Dawkins - Peerless Stinker

Dawkins

From time time to time this blog degenerates into a samey mix of horses, guns, space creatures and cheap jibes against the fast disappearing ACoC (Anglican Church of Canada) and its larger sister TEC (The Episcopal Church). To say nothing of the all too easy game of awarding "alien heads" to offending ecclesiastics.

So here's some philosophy to even things out; it's a reflection on Dawkins' take on Aquinas' 4th Way and you'll have to forgive the length but I like the argument.

First, the 4th Way itself, from the Summa:

Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But 'more' and 'less' are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being [i.e. maximally ontologically secure]; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in [Aristotle's] Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.

Dawkins doesn't like this at all and decides to sneer:

"That's an argument? You might as well say, people vary in smelliness but we can make the comparison only by reference to a perfect maximum of conceivable smelliness. Therefore there must exist a pre-eminently peerless stinker, and we call him God."

But Aquinas is dealing with properties that have an intrinsic and logical, as opposed to de facto, maximum. Eric Mascall explains:

"Goodness, so the argument claims, demands as its cause a God who is good; while heat, though it necessarily demands a God whose knowledge of possible being includes an idea of heat, does not demand a God who is hot as its cause, but only a God who can create."

Peter Williams sums up:

"In modern philosophical terminology, Aquinas is arguing along the following lines:

1. Things exist in the world around us that exhibit finite degrees of great-making properties (e.g. being, goodness, truth, beauty)

2. The existence of something exhibiting a great-making property to a finite degree implies the existence of something that possesses the property in question to a maximal degree

3. Therefore, all great making properties possessed in finite degree by beings in the world around us, including being, are possessed to a maximal degree by something

4. An effect cannot exceed the greatness of its cause

5. Therefore, there exists a maximally ontologically secure being that possess every great-making property possessed by its effects to a maximal degree; and this we call God.

It should at least be clear that Aquinas' argument is logically valid and consequently that this line of thought cannot be dismissed with a jeering reference to smelly people, which is all Dawkins does."

Well said, Peter Williams.

This site supports Aquinas -- not that he needs it.

Cheers,

LSP

Don't Be Shallow, Read Aquinas.

Dawkins

I know this blog's been a frivolous mix of aliens, guns, boots and horses recently, so here's a bit on St. Thomas Aquinas to even things out. It's from the Chicago Daily Observer and argues against the widespread notion that God is a superstitious idea that's been explained away by 'science'. I've never understood how physics, chemistry and assorted technics could disprove a necessary being, and it seems strange to me that Dawkins & Co. would get so worked up about something they see as so absurd. Surely they're not threatened in any way? Regardless, I think Fr. Barron's take on Thomas is good:

"Secondly, Thomas knew that the Creator God of the Bible is the only finally satisfying explanation for the existence of the contingent things of the world. He was deeply impressed by the actual existence of those things that do not contain within themselves the reason for their being. Clouds, trees, plants, animals, human beings, buildings, planets, and stars certainly exist, but they don’t have to exist. This means, he saw, that their being is not self-explanatory, that it depends, finally, on some primordial reality which does exist through the power of its own essence. This “necessary” being is what Thomas called “God.” He was moved by the correspondence between this philosophical sense of God and the self-designation that God gives in Exodus 3:14: “I am who I am.” How significant this is in our time when “new” atheists have raised their voices to dismiss belief in God as a holdover from a pre-scientific time. Thomas would remind the Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins of the world that no scientific advance could ever, even in principle, eliminate the properly metaphysical question to which God is the only satisfying answer. God is not a superstitious projection of human need; rather, God is the reason why there is something rather than nothing.

Thirdly, Thomas Aquinas was a deep humanist, precisely because he was a Christian. He saw that since God became human in Christ, the destiny of the human being is divinization, participation in the inner life of God. No other religion or philosophy or social theory has ever held out so exalted a sense of human dignity and purpose. And this is why, Aquinas intuited, there is something inviolable about the human person. How indispensably important that teaching is in our era of stem-cell research, euthanasia, legalized abortion, and pre-emptive war, practices that turn persons into means." You can read the whole thing here.

"How indispensably important..." well said, Barron.

Just heard that one of my old friends from England has been made a Bishop. Quite remarkable.

God bless,

LSP