Pints With Aquinas - Aquinas' MANY Arguments For God's Existence w/ Dr. Joseph Trabbic

Episode Date: October 15, 2021

Here are the PDFs that Dr. Trabbic and I discussed today: https://www.patreon.com/posts/57265103 Dr Joseph Trabbic earned his PhD in philosophy from Fordham University in New York in 2008. He is currently associate professor of philosophy and chair of the philosophy department at Ave Maria University in Ave Maria Florida, where he has taught since 2006. His interests include St. Thomas Aquinas, Martin Heidegger, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion. He has published in various academic journals, among which Religious Studies, the International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, and the Heythrop Journal. He is a contributor to Thomistica.net and has a regular column with Catholic Word Report entitled “St. Thomas for Today.” He and his wife Rose are the proud parents of five children. Sign up for my free course on St. Augustine's "Confessions"!   SPONSORS Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/ Ethos Logos: https://www.elinvestments.net/pints   GIVING Patreon or Directly: https://pintswithaquinas.com/support/  This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer co-producer of the show.   LINKS Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/   SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd Gab: https://gab.com/mattfradd Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/pintswithaquinas   MY BOOKS Get my NEW book "How To Be Happy: Saint Thomas' Secret To A Good Life," out now! Does God Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Does-God-Exist-Socratic-Dialogue-ebook/dp/B081ZGYJW3/ref=sr_1_9?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586377974&sr=8-9 Marian Consecration With Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Marian-Consecration-Aquinas-Growing-Closer-ebook/dp/B083XRQMTF/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=fradd&qid=1586379026&sr=8-4 The Porn Myth: https://www.ignatius.com/The-Porn-Myth-P1985.aspx   CONTACT Book me to speak: https://www.mattfradd.com/speakerrequestform

Dr. Joseph Trabek lovely to have you on the show. Thank you very much Matt. Good to be here. Yeah. Yeah, this is really exciting Really excited to look in to Aquinas's arguments to God's existence and like a good academic You've printed off something for me that even has footnotes. It's amazing. Yeah, you you have the Latin on mine I didn't include it on my print this out for me Yeah, well, it has footnotes in Latin and I had and I had meant to make several but Things go this is amazing. So you have the Latin and I'm gonna meant to make several, but now things go. This is amazing. So you have the Latin and I'm going to have to –

Well, I can't read Latin, so if you want to swap, just let me know. Yeah, it's funny, you sent me that article from a – what is it? A French Dominican? French Supecian, yeah. Oh, okay. Jules Bessonet, yeah. Okay. So I printed it off this morning, got excited to read it and realized half of it was in

Latin and went, I'm not smart at all. That's not true. But anyway, it's so lovely to have you on the show. For those who are watching and are not sure who Dr. Joseph Trebek is, tell us a bit about yourself. Well, I teach at Ave Maria University. I teach philosophy there. I've been teaching at Ave since 2006. And right now I'm the chair of the department. We switch off on it. It's basically administration is something I'm not good at, right? I can't wait until I'm not chair anymore.

So my main interests are St. Thomas, medieval philosophy, Heidegger, in systematic areas, metaphysics, philosophy of religion. I love it, your phone just binged. Is that your wife? Wondering why you haven't shaved. No, no. Wondering why I haven't shaved. That's what I was going to say, because you brought that up earlier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, honey, I'm sorry I didn't shave. That looks good. it's masculine. I didn't have time. So what did you do your dissertation in at Fordham?

I did it on St. Thomas and Heidegger on the problem of ontotheology. Wow. Yeah. Okay, well, I'm not going to ask what that was about because I've learned that you don't ask somebody what the dissertation was on. We could go on for several hours. Yeah. Well I saw actually you gave a few lectures with the Thomistic Institute.

I think one of them was on this. I gave one lecture. It was on – well, right, it was on religion and postmodernism, which is a related topic. Sure. Yeah. And I should mention my dissertation director was Father Joseph Kutursky who recently passed away. He was a great Jesuit.

It's very, very sad that he's gone. He was a great dissertation director. But I know a lot of people are mourning his loss. This is recent, very recent. Yeah, yeah. But it was last month, I believe. Yeah. Okay.

So we're going to be talking about Thomas Aquinas, his arguments for God's existence and things like this. But in your background, were you always a Christian? Did you ever wrestle with the faith? I'm a cradle Catholic, but I wasn't always really interested in my faith, right? So high school, beginning of college, yeah, it wasn't at the center of my life, right? So yeah, no, I did eventually come back and yeah, and I wasn't always interested in philosophy either. I only started becoming interested in philosophy after

reading the autobiography of Fulton Sheen. And when he talks there about his studies in philosophy, I thought, well, that sounds cool. I should study philosophy. So yeah, that was after my sort of reversion, which would have been early 20s, so yeah. Excellent, yeah. I studied philosophy, undergrad and master's. Yeah. Okay.

And it was like when I started reading the great philosophers, I'm like, this is kind of what I was thinking about in seed form when I was going through my angsty teenage years. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think you see a lot of that – we're talking about Aquinas – I think you see a lot of that in Aquinas. Things that – what he does – and I would say Aristotle too, he brings to light things that you already had

some kind of intuition of or understood but hadn't quite formulated in your mind, and you see, yeah, okay, right, I get that. Yes, I recognize that that's true, right? This is something this is how I had seen the world as well, right? You know just basic things like like substances and accidents and that sort of thing different kinds of causality, right? When did you do a dive into Thomas's arguments? Well, what was your first impression? Okay. Well, initially I was not really that interested in St. Thomas. So in undergrad I was more interested in Nietzsche and Heidegger and those guys. And I read Aquinas, we had to read him for class, and I appreciated him, but I always saw him as kind of like a guardrail instead of something

to really focus on, right? So I thought, okay, yes, St. Thomas is right, gotta follow St. Thomas, but I'm not really gonna focus on St. Thomas, right? So if what I'm reading comes up against the guardrail, I'll know that there's a problem. So it took me a while. When I went to grad school, I went to Fordham, and that's where I began to actually become interested, personally interested in St. Thomas. And the reason why I became interested in him was because I was reading a lot of Heidegger. And as I was reading Heidegger, I would say, or I would think, well, when he talks about

St. Thomas here or there, I would say, that doesn't really seem right. I'm not an expert in St. Thomas, but I know that that's not Thomas there, right? He's got him wrong. So I thought, one of these days I'll write an article or something you know about this issue. But it kept coming up again and again. So finally I broke down and when I came to write my dissertation I decided I was going to write on Aquinas and Heidegger. But at that point I hadn't really read very deeply into St. Thomas I thought okay if I'm gonna write a dissertation I need to start reading. So I it took me a while to write because I was I was

teaching myself St. Thomas that was 20 years ago and so yeah that's what I you know ever since then I've I've just been going, you know, further and more deeply into St. Thomas. My experience is a lot of people who study philosophy today look upon Aquinas with a skepticism. They see him not so much as a philosopher in his own right, but as an apologist with whatever it is the church happens to have taught. Did you find that when you began reading Aquinas that he had a lot to contribute or was it just, did you find he was just regurgitating? Oh no, no, he has certainly a lot to contribute.

Good answer. No, I mean, get out. So, right, so I think what initially when I was in college, I'd read St. Thomas and I would think, okay, this is right, but it's just so neat and orderly. It's not very exciting, reality has got to be deeper, more mysterious. So it took me a while to really see that Thomas does go to that deeper level because you read them and you first see like this line of arguments and think, okay, they all, you know, it's a sound argument, it works,

but it's really getting at the deep stuff. And the more you read St. Thomas, you see that he is, that these arguments are after the contemplation, right? He doesn't start with the arguments, right? It's after he's understood something that he shows you how he got there, right? Or how you could get there. So yeah, no, I really then began to appreciate him as a philosopher, yeah, for sure.

Do us a favor, for those who are kind of new to Thomas and metaphysics, could we just discuss sort of Thomistic metaphysics in a couple of minutes, just to give people a basic layer of the land, maybe a few explanations of some of the terms we'll be using today? Yeah, sure. So one of the things that I think is central to, well, metaphysics, first of all, let's say, is the study of being, right? The study of being as being. We get that idea from Aristotle or that formulation from Aristotle, and St. Thomas takes it over. And so Thomas says you have what he calls ends, which is a being, and everything that exists is an ends, it's some kind of being. And every ends, every being is structured in such a way that it has an essence and an act of existence. And the Latin is essencia,

and the act of existence in Latin is essay. Okay. So every being has an essence and that by which it exists, which St. Thomas calls essay, or we translate as being or existence or act of existence. And some beings are what he calls substances, some are accidents of substances. Now a substance is a being that has, so to speak, existence in itself. It's not simply a part of

another being. Whereas an accident is a being that is always a part or inheres in some other being. It doesn't have existence in itself, it only exists as a part or an aspect of some being or of a substance. And so for example, you and I are both substances, right? We're not simply parts or aspects of other beings. We have, to a certain extent, existence in ourselves. But then we have different features that only exist as aspects of us, such as our height, our weight, our hair color, and so on. Right?

These things don't exist on their own somewhere. They only exist as aspects of us or parts of us. So every being is either a substance or an accident and then every being is composed, as Thomas says, of essence and existence or it's a essence and active active existence Now every created being He tells us is such that its existence doesn't belong to its nature Its existence is something that's given to it. Mm-hmm, right and so

You and I and everything else in this room are like that. Our existence is something that's really distinct from our essence. So we don't exist just because it's natural for us to exist. We exist because existence has been given to us. Yeah. So your existence isn't in the definition of your essence. Right, exactly. Like a three-sided shape or triangle, however you define that. Exactly, exactly. So we could say we're rational animals.

Existence is not part of that definition. You can understand what a human being is without understanding that this human being actually exists, right? So existence in a way comes to us from the outside or it comes outside of our essence, right, as a gift. And so that's true for every creature. Where does it come from? Saint Thomas says, of course,

it ultimately comes from God. That's what it means to create It means to give existence to beings Entirely give existence entirely to beings. That's what creation is and that's why why we're creatures So those are some some basic Concepts in St. Thomas's metaphysics. So a unicorn has an essence but not an existence. As far as I know.

