Philosophy of Religion: Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways

In this guest lecture from a Fayetteville State University Philosophy of Religion class, Dr. Sadler leads students through Thomas Aquinas's famous "Five Ways" of proving God's existence from the Summa Theologiae. He also discusses the role of experience, abstraction, and several metaphysical principles in the arguments Thomas provides.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Philosophy of Religion
• Thomas Aquinas
• Summa Theologiae

[ZeroSheFlies]

@ZeroSheFlies The reason for talking about objects rather than beings is that is the Thomist term. Étienne Gilson contrasts objects and beings. Quote:"being itself might happen not to be existentially neutral. In other words, it is quite possible that actual existence may be ... an efficient cause of observable effects" (Being and Some Philosophers, 1952) He uses set theory, rather than the idea of "forms"

[ZeroSheFlies]

@ZeroSheFlies I didn't have the space on necessity. So here the philosophers of science to consider are George Berkeley, Charles Pierce, William James and John Stuart Mills. The only prominent "realist" (in his Ontology) is David Malet Armstrong - which is not a platonist with regards to universals.The only significant area of debate regards mathematics (Penrose). Both Aristotle and Aquinas need realism for their metaphysics to work. Most other Christian thought is neo-platonic.

[ZeroSheFlies]

@ZeroSheFlies Beyond physics. where elements are not immutable (fixed essence), we can go to biology. Species are not fixed. You should listen to Kagan's lectures on personal identity in Yale's University Online series on DEATH. It may still be on You Tube also.Also you could read "Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies?" by Nancey Murphy, Fuller Theological Seminary which covers the related philosophy, science and religiion of people.

[ZeroSheFlies]

@ZeroSheFlies (2) identity and contingency - and here to simplify the assumption is rather that everything is contingent or accidental. This is a consequence (example) of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and that identify is not absolute: is light ESSENTIALLY a wave or particulate in nature? Well it is both and neither.

You use the term "being" - as something that has existence. But rather they are objects of study. Is a neutrino a "being" - it depends . But out of space. ,...

[ZeroSheFlies]

@AdversusHaereses It all depends. If you mean by essence the set of attributes that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is - maybe (depends on how "fundamental" is defined).

The problem come with (1) necessity - most scientists operate using some king of variation of nominalism There is not enough space allowed to elaborate here.

Continued in next reply..

[AdversusHaereses]

@ZeroSheFlies Well, when a natural scientist goes to examine something in the lab, he presupposes above all that what he is examining is still a being (something) and that it has an essence and even perhaps accidental composites.

[ZeroSheFlies]

@AdversusHaereses By the way, your user name could have been ἔλεγχος και άνατροπή της ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως (which is the name of Against Heresies)

Unless you have inside gnosis, you can't claim that "the whole of natural science still presupposes these truths" because they don't. I could support that at extreme lengths because it falls in my primary field of work (science) which has broadened over the years. Being retired I am now studying in the humanities full time.

[ZeroSheFlies]

@AdversusHaereses Agree that history owes them a great debt. Causality in the natural sciences today means efficient cause only. I would argue "essentialism" has been a barrier to understanding, But this is not a forum for lengthy exchanges.

Aren't you glad that Averroes, Avicenna and Alpharabius preserved and expanded Aristotles, and that the Islamists brought this to France (through Spain)? You woukd have to owe them a debt too (to be a bit polemical) LOL

[ZeroSheFlies]

@AdversusHaereses I reread Book1 of the Metaphysics just now and stand by my previous response - although I should have noted the focus on mathematics. Aquinas says "Whatever is in our intellect must have previously been in the senses" (peripatetic axiom) making him an empricist, not a rationalist in his epistemology. Finally, I should note that some Thomists like Maritain held that metaphysics is prior to epistemology. I read him en francais being French Canadian. Cheers.

[AdversusHaereses]

@ZeroSheFlies Oh, I consider myself a Thomist (not a really good one), but you notice that the Physics of Aristotle is sparse in these mistakes like the geocentrist theory. Even Newtonian physics and classical mechanics is predicated on the metaphysical notions of causality, actuality, potentiality and so forth. When we analyse beings, we analyse their essence and their existence. I think the whole of natural science still presupposes these truths and owes a debt to Aristotelianism and Thomism.