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I assume that, upon reaching the Fifth Way, we are supposed to be able to presuppose the truth of the conclusion of the earlier Ways, especially the Second Way. So, I take it for granted that we already know that all natural things in creation are caused to be exist (Second Way) by some eternal (First Way) and necessary-per-se (Third Way) being or beings. What the Fifth Way is supposed to tell us is that this necessary, eternal first cause is intelligent—in fact, that it has knowledge that encompasses all the facts about the operations of nature.
This immediately distinguishes the Fifth Way from many cases of the so-called design argument, as considered by Hume in his Dialogues and as defended by William Paley and many contemporary apologists. These non-Thomistic arguments are vulnerable to Richard Dawkins’s (and Hume’s) Who designed the designer? objection. This objection won’t work against the Fifth Way, since we’ve already established the existence of an uncaused cause of finite things. The only question for us is: is this uncaused cause something that could reasonably be considered as having intelligence and foresight? In my view, the Fifth Way relies on two separate facts about natural ends: (i) the fact that natural substances have ends at all, and (ii) the fact that the world’s substances collaborate in such a way that most of them are generally able to achieve their ends most of the time. Some recent commentators (including Ed Feser and Gavin Kerr) have completely ignored the second fact, which is clearly indicated by the text (“not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end,” “ex intentione perveniunt ad finem”). In addition, this second argument is explicit in the version of the Fifth Way in the Summa Contra Gentiles (I.13, par. 35): “Contrary and discordant things cannot, always or for the most part, be parts of one order except under someone’s government, which enables all and each to tend to a definite end. But in the world we find that things of diverse natures come together under one order, and this not rarely or by chance, but always or for the most part.” It is also strongly suggested by a parallel passage in De Veritate Q5 a2 (Is the world governed by providence?): "Material and efficient causes, as such, cause only the existence of their effects. They are not sufficient to produce goodness in them so that they be aptly disposed in themselves, so that they could continue to exist, and toward others so that they could help them. Heat, for example, of its very nature and of itself can break down other things, but this breaking down is good and helpful only if it happens up to a certain point and in a certain way. Consequently, if we do not admit that there exist in nature causes other than heat and similar agents, we cannot give any reason why things happen in a good and orderly way." Powers can be thwarted or blocked. Many powers require appropriate conditions for their manifestation. E.g., active powers require their corresponding passive power. Imagine a charged particle in a world without other charged particles, or a massive particle in a world of massless particles. This is, I think, the point of Thomas’s example from De Veritate. Fire has the power to destroy things. This power must be limited in order to allow other bodies to persist and to exercise their powers and dispositions. Before presenting the arguments, we need to consider what it means for something to act “providentially”, i.e., intelligently and with foresight. I propose the following definition:
In the case of human beings, a human being is intelligent by virtue of knowing the essences of certain human actions (which includes knowing the per se effects of these actions), and by virtue of being able to cause the existence of such actions (i.e., by choosing to do them). In addition, human beings are generally disposed to act in ways that are individually good (in some respect) and mutually consistent in their per se effects. I will also assume that if x is an immaterial thing and the per se cause of the existence of some y, then x can be said to “know” the essence of y (including y’s per se effects). There is for Aquinas no further condition required for knowledge. Any immaterial thing automatically knows the natures of all the things that it can cause per se. This could be taken as a philosophical definition of knowledge. The greater the number and variety of things that some immaterial being can cause, the greater its knowledge. (See, for background, De Veritate Q2 A4; Summa Contra Gentiles I.44; and Summa Theologiae I Q14, a1.) Here's my reconstruction of the argument of the Fifth Way: 1. There are one or more uncaused things that are immaterial (because immutable), necessarily existing, and necessarily the cause of the existence of all other things (Ways One through Three). 