As far as we know. There might be something on another planet that resembles that. Although, can I say it? There is something, okay. Yeah, I think I might know what you're going to say. I don't know, maybe you do. I always used to use the unicorn as an example of a mythical creature in my classes when we talk about essence and existence.

And then I came across this news story several years ago about the Siberian unicorn. And it was a – okay, we're kind of going off. No, this is good. That's what it's all about. And then you started using mermaids as an example. Right. exactly. So I said, I can't use unicorn anymore because apparently there was, now, further I read the story, it said,

well, it kind of looked more like a rhinoceros. I thought, oh, all right, well. But anyways, yes, the point is- Tyrannosaurus rex has essence, or it is something, but it doesn't exist. Right, but it doesn't exist. Leprechauns, not to offend any of the Irish, but don't have essay, don't have existence. But we can recognize what kind of thing that they are. What do you say to those who might say all there is is accidents?

So if I take an apple, there are certain qualities about this apple. It's roundness, it's redness, it's sweetness, it's firmness. But if you were to take away all those accidents, you don't have anything that exists anymore. So why not just say everything is only accidents? Right. Well, because those accidents, if we really mean accidents, then there's something that they are the accidents of, like what is it that's round, what is it that's sweet and so on. And so we all recognize that sort of intuitively, sort of common sensically. So that's one of the things that I would say that we all recognize, but we never quite formulate it to ourselves that there are such things as substance and accidents.

And then we read Aristotle or we read Aquinas and we say, okay, yeah, that makes sense. That is how the world is structured, right? But right, so nothing is just accidents. It's there, we recognize that it's something that is. And substance, etymologically, doesn't that mean under? Like it stands under? Right, stands under, right. That's one way to understand substance is that it is, so to speak, what underlies

the accidents, right? So it's the subject of the accidents, right? The accidents are in that respect sort of predicates of it. Okay. Any other terms we need to know before we start digging into these? Yes, let's- Let's talk about causality. Yeah. Causality.

Right. So, um, following Aristotle St. Thomas will distinguish four different kinds of causes. There is the, um, we starts off with a formal cause and material cause. The material cause of a, of a thing, of a being, of a substance is what is this stuff that it's made out of, so to speak. So these mugs here are ceramic. That's their matter or material cause.

The form then, there are different ways to understand form. Very primitive basic ways to say, well, it's kind of the shape that the matter is in, right? So we have the ceramic, the clay that the mug is made out of, which is the matter, and then we have the shape, which we could call its form. But there are other ways to understand form that are related to it. You could say it's the structuring principle

of the matter. It's what determines that the matter is this kind of thing rather than that kind of thing, right? So that would be form. Then we have what is called the efficient cause. The efficient cause would be that which brings, if we stick with the example of the mug, it's the person who made the mug. This is usually what we mean by cause in modern English. Yeah, right. So when we speak about cause, we usually mean what St. Thomas or Aristotle would – well, Aristotle calls it the moving cause, Thomas

calls it the efficient cause. Right, that's what we usually mean when we talk about cause in our modern languages. So it's the cause that brings something into existence either in a relative way or in absolute way, right? either in a relative way or an absolute way. So the guy, the person that made this took some clay and fashioned it into a mug. So he is the efficient cause. He didn't absolutely bring it into being.

There was something that already existed that he fashioned into a mug. But he's still in that respect the efficient cause. Then the final cause is the purpose or the goal, right? So the final cause of this cup is to hold something to drink, right? Or your spare change or whatever. So that would be the final cause. And what they all, I would say what causes all have in common, the cause of something

is that upon which it depends in some respect. St. Thomas says this in the De Potencia. He says that a cause is that upon which something depends. So we could go through that whole analysis again and talk about how this cup depends for what it is on its form and its matter. It depends for its existence on its efficient cause. It depends on its final cause in a way that's what guides us to when we're making a cup or a table or whatever. Its form depends on the final cause, what the purpose is. Yeah.

So kind of four explanations, like four, it's almost like, yeah, I find if you just say like, there's like four, if you say, what's the point of this? Or what is this? Explain this to me. There's like four different ways you could do that. Right, right. Exactly. Yeah. So it's four different ways that we can explain a thing. But it's important to see that they really are – yes, they're explanations, but they

really do belong to the thing that we're talking about. So the form is really there. It's a real principle, the matter and so on are real principles of it. Okay. So I think that one more thing about causality, I would say is the what can be called the principle of causality. And that is simply the idea and it especially pertains to the efficient cause that nothing can give what it doesn't have.

Right, so a cause can only be a cause of a certain effect if it has what it takes to bring about that effect. So it either has just enough reality to produce it or it has more than enough reality to produce it. So I couldn't make a cup if I don't know how to make a cup, right? And I could not only be able to make cups, but all kinds of things with clay. So I would have more than what's required to make a cup. So the efficient cause in order to bring about the effect has to have reality that's sufficient to bring about that effect has to have reality that's sufficient to bring about that effect. So you can't get something higher from something lower, so to speak, which is – and some

people when they talk about evolution want to say that it's a refutation of the principle of causality, but that's another – Yeah, another episode. What would Nietzsche have to say about what we've shared so far about these metaphysical terms since you said you were into him? Yeah, so Nietzsche thinks of, well, you read a different book of Nietzsche,

you read, you know, he says something else, but just taking some statements he makes, he speaks of being, for instance, as the last trailing cloud of evaporating reality. So it's nothing. What is being? You've got this cup here. You've got its different aspects. That's it.

Where's the being? That's what I was saying earlier with the accidents. And that's what I was saying earlier with the accidents. That's what you got. Yeah. So being for Nietzsche is kind of an empty concept, right? And he would say about the causes, there's a side of Nietzsche where he somewhat like Kant wants to say that how we see the world is a projection, right? Or it's just it's not the world itself, it's just our interpretation or what we've projected. You take that away and there's no world. So he would say at best, you know, the different features of this cup that I've just talked about in terms of the

four causes are a projection of my mind. It's not something that's really out there. And being, well, that's just an empty concept. It's such a fascinating discussion as to how we got to Kant trying to save science from Hume, presumably, going back to Descartes and how you get that toothpaste back in the tube. Like once you start looking at reality and saying this doesn't actually exist the way you think it does. How do you even argue against it at that point? How do you bring people back to that kind of more innocent and pure way of looking at reality the way Plato did?

Right. Well, one way is to see how this projection idea that you get in Kant, well, you already see it starting in Hume, as you mentioned, and then it's more systematized in Kant, and then you find it again in Nietzsche, and so on. One way to do it is to show how that this approach to reality which we call constructivist or projectionist is self-refuting, right? Because there has to be at least one thing that isn't projected and that's the one doing the projection, projecting, right? Presumably, unless Hume's right. But you can't have a projector doing the projecting if it doesn't exist in the first place. My consciousness doesn't bring it into existence.

My consciousness is something that's already there, given, apart from anything that I do. Wasn't this kind of how phenomenology got off the ground with Husserl going back to the things themselves? Was this kind of being fed up with looking at, you know? Sure, right. Well, I think that Husserl saw that the problems with modern philosophy – he had an appreciation for Hume and Kant, but he thought that you could take their approach to a certain extent, but actually get to reality. And you did that for Husserl by bracketing off your presuppositions and just paying attention to things as they give themselves.

Imagine. What a novel concept. Sorry, it's very belittling. Obviously, he's brilliant, but it just sounds so obvious, doesn't it? Yeah. Do you know when I was a teenager, I was a solipsist without knowing what that was? I had a bout of solipsism for about,

I don't know, maybe a month. I got really afraid that no one else existed. Yeah. So what happened? Have I talked about this too much, Neil? This is what's tough when you have a show. You only have so many anecdotes to share. I remember standing in my bedroom and having the door closed and wondering how do I know, sort of epistemologically, not that I knew that word then either, if I was to swing the door open, maybe I could catch it in its non-existence,

you know? But I'd throw it open and of course it would be there, you know? And I said to my best friend, one of my best friends, Gareth, in the library that I was afraid he didn't exist. And he tried to convince me that he did. He was concerned for me. I just thought, well, that's what you would bloody say. Did he slap you? Did he punch you? He should have. Who did the slapping? My projection. But it's a scary rabbit hole to go down. I actually – you familiar with the philosopher William Lann Craig? Yeah, sure. He talks about – well, actually, it was Plantinga who I think first – well, many

people have spoken about this, but the idea of God being a properly basic belief that isn't based upon other beliefs that I have, but it's just part of my immediate experience. And I've often thought that sort of obsessing over arguments for God's existence could have the same negative effect of obsessing over arguments against solipsism. If it's true that God's existence can be properly basically held like my existence can, I'm sure there's YouTube videos out there that are talking about how it's quite possible that no one else exists. And you could go down to a rabbit hole and that would ruin your relationships with your wife, with your kids, with your friends.

No, of course. And that's not to say we don't have good arguments to God's existence or we shouldn't be concerned with them in the efforts of evangelization and so forth, but just to say that you can see how it could interfere with your relationship with God. Of course. Yeah, no, that's definitely true. There's a place for the arguments, and even if they're sound, they may not be convincing to a particular person, not necessarily because they don't recognize the arguments as sound, but for certain emotional reasons, because of the person's history and so on. So when to use the arguments is, I think,

always a matter of prudence. But we can still say, whether you understand it or not, these arguments are sound, like we could say for arguments or proofs in any other field. So they have a place and they can have a detrimental effect on some people, but on other people they can be what finally convinces them. them, right? I think the British philosopher whose name is escaping me right now who finally came to believe that maybe Aristotle's god exists. Not Russell, surely. No, no, no. Well, he, he, he was modern. Yeah. Right.

Um, like Locke or no, no, no, no, no. Uh, no, I mean, recent. Okay. Yeah. Um, anyway, I'm sorry. This is the, this is the beauty of not editing videos. You're welcome. This, this is, this is a recent, so it was an, yeah, no, no, you'll, you'll, you'll know who I'm talking about. You're welcome.

This is a recent so it wasn't anything. Yeah, no, no. You'll know who I'm talking about. Flew, Anthony Flew. Oh, of course. Yeah, right. So he's someone that's convinced by arguments, right? He's a philosopher.

