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Pleading the Fifth:

Aquinas, Teleology, and the Existence of God

Christopher Lilley

Marquette University

Phil 6640: Thomas Aquinas: Metaphysics

Dr. Richard C. Taylor

December 10th, 2013

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1. Introduction

Few medieval texts have garnered as much attention and scrutiny as St. Thomas Aquinas’

quinqe viae, or “Five Ways”, which functions as a concise and interconnected array of arguments

for God’s existence set within his magisterial Summa Theologiae.1 Although Aquinas contended

that God’s existence is not self-evident to us (per se notum) since we do not know God’s real

definition, he nevertheless argued that God’s existence can be demonstrated from effect to cause

by an examination of God’s effects in the world.2 Each of the Five Ways begins with effects that

are known to us, and argues back to God as their cause, utilizing observations of motion,

efficient causality, possible and necessary existence, gradation of goods, and final causation,

respectively.3

Of Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways, the fifth way, a teleological argument which arrives at

God’s existence by postulating an intellective understanding (God) who orders non-cognitive

bodies towards their particular ends, features a particularly variegated history of reception. While

the fifth way (hereafter, FW) had at one time enjoyed the respect of such venerable thinkers as

Immanuel Kant,4 it has fallen from prominence in most modern treatments, which range from

qualified critique to rendering it entirely obsolete in light of contemporary evolutionary biology.5

However, in spite of some modern dismissals of the argument, the FW is still vigorously

defended in academic circles by philosophers such as Edward Feser as not only feasible, but

indeed “philosophically formidable.”6 Although more than seven centuries old, the continued

interest by contemporary philosophers in the FW speaks to its tenacity and continued worth as an

object of study.

The philosophical discussion generated by the FW naturally leads to a number of crucial

questions. What relationship does the FW have to Aristotelian teleology, and what about the FW

distinguishes it from the Aristotelian notions of final causality on which it depends? Further,

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does the FW accomplish what it purports to, namely, provide a proof for the existence of a divine

governing intelligence? Or does evolution definitively invalidate the FW by supplying a

completely naturalistic mechanism which governs things to their respective ends? In this paper I

will critically examine these questions surrounding the FW, as well as evaluate and critique a

recent defense of the FW advanced by Edward Feser.

2. From Aristotle to Aquinas: Teleology and the FW

The FW of Thomas Aquinas, insofar as it makes a case for God’s existence from the

existence of final causes in nature, heavily relies on the Aristotelian categories of causation and

teleology.7 However, Aquinas introduces certain key elements and peculiarities which go well

beyond Aristotle’s original intention, and adds a distinctively theological flair by explicitly

connecting final causality to God. In the following sections, I will clarify Aristotle’s concept of

teleology and final causes, trace how later commentators such as the Islamic philosopher

Averroes began to introduce theology into final causation, and finally examine the culmination

of this line of thought as expressed by Aquinas in the FW as an argument for God’s existence.

2.1 Aristotle and Final Causation

Aristotle’s conception of teleology and final causation is firmly rooted in his four-cause

account of explanatory adequacy.8 Summarized briefly, these four causes are the material cause,

that from which an entity comes to be; the formal cause, the shape or structure of an entity; the

efficient cause, the agent imposing the shape or structure; and the final cause, that for the sake of

which an entity is for.9 Aristotle goes on to clarify the final cause, also called the “teleological

cause,” in this way:

Again in the sense of an end or ‘that for the sake of which’ a thing is done, e.g. health is

the cause of walking about. (‘Why is he walking about?’ we say. ‘To be healthy’, and,

having said that, we think we have assigned the cause.) The same is true also of all the

intermediate steps which are brought about through the action of something else as a

means towards the end, e.g. reduction of flesh, purging, drugs, or surgical instruments are

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means towards health. All these things are ‘for the sake of’ the end, though they differ

from one another in that some are activities, others instruments.10

Further, Aristotle speaks of these causes “in the sense of the end or the good of the rest; for ‘that

for the sake of which’ means what is best and the end of the things that lead up to it.”11

Teleological explanations of this sort pertain broadly to goal-directed actions or behavior.12

Therefore, for Aristotle, we can best understand the concept of a “final cause” in terms of

something being for the sake of a goal, or a particular good to be achieved.13

Aristotle’s conception of teleology is based on the very commonsense notion that actions

or objects are often undertaken or created for something or a specific purpose.14 For instance, we

would say that a person goes to the barbershop in order to get a haircut, or a bottle cap is made

for the purpose of sealing off the top of a bottle. The employment of causal language in the

realm of manufactured artifacts which are clearly the result of intention and design is almost

unavoidable. However, Aristotle extends his language of final causality beyond the realm of the

artefactual, and asserts that final causes are operative in nature as well.15 Aristotle argues that

nature “belongs to the class of causes which act for the sake of something,”16 pointing out that

“teeth and all other natural things either invariably or normally come about in a given way,” but

we would never ascribe this to chance or mere coincidence.17 Since things in nature such as the

useful arrangement of teeth or the frequency of rain in particular seasons do not come about

spontaneously or by mere coincidence, Aristotle concludes that “action for an end is present in

things which come to be and are by nature.”18 Essentially, Aristotle makes the claim that we have

the same reasons to ascribe “ends” to items in nature that we do in the case of objects which are

clearly artefactual, due to the fact that we observe natural things such as eyes or teeth fitted to

animals for the purposes of navigating or eating even in the absence of a designer.19

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2.1.1 Aristotle’s immanent teleology

Aristotle’s conception of teleology in the natural world is aptly described by Christopher

Shields as taking a “middle course” between teleological eliminativists and teleological

intentionalists.20 Teleological eliminativists argued that there was no purpose to be found in

nature whatsoever, while teleological intentionalists insisted on ascribing purpose in nature if

and only if this purpose was given by a designer.21 For Aristotle, neither of these two extremes

was acceptable, considering the eliminativist view impoverished and incomplete, while

contending that the intentionalist view was guilty of assuming more than is necessary for an

adequate view of final causes.22 Rather, with respect to natural organisms, Aristotle championed

an internal teleology in which the good or the final cause is the well-being of the individual

organism, and intrinsic to the nature of the organism itself.23 This internal teleology of natural

organisms is further clarified by Aristotle in book II of his De Anima, where he more precisely

defines the two senses of “that for the sake of which” with respect to the nutritive soul of living

things.24 Aristotle writes:

The acts in [the nutritive soul] are reproduction and the use of food – reproduction, I say,

because for any living thing that has reached its normal development and which is

unmutilated, and whose mode of generation is not spontaneous, the most natural act is the

production of another like itself, an animal producing an animal, a plant a plant, in order

that, as far as its nature allows, it may partake in the eternal and the divine. That is the

goal for which all things strive, that for the sake of which they do whatsoever their nature

renders possible. The phrase ‘for the sake of which’ is ambiguous; it may mean either (a)

the end to achieve which, or (b) the being in whose interest, the act is done.25

André Ariew helpfully parses these two classes of teleology (“for the sake of which”)

pertaining to natural organisms in Aristotle as “formal” and “functional” teleology.”26 Ariew

highlights these distinctive elements of Aristotle’s natural teleology, emphasizing:

Teleology pertaining to natural organisms is distinct: non-purposive (though seemingly

so), non-rational, non-intentional, and immanent – that is, an inner principle of change.