2. There are material things (contingent and mutable) that are naturally ordered to determinate ends. a.This is true because we see these things behaving in consistent and regular ways. (See Summa Theologiae I-II, Q1, a2: “An agent does not move except out of an intention for an end. For if the agent were not determinate to some particular effect, it would not do one thing rather than another: consequently, in order that it produce a determinate effect, it must, of necessity, be determined to some certain one, which has the nature of an end.”) 3.The natural end of anything is (by definition) good. 4. The first cause (or causes, if there are more than one) knows (individually or collectively) the essences of all contingent things, and is capable of causing per se the existence of things with those essences. a. Because the first causes are immaterial causes of those things. b. And because the first causes did in fact cause per se the existence of those things. c. By the definition of knowledge, this suffices for the first causes to know these essences. 5. Since every natural end is good (by 3), the first causes are disposed to cause per se the existence only of things with good ends. 6. Many things in nature are such that their ends are mutually consistent. a.We can infer this from the fact that most things generally achieve their natural ends. 7. If the first causes were not disposed to cause the existence of things with mutually consistent ends, there would not exist so many things in nature with ends that are mutually consistent. 8. Therefore, the first causes are disposed to cause the existence of things only when their ends are mutually consistent. (From 6, 7) 9. Therefore, the first causes are (individually or collectively) intelligent. In fact, very intelligent, given the large number of possible essences that are capable of causing to be exemplified. (From 4, 5, 8 and the definition of intelligent)
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Anthony Kenny was right (in his The Five Ways) to connect the Fourth Way with the claim (first stated by St. Thomas in the early De Ente et Essentia) that God is identical to His own act of existence. I think that he’s also right in thinking that St. Thomas did not change his theory of esse (act of existence) but did change his understanding of essence or quiddity. In De Ente, Aquinas did not distinguish between understanding the meaning of a word (like ‘phoenix’) and grasping the essence of the kind of thing that the word names. In fact, if there are no phoenixes, it is impossible for us to grasp the essence of a phoenix. This does undercut St. Thomas’s first argument for the real distinction between essence and existence in De Ente, but, in my opinion, this is no great loss. The real case for the distinction lies in the fact that there can be only one thing whose essence is its existence. Hence, the real distinction is easy to establish for everything but God.
Kenny approaches the problem as you would expect a mid-20th-century analytic philosopher to do so: from a grammatical-linguistic analysis of the verb ‘to be’ (and ‘est’ in Latin). Not surprisingly, he concludes that St. Thomas’s account of God is “unintelligible”. Aquinas’s strategy is to argue that we are forced to the “unintelligible” conclusion by the facts of causation and the natural world. The exceptional nature of God is a feature, not a bug. It is not surprising if the grammar of ordinary language finds it difficult to accommodate the conclusion. I thought it was surprising that Kenny doesn’t mention Exodus 3 in this context, in which God tells Moses that His name is “I am that I am,” which (as St. Thomas notes) is a striking anticipation of Thomas’s theory. The phrase “that I am” clearly refers to God’s act of existence, and the phrase “I am…” in this context clearly asks for a phrase delineating God’s nature or essence. The second thing that Kenny fails to take into account is that Aquinas’s theory of ‘esse’ and ‘actus essendi’ (acts of existence) is a substantive metaphysical proposal, not merely an analysis of ordinary language and thought. Aquinas is offering an interesting and attractive theory about actuality, something that philosophers have wrestled with from antiquity to the present time. How are my actual daughters different from all of the possible but not actual daughters that I could have had? There have been relatively few accounts of this fact in the history of philosophy:
It’s easy to dispose of options 2, 3, and 4. We have no acquaintance with any actual-ish quality, and even if we did, it would be easy to conceive of non-actual things with that quality (disposing of 2). Kant’s attempted definition ignores the fact that it is only actual sensations that are relevant to the actuality of a physical thing, rendering his definition of ‘actual’ viciously circular (disposing of 3). Being part of the best possible world intuitively has nothing to do with being actual. If God chooses to make the best possible world actual, He must do something. Being best isn’t sufficient to make it actual on its own (disposing of 4). I don’t think 6 is really a competitor with 5. Necessary beings (like God) are essentially “central” in this way, so 6 would provide some basis for identifying God as actual. However, many actual things are contingent. This means that although they are in fact metaphysically central, they could have been peripheral. We still need an explanation of what makes one contingent thing metaphysically central and another peripheral. So, that leaves only 1 and 5. Aristotelians will reject 1 (actualism) on the ground that it denies the metaphysical significance of the actuality/potentiality distinction. If everything non-actual is completely unreal, then we face the Parmenidean problem of explaining how substantial change (generation and corruption of substances in nature) is possible. Even more importantly, we cannot treat active powers or passive potencies to change as aspects of reality. If something has the potential to become hot, for example, this consists in the thing’s having a real relation to a merely potential accident of heat. If there are no merely potential entities, then we would have to embrace some form of Platonic realism, understanding the potentiality for heat as a relation to the universal idea of Heat Itself. Kenny puts a great deal of emphasis on Aquinas’s principle that everything receives its existence through its form. Thus, for Socrates to exist, existence must come to Socrates through his form of humanity. Consequently, Socrates cannot exist without being a living human being. Thus, for Socrates, to be is to be human, a living human being. However, Aquinas’s theory is that this is true only of creatures. God does not receive His existence from anything. Consequently, it does not have to come to Him through any limiting form. His existence is simple, unqualified, and unlimited. For God to be is simply for God to be, full stop. As Kenny notes, Aquinas insists that God’s existence is not the greatest-common-factor kind of existence that is common to every actual thing (SCG I.26). That kind of generic existence is shared by both God and creatures—in God it is unlimited, in creatures it is limited by essence. God’s existence is the sort that is incompatible with any kind of limitation or restriction. The heart of the Fourth Way, as I interpret it, is a simple argument:
Why think that the Aristotelian principle is true? And what does it mean for something to be truer, nobler, better, or “more existent” than another? We have already seen an appeal to the proportionality of causes in the First and Second Ways. A cause must “have” what it “gives” in some way, either “formally” (by literally have the same characteristic) or “eminently”. Applying this to existence, we could say that the cause of the existence of x must exist either in the same way as x or in a “higher” way. What do “higher”, “nobler” or “better” mean in this context? They must refer to a real, objective hierarchy, not just to our subjective preferences or interest. They must mean something like: having a wider array of powers and capabilities. As Kenny suggests, this corresponds to something like having a more powerful set of cognitive capacities. Despite what Kenny says, St. Thomas’s argument does not depend on everything’s lying on a strictly linear order. It’s okay if some pairs of things are not comparable in their degree of being, so long as there are some things that are strictly nobler than everything else (a common peak in the “Mountain of Being”). I should say something briefly about Aristotle and Aquinas’s notion that some beings are “truer” than others. As Aquinas explains, “true” can be used in two ways: to refer to a cognition that corresponds to some reality, and to a reality that corresponds to some cognition. My idea of a triangle is true if it accurately represents triangles. A triangle is “true” (as a triangle) if it accurately corresponds to the definition of triangle. What would it be for a thing to be “truer” than another thing (as an existing thing)? It might be that it corresponds more accurately to the full, unqualified concept of Being as such. If so, the more nearly perfect or the nobler a thing is, the truer it is. Like the Third Way, the Fourth Way consists of two principal parts. The first part establishes that there is something that is maximal in being, goodness, “truth”, and nobility. The second part reaches the conclusion that this maximal being is the cause of the being (and goodness, etc.) of all finite things. As in the case of the other Ways, St. Thomas does not suppose that he has yet proven the unity or uniqueness of God. So, we should really say that the first half involves the claim that there is some thing or things maximal in being, and the second half the claim that this thing or things is or are the cause(s) of all other things. For the sake of grammatical simplicity, I shall mostly ignore this important qualification.
