Welcome everyone to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been looking recently at the efforts of a YouTuber who goes by the name of “The Amazing Atheist” in his video “Thomas Aquinas sucks” who is trying to refute the five ways of Aquinas. There has been some mockery of Aquinas of course. I don’t have a problem with that. I just say that if you think you’re smarter than Aquinas, you’d better show it. So far, he hasn’t shown it. Tonight, we look at the fifth way and how The Amazing Atheist treats that and what a Thomistic response would be.
Let’s see how he sums up the fifth way first off:
#1-Among objects that act for an end, some have minds whereas others do not.
#2-An object that acts for an end but does not for itself have a mind must have been created by a being that does have a mind.
#3-So there exists a being with a mind who designed all mindless objects that act for an end.
#4-Hence, God exists.
Let’s see what Aquinas himself said:
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.
As should be evident from what has been said, TAA has once again not understood this argument. For instance, creation is nowhere mentioned. Aquinas is not interested in dealing with a divine watchmaker like Paley’s argument. His is entirely different from that one.
For instance, Paley wants it to be probable that there is a god. Aquinas wants it to be a certainty. Paley is interested in design inherent in the objects. Aquinas is interested in design as a whole. Paley does not have final causes in his argument per se. Aquinas bases his entirely on them. Paley does not tell you about the nature of the designer too much. Aquinas has it as the God of classical theism.
What about evolution? It would be a non-question at this point. Now keep in mind Aquinas does not care if Paley would be right or not, so this argument does not say ipso facto that Paley was wrong. Evolution is seen as a threat sometimes to Paley’s argument. Aquinas would not see it as a threat at all. In fact, it would be a case of The Blind Watchmaker of Richard Dawkins winning the battle but losing the war. One can imagine Aquinas being around today, reading the book and saying “Cool theory! I can go with that! Thanks for demonstrating my Fifth Way further Professor Dawkins!”
For Aquinas, in this way, God is entirely immanent in the creation. It is not to be like a watchmaker making the watch and then leaving it be. It is more like God is a musician playing a song. The universe is his song and as long as the musician is playing, the song is around. If God ever ceased being, the universe, and everything else, would go out of existence.
Getting back to the argument and seeing how TAA botches it, Aquinas is arguing from what is seen. Why do thinks act regularly? Why do they act in the same way provided there is no outside interference? Chance would not bother him because even chance has a background with some regularity to it. It is chance what numbers come up when the dice is rolled, but laws of physics could determine such and even still, there is final causality in the roll of the dice.
Now when it comes to why you or I act for a purpose, that is easy enough to understand, but why is it that something else does? For Aquinas, only agents act for an end. It does not mean however that everything that is has a purpose, as there can be some offshoots that don’t have a purpose from that action. Thus, when Dawkins asks, as he did recently in a debate where Craig was involved, the purpose of a mountain, a good Thomist can say “Maybe there isn’t one” and be consistent. Note also that because a purpose is unknown, that does not mean there is none. This is a classical mistake. Theists are accused of saying “We don’t know how that happened, therefore God did it.” I condemn such an attitude as well. A naturalist like Dawkins however can say “I don’t know why that is, therefore there is no reason why it is the way it is.” This is what happens with the problem of evil also.
Aquinas contends that the reason some things are acting for a final cause is that there is an efficient cause outside of them providing that cause to them. TAA wants us to ask why this has to be a being. Why can’t it just be an accident. Aquinas would say that an accident cannot explain final causality and regularity in nature.
If something didn’t have a mind, it too would need to be directed by an agent and thus it could not be the efficient cause guiding the final causes. If it had potential, it would have had to be made for a purpose and again, we meet the same problem. Aquinas’s solution? There is a being who does not need an efficient cause of His being but rather is the efficient cause of all other beings and provides final causality to the universe and this, we know to be God.
Thus, we have seen that TAA just hopelessly messes up the arguments each time. Why is this? We shall see tomorrow as we conclude.
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