The goal is not an object of any agent’s desire. In formal teleology, the telos is an

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inherent property of the process to complete the organism’s developmental end state as

seen in the form of the species… In functional teleology the telos is inherent in the

relationship between the part of the organism in question and the whole organism. In

neither [formal teleology] nor [functional teleology] is the telos a conscious goal of the

organism.27

Therefore, Aristotle’s teleology of natural organisms (both formal and functional) stipulates that

the “final cause” of an organism, or “goal for which all things strive,” is its flourishing as an

individual member of its species, with particular parts of the organism (teeth, eyes, feathers, etc.)

serving that larger goal. This immanent teleology is not a result of mere necessity nor chance,28

nor is it the result of the deliberation and planning of a conscious designing agent.29 Rather,

Aristotle’s natural teleology is non-derived and free-standing, and immanent to natural

organisms themselves.30

2.1.2 The “Unmoved Mover” and Final Causation

Before moving on from our discussion of teleology in Aristotle, it is necessary to briefly

examine his discussion of the “unmoved mover” in relation to final causality in Aristotle’s

Metaphysics XII, as it will play a key role in Aquinas’ appropriation of Aristotelian teleology his

formulation of the FW. In book VIII of the Physics, Aristotle famously concluded from the

observation of motion that everything which is moved is moved by something other than itself.

Since the chain of movers cannot extend infinitely, there must be a “final mover” that must itself

be unmoved and is the ultimate source of all motion.31 While Aristotle never identifies this

“unmoved mover” as “god” in Physics VIII, Aristotle argues again for an “unmoved mover” in

Metaphysics XII, upon which he bestows the name “god.”32 Aristotle contends that all things in

the cosmos are ordered toward “god,” the first unmoved mover, as the good-itself in the same

way members of a household or army ordered toward one good.33

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While it extends beyond the scope of this paper to explore precisely what Aristotle means

by “god” in Metaphysics XII, the connection between the “god” of Metaphysics XII and final

causality is relevant to our purposes here.34 Since Aristotle had previously established that the

unmoved mover of the “first heaven,” or outermost sphere of the cosmos, is eternal and

unchangeable, Aristotle asks what kind of final cause might be attributed to something that is

unchanging.35 He clarifies further:

That a final cause may exist among unchangeable entities is shown by the distinction of

meanings. For the final cause is (a) some being for whose good an action is done, and (b)

something at which the action aims; and of these the latter exists among unchangeable

entities though the former does not. The final cause, then, produces motion as being

loved, but all other things move by being moved.36

Thus, for Aristotle, the final cause of the unmoved mover simply is itself as the highest good. In

contrast with the twofold sense of “that for the sake of which” in natural organisms he had

argued for in De Anima, Aristotle stipulates that in order for the unmoved mover to cause motion

without itself being moved, it must possess final causality solely within itself as the “something

at which the action aims.37

At first blush, these passages from Aristotle’s Metaphysics XII might seem to contradict

the intrinsic teleology of the natural world he had so carefully laid out in De Anima and the

Physics. If all things are ordered toward “god” as the unmoved mover, which is the final cause of

itself, it might seem that Aristotle’s god is indeed the extrinsic, final cause of all things in the

world.38 If taken this way, one could even perhaps discern in Aristotle a “proto-teleological

argument,” for God’s existence, anticipating Aquinas’ FW.39 However, several factors mitigate

against such an interpretation. As Monte Johnson points out, Aristotle did not consider “god” to

be an ordering intelligence who gives individual species their final causes.40 In his Eudemian

Ethics, Aristotle affirms that “the divine is not an ordering ruler, since he needs nothing, but

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rather is that for the sake of which wisdom gives orders.”41 Moreover, as Stephen Menn notes,

there is no word for Aristotle akin to “God” with a capital “G,” since he believed in many gods

and divine things, not all of which were unmoved movers.42 Additionally, Aristotle believed in

many “unmoved movers,” which included various gods and unmoved movers of the heavens.43

Understanding the “unmoved mover” in this way clarifies why Aristotle did not simply

designate the “unmoved mover” of Physics VIII as “god” as he does in Metaphysics XII. As

Helen Lang contends, “Aristotle does not spell out the being of the first mover in Physics 8

because motion in things, not the first mover, is the proper subject of the argument.”44 This is

distinct from Aristotle’s method in Metaphysics XII, where the subject of his inquiry is defined

as “substance,” not motion.45 Thus, Aristotle’s examination of motion in the Physics does not

lead to “god” as a sort of “proto-teleological argument.”46

Therefore, the “god” (or “gods”) of Aristotle are necessitated as unmoved movers only

insofar as they permit the existence of motion. Aristotle does suggest that all things “imitate” the

first, unmoved mover as they attempt to realize to the fullest possible extent their own “ends” as

a species. However, this is radically removed from monotheistic conceptions of a single God

who divinely orders all things. While later Jewish, Muslim, and Christian commentators would

seek to appropriate the concept of Aristotle’s “unmoved mover” for theological purposes,47 it is

important to note that Aristotle did not conceive of the “unmoved mover” as the final cause of all

things on earth. As Copleston concludes, “The Aristotelian God… does not know the world and

no Divine plan is fulfilled in the world: the teleology of nature can be nothing more than

unconscious teleology.”48

2.1.3 Later Interpretations of Aristotle: Averroes

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While Aristotle had not explicitly equated the “unmoved mover” of Physics VIII with

that of Metaphysics XII, nor had he made “god” the final cause of all things on earth, later

commentators would take up these passages and incorporate them into their own particular

religious and theological sensibilities. In one sense, Thomas Aquinas represents the culmination

of such Aristotelian and theological synthesis. However, it must also be recognized that Aquinas

did not simply inherit Aristotle, but rather was strongly influenced by the Arabic tradition of

Aristotelian commentary which preceded him.49

Indeed, prior to Aquinas, there existed a flourishing community of Muslim, Christian,

and Jewish philosophers commenting and debating on Aristotelian works as a result of an 8th –

10th century C.E. translation effort in Baghdad to render Greek philosophical works into

Arabic.50 This phenomenon is exemplified in the works of such notable figures as Avicenna (Ibn

Sīnā), Al-Ghazālī, Averroes (Ibn Rushd), and Maimonides as they sought to integrate secular

Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle, with revealed faith.51 In this respect, Averroes in

particular is especially significant. While by no means the only Arabic commentator on Aquinas,

Averroes’ discussion of Aristotle and divine causality serves as a conceptual bridge for how

Aquinas wedded Aristotle’s unmoved mover of the Physics VIII with that of the Metaphysics XII

in the formation of the FW as a proof for God’s existence.52

In Averroes’ various commentaries on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, we are able to see the

interpretative trend of identifying first “unmoved mover” of Aristotle as none other than the one

God in Islamic theology.53 Moreover, in his Long Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima,

Averroes speaks of the divine “showing pity” towards natural species by bestowing upon them

“the power by which it can last forever in species” insofar as they seek to realize their final

causes in the divine, implicitly linking final causality God.54 As Richard Taylor notes, Averroes

