The First Way: A Rejoinder

Abstract

THE FIRST WAY: A REJOINDER IN THE PRECEDING article Pro£essorJohnKing-Farlow has raised a number o£ intriguing questions relating to the prima via o£ St. Thomas Aquinas'---questions, indeed, that cannot be answered with any measure o£ completeness in a brief reply. The queries he raises, however, do present the opportunity to offer some further observations on the traditional understanding o£ the proof and on its validity in the light o£ modern science, and these will be the focus o£ this rejoinder . The prima via, it would seem, is a clear instance o£ a cosmological argument £or the existence o£ God. It starts from an observable aspect o£ the cosmos, i. e., the motion or movement or change that is sensibly observable in it, reasons a posteriori£rom this to an ultimate cause, and so concludes to the existence o£ a First Unmoved Mover who is incorporeal, immaterial , infinite in power, etc., and who in the sequel can be identified with the God o£ Revelation. Although in its later stages the proof makes use o£ metaphysical reasoning, its beginnings actually pertain to natural philosophy. (Indeed, as most Thomists hold, i£ the natural philosopher could not prove the existence o£ some type o£ being that really exists and is neither material nor in motion, there would be no need £or metaphysics as a discipline, since its subject matter would be essentially the same as that o£ natural philosophy.) The natural philosopher, moreover, abstracts from certain features o£ the physical world in elaborating his discipline; this abstractive process is found in all sciences, although some abstract in ways different £rom others, and their manner o£ abstracting can unfortunately have a restrictive influence on the types o£ arguments and proofs they are able to elaborate.1 1 For a succinct account of Thomistic teaching on abstraction and its relation 375 376 WILLIAM A. WALLACE On this understanding the prima via is only one of several possible cosmological arguments, all of which, precisely as cosmological , operate at the same " degree " of abstraction. Thus the secunda via, the tertia via, and the quinta via may be viewed as different proofs,2 complementary in some respects, following the same basic logic or methodology, each of equal abstractness, and yet each capable of independent formulation and justification.3 Moreover, insofar as these proofs focus attention successively on particular aspects of the cosmos, it is admittedly quite legitimate to say that each one " abstracts from " other aspects of the same cosmos. Such a use of the notion of "abstraction," however, is different from the way in which the abstractive process may be said to differentiate the sciences. King-Farlow calls attention to my frequent use of the terms " abstract " and " abstraction " and makes a play on these expressions in urging his own interpretation of the prima via-one essentially at variance with that given it in the Thomistic tradition. The difference between his use of " abstraction " and mine is that he gives the term the rather broad, precisive meaning just illustrated, whereas I use it in the technical Aristotelian-Thomistic way employed to differentiate the various sciences.4 to the classification of the sciences, see the articles by E. D. Simmons entitled "Abstraction " and "Sciences, Classification of" in the N(}W Catholic Encyclopedia, 16 vols. (New York: McGraw-Hill and Publishers Guild, Inc., 1967, 1974), Vol. 1, pp. 56-59, and Vol. 1~, pp. 1~~0-1~~4. 2 Here the quarta via is consciously omitted as being more metaphysical in character than the other four ways. 8 My affirmation of the partly complementary character of the proofs is shared by King-Farlow in his books Reason and Religion and Faith and the Life of Reason . He would stress, however, that the proofs are only collectively valid, whereas I am further claiming their individual validity. See notes 4 and 13, infra. • Correspondence with King-Farlow shows that we agree to disagr.ee on this matter of " abstractness " thus. A description D1 is a more abstract description of the world W than is description D2, when D1 covers fewer sets of predicates required for indicating the most important features of W. It is Aquinas's claim and mine...