Ever wonder what it is like to be in the next life, that is, to be dead? (I thought it best to leave the word “dead” out of the title of this essay.) Since this is something we all must face sooner or later, I thought it might be of interest to engage in some rational speculation about what a human being experiences, if anything, after he becomes unconscious for the last time.

This is not a theological enquiry. So, depictions of hellfire and eternal bliss, though they may be apologetically defensible, are not where this essay is going. Rather, I shall explore what natural reason might tell us about afterlife possibilities.

Now one can make the rather impertinent observation some have offered about the curious situation of the atheist at his own funeral: “All dressed up and nowhere to go.” That is, after all, the ultimate implication of most forms of skepticism, materialism, and atheism.

Reincarnation, or, Getting Another Bite at the Apple

On the other hand, we have the doctrine of metempsychosis or reincarnation offered by both the Vedic tradition in the east and Plato in the west. In that view, dying is followed by birth into another life. Plato, in his dialogue, the Timaeus, expresses his own version of metempsychosis, when he postulates that the form of life we reenter depends on how we live this present life.

“He who lived well during his appointed time was to return and dwell in his native star, and there he would have a blessed and congenial existence. But if he failed in attaining this, at the second birth he would pass into a woman, and if, when in that state of being, he did not desist from evil, he would continually be changed into some brute who resembled him in the evil nature which he had acquired, and would not cease from his toils and transformations until he followed the revolution of the same and the like within him, and overcame by the help of reason the turbulent and irrational mob of later accretions, made up of fire and air and water and earth, and returned to the form of his first and better state.”¹

Prescinding from Plato’s speculation about moving down and back up the ladder of living things and since we presently know what it is to experience our own human life, it is not all that difficult to imagine reentering the same kind of life we presently have.

Death Without Continuous Reincarnation

Far more intriguing is the prospect of trying to imagine what it is like to experience life after death when no immediate or proximate reincarnation occurs. Since (1) death entails the loss or corruption of the entire human body and (2) it appears that all we know in this life comes to us through the senses and brain, which are material organs of the human body, what would life after death be like? What could or would we know or experience either intellectually or sensitively in such a hypothetically disembodied state of being?

This last view is doubtless of greatest interest to the majority of those who share some form of the Christian religion, which dominates in Western Civilization. Now, I am not presuming the revealed content of that religious worldview, but merely am noting that its central doctrines entail the notion of death and some form of afterlife for the spiritual soul – but without any notion of proximate reincarnation. The Christian doctrine of bodily resurrection pertains to something that happens for most all men, not at their immediate time of death, but at the end of the world at some point in the future. Until that indeterminate span of time has elapsed, the spiritual soul must exist without a corporeal body. It is that purely spiritual condition of temporally extended human existence upon which I now focus my attention.

Indeed, among leading Christian figures we have, in the prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, the beautiful truth expressed that “…it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” One cannot but wonder exactly what this statement might mean to us, the living, who have no direct experience of what it appears to affirm.

What Reason Can Say About the Separated Soul's Experience

Certainly, most human beings admit to having no direct evidence of what it is like to be dead before we are actually dead. But we do have some (1) speculative philosophical arguments about what the separated soul can know and (2) possibly analogous experiences which some have reported to us about this condition of continued immaterial existence.

St. Thomas Aquinas offers a rather complete speculative explanation of what man’s spiritual soul can know after the soul’s separation from the body.²

St. Thomas affirms that the separated soul can no longer operate using sense powers or sense organs, since they belong to the body and the soul of the deceased is no longer the actuating form of the body, Thus, such acts as forming and understanding universal concepts abstracted from phantasms, which themselves are formed from physical sense experience, are no longer possible when we are dead. Still, he insists that “... the soul in that [separated] state understands by means of participated species resulting from the influence of the divine light ….”³ In other words, while the soul no longer can perform such acts by its own natural bodily powers, God can infuse such knowledge into it.

For the same reason, the separated soul can have knowledge of some singulars to which it is related in some fashion. This is not accomplished by abstraction from phantasms, but “… by the infusion of species by God, and in that way it is possible for the intellect to know singulars.”⁴ Such knowledge would naturally entail formation of judgments and self-reflective awareness of one’s own existence in the act of making of such judgments.

However, St, Thomas maintains that “… by natural knowledge [that is, unless God directly infuses such knowledge], … the dead do not know what passes on earth.”⁵ The notable exception is the state of the blessed in heaven, who see God, and who, through Him who sees all things, are infused with knowledge of things that take place on earth.⁶

But, What is it Really Like to be Dead?

While the preceding speculative musings may be of great interest to the philosopher or theologian, they do little to help us ordinary mortals to imagine what it is really like to be dead. The unfortunate fact is that we simply cannot imagine the spiritual experiences described above for the simple reason that imagining entails the use of the imagination, which is a sense power whose function depends on bodily organs, and thus, completely terminates at the time of passing into the next life. We need something that will help us to grasp precisely what it would be like to be a disembodied spirit that is still, in a meaningful sense, having a real life experience. How would it “feel” to be living, but without a body and without the body’s sense organs that we need for sense experience in this life?

I do not herein propose to demonstrate the spirituality and immortality of the human soul. Those are proper topics for other venues and I have addressed them myself elsewhere, including on this Strange Notions site. Rather, I propose here simply to give two examples of reported human experience that depicts the content of “disembodied existence,” namely, (1) those drawn from near death experiences and (2) those drawn from our own experience of dreams.

Near Death Experiences

I do not intend to give a broad analysis of NDE here, but merely want to show that those who claim such experiences often claim out-of-body events, some of which appear to be verified by others. For example, we have the rather common NDE claim of people feeling themselves “floating” up out of their bodies, say, on an operating table, and then “seeing and hearing” the doctors and nurses – being able correctly to report what they were wearing and actually saying and doing – all while being unconscious from anesthesia.

Perhaps, a case some readers may have seen reported is that of a migrant worker named Maria, who had a severe heart attack and was in cardiac arrest. She was able to look down from the ceiling and watch the medical team at work on her body. “At one point in this experience, said Maria, she found herself outside the hospital and spotted a tennis shoe on the ledge of the north side of the third floor of the building … [and] … was able to provide several details regarding its appearance, including the observations that one of its laces was stuck underneath the heel and that the little toe area was worn.” Her observations were later confirmed in exact detail!

Such experiences of being “out of the body,” and yet having accurate sense knowledge of objects and people which the patient cannot possibly perceive in their “medically dead” state, attest to the possibility of actual sensory experience of someone while in a seemingly disembodied state, that is, someone whose consciousness has actually separated from his body and yet is able to have continued and verifiable sense experience.

Such NDE experiences tend to confirm the possibility of “disembodied spiritual experience.” I do not claim that the people involved are actually dead, since clearly their consciousness subsequently returns to their bodies. But they do meet the criteria for some form of disembodied sense experience.

“Disembodied Dreams”

My final example of a “disembodied experience” can easily be verified by all of us, namely, as experienced in a dream. I suspect that most of us have had the experience of sitting in a theatre and watching a movie in which we become so engrossed that we literally “forget ourselves” and, as it were, start “living” on the screen in front of us. We lose consciousness of ourselves as having separate and distinct bodies sitting in seats, which are not part of what is taking place on the screen before us.

Similarly, we have probably all had dreams in which we were victims of some sort of bodily attack (as in a good nightmare!) and well aware of a sense of being in a body. In deep dreams, we can sometimes experience things as if we were in a body even though the experiences are not those of our sleeping body.

Moreover, I have certainly had many a dream myself in which it was like the theatre experience. I was watching often very vivid scenes of events, things, and persons engaged in various activities of which I was simply an observer, having no self-reflective bodily experience at all.

Nothing prevents God from giving us similar experiences of sensible reality, since anything our natural powers can do to actuate our subjective experience, God can do as well. Call it miraculous or merely how things work in the afterlife. Either way, the experience is that of a disembodied spirit and it can be fully as real, or more so, than any experience we have in this life – only in a disembodied form like that of a vivid dream -- one whose objective reality cannot be epistemically doubted.

I am not trying to offer a speculative defense of the reality of a spiritual afterlife in this essay. My sole purpose has been to show what it might be like to be alive and fully engaged in both intellectual and sensitive experiences in a spiritual afterlife, while awaiting what Christians believe to be a later resurrection of the body. Indeed, we might have to adjust the impertinent observation about an atheist at his funeral that I offered at the beginning of this essay. What if it turns out that the atheist is all dressed up and then shocked to discover that he does have somewhere to go?

Conversions from atheism are often gradual and complex, no doubt. For many converts the road is slow and tedious, tiring and trying. But in the end unbelievers who find God can enjoy an inner peace that comes from a clear conscience in knowing they held to truth and followed the arguments faithfully.

Of course not all converts from atheism become Christian or even religious. Some converts only reach a deistic belief in God (an areligious position that God is “impersonal”) but the leap is still monumental; and it opens new, unforeseen horizons.

The factors that lead to faith are often diverse. It is clear that every former atheist has walked a unique path to God. Cardinal Ratzinger was once asked how many ways there are to God. He replied:

“As many ways as there are people. For even within the same faith each man’s way is an entirely personal one.”

Of course, the pope-to-be was not endorsing the view that “all religions are equal” but rather that there always seems to be a unique combination of factors—or steps—that move each convert towards belief in God. It also seems that some of these factors are more prominent across the board than others.

Here are eight common factors that lead atheists to change their minds about God:

1. Good literature and reasonable writing.

Reasonable atheists eventually become theists because they are reasonable; and furthermore, because they are honest. They are willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads; and in many cases the evidence comes to the atheist most coherently and well-presented through the writings of believers in God.

Author Karen Edmisten admits on her blog:

“I once thought I’d be a lifelong atheist. Then I became desperately unhappy, read up on philosophy and various religions (while assiduously avoiding Christianity), and waited for something to make sense. I was initially  appalled when Christianity began to look  like the sensible thing, surprised when I wanted to be baptized, and stunned that I ended up a Catholic.”

Dr. Holly Ordway, author of Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms, describes the consequences of reading great, intelligent Christian writers:

“I found that my favorite authors were men and women of deep Christian faith. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien above all; and then the poets: Gerard Manley Hopkins, George Herbert, John Donne, and others. Their work was unsettling to my atheist convictions…”

Dr. Ordway mentions the eminent 20th century Oxford thinker, C.S. Lewis. Lewis is a prime example of a reasonable but unbelieving thinker who was willing to read from all angles and perspectives. As a result of his open inquiry, he became a believer in Christ and one of modern Christianity’s greatest apologists.

G.K. Chesterton and George MacDonald were two of the most influential writers to effect Lewis’ conversion. He writes in his autobiography, Surprised By Joy:

“In reading Chesterton, as in reading MacDonald, I did not know what I was letting myself in for… A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.”

Author Dale Ahlquist writes matter-of-factly that “C.S. Lewis was an atheist until he read Chesterton’s book, The Everlasting Man, but he wasn’t afterwards…”

Ironically, it was C.S. Lewis’ influential defenses of Christianity that would eventually prompt countless conversions to Christianity—and his influence continues today unhindered. Among the Lewis-led converts from atheism is former feminist and professor of philosophy, Lorraine Murray, who recalls:

“In college I turned my back on Catholicism, my childhood faith, and became a radical, gender-bending feminist and a passionate atheist …. Reading Lewis, I found something that I must have been quietly hungering for all along, which was a reasoned approach to my childhood beliefs, which had centered almost entirely on emotion. As I turned the pages of this book, I could no longer ignore the Truth, nor turn my back on the Way and the Life. Little by little, and inch by inch, I found my way back to Jesus Christ and returned to the Catholic Church.”

For an in-depth account of Murray’s conversion, see her book: Confessions Of An Ex-Feminist.

2. "Experimentation" with prayer and the word of God.

The Word of God is living. It has power beyond human comprehension because it is “God-breathed.” God speaks to man in many ways; but especially through prayer and the reading of the inspired Scriptures. When curiosity (or even interest) of non-believers leads to experimentation with prayer or reading the Bible the results can be shocking, as many converts attest.

One former atheist who was profoundly affected by prayer and the Scriptures is author Devin Rose. On his blog, he describes the role that God’s Word played in his gradual conversion process from atheism to Christianity:

“I began praying, saying, “God, you know I do not believe in you, but I am in trouble and need help. If you are real, help me.” I started reading the Bible to learn about what Christianity said…”

Once Rose began to read the Scriptures and talk to God, even as a skeptic, he found himself overwhelmed by something very real:

“Still, I persevered. I kept reading the Bible, asking my roommate questions about what I was reading, and praying. Then, slowly, and amazingly, my faith grew and it eventually threatened to whelm my many doubts and unbelief.”

And the rest was history for the now rising Catholic apologist and author of The Protestant’s Dilemma.

Similarly, renowned sci-fi author John C. Wright distinctly recalls a prayer he said as an adamant atheist:

“I prayed. ‘Dear God, I know… that you do not exist. Nonetheless, as a scholar, I am forced to entertain the hypothetical possibility that I am mistaken. So just in case I am mistaken, please reveal yourself to me in some fashion that will prove your case. If you do not answer, I can safely assume that either you do not care whether I believe in you, or that you have no power to produce evidence to persuade me…If you do not exist, this prayer is merely words in the air, and I lose nothing but a bit of my dignity. Thanking you in advance for your kind cooperation in this matter, John Wright.'”