And it was through thinking through these things that he eventually decided, okay, well, maybe God does exist. I think for him it might have had something to do with evolution and he couldn't understand the gap between living and non-living. So the arguments again do have a place, but they're not something that is going to be useful for everyone, so to speak, even if they are sound. Even if they are sound. So Aquinas famously says in line with scripture and church teaching that we don't need faith

to know God exists, that God did reveal his existence to us, and of course that can be beneficial if you can't think your way through some of these arguments because you don't have time or you're like me and you don't have the greatest intellect or something like that. But so that's helpful, but in principle you can prove God's existence. Vatican 1 defined that. Whenever people think of Aquinas, one of the first things they think about is his five proofs for God's existence. And I was reading, what is it, Father Thomas Joseph White whites excellent book on Catholicism? I'm forgetting the name of it, but he said, you know footnote

I think there was about 20 something arguments for God's existence from Thomas Aquinas I thought what and then it was our friend John Paul West who put us in touch and said that you had done some work On this so introduce us to this before we delve into the individual. So So say Thomas has Everyone well everyone Many people know the five ways before we delve into the individual arguments. So St. Thomas has everyone, well, everyone. Many people know the five ways. And people who know Aquinas know that, okay, there's the five ways, but he also has other arguments.

But even people who know Aquinas fairly well don't know all of the arguments that he has for God's existence. And we were talking about this earlier, there is an essay published in 1952 by the French Silpician priest Jules Besnet who taught philosophy at seminaries in the US. And he published an essay in 1952 in which he tries to catalog all of Aquinas' arguments for God's existence, and he comes up with a list of about 40, which is somewhat astonishing, right? You think, wow, really? Are there 40 different arguments for God's existence in Aquinas?

And I want to come back to that. Then about 30 years later, Fernand van Stenbergen, a Belgian priest and scholar of medieval philosophy in St. Thomas, published a book on Aquinas's arguments and he comes up with about 30 arguments that he identifies across Thomas's rights. Is he accordioning them, some of them? Some of them like obviously the same argument expressed differently which he's putting together? Is that how we went from 40 to 30? No, because he does it like Besnei does it, he does it chronologically. So he says starting with, I think they both start.

Well you could start with De Ente or the commentary and the sentences, they're right around the same time, early 1250s. So then they go through each work where they think that they have identified an argument and say, okay, here's an argument here, here's an argument here. Besnei just goes through and lists the arguments. There's not much commentary on them. Whereas von Steinbergen, he has a large book that comments on each of the arguments and he thinks that a lot of them don't work.

And he's also – even though he appreciates St. Thomas and is a scholar of St. Thomas, he is even critical of some of the five ways. But to get back to Besnei, so that's the longest list that I've ever seen of arguments of St. Thomas. So again, he wants to say that there are 40. And then as you were saying, some of these arguments are actually the same argument, right? So then what Besnei does is try to classify the different arguments. And that list comes to, I think, about 10 or 11 different arguments. And I've looked, I've gone to the texts

and looked at the arguments and some of them I think are misclassified by Besnei. I think that what he calls, for instance, one of the arguments I wanna talk about today, he sees as an argument from the degrees of perfection, like you get in the fourth way. And he sees an argument in St. Thomas' Commentary on the Sentences as being a version of the argument from the degrees of perfection, but it's not.

I think he's classified it wrong. But the work that he did was very helpful, and I think people who are interested in St. Thomas' argument should go to that essay and look up these different arguments and see what they think for themselves and see whether they think that they've been properly classified and so on. RICK Just real quick, is that essay what you sent me? The PDF? Yeah. All right. So for those who are watching in the live stream, I'll put a link to this essay as soon as this live stream is over so people can download the PDF and read it for themselves. Yeah. Okay. So just remind me, Neil, would you? Thanks. Right. So some of the arguments, so okay, so let's say that they're 40, and there's arguments, I mean there's reasons to say that he's got it right and reasons to say that there could

be more, there could be less. But let's assume that his list is more or less accurate. So you go through those arguments and perhaps some of them could be classified differently from how he classifies them. But then you also have to notice that some of the arguments are fairly well developed, like you get in the five ways. Or the Contra Gentiles, for example. Contra Gentiles, yeah.

The first prime mover arguments, much more developed. Very developed. And then some of them are just sort of sketches of arguments, or just kind of gesturing at an argument. And what you need to do then, so you get a premise and a premise and a conclusion and you wonder, well, how do you get from A to D to Z here? Because it seems like there are a lot of premises that are missing.

So a lot of premises that are missing. So a lot of the arguments are like that. Thomas comes to the conclusion that they prove God, but you don't see what all the premises are and you have to do a lot of work on your own trying to figure out, trying to reconstruct the argument that he had in mind. And so it's kind of like a puzzle where it's a hundred piece puzzle and you've got – he gives you like maybe five of the pieces and then you have to go – and usually to do that you go to other writings, parallel passages, parallel texts and say, okay, well, he's

more expansive on this point in this other text and that helps me to understand how he gets from this premise to this conclusion in this particular argument. So it takes a lot of work to reconstruct the argument that he might have had in mind. Now there's an argument that I have one of these other non-five ways arguments that I don't want to talk about today. But I will mention. Which is what? Just because this one has always for me been the most difficult, at least of the ones that I've studied to figure out, and maybe someone who's watching has some input. So late in his life, St. Thomas wrote a commentary on the Gospel of St. John.

Yes, the prologue is where you find it. Yeah, right. In the prologue, there are four arguments for God's existence. The fourth argument is an argument for God's existence from the incomprehensibility of truth. And immediately you think, how could that be an argument for God's – You'd understand it, therefore. Yeah.

Right. And so just to – Interesting. Yeah, so just to set it up and show why it's difficult to figure out. Yeah, please. He says, there are some truths that we grasp, and they are therefore finite truths because we can grasp them, therefore there must be an incomprehensible truth that exists, and that's God.

Right? And so you're wondering, okay, well, how did we get from the finite truth to the incomprehensible truth? So it's finite truth to infinite truth, right? So I think what's going on there is the reasoning is that in some way the finite implies the infinite, right? But he's talking about this, especially with relation to truth, connection with truth. And that's an argument for God's existence,

but it's very difficult to figure out what the reasoning is there, right? So I present that as one that I don't want to talk about today. Yeah. So it seems to me that whenever we come up with an argument for God's existence, we have three starting points. I'm thinking about this on the fly here. Let's see if I'm right.

We have the external world. We have the internal world, our subjective experience, and then we have the definition of God. I can't think of any other starting point You know our experience of beauty our experience of morality and so on Even even arguments from history say the person of Jesus Christ. They're not exactly what you'd call cosmological arguments They're historical, but they begin with the outside world But am I right in thinking They're not exactly what you'd call cosmological arguments. They're historical, but they begin with the outside world.

But am I right in thinking that all of Aquinas' arguments are cosmological in the sense that they begin from what we experience in the world? Or this one on truth, though, might be different. Yeah. Right. So the one on truth seems to be talking about an argument from internal evidence, right? Well, let's keep that an open question.

Most of them, most of his arguments, if you go through them, are arguments that start from some aspect of the external world, some aspect of the world that we can observe. And now you have to recognize that some of them, he doesn't give you the first premise in some of those. He starts off like kind of already on the way, like the second or third premise. So for instance, one of the ones that I want to talk about today premise. So for instance, one of the ones that I want to talk about today has to do with – it's a lot like the argument in De ante at the Sencia with existence not belonging to the essence of certain things and how that ultimately leads us to God. I was talking about that earlier when we were talking about metaphysics. And so he's already starting – this is already like – has to be like the third or the fourth premise of the argument, right? He's already advanced quite a ways down the argument. He

doesn't give you the first premise, which would have to be some kind of evidence that allows us to see that things – that essence doesn't belong to the – that existence doesn't belong to the essence of certain things. And so some people want to say that, for instance, the argument in Dei and Dei Dei Dei Sensia can't be an argument for God's existence because he doesn't begin with sense experience. But I want to say he's presupposing the sense experience, and from that sense experience we learn that there are some beings whose essence doesn't include their existence. So the sense experience is implicit. In any case, it is an argument from some aspect of the world ultimately to God. So it's not beginning with the concept of God, it's not beginning with internal experience, it's beginning with

what we can experience of the world, what we are familiar with with respect to the world. And the stronger arguments I would say are like the first of the five ways, which he famously says is the most manifest way, and that comes from which he famously says is the most manifest way, and that comes from noticing that things change. And you think, well, there couldn't be anything more indubitable than change, right? That's a great starting point. But we're not going to talk about the five ways. Okay. I was going to say, yeah, well, that's a good point, because if I disagree with you that things change and I hear Aquinas' argument and then decide that it was bad, then I've changed my opinion.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. So we've got how many arguments here? Four? Are these his direct quotes? Yeah. So I have on their text, yeah. Can we go through each of these? Well, I would like to focus on – we could come back to some of them. Sure. They're two that I would like to focus on, and that's the first two from the commentary and the sentences. Okay, so number one and two, from the imperfection and potentiality of things and from the absence

of existence in the nature of things. Right. All right, let's do it. Could we though read his text before we comment on him too for those of us? Sure, yeah, Let's do that. So these are my translations, and Latin scholars can criticize them if they like. Tell us what the commentary on the sentences are for those who aren't aware. So Peter Lombard was a theologian who lived in the 12th century and wrote what was basically a textbook of theology called The Sentences.

And it was a textbook that theologians used in the universities from about the 13th century onward to maybe into the 16th century. It was a basic textbook of theology and a lot of the university's professors, their courses would be a commentary on Peter Lombard's sentences. And St. Thomas has his own commentary and this is something that he did

at the beginning of his teaching career in the early 1250s. So about 1252 to 1256 is when it is thought that he composed this commentary and the sentences. And so the sentences is in four books, and it's on the Trinity, it's on Christ, creation, and the sacraments. And the first book is on the Trinity, and there's an argument that comes from a discussion of the unity of the essence of the Trinity.

