Studies in Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion

The Five Ways: St Thomas Aquinas' Proofs of God's Existence

Anthony Kenny

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317833444
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

First published in 2003. This is Volume V of nine in the Studies in Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion collection. The Series is meant to provide an opportunity for philosophical discussions of a limited length which pursue in some detail specific topics in ethics or the philosophy of religion, or topics which belong to both fields. A draft of this book was delivered as a lecture course at Oxford over the terms of 1967-8.

Index

Index

Absolute, Principle of the, 37–8

Actuality, notion of, 30–3

Annihilation, 51, 53

Argument from design, 96–8, 115–16, 118

Aristotle and Aristotelians, 20–3, 42, 43, 50, 52, 54, 66, 69, 99, 110, 113, 114; and corruptibility, 58–61; and gradation in things, 70; and motion, 7–9, 11, 13–18, 24–33; and Principle of the Absolute, and teleology in nature, 98; and types of causes, 35–6, 39–40; definition of the necessary, 48; on senses of esse, 83, 85, 87, 89

Attributes, 75–7

Austin, John, 110

Averroes, 48

Avicenna, concept of necessity, 47, 58

Ayer, A. J., 103

Berkeley, Bishop, on inertial motion, 29

Beth, E. W., and Principle of the Absolute, 37–8

Boethius, 95

Cajetan, 26

Causa movens, causa efficiens and causa agens, 35

Sei also Efficient causation

Causes, types of, 35

See also Efficient causation

Classes, concept of, 75–7

Concrete universals, 73–5

Contingent and necessary being(s), 47–8, 57–8, 65–6

Conventionalist argument, 2

Corruption and corruptibility, 53–4, 58–65

Darwin, Charles, 114–15, 118

De Caelo (Aristotle), 54, 58–61

De Ente et Essentia (Aquinas), 82–4, 90

De Motu (Berkeley), 29

De Potentia (Aquinas), 87, 91, 93, 110

Descartes, 28, 85; and mechanistic explanations, 31–2, 118

Design, argument from, 96–8, 115–16, 118

Determinacy of natural effects, 98, 100–1

De Veritate (Aquinas), 47

Directedness of things, 96–120; argument from design, 96–8, 115–16, 118; arguments that every agent acts for an end, 98–100; determinacy of natural effects, 98, 100–1; end-direction or chance, 98, 103; everything in nature directed to a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• I Introduction
• II The First Way
• III The Second Way
• IV The Third Way
• V The Fourth Way
• VI The Fifth Way
• Bibliography
• Index