Just the Arguments

100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy

Michael Bruce, Steven Barbone

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781444344417
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Does the existence of evil call into doubt the existence of God? Show me the argument. Philosophy starts with questions, but attempts at answers are just as important, and these answers require reasoned argument. Cutting through dense philosophical prose, 100 famous and influential arguments are presented in their essence, with premises, conclusions and logical form plainly identified. Key quotations provide a sense of style and approach. Just the Arguments is an invaluable one-stop argument shop.

• A concise, formally structured summation of 100 of the most important arguments in Western philosophy
• The first book of its kind to present the most important and influential philosophical arguments in a clear premise/conclusion format, the language that philosophers use and students are expected to know
• Offers succinct expositions of key philosophical arguments without bogging them down in commentary
• Translates difficult texts to core arguments
• Designed to provides a quick and compact reference to everything from Aquinas' "Five Ways" to prove the existence of God, to the metaphysical possibilities of a zombie world

Part I: Philosophy of Religion

1

Aquinas’ Five Ways

Timothy J. Pawl

All quotations from Aquinas are taken from Alfred Freddoso’s translation of the Summa theologiae, available online at www.nd.edu/∼afreddos/summa-translation/TOC-part1.htm

Baisnee, Jules. “St. Thomas Aquinas’s Proofs of the Existence of God Presented in Their Chronological Order,” in Philosophical Studies in Honor of the Very Reverend Ignatius Smith, O.P., edited by John K. Ryan, 29–64. Westminster: The Newman Press, 1952.

Bochenski, Joseph M. “The Five Ways,” in The Rationality of Theism, edited by Adolfo García de la Sienra, 61–92. Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 2000.

Kenny, Anthony. The Five Ways: Saint Thomas Aquinas’ Proofs of God’s Existence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969.

Pawl, Timothy. “The Five Ways,” in The Oxford Handbook of Thomas Aquinas, edited by Brian Davies and Eleonore Stump. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

St. Thomas Aquinas (1224/5–74) offered his Five Ways, or five proofs for the existence of God, near the beginning of his magnum opus, the Summa theologiae (Part 1, Question 2, Article 3, the response). The Summa (ST), as it is often called, was written as a textbook for men in their priestly formation. It is well over 2,500 pages in a standard English translation from the Latin, but the Five Ways take up only slightly more than one page. Nevertheless, they are almost assuredly the most commented on section of the Summa and some of the most well-known arguments for the existence of God.

One should note that while each Way concludes with some variation of “and this we call God,” Aquinas did not intend the Five Ways to be demonstrations of a uniquely Christian God. In fact, he warns against attempts to prove, for instance, that God is triune (three persons but one being, as Christians affirm), since such arguments, he explains, will fall short and lead unbelievers to scoff (see his Summa contra gentiles, Book 1, Chapter 9, paragraph 2). Furthermore, Aquinas did not take the Five Ways to show that this thing we call “God” is perfect, good, immutable, eternal, powerful, knowledgeable, or even that there is just one such thing. As a consequence, some common criticisms of the Ways – for instance, that they do not demonstrate an omnipotent being – clearly miss the mark. Aquinas goes on later to devote many pages to whether the thing we call “God” in the Five Ways is omnipotent. And the same is true for the other abovementioned attributes. Rather, Aquinas’ intent in the Five Ways is to show that there is something-or-other that, for instance, causes things but is itself uncaused, or something that is necessary and does not have that necessary existence from another. In fact, he does not argue that the Five Ways conclude to the same thing – rather than five different things – until later in the Summa (Part 1, Question 11, Article 3, the response).

Finally, it is important to note that while the Five Ways are Aquinas’ most often cited arguments for the existence of God, they are not his most detailed or nuanced. The Summa, as said above, is a textbook of sorts, and written for an audience of common men in formation for the priesthood – not academics, scholars, atheists, or agnostics. To judge Aquinas’ best and most powerful arguments for the existence of God, one would do better to look at the parallel passages from his other works rather than at his Summa (see Baisnee for a helpful list of these passages). That said, it is the arguments in the Summa that have received the most attention and have become, by any reasonable standard, some of the most important arguments in the Western intellectual tradition.

The First Way – The Argument from Motion

The First Way focuses on motion. By “motion,” Aquinas means the three sorts of accidental change that Aristotle differentiates: change of location (e.g., moving across the room), change in quality (e.g., heating up), and change in quantity (e.g., getting fatter). The general thrust of the argument is that anything changed in one of these ways is changed by something else. That something else, in changing the first thing, either is itself changed or remains changeless. A series of changing changers cannot proceed infinitely. So there must be some first, unchanging being. That being we call “God.”