So God is one, so it's a discussion of the oneness of God. And there Thomas sketches, these are just sketches of arguments, a few different arguments that end up being arguments for God's existence. Now, one thing I should mention, I was going to say this earlier, I had forgotten, but several of Thomas's arguments are arguments that other people have made, right? And he takes them over and makes them his own. And I would say that that's the case with the argument that we're going to look at

here. This is actually an argument that Peter Lombard makes, but Thomas makes it his own and you see elsewhere in later writings, you see him reasoning in the same way but not citing Lombard. So you know that he agrees with this reasoning and so he accepts it as an argument. This is one of those confusing arguments. Not to say that he has many arguments that are not confusing, but this one is I find especially confusing because there are different ways that he could be going here with this argument. So let's read it and then we'll talk about it. So he says,

everything that has existence from nothing must have it from another from which its existence flows, but all creatures have existence from nothing. This is manifest from their imperfection and potentiality. Therefore, it is necessary that their existence come from one that is first, and this is God." Okay, so that's the argument. And when you first start to read it, you think, okay, he's arguing for God's existence from the fact that there are things that have existence from nothing. But then you come to the second line and after there's a semicolon there, he says that this existence from nothing, we know that there are things that exist from nothing because they are imperfect and

in potential. Right. So then you think, okay, so then it's an argument from imperfection and potentiality. And actually that's how Besnei classifies it. He says this is an argument from the imperfection and potentiality of things. And that's how I have thought through it because once you start thinking about imperfection and what it tells us, that by itself can become an argument for God's existence, which I think is fascinating because you would think that the experience of imperfection should not lead us to God, right? Only the experience of perfection should, and that's kind of what the fourth way does, right? Yeah, degrees of being.

Yeah. And so here he's telling us that it's the imperfection of things that can lead us to see that God exists. But it's also evidence that things exist from nothing. So let's think – Now, just real quick, here, like in the five ways, he's talking about a hierarchical series of causes, not a chronological one, right? So this isn't some kind of Kalam argument. Right, no. Everything that exists from nothing must have it from another.

Would you say, like, assuming the universe is eternal, this argument still is coherent because... Yes, well, so I think if maybe we could go off on a small tangent here, we should talk about the difference between accidentally ordered causal series and essentially ordered causal series, which you're getting at when you're talking about the Kalam argument. So we have a cause and effect and some, Thomas says that some causes and effects are accidentally related and some of them are essentially related. Okay, what does that mean? Well, an essentially related cause and effect have a relationship such that the effect can only exist so long as the cause does. So if the effect exists now, the cause must exist now.

KS Sun and sunlight. Bowling ball on a pillow, the end of it. RG Right, right, exactly. Or a singer, like the song sung by a singer. So if a singer is singing a song, that's pretty good alliteration. That's good. If a singer is singing a song,

if that singer ceases to exist, so does a song, right? Because it depends on the existence of the singer. Essentially, yeah. Okay, so that is an essentially ordered causal series. In all of Thomas's arguments for God's existence, think of causality as essentially ordered causal series. That's what he's talking about. Accidentally ordered causal series is a causal relationship in which the effect can exist even if the cause ceases to exist.

So this table right here, whoever made it could cease to exist and the table will go on existing. Right? The second domino isn't dependent on the first one. Right. That fifth domino isn't dependent on the first one. Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly. So all of Thomas's arguments, he presupposes that what we're dealing with, what we're talking about is an essentially ordered causal series. So if the effects exist right now, then their ultimate cause must exist right now. Right now, yeah, yeah, yeah, gotcha. And of course for Thomas that's God.

So we're not saying this is, as you said before, this is not a chronolog, this is not a historical causal series going back in time. It's talking about what is the case right now. So what do we mean then from nothing? Everything that has existence from nothing, what do we mean by from nothing? Right, so it sounds strange, right? Because if it's something,

it couldn't have come from nothing, so what does Thomas mean here? What he's saying is that its existence comes wholly to it from that upon which it depends for its existence such that there was nothing that its cause that already existed and the cause took and refashioned it into this thing. So that's the case with these cups, right? So the guy who made them, there was already clay that existed. And he took it and fashioned it into a cup.

Well, that's not existence from nothing, that's existence, you've taken something that already exists and made it into something else. So when he talks about existence from nothing, he's saying that the cause brings the effect wholly into existence. It doesn't presuppose something already existing. So there's nothing that's presupposed as existing, right? The effect is brought into existence wholly by the cause. All right. That's fair enough, yeah. I mean, that first premise is pretty indisputable.

Everything that has existence from nothing, I guess we could also say that at one time did not exist. Something that exists that at one time did not exist must receive existence from something else. That's obvious. In a way, it's kind of a tautology, right? If it exists from nothing and we understand what that means, then of course it has to have its existence from something else.

Gotcha. So in a way, he's just sort of giving us a definition there. Okay, and then he says, but all creatures have existence from nothing. And then here's what I think is the important line. This is manifest from their imperfection and potentiality. Okay, we know that they have their existence. The evidence that this and you and I and everything in the world exists from nothing

is our imperfection and potentiality. So how is that a sign that we exist from nothing? Now, when you follow the reasoning out or what I take to be his reasoning, you see that that itself is already a proof or an argument for God's existence or leads you to God, right? And then it doesn't really matter that we were originally trying to see how this was evidence for something existing from nothing. That's why this argument is a little bit of a puzzle to me because it seems like there

are two different arguments that are being made here. So, okay, then how does the imperfection and potentiality and creatures point to God's existence? Well, let's go with imperfection and potentiality and creatures point to God's existence? Well, let's go with imperfection. Now, so for St. Thomas, let me first of all say how imperfection and potentiality are connected, and then I want to just go with the imperfection because I think if we focus on that, we can see how that by itself leads us where Thomas wants to go. So something, Thomas connects potentiality with imperfection because to be perfect is to be actualized in a certain way, right?

And so if something is in potency, it's not yet actualized and so is for that extent. So according to Thomas Aquinas, to say you're full of potential is an insult. You've heard that before. Yes. Never say that. So let's then just focus on imperfection and see where that leads us. Okay, so what does it mean for something to be imperfect? On Thomas's understanding, a thing is imperfect if it is not self-sufficient if it lacks something

that it needs in order to exist. So that's what makes something or that's at least one way that he understands imperfection. So let's say that you have a car and you say, I love this car, but I really wish that it had automatic transmission. So you see it as kind of imperfect, right? So it lacks something that you want. Okay, well Thomas is saying that something is imperfect if it lacks something not simply that you desire, but something that it needs in order to exist, right? Okay. Um, I

Wow, yeah, I'm I'm imperfect in well in many senses. Let me just talk about one I need food in order to exist. I don't have it right now It could be the case that I never have it and I starve to death and I die, right? And I cease to exist. If I were a perfect being, I would be self-sufficient. There wouldn't be anything that I need that I don't already have, right? Obviously I'm not like that because we've just pointed out

that food is something that I need and I don't have it right now. I'm not a self-sufficient being. So I'm a being such that my existence can't be completely explained by just considering me. I'm not self-sufficient. So if I exist right now, the explanation is not in me. It's outside you.

Right, it's outside me. And okay, then we could point to things in the environment, right? Well, these things help explain why I exist right now. But then when we consider them, we have to ask, are they self-sufficient? Okay, if they're not, then we have to go until we find something that doesn't need anything else

in order to sustain itself or other things in existence and that would be a self-sufficient being. And what's the problem with there being no self-sufficient being but just an infinite number of imperfect things holding each other in existence? Because they can never completely account for why one member of the series exists, right? So something that is imperfect holds this this cup in existence. Well, what explains this thing's existence? And what explains that thing's existence? And so on. And if you consider the the set of that series

as a whole, it's not self-sufficient, right? Because everything in the series depends on everything else, so we could say that the series as a whole depends on something else, right? Now some logicians will say, well, no, that's a fallacy, right? Just because some part has a certain quality, that doesn't mean that everything- Just because every sheep has a mother, it doesn't mean that the flock of sheep has a mother. Right, right, exactly.

Okay, well sometimes that inference is fallacious, but it's not always fallacious. So a table in which every part is made of wood will be wood. And so I want to say that a series of things in which each one depends on something else for its existence, if we consider that series as a whole, even if it's infinite, it's still a thing that depends on something else, right? Okay.

So this would be a case in which every part, the quality or characteristic of every part, is also true of the whole. So no matter how many non-self-sufficient things you have, all you're going to have is a large group of non-self-sufficient things. That group as a whole is non-self-sufficient. Remind me the name of that fallacy, if you remember it. Fallacy of composition. Fallacy of composition. How do you know when you're committing that fallacy and when you're not? I mean, I can think of examples, right?

So the sheep one makes sense, but then of course if you say, well, just like you did with the wooden table. Yeah. Well, people have tried to work out rules for this. For me, it's usually just intuitive. You can just see, okay, yeah, if every part of this table is wood, then of course the whole table has to be wood, right? By what rule do we come to that conclusion? I'm not quite sure. I know that I recognize

it intuitively that it has to be true. But I mean, an infinite number of things is every possible, I mean infinite. Yeah, but we're, but every single one of them it so, um, to maybe this analogy helps, maybe it will derail us, but, um, uh, Father Coppelsen in his famous debate with Russell said that that's online by the way you can find that. Oh yeah, no, it's brilliant. Yeah. And they're, they're quite, it sounds like they're reading from scripts but anyways. But no, it's a great debate. So Father Coplison says, well if you have chocolate and add chocolate, no matter how much chocolate you add, you're always going to get chocolate.

you're always gonna get chocolate. So you could take one piece of chocolate and add an indefinite number of pieces of chocolate, you'll never get vanilla. It's always gonna be chocolate. So if you have one non-self-sufficient thing and add another one and add another one, you're never going to get something that's self-sufficient. Yeah. Something that's self-sufficient. Okay. Because everything is, is non-self-sufficient. So that doesn't, that doesn't really give us an explanation for why anything in that series exists, right? Yeah. It can give us a partial explanation, right? But it can never give us a, a, a full explanation. So by saying that this exists because some person made it, that gives me a partial explanation, right?

