Proofs for the Existence of God

[Roy]

No, we don't. We do not see rocks acting so as to obtain the best result. Or seashells, clouds, winds or lightning strikes.

False premise. Rest deleted.

Your truncated version of what St Thomas stated is not established.

It certainly is. Rocks do not act so as to obtain the best result. If you want to claim otherwise, provide an example, not just an assertion. I don't think you can.

(I have plenty of examples of rocks not acting at all).

Things act for ends.

False premise. Rocks do not. Argument fails.

[JohnMartin]

That is an assumption. I don't think it is a necessary assumption.

Teleology is founded upon the nature of an act. An act occurs for a reason, which includes the reason of attaining a being, or good as an end. Without an end as the extrinsic directive of an act, there is no reason within nature for an act. Yet nature always has a sufficient reason, or sufficient cause to account for action. Action for ends accounts for natures composed of intrinsic tendencies which direct acts to extrinsic and intrinsic ends.

The principle is in accord with Aristotle's philosophy

(1) Every material body acts by virtue of intrinsic tendencies directed
towards the attainment of definite goals.

(2) These tendencies are directed primarily towards the perfection of
the individual concerned, or of the species to which it belongs.

JM

[JohnMartin]

It certainly is. Rocks do not act so as to obtain the best result. If you want to claim otherwise, provide an example, not just an assertion. I don't think you can.

(I have plenty of examples of rocks not acting at all).

False premise. Rocks do not. Argument fails.

You have to demonstrate that natures do not achieve their end, otherwise teleology remains both a sound principle and an observed fact. Individual instances of natures not attaining ends, such as apple tree not producing apples does not undermine the principle, for the nature of an apple tree includes the action of producing apples as the norm. The norm is natures act for ends, and those ends are dictated by intrinsic tendencies within natures in accord with the natural laws of the universe. You have provided no example, and no argument to overcome this well established principle and observed fact within nature.

JM

[Doug Shaver]

The principle is in accord with Aristotle's philosophy

I'm aware of that. It is not an offense against reason to disagree with Aristotle.

[JohnMartin]

I'm aware of that. It is not an offense against reason to disagree with Aristotle.

It's an offense against reason to disagree with Aristotle if you don't have reason to disagree. What is your reason for disagreement?

JM

[Doug Shaver]

It's an offense against reason to disagree with Aristotle if you don't have reason to disagree.

I have read three logic textbooks, and that principle was not mentioned in any of them.

[JohnMartin]

I have read three logic textbooks, and that principle was not mentioned in any of them.

The principle of finality is found in philosophy and not logic.

JM

[Doug Shaver]

The principle of finality is found in philosophy and not logic.

JM

You don't think philosophy includes logic?

[JimL]

5. 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.
The Fifth way is more simply put as follows.

The action of things in the world is ordered towards an end. But the action of a thing cannot be ordered toward an end, without there being an ordering intellect. And if this ordering intellect is not its understand, it is ordered to understand (not merely to become or to be) by a higher ordering intellect, which must be in order to order and so on. But this regress cannot be to infinity, because if there is no ordering intellect which is and supplies, then such order will never be found in these members nor will the action of anything be ordered towards an end.

Therefore there must exist an orderer which causes the order of finality found in all the members of the series, and therefore is a prime orderer itself not (passively) ordered. But such prime orderer is the universal orderer, which is God.

JM

If nature is eternal, if the actions of nature are eternal, then natural things don't act toward ends according to the designed laws of an engineer, the laws are merely descriptive of how eternal nature works. The assumption you make is based upon the idea that nature as a whole is contingent, like the arrow shot to its mark by the archer.

[JohnMartin]

You don't think philosophy includes logic?

Philosophy is the science of understanding the world through reason. Logic is the science of reasoning well. There are principles of philosophy that are really distinct from logic. The principle of finality is one of those principles.

JM

[JohnMartin]

If nature is eternal, if the actions of nature are eternal, then natural things don't act toward ends according to the designed laws of an engineer, the laws are merely descriptive of how eternal nature works. The assumption you make is based upon the idea that nature as a whole is contingent, like the arrow shot to its mark by the archer.

The possible eternity of the world, nor the contingency of the universe are relevant to the argument. All we need know is agents act for ends. Consequently there is a designer with an intellect who has knowledge of end. Consequent to this, the prime intellect is the prime being.

JM

[Doug Shaver]

Philosophy is the science of understanding the world through reason.

That is one way to define it. Philosophers themselves have proposed countless other ways. Why should I think yours is better than any of theirs?

There are principles of philosophy that are really distinct from logic.

What authority has established those principles?

[JohnMartin]

That is one way to define it. Philosophers themselves have proposed countless other ways. Why should I think yours is better than any of theirs?

Aristotle.

What authority has established those principles?

The principle of finality is in accord with both reason and nature, for nature is reasonable. The principle is then dependent upon philosophy that seeks to explain the real, and logic, whereby the principle is defended. The principle of finality is derived from the principle of non contradiction and the principle of sufficient reason.

JM

[JimL]

The possible eternity of the world, nor the contingency of the universe are relevant to the argument. All we need know is agents act for ends. Consequently there is a designer with an intellect who has knowledge of end. Consequent to this, the prime intellect is the prime being.

JM

And who designed the designer, the agent/mind, so that it act for ends. If you are going to argue that that which acts towards ends would need be designed, then the designer himself would need be designed.

[JohnMartin]

And who designed the designer, the agent/mind, so that it act for ends. If you are going to argue that that which acts towards ends would need be designed, then the designer himself would need be designed.

The ultimate designer (UD) is pure act, which means the UD has no passive potency to receive from another. The UD is analogous to, or more unlike than like the secondary designed, designers. All secondary designers (SD) have passive potency, which means the SD are receptive of perfections. For example, a glass jar is glass, which has the potency to receive the form of jarness. Hence the form of jarness is the actualization of a passive potency to receive a form from another agent. Similarly, the human powers to know, and appetise are forms received by the nature that is human. Man is then a secondary agent that has passive potency to receive form. The passive potency indicates man is designed. When man designs the jar, the man is then a designed designer.

God is not a designed designer, for God is pure act, which is act without potency. Hence God is unreceptive of any perfection (act, or form). God is the undesigned designer, who acts to inform creatures.

JM