Wright soon received the answer (and effect) he did not expect:

“Something from beyond the reach of time and space, more fundamental than reality, reached across the universe and broke into my soul and changed me…I was altered down to the root of my being…It was like falling in love.”

Wright was welcomed into the Catholic Church at Easter in 2008.

3. Historical study of the Gospels.

Lee Strobel, the former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune and author of the influential work, The Case For Christ, is a prime example of what happens when an honest atheist sets out to establish once and for all whether the claims of the Gospels are reliable or not.

Strobel writes at the end of his investigation in The Case For Christ:

“I’ll admit it:I was ambushed by the amount and quality of the evidence that Jesus is the unique Son of God… I shook my head in amazement. I had seen defendants carted off to the death chamber on much less convincing proof! The cumulative facts and data pointed unmistakably towards a conclusion that I wasn’t entirely comfortable in reaching.” (p. 264)

Modern historical scholars like Craig Blomberg and N.T. Wright have advanced the area of historical theology and the study of the claims of the Gospels to exciting new heights. The results of such ground-breaking studies are one of the greatest threats to modern day atheism.

Referring specifically to the historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ in the Gospels (discussed below), former atheist and freelancer, Philip Vander Elst, writes:

“The more I thought about all these points, the more convinced I became that the internal evidence for the reliability of the Gospels and the New Testament as a whole was overwhelming."

4. Honest philosophical reasoning.

Philosophy means “love of truth.” Philosophy is meant to lead one to truth; and it certainly will, if the philosopher is willing to honestly consider the arguments from both sides and follow the best arguments wherever they may lead.

Psychologist Dr. Kevin Vost recalls his discovery of the arguments of St. Thomas Aquinas:

“Pope Leo XIII had written in the 1879 encyclical Aeterni Patris that for scientific types who follow only reason, after the grace of God, nothing is as likely to win them back to the faith as the wisdom of St. Thomas, and this was the case for me. He showed me how true Christian faith complements and perfects reason; it doesn’t contradict or belittle it. He solved all the logical dilemmas.”

Philosopher Dr. Ed Feser, in his article, The Road From Atheism, recounts the shocking effectof opening himself to the arguments for the existence of God:

“As I taught and thought about the arguments for God’s existence, and in particular the cosmological argument, I went from thinking “These arguments are no good” to thinking “These arguments are a little better than they are given credit for” and then to “These arguments are actually kind of interesting.”  Eventually it hit me: “Oh my goodness, these arguments are right after all!”

Feser concludes:

“Speaking for myself, anyway, I can say this much.  When I was an undergrad I came across the saying that learning a little philosophy leads you away from God, but learning a lot of philosophy leads you back.  As a young man who had learned a little philosophy, I scoffed.  But in later years and at least in my own case, I would come to see that it’s true.”

Two fantastic books from Edward Feser include The Last Superstition: A Refutation Of The New Atheism and Aquinas. Also recommended is Kevin Vost’s From Atheism to Catholicism: How Scientists and Philosophers Led Me to the Truth.

5. Reasonable believers.

It has been the obnoxious position of some (not all) atheists that in order to believe in God, one must have a significant lack of intelligence and/or reason. Most atheists believe that modern science has ruled out the possibility of the existence of God. For this reason, they tag believers with a lack of up-to-date knowledge and critical thinking skills. (Of course, the question of the existence of a God who is outside of the physical universe is fundamentally aphilosophical question—not a scientific question.)

Intelligent and reasonable believers in God, who can engage atheistic arguments with clarity and logic, become a great challenge to atheists who hold this shallow attitude towards the existence of God.

Theists especially make a statement when they are experts in any field of science. To list just a few examples: Galileo and Kepler (astronomy), Pascal (hydrostatics), Boyle (chemistry), Newton (calculus), Linnaeus (systematic biology), Faraday (electromagnetics), Cuvier (comparative anatomy), Kelvin (thermodynamics), Lister (antiseptic surgery), and Mendel (genetics).

An honest atheist might presume, upon encountering Christians (for example) who have reasonable explanations for their supernatural beliefs, that the existence of God is at least plausible. This encounter might then mark the beginning of the non-believer’s openness towards God as a reality.

Consider the notable conversion of former atheist blogger, Jennifer Fulwiler. Her journey from atheism to agnosticism and—eventually—to Catholicism, was slow and gradual with many different points of impact. But encountering intelligent believers in God was a key chink in her atheist armor.

In this video interview with Brandon Vogt, Jen explains how encountering intelligent, reasonable theists (especially her husband) impacted her in the journey towards her eventual conversion.

For the full account of Jen’s conversion process, get her must-read book, Something Other Than God. Her blog is conversiondiary.com.

And then there’s Leah Libresco—another atheist blogger turned Catholic. Leah recalls the challenging impact of reasonable Christians in her academic circle:

“I was in a philosophical debating group, so the strongest pitch I saw was probably the way my Catholic friends rooted their moral, philosophical, or aesthetic arguments in their theology. We covered a huge spread of topics so I got so see a lot of long and winding paths into the consequences of belief.”

Recalling her first encounter with this group of intelligent Christians, she writes on her blog:

“When I went to college…I met smart Christians for the first time, and it was a real shock.”

That initial “shock” stirred her curiosity and propelled her in the direction of Christianity. Leah is now an active Catholic.

Finally, there’s Edith Stein, a brilliant 20th century philosopher. As an atheist, Edith was shocked when she discovered the writings of Catholic philosopher, Max Scheler. As one account of her conversion recounts:

“Edith was enthralled by Scheler’s eloquence in expounding and defending Catholic spiritual ideals. Listening to his lectures on the phenomenology of religion, she became disposed to take religious ideas and attitudes seriously for the first time since her adolescence, when she had lost her faith and and given up prayer.”

Edith Stein would eventually convert to Catholicism and die a martyr. She is now known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

6. Modern advances and limitations in science.

Antony Flew was one of the world’s most famous atheists of the 20th century. He debated William Lane Craig and others on the existence of God. But eventually his recognition of the profound order and complexity of the universe, and its apparent fine-tuning, was a decisive reason for the renowned atheist to change his mind about God’s existence.

In a fascinating interview with Dr. Ben Wiker, Flew explains:

“There were two factors in particular that were decisive. One was my growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe.”

He concluded that it was reasonable to believe that the organization of space, time, matter and energy throughout the universe is far from random.

As Dr. Peter Kreeft has pointed out, no person would see a hut on a beach and conclude that it must have randomly assembled itself by some random natural process, void of an intelligent designer. Its order necessitates a designer. Thus if this “beach hut analogy” is true, how much more should we believe in an Intelligent Designer behind the vastly more complex and ordered universe and the precise physical laws that govern it (click here for William Lane Craig’s argument for the fine-tuning of the universe).

Flew continues in his exposition on why he changed his mind about God:

“The second was my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself—which is far more complex than the physical Universe—can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source. I believe that the origin of life and reproduction simply cannot be explained from a biological standpoint . . . The difference between life and non-life, it became apparent to me, was ontological and not chemical. The best confirmation of this radical gulf is Richard Dawkins’ comical effort to argue in The God Delusion that the origin of life can be attributed to a “lucky chance.” If that’s the best argument you have, then the game is over. No, I did not hear a Voice. It was the evidence itself that led me to this conclusion.”

Parents often describe their experience of procreation as “a miracle,” regardless of their religious background or philosophical worldview. Intuitively, they seem to accept that there is something deeply mysterious and transcendent at work in the bringing forth (and sustenance) of new human life. Flew also was able to realize (after a lifetime of study and reflection) that there could be no merely natural explanation for life in the universe.

For a more in-depth account of Flew’s change of mind on God’s existence, read There Is A God: How The World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind.

7. Evidence for the Resurrection.

Thanks to the phenomenal work of leading New Testament scholars, including Gary Habermas, William Lane Craig, and N.T. Wright, the case for Christ’s resurrection has become more airtight than ever.

Modern historical studies have left little doubt about what the best explanation is for the alleged postmortem appearances of the risen Jesus, the conversions of Paul and James, and the empty tomb: Jesus really was raised from the dead. Even most of today’s critical New Testament scholars accept these basic facts as historically certain (the appearances, conversions, empty tomb, etc); but they are left limping with second-rate alternative explanations in a last ditch effort to refute the true resurrection of Christ and “signature of God”, as scholar Richard Swinburne has tagged it.

The case for the resurrection of Jesus had a significant impact on the former atheist, now Christian apologist, Alister McGrath. He recalls in one of his articles:

“My early concern was to get straight what Christians believed, and why they believed it. How does the Resurrection fit into the web of Christian beliefs? How does it fit into the overall scheme of the Christian faith? After several years of wrestling with these issues, I came down firmly on the side of Christian orthodoxy. I became, and remain, a dedicated and convinced defender of traditional Christian theology. Having persuaded myself of its merits, I was more than happy to try to persuade others as well.”

For more on McGrath’s journey see his book, Surprised By Meaning.

8. Beauty.

The great theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar, wrote:

“Beauty is the word that shall be our first. Beauty is the last thing which the thinking intellect dares to approach, since only it dances as an uncontained splendour around the double constellation of the true and the good and their inseparable relation to one another.”

Father von Balthasar held strong to the notion that to lead non-believers to belief in God we must begin with the beautiful.

Dr. Peter Kreeft calls this the Argument from Aesthetic Experience. The Boston College philosopher testifies that he knows of several former atheists who came to a belief in God based on this argument (for more from Dr. Kreeft, see his Twenty Arguments For The Existence Of God).

In classic Kreeftian fashion, he puts forward the argument in the following way:

“There is the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
Therefore there must be a God.

You either see this one or you don’t.”

In my title, the word, “proof,” is in quotation marks, because this article is not intended as a strict proof for God’s existence. Many may well not be impressed by the argument at all. Still, it may have some merit, since it might at least give skeptics, agnostics, and atheists some pause for thought.

Most children are taught in their early years to believe in the fictional character who lives at the North Pole. Indeed, like St. Thomas Aquinas’s own Five Ways to prove God’s existence, a similar such set of arguments has even been posed for proving Santa Claus’s existence, using a “Thomistic” approach.

Most young children come to believe in Santa’s existence, even though the stories of how he operates on Christmas Eve cause some puzzlement on the part of a few believers. After all, they think, “Would their parents actually lie to them?” Nonetheless, over time, an evil skepticism begins to lead some to doubt certain details, and finally, even to doubt the existence of Santa altogether.

His story’s coherence seems increasingly questionable. Can reindeer really fly, when they don’t have wings? Isn’t he just too fat to fit down most chimneys? How could he possibly visit every home with children on the planet in just a few hours? Of course, such doubts ought not be mentioned to younger children, lest their innocence be corrupted!

Finally, the sad truth dawns – at least for older children and adults: Santa simply does not exist. Perhaps, his story is reframed in terms of an ancient bishop, Saint Nicholas, whose exploits seem more credible. Sadly, it is now all too clear that the essential attributes of Santa Claus are simply not coherent. The fantasy of the Jolly Old Elf falls of its own weight in a volley of face-saving ex post facto denials, like, “I always knew that he really could not fit down a chimney and that no one could drink all that hot chocolate and survive.”

The Parallel to God

My thesis is simple. The classical conception of God is often attacked as essentially incoherent, and thus, unbelievable. Just like Santa Claus, God is accused of being merely an incoherent myth that all should abandon upon reaching intellectual maturity. Theistic inconsistencies and absurdities are said to abound. So, let us look at some major divine attributes according to classical theism and raise the typical objections. Possible defenses will be offered as well.

1. Objection: God is claimed to be a pure spirit, but how can a spiritual entity give what it does not have, namely, the positive reality of physical substance?
 

Reply: Being physical is actually a limitation on being. So, God is causing the positive perfections of things, while physical things exist solely with the limitations of time and space.

2. Objection: God is supposed to be absolutely simple: not composed of parts, principles, or things. But the more perfect things we experience entail greater complexity. So a simple God would be imperfect.
 

Reply: More complex physical things are more perfect, but among spiritual beings, it is God’s lack of composition, even between essence and existence, that enables him to have the perfection of existence without any limitation, that is, to be the infinitely-perfect Infinite Being.

3. Objection: God is supposed to be all good. But he both permits evil to exist and even causes it through punishments. So God must not be all good.
 

Reply: God is so good and so perfect that he permits evil to exist, and brings greater good out of it.¹ Besides, even atheist J.L. Mackie finally admits that Alvin Plantinga’s free will defense explains how evil can be logically consistent with God’s goodness.

4. Objection: God is the Infinite Being. But other beings than God exist, so he must not possess all possible being.
 

Reply: All perfections of being found in creatures come from God as First Cause. So, this does not limit God’s being, but merely shows his being or perfection includes all that which is found in creatures.

5. Objection: Unicity means there is only one God. But how do we know that creation was not made and governed by a committee, as David Hume suggests?
 

Reply: Since God is infinite, if there were two of him, they must differ. If they differ, one lacks what the other has – meaning one is merely another finite being. Logically, there can be solely one Infinite Being. All the rest must be finite and not God.

