The Fifth of the Five Ways

[GrandizerII]

But to get the actual meanings, the best way to do so is to jump on Google and do a relevant search there. Better than making such a hasty interpretation and then responding accordingly.

If you have something to say, say it. If you think that I am wrong be specific. Don't be passive-aggressive.

Because I don't have time to make lengthy posts to explain what per se and per accidens mean in this context. Plus, I'm not the right person to consult about this anyway since I haven't devoted much time to studying Thomistic theology and only have a minimal understanding of it. Which is why I suggested googling these terms.

But since you want me to say something more specific, then your error (I suspect) is in thinking per accidens means "by accident" in the sense that we tend to think of. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but you were thinking "random" and you contrast this with natural selection. Whereas the actual meaning is something like "non-essential". So in this context, evolution is not considered by this Thomist to be an essential cause of "the origin of species".

Interestingly enough, natural selection would be considered a confirmation (not a rebuttal) of the Fifth Way according to modern Thomists since it is directed towards an end.

If you want more information, please google or ask Neo or something. I just don't have enough time to post much here. Sorry.

[Fake Messiah]

So in this context, evolution is not considered by this Thomist to be an essential cause of "the origin of species".

Interestingly enough, natural selection would be considered a confirmation (not a rebuttal) of the Fifth Way according to modern Thomists since it is directed towards an end.

If you want more information, please google

For starters, if evolution is so in tune with Thomistic theology then why has not the Catholic Church acknowledged evolution? At "best" the Catholic Church holds no official position on the theory of creation or evolution.

And when it comes to the research you insist I do on google to see how evolution is so in tune with Thomistic theology, then here is a book for you by Dominican Thomist Father Michael Chaberek 

"Aquinas and Evolution: Why St. Thomas' Teaching on the Origins is Incompatible with Evolutionary Theory"

https://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Evolution...099198806X

"Dominican Thomist Father Michael Chaberek explores the areas in which Aquinas’ philosophy seems inconsistent with the theory of evolution, exposing philosophical fault lines in current evolutionary theory. Father Chaberek, the author of Catholicism and Evolution and a contributor to More Than Myth?: Seeking the Full Truth about Genesis, Creation and Evolution, takes on this sacred cow of modern science with clarity, objectivity and intelligence."

[Anomalocaris]

why would it be worth anyone’s time at all to even check for compatibility between the renting of an theologian from a superstitious age and the actual material discovery made in the millennium since?

if it is not compatible, it is no surprise.   he could have had no clue what his “theology” in its fabrication, needed to appear to be compatible with.    it is not clear if he even thought make belief certainties of theology needed to worry about conflict with ascertainable,  if as yet un-ascertained, reality.    it would be no surprise if he didn’t believe what had not yet been ascertained by those who came before can in principle be ascertained by those who came after.  

if it is compatible, so what, he could not have known, and merely got lucky.    A million cavemen navel gazing is bound to lead to some utterances that seems compatible with some particular discovery made millennia later.

Work in the capacity of theologian is by definition not a step on the way to greater material knowledge but a an overreaching step in an orthogonal direction that largely live in fear that further material would cause its own overreach to be found out.

[Neo-Scholastic]

It looks as though the guy you were talking to understood it better than you. If you ask him he may be willing to explain it to you.

He may have understood the Fifth Way but he didn't understand evolution since he claims that evolution is caused by accidents and LG tried to explain that it is not accidents but natural selection.

Boru was correct. In Scholaticism, an "accident" is a unessential feature, kind of like the cars do not have to be any particular color.

[Neo-Scholastic]

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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.

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But I don't know how anyone can read that passage and not infer that Aquinas was positing that the universe was intelligently designed...

Boru

Thomas would have considered creation designed on a cosmic scale, sure. And that would mean that he considered physical reality a product of intelligence. But the text of the 5W doesn't commit him to any particular theory of natural science, biological or otherwise. As to whether Thomism is compatible with evolution by natural selection, I see no obvious conflict. I used to have a good academic paper on the subject, but cannot seem to locate it at the moment.

[Fake Messiah]

He may have understood the Fifth Way but he didn't understand evolution since he claims that evolution is caused by accidents and LG tried to explain that it is not accidents but natural selection.

Boru was correct. In Scholaticism, an "accident" is a unessential feature, kind of like the cars do not have to be any particular color.

