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Aquinas’ Fifth Way
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
Aquinas’ fifth way for demonstrating the existence of God shows a confidence in its argument that is not generally shared by the contemporary reader. Natural entities that lack awareness (or perhaps self-awareness) act in an end-directed manner; this implies a fundamental relation to goals they do not consciously choose; this in turn points to the existence of a governing mind. The article tries to make sense of this argument against the background of philosophical naturalism that is assumed by much contemporary thought. It addresses the question of what kinds of end-directed activity fall under the scope of the argument, and why Aquinas thinks that these imply a governing mind. The article notes the unusual structure of the argument, suggesting that it should be understood (as should all of the five ways) as an attempt to wake the reader up to something so fundamental that it is usually overlooked. The main difficulty for the contemporary reader is to recover an Aristotelian sense of what it means for something to exist. If readers can achieve this, they may come to appreciate why an argument that seems enormously controversial in the present day seemed reasonably obvious to Aquinas.
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References
1 “But God, Who is at the summit of perfection, does not agree with any other being, not only in species but not even in genus, nor in any other universal predicate.” De Spirit. Creat. VIII. Aquinas, Thomas, On Spiritual Creatures, trans. FitzPatrick, Mary C. in collaboration with Wellmuth, John J. (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1949), 92Google Scholar.
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