That does explain something about the existence of this cup, but it's not a complete explanation. So pointing to other non-self-sufficient things, we can say, okay, yeah, that tells us something, but that's not a complete explanation, right? We have it's, explanatorily speaking, it's incomplete. So in science, for instance, science can tell us a lot about ourselves and about our world, but it can't, explanatorily speaking, it's incomplete. It doesn't tell us everything. It doesn't completely explain why we exist

or why we behave in certain ways, right? So what I'm saying is that yes, we could say there's, we could go on and on with the explanations, right? But none of them is such that it gives us the final reason why something is the case. This reminds me, here in Steubenville, we have trains that go through every other day or every day and they blast their horn for some reason

that I don't understand, but it's very loud. So why are they blasting their horn? I don't know, maybe there is a reason, I don't know it. That's probably the more epistemologically humble way of viewing it. But you see the box cars. And I thought to have this conversation with my daughter yesterday, why is that car moving? Well, the one in front of it's pulling it. Why is that one moving? It's something similar.

Right, right, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So there has to be – If you have an infinite series of box cars. She still don't have movement, right? Right exactly Here's here's something and maybe we'll see if this is helpful so let's suppose that we have a This amazing invention It's it's a box that generates electricity all by itself. It doesn't need to be plugged into anything else. It just generates electricity all by itself.

You plug your stuff into it, it will run and it can do it all by itself. So let's say you have your TV over there and you have the cord coming from the TV. You put an extension cord on it, another extension cord into this box. Well, each of those cords, you could say, okay, well, the TV is running because it's plugged into that cord. It does give you some explanation, but it's not the complete explanation, right? Because that cord is, so cord A is plugged into cord B, okay? Cord B is plugged into cord C. So why is the TV running? Well, part of the explanation is in the chords, but the complete explanation is not in the chords It's this amazing new invention right this box that generates electricity all by itself

Finally we have we know we have a sufficient explanation for why the TV is running We've had partial ones up to this point, but now we know why it's running at all. It's because of this, let's call it the Tesla box. How do we know that the universe isn't self-sufficient? How do we know that the universe hasn't just existed from all eternity and matter is the... Well, I think this is where we need to get back to our text here. Okay. Because for this to work, all we need to do is find one imperfect thing, right? Okay, we don't need to to take an inventory of the whole universe and say is this thing imperfect?

Is this thing good just need to find one imperfect thing? Okay, and and as we said before anything that's imperfect is not self-sufficient And so it can't fully account for its own existence. The only thing that could fully account for it, I think we've seen now, has to be something that is wholly self-sufficient, right? Which would mean that we're talking about a purely perfect being. There's nothing else on which it depends for its existence. Okay, well that tells us that

if there's some imperfect thing that exists right now, then a purely perfect being must exist is that which ultimately sustains it in existence. Even if there is a whole network or web of other imperfect beings that also function in such a way that they sustain it into existence. That network or web won't give us the final explanation. Only a purely perfect being could do that. And so that's from that, from thinking about the imperfection of things, we can be led to God because we think of God as a truly perfect being. Now, Thomas wants to say here, if we, let me read the conclusion again,

therefore it is necessary that their existence come from one that is first and this is God. Well, how does Thomas know that there's just one? He doesn't really tell us here. So we, again, we have to sort of reconstruct his reasoning. And I would guess that he's thinking along these lines, if you have more than one purely perfect being, what would make them distinct? Well, obviously, the only thing that could make them distinct is that one would have to have at least a slight

imperfection. Okay, then that's not the being that we're talking about. So there couldn't be more than one because in order for there to be more than one there would have to be a difference between the first one and the second and third or so on. But any difference would mean imperfection, right? Because we're talking about a purely perfect being. So there can only in the end be one purely perfect being, right? One purely perfect being on which all imperfect beings depend for their existence, that sounds a lot like what we would call God, right? So I think – go ahead. I want to push back. If by imperfect we mean not self-sufficient, that's how you've

kind of defined it, or that's how you've said Aquinas defines it. Suppose the material world has existed from all eternity. Wouldn't it therefore be self-sufficient? Well, no, because matter is a principle of potency and therefore has a certain imperfection about it, right? What does that mean? Well, that means that if it were perfect, it would be fully actualized, right? It wouldn't have anything that it could be that it's not at the moment. But matter as such is a principle of potency. It's something that we can do things with, make stuff out of. It itself is

just a capacity to be used. So all the matter that exists, let's say even if it existed from eternity, couldn't explain its own existence, right? Because insofar as it's imperfect, again, it would have to have something that is perfect, self-sufficient, that's ultimately sustaining it in existence. So you could say, hypothetically, that this matter exists from all eternity, but even if it does, it exists from all eternity in dependence on this holy perfect being. And we know that because it's in potentiality. Yeah. Yeah.

Why not say that the thing that matter, which isn't self-sufficient, is dependent on, is something else? Why do we have to go, why do we have to call it God? Could we call it something else? We can. We can. So it's... Like the foundation of reality that... We could call it that.

The important thing is just understanding what it is, right? That we call it God is a function of culture and language, right? But it seems appropriate because that's – What people mean. Yeah, right. When we're talking about the greatest thing that there is, well, that's what we would mean by God, right? Who knows?

I mean, we could come to a point where God isn't the appropriate word. I don't see that coming, but it just happens to be the word that we think is best for this reality. But for now, for the sake of the argument, you could call it whatever you want, a string theory or something. Exactly. Exactly. So if someone says to me that God doesn't exist, I have to ask, well, what do you mean

by God? Because maybe what you're saying, the thing that you're saying doesn't exist is not what I understand to be God. So you may have refuted the existence of something that you understand to be God, but when I say God, this is not what I'm talking about. So you haven't, what you have said hasn't challenged at all my understanding of God, right? It's challenged some other probably lower level understanding of God.

Elevator pitch would be what? Creator and sustainer of the world? I mean as far as how you define God, you'd be comfortable with that? Then you'd have to define what you mean by creator and sustainer. I think Anselm's argument is problematic, but I think his definition of God is a good definition of God, right? That in which nothing God is right, a good definition of God, right? That in which nothing greater can be thought. Yeah, of course, if we're talking about God, he would at least have to be that, right?

But yeah, Creator and Sustainer, yeah. Okay, fine. All right, this is great. Do you want to move on to the next one or do you want to stay here? Yeah, no, we could, yeah. Oh, well, let's – yeah, I mean, if you want, you could ask, well, what happened to all this stuff at the beginning about – Everything that has existence from nothing must have it from another from which its existence flows.

Yeah. So now we can see that everything that exists that is imperfect is such that all of its being ultimately comes from this purely perfect being. And therefore, we're talking about things that exist from nothing. See, this just seems like a combination of the first and fourth way. Yeah, well, that's why I say it seems like

you could get different arguments out of this. Oh, I see. So I'm not sure, because I don't think you really need any of that about things that exist from nothing. I think you just go with imperfection and potentiality and you can make the argument. Interesting. And as I said, Besnay, that's how he classifies it.

He calls it an argument from, as I say in the title here, from the imperfection and potentiality of things. So he ignores what Thomas says about existence from nothing. Well, I want to get your take on this. You know, when you look at the two arguments Aquinas gives for atheism, only one really works if it's successful. The other is just God's superfluous, but it doesn't mean he doesn't exist.

Evil would seem to show God doesn't exist according to his argument. I've heard evil described or defined as the way things shouldn't be. I like that. It's not that which sucks or that which hurts me because a dentist does that, but it's the way things shouldn't be. And so we can talk of natural evil. If you are blind, then that is an evil. If a rock is blind, well, it's not really blind and it's not an evil. There's also moral evils, and we would see in those particular moral evils a lack of a good that ought to be there, maybe gentleness or patience or something, right? So it does, maybe I'm just straw manning this here, but it kind of feels like an argument from evil

Like you'll hear apologist say something like well if evil is the way things shouldn't be that Presupposes that there is a way things should be and if there is a way things should be you're getting dangerously close to Yeah, sort of argument from design or something right well, so you're saying that this I guess what I'm asking Is this in some way an argument from evil? So you're saying that this argument is in some way an argument from evil. Although for you not to be self-sufficient isn't either a moral or a physical level. No, but when I do bad things

or when I suffer from something, that is an indication that I'm imperfect because if I were perfect, that would never happen. Okay. Right? So in a way, indirectly, you could say that when I lie or when I steal, that's a mark, that's a sign that I'm imperfect. Well, okay, then that would actually lead us to this argument, right?

So in a kind of indirect way, you could say that evil could give us indirect evidence for God's existence, but not in the way that supposing that in the way that there's a standard and we see that this doesn't meet the the standard and therefore that that tells us that the standard must exist not quite in that way but in the way we've just been saying how Non-self-sufficient beings imply the existence of a self-sufficient being. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah All right. Should we move on? Yeah This is the second one. This is from the same his commentary on the sentences of Lombard as well from the absence of

existence in the nature of things right and that's the title that I have given it because Besnay actually classifies it. He thinks it's an argument like the fourth way which we've just been talking about you know from the gradations of perfection and If you only read the first line, then I think you would say that. It does look like that. But then the further you get into it, you see that it's actually a lot like, if not identical with, the argument in Chapter 4 on being in essence, De ante a te sensia. So those at home know what we're reading. Do you mind if I'll read it

and you comment on it? Okay, sure. Okay. We find that there are various levels of beings. Some are more noble as beings and others less noble. However, the natures of these things themselves does not contain existence itself, ipsum esse. If it did contain existence itself, we would grasp this in our understanding of one of the natures, quidatis, of these things. But this is false, for we can understand the nature, quidatus, of any of these things, and yet not grasp that it contains existence itself. Therefore, it must be the case that they have their existence from another, and it must come from something

whose nature is existence itself. Otherwise we would go on to infinity, and this being is what gives existence to all things. It must be just one being, since the nature of existence is the same in all things by analogy. The reason for this is that unity of what is caused requires the essential unity of the causes. Thank you. There's a lot going on here. There's a lot, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I see what you mean. You read that first sentence,

it sounds like the fourth way. Yeah, but then, so again, this is another argument from the commentary, St. Thomas' commentary on Peter Lombard's sentences, and this is from the commentary in Book Two, and the exact, so it's Distinction 1, Question 1, Article 1. And this is, when you get to the heart of the argument, it's like the argument in On Being in Essence, right? Dea e inteaia in in chapter 4 So and he was he wrote that book he wrote de ante right around this time at least that's that's what? scholars think this was

again early 1250s to mid 1250s and this is When again when you get to the heart of it, it does seem like this is basically the argument and the de ante. So let's work through it here. Right, so he begins by saying there are various levels of beings. Some are more noble as beings and others less noble, okay, and that's when we say, oh, fourth way. But then he says, however, the natures of these things themselves does not contain existence.