6. Objection: Omniscience means God knows everything. But he cannot know future events caused by free will, since they cannot be predicted by knowing present reality. So he lacks omniscience.
 

Reply: God exists outside of time in his eternal “now.” So, he knows all things – past, present, and future – by his knowledge of vision.² He need not predict future events, but rather, “sees” even future free choices taking place in his “present.”

7. Objection: Omnipotence means God can do or make anything. But he cannot make another God or a rock bigger than he can lift. Nor can he do evil. So he is not all powerful.
 

Reply: Such examples are contradictions in being, which are not real “things,” since a thing is something that can actually exist. Thus, nothing limits God’s omnipotence, since God can do or make any “thing.”

8. Objection: God is immutable and eternal. But, if God cannot change, that is a limitation on his infinite being. Besides the world changes through time, so his knowledge of it must change as well.
 

Reply: God already possesses all existential perfections, so he does not need to change to become more perfect. Being eternal, God is outside time and knows creation all at once, even in its temporal progression – which is a limit on creatures, not on God.

9. Objection: God is omnipresent, meaning he is present in all things. But that would amount to pantheism, since it would identify God with the world.
 

Reply: God is present in all things, but only as a cause is present to its effects by way of creative power. Since a cause is an extrinsic sufficient reason to its effects, God cannot be identical to his physical creatures. Nor, as a pure spirit, is he physically locatable.

10. Objection: God is a person, with intellect and will, who can love his creatures. These are anthropomorphisms, whereby we mistakenly make God into our image. Clearly, a transcendent deity would not be constrained by such humanlike properties.
 

Reply: No, these are perfections found in creatures that must come from the Creator, who possesses them, since he could not give what he does not have. Given the divine simplicity, God not only has these properties, but he is them by his very essence. Thus, in God intellect, will, and all activity are identical with the divine substance itself.  Yes, God really is love.

The Trinity

Objection: I will now consider just one central Christian theological concept, not because it is theological, but because (1) it is a major claim about God in human history and (2) it poses a major challenge to the coherence of God’s nature. I refer to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which appears to conflict with (1) divine simplicity and (2) the belief that there is only one true God.

Christians claim that God is somehow three in one: a single being, yet three distinct persons. Small wonder that both our Jewish and Muslim brethren view this doctrine as little more than placing a thin veil over blatant polytheism! It sounds clearly like belief in three Gods, not one.

Reply: It took about three centuries to settle on proper doctrinal language. By then, Christian theology employed a distinction between “nature” or “substance” and “person” to avoid evident contradiction: God is three distinct persons in one divine substance or nature.
 
As to the Trinity’s metaphysical possibility, it can be illustrated by analogy to our own human consciousness. For, within my single act of consciousness, there is a real relational distinction between (1) myself as knower and (2) myself, as object of a self-reflective cognitive act.
 
Thus, while my act of knowing is a single spiritual act, this distinction between terms within my consciousness shows that there can be really distinct terms within the same spiritual act. Thus it is that the internal divine processions may be compared with human self-knowledge and self-love as spiritual activity having distinct terms which, it is solemnly defined, constitute really distinct Persons that, nonetheless, share the same substantial nature such that they are identical in all other aspects.³
 
Thus, given the above explanation of the metaphysical possibility of the Trinity, God retains absolute simplicity, since he is composed of neither things, nor parts, nor even principles. Not things, since the divine Persons possess the same, unique divine substance; not parts, since, being spiritual, God has no physical parts; and, not even principles, since the terms of the internal divine processions possess an identical nature – a nature which, as First Cause and Pure Act, has not even the essence/existence composition found in every creature. Moreover, since the Trinity of Persons in God entails but a single substance and since, as shown in point five above, there can be but one Infinite Being or God, the charge of polytheism is refuted.

The Point

This article’s aim is not merely to show that it makes more sense to believe in God than in Santa Claus. That would hardly be much of an achievement. Still, very few adults believe in Santa, whereas belief in God is widespread among adults.

Santa has the problem of numerous highly debatable properties, such as flying reindeer – one with an illuminating nose, the ability of the obese to descend chimneys, visiting billions of homes in just a few hours, and a pile of ill-paid elves making toys. But God also suffers highly incredible properties, many needing explanation in early Christianity, since Scripture mentions them without philosophical proof.

My central hypothesis is that, if such an incredible entity as God does not actually exist, his concept ought to readily fall apart under examination as does poor Santa Claus’s. There should be a number of clear, unequivocal, unanswerable paths showing that God’s nature is totally incoherent and self-contradictory.

But God’s concept is at least defensibly coherent.

Now I realize that many skeptics will reject the defenses of this or that or all divine attributes. I will be shocked if they do not instantly claim that the God of classical theism has already been exposed repeatedly as incoherent and self-contradictory.

But, that is not to the point. The point is that intellectually rigorous defenses exist.

There is no way to explore every alleged divine attribute in this short piece, but I have considered the main ones above.

As stated earlier, I do not offer all this is a genuine proof of God’s existence. Still, it is very curious how God’s complex and mind-bending conception is not able to be laughed out of court at first blush, especially in light of all the criticisms that have been launched against belief in such a being.

Skeptics will probably have a field day deconstructing the point and counter-point arguments about divine attributes offered above. They are not intended as complete arguments, since each one could take a complete paper in itself to properly flesh out with scholarly precision and force. That is not my point.

The much broader point I am making is that the classical concept of God’s nature is highly complex and unexpected. Also unexpected would be that such an unbelievable God would be so coherent as to be believable to many, even after scholarly debate.

I leave it to readers to draw their own inevitably radically-diverse conclusions.

This post aims at better understanding how God interacts with creatures, not primarily at proving his existence. Central objections to God’s existence are that (1) his nature is self-contradictory and/or (2) his relation to creatures is somehow impossible, as in, for example, the problem of evil that I have addressed here previously.

In other posts, I have argued that God is the source of all “new existence” that appears in the world every moment it progresses through time. Regarding St. Thomas Aquinas’s Fifth Way to prove God’s existence, I have argued that every non-knowing agent’s final causality requires intellectual foreknowledge of the end to be achieved – right down to the least aspect of its existence.

Some conceive God as distant from his creation: he causes it to begin, gives it natural laws, and intervenes only where necessary – say, to create the human spiritual soul or to bridge alleged “evolutionary gaps.” Otherwise, God stands back in deistic fashion letting his physical laws run the “day to day” operations of the universe.

But, metaphysical science proves that God not only creates the cosmos at its beginning, but also continuously sustains its existence lest it fall back into nothingness. For, proper causes are simultaneous with their effects, and, as St. Thomas points out in his Second Way, “to take away the cause is to take away the effect.”¹

My articles on “New Existence” and on the “Mysterious Fifth Way” penetrate further. They argue that God constantly impacts the world (1) by accounting for every new aspect of existence that appears in our ever-changing cosmos and (2) by directing with foreknowledge all finite agents to the exact end which results either by their self-perfective actions or by their production of effects.

God: Universal Source of All "New Existence"

My own variation on St. Thomas’s First Way notes the absolute moment to moment limits on each and every existent in our ever-changing cosmos. This realization implies that even the least change in the way things exist is totally inexplicable in terms of the previous state of total finite reality. This is because all the qualities of reality, all the perfections of existence, that were present in the “before” state of the cosmos do not include the new qualities of existence that appear in the “after” state of the ever-changing cosmos. Since what prior states lack in being cannot explain the “new being” of later states, there must be some “universal source or donor” of these new qualities – something already possessing these qualities that are “new” to the finite world, but not to that universal source.

I have shown elsewhere that there must be an Infinite Being to create and sustain the world’s existence. Since that Infinite Being is the infinite cause of all that exists, it must contain all possible qualities of existence itself. Thus, it must be identical with that Universal Source of all new qualities of existence that appear in our ever-becoming cosmos. For, becoming is the coming-to-be of new existential qualities. Thus, the Infinite Being must also be the Universal Source or Donor that creates these new qualities of existence, whether substantial or accidental in nature.

Clearly, the roles of creator and sustainer of all being and of all becoming befit the God of classical theism.

As Universal Source, God cannot undergo any change, since to do so – even to go into the act of causing new qualities in others – would be to gain a new mode of existence he did not have to give new being to himself, which is impossible.

As Infinite Being, there can be only one God, since, were there two, the necessary difference between them would entail one lacking something the other had. The one lacking something would be merely another finite being.

Because of the divine simplicity, God’s infinite being is identical to his infinite knowledge, whereby he knows all creatures perfectly in the act of knowing himself as their cause.

God gives to finite beings all the new qualities they manifest as they undergo even the least alterations. God’s causality reaches down to the least iota of new reality in finite things. As St. Thomas says, “But the causality of God, who is the first agent, extends to all being (entia) ….”²

Efficient Causes Fail to Explain Final Causality

The final causality St. Thomas’s Fifth Way depicts is rejected by scientific materialists who attempt to explain all cosmic change just in terms of efficient and material causes. This tendency arises because they think that as long as physical agents can produce effects, efficient causality (matter being assumed) is totally responsible for the effect produced.

But that is to confuse efficient causality with the entire physical agency taking place.

In truth, a physical agent exhibits both efficient causality and final causality. But, the latter is not reducible to the former. Efficient causality explains why some effect is produced, whereas, final causality explains why this specific effect, as opposed to any other, is produced. Of course, both diverse sufficient reasons influence the actions of a physical agent. But, to reduce the entirety of the agent's causality just to efficient causality is to confuse the whole with a part.

Final causality operates in conformity with the formal cause, which specifies which activities are proper to a given agent. But the formal cause itself is, in a way, static. It is there even when the agent is not acting for an end. For the agent to begin to act for a definite end there must be a sufficient reason why this particular end is actively moved toward, rather than any other, and this reason must be operative from the very beginning of its motion, or else, nothing definite could be accomplished.

Assuming the physical agent as the total explanation of the results which it produces risks confusing the entire causal process with subsets of various intelligible reasons that partially explain it. Final causality is a unique principle that must be present in order to explain certain aspects of the total causal process which are not explained by matter, efficient causality, or even substantial form.

Perfect Intellectual Knowledge of Ends Exists

As explained in an earlier article, the principle of final causality entails two claims: (1) that every agent must act for an end and (2) that there must be intellectual knowledge of that end. St. Thomas supports the latter claim when he affirms that “… those things which do not have knowledge do not tend toward an end unless directed by something with knowledge and intelligence….”³

Thomists make the following type of argument in support of St. Thomas’s claim:

“We see, therefore, that the sufficient reason for an agent’s action, that which determines it to a particular action or effect rather than any other is the effect, the action itself – not as produced and accomplished, but as that which is to be produced, accomplished and therefore as preconceived by a thought, so as to preordain the agent to that action.”⁴

However, skeptics dispute how something which does not even presently exist – something that is only yet “to be produced” can possibly determine which end is achieved, and especially that it should be claimed to “retroactively” act on the natural agent from the very beginning of its agency. Rather, they claim that this is explained by existing efficient causes, which they identify with physical agents.

Still, consider looking at this finality starting with the end as already attained. Now this end is not a “mere possibility,” but rather something already existing and needing a full causal explanation of how it came to be.

When beginning at the "future point," you can look back and say that the natural agent's former state is the explanation. But the problem is that when you examine the "explanation," you find that what was needed was a causal influence aimed at producing the now "present" state – actually guiding the entire causal process to this unique actually-achieved end.

This makes the reality of the present intelligible only if a real causal influence in the past was operative and moving the agent to its present state. Since the formerly future, now present state, is an actual reality, so must have been real the causal influence oriented to the now present state's production.

This means that when you focus on the end as actually achieved, it is no longer just a mere possibility, but a reality that can only be explained by a sufficient reason in the past that was actually aimed at its fruition.

While final causality present in the natural agent is retrospectively discerned, it exists and operates prospectively in the natural agent at the point at which it begins its agency.

But since the end did not exist extramentally at the beginning of the agent’s action, its active guidance toward the end achieved is intelligible solely if it had retroactive influence by existing in the intellect of an intelligent director guiding the agency to its final end.

Since some intellect knows the end before the agent can begin to act, what precisely is the nature of that end? Is it some sort of general end, as, say, a dog knows when wolfing down food? While the dog senses a sensible good to be eaten, it does not know the exact food it will actually eat as it wolfs it down.

What of man? Doesn’t he know his acts exact ends – and the means, as means, to those ends? The difficulty is that human intellectually-known ends abstract from concrete circumstances of actual ends. He aims to graduate, but does not know the exact point average he will earn. Human intellectual knowledge simply cannot attain the existential uniqueness of the end as actually attained. We mark success in broad terms (he graduated), but not with foreknown concrete existential uniqueness (2.14 QPA).

The problem is that the actual term of every agent’s action is the end as actually and concretely attained, not some abstract “target range.” Since the actually attained end is never precisely identical to the end as known by man, something else must exist which intellectually knows the actually attained end with perfect existential precision.