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considered God to be both the extrinsic final and formal cause of the universe, with God’s final

causality being “the ultimate perfection of actuality toward which all reality aspires.”55 This

connection is made even more explicit in Averroes’ doctrine of providence, in which God

providentially and intentionally brings order to the world through the final causation of each

individual species.56

Thus, we are able to observe in Averroes a movement towards harmonizing theological

concepts with Aristotle’s notion of an “unmoved mover.” Averroes had identified the first

“unmoved mover” of Aristotle as God, who in turn providentially gives all things their final

cause as they attempt imitate the divine.57 While Averroes did not consider the identification of

final causality in nature as able to function as an actual proof for God’s existence,58 his

interpretive strategy aids our understanding of how Aquinas would later make an argument along

these lines. This importance is highlighted by Monte Johnson, who notes, “It is through the

translation of Averroes into Latin that the argument about god as both moving and final cause

became known to and adopted by thirteenth-century scholars, including Thomas Aquinas.”59

2.2 Aquinas and the Fifth Way

Having examined the Aristotelian conception of final causation as the foundation for

Aquinas’s FW, as well as the subsequent interpretive trend of “theologizing” final causation by

later commentators such as Averroes, we may now turn to examining how Aquinas articulates

the FW in some detail. In this section, I will first lay out the contours of the FW as described in

the various works of Aquinas. I will then clarify the uniqueness and methodology of the FW in

relationship to the Aristotelian teleology upon which it depends.

2.2.1 The FW in the works of Aquinas

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As suggested at the outset of this paper, the most well-known and carefully phrased

formulation of Aquinas’ argument for God’s existence on the basis of final causality is in the FW

of his Summa Theologiae. Aquinas presents the FW as follows:

The fifth way is taken from the governance of things: We see that some things lacking

cognition, viz., natural bodies, act for the sake of an end. This is apparent from the fact

that they always or very frequently act in the same way in order to bring about what is

best, and from this it is clear that it is not by chance (non a casu), but as the result of a

tendency (ex intentione), that they attain the end. But things lacking cognition tend

toward an end only if they are directed by something that has cognition and intellective

understanding (non tendunt in finem nisi directa ab aliquo cognoscente et intelligente), in

the way that an arrow is directed by an archer. Therefore, there is something with

intellective understanding by which all natural things are ordered toward an end—and

this we call a God.60

As John Wippel points out, this should not be confused with the so-called “argument from

design” which posits a supreme designer on the basis of the perceived order observable in

nature.61 Aquinas had made this sort of design argument in the Summa Contra Gentiles,

contending “we find that things of diverse natures come together under order… There must

therefore be some being by whose providence the world is governed. This we call God.”62

However, the FW does not argue in this way from design. Rather, it takes an extended form of an

argument for God’s providence Aquinas had previously advanced in the Quaestiones disputate

de veritate.63 In Question 5 of De veritate, Aquinas sides with Aristotle in arguing for final

causes in nature on the basis of the insufficiency of material and efficient causes to explain “why

things happen in a good and orderly way.”64 On the basis of these final causes in nature, Aquinas

concludes that “the world is ruled by the providence of that intellect which gave order to nature,”

namely God.65

The theological import of such an argument from final causality is reinforced by the fact

that Aquinas rehearses the argument of the FW in the prologue of his Commentary on the Gospel

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of John. In this commentary, Aquinas maintains that the most “efficacious way” to attain

knowledge of God is “through his authority,” and gives the following statement:

For we see the things in nature acting for an end, and attaining to ends which are both

useful and certain. And since they lack intelligence, they are unable to direct themselves,

but must be directed and moved by one directing them, and who possesses an intellect.

Thus it is that the movement of the things of nature toward a certain end indicates the

existence of something higher by which the things of nature are directed to an end and

governed. And so, since the whole course of nature advances to an end in an orderly way

and is directed, we have to posit something higher which directs and governs them as

Lord; and this is God.66

Further, Aquinas ties the “authority” demonstrated in this argument with the “Word of God,”

citing the Psalms in order to show that the Lord God indeed governs all things.67

From the above passages, we can clearly see that the FW depends on Aristotelian notions

of final causality inherent to the natural order. In De veritate, as conceptual background for the

FW, Aquinas maintains along with Aristotle that final causality must exist in nature. However, as

with Averroes, Aquinas takes the teleology which can be observed in the natural world and

tethers it to his particular theological and religious commitments. For Aquinas, the final causality

of the natural realm is thus transformed into an argument which concludes in the existence of

“something higher which directs and governs,” namely the one Lord and God of Christian

theism.

2.2.2 Methodology of the FW

Having shown how Aquinas formulates the FW in his various works, we may now

examine how his methodology differs from the Aristotelian teleology on which it depends. For

ease of analysis, I follow here the logical format of the FW outlined by Timothy Pawls:

1. There are some things that lack cognition yet act for ends.

2. Anything that lacks cognition does not act for an end unless it is directed by something

that is cognizant and intelligent.

3. Thus, there is something intelligent by which all natural things are ordered to their ends.

4. This thing we call God.68

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The opening stage of the FW adheres fairly closely to the conclusions Aristotle had already

drawn in the Physics concerning the existence of final causes in nature, namely that natural

organisms act for the sake of an end even without the sake of intelligence or cognition.69

However, it is after this observation that Aquinas distinguishes the FW from Aristotelian

teleology, namely in the sense that Aquinas thinks non-cognitive things act for ends only if they

are “directed by something that has cognition and intellective understanding” in the same way

that arrows are directed towards a specific target by an archer.70 Recall that for Aristotle, the

teleology we observe in the natural world, while not a result of mere necessity nor chance, does

not require the deliberation and planning of a conscious designing agent. Instead, Aristotle had

defended a natural teleology which is free-standing and immanent to natural organisms

themselves. In contrast, Aquinas connects the teleology of the natural realm directly to an

intelligent agent in the FW.

Here, it may seem that Aquinas is simply collapsing all teleology into the sort of

extrinsic, artefactual teleology suggested by Plato in the form of the “demiurge” who designed

and orders the world.71 However, this is not what Aquinas is intending here by necessitating

intelligent agency on the basis of final causality. Rather, in the FW, Aquinas is attempting to

maintain the immanent teleology of Aristotle, while implicitly assuming an argument he had

made previously in De veritate concerning the need for divine providence. In Q. 5 of De veritate,

Aquinas entertains the objection that “natural things… are determined to one course of action by

their own natures,” which would imply that “they do not need the direction of providence.”72 In

response, Aquinas asserts that “whatever cannot keep itself in existence needs something else to

rule it and keep it in existence.”73 Since for Aquinas, created things are necessarily contingent

and thus unable to sustain their own existence, he concludes that “there must, therefore, be a

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providence ruling over things.”74 Understood in this way, the premise of the FW which states

that “things lacking cognition tend toward an end only if they are directed by something that has

cognition and intellective understanding” is assumed to have additional warrant from the

contingency of created things.75 This move allows Aquinas to conclude in the Summa Theologiae

that “it is by the direction of a higher agent that nature acts for the sake of a determinate end,”

and “those things that are done by nature must also be traced back to God as a first cause.”76

However, even if we grant the premise that the final causality which exists in nature

depends on intellectual agency, this does not immediately entail a divine agency which orders all

things to their ends. In order to arrive at God at the conclusion of the FW, Aquinas follows a

strategy similar to that of Averroes and identifies the “unmoved mover” concluded to in