It's an essay. If it did contain existence itself, we would grasp this in our understanding of one of the natures of these things. Okay, well, this is the de ante argument. So just to say I think Besne misclassifies this. It's not from the gradation of perfection. It's from, as I've put it here, it's kind of a clumsy title, from the absence of existence and the nature of things. So we see that there are some beings that are such that existence is not a part of their nature. It doesn't belong to their nature.

And we were talking about that. Right, and just real quickly, if it were a part of their nature, they would neither come into existence nor go out of it because it would exist by definition. Right, right exactly and Now the way that Thomas puts it here is that he says If it did contain existence

Itself that is if their nature contained existence itself We would grasp this in our understanding of one of the natures of these things But he says this is false. We don't grasp it in our understanding of the natures of these things, of any of these things, right? And yet, when we understand them, we do not understand that their nature contains existence itself. All right, so how can he say this? How does he know that there are beings, any beings, whose essence doesn't contain existence? And I think what you were just saying a second ago, Matt, is one of our clues. If something can cease to exist, then we know that existence can't be a part of its essence

because if it were, it would just exist because it exists just by nature, that's what it does. It couldn't fail to exist. So anytime we encounter something that can fail to exist or does fail to exist, we know that we're dealing with something whose nature or essence doesn't contain existence. So we can say that even if we didn't have a complete understanding of what the thing was, we now understand that whatever its nature is, it's not a nature such that existence

belongs to it. It's a nature such that existence comes to this, right? It's a nature such that existence comes to this being, so to speak, from the outside or is given to it by another. Who is it that critiqued the ontological argument? Was it Hume who said that existence is not a predicate? Yeah, there are several people. Kant is one of the more famous for saying that. And yes. What did he mean by that and what's your thought on it? Well Kant wants to say that I can completely understand something without knowing that

it exists. So existence doesn't add anything to my understanding of it. So existence can't be a predicate in that respect because it's non-informative. In a way this kind of sounds like what we were talking about before with Nietzsche that being is just kind of an, or existence is just kind of an empty concept. Well in a way, okay, in a way, to go back to Kant, in a way that's true. In a way it's true that existence doesn't add to my understanding of what the thing is, for sure. But the way that Thomas understands existence, and I don't think that Kant would disagree, so I'm not quite sure

why he doesn't go this way as well. The way that Thomas understands existence is that existence is what makes it the case that something- That. Yeah. Not what it is, but that it is. But that it is, right. So it's existence that makes it the case that this – That. Yeah. Not what it is, but that it is. But that it is, right. So it's existence that makes it the case that this is present, that it's around, that it occurs. Existence isn't what makes it a cup or a mug. That's the other principles, right?

And in a sense, as we've talked about mermaids and unicorns, we grant the point. Yeah. Because we can talk about these things. Exactly. Exactly. Whether they exist or not doesn't really matter. Right. Right, exactly.

So we can talk all day about something without specifying whether or not it exists. So yes, that's true. But that's not what existence is supposed to do. It's not supposed to tell us what a thing is, not until we get to God, but that's – God is a very strange case, right? For everything else, existence doesn't tell us about its nature. So, yes, existence does – that just tells us that existence is something that comes from, as Thomas would put it, an extrinsic principle or cause, right? Not from an intrinsic principle, which would be the thing's nature.

Okay, so here we are, the situation is that we have things that obviously concede to exist, and so existence doesn't belong to their nature. How does that get us to God? Well, it's very similar to what we were talking about before with the first argument from the imperfection of things. Well, what could – giving a lot of use out of these – Yeah, the plant of Aquinas beer sign, patreon.com slash Matt Fradd, yeah. I'll give you one of those by the way if you like. They're the greatest drinking vessel ever.

Yeah, they're fantastic. And they're also great as examples. They're really good as examples. You can use this from now on in the electron aquinas in our memory university. I will, I will for sure. So okay, so we say why does this cup exist right now? And again, we can point to the person that made the cup and say, okay, that's why it exists right now,

but he's dead, right? He isn't, hopefully he's not, I don't know what made these, but. But if he was, it wouldn't matter. It wouldn't change the existence of the mug. Right, so it's still existing, so he's not a complete explanation for it. And neither could anything else be that's in the same situation that is such that existence

isn't a part of its essence. So the only thing – but again, as I said, those kinds of causes can give us a partial explanation, right? But we want the sufficient reason for the existence of this cup, and they don't give us that. They give us a part of the reason. Now the only thing that could give us a sufficient explanation for its existence would be something whose existence does belong to it, does

belong to its nature, does belong to its essence. And that Thomas says would be ipsum, essay, would be existence itself. So essay, E-S-S-E is Thomas's word for existence or active existence. And he says, this is how we understand God. We understand God to be this thing that is pure existence, this being that is pure existence. To be to be, as Bishop Robert Barron says. Right, exactly. Yeah, no, that's good.

What are you after? A little water? We've got a little bit left and then we're going to have to move on to the beer. That's the deal. So as you run out of the're gonna have to move on to the beer. That's the deal. So as you run out of the water, we're gonna get the beer. Excellent. Yeah, there's very little left there. So we'll go to a break shortly and come back with beers.

And by beers, I mean beers. My new dumb phone has voice to text. But it's, if I, unless I speak in an American American accent it doesn't understand me. Right, yeah, well that's why it's a dumb phone. It's right, not self-sufficient and proves the existence of God. Do we want to speak more of this? Some of these, we're not going to go into great detail on all of them, but is there anything else you'd want to say here?

Let's see. All right, therefore it must be the case that they have their existence from another, yes. Otherwise we would go on to infinity, right? So here's where he, in the previous, so in some of his arguments as we know, he explicitly rejects what people call an infinite regress, right? And he does that here because it doesn't explain anything. Well, that's one reason why he rejects it. There are others.

But to say, okay, well, there's some other non-self-sufficient, or there's some other being whose existence doesn't belong to its essence that explains it. No, it doesn't, nor would an infinity of such beings explain it. Again, they can give us partial explanations but never the complete explanation. So yeah, this argument, as I said, is interesting because, well, for many reasons, but just historically it's interesting because at the same time he was writing the Dei Ante, and it's basically that argument from chapter four of the Dei Ante, and it's mislabeled, I think, by Besnei when he says that it is from the degrees of perfection in beings. Good stuff.

All right, well, let's have a break. Will you have a beer with me? I would love to. All right, let's take a quick break. Fantastic. We'll come back. You'll get to see what beers we have, people in the chat. We're going to go through a couple more arguments, then we're going to be taking questions from

patrons and super chatters, so stick around. Thanks. All right, I want to say thank you to Ethos Logos Investments for supporting this show, elinvestments.net slash pints. I guess when I was a bit younger I thought that investing was something that only rich people did or old people did or rich old people did. I didn't realize it was something that I should be looking into as well and when I began looking into it I realized I don't want to invest in companies that are

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Accumulation winter hazy IPA which I'm gonna be doing so you choose Yeah, I think do you what do you want mate? All right, I Can open that if you want, mate? I would love the IPA. All right. I can open that if you want. Oh, hey, kangaroos! Oh, there it is. I'll just do it, mate. All right, so here we are.

We're back. Did people, did they all go away during the advert or are they still here? No, everyone's here. Hey, nice stuff. Yeah, we have 150 people watching. Sweet. Hi, everybody. Thanks for being here.

I love chatting about this stuff so much. Were you into questions like this as a teenager? Like did you enjoy questions about God and life and meaning? I was into, in high school I was into the German... Oh that's good beer. Do you like it? Existentialist... Oh yeah. I was reading Hermann Hesse and people like that. Siddhartha and...

I don't know who they are. Yeah. I read a bit of Nietzsche. You've been reading Nietzsche lately. You like him? He's a great writer. That's for sure. No, he's quite funny.

I mean, there are also things that are exasperating and upset you, but he has a great sense of humor I think, especially when he talks about Socrates, who he doesn't really seem to like. No, blockhead. Did he call him a blockhead? Or just calls him ugly or whatever. Yeah. Then he died of syphilis. That'll teach him. All right. Well, good stuff. I love what he had to say. I don't know much about Nietzsche, but his resent him Oh, I don't know if he came up with that idea or not right now. I think but it's brilliant. It's a great insight It's a great psychological insight

Yeah, and so we all hate CrossFit photos on Instagram because we're impotent and demonize the good All right, is there an argument in particular you want to focus on? Well, I would like to – the last one, which is – after the ones we've talked about, I think this one would be fairly easy to understand. It's from participation. And this is – so the first argument we looked at from the imperfection and potentiality of things, that's definitely not an argument in the five ways, right? And it's an argument that I don't really see him making in many other places.

Do you want to just move over a little bit? Oh, sorry. Remember. It's very specific. Sorry. It's very specific. Sorry. It's an argument that I don't see in making in many other places. The first one. Which one?

The first one, yeah. Yeah. From imperfection, potentiality and things. And then, well, the second one that we looked at from the absence of existence in the nature of things, again, I think that is the de ante argument in other reformulated. So it is a fairly rare argument. Again, that's not an argument in the five ways. The argument from participation, which is the one that I'd like to look at now, and

as I said, I think this one should be fairly easy to understand given what we've been talking about. It's a lot of the same reasoning. But this too is an argument that it's maybe close to the fourth way, but it's not exactly the fourth way. Can I read it? Yeah, yeah, go ahead. So this comes from the Dei Potencia,, De Potencia Dei, which was written in the mid-1260s, we think.

And what does it mean? What's it about? It's on the power of God. So yeah, so he talks about God's power. Fair enough. The third argument is based on the principle that whatsoever is from another is to be reduced to that which is through itself. Thus, if there were heat that existed through itself, it would be the cause of all hot things, which have heat by participation. It must therefore be posited that there is a being that is its own existence. This is proved from the fact that there must be some first being that is pure act in which there is no composition.