The Big Question in interpreting the Fourth Way is this: just how Platonic is the argument? In his dialogue Phaedo (100a1-101a5), Plato has Socrates argue that he has discovered that the true cause of the beauty of things is something called Beauty Itself. Similarly, there is Justice Itself, the cause of the justice of all just things, Goodness Itself, Equality Itself, and so on. These are the so-called “Forms” or “Ideas”. Anselm offered what seems to be a purely Platonic argument that parallels the Fourth Way in his Monologion. Anselm writes in Chapter 1: “Necessarily, all good things are good through something, and this something is understood to be the same thing in each of the various good things…. And who would doubt that that through which all good things are good is a great good?.... That through which every good thing is good is good through itself…. The one thing that is good through itself is the one thing that is supremely good.” Boethius makes a very similar argument in The Consolation of Philosophy (Book III, Chapter X). Is this exactly the argument Thomas Aquinas is making? I think not, for two reasons. First, the steps of Aquinas’s argument are different. First, he establishes that there is a supreme being, and then he argues that this supreme being is the cause of other beings, which is the opposite of the Plato/Boethius/Anselm order. Second, he explicitly rejects in many places (following Aristotle) the argument from Many to One on which Plato/Boethius/Anselm rely. Human beings, for example, are each made human by his or her own human form, not by a Platonic Idea. It’s true that there is a kind of archetype of humanity (a divine idea) that was involved in our creation, but the divine idea is involved in God’s efficiently causing us to exist, which seems significantly different from the way that good things are supposed to be good “through” the Idea of the Good. Kenny (in chapter 5 of The Five Ways) is pretty good on all this. He brings out the way in which a “common nature” for Aquinas is not some separate thing but rather a way of explaining the commonness of the members of a species in terms of some intimate relationship among their forms—namely, that the forms are not individual in themselves but only through their involvement with prime matter. So, I think it is important to look closely at St. Thomas’s source: the end of chapter 1 of Book 2 (Alpha the Lesser) of the Metaphysics. I am also relying on some interpretive suggestions by Michael Augros in his paper, “Twelve Questions about the Fourth Way.” (The Aquinas Review, volume 12, 2005) In the Metaphysics, Aristotle argues that if something is the cause of all true things, then it must be supremely true. If we translate this into more familiar language about existence and nobility, we could say that if something of the existence of all existing things, then it must have supreme existence (likewise for nobility, goodness, and so on). This fits well with the place of the Fourth Way: we have already established that there is one existing thing that causes the existence of all other existing things (Second Way). Moreover, we know that this thing exists necessarily and causes the existence of everything else in every possible world (Third Way). The Fourth Way adds to this the conclusion that this necessary first cause must have supreme existence (nobility, etc.). If this is right, then the second part of the Fourth Way is really the crucial part. The first part is simply designed to make the ultimate conclusion more plausible, by suggesting that there is something (at least, in the realm of possibility or potentiality) that has maximal existence. The second part assures us that this supreme thing actually exists, and, given the Third Way, actually exists and is supreme in existence in every possible world. Alternatively, as Augros suggests, we could take the first part as simply arguing that there must be something that is, de facto, the highest thing on the scale of existence among the actually existing things. This need not, at this stage, be identified with the greatest possible being. Then the second part establishes that this de facto greatest thing must be the cause of the existence/greatness of all other things in all possible worlds, and so it must be the greatest possible being. If this is right, then the standard translations of the crucial principle of the second part of the Fourth Way are misleading at best. Here’s the Latin original: “Quod autem dicitur maxima in aliquo genere est causa omnium quae sunt illius generis.” Kenny translates it as: "Now whatever is most F is the cause of whatever else is F.” The Leonine translation: “Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all that is in that genus.” These make the principle a generalization of the form: all things that are maximal in a genus are the cause of the rest of the genus. But the Aristotelian principle in Metaphysics is the converse of this: all things that are the cause of the rest of the genus are maximal in that genus. We should try to fit our translation to this Aristotelian principle, and I think it is possible, since the ‘quod’ is singular rather than general. Aquinas does not write “whatever” (omnia) is most F, as Kenny supposes, but rather “that which” (quod) is most F (or is supposed to be most F). The Leonine translation is better, if we take it to mean: the maximum in a genus and the cause of all that is in the genus (supposing that each of these exist) are one and the same thing. Ways 2 and 3 give us something that is the necessary cause of all other beings, and the first part gives us something that is a supreme in being, and the Aristotelian principle allows us to infer that the necessary cause of being is a supreme being, which is what we want. (Parenthetically, the presence of ‘dicitur’, ‘is said to be’, is some reason to prefer my reading of the first part over Augros’s: the supreme being of the first part is merely a supposed or hypothetical entity.) As in Maimonides’ case, Aquinas adds a second stage to the argument. He wants to establish not only the existence of a necessary being, but of a necessary being that has existence “in and of itself”, that doesn’t derive its necessary existence from something else. Here again Aquinas has recourse to his no-infinite-regress assumption: the chain of causation explaining why derivatively necessary beings are necessary must terminate in a thing that is non-derivatively necessary, and this being will be God (a being whose essence is its existence).