Aristotle’s Physics VIII as none other than the God of Christian theism. At the end of his

commentary on the Physics, Aquinas contends that Aristotle “in his general consideration of

natural things terminate at the first principle of the whole of nature, Who is the One above all

things, the ever blessed God. Amen.”77 From his commentary on the Metaphysics, it is also clear

that Aquinas merges the “unmoved movers” of Physics VIII and Metaphysics XII together and

considers them both as referring to the one God. This is evidenced by the fact that Aquinas

concludes his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics by asserting: “Aristotle’s conclusion is

that there is one ruler of the whole universe, the first mover, and one first intelligible object, and

one first good, whom above all he called God, who is blessed forever and ever.”78

By making these key interpretive moves with Aristotle’s texts and embellishing them

with Christian theological accoutrements, Aquinas acquired the necessary philosophical footing

in order to make the FW function as a demonstration for God’s existence. By merging the “god”

of the Physics and Metaphysics and identifying it with the Christian God, Aquinas had

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effectively transmuted the relatively modest immanent teleology of Aristotle into something

more amenable to Christian religious belief.79 Clearly, Aquinas imported his own theological

agenda into his discussion and interpretation of Aristotle’s texts.80 Thus, while the FW in large

part depends on Aristotelian teleology, Aquinas effectively “theologized” Aristotle’s arguments

in order to arrive at his formulation of the FW. As had been seen in the Arabic interpretative

tradition leading to Aquinas, the secular philosophy of the Greeks had been employed to serve

and speak to distinctively theological and religious concerns. The FW of Thomas Aquinas

represents a pinnacle of this tradition.

3. Further Interpreting the Fifth Way Today

In the previous sections, I have surveyed the philosophical and intellectual background

and underpinning of the FW, specifically as it relates to Aristotelian notions of teleology and

final causality. Although Aristotle had defended an immanent teleology and did not explicitly

connect the unmoved movers of his Physics and Metaphysics, later commentators such as

Averroes would begin to merge them in order to speak to religious concerns. This trend of

“theologizing” Aristotle finds its culmination in Thomas Aquinas, who articulated the FW in

terms which both depended on yet departed significantly from what Aristotle had originally

argued. For Aquinas, the identification of final causes in nature leads to a proof for the existence

of a divine governing intelligence, namely God.

However, in spite of being a relatively ancient argument, the merits of the FW are still

being discussed and debated in academic circles today. In this section, I will lay out the key

points of a recent philosophical defense of the FW advanced by Edward Feser. I will then

evaluate and critique Feser’s defense of the FW, as well as offer some of my own suggestions as

to how the FW might be articulated in a contemporary context.

3.1 Edward Feser’s defense of the FW

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In his article “Between Aristotle and William Paley: Aquinas’ Fifth Way,” Edward Feser

mounts a sophisticated defense of the FW, and seeks to demonstrate that it is both

“philosophically formidable and theologically sound.”81 Feser’s primary goal is to assert the

superiority of the FW in comparison to what he considers to be the “radically extrinsic

teleology” assumed by William Paley’s design argument for God’s existence.82

In setting the stage for his defense, Feser acknowledges that Aquinas depends in large

part on the immanent teleology of Aristotle, however he notes that Aquinas “parts ways” with

Aristotle in the way he forms the FW as a means of demonstrating the existence of a divine

intelligence which orders things to their ends.83 As Feser notes, Aristotle’s “god” is not the

explanation of the fact that final causes exist in nature, since this is just a basic fact about them

given their natures.84 He concludes that “though there is in Aristotle a precursor to Aquinas’s

First Way, there is no precursor to the Fifth Way.”85

Feser affirms that unlike Aristotle, Aquinas holds that natural teleology does indeed point

to the existence of God.86 Further, Feser argues that Aquinas successfully articulated a “middle

position” between Aristotelian teleology immanent to the natural world, and Platonic teleology

which insists on its being imposed on nature by a deity from the outside.87 Feser deems this

position “Scholastic teleological realism,” and suggests that it occupies the middle ground

between Platonic and Aristotelian extremes.88 Feser writes:

For Platonic teleological realism, the end or goal of an acorn exists entirely apart from it,

in a divine mind which orders it to its end. For Aristotelian teleological realism, the end

or goal of an acorn exists only intrinsic to the acorn itself. For Scholastic teleological

realism, the end or goal of an acorn exists intrinsic to the acorn itself, but only because

God created it according to the pre-existing essence in question, which includes having

the generation of an oak as a goal.89

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For Feser, then, this middle-ground Scholastic position “seeks to show that each side is partially

correct in that the phenomena in question are immanent to the created order in one respect and

transcend it in another.”90

In defending the superiority of this middle-ground position, Feser contends that one

cannot simply “appeal to the laws of nature” to explain causal regularity and teleology, since

Feser argues that this “just raises the question of what ‘laws of nature’ are and why they hold.”91

Further, he reasons that one cannot explain the laws of nature simply “by referencing God”

either, since that would just reintroduce at a higher level the very problem appealing to the laws

of nature was attempting to help avoid.92 Rather, the only viable option for Feser is that of

Aquinas, who held that while immanent final causality does not suffice in and of itself to explain

causal regularity, it is a necessary part of a complete explanation.93 According to Feser, this

“suffices for the purposes of the Fifth Way,” and suggests that “controversies about this or that

purported instance of natural teleology can be bracketed off for the purposes of evaluating the

argument.”94

Having suggested how this middle ground of “Scholastic teleological realism” avoids the

pitfalls of both Aristotelian and Platonic teleology, Feser moves on to how Aquinas employs this

type of teleological realism to argue for divine ordering intelligence in the FW. Feser considers

the objection that Aristotelian teleology makes reference to a divine intelligence superfluous. He

asks, “isn’t it just the nature of fire, given its substantial form, that it generates heat? And if so,

then what need is there to appeal to a divine intellect in order to account for why fire is related to

heat as means is to an end”? 95 Feser responds that for Aquinas, this is not a competing

conception of causality, and indeed necessitates a divine intelligence. He contends:

From a Thomistic point of view, the ultimate cause of a thing’s existing with the

particular nature it has is what conjoins its essence to an act of existence. And this (as

18

Aquinas argues in De ente et essentia) can only be something whose essence and

existence are identical, and thus something divine. Hence, if that which directs a natural

thing to its end is also what gives it its very nature, this would lead us, ultimately, to a

divine cause of things having the ends they do.96

While Feser acknowledges that this might immediately suggest that the FW depends on a

separate, cosmological argument if one is to get “all the way to God” with the FW, he suggests

that there is a “more direct approach” to God, grounded in the considerations of finality in the

FW itself.97 Feser references Garrigou-Lagrange in defense of this point,98 and argues that one

can infer from the FW itself that the ordering intelligence in question must be pure act and not

directed toward actuality in any way, otherwise this would open up a vicious regress which, for

Feser, “can in principle only be terminated by a purely actual, and thus divine, intelligence.”99

