St. Thomas Aquinas had five proofs for the existence of God (and by God he means a full Judeochristian, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient God). They all reside in his Summa Theologica in the first book if you're interested in reading all of them. Today I will explain the fifth and hopefully refute it as a proof for the full Judeochristian God.
His fifth way is very similar to Intelligent Design but not quite. Rather than saying that everything is so orderly, he instead shows that everything in the universe acts toward an end, i.e., everything in the universe has some sort of purpose that it pursues. For example, trees grow and attempt to populate and eat sunshine, etc., while mushrooms eat dead trees and grow and try to spread their fungus, etc. His argument then proceeds to the point that unintelligent things (such as trees and mushrooms) cannot possibly acts toward an end without being guided by something, for that is the definition of unintelligent things: they have no thoughts to guide them toward a purpose. Thus, Aquinas says, there must be some intelligent being that guides these things toward an end, and this being must be God.
First, I ask this question: what is the definition of a tree? or What does it mean for something to be a tree? This is not it exactly, but something generally along the lines of a plant that grows extremely tall, eats sunshine, attempts to populate, etc. So it is thus in the definition of being a tree that it has an end; if it did not have these ends or purposes, it would not be called a tree. Aquinas argue that is has these ends only if given it by something intelligent, rather than having been created by chance or happenstance. This idea of chance is something he doesn't really ever get into, so I'll just ignore it for now and assume that he's correct that it can only be done by design by an intelligent being.
So now I ask this: Why does this thing, this being that created trees have to be a omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and all loving? To me, it only gives us, if you accept that it was created by design, a being that is more powerful than humans are, a being that can create things on a whim, possibly from nothing. I see no reason to ascribe to this being the attributes of a Judeochristian God, but rather only a god, i.e., a being that is more powerful than humans are. It can certainly be intelligent, if you agree with Aquinas that you need an intelligent designer. However, I simply cannot see how it necessitates a full, Judeochristian concept of God.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Science for the win?
ReplyDeleteMany recent studies, particularly in Japan, have found that rather than an electrical intelligence, plants/fungi/bacteria exhibit a chemical intelligence, but intelligence none the less. A few examples:
1) Roots in plants grow in a wiggling fashion, controlled by a chemical process very near the root tip, as a method of probing the soil for loose patches. When this section is cut off, the root just grows straight with no discerning adjustment to gravity and weak spots in the soil. The root tip also signals the plant of what nutrients it is finding so that the rest of the plant grows accordingly.
2) Gravity in plants is determined by mineral deposits suspended in fluid that sink in the direction of gravity. Wherever these deposits sink to is the direction in which roots grow. This process is paralleled almost perfectly with our inner ears using fluid in 3 axis with sensory cells to determine up and down and other directions.
3) Memory in plants has been studied in vines (the most adaptive with regards to conditions (usually pea plants)). They are tilted on their side (to signal growth at a 90 degree angle to current growth direction) and then semi-frozen to instill a suspended animation. Several hours and even days later, the specimens can be thawed, and triggered to grow under normal conditions, and yet the plants will still grow at a 90 degree angle for some time before readjusting to being upright again. The mechanic of this is unknown, but it certainly would be classified as memory (chemically based or otherwise).
And finally 4)
Plants communicate with others of the same species via pheromones and other air born chemicals. This was demonstrated in Africa, when herds of livestock would be killed outright. One plant would be over foraged, the plant would send out the stress signal, the other plants around would then increase Tannin (a poisonous chemical (tanic acid) to animals) production so that by the time the animals reached these plants, enough tannin had been produced to kill the foraging livestock.
Hopefully, this can help you further refute this concept, as plants and fungi can exhibit both environmental, personal, and social intelligence.
ok so aquinas 5th way dosnt prooves the theistic god. But it Does desmonstrates a existence of some sort of diety (may be many , may be imperfect , may be amoral) . So if u agree with the premises of the aquinas 5th way then u simply cannot remain an atheist and revise ur position to a deist. (Like Anthony flew did). AND THAT would be a Massive concession from u to the theist. By extracting similar concessions from other arguments (e.g first cos should be transendent but needs not be a mind)the theist can create a cumulative case for the exisence of god. so ur objections are not relevant
ReplyDelete