The Fourth Way of Aquinas

The creation of existence and the universe out of nothingness is the most powerful and fascinating transformation that has ever occurred. Because the universe is a mysterious place replete with amazing features, many thinkers have contemplated the universe, whether a divine force is responsible for the creation, and what the characteristics of that divine force might include. Saint Thomas Aquinas proposed five arguments that employed logical reasoning to prove the existence of god. In the fourth way to prove God exists, Aquinas is correct as he explains that the incremental gradation of species and the systematic progression of degrees of being indicate that an ultimate being must exist in the form of God.

Thomas Aquinas was born in 1225 in the Kingdom of Sicily. His life developed at a pivotal moment in which the general ignorance and lack of knowledge that dominated the dark ages were subsiding while the new values of knowledge and thought that defined the renaissance period were emerging. Thus, universities were just beginning to spawn, and Aquinas acquired advanced knowledge and developed exceptional thinking skills by studying at Montecassino, the University of Naples and the University of Paris (McInerny). During his studies, Aquinas also joined the Dominican Order, learned from the revived teachings of Aristotle, and thrived as a Christian theologian.

The prolific achievements of Aquinas included both philosophical works and theological works. Aquinas was a revered theologian in that he believed in the reality of the Christian concept of God and produced works to help interpret the Bible as a literal and divine text. However, to accept his biblical interpretations as truth, one must first accept the concept of revelations, believe the doctrine of Christianity is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and maintain that the words of the bible reflect the desires of god. This is problematic because millions of different concepts of Gods have been established by different cultures, and many people cannot subscribe to the notion of the Christian concept of God being the exclusively correct concept. In contrast, the philosophical ideas of Aquinas involved speculations about nature and science, the universe, our species and the world in which we live (McInerny). Thus, his philosophical works differed from the theological interpretations because his philosophical works related to universal concepts that are accessible and applicable to all humans, and thus we can relate to the philosophical material and accept the truths without needing to accept the doctrine of any particular religion nor interpret a religious text as literal.

Aquinas’ five ways to prove the existence of God arguments are philosophical, for the arguments refrain from focusing exclusively on the Catholic doctrine or the Christian concept of God, and instead refer to God as the general and mysterious creator of our universe and everything that exists in the universe. Additionally, the five ways reflect Aquinas as an intelligent thinker applying logical reasoning skills to elaborate on the patterns of the universe and to demonstrate how a superior force had to be responsible for creating the universe. Aquinas also consistently emphasizes the pattern of cause and effect throughout his five arguments, for the reality of cause and effect has a dominant influence over the developments of the universe and can also be used to logically demonstrate that a God must exist.

The first way to prove the existence of God involves the argument of motion. According to Aquinas, any object in motion was sent into motion by another force that stimulated the sudden movement. Because in our world nothing can be moved without a mover, you can trace every movement of the creation to previous movers until you reach the first act of creation, which is the prime mover. Thus, some force had to be responsible for generating the first motions of the universe, and every other motion has been a byproduct of that first original prime mover. The second way is an argument from efficient cause. Every action and development that occurs in the universe has a corresponding cause, the laws of nature determine which causes result in which effects, and all effects that exist are generated by a series of causes that inevitably trace back to the first actions of the universe. Thus, because every effect has a cause, the ultimate transformation of a universe being created from nothingness also must have a cause, and this first cause is God. The third way to prove the existence of God involves an argument by necessity, as Aquinas explains that things only come into existence when a force that already existed causes the given object to exist. Just so, because there was nothingness and then existence spawned, something had to already exist and then cause the universe to also exist.

The fourth argument that Aquinas proposes to prove the existence of God is an argument from the gradation of all things. The argument asserts that things have properties that are greater or less than others, all degrees of properties seem to progress up a chain towards a maximum level, and every degree is seen as more or less good depending on how close it is to the maximum level. For instance, we call an animal large or small depending on how its size compares to the largest animals we know of, such as elephants, giraffes or whales. As a result, insects and squirrels are referred to as relatively small animals. Just so, beings are referred to as more or less advanced depending on how they compare to the maximum degree of advanced being. In the chain of being, the degree of evolution and the level of advanced features that species possess ascend by gradual increments up the chain, and an ultimate entity must represent the maximum actuality of advancement and must be the source of all being. In turn, this superior being and source of all other beings is God.

The fourth argument of Aquinas follows a sound and compelling line of reasoning that can be analyzed to demonstrate the validity of the argument and the legitimacy of the claim. Among the many objects and species that exist, humans can observe that different things often possess properties that differ in degrees and that are more or less advanced. Just as different objects are more large, more hot, more fast or more round than others, certain species are also more or less advanced than others. The planet demonstrates its power with the sheer ability to create life, and then these powers of creation are magnified by the incredible abundance of living creatures that reside on the planet, the amazingly diverse range of different creatures that the planet can produce, and the unique features and impressive qualities that all creatures possess. However, every species possesses different features that allow the species to most effectively survive and perpetuate its existence in the very destructive world, and different types of beings tend to possess different degrees of advancement. In turn, we can observe and trace a gradually ascending progression on the chain of being from the simplest species with basic features up to the most superior species with advanced features. Additionally, there are a great multitude of different beings with different degrees of advancement between the lowest species and the highest species.

