A quick summary of Aquinas’s Fifth Way:
“…things that lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting, or nearly always, in the same way…watever lacks knowledge cannot move towards and end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence…therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are ordered to their end.”
Without some background in neo-Scholastic philosophy this can argument seems arcane so, with no small measure of trepidation I have tried to put the argument forward using more modern nomenclature as follows:
Causes are linked to effects by conceptual necessity.
1: Things (composites of material and form) remain as they are and do not change unless an external influence or power within themselves acts, i.e. a cause or reason.
2: The regularity of efficient causation requires that causes be determined to particular effects; such that, when, in the absence of a countervailing influence, cause C is directed to effect E, then C tends to have E as a result.
3: An efficient cause is an actualizing event that tends toward a specific end, that is to say, cause C attains effect E by means of intentionality.
4: Intentionality is characteristic of intelligent agency.
5: Unthinking causes do not have within themselves the power to intend toward regular effects.
6: Therefore, some intelligent agent directs unthinking causes toward their effects.
I think that’s pretty good modern summary, but I’m open to suggestions.
“…things that lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting, or nearly always, in the same way…watever lacks knowledge cannot move towards and end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence…therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are ordered to their end.”
Without some background in neo-Scholastic philosophy this can argument seems arcane so, with no small measure of trepidation I have tried to put the argument forward using more modern nomenclature as follows:
Causes are linked to effects by conceptual necessity.
1: Things (composites of material and form) remain as they are and do not change unless an external influence or power within themselves acts, i.e. a cause or reason.
2: The regularity of efficient causation requires that causes be determined to particular effects; such that, when, in the absence of a countervailing influence, cause C is directed to effect E, then C tends to have E as a result.
3: An efficient cause is an actualizing event that tends toward a specific end, that is to say, cause C attains effect E by means of intentionality.
4: Intentionality is characteristic of intelligent agency.
5: Unthinking causes do not have within themselves the power to intend toward regular effects.
6: Therefore, some intelligent agent directs unthinking causes toward their effects.
I think that’s pretty good modern summary, but I’m open to suggestions.
