I'm sick of hearing about the "Five Ways"!

[Asmodee]

All right, I’m sick to death of hearing about this late Medieval “Five Ways” or “Five Proofs” bullshit.  So it’s time to go through it and tear it apart.

First of all, these “Five Proofs” were conceived by St. Thomas Aquinas, a Catholic priest in the 13th century.  It didn’t “prove” anything 800 years ago, I don’t know why people think it’s going to prove something today.  The understanding we have gained in the last 800 years has considerably WEAKENED this argument.  So if it wasn't good enough to convince Medieval people without modern understanding 800 years ago, what the fuck makes you think it's good enough to convince modern people with information at their fingertips?

So, here are the “Five Ways” I found online and my answers to each.

The First Way: Argument from Motion
1.         Our senses prove that some things are in motion.
2.         Things move when potential motion becomes actual motion.
3.         Only an actual motion can convert a potential motion into an actual motion.
4.         Nothing can be at once in both actuality and potentiality in the same respect (i.e., if both actual and potential, it is actual in one respect and potential in another).
5.         Therefore nothing can move itself.
6.         Therefore each thing in motion is moved by something else.
7.         The sequence of motion cannot extend ad infinitum.
8.         Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.

This one is really simple.  The answer is energy.  The universe is swarming with it.  Energy can cause motion, both in the literal sense and in the “change” sense Aquinas was talking about.  If you stopped every bit of matter in the universe from moving, put out every sun and moved all matter out of the gravitational reach of all other matter the energy in the universe would start everything moving again all on its own.  Given enough time (14 billion years ought to do it) things would be flinging around the universe again, all on their own, thanks to our friend energy.  There is no need for a “first mover”.

The Second Way: Argument from Efficient Causes
1.         We perceive a series of efficient causes of things in the world.
2.         Nothing exists prior to itself.
3.         Therefore nothing [in the world of things we perceive] is the efficient cause of itself.
4.         If a previous efficient cause does not exist, neither does the thing that results (the effect).
5.         Therefore if the first thing in a series does not exist, nothing in the series exists.
6.         If the series of efficient causes extends ad infinitum into the past, for then there would be no things existing now.
7.         That is plainly false (i.e., there are things existing now that came about through efficient causes).
8.         Therefore efficient causes do not extend ad infinitum into the past.
9.         Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.

This one is also pretty easy to dismiss.  Aquinas had never heard of big bang theory, string theory, membrane (M) theory, etc.  Science, backed by the evidence of observation, has another explanation for this already.  And even if it didn’t, this is an “I don’t know, therefore God” argument.

The Third Way: Argument from Possibility and Necessity (Reductio argument)
1.         We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, that come into being and go out of being i.e., contingent beings.
2.         Assume that every being is a contingent being.
3.         For each contingent being, there is a time it does not exist.
4.         Therefore it is impossible for these always to exist.
5.         Therefore there could have been a time when no things existed.
6.         Therefore at that time there would have been nothing to bring the currently existing contingent beings into existence.
7.         Therefore, nothing would be in existence now.
8.         We have reached an absurd result from assuming that every being is a contingent being.
9.         Therefore not every being is a contingent being.
10.       Therefore some being exists of its own necessity, and does not receive its existence from another being, but rather causes them. This all men speak of as God.

This one is just one giant pile of steaming ignorance.  Abiogenesis and evolution taken together are alternative explanations for this, and they’re at least backed by data.  Throw them out and you’re left with “I don’t know, therefore God”.

The Fourth Way: Argument from Gradation of Being
1.         There is a gradation to be found in things: some are better or worse than others.
2.         Predications of degree require reference to the “uttermost” case (e.g., a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest).
3.         The maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus.
4.         Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.

This one speaks of “better”, “hottest”, “maximum” and “every other perfection”.  It conflates objective physical limits with the concept of “best”, which is subjective.  How do you judge how “good” something is?  Or how “perfect”?  To many in Nazi Germany, Hitler was “good”.  To Hitler the Arian race was “perfect”.  And that’s not even getting into the laughable lack of understanding of the nature of species that brought us Step 3 here.  Evolution is a much better explanation here with no need for a subjective "maximum", not to mention that evolution soundly tromps Step 3 as ludicrous.

The Fifth Way: Argument from Design
1.         We see that natural bodies work toward some goal, and do not do so by chance.
2.         Most natural things lack knowledge. 
3.         But as an arrow reaches its target because it is directed by an archer, what lacks intelligence achieves goals by being directed by something intelligence.
4.         Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

If you’ve ever watched a flock of birds fly through the sky in unison, you know what Aquinas is talking about here.  But his example is shit.  The arrow has no goal of its own.  It is a tool the archer uses to further his own goal.  It has nothing whatsoever in common with a flock of birds, operating on their own.  Because an arrow will just sit there forever if not directed by an archer, that means birds would do the same thing if not directed by a higher being?  That’s just stupid.  I don’t know how the birds work together, therefore God.


That’s all Five Ways, but there are things I haven’t even touched on here.  For instance, look at that last little bit at the end of every “way”.  It is “…to which everyone gives the name God” or something similar.  What is that about?  There are actually two different reasons for this, one from the time of St. Primitive, the other a reason for using it today.

For Aquinas, in his day, he was probably right.  The Catholic Church had started killing unbelievers as soon as the 4th century, and the Spanish Inquisitions would start in just a couple hundred years.  So Aquinas lived in a time when the Catholic “convert or die” strategy was in full swing, not winding down, but ramping up.  So yeah, everyone he knew probably gave all things “good” the name God.

Today there’s a different reason for saying something like this.  It is actually psychological a trick.  I actually once had a theist end his “first cause” argument with, “You might call it the big bang”.  This is an attempt to shut down dissent before it can be voiced.  Big bang theory and the concept of a deity have nothing in common.  The big bang is not an intelligent entity.  It’s not a “thing” at all.  It was an event.  It has nothing whatsoever in common with a physical creator.  EVEN IF you were to prove every previous point it STILL does not prove the necessity of any deity.  It is essentially saying, “We don’t know for sure, therefore God.”  Ending with “we call this God”, today, at least, is a slimy way of saying, “You really believe in my God, you just call it by a different name, so you can just go ahead and accept that I’m right”.