When did Boru say that?

[Belacqua]

Boru was correct. In Scholaticism, an "accident" is a unessential feature, kind of like the cars do not have to be any particular color.

When did Boru say that?

I don't think it was Boru who said that. It looks as though it was Grandizer.

Essential qualities are those which must be present for a thing to be what it is. Accidental qualities are things that may or may not be present, but don't change what the thing is.

So if we consider the case of a particular human being, for example Yo Yo Ma, the ability to play the cello is, in the Aristotelian sense, accidental. Obviously it's not an accident, in the modern English sense of the term, because Yo Yo Ma worked hard to learn it. But he would still be human with or without the ability. 

The ability to play the cello, though it's not acquired accidentally, is not an essential quality of being human. Therefore in Aristotelian terms, it is an accidental quality.

Likewise if someone has a tan, that is an accidental quality. Because when he gets pale again he's still human.

I often use T-shirts as an example of per accidens and per se. It's pretty easy to define what qualities must be present for a thing to be a T-shirt: a hole for your head, two sleeves, made of wearable material, etc. The accidental qualities are the things that may vary, while the thing is still a T-shirt: the color, the name of the band that's on the front, etc.

[Belacqua]

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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.

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But I don't know how anyone can read that passage and not infer that Aquinas was positing that the universe was intelligently designed...

Boru

Thomas would have considered creation designed on a cosmic scale, sure. And that would mean that he considered physical reality a product of intelligence. But the text of the 5W doesn't commit him to any particular theory of natural science, biological or otherwise. As to whether Thomism is compatible with evolution by natural selection, I see no obvious conflict. I used to have a good academic paper on the subject, but cannot seem to locate it at the moment.

As I understand it, the Fifth Way includes things like the laws of nature -- physics and chemistry -- for which talk of natural selection is irrelevant. 

But natural selection among living things is compatible with it.

[Belacqua]

from Wikipedia:

It must be emphasized that this argument is distinct from the design argument associated with William Paley and the Intelligent Design movement. The latter implicitly argue that objects in the world do not have inherent dispositions or ends, but, like Paley's watch, will not naturally have a purpose unless forced to do some outside agency.[24] The latter also focus on complexity and interworking parts as the effect needing explanation, whereas the Fifth Way takes as its starting point any regularity.[24] (E.g., [the Intelligent Design movement argues] that an eye has a complicated function therefore a design therefore a designer) but [Aquinas instead makes] an argument from final cause (e.g., that the pattern that things exist with a purpose itself allows us to recursively arrive at God as the ultimate source of purpose without being constrained by any external purpose).

the bolded parts I added for clarity

This part is good, too:

Proofs or Ways?

Many scholars and commenters caution against treating the Five Ways as if they were modern logical proofs. This is not to say that examining them in that light is not academically interesting.

Reasons include:

Purpose: The purpose of the Summa theologica "is to help Dominicans not enrolled in the university prepare for their priestly duties of preaching and hearing confessions"[25] by systematizing Catholic truth utilizing mainly Aristotelean tools.

Precis: Aquinas subsequently revisited the various arguments of the Five Ways in much greater detail. The simple list in the Summa theologica is not written to be clear (to a 21st-century reader) and complete, and should be considered a sketch or summary of the idea, suitable for presentation in a lecture or a quick browse.

Via negativa: Aquinas held that "we are unable to apprehend (the Divine substance) by knowing what it is. Yet we are able to have some knowledge of it by knowing what it is not." (SCG I.14) Consequently, to understand the Five Ways as Aquinas understood them we must interpret them as negative theology listing what God is not (i.e. not a moved mover, not a caused causer, etc.). It invites logical fallacy to use the statements as positive definitions rather than negative exclusions.[26]

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

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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.

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But I don't know how anyone can read that passage and not infer that Aquinas was positing that the universe was intelligently designed...

Boru

Thomas would have considered creation designed on a cosmic scale, sure. And that would mean that he considered physical reality a product of intelligence. But the text of the 5W doesn't commit him to any particular theory of natural science, biological or otherwise. As to whether Thomism is compatible with evolution by natural selection, I see no obvious conflict. I used to have a good academic paper on the subject, but cannot seem to locate it at the moment.

Huh. I thought I just went to great pains to point out that Aquinas was not refuting natural selection, or making any statement whatsoever about biological processes.

Boru