Here’s a way of thinking about this second stage. Let’s suppose for contradiction that there is an infinite regress of necessary beings, each of which derives its necessity from its predecessor. So, N1 is caused to be necessary by N2, N2 is caused to be necessary by N3, and so on. And let’s assume that all necessary beings belong to such a regress: nothing is necessary in and of itself (unconditionally). Now, a world in which none of N1, N2, N3, etc. exist is an impossible world, since each of these beings exists necessarily and so exists in every possible world. So, the scenario in which none of the N’s exist is an “impossible world”, if you’ll allow me to talk of it that way. Let’s call this impossible world w!. Let’s assume that if a scenario S is impossible, and this scenario S can be derived from some possible world w simply by deleting entities that exist in w, then there must be some ground or explanation of S's impossibility. Let's stipulate that the impossible world w! comes from the actual world (which is possible) by deleting all of the conditionally necessary beings in the actual world. Then the impossibility of w! must be explained in one of two ways: it fails to include something that is unconditionally necessary, or it violates some constraint of conditional necessity, i.e., it contains A but not B, even though A would (if it existed) necessitate B’s existence (which it could do by necessitating B’s necessary existence). But w! is not impossible in either of these ways. There is (by hypothesis) no unconditionally necessary being, so it isn’t impossible for that reason. And it satisfies all of the conditional constraints by never including any of the N’s. Its non-inclusion of Ni is permissible, because it also fails to include N(i+1), and Ni is necessary only conditional on N(i+1)’s existence. So, w! is possible, after all, which means that none of the N’s is necessary. Therefore, it is impossible for anything to be necessary unless something is necessary unconditionally. And to be necessary unconditionally is to be necessary in and of oneself. My colleague and friend Dan Bonevac has discovered a new interpretation the Third Way that resolves the problems that have puzzled readers from medieval times. The argument seems to involve two highly problematic claims:
Dan proposes that we interpret the temporal adverbs in the argument (quandoque, aliquando, modo) as modal rather than temporal modifiers. Such an interpretation is quite natural in many (if not all) languages, including Latin and English. Dan notes that St. Thomas never uses the word 'time' ('tempus') or any other explicitly temporal term. In fact, if we look at the parallel argument in the Summa Contra Gentiles (I.13, paragraph 33), we see a complete absence there of temporality. Under this interpretation, the two problematic claims become:
Now principle 1 is simply a tautology of modal logic. Principle 2 is still a substantive principle, but it is a quite plausible one, as we shall see. Here is the Third Way under this modal interpretation: Here’s the Third Way under this interpretation:
Proof of premise 4: the Annihilation Lemma.
Proof of Premise 5: The Dead End Lemma
Why think the Subtraction Principle is true? Suppose that there is an uncaused thing x which, if deleted from the world, necessitated the introduction of a new uncaused thing y in its place. In that case, it seems that the existence of y in the new world would be caused by the absence of x (together with the other conditions that, jointly with the non-existence of x, necessitated the existence of y). This is doubly problematic. First, and most importantly, because we seem to have a contradiction: the existence of y would be both caused and uncaused. And, second, because it doesn’t seem that the existence of anything could be wholly caused (or explained) by the non-existence of something else. This version of the argument requires two causal principles: (i) necessarily, every causal chain is finite, and (ii) necessarily, it is impossible for something to exist unless (a) it actually exists, or (b) it could be caused to exist by something that actually exists. The second principle (Nihil ex Nihilo) is pretty strong. It would imply (given S5 modal logic) that every contingent thing in the actual world has a cause in the actual world. Here’s the proof. Suppose for contradiction that x is contingent and uncaused in w0 (the actual world). Consider any possible world w1 in which x does not exist. The existence of x is possible but not actual in w1 (by axiom B), so by Nihil ex Nihilo there must be some y that exists in w1 and is capable of causing x to exist. This plausibly entails that, in any world w in which x does exist, x is caused to exist by some y that also exists in w. Hence, since x exists in the actual world w0, x must be caused to exist in this world, contrary to our original assumption. An interesting question: could we do without the first causal principle (namely, no infinite regresses or cycles)? Here’s a possible way of doing so. Suppose that there are infinite series or cycles of contingent things. We could plausibly strengthen our subtraction lemma, so that it allows for the simultaneous subtraction of all uncaused contingent things and all infinite contingent series and cycles, without requiring the addition of any new uncaused things or any new infinite series. If so, we could run the original argument without the first principle The Third Way is clearly building on the Second Way. It adds an important component to the conclusion: we reach the conclusion that the uncaused cause of things must be a necessary being, in contrast to the contingent beings that are familiar to us. This immediately raises the question of what Aquinas means by 'necessary'. There are a range of possible interpretations:
b. Actually exists at all times and cannot naturally be corrupted. We can set aside meaning 1, since the argument has nothing to do with logical deducibility, analyticity, or conceivability. Anthony Kenny argues (in his book, The Five Ways) that the Third Way must intend ‘necessary being’ in sense 5a or 5b. This is based on Aquinas’s assertion in the Summa Contra Gentiles (Book II, chapter 30) that the heavenly spheres are “necessary beings,” despite being created by God. However, this evidence does not rule out 3 or 4 either, although it does rule out 2. The next point of complexity concerns the distinction between things that are necessary per se (in and through themselves) and those whose necessity is caused by another. Are each of the four relevant categories of necessity (2, 3, 5a, and 5b) divided into two sub-categories by this distinction, or can some forms of necessity exist only per se or only when caused by another? Now, suppose that the distinction cuts across all four meanings. Suppose, further, that Aquinas intended ‘necessary’ to correspond to meaning 3, 5a, or 5b. If so, the only result that Aquinas could reach would be that God is an incorruptible being that exists at all times or with merely natural (created) necessity. God is certainly incorruptible, but it wouldn’t make sense to attribute to Him existence in and through time, or merely natural necessity. So, we must assume either that Aquinas intended meaning 2 throughout, or that he intended ‘necessary’ to include things that are necessary in senses 2, 3, 5a, or 5b, but he believed that only things with necessity in sense 2 (metaphysical necessity) could be necessary per se. Given his affirmation of created, metaphysically contingent beings (like the heavenly spheres) as ‘necessary’ in SCG II.30, the second assumption seems most likely. So, we can assume that necessary beings include all beings that are either metaphysically or naturally necessary, and that only metaphysically necessary beings are necessary per se. This leaves open the question of whether there could be metaphysically necessary beings (meaning 2) whose necessity is caused by something else. The most plausible candidates would be the divine ideas, although Aquinas never says that the necessary being of the divine ideas is caused (Summa Th. I q15, a1 and a2). He suggests instead that each divine idea is in some sense “identical” to the divine essence, despite the existence of many ideas. The safest interpretation might be that only God is metaphysically necessary and only God is necessary per se (so those two categories coincide). Consequently, all of the merely naturally necessary beings have their necessity caused by God. We still have to consider meanings 5a and 5b, which were favored by Kenny. I would rule out 5a immediately, since Aquinas never, as far as I know, labels the human soul as ‘necessary’, even though it is certainly incorruptible. It is true that Aquinas states (in Summa Theologica I q75 a6 ad 2) that the human soul has no ‘potentiality for non-existence’ but it isn’t clear that that is the same as necessary being. The heavenly spheres are necessary beings in both sense 3 and 5b. So, the acid test will be to see which meaning makes most sense of the premises of the first part of Thomas’s argument. I will turn to this problem next week. All of Aquinas's Five Ways depend, in one way or another, on ruling out the possibility of infinite causal regresses. In the version of the First Way (the argument from motion) in the Summa Contra Gentiles (I.13), Aquinas follows Aristotle in offering two separate arguments against the causal regress. In the first three ways in the Summa Theologiae, he offers just one of the two Aristotelian arguments: an argument that depends on what I call the No-Intermediate-Real-Cause thesis. This is a thesis that states that if x is a cause of y, and y is a cause of z, then y is not really a cause in the strict sense but only secundum quid (only in a manner of speaking). An intermediate link in a causal chain is not in any sense the source of the reality of the ultimate effect--it is merely a conduit through which the first cause acts. Therefore, an infinite regress is impossible, because (as Aristotle and Aquinas note) every link in the regress would be only an intermediate cause. Hence, such a regress cannot contain any real causation.