What Agents Actually Cause: New Existence

While causal explanations are usually given in terms of broadly-conceived and essentially attained ends, extramental reality itself does not exist abstractly. Real things are always concrete, particular, and existentially unique. Despite claims that natural science alone achieves knowledge of the physical world that is “scientifically accurate and precise,” natural science itself never describes reality exactly as it exists. Every measurement and prediction is couched in terms of approximation no matter how precisely stated. Even objects described in the smallest possible units of physical measurement, Planck units, still represent a certain degree of abstraction from reality itself, always requiring that telltale “plus/minus” at the end of a number.

Thus, any cosmic causal process that produces change or coming-to-be must produce actually existing unique beings not mere approximations or concepts abstracted from concrete reality. This applies to the “new existence” described earlier. Since any cosmic change causes new limited being, and since every being or aspect of being is unique, any change in finite reality requires that some being gives that new unique form of existence which comes into being. Since every finite thing is limited to its present way of being, and since any new thing or change of being has never existed before in quite its new existential uniqueness, no mere finite cause can actually give, of itself, that new existence. This is so precisely because it lacks that form of existence which differentiates the newly acquired form of existence from itself, and hence, cannot account for its coming-to-be.

Yes, this is an argument for the existence of an infinite being which already possesses every possible mode of existence, and to which any newly manifested change in finite being is not new, but simply part of what that infinite being already possesses. This Universal Source of existence is the Infinite Being called God.

What Agents Actually Cause: Finality

But just as God can be understood as the Universal Source of all new and unique finite becoming, so can he be understood as the Mind that knows the intentionality that attends all final causality.

I say this because every result of finite agents acting for an end is also existentially unique and new never identical to anything that has ever existed before.

Finite natures do not routinely produce the same exact effect, but always some unique variant that falls within the possibilities of that nature. Birds never simply “fly,” but rather always fly this or that unique way, depending on interaction with other finite agents, such as wind, sunlight, other birds, and so forth. Finite agents inevitably act in interaction with countless other finite agents that shape and alter their expected effects in ways too complex to predict, analyze, or even perfectly describe.

Thus, saying that some intellect must know the end exactly as achieved points to an intellect knowing perfectly all the intentionality entailed in this cosmic myriad of causal interaction. God alone, as the single Infinite Being shown above – having infinitely perfect knowledge of all creatures – must be this necessarily existing intellect which actually foresees the concrete and unique ends of nearly-infinite causal interaction, since he alone has perfect knowledge of future ends of all agents – knowing them in their future, but in his unchanging present, as effects of his causality existing in the vision of his eternal now. For God alone, in his timeless eternity, knows all things – past, present, and future simultaneously.

Of course, God’s foreknowledge of the actions of free agents also foresees himself as moving their wills to act as secondary causes whose natures are free with respect to choosing finite goods.

God: First Mover and Universal Governor

God is the same cause both (1) for ever-appearing cosmic newness and (2) for perfect intellectual apprehension of natural agents directed to ends actually attained. He sustains in existence all finite natures that interact so as to produce those ends.

While acts of secondary causes are truly their own, they cannot account for those existential qualities which are new and differentiate them from their previous states of existence. The Universal Source of new existence alone can do that. But God also directs and guides each agent to its activity or end by sustaining it in its natural operations that produce these ends. As such, the creature and its acts and ends are the effect of divine causality acting in and through them. Yet, due to divine simplicity, God’s causal agency is identical with his substance. Therefore, God knows creatures, not by observing them as we observe others, but by knowing himself perfectly and thereby knowing perfectly those creatures he causes.

Hence, God’s acts of sustaining creatures’ secondary causality that result in uniquely new existential qualities are also identical, through divine simplicity, with his perfect knowledge of all creatures and their final causality.

The First Way combines with the Fifth Way to illuminate how one and the same God both (1) enables finite agents to produce effects and seek ends and (2) can foresee all natural agents’ ends as actually achieved. He foresees such unique ends even if they are a complex result of two or more finite agents interacting to produce effects outside the “intention” of some or all the natural agents involved. Such “unintended” effects are what St. Thomas calls chance events, which, in a certain sense, have no proper cause, but whose result can be foreseen by perfect knowledge of the agents involved and of their interaction.⁵

In this manner, the First Way from motion and the Fifth Way from finality complement each other with God being the sole agent, as First Mover, able to provide the new qualities of existence manifested in any change and, as Universal Governor, able to know and direct the tendencies of all the interacting natural agents of the entire cosmos to their actually achieved ends.

The fifth way is taken from the governance of things. For we see that things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, which is apparent from this: that always, or more frequently, they act in the same way, so as to obtain that which is best. Hence it is plain that they achieve their end, not by chance, but from intention. However, those things which do not have knowledge do not tend toward an end unless directed by something with knowledge and intelligence -- as the arrow [is directed by] the archer. Therefore, there exists some intelligent being by whom all natural things are directed to an end: and this we call God.
 
—Summa Theologiae, I, q. 2, a. 3, c.  (Leonine edition, translation mine)

The Quinta Via's Setting

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote his five ways to God’s existence in the very first pages of his Summa Theologiae (1265-1274), the finest, most mature synthesis of his philosophical and theological thought – a work designed both for educated laity and seminarians. Since God’s existence is the foundation on which logically rests the entirety of his multiple volume masterpiece, giving but a short paragraph’s treatment to each “way” clearly signifies that no complete scholarly demonstration was ever intended. Rather, the “ways” are merely short summaries of St. Thomas’ take on classical arguments his students already knew well.

Hence, expecting fully developed philosophical proofs in the five ways is a major error.

Crucially, the quinta via (fifth way) is not an argument from design, like that of William Paley (1743-1805), who reasoned from extrinsic finality that, like a watch, the world exhibits deliberate design because of perfect coordination of its parts. Rather, St. Thomas argues from intrinsic finality that all natural bodies lacking knowledge act for an end, thereby revealing that they are moved by an intelligent agent, whom we call God.

St. Thomas maintains that natural bodies act for an end “so as to obtain that which is best” because they are moved by natural appetite. Since he maintains (1) that natural appetite seeks what is fitting to a thing and (2) that what is fitting to a thing perfects it, it follows that natural bodies are acting for “that which is best.”¹ Nonetheless, maintaining that natural bodies attain “that which is best” is not essential to his argument, since, as will be shown, it is rationally demonstrable that natural bodies attaining merely definite ends require an intelligent director.

Every Agent Must Act for an End

Central to the quinta via is the principle of final causality, which entails two distinct claims, namely, (1) that every agent must act for an end, and (2) that there must be pre-existing intellectual knowledge of the end. This latter claim is the most mysterious one made by Thomistic metaphysicians regarding the fifth way – a claim without which the argument fails to attain any significant traction. Conversely, successful defense of both aspects of final causality proves why it cannot be “explained” as just some form of efficient causality.

An agent is anything that does something, produces an effect. It matters not whether agents are considered macroscopic wholes, like an animal, or just subatomic particles regulated by physical laws. Either way, things appear to act regularly the same way, unless something impedes their action. An example would be classification of chemical elements according to behavior. Were these not consistent in activity, natural science would become unintelligible chaos. Nonetheless, regularity of behavior is not essential to prove the need for an intelligent director. Merely showing that every agent must act for a definite end suffices.

That every agent must act for an end is demonstrable through the principle of sufficient reason. Since agents of a given nature always tend to a certain result or end, there must be a sufficient reason for such regularity. Yet, even were the end not attained regularly, a sufficient reason would still be needed to explain why a certain definite end is achieved as opposed to any other.

The Angelic Doctor explains the role of intention in agents moving toward an end in his Summa Theologiae, I-II, q. 1, a. 2, c:

“But an agent does not move except from an intention to an end. For if the agent were not determined to a certain effect, it would not do this rather than that: therefore, in order that it produce a determinate effect, it is necessary that it be determined to a certain one, which has the nature [rationem] of an end. This determination, as in the rational nature, would be the “rational appetite,” which is called the will; so, in other things, it would be through natural inclination, which is called the "natural appetite."²

If an agent were totally indifferent to multiple possible effects, no sufficient reason would explain why a specific outcome occurs, making production of a definite effect impossible.  But every agent produces a definite effect. Hence, every agent must act toward a definite end.³

Because St. Thomas views chance as an event happening outside the intention (even understood as natural appetite) of an agent, he maintains that chance presupposes intention to an end. Thus, he sees chance as no threat to final causality.⁴

Moreover, if a reason determines why a specific end comes to be, it must act on the agent from the inception of its agency.

The text cited above refers to things with rational natures. It also refers to “other things,” wherein a determination ”to a certain effect“ is caused by their “natural inclination, which is called the ‘natural appetite.’”⁵

Here St. Thomas maintains that non-knowing agents cannot act solely by themselves so as to attain a determinate end: “But those things that lack reason tend to an end by natural inclination, as if moved by another and not by themselves: since they do not know the nature of an end [as an end], and thus, they are able to ordain nothing to an end, but can be ordained to an end solely by another.”⁶

Things lacking reason cannot explain how they attain their ends through their own causality alone, “since they do not know the nature of an end [as an end], and thus, they are able to ordain nothing to an end.” This last clause logically implies that the property of being able to ordain anything to an end necessarily implies the ability to “know the nature of an end [as an end].” Thus, irrational agents must tend to an end “as directed or led by another”, whom St. Thomas maintains is God himself.⁷

There Must Be Intellectual Knowledge of the End

The most mysterious part of final causality is this claim that even non-knowing agents must be directed to their ends by some intellectual agent. St. Thomas makes this evident when he says that nothing can ordain anything to an end, unless it can “know the nature of an end [as an end].”

This text is critical, since it shows that St. Thomas insists on there being intellectual knowledge of the end, not because of “regularity” in attaining an end, but simply because of the need to know the nature of an end as an end – for to know the end as an end is to know it abstractly, which entails intellectual apprehension.

The dictum that what is first in the order of intention is last in the order of execution⁸ means, not that the end exists in extramental reality before it is caused by the efficient cause, but rather that the end exists as intellectually known before the agency of the efficient cause can take place. Paradoxically expressed, “the end must exist before it exists.” But “existence” must be understood in two senses: (1) in extramental reality, and (2) in intramental reality, that is, as known by an intellect. It is in the latter sense that the end is the first of all causes, the cause of all causes.

Thus, the proper meaning of “the end exists before it exists” is that the end must exist intramentally before it can exist extramentally.

As will be shown below, this explanation applies even to non-knowing natural bodies.

Philosopher Jacques Maritain, a leading contemporary Thomist, argues that final causality entails intellectual knowledge of the end. In his Preface to Metaphysics, Maritain points to the “relation of the agent to its action, an action distinct from itself.”⁹ He considers hydrogen and oxygen which are determined to interact so as to produce water, which manifests a real relation of their essence to making water. “To be determined to a term presupposes an ordination, a relation to that term.”¹⁰ The term, in the case of hydrogen and oxygen, is the effect of their union, namely, dihydrogen oxide or water. So, the relation entails (1) the hydrogen and oxygen as separate elements, and (2) the product of their union: water. Maritain then follows the logic to its inexorable conclusion:

“… How can there be a relation, an ordination between two things which do not exist in any fashion, or between a thing that exists and a thing which does not? For a relation or ordination to exist between two terms both terms must exist. Therefore an effect of an action must somehow exist if the agent is to be determined, ordained or inclined toward it. What does this mean? It means that the action or effect must exist before it is produced or realized.
 
But how in the name of heaven is this possible? Only if the action or effect exists as present in thought, with the existence of knowledge. Only in this way can it exist – in thought – before it exists in reality.”¹¹

Maritain summarizes his demonstration, tying its force back to the principle of sufficient reason:

“We see, therefore, that the sufficient reason for an agent’s action, that which determines it to a particular action or effect rather than any other is the effect, the action itself – not as produced and accomplished, but as that which is to be produced, accomplished and therefore as preconceived by a thought, so as to preordain the agent to that action.”¹²

From this preeminent metaphysician’s proof, it is evident why St. Thomas insists that things lacking reason cannot explain how they attain their ends through their own causality alone, “since they do not know the nature of an end [as an end], and thus, they are able to ordain nothing to an end.”¹³

Therefore, the complete principle of final causality – a universal metaphysical principle applicable to all agents, intellectual or not – is as follows: Every agent must act for a determinate end, and that end must be intellectually known prior to the agent’s action that produces the end in reality.

Nor need this intellectual knowledge of the end be had exclusively in the case of rational creatures, such as human beings. For, as St. Thomas points out, such intellectual knowledge must also obtain in the case of things lacking knowledge, such as natural bodies. In this latter case, he tells us that the intellectual knowledge is had by God, who directs all things to their proper ends by means of the divine governance. Such is the line of reasoning put forth in the quinta via.

One of Many Intelligent Governors?

Regardless of whether one views “natural bodies” as subatomic entities or as the macroscopic wholes that common sense affirms, the vast majority of such agents lack rational natures. This logically entails that one or more intelligent causes must direct or govern such natural bodies to their proper ends. Since the quinta via is actually an argument from governance of the world, the ultimate question is whether or not all this directed agency must be ascribed to a single intelligent being “by whom all natural things are directed to an end.”¹⁴

St. Thomas makes no explicit attempt to prove that there is but a single intelligent governor of all natural bodies in the fifth way. He merely asserts it. Still, later in the Summa Theologiae, he does give an argument for the unicity of God based on (1) the evident unity of the cosmos and (2) the principle that “things that are diverse do not come together in one order unless they are so ordered by one being.”¹⁵

Deeper Metaphysics

When a natural body is moved by its “natural appetite” to a certain end, the end may be conceived as anything broadly in keeping with the activities of that agent’s nature. A rock rolling down a hill might be thought to fulfill its end merely by reaching any lower level. But, following Maritain’s reasoning, it is not just some “broadly conceived end” that constitutes the pre-known terminus. Rather, it must be the “exact end as actually achieved” that is pre-known, since that unique reality is one of the two terms involved in the action.