Thus, from that one being, all other beings derive that are not their own existence but have existence by participation. Excellent. So you can see in a lot of Thomas's arguments, once you've gotten the sort of logic in them, they unlock other arguments because you can see that he's reasoning in the same way. And one of the patterns that you see, there's always, or quite often, let's say, I don't know if I want to say always, but at least quite often you see that there are things that have a relationship of dependence on something and then you come to see that what they depend on can't be another thing that's like them,

that's also dependent. That only partially explains their existence. You have to get to something that is itself non-dependent, right, independent. But you can come at that in different ways and that's what I think he was doing in the first two arguments we looked at. And it's especially clear here because he says there are – he calls this a principle, right? Or actually, I don't know if this is – I don't know if he actually uses the word principle

in the Latin. I might have inserted that. You might say the third argument is based on the idea that whatsoever is from another is to be reduced to that which is through itself. So I guess we would have to say, well, what does it mean to be from another? And do you mind if I just want to look at the Latin again here? mind if I just want to look at the Latin again here. So cool. All right, so he says, �Cui e illud quod est per alterum.� So that which is through really another than from another, but you could also say from another. That which is through another is reduced

to that which is through itself. So eludquod es per se. So what does it mean to be through another? That's what we have to figure out right now. And what he's talking about is just – this is just another way of talking about something that's dependent on something else, right? So I exist, but if there were an oxygen, I wouldn't be existing right now, right? If it were 10,000 degrees, I wouldn't be existing right now. So I exist thanks to a certain environment, right? If I hadn't had enough food, if I don't have enough food, I wouldn't be existing right now. So you could say that my existence depends on all of these factors, right? So I am in a sense through them, I am not identical with them.

I'm not just oxygen, I'm not just the temperature that I am at, I'm a distinct being, but I clearly depend on other things to exist right now. Then we have to ask, do those other things give us a complete explanation for why I'm existing right now? Well, not if they too are in the same situation, such that they depend on other factors. So they are also through another. Well, if any of us exist, it can't be because we depend on other things. It can only ultimately be because there's something on which we all depend, which is not through another,

but as Thomas says, per se, through itself. And what he means by that is that it exists through itself, not thanks to something else that it depends on, but it has a nature such that it doesn't depend on anything else. So again, we're back to self-sufficiency or ipsum esse subsistence. And that's where this argument is going. And he calls it an argument. He says this is from – or it's an argument from participation. What does he mean by participation here? What he means – so participation for Thomas – and this comes from the Neoplatonic tradition, is this idea that there's some

exemplar and then other things that are like it that share in its being or its nature in a certain way. So what he's saying here is that we all have existence, but we – and so you could say we share in existence, but we are not existence itself like God is. So we share in existence, we participate in it. God is existence. He doesn't just share in it. He is existence.

And it's only thanks to a being like that that we can exist at all. What do you say to people who are like you said there were about 40 arguments for God's existence and all these sound exactly the bloody same? The reasoning is the same, right? So there are similar structures that show up. So the reasoning in a way is the same. But we're really – we are – we're looking at different aspects of reality. And what's interesting is that these different aspects

all have something similar about them. So motion and causality, for example. Right. Yeah. Or we looked at imperfection. Okay? Yeah. We're not talking at all about imperfection here Although you could insert that in here and say okay. Well, that's that's kind of if you're participating you're there for imperfect exactly So we looked at imperfection We looked at the fact that things don't have existence by nature that it somehow comes from without now We're talking about things that exist through another

So these are all different aspects of reality and I think what's helpful and interesting is to see if we get beyond the five ways, which also point to different aspects of reality, we see that Thomas thinks that there are other things that if we pay attention to them, we can see that they too can get to the same end. They too can show us that God exists. If you were to write a list, say, of like motion, causality, what else would you say, like imperfection? I wonder how many words you could come up with that, like to your point, right, about

like we see this, we observe this thing, and we can trace that thread back to God. And they all have something similar, I suppose. But – Right, and they're all general structures of reality, right? He's not talking about – he's not saying – cups exist, therefore, right? He's saying these general – we notice these general structures in reality, right? That there are things that are imperfect, that there are things that exist through other things and so on. Participation, yeah, motion, cause, yeah. Is there an argument that you're like, wow,

this is quite different to one of his five ways or not really? Well, I think the first one, imperfection, because there's nothing – again, yes, you see that there's a similar pattern of reasoning if you sort of strip it down, you see a similar pattern of reasoning. He's talking about dependence again, but from a different angle, right? Because the only thing that it's close to in the five ways, I would say, is the fourth way. But it's not the fourth way because the fourth way focuses on gradations of perfection and

then a kind of exemplar. This is not talking about gradations of perfection, it's talking about imperfection and how imperfection leads us to the fact that there – leads us to see that there must be some all-perfect being. So there are different ways that we can come to God's existence, right? There are different things that if we reflect upon them, we can see that they ultimately lead us to God, to some first principle. I would love that written down for me, all these different things like motion, causality, imperfection, participation, degrees of being, because that is really helpful, I think, to

come up with that one word, like here's the thing that's pointing us back to God. Right. Okay. Terrific. Well, thank you very much. Anything else you want to say before we start taking questions? No, let's take the questions. What do you think, Neil?

You want to yell them out or? Proofread them in case they're abusive. Which of Aquinas's arguments is easiest to understand? Which of Aquinas's arguments is easy to easiest understand? Patron? what a champion. I think there. I think they're all take a little bit of effort to understand it but okay given that they all take a little bit of effort which which one can you. Can you get through can you see fairly easily how he's reasoning?

Well if we're talking about all of Aquinas' arguments, I think the first way, and he himself says that's the most manifest way, but then you also have to understand what he means by change and by act and potency. Of the ones that we've looked at, I think the last one is perhaps the easiest. But the problem is when we simplify them too much, we might not see exactly how they get to God understood in a certain way as ipsum, essa, subsistence, that is, self-subsistent being, or as the all-perfect being. So we can start off talking about them in a simple way, and once we've gotten that, which I think you can do with a lot of them, once we've gotten that, which I think you can do

with a lot of them, once we've gotten that then we put in the details of the different arguments and show how what he's talking about is this slightly more complicated thing and it ultimately gets us to this reality? Which is? Absolutely perfect absolutely independent and so on Yeah, that's great. Okay. I don't know if no. I think it's I think it's important I mean when you look at many arguments for God's existence that are put forward today Like I think Craig is a master at presenting arguments succinctly today, like I think Craig is a master at presenting arguments succinctly, syllogistically in a way that you kind of intuitively grasp, and they're not dependent on Aristotelian metaphysical

jargon which helps. But you know Aquinas, I think it's chapter 38 of the Summa Contra Gentiles, book one where he talks about the Kalam argument, and he's critical of it. He says that there's something to it, but it seems, at least in the Contra Gentiles, that he dismisses it. And one of the things he says is we shouldn't use weak arguments because it's, you know, it's quite a cause of scandal and makes the Catholic faith seem- Look bad. Yeah, so in a sense, if you want an argument for God's existence that's solid,

you maybe be expected to do the work. Yeah, no, you really do have to look at it or work at it. But yeah, I think you can begin in a simple way and say, okay, well, this is kind of how he's reasoning, right? And then you move up a level and you get a little more complex and you explain some of the metaphysical principles and so on. And then, you know, hopefully in the end you see how he gets to where he's going, but also understand it, understand the terms that he's using and what they mean. Hmm, okay. Another question? There's another one that's from Robert Dunbar.

Robert Dunbar. Which argument is most obscure and which is most convincing? Which argument is the most obscure and which do you personally find the most convincing? I think the most obscure one is the one that I talked about at the beginning. From the prologue? Yeah, right. The argument from incomprehensibility of truth. I think that most obscure one is the one that I talked about at the beginning. From the prologue? Yeah, right, the argument from incomprehensibility of truth. I think that's pretty obscure. I would love one day to crack it and see – I've tried different ways to think about it unsuccessfully,

but I will continue to work at it. Again, I think the first way, I would say the first way is the one that is most convincing. It starts with something that is absolutely indubitable, change. Now Thomas, in a lot of the translations it says motion, right? What he's talking about there is change, really. Motus is the Latin term, and he's talking about change in general. And he says if there's change, then we're talking about something being reduced from potency to act, and that will ultimately depend on something that's pure act, and that's what we mean by God. Actually, I'm going a little further than he goes in the argument.

For him, he says he gets us to the unmoved mover. But we see that that unmoved mover has to be something that's pure act. And once you understand that God is pure act, there's a lot of other things, a lot of other attributes that you know also have to be true of him, that he's infinite, that he's eternal, and so on, perfectly simple. So I would say that for me, it's the first way that is most convincing. Sweet. Another question? Yeah. So this one's from Kyle. Kyle, Kylee, Kyle question? Yeah. So this one's from Kyle. Kyle, Kylie or Kyle.

Thank you. And they're wanting to know if they're bad at explaining the five ways, because they feel like they understand it, but whenever they explain it, people seem to be unconvinced, so they want to know what you guys' experiences. Right. So the question is, am I just bad at explaining the five ways? Cause when I explain them, I feel feel convinced but other people don't. Well, that's a tough question.

You may be great at explaining and the people you're explaining it to may just be stupid, I don't know. It's possible. Or you may be stupid and think you're very good at explaining something that you think you understand and don't. That's – no, That's a difficult question. I wouldn't begin with the five ways, honestly. I'd begin with like a clam argument or an experiential argument or I mean I know that

doesn't convince other people. Right. Yeah, I mean it depends on your audience really, right? Some people, for some people an experiential argument may be just what they need. We're talking about this a bit at the beginning. And for other people, that's too subjective, right? They want something more, they want a more robust argument. So if you were arguing with someone like, say, Richard Dawkins, he doesn't want religious experience, right? He wants something that is rigorous, right?

But if you're- You'd think so, but if you take a look at his pathetic summary of the five words- No, you're right. No, I know what you mean. That's true. I feel bad for atheists because they have him as their spokesperson. There's much more brilliant people than that guy. Who's brilliant, no doubt, but when he's- I mean, he doesn't even understand the- anyway.

No, it's- yeah, it is sad. Yeah, no, I find them really hard to, for those who are interested, I wrote a book with Robert Delfino called Does God Exist? A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas. And it's basically a story about an atheist and a Catholic who meet in a coffee shop and over the course of two weeks go back and forth on the five ways. It's on Amazon if you want to get it you can. So that could be helpful. That leads into our next question.