This is a plausible argument, despite the fact that it is often dismissed as based on a fallacy of equivocation. The standard objection (going back at least to Cajetan, I believe) is that Aquinas equivocates on the phrase "removing the first cause." If we have a finite chain and we hypothetically remove the first cause from the series, it is obvious that none of the intermediate causes can act. Aquinas asserts that if we consider any infinite regress, we have a situation from which we have (in a sense) "removed the first cause". But, as critics point out, in this case there never was a first cause to be "removed", and so the cases are incomparable. However, Aquinas real point is simply to claim that intermediate causes are never causes in their own right but are always wholly parasitic on the first cause. Given that assumption, infinite causal regresses are indeed impossible. The other strategy for dealing with infinite regresses was invented by Avicenna, followed by Scotus, Leibniz, and many subsequent thinkers (including me in 1997). This is the Aggregation Strategy. The Aggregation Strategy concedes, for the sake of argument, that infinite regresses are possible. However, the Strategy insists, if a regress consists entirely of contingent (or finite) things, then we can aggregate the whole series into a single entity and insist on a cause for it. Start now with a single finite thing, and consider all of the finite causes of that thing (whether immediate or remote). Either this series terminates in an uncaused thing, or else it constitutes an infinite regress. In the latter case, we can demand a cause for the whole series. This cause must be infinite, since any finite cause of the series would be a cause of the original entity and so would already be included in the series itself. A member of the series cannot cause the whole series. An infinite thing cannot be caused. And so we reach an uncaused first cause. Aquinas was aware of this strategy, through his close reading of Avicenna. Why didn't he adopt it? I think he was worried that not all infinite series can be aggregated into a single entity. If an infinite series consists of entities of the same species (or a finite number of species), then it has the characteristic that Aquinas labels being accidentally infinite. An accidentally infinite series can be aggregated and must be caused as a whole. This is why Aquinas can concede that accidentally infinite series might exist without losing the force of his first cause argument. However, if an infinite series consists of entities of an infinite number of species, with the species climbing progressively higher and higher in the Great Chain of Being, the Aggregation Strategy could not be convincingly applied. Aquinas would call such a series essentially infinite, and he must (if the Second or Third Way is to work) deny the metaphysical possibility of such a series. This is why he appeals to Aristotle's argument and what I call the No-Intermediate-Real-Cause thesis, which should now be applied only to series that rise "vertically" through the ontological order of species. Aquinas's second way, the way of efficient causation, had perhaps the most influence on subsequent natural theology. It has counterparts in the work of Scotus, Leibniz, and Samuel Clarke (to name a few), and it is the argument that Kant labels "cosmological" in the First Critique. I am going to assume the argument that Aquinas develops in chapters 3 and 4 of De Ente et Essentia is an elaboration of the second way. The argument's form is quite simple:
1. Some things actually exist (as known primarily by sense perception). 2. Every finite thing (i.e., thing for which there is a real distinction between essence and existence) that actually exists has an actually existing cause of its existence. 3. Causes are prior to their effects in the order of actual existence. 4. Every chain of causes has an essential structure. 5. The essential structure of every chain of causes is finite (has terminal, uncaused nodes). 6. Therefore, there exists at least one actually existing infinite being, and every finite thing is caused by one or more such beings. 7. There can be no more than one infinite being. 8. Therefore, there exists exactly one actually infinite being, which is the ultimate cause of every finite being. If something has actual existence, and this actual existence is something distinct from its essence, then there is some part of the thing's essence which is disjoint from its existence. The finite thing's existence depends on a joining or combining of its existence with the remainder of its essence, and this joining or combining must have some explanation. It cannot be explained by the remainder of the essence, since, it it were, the thing would be a cause of itself (contrary to premise 3). It cannot be caused by the thing's actual existence, since a thing's existence cannot be prior to any part of its essence, since every 'act' or 'event' of existence depends for its very identity on the essence that it actualizes. Hence, the only possible explanation for this joining or combining must appeal some distinct entity (its efficient cause). In contrast, if a thing's existence is identical to its essence, no explanation of its existence is needed or even possible. The essence of a thing constitutes its possible existence, and if a thing's existence is identical to its essence, then that thing's actuality is identical to its possibility. Hence, we cannot