Thomas Aquinas
Issue for Week: Exploring Purpose pt. 1 – Thomism
For this week’s Forum on Chance, Purpose and Progress in Evolution and Religion we started to tackle one of the primary buzzwords in the class title—Purpose—through the lens of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Thomas Aquinas was a 13th century philosopher and Catholic priest who, among many other important philosophical points, debated the nature of objects and how the definition of an object is purpose, drawing largely on Aristotelian definitions for objects. Thomas reasoned that everything in the Universe must act according to an “eternal law” or God’s plan. To this end, everything in the Universe from the motions and interactions of atoms to societal laws must be governed by this plan. Thomas believed humans must understand portions of eternal law, or natural laws, and that knowing binds of God purpose binds humans to it. Using Thomas’s framework for how purpose plays an integral role in defining an object we discussed
1.) Thomas and Aristotelian definitions for objects
2.) The nature of natural laws
Our first topic to tackle regarding identifying the purpose of humans was to fully understand how Thomas thought that humans were defined. This required a discussion on the four types of causes for objects and that causes could be immediate or lie farther back in a chain of causes, ideas influenced heavily by Aristotle and other Greek thinkers. Aristotle reasoned that an object could be defined by four causes:
1.) Material Cause – The physical composition of an object. Organic life is largely composed of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.
2.) Formal Cause – The essence or plan of an object. The Constitution is the formal cause of the United States.
3.) Efficient Cause – The cause that brings an object into existence. A hammer is the efficient cause of a nail driven into a board.
4.) Final Cause – The purpose of an object. The final cause of a spoon is to deliver food to the mouth.
In addition to these four types of causes, the cause of an object can be placed on its position in a chain of causes:
1.) Proximate Cause – The immediate cause of a phenomenon. The cause for the 8-ball falling into the pocket on the break is that the 3-ball knocked it in.
2.) Distal Cause – The most basic cause that can be observed. The cue ball caused the 3-ball to hit the 8-ball in such a manner that it fell into the pocket.
3.) Ultimate Cause – The most basic cause, or the “real” cause. The 8-ball fell into the pocket because the billiards player struck the cue ball.
With this understanding then what are the causes for humans. Roughly, the final cause or purpose of humans in Thomist philosophy is God. The class was challenged to come up with Aristotelian causes for humans using what is known about modern biology.
| Thomas Aquinas
Material – Dust Formal – God, created in his image Efficient – God creates man from dust, woman from man’s rib Final – Knowing and fulfilling God’s Eternal Law |
Forum Attendees (mostly biologists)
Material – atoms, molecules Formal – Genome, transcriptome, proteome, maternal effects, environment, experience Efficient – Natural selection (ultimate), Genome, transcriptome, proteome, environment, experience (proximate) Final – Survival and reproduction |
The second major topic of discussion was what the repercussions are for Purpose when we define humans and all objects in this fashion. For Thomas Aquinas, the idea that humans were a part of both spiritual and physical creation and thus natural and eternal law could be known through both ends was very important. It binds humans and their fate towards God, and in fact, under this worldview, without God all of eternal law breaks down. God is the ultimate and final cause for everything. In fact, perhaps one of the most troubling aspects of evolutionary biology to religious philosophy is the removal of God from the final cause of humans (and by extension all natural organisms). For modern evolutionary biologists, the necessity of an eternal law was inconsequential to understanding human purpose, and at some other extreme of belief there doesn’t have to be Purpose [big P purpose] at all.
An interesting ending to our conversation resulted in whether or not the final cause for humans as proposed by Aquinas and the final cause as proposed by evolutionary biology were opposites or if they could remain compatible. While the discussion could not be represented in full in this brief post, the problem of human suffering under a theistic view of evolution can be explained as a necessary component of God’s plan (eternal law) for the universe rather than a tragic outcome of other necessary processes (I’m sure we will return to this problem of theodicy in future discussions).
(Summary contributed by B.H.)
Nice job on the summary!
First, thanks for the summary. I really enjoy our dialog regarding Aquinas’ reading. I belief is very pertinent include in the Seminar a discussion about where these ideas of purpose, intentionality, and finality comes from and how Aristotle and Aquinas conceptualizations interweave. As we discussed the author (Renick) have a good argument when pointed out how the concept of Natural Law serves as a frame for the modern idea of universal values and rights (p. 75-76) – actually this is related to the move from a religious-state to a secular-state that is one of the main projects of the Enlightenment. Certainly, it was a good exercise applies to humans’ species the idea of the causes as conceived by Aristotle; is an interesting manner of compare to worldviews. One aspect we don’t discuss in more detail is how the ideas of “causes” and “eternal law” are linked to belief in the tendency toward perfection of the nature that is very common too. From my perspective the ideas of progress and purpose are strongly connected to the vision of try to find “perfection” in the natural world.
On the other hand, I agree that the topic of “human suffering” is one that deserves a discussion. Indeed, recently events make it very pertinent: yesterday Chile was struck by an 8.8 magnitude earthquake that, so far cause, around 400 deaths. However, in Haiti the 7.0 magnitude event were killed over 200,000 people. Even factors like the epicenter make a difference in the effects of this kind of phenomenon; how can we explain this enormous difference in the level of catastrophe by a similar natural event?
Finally, Lucas is possible that you include some comments about the differences between the natural theology vis-à-vis the natural law; you mention some aspects last Tuesday but maybe will be useful have it here.
Many thanks all for the good conversation we had last Tuesday….
Jose Soto-Sonera
Great summary, BH. I especially liked the table comparing Aquinas’ views of the causes with our interpretations of Aristotle’s framework given our understanding of the universe.
Something I think would be further interesting to discuss is whether not only the difference in Final causes are incompatable, but whether the Proximate and Efficient causes are, as well. For those who believe in a micromanaging God (you pray to find your keys and – voila! there they are!), natural selection might pose a threat even before we reach the level of Final cause. Do we run into problems if we try to explain the transcriptome as God’s will? If so, are those problems answerable by the same arguments used to explain human suffering in the context of a loving God?
JSS: The idea of perfection is certainly one notion that could cause more tension between a religiously Purpose-driven world view and the causes and worldview provided by modern biology–at some level. Modern biology sees the organism as largely imperfect, in fact imperfection (variation) is the raw material by which natural selection works. Yet, from this variation arises a few forms that reproduce more. The difference is that the forms which reproduce better now may not always do so, and so the “ideal form” that organisms evolve towards is a moving target–an endgoal that may be lost with a Thomists’ Purpose-driven universe. Yet, given even a random outcome of natural selection, organisms tend towards SOME form–that which survives and reproduces. The process yields an outcome, and even if it doesn’t mesh well with “tendency towards God’s plan” as we understand it, Thomas may have just misunderstood God’s Purpose? I would certainly like to explore the idea of perfection in Purpose more at some point in the class.
PS: It would be an interesting to see if the other cause levels or types of causes would mesh. I’m sure there is a tendency to focus only on the most basic differences between Thomas and modern biology, but once the final cause has been reconciled there are many other levels of understanding that would need to be meshed.
In general though, I would pose this question: Given that an understanding of God and Purpose has shifted greatly since Thomas, and it would be naive to suppose our understanding of evolution is final in its current form, can we come up with some way to reconcile changing (evolving) understandings of both a Purpose-driven universe and one in which Purpose has been slowly taken out?