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The Third Way to God: A New Approach

1978; Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception; Volume: 42; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/tho.1978.0036

2473-3725

John M. Quinn,

Pentecostalism and Christianity Studies

THE THIRD WAY TO GOD: A NEW APPROACH* AONG THE MOST famous unintentional ironies among the great thinkers we must surely include St. Thomas's aim, avowed in the prologue to the Summa Theologiae, to simplify theology so as to make it understandable to beginners or novices.1 For those still wrestling with the problem of God the irony becomes especially sharpened in the case of the :five ways. Apparently Aquinas was thoroughly convinced that these arguments, bared to the bone as they are, rationally establish the existence of God for any open mind ready and willing to tread the sometimes rough back roads of study and reflection preparatory to laying hold of the senses of the terms in the context of what we would call the philosophy and science of his day. Yet it does not seem extravagent to say that the proofs that flowed from Aquinas looking so lucid and cogent elicit in our time as much dissent as assent. After having patiently retraced Aquinas's steps, some :find themselves puzzled and others baffled by some arguments. Even some who broadly accept the ways confess themselves confounded by enigmatic particulars in the proofs. The doctors among the Thomists also disagree. Two interpreters proud of being counted thoroughgoing Thomists may affirm the validity of all five ways but part company on the import and implication of each of the ways.2 In recent years the gap between general * The substance of this paper was read at the Eleventh Conference on Medieval Studies, the University of Western Michigan, May, 1976. 1 In the prologue to the Summa Theologiae (Madrid: Bibliotheca de Autores Cristianos, 1961) Aquinas makes it his object as a "teacher of Catholic truth" to instruct not only advanced students but also " incipientes erudire." By doing away with barriers that block understanding, he hopes to reach "huius doctrinae novitios." 2 A very curious species of exegesis, it seems to me, is the minority view that the five ways are really only one way presented in five accidentally different 50 THE THIRD WAY: A NEW APPROACH 51 thrust and particulars of analysis has piqued interpreters of the third way.3 The move from contingent beings to a per se logical garbs. This simplistic reductionism flies in the face of the plain, unqualified littera of Aquinas in his last systematic presentation of proofs for God in a work of his very late or mature period: ". . . that God exists can be proved in five ways." (Sum. theol., I, 2, 3) . The abolition of logically specific differences among the ways also impoverishes the case for a rational theism. This questionable retrenchment leaves only one sector, that of essence and existence,-a metaphysical strand, obscure, if not impenetrable, to many-available as a springboard for the movement of the mind to God. It strips philosophers dealing with God of the analytically and psychologically "most powerful" argument, that of finality, for the existence of God. The prologus to the Exposition on the Gospel of St. John extols the proof from finality: ". . . et haec est via efficacissima." The way of finality is the most effective in the line of demonstration because the final cause is sovereign among the causes; it is the cause of causes. Happily, as just indicated, here what is most intelligible analytically or quoad se jibes with what is the most persuasive psychologically or quoad nos. The most compelling argument for God seems to be the most appealing to the mind of the common man. This is probably why, as Etienne Gilson notes, the biblical writers find God glorified in His works. On this point see Gilson, The Elements of Christian Philosophy (New York: New American Library, 1963; reprint of what first appeared in 1960), p. 327, n. 2. In Aquinas's prologue this mode of finality, along with three other modes, formally bears on the nature of God but it implicitly proves, as the fifth way does explicitly, the existence of God as the supreme intelligence governing the universe. See In Joannem Evangelistam expositio (Parma: Typis Petri Fiaccadori, 1860), X, prologus, p. 279. 8 The third way is of course located in Sum. Theol., I, 2, 3. " The third way is taken...