For these reasons, Feser concludes that, in accordance with Aquinas’ FW, the existence of

immanent teleology enables us to infer that this teleology is ultimately derived from God as

ordering intelligence.100

Finally, as a means of emphasizing the superiority of Aquinas’ FW as opposed to design

arguments such as William Paley’s or the more recent Intelligent Design (ID) movement, Feser

contends that not only does the FW plausibly arrive at a divine intelligence which governs things

to their respective ends, but that contemporary biological evolution has no bearing at all on the

tenets of the FW.101 While Paley’s design argument, which argued for the existence of God as

designer on the basis of observed complexity in nature, as well as the modern ID movement,

both depend on identifying biological minutiae that are difficult to explain in terms of Darwinian

evolution,102 Feser argues that for Aquinas, such “wrangling” over empirical details is

completely unnecessary.103 He contends, “while a Thomist may or may not object to this or that

evolutionary account of this or that biological phenomenon, for the purposes of the Fifth Way

such issues are irrelevant.”104 This irrelevance is due to the fact that the final causality present in

19

natural organisms is not artefactual in the sense of exhibiting only extrinsic teleology, but rather

is intrinsic to the thing itself, and thus not able to be “explained away” by evolutionary

descriptions of biological phenomena.105

Therefore, if we distill Feser’s argument down to its essentials, we are able to see that in

his defense of the FW, Feser makes two general claims:

1.) The FW plausibly allows one to infer a divine intelligence, namely the God of

classical Christian theism, on the basis of immanent teleology and final causes in

nature. This is accomplished by bracketing out Aquinas’ teleology as “scholastic

teleology,” which avoids the pitfalls of both Aristotelian and Platonic teleology.

2.) Darwinian evolution has no bearing whatsoever on the tenets of the FW, since the

teleology upon which it depends is intrinsic.

In the next section, I will critique these two main points, as well as offer my own suggestion as

to how the FW might be plausibly articulated today.

3.2 Critique of Feser

While agreeing with Feser in many areas, including his suggestion that the FW is a very

philosophically rich and promising argument, and is dismissed by some modern philosophers far

too quickly, I contend that his optimism regarding what the FW is actually able to accomplish is

perhaps not as warranted as he suggests. In my critique, I will focus on the two main strategies of

Feser’s defense, namely that the FW plausibly allows one to infer a divine intelligence, and that

Darwinian evolution has no bearing whatsoever on the tenets of the FW.

Concerning the FW’s ability to arrive a divine ordering intelligence, Feser’s strategy of

isolating the “middle-ground” teleology of Aquinas undermines the FW’s ability to function in

itself as an argument for God’s existence. For Feser, this strategy leads one to look for a

complete explanation causal regularity in the natural world, and for him, the FW offers an

argument for a divine intelligence who governs natural objects to their respective ends.

However, by bracketing out the question of final causality, Feser makes the FW dependent on

20

other arguments to make its conclusion viable. Feser maintains that an additional cosmological

argument is not necessary for the purposes of the FW, and appeals to the De Ente et Essentia as

offering an actual proof for the existence of God. However, this interpretation contested, and

assumes that the argument of De Ente successfully arrives at God existence.106

In same way, suggesting that the FW necessitates the existence of a divine intelligence

who is pure act itself depends on a separate metaphysical argument.107 Thus, it seems that Feser

overestimates what the FW can actually do with respect to concluding to a divine governing

intelligence. Even if the argument is successful, it does not, of its own, provide an argument for a

divine intelligence. Rather, this conclusion depends on an array of other arguments and

metaphysical commitments not accounted for in the FW itself, calling for a much more modest

appraisal than Feser suggests.

With respect to Feser’s contention that Darwinian evolution is irrelevant to the purposes

of the FW, some caution needs to be exercised here. While Feser is correct to highlight the

distinction between Aquinas’s FW and Paley’s argument from design along with the modern ID

movement, this is not to say that biological evolution is completely irrelevant to the tenets of the

FW. A more accurate representation would be to recognize that biological evolution presents a

distinct set of potential problems for the FW. While not presenting an obstacle to the FW in the

same way that it problematizes other design arguments which depend on instances of biological

complexity, Darwinian evolution nevertheless challenges Aquinas’ assertion that “natural bodies,

act for the sake of an end. This is apparent from the fact that they always or very frequently act

in the same way in order to bring about what is best.”108 For indeed, does not the evolutionary

biologist have at her disposal precisely such an explanation for why natural bodies “act for the

sake of an end,” which makes recourse to a divine intellect unnecessary and superfluous? In this

21

respect, while the Aristotelian type of free-standing, immanent teleology inherent to natural

organisms themselves is not at all affected by Darwinian explanations, the ability to argue for the

necessity of a divine ordering intelligence is indeed affected. As Timothy Pawl notes:

Darwinism provides an account for how it could be that something acts for an end, and

does so always or for the most part, but does not act for an end as a result of the design of

an intelligent agent. Darwinism grows (evolves?) another horn onto the head of the old

dilemma: design or chance. It could be that nonintelligent things act for ends as a result

of selective evolution.109

While the challenge from Darwinian evolution does not invalidate the FW completely, it does

limit the scope of potential examples a defender of the FW could offer as examples of “natural

bodies” acting for ends,110 and might possibly eliminate the biological realm entirely a means of

defending the soundness of the FW as an argument. Thus, contrary to Feser, Darwinian evolution

does affect the Fifth Way, although certainly does not entirely destroy the argument itself.

What might be said, then, for the continued viability of the FW as an argument? As

exemplified by Feser’s recent attempt at a defense of the FW, most of the pitfalls with regards to

the FW may be avoided by more carefully and modestly defining what the FW can actually

accomplish as form of argument. To that end, the FW could be reformulated as a “best

explanation” type of argument in which one could argue that God is the best explanation for the

final causality exhibited in nature, and indeed for why evolution itself is driven by the continued

survival of biological species. While this would certainly require augmentation by other

arguments, and be open to potential revision in the future, this approach acknowledges the

potential efficacy of the FW, while not hampering it with an epistemological burden it is not able

to carry.

4. Conclusion

In this paper, I have traced the intellectual and philosophical contours of the teleological

argument for God’s existence knows as the “Fifth Way” (FW) of Thomas Aquinas. Essentially,

22

this argument postulates an intellective understanding, namely God, who orders non-cognitive

bodies towards their particular ends. Insofar as it makes a case for God’s existence from the

observation of final causes in nature, the FW heavily relies on the Aristotelian categories of

causation and teleology. However, Aquinas significantly modifies the Aristotelian concept of

final causation on which the FW depends in order for it to function as an argument for God’s

existence.

Aristotle had originally defended a natural teleology which is non-derived, free-standing,

and immanent to natural organisms themselves. This immanent teleology was not a result of

mere necessity nor chance, nor was it the result of the deliberation and planning of a conscious

designing agent. While Aristotle had argued for the existence “unmoved movers” in his Physics

VIII and Metaphysics XII, he did so only insofar as they permitted the existence of motion, and

did not explicitly equate them together. Later commentators, such as Averroes, would take up

these passages and incorporate them into their own particular religious and theological

sensibilities. Aquinas represents the culmination of such Aristotelian and theological synthesis,

exemplified by his formulation of the FW. By merging the “god” of the Physics and Metaphysics

and identifying it with the Christian God, as well as employing Aristotelian final causality in

order to arrive at God, Aquinas had effectively “theologized” the relatively modest immanent

teleology of Aristotle into something more amenable to Christian religious belief.

