Show Notes

Topic: The Fifth Way of St. Thomas Aquinas

Guest Intro

Robert A. Delfino received his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo,
where he specialized in metaphysics and medieval philosophy. His current research
interests include metaphysics, ethics, and the relationship between science, philosophy,
and religion. He has presented papers at the Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid,
Spain, the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, in Poland, and the University of
Oxford, in the United Kingdom. He is the co-author of a recent book Does God
Exist?: A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Show Outline

Questions answered by Dr. Delfino

• What led you to write Does God Exist: A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways and what can readers expect from it?
• Give us a birdseye view of the Fifth Way and the premises involved in the argument.
• Why doesn’t evolution refute the Fifth Way?
• How do you make the argument using protons and electrons?
• What about the objection from the “laws of nature?”
• Would you recommend using the Fifth Way as an argument in conversation?

Important Quote #1

• The Fifth Way of St. Thomas as written in the Summa:

The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God. [Source]

Important Quote #2

The ordering of the natural properties of these elements [in the Cosmos] towards dynamic interaction must be constituted prior (priority of causal dependence, not necessarily temporal priority) to their actual operations of interacting, since they interact according to their (already constituted) natures. But this means that they must be ordered toward, constituted in view of, not yet existing future actions, or possible future actions. Now, only a mind can constitute out of possibility a future order, can ‘order means to an end,’ as St. Thomas likes to put it. Only a mind can thus make present in its field of consciousness the future and the possible, which do not exist in themselves and can have only a mental presence. A purely material being without consciousness is locked into the here and now of its place in space and time. To order possibilities with a view to future action is again almost a definition of mind, or certainly one of its most characteristic functions. Thus the cosmos-wide dynamic order of our world system necessarily requires a cosmos-ordering Mind to constitute its order. [W. Norris Clarke, “Is Natural Theology Still Viable Today?,” in Explorations in Metaphysics: Being, God, Person (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), pp. 174-175.]

Important Quote #3

What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? Is the unified theory so compelling that it brings about its own existence? Or does it need a creator, and, if so, does he have any other effect on the universe? And who created him? [Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (Bantam, 1998), p. 74.]

Resources Mentioned

• Does God Exist?: A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas
• Also, Pints with Aquinas, an outstanding Podcast hosted by Matt Fradd
• Additionally, Explorations in Metaphysics: Being, God, Person by Fr. W. Norris Clarke
• A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

Related Episodes

• Ep. #13 – The First Way Still Has Teeth