Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x5gtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-28T00:10:35.132Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Distinctiveness of St. Thomas' “Third Way”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2010

Lawrence Dewan O.P.
Lawrence Dewan O.P.
Affiliation:
Dominican College of Philosophy and Theology, Ottawa.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the present paper I propose to examine St. Thomas Aquinas' third way of proving the existence of a God (henceforth TW), keeping in view and applying the proposals I have made elsewhere concerning the number andorder of the “Five Ways” and the role therein played by TW. I maintain that the first three ways take as starting-points the three types of act or actuality presented by Aristotle in Metaphysics 9.6: that the first way starts from imperfect actuality (motion), the second from secondary actuality (action or efficiency), and TW from primary actuality (being, or substantial actuality). The idea, of course, of a way of proving the existence of a God is that one proceeds from an effect, itself better known to us than its cause, to a knowledge of the existence of the cause. The problem is to develop a vision of the effect as an effect, i.e., a vision such as to reveal dependence on another, and so lead us in knowledge to the existence of that other.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 1980 , pp. 201 - 218
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

St. Albert the Great, Metaphysica, ed. Geyer, Bernhardus, Müster Westfalen, 1960: Aschendorff (Opera Omnia, ed. Cologne, t. 16/1 and 2).Google Scholar
Arnou, Renatus S.I., De quinque viis sancti Thomae … apudantiquos… praeformatis veladumbratis textus, Rome, 1949: Universitas Gregoriana.Google Scholar
Bobik, Joseph, “Further Reflections on the First Part of the Third Way”, Philosophical Studies 20 (1972), 166–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Composta, Dario S.D.B., “De fontibus Aristotelaeis tertiae viae s. Thomae”, Doctor Communis 19–20 (1966–1967), 116–125.Google Scholar
Connolly, T.K. O.P., “The Basis of the Third Proof for the Existence of God”, The Thomist 17 (1954), 281–349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Koninck, Charles, The Hollow Universe, London, 1960: Oxford U.P.Google Scholar
De Koninck, Charles, “Un paradoxe du devenir par contradiction”, Laval theologique et philosophique 12 (1956), 9–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dewan, Lawrence O.P., “Being per se, Being per accidensand St. Thomas' Metaphysics”. Science et Esprit 30 (1978), 169–184.Google Scholar
Dewan, Lawrence, “The Number and Order of St. Thomas's Five Ways”, Downside Review 92 (1974), 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geach, P.T., “Aquinas”, in G.E.M. Anscombe and P.T. Geach, Three Philosophers, Oxford, 1961: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Geyer, Bernhardus: cf. St. Albert the Great.Google Scholar
Gilson, Etienne. Being and Some Philosophers (2nd ed.), Toronto, 1952: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.Google Scholar
Holstein, Henri S.J., “L'origine artistotelicienne de la ‘tertia via’ de saint Thomas”, Revuephilosphique de Louvain 48 (1950), 354–370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kenny, Anthony, The Five Ways, London, 1969: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Maimonides, Moses, The Guide for the Perplexed, translated from the original Arabic text by Friedlander, M., 2nd revised ed., London, 1904: Routledge (8th impression, 1951).Google Scholar
Owens, Joseph C.Ss.R., “‘Cause of Necessity’ in Aquinas' Tertia Via”, Mediaeval Studies 33 (1971), 21–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plato, , Phaedo (tr. Fowler, H.N.), Cambridge, Mass., 1914: Harvard U.P.(Loeb Classics).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quinn, John M. O.S.A., “The Third Way to God: A New Approach”, The Thomist 42 (1978), 50–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aquinas, St. Thomas, De ente et essentia, in Opera Omnia, t. 43, Rome, 1976: Editori di San Tommaso.Google Scholar
Aquinas, St. Thomas, De veritate, ibid., t. 22 (vol. 3, published in 1976, for qq. 21–29).Google Scholar
Aquinas, St. Thomas, Summa theologiae, 2nd revised ed., Ottawa, 1953: College dominicain.Google Scholar
(For other works of St. Thomas, we have used the manual editions published by Marietti.)Google Scholar
Wadia, Pheroze S., “The Cosmological Argument”, Religious Studies 11 (1975), 411–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisheipl, James A. O.P., Friar Thomas D'Aquino, Garden City, N.Y., 1974: Doubleday.Google Scholar