As Maritain observes, “For a relation or ordination to exist between two terms both terms must exist.”¹⁶ But the agent’s action or effect does not exist in some “broad way,” since what actually comes to be cannot be a “generalized” end, but some real entity, complete down to its least unique existential content.

Again, the sufficient reason for a given end being reached cannot be merely a reason for some abstract, broadly-defined terminus ad quem. Rather, it must be a unique reason for the concrete existential conditions of what actually comes to be. Just as when one aims to graduate from college, he does not achieve this end abstractly, but rather with a concrete, unique set of courses and grades. So, too, the end “foreknown” by the intelligent director of non-knowing agents must be foreknown in its unique existential details, not merely as some “broadly conceived end.”

Among beings who do not qualify as such an intelligent director are human beings, whose knowledge of the end is limited to “broadly conceived ends” – since our inherent epistemic limits preclude perfect knowledge of anything, much less ahead of time.

Indeed, what kind of mind can possess such perfect knowledge of anything down to its least existential detail, its intrinsic metaphysical composition? And do so even before the thing effected comes into being? Such knowledge, not only exceeds the boundaries of all material technology, but, perhaps as well, that of any finite knower bound by the restrictions of temporal existence.

Does not this kind of knowledge of the actually achieved ends of all finite agents hint at the existence of an intelligent governor who transcends the limits of time and space? Could this be how the fifth way leads ultimately to a single Intelligent Governor of all finite agents, who is God?

The Fifth Way's Explicit Claims

Maritain employs an example of a chemical reaction that appears to have universal regularity. But the force of Maritain’s reasoning for the need for an intelligent director to an end applies even if no universal laws of nature exist and every conceivable agent has a unique end. Despite the fifth way’s statement about “natural bodies” acting “always … in the same way,” that claim of regularity is not essential to its argument. What is essential is the need, as Maritain puts it, for the end to be “preconceived by a thought, so as to preordain the agent to that action.”¹⁷ That is why St. Thomas points out elsewhere that there is a need to “know the nature of an end as an end.”¹⁸

The fifth way’s argument actually advances just two essential claims:

(1) “Things which lack knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for a [definite] end.”

(2) “Those things which do not have knowledge do not tend toward an end unless directed by something with knowledge and intelligence.”

Both claims have been demonstrated above, employing texts from St. Thomas as well as added arguments, such as Maritain’s. St. Thomas concludes from these premises: “There exists some intelligent being by whom all natural things are directed to an end.”

Skeptics will see mention of regularity in the behavior of natural bodies as a faulty overgeneralization from particulars, since the claim that all natural bodies “act in the same way, so as to attain that which is best” fails to be proven. Yet, St. Thomas’ mention of regularity in nature underlines the seeming universal governance by God of the whole world as known by both common sense – and also by natural science, since science necessarily operates by presuming the regularity of all cosmic phenomena.

As I have shown above, the fifth way has more fertile implications than its explicit claims appear to indicate.

Bertrand Russell was one of the most prominent philosophers of the 20^th century, and an outspoken skeptic. His bestselling book A History of Western Philosophy (which was cited as one of the reasons for his 1950 Nobel Prize in Literature) contains a short chapter in which he examines St Thomas Aquinas’ life and work, concluding with the following, damning remark:

There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. He is not engaged in an inquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know in advance. Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation. The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading. I cannot, therefore, feel that he deserves to be put on a level with the best philosophers either of Greece or of modern times.¹

This, like a lot of Russell’s criticisms of philosophers he disagrees with, is unfair, inadequate, and misleading, resting on very basic misconceptions, and I want, in this blog post, to briefly argue so.

First, however, it ought to be said that Russell does not only have negative things to say about Aquinas – on the contrary, he makes a point of listing a good number of positive elements of his philosophy. He praises Aquinas’ deft synthesis of Aristotelianism and Christianity, as well as its originality, noting that in his day he was considered a “bold innovator”, whose doctrines were condemned by the universities of Oxford and Paris. He also commends his practise of stating opposing arguments before developing his own, although his remark that this is done “often with great force, and almost always with an attempt at fairness” renders this an imperfect compliment. Aquinas does well in clearly distinguishing doctrines derived from reason and doctrines derived from faith, he notes, and “knows Aristotle well, and understands him thoroughly, which cannot be said of any earlier Catholic philosopher”.²

What are we to make of Russell’s assessment? Perhaps even those sympathetic to Aquinas might feel that there is some force to it – isn’t there something pretty questionable about deciding what you believe first, and then searching for arguments to back it up later?

The first problem with the assessment is the very basic one that it is unsupported by evidence – Russell fails to provide a single example of Aquinas’ failure to “follow the argument where it leads”. He ignores, moreover, the frequent examples of Aquinas doing what appears to be the exact opposite; namely, accepting unpalatable conclusions when the facts seem (to him) to suggest that he ought to. Many philosophers before him had held that it can be demonstrated, by pure reason, that the universe is not eternal (this is still a position held by a good number of thinkers), and whilst it would no doubt be very convenient from a religious point of view if this were true – as it might point to a creator – Aquinas, after considering the subject in some detail, comes to the conclusion that it is not. 

So what about the broader claim that Aquinas’ whole method is unphilosophical, since he starts from the position that the Catholic faith is true, and then looks for arguments to that effect? As the Oxford philosopher Sir Anthony Kenny remarks,³ this is a comment that comes pretty strangely from Russell, who spent a few hundred pages of his book Principia Mathematica trying to prove (starting from a few logical axioms) that 1 + 1 = 2, something which, we can assume, he already believed before he began. More fundamentally, I think that Russell's assumption that Aquinas' religious belief is independent of reason is wrong, or, at best, unevidenced. Of course, being raised Catholic, Aquinas will have been religious before he was able to give any reason to be, but this doesn't imply that his later, mature faith was not rational. As he grew older, and became capable of reasoning about religion, and the world in general, it seemed (to him) that evidence confirmed his beliefs, but if it had not, it seems very unlikely that he would have remained Christian. Aquinas is famous for his insistence on the importance of reason, even in the face of certain church authorities, who claimed that it ought to be subservient to faith; his reasoning was that if the Christian religion is true, and reason leads to truth, then it makes no sense for the two to be in conflict. If he had found them to be in conflict – if, for instance, he was not convinced by his own Five Ways (arguments for the existence of God), and found prayer useless, or the problem of evil irresolvable, or the Bible seriously unreliable, and so on, then there is good reason to think that he would have abandoned religion.

If this is true, then his religious belief is really, contrary to Russell, no different, and no more intellectually suspicious, than the vast majority of the beliefs held by everyone – learnt, pre-rationally, in childhood, and later confirmed or rejected on the basis of mature reflection and experience. Think about the way you learnt that London is the capital of England, or that democracy is a fairer political system than fascism -  these are beliefs which you learnt uncritically as a child, and later grew to understand and accept (or deny) as you grew older – just, I would suggest, as Aquinas did with religion. This does not, of course, show that his belief is justified – I've said nothing about whether the reasons for his belief are any good. It does, however, suggest that if Aquinas is to be criticised, it must be because of the quality of the evidence he uses, and not on the basis that his religious faith is independent of it. 

A final problem with Russell's analysis lies in his assessment of Aquinas’ view of the interaction between faith and reason, when he writes that “If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation”. This accusation neglects a very simple and fundamental distinction in Aquinas’ thought, that between doctrines which can be known by reason and arguments which, by their very nature, cannot be. According to Aquinas, the existence of a prime mover, an uncaused cause of the universe, would be a fact of the first kind – he thinks that anyone, no matter where and when they are born, will come to belief in this sort of supernatural power if they think hard and well enough. The Trinity, he thinks, is a fact of the second kind – no amount of unaided reason could ever bring anyone to the conclusion that the uncaused cause has one nature in three persons; this can only be known through God's revelation. 

In providing arguments for some doctrines and not for others, then, Aquinas is not, as Russell suggests, just scrambling around for arguments where he’s able to, and making excuses where he isn’t, but relying on  what is a very sensible distinction between two types of fact. For analytical philosophers such as Russell, such distinctions are bread and butter, and it reflects very poorly on him to have so obviously missed the point.

It can, then, be seen that Russell's criticisms of Aquinas hold little water. Such misjudged attacks are, unfortunately, characteristic of him – his treatment of a number of important thinkers and schools of thought in the History of Western Philosophy has come under criticism, as has his condemnation of his one-time protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein, of whom he became extremely dismissive after they fell out (and who then went on to become probably the most significant philosopher of the 20^th century). Perhaps we would do well to emulate Aquinas, who, as we saw, always made sure to treat his opponents charitably, rather than Russell, when we have criticisms to deliver.

In a 2015 video, I facetiously argued that, based on his own philosophical assumptions, Dr. Richard Dawkins does not actually exist. Of course, I firmly believe he does. But, my point was that, given his view of the universe, in which things are merely interacting aggregates of subatomic particles, there is no place for substantial unities above the level of whatever ultimate particles compose the cosmos.

A substantial unity is a thing whose entire nature is the same throughout. Every part of it has the same nature. The nature of my foot or stomach is not “foot” or “stomach,” but “human,” since my entire being shares the same human nature.

I will demonstrate that human beings are substantial unities. Only then can one rationally discuss whether we, as living substances, have spiritual and immortal souls. Since it is materialists who primarily reject the human spiritual soul, I shall address my comments primarily to their objections.

Cartesian Catastrophe

Sixteenth century philosopher, René Descartes, grafted a spiritualist view of the human person onto a materialist-mechanistic view of the human body. Typically understood as maintaining that mind (res cogitans) and body (res extensa) are two entirely distinct entities, this doctrine raises grave problems for any rational explanation of soul and body interaction. Such a radical distinction between mind and body is referred to as extreme dualism. Historically, this extreme dualism led to diverse philosophies such as transcendental idealism and positivism.

The Aristotelian-Thomistic view of man’s nature rejects Cartesian dualism. I shall offer arguments for the hylomorphic (matter/form) nature of man, which simultaneously refute (1) Cartesian extreme dualism and (2) the atomistic view (like Dawkins).

Why Man is a Single Substance

Basic metaphysics reveals that, just as non-being cannot beget being, activity (being, as proceeding from something) must manifest nature (the way something exists).

The standard argument for an organism’s substantial unity is that, since all its parts act for the good of the whole, rather than just merely for themselves, it must be because they are in fact parts of a whole. The function of a stomach or foot is not to care for itself, but rather to serve the good of the whole organism. Indeed, the liver “sacrifices” itself detoxifying all the poisons we ingest, for example, alcohol – even to the point of its own destruction. The intelligibility of a part, as a part, cannot be understood except that it is part of a whole.

“Actions for the sake of the whole” are manifested through multiple levels in the case of reproduction and development of organisms, for example, a human being.

At the moment of conception, the newly formed, single-celled zygote contains all the organs needed to keep this new, unbelievably-tiny human being alive. At the same time, all the genetic material within the zygote is co-acting so as to govern its development in precisely such fashion as to produce the next stages together with all the changes which will still entail each organ serving the whole of the organism at that later stage of life. Finally, this whole process, at each and every stage of its development is ordering all its parts to the production of the adult human being, in which, again, all of his organs will be acting for the sake of his being a complete and functioning living adult human being. Thus, at every moment in his development, the internal forces at work within the human organism are acting to assure the survival and function of the organism as a whole – both in the moment at hand, at every subsequent stage in its development, and simultaneously – from the first moment of its existence – to assure the well-being of the entire adult human being.

While the above argues forcefully for the human organism’s substantial unity, even more striking evidence abounds for that unity as we wholistically experience our personal interaction with the physical world.

Direct experience of the world tells us that “incoming” data are flooding our consciousness -- data that presents itself as a direct encounter with physical reality. We experience this through our five external senses of hearing, tasting, smelling, touching and seeing.

These sense data represent “incoming fire” from the various external senses – which we receive and unify into a total sensible experience of a real physical world filled with unified objects, such as an attacking vicious canine. The oneness of our own being is manifest in the unity of our experience as the subject being physically mauled.

But it does not end there. We also react to the world by marshalling all our various powers of thought and will and motor skills to react to the incoming data in a manner largely under our control and directed by our will commanding various mental and physical acts. We react to the world with our whole being, all parts acting together to produce a unified reaction to the external data. Thus, we respond with all the various powers of our being – mental and material – to drive this attacking canine away. Not away from just our mind, or hand, of foot, or whatever part of the body is most directly involved – but from our entire being, all parts being simultaneously engaged to bring all our various spiritual, mental, and physical parts and powers into the action of defending our whole selves against this viciously attacking dog.

This is not the mere internal images or ideas of Cartesian thought thinking itself, but the lived experience of a self -- unified in mind and body, experiencing external reality as a whole and reacting as a whole to engage and repel a dangerous external attacker.