In spite of being a relatively ancient argument, the merits of the FW are still being

discussed and debated in academic circles today A recent defense of the FW has been advanced

by Edward Feser, who argues that the FW plausibly allows one to infer a divine intelligence,

namely the God of classical Christian theism, on the basis of immanent teleology and final

causes in nature. This is accomplished by bracketing out Aquinas’ teleology as “scholastic

23

teleology,” which avoids the pitfalls of both Aristotelian and Platonic teleology. Further, Feser

contends that Darwinian evolution has no bearing whatsoever on the tenets of the FW, since the

teleology upon which it depends is intrinsic. However, I argued that Feser is far too optimistic

with regards to what the FW is actually able to accomplish as an argument for God’s existence.

Even if the argument is successful, it does not, of its own, provide an argument for a divine

intelligence. Rather, this conclusion depends on an array of other arguments and metaphysical

commitments not accounted for in the FW itself, calling for a much more modest appraisal than

Feser suggests. Further, contrary to Feser, Darwinian evolution does affect the Fifth Way insofar

as it limits the scope of potential examples a defender of the FW could offer as instances of

“natural bodies” acting for ends. I have also suggested a far more feasible and modest way the

FW could still be viable is if it could be reformulated as a “best explanation” type of argument

which argues that God is the best explanation for the final causality exhibited in nature.

Therefore, in spite of its age and conceptual challenges, the FW continues to maintain its status

as a worthy object of philosophical analysis and study.

24

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1 John F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being

(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 442. 2 Thomas Aquinas, ST I, Q. 2, Art. 1, trans. Alfred J. Freddoso. <http://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-

translation/TOC.htm>. Accessed December 3, 2013. Unless otherwise noted, all references from the Summa

Theologiae are taken from the Freddoso translation. Following Aristotelian parlance, Aquinas specifies that these

are not demonstrations of reasoned fact (propter quid), but rather are forms of demonstration quia. See: Alexander

Broadie, “Aquinas, St Thomas,” in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 2nd Ed., ed. Ted Honderich (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 2005), 45-48; Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 443. 3 Aquinas, ST I, Q. 2, Art. 3. See: F.C. Copleston, Aquinas (London: Penguin Books, 1955), 114-15. 4 F.C. Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. II: Medieval Philosophy (New York: Doubleday, [1950]

1993), 344. Copleston notes that while Kant denied the demonstrative character of the teleological proof and

considered it inconclusive, he nevertheless respected it on account of its antiquity, clarity, and persuasiveness. See:

Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews, ed. Paul Guyer

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 235-84. 5 See: Timothy Pawls, “The Five Ways,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, eds. Brian Davies and

Eleonore Stump (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 125; Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston:

Mariner Books, [2006] 2008), 103. Concerning Aquinas’ fifth way, Dawkins declares there has “probably never

been a more devastating rout of popular belief by clever reasoning than Charles Darwin’s destruction of the

argument from design.” 6 Edward Feser, “Between Aristotle and William Paley: Aquinas’s Fifth Way,” Nova et Vetera 11 (2013):

707-49. 7 Indeed, much of Aquinas’ work was heavily influenced by Aristotle’s philosophy, evidenced by the

frequent employment of Aristotelian concepts and doctrines, as well as the application of Aristotle’s metaphysical

method. See: James Doig, “Aquinas and Aristotle,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, eds. Brian Davies and

Eleonore Stump (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 40-41. 8 Christopher Shields, Aristotle (New York: Routledge, 2007), 42. 9 Ibid, 44. See: Aristotle, Phys. II.3, 194b23-35, trans. R.P. Hardie and R.K. Gaye. Unless otherwise noted,

all quotations from Aristotle are taken from The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: The

Modern Library, [1941] 2001). 10 Aristotle, Phys. II.3, 194b32-195a3. Allan Gotthelf points out that Aristotle is not introducing or defining

the concept of being for the sake of in terms of more familiar concepts, but is rather is arguing for the inclusion of

telos as a distinct type of cause. See: Allan Gotthelf, Teleology, First Principles, and Scientific Method in Aristotle’s

Biology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 4-5. 11 Aristotle, Phys. II.3, 195a23-25. 12 André Ariew, “Platonic and Aristotelian Roots of Teleological Arguments,” in Functions: New Essays in

the Philosophy of Psychology and Biology, eds. André Ariew, Robert Cummins, and Mark Perlman (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2002), 8. 13 David Charles, “Teleological Causation,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle, ed. Christopher Shields

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 227. 14 Shields, Aristotle, 68. 15 Ibid, 71. By “natural” realm (as opposed to the artefactual), Aristotle means the realm of objects which

are capable of initiating change and of bringing it to an end, and have an inner tendency to change. See: F.C.

Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. I: Greece and Rome (New York: Doubleday, [1946] 1993), 319. 16 Aristotle, Phys. II.8, 198b10. 17 Aristotle, Phys. II.8, 198b34-199a2. 18 Aristotle, Phys. II.8, 199a7-8. 19 Shields, Aristotle, 72. 20 Ibid, 74. One might say that Aristotle championed a form of “non-intentional, non-eliminative

teleological realism.” See: Shields, Aristotle, 75. 21 Ibid. Shields notes that teleological eliminativists known to Aristotle would have been such figures as

Empedocles, Democritus, and Leucippus, while Anaxagoras was a key teleological intentionalist for Aristotle. 22 Ibid, 75. 23 Michael Ruse, Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have a Purpose? (Cambridge: Harvard University

Press, 2003), 18.

29

24 For Aristotle, the “nutritive soul” was the “most widely distributed power of soul,” as well as being “that

one in virtue of which all are said to have life.” See: Aristotle, DA II.4, 415a20-25, trans. J.A. Smith. 25 Aristotle, DA II.4, 415a25-b5. Emphasis mine. 26 Ariew, “Platonic and Aristotelian Roots,” 9. Adapted from David Charles, “Teleological Causation in the

Physics,” in Aristotle’s “Physics”: A Collection of Essays, ed. Lindsay Judson (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

1995). 27 Ibid, 9. The Greek commentator Philoponus (In De An. 269-70) makes a similar clarification on

Aristotle’s distinction within final causes in natural bodies using the example of plants. He writes, “But it is not only

in the case of animals that the end twofold (‘that for the sake of which [as aim]’ and ‘that for which [as

beneficiary]’), but also in the case of plants. Even in their case nature makes the body an instrument that grows

upward for the need of the soul in them. For the parts of plants (root, husk, pit, leaves, and things of this sort) are

instrumental.” Cited in Johnson, Aristotle on Teleology, 67. 28 As Ariew points out, the majority of Aristotle’s arguments for teleology are marshalled against the

eliminativist objection that materials and their necessary causes can sufficiently explain the natural world. These

include the argument from flourishing, the argument from regularity, and the argument from pattern. Aristotle’s

general contention is that teleology better explains these occurrences in nature than pure materialism. See: Ariew,

“Platonic and Aristotelian Roots,” 12-18; Shields, Aristotle, 74-78. 29 Shields, Aristotle, 72. Aristotle writes, “It is absurd to suppose that purpose is not present because we do

not observe the agent deliberating. Art does not deliberate. If the ship-building art were in the wood, it would

produce the same results by nature. If, therefore, purpose is present in art, it is present also in nature. The best

illustration is a doctor doctoring himself: nature is like that. It is plain then that nature is a cause, a cause that

operates for a purpose.” See: Aristotle, Phys. II.8, 199b26-33. Ariew strongly contrasts the naturalistic, immanent,

and functional teleology of Aristotle with the creationistic, anthropomorphic, and externally evaluative teleology of

