Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2025
Chapter 8 examines the Fifth Way, which argues for God’s existence from natural bodies acting for an end or purpose. After a translation and the premises are given, the chapter explains how the Fifth Way works and its relevant differences from William Paley’s argument from design. There is a look at teleological arguments for God in Aquinas’s other writings. The chapter examines in what sense(s) Aquinas thinks that natural bodies act for an end and also for a certain good. There is a look at his arguments for final causes in nature. Attention is given to why he holds the crucial premise that bodies which lack intelligence, but act for an end, are directed to their end by something with intelligence and understanding of that end. There is a brief discussion of chance, which Aquinas sees as a rival explanation to finality in nature. The chapter closes with the final steps of the Fifth Way where Aquinas appears to see a single guiding intelligent being in the background of nature.
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