That is the reason why everyone is so instinctively certain that he but a single being, with both mind and body, existing as a unified substance interacting with a real physical world.

Some reason for the unity of the whole self must be posited. Such a reason, according to Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy, would be the substantial form, or soul, which animates the entire organism to be and to act as a single substantial unity.

In response to all this, the materialist might still object that everything I have described could just as well be explained in purely atomistic terms – as responses of complex biochemical systems to external stimuli. But the key to refuting that claim is the simplicity of the experience of wholeness that permeates the entire sequence of experiences described above.

“Wholeness” of Experience Reveals Immateriality, But Not Spirituality, of the Soul

Metaphysical materialism cannot explain how cognition unifies, in a single simple act, what, physically, is extended in space and multiple in parts. The essential insight, as I more fully explain in another Strange Notions article, is that purely physical things can never apprehend the “wholeness” of an experience for the simple reason that physical representations are always extended in space. They always “image” something by having one part represent one part of the object and another part represent another part – with no single part representing (apprehending) the whole.

The most obvious example is a TV screen on which an image of an object is presented – one pixel at a time by hundreds of thousands of pixels – each one digitally “on” or “off,” but with no single pixel “seeing” the whole. The screen sees nothing. But, a living, sensing dog looking at the screen can see the image of another whole dog and bark at it. Why? Because the dog, unlike purely material things such as a TV screen, has something not extended in space, which enables it to apprehend the image as a single whole. Specifically, the dog has immaterial sense powers.

That is why machines sense nothing -- and no computer will ever understand the synthetic wholeness expressed in the intellectual judgment, “Cogito, ergo sum.” An aggregate of mere physical parts can never experience anything as a whole. Yet, that is precisely what can be done by animals and men. Even a dog, which has no spiritual soul, perceives another dog as a whole. Still, I am not saying that this “immateriality” in cognition is the same thing as “strict immateriality,” that is, spirituality. But, I am saying that what is immaterial is neither extended nor locatable in space.

Some modern materialists are puzzled by “qualia,” properties of experience that are not physically detectable, yet subjectively real. But anything genuinely physical must be locatable in space. Either qualia are locatable or not. If they are, then they are merely material. If not, then immaterial things exist. But clearly, experiences of “wholes” are not locatable in space, as shown above. Genuine immateriality is real – and physical reality cannot account for it, since non-being cannot account for being. What is locatable in space cannot account for what is not locatable. The reality of experiences of wholes is incompatible with a purely atomistic metaphysics.

What is clear in the example given earlier is that we experience as a whole both the incoming sensory data of the various cognitive faculties as well as our unified cognitive and motor response to that same data -- as in that hypothetical confrontation with a vicious dog. Since (1) solely an immaterial principle can apprehend such “wholes” and (2) the entire cognitive and motor acts of the person are apprehended as a functioning whole in such situations, it follows that an immaterial principle, which is what we know on reflection as the “self,” is at the very center of our functional operations as a human being confronted by, and reacting to, the external physical world.

This principle, which unifies (1) the activity of the sense organs, (2) sensation itself, and (3) all the intellectual activities of man into a functional whole, must not only be immaterial, but must account for the living human organism acting and being as such a whole, since we immediately experience both (1) the passive awareness of external objects acting upon us and (2) our personal direction of our coordinated faculties in active response to such objects. Since mere atomistic material components lack all immateriality, atomistic explanations fail to explain adequately the unifying and immaterial aspects of human cognitive and physical interaction with the world.

Because we experience sense objects under their proper material conditions, that is, as with particular height, width, color, shape, and so forth, it follows that the soul has at least some activities intrinsically dependent on matter and using material organs – thereby manifesting that it is not simply the pure mind or spirit that Descartes’ extreme dualism alleges.

Aristotle’s doctrine of hylomorphism maintains that various types of things are composed of form and matter, where (1) form specifies the matter to be the kind of thing that it is and (2) matter quantifies and individuates the form into a particular instance of the form. Aristotle attributes human acts, such as described above, to the form of the substance – the substantial form, which he also calls the soul. The soul is the unifying life principle of all organisms.

From the points made above, it should now be evident that (1) atomism is false, because it fails to account for the immateriality of cognition, and (2) extreme dualism is false, because it fails to note the dependence of sense experience on matter. Since the extreme alternatives of atomism and extreme dualism are both false, hylomorphism becomes the intermediate default position, which must be the true doctrine.

Spiritual Nature of Intellectual Acts

Nonetheless, the human intellect manifests other operations demonstrably totally independent of matter – actions such as self-reflection, understanding, judging, and reasoning. Since lack of space prevents explanation of why all these acts are strictly immaterial, I shall present just one argument, based upon the radical difference between the image and concept.

Eighteenth century Scotch sceptic, David Hume, failed to grasp the essential difference between the image and the concept. Hume maintained that all we know are sense impressions. What we take to be external sense experience he describes as vivid and lively sense impressions. Ideas are taken from memory or imagination and are less vivid. All knowledge remains at the sensory level. So, too, for modern materialists, all knowledge, whether direct sensation or “intellectual” ideas, is merely sensory in nature, and thus essentially mere neural activity and patterns ultimately based in the brain. Ideas or concepts are not qualitatively superior to sense impressions or images. Sensism reigns supreme.

But for Aristotelian-Thomistic classical philosophy, image and concept (idea) are radically distinct entities. Sense impressions or images are either mere neural patterns or dependent on them. In any event, being radically immersed in matter, they are expressed under conditions of time and space. This means that they are always singular, particular, concrete, and having material qualities, such as shape, color, size, and so forth, which make them imaginable. Thus, one can imagine a horse or triangle, but always with a particular shape, color, size, and so forth. Recall, this was how we knew that the immateriality of sense knowledge was not actually spiritual in nature, since its object was always under the conditions of matter, and therefore, did not exhibit total independence of matter.

On the contrary, the universal concept or idea utterly transcends all material conditions. Thus, horseness or triangularity is not even imaginable. Because universal concepts must apply to each and every possible concrete actualization, they can express the concrete physical characteristics of none of them. Thus, “triangularity” must express every possible triangle’s essence – be they obtuse, acute, or isosceles. That is why idealized sculptures of something like “triangularity” never express every single possible triangle, but only some idealized, but concrete, representation of the concept. So, too, there is no concrete ideal of “horseness,” since it must express the essence of every possible concrete horse. Indeed, some concepts are directly of spiritual entities which inherently cannot be physically expressed, such as justice, beauty, truth, oneness, and so forth.

The fact that the human intellect can form such spiritual entities, demonstrates the spirituality of the human soul, since the less perfect cannot produce the more perfect.

Nominalists claim that no such universals exist, but are rather merely names for multiple associated things. Yet, ultimately, there is no way to know which items should share the same predicate unless one already sees what is common in nature to them. More strikingly, no matter how we form them, the irreducible difference between image and concept remains evident as shown above.

And yet, if universal concepts reveal the spiritual powers of man, how is it that animals seem to recognize the common qualities of sense objects, as when the wolf knows all sheep? Such knowledge is not that of a universal concept, but merely a “common image,” whereby similar sensible qualities are perceived as similar in a singular image. It does not prove universal understanding of the nature involved, but merely a response to sensible similarities through the common image. The fact that an animal responds in a common way is no more impressive than that a computer can be programmed to respond to similar sensible objects, since (1) the computer knows nothing and (2) the human understanding of the universal concept remains radically incommensurable with mere knowledge of an image. My article on ape-language studies explains this entire subject in far greater detail than is possible in this short piece. Suffice it to note that for a cat to know the common image of a mouse has far more utility than would be the intellectual understanding of the internal essence – even though a human biologist would prefer the latter.

Because sense knowledge is always dependent on the individualizing, concretizing nature of matter, nothing spiritual is evinced by the animal kingdom. But, the fact that man can form and understand universal concepts free of all such conditions of matter reveals the spiritual nature of human intellectual operations, and thereby, the spiritual nature of the human soul. Since the human soul is free and independent of matter, it must have existence independent of matter as well. Therefore, the separation of that spiritual soul from the material body at death does not entail the end of life for the human person. Man dies, but his spiritual soul is immortal.

Since some operations of the soul are dependent on matter and some are clearly independent of matter, it follows that the human soul is a hylemorphic principle – neither totally separated from the human substance in life, nor yet so existentially dependent upon that composite substance as to be destroyed at death.

Unlike extreme Cartesian dualism, Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophical psychology recognizes the intrinsic relation of the human soul to the whole of man’s being. The fact that the soul integrates both material sensation and spiritual intellection in the same psychic human acts shows that it must be, not a totally separated spirit during life, but rather the substantial form of the living human being. Yet, that substantial form is a hylemorphic principle whose spiritual operations and nature enable it to survive the death of the whole man so as to assure immortal life for the human person.

Whether that form is reunited to a material principle through a resurrection process belongs to the science of theology rather than philosophy. Still, the natural ordination of the form to matter suggests the possibility of a future resurrection.

Acceptance of God’s existence is conditioned for many on whether or not a convincing proof thereof can be presented to them. But for others, it is not a problem of proving that God exists, but rather questions about whether the  concept of a Supreme Being is even coherent. Many atheists or agnostics simply find the classical conception of God to be unintelligible. God is said to be omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, all good, omnipresent, and so forth. But to many it is not at all clear how these divine attributes can either be proven as real or, more importantly, how they make any sense or can co-exist in one and the same entity or in relation to the world around us. Skepticism of the classical notion of God is evident in the tendency among atheists to deny the existence of “any gods,” rather than of just the one “God.”

Moreover, even if one accepts that the classical proofs for God do demonstrate an Unmoved First Mover, an Uncaused First Cause, a Necessary Being, and so forth, how can we prove that these are even the same being—or that this being possesses the properties associated with the classical conception of God assumed by most Western philosophers?

This article will not attempt to prove God’s existence. His reality is merely assumed for present purposes. I have previously offered arguments for God’s existence on Strange Notions here and here. Still, St. Thomas Aquinas presents the best proofs for God, as found in his opuscula, De Ente et Essentia (On Being and Essence), chapter four, his Summa Contra Gentiles I, chapters 13 and 15, and his famous quinque viae (Five Ways) of his Summa Theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3, c.—these, taken together with their interpretations by classical and modern commentators. Also, I do not intend herein to show how the divine attributes are coherent, consistent with each other, and consistent with the created world in which we find ourselves.

The present enquiry’s sole purpose is to show how the human mind can come to know the nature of God, once his existence is demonstrated. If any particular divine attribute is mentioned, it will be primarily to illustrate the methods being explained and not to attempt a full explanation or defense of that attribute’s existence or coherence.

Classical metaphysics attains knowledge of God’s nature by means of an interpretation, mostly taken from the Christian Neo-Platonist Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (c. late fifth century) known as the via triplex or three-fold way. This entails (1) the way of causality (via causalitatis), (2) the way of remotion or negation (via remotionis), and (3) the way of eminence (via eminentiae). It is only by understanding how these three methods work and how they interface with each other that it is possible to begin to establish a realistic and coherent understanding of what can be correctly said about the divine nature.

#1 - The Way of Causality

According to the Platonic doctrine of participation, creatures participate in the “pure forms” of heaven by way of imitation. Thus, an earthly horse reminds us of “horseness-in-itself” eternally existing in a spiritual pure form. Christian thinkers transformed this “participation” from mere imitation into real causality, where participation’s etymology (cipere – to receive, pars – a part) became ontologically real. Now, in virtue of preexisting formal perfections in the Creator, the creature is directly caused to have its own proper intrinsic form—thus making it to be, say, a horse.

Employing the basic metaphysical principle that non-being cannot beget being, it is self-evident that a being cannot give what it does not have. Certain proofs for God’s existence, for example, the second of St. Thomas’ five ways, show that he is the Uncaused First Cause. As such, he cannot cause qualities or perfections in creatures which he does not possess. Therefore, any perfection we find in a creature must somehow preexist in God. If a creature lives, then God must be alive. If a creature has intelligence, then God must be intelligent. If there is goodness in creation, then God must be good. If some creatures are persons, then God must be personal. The principle is evident. Still, considered alone it does not give us the full picture of how we form a coherent notion of God.

#2 - The Way of Remotion

What about things we find in creation that do not manifest perfections, but imperfections? Creatures are finite. Does that mean God is finite? There is evil in the world. Does that mean God is evil? Our intellects often make mistakes. Does God make mistakes? There is pain and suffering in the world. Does God suffer pain? The world is constrained by time. Does God exist in time? And in particular, how can a spiritual First Cause create material being? How can that which lacks matter cause matter to exist? These and many other questions arise in which it appears that God is causing problematic effects.

The key to resolving such enigmas is to remove from God any negation, imperfection, limitation, non-being, or evil found in the creature. For any creature to exist, God must create every extent of being or perfection of existence found within it. But non-being needs no cause. Hence, causality need not imply that God causes anything that entails limitation or imperfection in creatures.

Perhaps, the most challenging question would be, “How can God cause material things when he lacks it himself? If he cannot give what he lacks, how can God, who lacks materiality, give materiality to physical beings?”