The argument below uses ‘F’ as a variable governing end states of being correlated with the three sorts of motion mentioned above. For instance, one could substitute “across the room,” “hot,” or “fat” for F. Aquinas provides three detailed defenses of C3 in the Summa contra gentiles, Part 1, Chapter 13. He considers the common objection that a thing can move itself (e.g., the runner moves himself when sprinting from the starting line) by saying that such cases are instances of a part moving a whole and not a thing moving itself. In P3, Aquinas says that the mover must be in a state of actuality relevant to F in order to make something F. The argument would be more forceful if Aquinas could say that the mover must be actually F, but he cannot say that, at least not with perfect generality. For Aquinas thinks that God can move things in many ways that God is not actually: God can fatten a man without himself being fat. In that case, God is said to be virtually F, where something is “virtually F” if it is not itself F but it has the power to make others F. One may say, then, that something is in a state of actuality relevant to F when it is either actually F or virtually F.

It is certain, and obvious to the senses, that in this world some things are moved. But everything that is moved is moved by another. For nothing is moved except insofar as it is in potentiality with respect to that actuality toward which it is moved, whereas something effects motion insofar as it is in actuality in a relevant respect. After all, to effect motion is just to lead something from potentiality into actuality. But a thing cannot be led from potentiality into actuality except through some being that is in actuality in a relevant respect; for example, something that is hot in actuality – say, a fire – makes a piece of wood, which is hot in potentiality, to be hot in actuality, and it thereby moves and alters the piece of wood. But it is impossible for something to be simultaneously in potentiality and in actuality with respect to same thing; rather, it can be in potentiality and in actuality only with respect to different things. For what is hot in actuality cannot simultaneously be hot in potentiality; rather, it is cold in potentiality. Therefore, it is impossible that something should be both mover and moved in the same way and with respect to the same thing, or, in other words, that something should move itself. Therefore, everything that is moved must be moved by another.

If, then, that by which something is moved is itself moved, then it, too, must be moved by another, and that other by still another. But this does not go on to infinity. For if it did, then there would not be any first mover and, as a result, none of the others would effect motion, either. For secondary movers effect motion only because they are being moved by a first mover, just as a stick does not effect motion except because it is being moved by a hand. Therefore, one has to arrive at some first mover that is not being moved by anything. And this is what everyone takes to be God. (ST I, q2, a3, response)

P1. Some things are moved.

P2. If something is moved to being F, then it is potentially but not actually F.

P3. If something moves a thing to be F, then it (the mover) is in a state of actuality relevant to F.

C1. If something were to move itself to be F (e.g., be both moved and its own mover), then it would be both potentially but not actually F and also in a state of actuality relevant to F (conjunction, and modus ponens, P1, P2, P3).

P4. But it is not possible for something to be both potentially but not actually F and also in a state of actuality relevant to F.

C2. It is not possible for something to move itself to be F (modus tollens, C1, P4).

P5. If it is not possible for something to move itself to be F, then if something is moved, it is moved by something else.

C3. If something is moved, it is moved by something else (modus ponens, C2, P5).

P5. If B moves A and B is moved, then B must be moved by some other thing, C. And if C is moved, then C must be moved by still some other thing, D. And so on.

P6. If the series of movers were to go on to infinity, then there would be no first mover.

P7. If there were no first mover, then there would be no motion.

C4. There is a first mover (modus tollens, P1, P7).

C5. That first mover is the thing that everyone takes to be God (definition).

The Second Way – The Argument from Causation

Whereas the First Way focused on accidental changes, the Second Way focuses on ordered series of efficient causation. An efficient cause is that which produces something or an alteration in something. The composer is the efficient cause of the sonata; the fire is the efficient cause of the heating of the kettle. An ordered series is a series in which the causal work of later members in the series depends on the simultaneous causal work of earlier members in the series. If the fire heats the kettle and the kettle heats the water, it is an ordered series, since the kettle’s heating the water depends upon the causal activity of the earlier cause, the fire. Likewise, a system of gears is an ordered causal series, since the causal action of one intermediate gear spinning another, later gear depends upon the causal activity of previous gears in the system. Aquinas argues in the Second Way, to continue with the gear image, that the system cannot be gears all the way back. An infinite series of gears, without a first cause of their spinning, would not be in motion.

We find that among sensible things there is an ordering of efficient causes, and yet we do not find – nor is it possible to find – anything that is an efficient cause of its own self. For if something were an efficient cause of itself, then it would be prior to itself – which is impossible.

But it is impossible to go on to infinity among efficient causes. For in every case of ordered efficient causes, the first is a cause of the intermediate and the intermediate is a cause of the last – and this regardless of whether the intermediate is constituted by many causes or by just one. But when a cause is removed, its effect is removed. Therefore, if there were no first among the efficient causes, then neither would the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Show Me the Arguments
• Part I: Philosophy of Religion
• Part II: Metaphysics
• Part III: Epistemology
• Part IV: Ethics
• Part V: Philosophy of Mind
• Part VI: Science and Language
• Appendix A: Learning the Logical Lingo
• Appendix B: Rules of Inference and Replacement
• Notes on Contributors
• Index