Plato. Ariew notes that for Plato, in stark opposition to Aristotle, the entire universe is an artifact, ordered and

guided by a creator called the “Demiurge.” See: Ariew, “Platonic and Aristotelian Roots,” 8-12; Ruse, Darwin and

Design, 14-15; Plato, Timaeus and Critias, trans. Robin Waterfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 1-100. 30 Shields, Aristotle, 82. 31 Ibid, 222. See: Aristotle, Phys. VIII.9, 266a5-10. 32 Helen S. Lang, “Aristotelian Physics: Teleological Procedure in Aristotle, Thomas, and Buridan,” The

Review of Metaphysics 42 (1989): 575. See: Aristotle, Met. XII.7, 1072b13-30, trans. W.D. Ross. 33 Stephen Menn, “Aristotle’s Theology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle, ed. Christopher Shields

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 450. See: Aristotle, Met. XII.10, 1075a12-22. 34 For a fuller discussion of “God” as the cause of motion in the Metaphysics XII, see: Vasilils Poltis, “The

Ultimate Cause of Change: God,” in Aristotle and the Metaphysics (London and New York: Routledge, 2004), 260-

97. 35 Aristotle, Met. XII.7, 1072a18-36. 36 Aristotle, Met. XII.7, 1072b1-5. 37 Monte Ransome Johnson, Aristotle on Teleology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), 69-70. 38 Mohan Matthen takes this interpretive route, and suggests that instead of being “fragmented and species-

bound,” Aristotle’s conception of the final causes of each species “connects in some way to the excellent activity of

the whole Universe.” See: Mohan Matthen, “Teleology in Living Things,” in A Companion to Aristotle, ed.

Georgios Anagnostopoulos (West Sussex: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2009), 345-46. 39 Johnson, Aristotle on Teleology, 258. 40 Ibid, 262. 41 Aristotle, EE VII.15, 1249b13-16. As translated and cited by Johnson, Aristotle on Teleology, 262. 42 Menn, “Aristotle’s Theology,” 422. Menn also points out that Aristotle often uses the term “god” as a

collective singular, similar to the word “man.” 43 Ibid, 423. Aristotle writes, “But since that which is moved must be moved by something, and the first

mover must be in itself unmovable, and eternal movement must be produced by something eternal and a single

movement by a single thing, and since we see that besides the simple spatial movement of the universe, which we

say the first and unmovable substance produces, there are other spatial movements – those of the planets – which are

eternal (for a body which moves in a circle is eternal and unresting; we have proved these points in the physical

treatises), each of these movements also must be caused by a substance both unmovable in itself and eternal…

Evidently then, there must be substances which are of the same number as the movements of the stars, and in their

nature eternal, and in themselves unmovable, and without magnitude, for the reasons before mentioned.” See:

Aristotle, Met. XII.8, 1073a25-40.

30

44 Lang, “Aristotelian Physics,” 575. 45 Ibid, 576. 46 Ibid. Lang concludes, “There is no failure in Physics 8. Aristotle’s procedural teleology established the

purposed of the argument first, namely, eternal motion in things, so that the closing lines lead not forward to the God

or Metaphysics 12, but refer back to the opening thesis, eternal motion in things.” 47 In medieval Christendom, the multiplicity of these “unmoved movers” in Aristotle caused interpretive

issues for those wanting to avoid the charge of heresy by positing multiple divinities. While the “Prime Mover,” as

the unmoved mover of the highest heavenly sphere, was generally equated with God, a common solution to the

problem of multiple other unmoved movers was to conceive of them as angels or other separated intelligences. See:

David C. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, 2nd Ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007),

260. 48 F.C. Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Vol. I: Greece and Rome (New York: Doubleday, [1946]

1993), 319. 49 I make this distinction to counter the tendency of assuming a direct link between Aristotle and Aquinas,

without taking into account the vast Arabic tradition of commentary which Aquinas inherited. See: David Burrell,

“Aquinas and Jewish and Islamic Authors,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, eds. Brian Davies and Eleonore

Stump (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 65-73; Peter Adamson, “Aristotle in the Arabic Commentary

Tradition,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aristotle, ed. Christopher Shields (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012),

645-64; Alexander Broadie, “medieval philosophy,” in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 2nd Ed., ed. Ted

Honderich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 579-81. 50 Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor, “Introduction,” in The Cambridge Companion to Arabic

Philosophy, eds. Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 2-3. 51 Ibid, 1-9; Michael Frede, “Introduction,” in Aristotle’s Metaphysics Lambda: Symposium Aristotelicum,

eds. Michael Frede and David Charles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 51. Frede notes, “The revival of

Aristotelianism in late Hellenistic and early Imperial times coincides with a period of religious ferment in which we

find a widespread and growing concern for matters divine and the fate and salvation of the soul, a concern shared

and often catered for by philosophers. During this period Aristotle becomes an authority.” 52 Richard C. Taylor, “Averroes: religious dialectic and Aristotelian philosophical thought,” in The

Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy, eds. Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2005), 181. 53 This can be seen, for instance, in Averroes’ commentary “Epitome of Aristotle’s Metaphysics,” where he

states, “The mover of the sphere of [fixed] stars, this [essence] is necessarily caused, having a cause which is the

origin of its existence. And this principle will be that which is fitted and suited by the afore-mentioned properties,

and this is God (praised and exalted), for the introduction of another principle prior to this is inevitably superfluous,

but nothing in nature is superfluous.” Averroes, On Aristotle’s “Metaphysics”: An Annotated Translation of the So-

called “Epitome”, ed. Rüdiger Arnzen (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co., 2010), 164. Emphasis mine. 54 Averroes, Long Commentary on the De Anima of Aristotle, trans. Richard C. Taylor (New Haven: Yale

University Press, 2009), 144. 55 Richard C. Taylor, “Averroes,” in A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, eds. Jorge J.E. Gracia

and Timothy B. Noone (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 189. See also: Roger Arnaldez, Averroes: A

Rationalist in Islam, trans. David Streight (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), 44-45. 56 Richard C. Taylor, “Providence in Averroes,” Forthcoming in Fate, Providence and Moral

Responsibility in Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Thought: Studies in Honour of Carlos Steel,

<http://academic.mu.edu/taylorr/Research_&_Teaching/Papers_8__Providence_in_Averroes.html>. Accessed

December 9, 2013; Averroes, Tahafut Al-Tahafut (The Incoherence of the Incoherence), Vols. 1 & 2, trans. Simon

Van Den Bergh (Cambridge: EJW Gibb Memorial Trust, [1954] 1978). 57 Concerning this “imitation,” Taylor contends that, for Averroes, the final causality of God as Creator

“draws things into a unity and organization of the entire universe by causing all the kinds of things to imitate to the

fullness of their ability the complete perfection of finality and being found in the Creator.” See: Taylor, “Providence

in Averroes.” 58 For a more complete discussion of Averroes’ relationship to final causality and the so-called

“teleological” argument, see: Taneli Kukkonen, “Averroes and the teleological argument,” Religious Studies 38

(2002): 405-28; Herbert A Davidson, Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic

and Jewish Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 229-36. 59 Johnson, Aristotle on Teleology, 22. 60 Thomas Aquinas, ST I, Q. 2, Art. 3.

