Becoming an angry atheist

[Mudhammam]

Aquinas does not use the fifth way to explain high order levels of order, i.e. apparent design. The 5th way grounds Aristotelian final causes, at all levels of reality, in intelligent agency. Complex intentionality is possible at the higher degrees of reality precisely because it is already present more fundamentally. The common experience to be explained is why changes occur in particular ways and not in randomly.

When I read the argument I did not see it demonstrate this, but rather instead assumed it must be so.

Now, the regularity of nature is either a contingent or necessary fact. If it is necessary then no further explanation is required. If it is a contingent must be explained by that which is necessary or a series of contingencies that lead back to a necessity. Since knowledge based on induction is by its nature contingent, it is proper to seek that which makes our world intelligible.

We cannot know one way or another. Necessity and contingency ceases to have meaning at the point space, time, and matter can no longer be spoken of in an intelligible manner.

Anyone can see from common experience (induction) that reality holds together in an intelligible way. When people take this induced knowledge for granted they quickly fall into the absurdity trap of occasionalism when they try to defend it. Even most occasionalists still tacitly believe that something holds causality together, even if they think that something itself remains unintelligible. Those, like me, who believe the universe is actually intelligible, say that something necessary serves as the ground for the regularities of efficient cause. Either way, occationalist or otherwise, there must be something. All that remains is to give that something a name. Hmmm…

God typically entails more significance than a mere name.