause of pre-exists in that cause in something like the way the things we make preexist as ideas or plans in our minds before we make them, and these things thereby exist in that purely actual cause eminently and virtually even if not formally for the cause of things is not itself a tree etc. and cannot be, given that it is immaterial, (is it?), but it can cause a tree or anything else that might exist, but it is not merely intelligence that we can therefore attribute to the cause of things, for as the intelligent cause of everything that exists or could exist there is nothing that exists or could exist that is not in the range of this cause’s thoughts, and it is in that sense all-knowing or omniscient. QED. (A fine piece of sophistry, I am impressed). Feser believes that a good deal may be said about the nature of the cause of things, and in particular a good deal to demonstrate that this cause fits very well the description of God as traditionally conceived. And further, he goes on to present his reasoning in a more formal way by expanding Thomas’ first way from 6 premises to 49 (is his first premise one of which its truth can be recognised a posteriori?):
1. Change is a real feature of the world.
2. But change is the actualization of a potential.
3. So, the actualization of potential is a real feature of the world.
4. No potential can be actualized unless something already actual actualizes it (the principle of causality).
5. So, any change is caused by something already actual.
………………
44. So, the purely actual actualizer has intellect or intelligence.
45. Since it is the forms or patterns of all things that are in the thoughts of this intellect, there is nothing that is outside the range of those thoughts.
46. For there to be nothing outside the range of something’s thoughts is for that thing to be omniscient.
47. So, the purely actual actualizer is omniscient.
48. So, there exists a purely actual cause of the existence of things, which is one, immutable, eternal, immaterial, incorporeal, perfect, fully good, omnipotent, intelligent, and omniscient.
49. But for there to be such a cause of things is just what it is for God to exist.
50. So, God exists.
I answer that:
After that it is time to restore our good Lady’s honour, I am on more pleasing and fruitful ground in what follows from here. Immanuel Kant, (1724–1804), thought cosmological arguments to be dependant upon ontological ones, (in which the premises are allegedly established a priori, that is, established prior to experience, based upon theoretical deduction), and Feser is unwittingly lending support to that idea. Kant presented a refutation of proofs for the existence of God, including the cosmological ones, though for Hegel there is a distortion evident in their popular exposition, of the kind that we have just been examining, that is in need of getting rid of, a distortion that is the very bountiful source of Kant’s refutation of the proofs. ‘Our task’, declared Hegel, ‘is to restore the proofs of God’s existence to a position of honour by stripping away that distortion’. The Kantian critiques are more or less warranted within the terms of his construal of the proofs, but the nature of these proofs and proof in general are in need of recasting in light of the Hegelian reformulation of metaphysics, the details of which I won’t go into here but Kant’s refutation is grounded upon a mistaken view of human conception. The cosmological proof, as traditionally presented, is premised upon finite and contingent being or, more to the point, conditioned being, and what is conditioned has conditions, and the mind is naturally led to infer condition from conditioned without limit, and the only possible way to end this regress and thereby to satisfy understanding is by positing unconditioned being, (Dawkins’ terminator, which he thinks can be a ‘big bang singularity’, or some other physical concept as yet unknown, but whatever he opted for among physical concepts that would not be unconditioned being).
Kant expressed the cosmological proof as follows: If anything exists, an absolutely necessary being must also exist. Now I, at least, exist, (a premise the truth of which we recognise a posteriori), so an absolutely necessary being exists’. Without absolutely necessary, that is to say unconditioned, being to end the regress of causes, there is no completeness to the series and no satisfaction for the understanding. And for Kant such positing is an act of reason without any known or knowable objective correlate, an in virtue of that fact it really does not qualifies as a demonstration of the existence of some super-sensible entity (or an act of pure being or however Thomists conceive of it). Such intrinsic limitations in this form of proof were recognised by David Hume, (1711–1776), which Kant later developed upon, whereby one is never justified in attributing more to a cause than is necessary to account for a given effect (as Feser does). At best what might be justified by the cosmological proof is the existence of an unconditioned being, but by God as traditionally conceived something far greater is intended, and whatever this may be can never be reached by the cosmological proof.