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61 Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 480. 62 Thomas Aquinas, SCG I, Ch. 13, Art. 35, trans. Anton C. Pegis (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame

Press, [1955] 1975), 96. It should also be noted that Aquinas considered this design argument to have been “hinted”

at by Averroes in the In. II Physicorum, t.c. 75. 63 Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas, 480. 64 Thomas Aquinas, QDV, Q. 5, Art. 2, trans. Robert W. Mulligan, S.J. (Chicago: Henry Regnery

Company, 1952), <http://dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdeVer5.htm>, ed. Joseph Kenny, O.P. Accessed December 9,

2013. 65 Thomas Aquinas, QDV, Q. 5, Art. 2. The argument’s function as a precursor to the FW is quite clear,

especially with respect to the “arrow” analogy. As Aquinas argues, “What lacks intellect or knowledge, however,

cannot tend directly toward an end. It can do this only if someone else’s knowledge has established an end for it, and

directs it to that end. Consequently, since natural things have no knowledge, there must be some previously existing

intelligence directing them to an end, like an archer who gives a definite motion to an arrow so that it will wing its

way to a determined end. Now, the hit made by the arrow is said to be the work not of the arrow but also of the

person who shot it. Similarly, philosophers call every work of nature the work of intelligence.” 66 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John, Chapters 1-5, trans. Fabian Larcher, O.P. and

James A. Weisheipl, O.P. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 2. 67 Aquinas writes, “Thus the Psalm (88:10) says: “You rule the power of the sea, and you still the swelling

of its waves,” as though saying: You are the Lord and govern all things. John shows that he knows this about the

Word when he says below (1:11), “He came unto his own,” i.e., to the world, since the whole universe is his own.”

Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John, 2. 68 Timothy Pawls, “The Five Ways,” in The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas, eds. Brian Davies and Eleonore

Stump (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 124. 69 Aristotle had made this argument that things without cognition act for ends in book II of the Physics,

writing: “This is most obvious in the animals other than man: they make things neither by art nor after inquiry or

deliberation.” See: Aristotle, Phys. II.8, 198b20-35. 70 Thomas Aquinas, ST I, Q. 2, Art. 3. 71 Ariew, “Platonic and Aristotelian Roots,” 10-11. 72 Thomas Aquinas, QDV, Q. 5, Art. 2. 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 75 Aquinas had made an argument for the contingency of things that are “through something else” in De

ente et essentia, where he writes: Now, everything that a thing has is either caused in it by its own principles, as the

ability to laugh in man, or it comes to the thing from an external source, as the light in the air is coming from the

sun. But the existence of a thing cannot be caused by its form or quiddity itself (I mean, as by an efficient cause), for

then a thing would be its own cause, and would bring itself into existence, which is impossible. Therefore, all such

things, namely, those that have their existence as something distinct from their nature, have to have their existence

from something else. However, since everything that is through something else [per aliud] is reduced to what is

through itself [per se] as its first cause, there has to be something that is the cause of existence for everything, since

it is existence only. For otherwise the series of causes would go to infinity, since everything that is not existence

only has a cause for its existence, as has been said. It is clear, therefore, that an intelligence is both form and

existence, and that it has its existence from the first being that is existence only; and this is the first cause, which is

God. See: Thomas Aquinas, De Ente et Essentia, trans. Gyula Klima, ed. C. Boyer (Rome: Pontifical Gregorian

University, 1950). Cited in Medieval Philosophy: Essential Readings with Commentary, eds. Gyula Klima, Fritz

Allhoff, and Anand Jayprakash Vaidya (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), 240. 76 Thomas Aquinas, ST I, Q. 2, Art. 3. 77 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, Bk. 8, Lec. 23, Ch. 10, trans. Pierre H. Conway,

O.P. (Columbus: College of St. Mary of the Springs, 1958-62), <http://dhspriory.org/thomas/Physics.htm>, ed.

Joseph Kenny, O.P. Accessed December 10, 2013. Emphasis mine. 78 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Metaphysics, Bk. 12, trans. John P. Rowan (Chicago, 1961),

<http://dhspriory.org/thomas/Metaphysics.htm>, ed. Joseph Kenny, O.P. Accessed December 8, 2013. 79 As Helen Lang concludes concerning Aquinas’ method: “Thus, on Thomas’ procedure physics leads to

metaphysics because the end of physics, which considers the lowest kind of substance, takes us to the beginning of

metaphysics which progresses to the highest substance. The account of God in Metaphysics 12, completes the

account of the first unmoved mover begun in Physics 8.” See: Lang, “Aristotelian Physics,” 582. 80 Lang, “Aristotelian Physics,” 570-71.

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81 Feser, “Between Aristotle and William Paley,” 708. That is, in comparison to other arguments for God’s

existence on the basis of design or purpose in nature, specifically William Paley’s argument “from design.” 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid, 715. 84 Ibid, 716. 85 Ibid. 86 Ibid, 723. 87 Ibid, 724. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid, 725. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid, 727. 92 Ibid, 728. 93 Ibid, 729. Of course, for Aquinas, an appeal to God was necessary for a complete explanation of

regularity and final causality. This is the entire purpose of the FW. 94 Ibid, 732. 95 Ibid, 736. 96 Ibid. 97 Ibid. 98 Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, God: His Existence and Nature, Vol. 1 (St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co.,

1949), 469-70. See also: Garrigou-Lagrange, Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought. Translated by Patrick

Cummins. Lexington: Ex Fontibus Co., 2006-2012, 61-70. 99 Feser, “Between Aristotle and William Paley,” 737. 100 Ibid, 740. 101 Ibid. 102 And thereby open to the “God of the gaps” criticism and refutation by future discovery. 103 Feser, “Between Aristotle and William Paley,” 740. 104 Ibid, 741. 105 Ibid, 742. 106 Feser too quickly assumes that Aquinas’ argument in De ente et essentia arrives at God’s existence by

concluding to something something whose essence and existence are identical. For instance, the infinite regress

problem which terminates in God referenced in DEE is only due to the fact that Aquinas first assumes the

existence/essence distinction. Thus, it is not at all clear that Aquinas’ argument in DEE works in the way Feser

thinks it will for his argument. See: A. Maurer, “Dialectic in the De Ente Et Essentia of St. Thomas Aquinas,” in

Roma, magistra mundi. Itineraria culturae medievalis. Mélanges offerts au Père Boyle à l’occasion de son 75e

anniversaire, ed. J. Hamesse, (Louvain-la-Neuve, 1998) 573-83; R.E. Houser, “The Real Distinction and the

Principles of Metaphysics: Avicenna and Aquinas,” in Laudemus viros gloriosos: Essays in Honor of Armand

Maurer CSB, ed. R.E. Houser (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2007), 75-108. 107 Such as the argument offered by Aquinas in ST I, Q. 3, Art. 1. 108 Thomas Aquinas, ST I, Q. 2, Art. 3. 109 Timothy Pawls, “The Five Ways,” 125. 110 Ibid.