We discuss the Fifth Way of proving God's existence, from St Thomas Aquinas. We see a certain order in the natural world, in which even irrational things seem to act for an end. God' must be the divine governor who orders all these things.
We explain how St Thomas' argument is different from the modern intelligent design theory and, even though St Thomas' way is more difficult to fully grasp and takes more reflection to understand than modern intelligent design theory, why St Thomas' proof from order is significantly more convincing and much more difficult to disprove. Specifically, we show that modern recourse to Darwin, evolution, natural selection or big bang really does not in any way hurt St Thomas' argument (even though, some would argue, these scientific theories could undermine aspects of the modern intelligent design theory).
Listen online [here]!
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High School Youth Group – Fall 2020 – The Catholic
Response to Atheism
November 15th - Session 4 – Proofs of God’s Existence, From Order
“The fool hath said in his heart: There is no
God.” -Psalm 13:1
I. Review of last class (November
1st – Why Do Atheists Reject God’s Existence)
A. Calendar: November 29th, No Class, Thanksgiving
break; December 20th, Last Class of Fall, resuming January 10th
and continuing until May 2nd.
B. God is the uncaused cause – he didn’t “create” himself, but
exists necessarily
C. Proof from “contingency”
1. The universe exists but didn’t have to exist, something
must cause it to exist.
2. This isn’t a proof from a beginning in time, but of a first
cause here and now
II. The Fifth Way: From the Governance of the
World, From Order
A. St Thomas Aquinas: “The fifth
way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack
intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from
their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the
best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they
achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end,
unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as
the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being
exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we
call God.”
B. Even irrational
animals/plants/things in the universe “act for an end,” they have a specific
goal for which they strive. A silly
example: Acorns generally develop into oak trees, but never sea lions.
C. The difference between
external finality and internal finality:
Men take wheat and make it into bread, but this doesn’t mean that wheat
is ordered to becoming flour. Wheat
doesn’t grow so as to become bread, but man makes bread because there is such a
thing as wheat. However, consider the
wings of a bird which are clearly formed so that the bird might fly. It is not
rational to think that a bird flies because it happens to have wings, clearly
the bird has wings that it might fly (penguins and ostriches not withstanding). It is this internal finality of irrational
creatures that seems to indicate an intelligent divine governor who orders all
things.
(this is where Thomas’ proof
differs from modern intelligent design theory – a watch/clock is more like
wheat becoming bread, than wings allowing flight)
D. The type of order and
governance about which St Thomas is speaking cannot be accounted for by appeal
to evolution or natural selection. We are not saying that the complexity of the
universe requires a creator, or even that the existence of life or higher forms
of life requires a creator – rather, even the most simple marks of order
indicate a divine governor. Even if
natural selection and evolution could explain how the ear developed, there is
still the question of why certain animals have ears – and the obvious
answer is “to hear” (not simply, “because of genetic mutations over many
thousands of years, etc”). Why does an acorn develop into an oak?
Because acorns are meant to become oak trees.
The Fifth Way of St Thomas
answers a philosophical question which science cannot possibly answer.
The order of the universe cannot
be explained simply by appeal to natural laws, because we further ask why there
are such laws among irrational creatures! Only God could govern and establish
these laws.
III. The Argument for an Intelligent Designer
A. Another Divine Watchmaker:
“In crossing a heath, suppose I
pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there;
I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain
there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this
answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be
inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of
the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have
always been there. ... There must have existed, at some time, and at some place
or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose
which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and
designed its use. ... Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of
design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the
difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a
degree which exceeds all computation.”
— William
Paley, Natural Theology (1802)
B. Darwin’s Response:
“Although I did not think much
about the existence of a personal God until a considerably later period of my
life, I will here give the vague conclusions to which I have been driven. The
old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to
me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered.
We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve
shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by
man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and
in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.
Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.”
— Charles
Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882.
C. The Junkyard Tornado:
According to scientific analysis,
the probability of cellular life's arising from non-living matter is about
one-in-1040,000.Therefore: The chance that higher life forms might have emerged
in this way is comparable to the chance that a tornado sweeping through a
junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.
Another version of the argument:
The probability of all the
factors necessarily for life to emerge is so low, that it would be more likely
for monkeys hitting keys of a typewriter to produce the complete works of Shakespeare
randomly.
D. While the modern intelligent
design argument has some points in its favor (most notably, that it is easier
for the modern person to grasp and has a certain immediately compelling
appeal), it is not as strong a philosophical proof as St Thomas’ fifth
way. The Intelligent design theory
argues based on probability rather than on more fundamental
philosophical principles. Further, the intelligent design theory may fall more
easily to the “God of the gaps” objections presented by modern scientific
theories like the big bang and evolution.