And yet, being material simply isn’t all that great! It entails being extended in time and space, which also means to be limited by time and space. Being limited in time means not to possess the quality of being present to all time at once. Being limited in space means not to be present in all places at once. Still, such lack of being in these various respects self-evidently requires no direct causation from God. Moreover, Being material means to be composed of form and matter, which necessarily entails the possibility of decomposition and, thereby, destruction. The alternative would be to create no physical beings at all.

But cannot material beings impact other material beings? Yes, but so can God—merely by creating or uncreating whatever existential qualities are needed to change a thing.

God can create material being because he pre-eminently contains all the existential perfections contained within it, but without the corresponding defects that come with being an actual material substance.

Similarly, the very notion of a finite thing is that it possesses some perfections of existence and lacks others. God is needed to cause what being or perfection is present, but need not be the cause of what is lacking to a finite being. “Finitude” is not a name for the perfection of a being, but a reference of its very lack thereof.

Likewise, evil is not absolute non-being, since that would not exist at all. The proper metaphysical definition of evil is the lack of a due perfection, that is, the absence of some property or quality that ought to be in a given nature. For example, having a “cold” is the lack of the good health we should enjoy. Yet, the “cold” itself is caused by the multiplication of a virus in us. From the standpoint of the virus, having a “good” cold means the virus is thriving, while we are not!

Moral evil is the performance of an act that deviates from what a human being ought to do so as to attain his last end in God. It is performed to attain a good of some sort, but by a means that is lacking proper ordination to human nature’s true end. Again, God is the cause of all that is good in creatures, but moral evil is the result of a use of free will contrary to the good intended by God for human nature. That is to say, the lack of proper ordination of human free acts is caused by man’s misuse of his free will, not by an action of God himself. Thus, the moral evil is man’s responsibility, not God’s. Without addressing all the complexities of the problem of evil itself, the general principle is to remove from predication of God’s causality anything in a being that constitutes a mere lack of what is proper to its nature. The nature itself needs God’s creative causality; the lack does not.

Always focusing on the being of things makes clear what actually needs a cause and what is merely the lack of what ought to be, as measured by the nature of the thing. The challenge in each case is to determine precisely what positively requires a cause of existence versus what is merely a negation or lack of being. While God is needed to cause the perfection of a nature, its defect or lack need not be attributed to God as the ultimate cause of the thing itself.

What has no need to be caused, namely a lack of being, need not be said of God as its cause—since there is nothing to be explained by a cause. Thus, being is predicated of God; finitude is not. Goodness is predicated of God; evil is not. Intelligence is predicated of God; mistakes are not. Suffering is found in creatures, but not in God. Creatures are constrained by time and space; God is not. Some creatures are material; God is strictly immaterial, which is the proper meaning of “spiritual.”

One can see the nature of remotion or negation in the very way we speak of God as opposed to creatures. We say God is infinite, immutable, uncaused, non-contingent, immaterial, and so forth. In each case, we find a quality of creatures that mark their “creatureliness” and negate its application to God. Each term has a prefix indicating negation, followed by a term marking the finitude of the creature. Thus, we render a judgment that affirms that God possesses some perfection, but in a manner absent the limitation of that same perfection as it is found in the creature.

For example, we do not directly know what the “infinite” in itself may mean, but we do know that God’s way of existing is not limited the way that creatures are limited beings.  Because of the negative form of the prefix involved, the etymology of some of these attributes may make them sound as if they were something negative. Still, we should remember that such attributes express in fact a positive content.

Some have been deceived by such “indirect naming” into thinking that it is impossible to form any concept of God, saying that he is so ineffable that nothing can be known of him at all. Nothing could be further from the truth, since a term, such as “infinite,” actually affirms the infinite perfection of God’s being.

#3 - The Way of Eminence

Finally, we consider the way of eminence, which is manifest from the conclusions of St. Thomas’ proofs for God given in the fourth of his Five Ways and in his De Ente et Essentia argument. These proofs conclude to God as greatest in being, a being which is its very act of existing. That is, God is found to be that Supreme Being whose essence and act of existence are absolutely identical.

These arguments show that all the lesser perfections of existence that are found in creatures must be found in God in a manner that is identical with his very essence. Thus, whatever perfection is found in creatures is said to be preeminently contained in God. And, since God’s being is infinite, this means that any perfection found in creatures must be found in God as infinitely expressed. We sometimes illustrate this by saying that while man has intelligence or goodness, God is intelligence or goodness itself.

This again follows from the idea that creatures participate in the divine perfections – receiving, as it were, a part of the divine reality itself.

Here we see a certain conflating of the via triplex with the doctrine of analogy. Metaphysical analogy is based on a relation between creatures and God which expresses a real similarity or proportion, but not the exact same meaning of terms used to describe the subject. It is unlike univocal predication. When we say a tiger is an animal and a dog is an animal, the meaning of “animal” is exactly the same. This is univocal predication. But when we say man is a being and God is a being, the term, “being,” does not express the same formal identity. The predication is analogous. For in creatures, existence, or being, is received into a nature from which it is distinct. In the proofs of God’s existence, creatures are revealed to be effects of God’s creative act, which means that they receive their act of existence (esse) from God.

In fact, that need to receive existence from an external cause is why the creature needs to be created. But, in God, his very nature is to exist. His existence is identical with his essence. Indeed, every perfection of existence which is found in creatures must exist in God in a manner identical with his infinite essence or nature. Thus, each perfection found in creatures in a limited manner is found in God infinitely expressed, which is precisely the meaning of the way of eminence.

Conclusion

I have not directly intended to explain or defend the divine names or attributes in this article. Yet, by studying the conclusions of the various arguments to God’s existence, one can come to see the necessary properties of the divine essence. Thus, through understanding the logical implications of God being the First Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, Supreme Being, and Ultimate End, knowledge of the various divine attributes, their internal and relational coherence, as well as the intelligibility of God’s relation to the world becomes possible. All the while, it remains true that in God these various divine names refer to one and the same identical reality.

While many discussions and disputes arise concerning the coherence of God’s nature, the primary purpose of this article has not been to defend that coherence, but rather to show the proper method for investigating the divine attributes—the project which logically follows after having discovered that God actually exists.

Therefore, the above explanation is not the end of man’s exploration of God’s nature, but simply the key to its proper beginning and methodology.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) famously posed the ultimate question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” To this, theoretical physicist Sean Carroll replies: “The universe can simply exist, end of story.”

Still, as I have shown elsewhere, everything must have a reason for its being or coming-to-be, including the cosmos. This metaphysical first principle is ably defended by others as well.¹ One distinction must be added: either a thing is its own reason or not. To the extent it fails to fully explain itself, something else must be posited as an extrinsic sufficient reason: a cause. So, does the cosmos “simply exist” – or does it need a cause?

The leading philosophers of ancient Greece showed no inkling of the concept of creation ex nihilo in time. For Leucippus (c. 490-430 B.C.) and Democritus (c. 460-360 B.C.), indivisible atoms were eternal in the void and creation of the world simply entailed them becoming packed or scattered, thus producing the world of things about us. For Plato (c. 428-348 B.C.), the creation myth of the Timaeus entailed the demiurge looking up to the eternal forms and patterning the pre-existing unordered material chaos according to them to produce the orderly cosmos. Even Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) appears to argue in his Physics, book one, that matter must have always existed as the substratum for the endless change of forms.

Unique to Western thought was the Jewish and Christian belief in a free creation of the world by God in time – ex nihilo et utens nihilo: out of nothing and presupposing no pre-existent material. Neo-Platonists, beginning with Plotinus (c. 204-270), did have a notion of creation ex nihilo, but solely as a necessary emanation from God, not the free creation of Christian thought.

Flash forward to the seventeenth century and we see a resurgence of philosophical atomism by theists Descartes, Gassendi, Boyle, and others. This later begot scientific atomism in nineteenth century chemistry and physics, which then invited the atheistic interpretations of scientific materialism and naturalism. For centuries, atheistic materialists had assumed the eternity of the material world, a view seemingly harmonious with the “new atomism.” All of this also fit well with twentieth century astronomy’s standard “steady state” theory.

The advent of the “Big Bang” theory of cosmic origins by Belgian priest and astronomer Georges Lemaitre (1894-1966) thus met opposition for proposing a scientific hypothesis that the cosmos actually had a temporal beginning. Among the first to complain was Albert Einstein himself. Science had seemed squarely in the atheist’s corner, until this upstart theory was proposed – a theory that sounded too much like what atheists viewed as the “Christian mythology” of creation in time. As astronomer Robert Jastrow observed, this led to a peculiar reaction by scientists in which they opposed a promising new theory – possibly on grounds more philosophical than scientific. It wasn’t until the 1964 cosmic microwave background radiation discovery by Penzias and Wilson that the Big Bang theory became generally accepted as correct.

In the final two sentences of his 1978 book, God and the Astronomers, Dr. Jastrow writes: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Battle Over the “Big Bang’s” Significance

Atheistic scientists, like physicist Stephen Hawking, seek to avoid any possible theological implications of the Big Bang by redefining the meaning of this absolute beginning in time in terms that would avoid any need for God. He posits an imaginary time in which there would be no boundaries to space-time just as there are no boundaries to earth’s surface, concluding: “Thus, the universe would be a completely self-contained system. It would not be determined by anything outside the physical universe that we observe.”

Today we see atheists doing all they can to eliminate a cosmos instantly created by an all-powerful God, either by (1) alleging that something can, indeed, be made out of nothing, in light of quantum mechanics, or (2) by claiming, like Dr. Hawking, that the beginning somehow does not really need a metaphysical explanation.

Still, it turns out that the “nothing” that atheists claim can be used to make an entire cosmos from is not really “nothing” at all, but simply the actual something of a quantum vacuum, which entails a lot of matter-antimatter potential that “crackles with energy.” Empty space is not nothing, but something very physically real.

Everyone truthfully knows that you simply cannot get something from absolutely nothing. Even Dr. Hawking tries to evade an absolute beginning in time for the cosmos by his “no boundary” explanation offered above. This also why materialists who would evade a Creator feel forced to affirm the endless past existence of something -- be it physical matter as such, or some kind of minimal energy field from which the Big Bang exploded, or at least, certain laws of physics. Indeed, one method used to defeat the Kalam cosmological argument for God is to claim that the premise that the universe must have had a beginning in time is false.

The fact that such mental gymnastics are engaged in so as to evade precisely an absolute cosmic beginning bespeaks the massive problems it would present to atheistic materialism.

What is there about the very thought of the cosmos suddenly popping into existence out of absolutely nothing that so instantly moves the mind of most sane men to say, “Then, God must exist!’? What is there about such instantaneous creation ex nihilo that bespeaks so unequivocally to the human mind the exclusive mark of true divinity?

Why Infinite Power is Required

Both atheist and theist alike see in the “out-of-nothing” explosive instant appearance of a Big Bang the manifestation of unlimited raw power, infinite power. Just as clear is the fact that infinite power could reside solely in an infinite being that fulfills the classical definition of God. This is precisely why atheists go to great lengths to deny that any such “creation event” could have ever occurred at the beginning of time.

Still, is such instinctive inference rationally justified? What first stands out is the fact that absolutely no one claims that the cosmos actually appeared out of nowhere and from absolutely nothing. Atheists either claim it always existed in some physical form or other, or else, attempt the bait and switch of claiming it came from nothing – but the “nothing” turns out to be the actual something of the quantum vacuum as explained above. In proclaiming the Christian doctrine of true creation in time, theists do not hold that the cosmos arose from absolutely nothing either. Rather, they say the world was made by the power of the eternal God.

Thus, all explicitly or implicitly concur (1) that something has always existed and (2) that you do not get something from absolutely nothing.

But then, why does it take infinite power to create ex nihilo et utens nihilo? After all, the cosmos which is created, though immense, is still existentially limited. So, why would unlimited power be required to create what is itself limited in being?

Well, as St. Thomas Aquinas points out², “… the power of the maker is measured not only by substance of the thing made but also from the manner of its making ….” To build the Empire State Building in one year is impressive. But to build it in a single day would defy belief. To make a chicken from another chicken by cloning is impressive. To evolve a chicken from random subatomic particles is nearly unimaginable – since the distance between what there is to work with and the produced chicken is even greater than in the cloning example. But to produce a chicken from no preexisting matter requires immeasurable power, since there is no proportion at all between nothing and something. Since immeasurable power is the same as unlimited or infinite power, it would take infinite power for God to create the cosmos ex nihilo.

The Real Meaning of “Being Created”

Thus, on the hypothesis that the cosmos did begin in time, it would depend on the infinite power of God to have created it. Now what depends on another to bring it into existence clearly does not account for its own existence, but rather depends on another for the existence it has received. The creature that “pops into existence” is an effect, that is, a being that does not adequately explain its own existence. As such, it depends on an extrinsic cause for its existence.

So, if God exercises his infinite power to bring the cosmos into being, what happens the next moment after he has created it? Can God cease his causal activity in relation to the world, and yet, the world still exists? As St. Thomas observes³, “When the cause ceases causing, the effect ceases.” Were God to withdraw his creative causality from the cosmos, the cosmos would cease to exist. God must continue to create the universe in order for the universe to continue to exist. This creatio continua or “conservation” must continue for as long as the world continues to exist. Thus, God is said, not only to create the world, but also to conserve it in existence.