Next question! Best introductory book for Thomistic thinking, best one for just philosophy in general for the regular Joe, and then any online courses to point you to. Oh, so yeah, I think they probably heard you. I'll stop repeating. So yeah, I think they probably heard you. I'll stop repeating. Best book for Thomistic thinking, I think – well, there's two that come immediately to mind. I would say Ed Faeser's book – Thomistic Metaphysics, I think it's called. Not his – I would say his Aquinas – 101? I'll stop guessing what you're going to say and just let you speak. I'm thinking

Francis Selman's Aquinas 101 is brilliant. Okay. But I think I know what you're going to say and just let you speak. I'm thinking Francis Selman's Aquinas 101 is brilliant. Okay. But I think I know what you're talking about. I think it's Aquinas for Beginners. That's it. Yeah. That's it. That's an excellent book.

That's a phaser, yeah. It's clear. It's not at all watered down. It's very clear and I think anyone that has a sufficient, decent education, don't have to have had a philosophical education, but a decent education, you can work your way through it and understand Aquinas. And I would say Brian Davis' book, which is just I think called Aquinas. It's published by Continuum, I believe. But you had also had some that you – Yeah, Francis Selman wrote a book called Aquinas 101.

I couldn't believe how fantastically helpful I found it. There's that one. I love Joseph Pieper's book on Aquinas. Oh, yeah. Right. The Guide to Aquinas. Yeah,, right, the guide to Aquinas. Yeah, that's right. That's very historical.

That's true, yeah, that's true. It talks about Aquinas in his context, like the threat of Islam, Aristotle, and then just speaking of Dawkins and Faser, Dawkins says of Faser that, no, Faser says of Dawkins that he wouldn't know metaphysics from Metamucil. Next question. There's one more, I'm not sure what this means or if it's even a question, but I'm just going to read it. Sure. Are there hints of pseudodionysius in Thomistic's or Thomas's metaphysics,

especially related to participation in being? For sure, yeah. Say the question in your answer so those who didn't hear. The question is whether there is an influence or hints of pseudo-dionysius in the metaphysics or thought of St. Thomas especially with respect to participation and being. Wasn't that? Okay. Yeah, that's a word for word.

Yeah. being, wasn't that? Okay. Yeah, so definitely. St. Thomas was a great, I would say, admirer of Pseudodionysius. So Pseudodionysius was a probably a Middle Eastern monk, no one's quite sure what century he lived in, who wrote as a few different treatises and it's very influenced by Neoplatonic philosophy. And he especially emphasizes God's unknowability, or that's one of the things that he emphasizes. And when I say that he's influenced by Neoplatonic philosophy, what I mean is that you see in Pseudo-Dionysius these structures of what we're talking about before, participation, there's the exemplar and then there are the things that reflect the exemplar and share in the perfections of the exemplar and then there are the things that reflect the exemplar and share in the perfections of the exemplar.

St. Thomas wrote a commentary on Dionysius' divine names. In published form, it's about two volumes, about this thick. And you see him also quote Dionysius in many other texts. There is St. Thomas does have a, you could say, a participation metaphysics. That's not all there is to his metaphysics, but it's strongly participationist and so influenced in that way I'd say by Dionysius and other Neoplatonic thinkers, St. Augustine for instance. And St. Thomas I think I would say is a little more balanced than Dionysius when it comes to God's knowability because he does want to emphasize how difficult and in some ways impossible it is to understand God without

therefore becoming agnostic about it. Because although he doesn't criticize Dionysius on this point he does criticize Maimonides right for for being overly or language is equivocal right exactly exactly so yeah no I there is definitely an influence of Pseudo-Dionysius and on st. Thomas for sure yeah hmm she is that it? That's one of the patrons. There's one in chat. All right. Real Atheology is wanting to know if you have opinions on modern atheists like J.H. Sobel and Graham Oppy. Right, cool. So Real Atheology are a great group of atheists. They have a YouTube channel,

an excellent podcast. And one of their guys was on our channel debating Greg Pine, Father Pine and then recently did a debate with Catholic apologist Trent Horn. Really intelligent folks, really interested in kind of understanding what Christians say before showing them why they think they're wrong as opposed to – Right, right, good. Yeah, I think they're really doing a great job at raising the level of discourse. So on Graham Oppy have you read much of Oppy or I don't know the other bloke I only know Oppy because he's an Aussie That's right. He is so Bell. I don't know what's the what's the first?

J H So well short sob eo I Think I read I read Oppy's introduction to atheism. Jordan Howard Sobel. Okay, yeah, I've read a little bit, but go ahead, because I don't have much to say about Oppy. Well, you know what's funny is Oppy and Faser had a debate on capturing Christianity's

channel. I saw that. Did you see that? Yeah. And for about 20 minutes they talked about a chair and defining what a chair was. I'm like, damn it, this is why we need structured debates and not conversations between philosophers. But I remember reading Oppy and just thinking that, yeah, that atheists would benefit tremendously

from reading him as opposed to like Hitchens or someone. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, no, but he's just, he doesn't. Oppy is a serious customer. He's not, we're not talking Dawkins here or Hitchens. We're talking about someone who's an actual philosopher, an actual thinker. And I agree on that point. So I think I've read Sobel or Sobel,

and I remember he made a distinction which I think is – I wasn't aware that he was an atheist, but he made an interesting distinction and I think a helpful distinction between an efficient cause that is sustaining and one that is generating, which you want to say, okay, yeah, no, I already understand it, but to have someone lay it out and specify it I think is helpful because when we talk about God as an efficient cause, we want to say that he's both. He doesn't just generate – he doesn't just bring things into existence. He also sustains them in existence for as long as they exist.

And that's what we've been talking about in these arguments. When we're talking about the kind of causality that God is exercising in these arguments, it's a sustaining causality. It's not simply bringing things into existence, although he does that as well. But they can't – not only do they need God to bring them into existence, they cannot, I cannot, continue to exist without God also sustaining me in existence. Now when we make the distinction between an accidental causal series and an essential causal series, we can say that an accidental cause is responsible for bringing things into

existence but not necessarily for sustaining them in existence. Whereas in an essential causal series, the efficient cause is responsible also for sustaining them in existence. So this was a distinction that I came across in his writings that I thought was very helpful. It's one that you will find in Aquinas, although I don't think he speaks about it in those terms. But yeah, that's my comment. Hopefully I'm getting him right here.

I think that from what I read of his work, he seemed to be a very sharp thinker. Cool. Anything else we want to chat about before we go to the next room and smoke cigars? Yeah, it's unfortunate that I didn't shave for the show. Really? Yeah, that's the main takeaway. Just screwed this up. Your wife refused to watch more than three minutes. She just couldn't handle it. I don't think so. It's probably some brilliant insight that I had that I completely forgot about.

Well, do you have this as a PDF? Could you? Yeah, I can make that as a PDF. Yes, we'll put links in the description to the excellent article you sent me as well as this for people to read over. But this is just really interesting and fun to think about. Yeah, so we've basically scratched the surface if we went through that whole list of 40 arguments. And yeah, you will find many of them are the same arguments, but some of them are quite different from the five ways or any of Thomas's other arguments.

And we shouldn't be surprised, I mean I made fun of it earlier, but we shouldn't be surprised to find that they're similar because we're using deductive reasoning, beginning with that which we experience in the world and tracing it back to God. Yeah. So there's naturally going to be similarities. Right, right. So the structure is always going to be the same in that regard. Yeah, for sure.

There is a super chat. There's a super chat. There's a super chat. Off topic here, but do you have any more funny stories of experiencing America? Any funny stories about experiencing America? You know, it being winter in the- Oh, yeah. Not really. I love living here. I'm super proud to live in America. So Australia or America? Well I live here because my wife is prettier than Australia. If she ceases to be, which you know, in time. Although Australia is getting increasingly maybe totalitarian depending

on who you ask so I'm not sure. No, I mean if I'm happy to live here because I love my wife and my kids but I love Australia. Australia is a gorgeous place but things are nuts everywhere aren't they? Yeah, that's true. I don't know about you but I'm finding it just I'm just choosing not to listen to to news and things it's much easier. Well you've... Talking about these things are way more interesting. Right, well I mean getting a dumb phone you, switching out a dump phone for an iPhone, I think, helps you to, you know, stop listening to news as well, right? It does. Yeah, there's no avenue.

The only avenue is to watch it on YouTube on a smart TV. Right. And no one does that. Too complicated. Well, thank you for coming out. I appreciate you. Thank you. All the way from Florida, the promised land of Florida. Have you published anything or would you like to point people to any websites or

do a plug for Ave Maria or? Great university. Yeah, AMU. Things that people could go to, I have an academia.edu page. Just look up Joseph Trabick, Google Joseph Trabick academia. That's a sign of a true intellectual. You're not on social media. You don't know what it is. You were doing a dissertation and trying to keep your marriage together. Yeah, I'm not on Twitter, Instagram. Good for you. Instagram. Good for you. Good for you. And I also do fairly regularly a column for Catholic World Report called St. Thomas for

Today, in which I talk about a lot of different things, politics, metaphysics, ethics. I'm hoping I'm working on something, a two-part piece for that column on St. Anselm's argument and St. Thomas' critique of it. And that is meant for not the experts but for fairly educated Catholics who have an interest in philosophy and theology and St. Thomas. So terrific. What was the name of that one? It's called St. Thomas for Today and it's at Catholic World Report.

Awesome. Thanks so much. All right, for those who are watching, do us a favor and subscribe and click the bell button and that way Google will have to – you'll compel Google to let you know whenever we put out a new video. We've got big videos coming out every week and for the billion people who've been asking about sips with Aquinas. So we had a sip, we had a clip channel and for different reasons, metric and otherwise algorithm, etc. We decided to start putting the clips back on Pines with Aquinas.

So please subscribe, click the bell button. We actually have Father Gregory Pines going to be releasing two clips a week as well, and they'll be kind of his answers to your question. So basically every single day we have content coming out feeding the YouTube beast. I don't know if that's good or not, but anyway, glory to Jesus Christ. Thanks a lot, Neil, thanks.

Thank you.