The Fifth of the Five Ways

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Of COURSE the Fifth Way is an intelligent design argument. Instead of Feser, try reading Aquinas - he said it was an intelligent design argument.



(the refutation of the Fifth Way is painfully simple, but beyond the scope of this thread)

Boru

Hmmm...when I read the 5W it seems much more to me about physical dispositions and the regularity of natural processes. Glass is disposed to shatter, as opposed to bounce. Wax melts in heat, as opposed to exploding. IMHO the 5W is a refutation of an arbitrary and absurd reality. Instead, we live in an appartly rationally ordered world. God is the the order but the seemingly cause of this order. Aquinas is setting up God to become the onltologically transcendent object of the scientific method. Brilliant really. Are you sure you're not reading "Origin of Species" back into where it never really was? If so, your painfully simple refuation may or may not apply.

The 'Origin of Species' was about biological evolution - I'm not proposing that Aquinas was attempting to refute a theory which did not exist in his lifetime.

But I don't know how anyone can read that passage and not infer that Aquinas was positing that the universe was intelligently designed. FWIW, I suspect that Aquinas would have been an ardent supporter of descent with modification and natural selection had he known about them. I can easily imagine him attributing them as even more evidence of the glory and majesty of God.

Boru