Moreover, for St. Thomas, there is a real distinction between the world having a beginning in time and its being created ex nihilo. This is clear from the fact that, while St. Thomas maintains that the belief that the world was created with a temporal beginning is a doctrine of Catholic Faith, he does not maintain that this is possible to prove from natural reason. Indeed, in his short work On the Eternity of the World, St. Thomas explicitly argues for the philosophical possibility of the world’s eternity. After all, God could have been creating (conserving) the world from all eternity: it would have no beginning in time, yet still be created.

This means that the concept of the world beginning in time is distinct from the concept of its being created by the power of God. Even if God did not create the world with a beginning in time, the world would still be the object of his creative act in order to sustain it in being throughout eternity.

For the same reason that it would take infinite power to create the world at the beginning of time, it takes infinite power to keep it in existence even if it existed from all eternity. This is because the real meaning of “being created” is not tied to having a temporal beginning, but rather to the fact that anything exists as opposed to non-existence. It takes infinite power to explain why anything simply exists – even the least subatomic particle “popping into existence” for a nanosecond in a quantum vacuum.

In other words, the creative act is not measured by the fact that something goes from non-being to being at the beginning of its existence, but simply by the fact that it manifests the act of existing as opposed to non-being during its existence. Both acts require exactly the same power to explain fully: infinite power.

The key insight here is that existence itself is an act – the most basic of all acts: that by which a thing is constituted as real as opposed to being nothing at all. This act “does something.” It keeps every creature in being. And the power needed to do this is measured by the same criteria we discussed earlier. Since there is no proportion at all between non-being and being, there is no way to measure the power required to posit this act by which a finite being is being continually created, that is, “standing outside of nothingness,” even if it had no beginning in time.

Infinite power is required to explain the existence of every finite being and of that whole collectivity of finite bodies known as the cosmos. It takes infinite power to explain the existence of the cosmos. But infinite power cannot reside in a finite being or even in a collectivity of finite beings.

Therefore there must exist an Infinite Being, God, who alone can possess and manifest the infinite power required to create and conserve in existence the finite cosmos.

“Why is there something rather than nothing?” The answer to this ultimate question is simply “because God exists and creates it.” God’s infinite power is the reason for his own existence. My argument here is a redacted version of a formal paper that I have published elsewhere.

Postscript

Given the difficulty that some viewers of Strange Notions have had in grasping the insight that physical laws like inertia fail to fully explain the continued motion of heavenly bodies, I suspect that they may find the argument presented herein demanding full explanation of cosmic existence to be even less compelling. Still, it is curious that these same minds that are so skeptical of any rational explanation of our incredible universe should so easily be intellectually satisfied with the “just so” explanation of a cosmos that has always “just happened to exist” without any real explanation either in itself or from an extrinsic cause.

“Motion is the act of a being in potency insofar as it is in potency.” - Aristotle, Physics Book III, 201a10-11

In his famous First Way of proving God’s existence, St. Thomas Aquinas says, “It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion.”¹ But, are things really in motion? Most people would think that motion in the world is too obvious to doubt. Yet, some, based on theories of modern physics, claim that physical change in the universe is actually impossible. Change or motion—meaning that “this” becomes “that” with some persisting reality exhibiting those before and after qualities—simply does not exist. Like Parmenides, those denying motion claim that our dynamically changing, evolving world is merely one grand illusion.

Despite such claims that change is unreal, philosopher of physics Tim Maudlin, well known for studying entangled quantum particles, insists, “Physics has discovered some really strange things about the world, but it has not discovered that change is an illusion.”

In his book, The Trouble with Physics (reprint edition, 2007), theoretical physicist Lee Smolin puts his finger on why physics is prone to make the mistake of saying motion and time are unreal: “…Descartes and Galileo both made a most wonderful discovery: You could draw a graph, with one axis being space and the other being time. A motion through space then becomes a curve on the graph. In this way, time is represented as if it were another dimension of space. Motion is frozen, and a whole history of constant motion and change is presented to us as something static and unchanging.”² In other words, the static mathematical abstractions of modern physics automatically tend to omit the very starting point they presume, namely, the reality of objective motion or change.

In a new book, Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science (2017), philosopher Edward Feser points to the incoherence of physicists denying the reality of motion when their scientific method presupposes it. For example, even the simplest experiment requires watching for movement of a needle on a dial:

“When the needle moves from its rest position it loses one attribute and gains another (namely a particular spatial location), and it is one and the same needle that loses and gains these attributes and one and the same dial of which the needle is a component. If there were no gain or loss of attributes, or if the needle or dial were not the same, the observation would be completely useless.”³

Similarly, physicists presume real physical causation takes place through time with ontologically-continuous physical agents causing the continuous coming-to-be of ontologically-continuous effects. For example, the same rocket engine causes the progressive ascent of the same spacecraft into orbit. This is simply how natural science has always understood the nature of physical causation operating in the real world. That a physical theory should be interpreted as contradicting this universal scientific presupposition defies understanding.

Even if change or motion were simply a subjective illusion or a memory function product, it is still immediately recognized and judged by the intellect for precisely what it is, that is, a change. The intellect knows the nature of being and forms a concept of being that begets the universal certitude of the principle of non-contradiction – a truth about reality that scientists absolutely accept, but have no scientific way of explaining. In like fashion, the intellect judges the nature of change or motion as real when immediately experienced – no matter its size or type. Whether it is extramental or intramental change makes no difference. Static experiences alone would never beget the concept of motion, since non-motion contradicts motion.

One of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20^th century, Karl Popper, says of the experience of change within consciousness, “It could not be explained away by a theory of the successive rising into our consciousness of time slices which in some sense coexist; for this kind of ‘rising into consciousness’ would have precisely the same character as that succession of changes which the theory tries to explain away.” Worse yet for materialists who deny change, if all that exists is material, then change’s reality within consciousness means that change is real in the physical universe.

We have a concept of change solely because we have encountered a reality – subjective or not – that actually contained motion. That alone explains how we even have such a concept. Yes, we form concepts of imaginary things. But, they are always composed of elements taken from real objects, as a unicorn is composed of concepts taken from real horses and real horns. Since the concept of change itself is primary, it must be based on an actually existing nature.

Nor could motion or change be experienced as such unless both the “before” and “after” of the change is present to the same knower. This fulfills change’s meaning, since “this” becomes “that” with something (the knower) persisting to both the before and after.

Therefore, change or motion is objectively real.

If some physicists cannot reconcile the immediately given reality of motion or change, as defined here, with their speculative inferences drawn from the special theory of relativity, their speculations must be wrong on that point.

Einstein’s special relativity thought experiment assumes a train moving past a standing observer. Observer, of what? Observer that the train is in motion! The observer knows it is motion because the train he observes is in diverse positions relative to his own position. So, for him there is a before and after with himself, the observer, being present to both – which fulfills the Aristotelian meaning of motion. Clearly, no speculative interpretation of special relativity can contradict the reality of the very motion Einstein’s thought experiment presupposes in its proof.

Either Einstein made a mistake in one of his assumptions, or else, one of several philosophical interpretations of special relativity compatible with motion must be correct.⁴ In any case, the immediately given reality of motion or change trumps any subsequently developed theory that denies its objective reality.

“Quidquid movetur ab alio movetur.” Whatever is moved is moved by another. What this famous principle really means is this: Whatever is in motion is being moved here and now by another. While motion is mostly thought of in terms of local motion – motion from place to place, any type of change can be called motion.

As seen above, motion does not mean simply one thing replacing another, like frames in a motion picture film. Rather, it means one thing becoming somehow different with some persisting reality connecting the before and after. For example, consider the same knower experiencing successive images, or, the same body moving from one position to a different position relative to some point of reference.

Aristotle defines motion as the act of a being in potency insofar as it is in potency. Easier to grasp is this description: the progressive actualization of a potency. For purposes of describing motion, potency is what is able to be, but is not; act is that which is fully real or completed. Strictly speaking, motion means local motion, a change of place. More broadly, it can mean any kind of change, any passage of something from potency to act—sometimes even instantaneously.

For a non-technical macroscopic example, consider water being heated from room temperature to boiling. Motion is not maintaining the water at 72 degrees, but progressively adding heat so as to constantly raise the temperature until 212 degrees is reached. If the “raising” stops at, say, 200 degrees, the motion stops, even though the heat must be maintained to stay at that point. Thus, the motion is not the act already achieved, namely, the 200 degrees, but the act that is achieving the potency yet to be fulfilled, that is, 212 degrees.

The reason everything in motion needs a mover is simple. A thing cannot reduce itself from potency to act and that is exactly what is happening to the thing in motion: it is being reduced from potency to act. Yet, “reduction” here does not mean less being, but more being!

A thing in motion is gaining new perfections of existence every moment it continues to move or change. Since a being cannot give to itself that which it lacks, something else must be giving to it that which it lacks, but is gaining incrementally.

Yet, how do we know this reasoning is correct? While it is easy to defend the principle in terms of the standard Thomistic analysis of potency and act, many today do not fully appreciate the full force of such reasoning.

Here is a different way to see the objective certitude of the principle that whatever is in motion must be being moved by another, one simply based on “the natural metaphysics of human intelligence.”

Everyone knows and uses the metaphysical principle of non-contradiction, that is, that nothing can both be and not be at the same time and in the same way. Even though materialist scientists cannot prove this principle or show how its certitude arises, they have no honest doubts about its universal truth and application. This is because the human intellect, once it forms the concept of being, sees clearly the necessary truth of its application to all possible things.

So too, the fact that you cannot get something from absolutely nothing is universally accepted—after you eliminate claims of getting particles from quantum vacuums that turn out to be something after all. Once it is understood that the philosopher means really nothing, every honest mind assents to the truth that from nothing, nothing comes to be.

What has this to do with things in motion? Simply this: a thing in motion is gaining new properties of being it did not previously possess. As such, with respect to those properties it did not have, it is non-being; nothing at all. Since nothing cannot beget something without extrinsic causal assistance, a being in motion must be getting this new being from something other than itself, that is, from a mover.

For a thing to reduce itself from potency to act would be for it to be giving itself the very perfections of existence that it lacks. This is equivalent to having something that is non-being in a certain respect accounting for the coming-to-be of the selfsame being that it does not have. Being coming from non-being is impossible and absurd.

The full force of this principle is not understood until it is realized that it applies even to bodies already in a “state” of motion—a motion “explained” by most moderns simply by appeal to Newton’s principle of inertia. Even those who defend the principle that motion requires a mover sometimes retreat to applying it solely to cases in which a change in inertial motion occurs. Thus, to accelerate or decelerate an object in motion is seen to require a mover, but that the object merely stays in its present “state” of motion is considered fully explained by inertia.

Part of the problem is that it may not be clear as to exactly which body is in motion, since all motion appears relative—so that if A moves relative to B, we cannot tell which body is actually undergoing the motion. In fact, it could be both. But it really does not matter at all, since all we need to know is that a change of distance or relative position between two or more bodies occurs.

Just as I have shown in a prior Strange Notions article how many confuse physical antecedents with real causes of present effects, so too, acceptance of Newton’s first law of motion as full explanation for the phenomenon of inertial motion causes many to fail to see the further need of metaphysical explanation. Modern science correctly describes the phenomenon under consideration: a body in motion tends to remain in motion. But mere description is not identical to giving an adequate explanation as to why this phenomenon occurs at all.

Calling motion a “state” does not render it static. All motion still requires the continuous reduction of potency to act. And since nothing can give to itself the new perfections or qualities of existence that it lacks, some extrinsic reason or cause must account for the coming-to-be of those changes.

This applies just as much to bodies in a “state” of inertial motion as it does to objects that are accelerating or decelerating. Nor does it matter which object is considered to be in motion, since any change in spatial relation or any other kind of relation between things entails a real change in something—and that requires some extrinsic agent or mover to complete the explanation of what is going on—to account for the “new being” that is manifested, even if that new being is merely a change of relative position. Some outside agent must exist to account for the coming-to-be of the new existential qualities manifested by these new spatial relationships.

Newton’s first law of motion is not an exception to the principle that whatever is in motion requires a mover here and now continuously providing the new modes of existence manifested by continuing change or motion.

Of course, local motion is only one type of motion, but it is one of central occupation to physical science. The principle in question applies to every conceivable type of change, not only of local motion, but also to changes of quality, relation, size, disposition, time, and so forth. It can even be applied to spiritual changes that entail no gradual change. That is, even an instantaneous change by which a potency is actualized requires an extrinsic agent to effect the change, as when a fresh insight suddenly “pops” into one’s mind.

Much more can be said, but this should be enough to demonstrate that the philosophical principle that whatever is in motion is moved by another is absolutely certain and universally true.

This principle is not merely a principle of natural philosophy, but of metaphysics as well—since motion, which is the progressive actualization of a potency, entails that something is gaining new qualities of being. A being in motion must be getting this new being from something other than itself.

All of this shows that this principle is a principle of being, just like the principle of non-contradiction. As such, just like the concept of being and the principle of non-contradiction, it applies to all beings and can be used in an analogical manner, even possibly to reason from finite being to infinite being in a transcendent fashion. This, of course, foreshadows a role for this principle well beyond the topic at hand.