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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Man has the urge to thrust against the limits of language. Think for instance about one's astonishment that anything exists. This astonishment cannot be expressed in the form of a question and there is no answer to it. Anything we can say must, a priori, be nonsense. (Wittgenstein)
page 347 note 1 Aquinas, Thomas, On Being and Essence, trans. Maurer, Armand (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1949), p. 25.Google Scholar Hereafter ‘a’.
page 347 note 2 Penelhum, Terence, Religion and Rationality (New York: Random House, 1971), p. 37.Google Scholar Hereafter ‘b’. Penelhum's views in this connection were originally presented in his ‘Divine Necessity’, Mind, 69 (1960), 175–86.Google Scholar Our references will be to the reprint of this article in The Philosophy of Religion, ed. Mitchell, Basil (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 179–90.Google Scholar Hereafter ‘c’.
page 347 note 3 Kenny, Anthony, The Five Ways (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), p. 95.Google Scholar Hereafter ‘d’.
page 348 note 1 Penelhum's or other quoted author's emphasis, unless otherwise indicated.
page 348 note 2 This stage of Penelhum's argument will be developed in more detail in the course of our analysis of it in section III (2).
page 349 note 1 Perhaps Penelhum's contention here is that the notion of a being whose essence is identical with its existence involves an arbitrary abandonment at the conclusion of the argument of the universality of a distinction upon which the argument depends. Other remarks Penelhum makes about the Thomistic problematic (b, p. 69) convey the impression of another contention: the positing of the Thomistic God negates the description Aquinas has previously given of the things in the world, as it implies a pantheism.
page 349 note 2 We will examine one of Kenny's arguments for this equivalence in section IV (I).
page 351 note 1 This Way will not be discussed during the remainder of the paper. See c, p. 181.
page 351 note 2 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. I, art. 3, c. Hereafter ‘e’.
page 352 note 1 See Brown, Paterson, ‘St. Thomas' Doctrine of Necessary Being’, The Philosophical Review, 73 (1964), 86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Reprinted in Aquinas, ed. Kenny, Anthony (Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1969), pp. 157–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 352 note 2 It must be noted that even Penelhum's traditional readings do not justify an Existential starting point for the Third Way.
page 352 note 3 Owens, Joseph in ‘Aquinas and The Five Ways’, The Monist, 58 (1974), 16–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that all the Five Ways are existential and are developed in the framework of On Being and Essence. We agree in that the Five Ways do acknowledge in their beginnings the existence of the features they question, but it must be stressed that their question is not about the existence of these features, but about the features themselves. Thus The Five Ways ask why are beings in motion, efficient causes, generated and corrupted, etc., while the Existential query is, ‘Why do beings exist?’
page 352 note 4 Quoted from Mascall, E. L., Existence and Analogy (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1949), p. 71Google Scholar; emphasis mine.
page 354 note 1 See Mill, J. S., A System of Logic, eighth edition (London: Longman, Green and Co., 1965), I, iii, 2 (p. 30)Google Scholar, where he speaks of the search for ‘a name which shall be capable of denoting whatever exists, as contradistinguished from non-entity or Nothing’.
page 354 note 2 ibid. I, iii, 3 (p. 33).
page 354 note 3 I here attribute to Aristotelianism aspects of a view developed by Peter Geach in ‘Russell's Theory of Description’, Analysis, 10 (1950), 84–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 354 note 4 Aristotle, , Metaphysics, 1027b17–1028a6.Google Scholar See also Aquinas, , In VI Meta., I. 4, nn. 1223–1244.Google Scholar
page 354 note 5 Venn, John in The Principles of Empirical or Inductive Logic (London and New York: Macmillan, 1889), p. 279Google Scholar, quotes Sanderson's statement of what was excluded from the ten Aristotelian categories: ‘Complexum, Consignificans, Privatio, Fictum, Pars, Deus, Aequivocum, Transcendens, Ens Rationis, sunt exclusa decem classibus ista novem.’
page 355 note 1 To express in a rough way Aquinas' recognition of the possible existence of separate intelligences.
page 355 note 2 See a, ch. i, p. 27; where Aquinas says that essence is that by which something is placed in the ten categories.
page 355 note 3 For a discussion of matter in this connection see Nielsen, H., ‘The Referent of “Primary Matter”’ in The Concept of Matter in Greek and Medieval Philosophy, ed. McMullin, Ernan (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1965), pp. 248–56, espo p. 254.Google Scholar (It should be remembered that matter is not recognized as a universally necessary condition by Aquinas.)
page 355 note 4 Helpful in this connection are Burell's, DavidAnalogy and Philosophical Language (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1973), pp. 146–7Google Scholar, and Clarke's, W. Norris ‘A Curious Blindspot in the Anglo-American Tradition of Anti-Theistic Argument’, The Monist, 54 (1970), 199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 356 note 1 We are prescinding throughout this discussion from the separate issues surrounding the problem of a fallacy of composition and the viability of the principle of sufficient reason itself.
page 357 note 1 In I Phys., 1. 2, nn. 15–19.
page 357 note 2 See the New York Times, 29 Dec., 1973, p. 7, for a reprint of ‘Credo: Semi-Precious Stones do not Exist’, a fine example of how ‘exist’, used as a predicate in an ‘everyday’ context, emerges as an aid for determining the referential range of a name. For example: ‘The time has come for the diamond, ruby, sapphire and emerald to share the word “precious” with other stones. For in the world of gems, a stone is either precious, or it is not precious. Semi-precious stones do not exist!’
For detailed evidence that Aquinas' attitude to some uses of ‘God exists’ was linguistic, see Velecky, Lubor, ‘“The Five Ways” – Proofs of God's Existence?,’ The Monist, 58 (1974), 37–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 358 note 1 We shall examine this in more detail in section IV.
page 358 note 2 This we take as the import of Aristotle's contention in Metaphysics VII–IX that form is the cause of substance, and that form is act. His description of the First Mover as actuality in XII points up the same attitude toward extrinsic explanations.
page 360 note 1 We thus find ourselves quite perplexed by John P. Doyle's remarks: ‘So when we say that God is perfect, or good, infinite, omnipotent, eternal, supremely one, etc., our deepest reason for such sayings and our deepest understanding of their meaning both lie in the knowledge which is achieved through the notion corresponding to Ipsum Esse. God is ultimately this or that because He is Ipsum Esse. (Indeed, at this point in Thomistic Natural Theology we have a kind of secondary propter quid knowledge of God – second, that is, to the primary knowledge which we have of Ipsum Esse by demonstration quia.)’ See ‘Ipsum Esse as God Surrogate…’, The Modern Schoolman, 50 (1973), 293–5.Google Scholar
page 360 note 2 Perhaps Aquinas would show some sympathy to describing simplicity as a metaphysical attribute, and appreciate plaint, William James', “Pray, what specific act can I perform in order to adapt myself the better to God's simplicity?’ See The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Mentor, 1964), pp. 339–40.Google Scholar If the divine simplicity is seen as a key to the possibility of a free creation, it can be recognized as that attribute which simultaneously brings metaphysical inquiry to a close while opening up a new logos.
page 363 note 1 These remarks should not be understood as retracting ideas put forth in section III about ‘God exists’. In this context we are putting in propositional form the pure verb conclusion, ‘Esse’, of the Existential argument.
page 363 note 2 Cited by Munitz, Milton K., The Mystery of Existence (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1965), p. 94.Google Scholar
page 363 note 3 See In I De Int., 1. 5, nn. 20–22, also In II, ibid., I. 2, nn. 1–4.