Aquinas’s Argument from Design Part 2: Final Causality

In the first post in this series on Aquinas’s Fifth Way, I introduced and explored several historical examples of different “teleological arguments,” of which the Fifth Way is one. In this post, I will make some final distinctions between the Fifth Way and other teleological arguments, and then begin laying out, explaining, and defending Aquinas’s argument.

For the most part, the majority of teleological arguments make use of what we might call “extrinsic” teleology, whereas the Fifth Way is based upon intrinsic teleology; it is largely for this reason that I think the latter is much stronger and more successful than the former. To grasp this, we might consider an example: Suppose you’re walking along a beach and come across some sticks arranged into a word. The word, qua word, is teleological; it conveys meaning, “points to” some meaning beyond itself. The sticks, on the other hand, in themselves are not teleological, at least in relation to the word. A stick, in itself, does not signify anything beyond itself (what it is), unless such further signification is imposed upon it externally, as in the case when the sticks are arranged to depict a word. So, when you walk on the beach and come across the sticks arranged into a specific word which conveys a meaning, you most likely conclude that some rational agent, some intelligence, some human person, was causally responsible for arranging the sticks. Because sticks in themselves do not convey a meaning beyond themselves, and yet because they have been externally arranged to convey a meaning beyond themselves, you conclude that some intentional and purposeful agent has imposed the meaning.

This is a simplistic example of what many teleological arguments are essentially.

An Augustinian Argument from Desire

What follows is, I believe, a novel argument for the existence of God. It is drawn almost entirely from the writings of St. Augustine, but though the line of thought is his, he does not seem to use it as a positive instance of natural theology. It is in this sense that the argument, as I’m using it here, is somewhat new.

Naturally theology is often divided into distinctive branches or types of arguments. These include families such as cosmological arguments, moral arguments, or teleological arguments, along with some other, less common ones as well. Of this latter sort, I’d suggest, there is the branch of “arguments from desire”. I consider these as less common just in relation to professional philosophical work; but, among popular apologetics, they are seen more frequently. Furthermore, they are quite common just in terms of their natural appeal and emotional effectiveness. It seems plausible that a good number of people believe in God and subscribe to some religious tradition on the basis of a kind of implicit, perhaps even subconscious argument from desire within them.

Aquinas’s Argument from Design for the Existence of God: Introduction

At long last, we begin the first post on the fifth and final of Aquinas’s Five Ways, or arguments for the existence of God. Outlines of the previous four Ways can be found here, here, here, and here, respectively. The first three, as I’ve explained multiple times previously, are considered Thomistic cosmological arguments. The Fourth Way is really a unique type of argument in its own right, although it certainly has precedent in earlier arguments, including one from Augustine. It also has certain features in common with axiological (moral) arguments, although contains very important differences.

The Fifth Way is commonly categorized as a “Teleological Argument”, or an Argument from Design. Design Arguments have quite a long and impressive history going all the way back to Ancient Greece, to Socrates and perhaps even earlier. The general concept received treatment, at least implicitly, from Plato, Aristotle, some Stoics, and medieval Islamic, Jewish, and Christian philosophers. Modern philosophers such as Newton and Leibniz likewise proposed design arguments. But modern forms of the argument, while perhaps maintaining the same spirit as the classical and medieval versions, underwent somewhat drastic development, particularly in relation to the natural sciences. In fact, contemporary incarnations of the argument are, for the most part, almost entirely dependent upon, and hence most susceptible of criticism by way of, certain interpretations of findings from biology or cosmology. Unfortunately, many who are only familiar with these contemporary design arguments unjustifiably assume that all design arguments are essentially the same and hence guilty of the same or at least similar faults. In this post we will give a brief overview of some different design arguments before introducing Aquinas’s version, which, I think, is not only significantly unique, but also the best of all design arguments, precisely because, in its uniqueness, it does not commit some of the same mistakes as others.