Kant concludes that the cosmological proof utilises this experience only for a single step in the argument, that is to say, to conclude the existence of a necessary being, and whatever attributes this being might have the a posteriori empirical premises cannot inform us, and so reason ditches experience altogether and endeavours to discover from mere concepts alone what properties an absolutely necessary being must have, that is, which among all possible things contains in itself the conditions essential to absolute necessity. And so cosmological arguments fall back into ontological ones, as we say quite clearly with Feser who turns Thomas’ cosmological argument into an ontological argument thereby making it a different argument from the one he is supposed to be defending, so just like Dawkins and our YouTube atheists our Catholic philosopher is addressing himself to an argument that Thomas never made (or perhaps I should say never intended to make. The weaknesses of ontological arguments, defining God into existence in effect, are known well enough. Thomas explicitly rejected St. Anselm’s, (1033/4–1109), ontological proof for the existence of God).
If there is any way forward an independent line of reasoning is needed. The cosmological proof gives us unconditioned being, but what we want is most real or most perfect being, and this line of reasoning upon which the cosmological proof is supposed to fall back is the ontological proof. ‘Thus the so-called cosmological proof really owes any cogency which it may have to the ontological proof from mere concepts’, according to Kant. Hegel largely concurs with Kant’s analysis given his rendition of the proofs hence rather than him directly he is more concerned that we come to regard such proofs in their ‘true and proper form’, for according to Hegel Kant ‘failed to recognize the deeper basis upon which these proofs rest, and so was unable to do justice to their true elements’. In each case, Hegel concurs, the infinite is supposed to be reached from a starting-point which is finite, but this transition is not the static formal mediation Kant believed it to be, as Hegel explains: ‘this knowledge of God, is inwardly a movement; more precisely, it is an elevation to God. We express religion essentially as an elevation, a passing over from one content to another. It is the finite content from which we pass over to God, from which we relate ourselves to the absolute, infinite content and pass over to it’.
Reason is the application of logic in seeking after truth or drawing conclusions from something already known, be it deductive or inductive reasoning, or abductive reasoning (making a probable conclusion from what you know), but Hegelian logic is something else from traditional logic, for logicians think about the relations among propositions, what’s a premise, what’s a conclusion, which is a very static picture though it may sometimes take account of how sentences can be set out in sequences building on one another, but most logical systems abstract away from that, whereas Hegel thought the most fundamental ideas of logic should have to do with the dynamics of thought, the way in which thought progresses and changes, and not about how this proposition relates to that proposition, but rather about how people thinking about a problem in a certain way find themselves confronted with things that lead them to think about things in a different way. Hegelian logic is concerned with the dynamics of thinking. In the case of a cosmological proof there is a movement in which the finite is negated, it is an elevation of mind to the infinite, it is a mediation which gives way to unity, it is concrete, not abstract.
Clarifying such points is the principle task of Hegel’s discussion of the cosmological and ontological proofs of God’s existence. All forms of syllogistic reasoning, (in Hegel’s system, the syllogism: what is rational, and everything that is rational), when finitude is taken as the starting-point, involve a passing over from finitude, in one guise or another, to infinitude, and regarding the two forms of proof attention must be paid to what is diverse amongst the major and minor premises, (major premise: a general statement taken to be true, minor premise: a specific example of the belief that is stated in the major premise), and to what elements are common: ‘The common element is being, for this content common to both sides is posited as finite and infinite [respectively]’. Which is to say, from a starting point that is concrete and finite one ascends to a concrete universality, (in Hegel’s system: a concrete universal contains differences and particulars, the universal is nothing but the totality of the relations between particulars and at the same time what constitutes them as different), whereas in an ontological proof one ascends from a subjective and thus finite infinitude to an objective infinitude: ‘The common element is the infinite, which is posited in the form of the subjective and the objective’. The finitude articulated in the minor premise is negated, whereas in the Kantian construal of these proofs this finitude is taken to be affirmed. Contrary to popular understanding the passage is not an activity of thought that ought to be seen as a mediation which, by some means or other, reflects or represents the mediation inhering in something else, that is to say, something objective. According to a traditional understanding of proofs, ‘[t]he procedure that we follow in demonstration is not a process of the thing itself — it is something other than what is involved in the nature of the thing’. It is this very mis-construal that is bound up with the mistake of seeing the finite as something affirmed and preserved in unaltered form, that is to say, as being true, that gives rise to the view that the finite is supposed to act as a foundation for the infinite.