sensibly ask how or why its possibility has been actualized. For such a thing to be really possible is for it to be actual, and vice versa. If such a being exists at all, it must exist with absolute necessity. For this reason, the causal principle (premise 2) must be limited to finite things. Premise 7: There can be only one infinite thing (so defined). Suppose that there were two. We can ask whether it is possible for one to exist without the other. If so, then one or the other exists only contingently, which we've have shown to be impossible. So, it must be necessary for both to exist and to relate to each other as distinct entities. Is this relation of distinctness contained in the essence of one or both? It couldn't be just one, since, if it were, the other would depend for its existence on the other. So, the relation must be contained in both essences. But this would introduce some complexity into both essences, which means that we could no longer identify either essence with a simple act of existence. In addition, there would have to be some explanation of the symmetry. Each would have to depend essentially on the existence of another, again contrary to their simplicity and uncausability. This leaves us with premises 4 and 5, which jointly rule out the possibility of an essentially infinite regress. I will take up this crucial question next time. Thomas Aquinas, building on arguments found in Books 7 and 8 of Aristotle's Physics, argues in The First Way (in Summa Theologiae I q2 a3, and in a parallel passage in Summa Contra Gentiles I.13) for the existence of an unmoved mover. However, there is an evident gap between such an unmoved mover and God. At the very least, Aquinas needs to show that the unmoved mover is absolutely unmovable (in all respects). If he can establish that, then he can conclude that the First Mover must exist outside of time. And, in order to exist outside of time, the First Mover must lack all passive potentiality (i.e., be a being of Pure Act).
Aristotle and Aquinas are both well aware of this gap, and they have a definite strategy for filling it. The argument goes something like this: 1. Assume (for contradiction) that the First Mover is changeable in some respect. 2. Necessarily, time passes if and only if change occurs. 3. All motion in fact depends on the activity of the First Mover (established by the main argument of the First Way). 4. If the First Mover were changeable in any respect, then it could be in a state in which it failed to cause any motion. 5. To be in such a state, the First Mover would have to be in that state for some period of time (since nothing can be in a state in a single instant). 6. Since all motion in fact depends on the activity of the First Mover, if the First Mover were in a state in which it failed to cause any motion, there would be no change during the period in which it is in that state. 7. If there were no change during that period, time would not pass during that period. 8. If a period has a temporal duration, time must pass during it. 9. There would be a possible state of the world during which time both does and does not pass. Contradiction. 10. So, the First Mover cannot change in any respect. The crucial premises are 4, 5, and 6. Let me take 5 and 6 first. Premise 5. This is based on Aristotle's resolution of Zeno's paradoxes in the Physics. Instants of time are not parts of time--they are only boundaries of such parts. Hence, nothing happens during an instant. Nothing can be in a state of activity or inactivity for only an instant. Instants can only mark the beginning or end of a period of activity or inactivity. Premise 6. This depends on a kind of subtraction principle. If all change in the actual world depends on the First Mover and there is a possible state of the First Mover in which it would cause no change, then there is a possible world where no change occurs. We can simply subtract the activity of the First Mover from the actual world without being forced to add any new source of motion. So, the crucial assumption is premise 4. Suppose the First Mover is changeable in some respect. Why think that it must be changeable into a state in which it would cause no motion at all? Why couldn't it have a nature such as to cause motion in every possible internal state, while admitting of more than one such possible state? There is some plausibility to the idea that the activity of a thing must depend on the thing's internal state, and that this dependence entails that there be some internal state in which no activity would result. However, this seems far from airtight to me. I think there's a better strategy for defending premise 4--one that is not explicit in the texts of either Aristotle and Aquinas, but which lies quite close to their conception of time and motion. If something is changeable in any respect, then it lies within time. If a thing lies within time, then its natural activity through time depends on the metaphysically prior passage of time. So, it is impossible for the activity of something changeable to be the ground for the passage of time itself. Yet, that is exactly what the First Mover must do. Hence, the First Mover must be absolutely unchangeable. |
AuthorRob Koons, a professor of philosophy, trained in the analytic tradition at Oxford and UCLA. Specializing in the further development of the Aristotle-Aquinas tradition in metaphysics and the philosophy of nature. Archives
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