Furthermore, the countless gradations and incremental progressions on the chain of beings enable some of the gradations to be so slight as to be almost imperceptible. The different degrees and gradations that separate beings are so nearly aligned that the highest level of advancement among the member of one species is nearly identical to the lowest level of advancement among a member of the next species. For instance, the scientific community has established that chimpanzees are the closest relatives to humans, have DNA that is 99.5 percent identical to human DNA, and that the impressive intelligence and evolutionary development of a Chimpanzee are nearly equal to the intelligence of a human child. Thus, there is a vast multitude of different species, the degrees of advanced features on the chain of being progress by very gradual increments up the entire chain, and there is an abundance of different degrees that progress so smoothly up the chain that the distinctions can be almost unperceivable.

Although humans seem to represent the superior species on the planet because our advanced thinking skills have enabled us to dominate almost every piece of land on the globe, humans cannot represent the actuality of a perfect being because we are constantly challenged by flaws, imperfections, defects, limitations and weaknesses. Thus, the flaws and weaknesses of the human species indicate that there is the realistic possibility for beings to exist that are far more advanced than us and far closer to a perfect being than we are. It also follows that the degree of beings superior to us would continue to progress incrementally until the chain finally reached perfection in the form of an entity that represents the maximum powers and full actuality of being, and this superior entity is God. Additionally, because there is a multitude of inferior degrees below us on the chain of being, and because we are so far from perfection, it is also logical to assert that there is a vast multitude of degrees above us on the chain of being, and the degrees would continue to progress until reaching the ultimately perfect being of God. As a result, the fourth argument of Aquinas depicts the Aristotelian concept of God as a pure form of perfect actuality.

Many opposing arguments have been proposed to criticize the fourth way in which Aquinas proves the existence of god. A common objection is that even if the degree of beings leads to a supreme creature, that alone does not mean that the supreme being is necessarily God, the creator of the universe and the source of every other being. However, a supreme being would be the only entity capable of creating the universe, establishing the laws that govern our universe, and begetting all other beings that exist (Oohlah). Thus, the absolute supreme being that demonstrates the full actuality of creative and intellectual powers must be the same being that created the universe and every species.

Another focus of many opposing arguments is that the supreme being is not necessarily the source of every other species. However, an important quality that makes something a supreme being is that it has the power to create every other being. Using the sun as an analogy for a supreme being on the chain helps demonstrate how such a supreme entity would be at once the actualized form and the source of every other degree on the chain. All heat in our solar system is initially generated from our sun, and although an object that is far away from our sun experiences extremely cold temperatures, as the object approaches closer and closer to the sun it reaches hotter and hotter temperatures by gradual increments until it eventually reaches the sun, which is the highest possible temperature in the solar system. Thus, the sun is the embodiment of maximum heat within our solar system, the representation of heat’s full actuality, and the source of all heat among all objects in the solar system. Just as the scale of temperatures can rise from absolute zero all the way to the blazingly hot maximum temperature of a star, it is reasonable to also conclude that the scale of beings rises incrementally until it finally reaches an entity that is both the fulfilled actuality of being and the source of all beings. Thus, because the sun represents both the maximum actuality of heat and the source of all heat, there must be a being that represents the full actuality of being and that serves as the source of all being.

The universe is an enormous creation replete with an abundance of mysterious features. As a result, the modern scientific community has achieved many exceptional accomplishments to ascertain knowledge about the world, to discover the many features of the universe, and to help us understand how this world operates. However, Aquinas performed the remarkable feat of helping to elaborate on the operations of the universe at a time when scientific discoveries and advanced technological resources had not yet been realized and at a time when our species was ignorant regarding scientific facts of the world. Saint Thomas Aquinas had a significant influence on the impending scientific revolutions of the succeeding generations by encouraging people to exercise logic and sound reasoning when developing arguments about the world, as later scientists would combine intellectual reasoning with technological resources to help improve our understanding of the universe. The fourth way of Aquinas is a sound argument based on logical reasoning and the cause and effect nature of the universe, for the fact that the degrees of being rise gradually up to humans indicates that there is also a multitude of possible beings above us, and naturally the degrees would continue to ascend up the chain until reaching the full actuality of being, the divine creator of the universe, and the source of all beings that exist in the universe.

Works Cited

McInerny, Ralph. "Saint Thomas Aquinas." Stanford University. 12 July 1999. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas/#LifeWork.

Oohlah. "Aquinas's Fourth Way." Praeter Necessitatem. 4 Feb. 2007. http://oohlah.wordpress.com/2007/02/04/aquinass-fourth-way/.