According to the distorted view the mediation through which one passes and the mediation in the thing itself are separate from one another, for construction and proof serve only to assist our subjective cognition and do not constitute the objective mode by which the thing attained this relationship through mediation. The necessity claimed by the proofs appears under this distorted view to be a merely subjective necessity of cognition and as such, ‘[t]his type of demonstration is directly unsatisfactory on its own account’, regardless of what one thinks about the details of a particular proof. The truth of the proofs is that through them human beings are elevated to God, they are the expression of a profound syllogism relating humanity to God, and the relation between the minor term and major term is one of identity albeit not pure identity but rather one in which the former is subsumed by the latter. That is to say, the upshot of the syllogism is the concrete unity of the minor and major terms: ‘The mediation accordingly is in a third [term] over against these two distinct sides, and is itself a third that brings them together and in which they are mediated and identical. Here we have the familiar relationship of the syllogism’. The syllogism, the movement of which is dialectic, is the ubiquitous feature of the world, and humanity’s grasp of this identity of particular and universal is its distinctive achievement.
In its true and proper character, dialectic is the very nature and essence of everything predicated by mere understanding , the law of things and of the finite as a whole, wherever there is movement, wherever there is life, wherever anything is carried into effect in the actual world, there is dialectic at work. Hence Hegel held Kant’s general criticism of the proofs in low regard, for his worries are founded upon a radically mistaken metaphysics: ‘If we are to believe [Kant’s] Critical Philosophy, thought is subjective, and its ultimate and invincible mode is abstract universality or formal identity. Thought is thus set in opposition to Truth, which is no abstraction, but concrete universality’. And: ‘Spiritual movement, the movement of our own selves and our will, ought to be there in the demonstration, too — and this is what we are missing when we say that it is an external nexus of determinations. This is the deficient feature’.
As for the proofs themselves, Hegel discerns that they evidence the progression of human thought itself, and Kant was partly correct in his claim that the ontological proof is the battlefield on which the outcome of the war is to be determined. For Hegel, the ontological proof is the most profound achievement of spirit. It comes late in the historical play of appearances for this reason. For Hegel, furthermore, the deficiencies particular to each of the earlier proofs are very nearly the ones pointed out by Kant. His own cosmological proof has as its point of departure the non-systematic cognition of the world, that is to say, the world is not seen as nature: ‘By the term world … we understand the aggregate of material things’. In this mode of proof, consideration is first given to the being of variety, flux, and contingency evidenced by this aggregate: ‘This is the kind of starting-point from which the spirit raises itself to God’. This elevation is impossible if one affirms this contingency, and furthermore, to affirm the contingency of the world is to overlook its self-negating character. This Heraclitean flux evident in phenomena belies the truth of its seeming contingency: ‘[t]o begin with, therefore, we have the negative aspect, the negation of the finite, the fact that it is its inner nature to be contradiction, i.e., not to be but rather to destroy itself — it is self-sublation’. (In Hegel’s system, sublation: the motor by which the dialectic functions, a contradiction of overcoming while at the same time preserving). The truth of the world is not contingency (and therefore not finitude), it is rather necessity (therefore infinitude). Here we find a positive element emerging from the negation of the finite, and do, in the proof, ‘there is here a mediation of the finite and infinite. But the essential point is that, in its departure from the finite, the mediation negates this finite in the elevation, does not allow it to subsist’, at least not in its initial form.
This proof is not to be taken as a thought sequence distinct from the world itself, the concrete universality evidenced by the syllogism is the elevation of ourselves to God: ‘There is a progression through different determinations, and it is by no means an external one but is rather necessity itself. This necessity is the deed of our spirit’. Nor, therefore, can we view, as Kant does, the proof as a positing of God over and above the world, or as an inference to the existence of the former from the latter, for it is not that there are two beings, for their unity is what is revealed by the syllogism. In truth, ‘the finite does not endure, and inasmuch as it does not endure, there is also no longer a gulf present between finite and infinite, [they] are no longer two’. What remains of the finite is its subsumption under the infinite: ‘Being which is characterized as finite possesses this characteristic only in the sense that it cannot exist independently in relation to the Infinite, but is, on the contrary, ideal merely, a moment of the Infinite’.
A wonderful accomplishment of Spirit indeed and with even more awesome ones to follow. It may well be the case that the cosmological proof can at best provide evidence only of necessary being, for the characteristics of God arrived at through the first procedure ‘are certainly inadequate to express what is or ought to be understood by God … [though] these characteristics have great value, and are necessary factors in the idea of God’. And yet such a deficiency accords with Hegel’s position that all is dialectical, including and particularly so the advance of human consciousness: ‘It will at once be seen that if this proof does not bring us any further than to the idea of an absolutely necessary Essence, the only objection which could be urged against it would be, that the idea of God which is limited to what is implied in this characteristic is at any rate not such a profound idea as we, whose conception of God is more comprehensive, wish for. It is quite possible that individuals and nations belonging to an earlier age, or … outside the pale of Christianity … might have no more profound idea of God than this’.
