The Cosmological and Ontological Arguments: How Saint Thomas Solved the Kantian Problem

Abstract

Let us call the Dependency Theses (DT) the view, first stated by Kant, that certain versions of the cosmological argument depend on the ontological argument. At least two different reasons have been given for the supposed dependence. Given the DT, some of Aquinas' views about God's essence, and about our knowledge of God's existence, can seem, at least at first, to be inconsistent. I consider two different ways of defending Aquinas against this suspicion of inconsistency. On the first defence, based on a widespread understanding of his notion of ‘necessary being’, Aquinas' views fall outside the scope of the DT. The success of this defence is doubtful. There is, however, another defence to be found in Aquinas' work, one directed not to avoiding, but actually to rejecting, the DT. In this second defence, the DT is not a correct assessment even of those views that do fall within its scope. Its success means that Aquinas had available a principled refutation of the DT some five hundred years before it was first formulated.

Intentionality, belief, and the logical problem of evil

“…This can be seen as solving the logical problem of evil, at least for a certain audience: if you not be a priori for us humans, but might be arrived at by, for instance, an inference to the best explanation. See Aquinas Summa Theologica, Iq2a1; R. M. Adams 1983;Forgie 1995;Pearce 2017a, 247-248, 260-261;Byerly, forthcoming. 8. For skepticism about this claim see Ekstrom 2016.…”

“…This is a weaker claim because even if it is necessarily true that God exists, this necessity may not be a priori for us humans, but might be arrived at by, for instance, an inference to the best explanation. See Aquinas (1920), Iq2a1; Adams (1983); Forgie (1995); Pearce (2017a), 247–248, 260–61; Byerly (2019) ).…”

Foundational Grounding and the Argument from Contingency

“…[but] because we do not know the essence of God, the proposition is not self-evident to us" (Aquinas Summa Theologica,Iq2a1). The idea here is that the real definition of God is unknown to us, but a being who knew it would be in a position to demonstrate God's existence a priori (see Forgie 1995). If this were true of God, then the fact that God exists and is free would either itself be autonomous (as part of the real definition of God), or would be explained by the autonomous fact that God's essence is as it is.…”

Aquinas, the a priori/a posteriori distinction, and the Kantian dependency thesis

“…In the second, one reasons from the existence of a necessary being to that of a highest being 1 . I shall follow Forgie in holding that ‘it is in the second stage [of the proof] that one commits oneself to the ontological argument’ (Forgie (1995), 89).…”

“…And Aquinas has, if not exactly this, a very close analogue in his notion of a per se necessary being, which is convertible with ‘highest being’ – and this seems to situate Aquinas' third way directly in the scope of Kant's dependency thesis. As Forgie rightly points out, ‘We cannot free Aquinas from the DT by pointing out that he does not use a vulnerable notion of necessary being if in the end he uses the notion of uncaused necessary being in a vulnerable way’ (Forgie (1995), 93).…”