‘There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas’, said Bertrand Russell, (1871–1970). ‘He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. He is not engaged in an inquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know in advance. Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation. The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading. I cannot, therefore, feel that he deserves to be put on a level with the best philosophers either of Greece or of modern times’. In response to that it has been pointed out that in his ‘Principia Mathematica’ Russell takes several hundred pages to prove 1 + 1 = 2 which presumably he has believed all his life, which is a fair point. Nonetheless, while Dawkins and YouTube atheists enamoured by him begin with the assumption that any proof of God must be invalid given that God is a myth and so neither put in the necessary work to get to grips with the arguments nor apply philosophical rigour in their critique of them, on the other hand Catholic philosophers such as Feser begin with the assumption of the existence of God and the truth of Christianity and hence though well versed in the thoughts of Thomas also fails to apply the necessary philosophical rigour in his critique of Thomas’ arguments, for only one conclusion will do, that is, God exists, albeit Feser’s work has the veneer of philosophical sophistication.
By way of illustration of that latter point, as has been pointed out motus has a wider meaning than motion, but its meaning is not as wide as change. For instance, if I have hit upon arguments to refute Thomism I thereby undergo mental change and mental events are not corporeal events but rather only motus in some unwarranted Platonic sense and hence motion remains the preferred translation. And yet Thomas does seem to be thinking not just of local motion and change in size or sensible qualities but also of mental events and processes, motus metaphysici as some scholastics designated such changes. In his ‘Summa Contra Gentiles’ Thomas cites teaching as a form of moving, which as a former teacher working in inner city schools I can confirm as I was always in movement trying to prevent the pupils from killing each other, but although teaching can only be done by beings with minds and for beings with minds (which explains my failure at it as I was attempting it for beings without minds) neither teaching nor learning are purely mental processes. Thinking however is a purely mental process, to think of an object is to be moved by that object, as Thomas asserts elsewhere but he must mean something else by motion in the first way for with this kind of motion it is not the case that nothing moves itself, I can think of myself and to think of x is to be moved by x and hence I can move myself and the argument to an unmoved Mover is thereby shattered.
This is the kind of philosophical sophistication that our good Lady approves of and Christian philosophers like Feser eschew given that it doesn’t help them get to their desired conclusion that they have already decided upon anyway, that God exists. Move in English can be understood transitively or intransitively, I can move someone out of the way, or I can move out of the way, and it is no simple matter to distinguish between it is moving (intransitive) and it is being moved (transitive). Thomas was misled at a critical point in his argument by the double sense of the Latin movetur. If a thing can be moved by itself it does not follow that it must be moved by something else. It may be in motion while neither being moved by itself nor anything else, a proof that whatever is in motion is being moved is theregore required and which Thomas overlooked perhaps by being misled by the double sense of movetur, which serves for is in motion and is being moved. And so one could go on, and on, in this vein with our critique of the first way.
Or one may adopt the tack that the first way rests upon an antiquated physical theory and can be refuted by modern science, that cosmological arguments propose a god of the gaps, (gaps in scientific knowledge are taken to be evidence or proof of God’s existence), in order to explain something which in fact either is, or eventually will be, better explained by way of a naturalistic scientific theory. And Feser et al can respond that this is missing the point of metaphysical demonstrations given that metaphysical demonstrations are not matters about which empirical scientific theory has anything to say, for they have to do with what any possible empirical theory must itself take for granted and their starting points are metaphysical rather than physical, (whatever the empirical facts turn out to be they will at some level involve the actualization of potential etc.). And so on. And on. But what if your metaphysics are faulty? What is the real point being missed here? It is that rather than think of such a proof as a thought sequence distinct from the world itself we should recognise it as a dynamic process undergone by Spirit whereby we elevate ourselves to the Absolute, or God if you prefer.
I heard the old, old men say,
‘Every thing alters,
And one by one we drop away’
They had hands like claws, and their knees
Were twisted like the old thorn trees
By the waters.
I heard the old, old men say,
‘All that’s beautiful drifts away
Like the waters’.
- W. B. Yeats, (1865–1939)
To be continued …
