bs_bs_banner

HeyJ LVI (2015), pp. 67–75

AQUINAS’ QUINQUE VIAE: FOOLS, EVIL, AND

THE HIDDENNESS OF GOD
G.P. MARCAR
Guildford, UK

At present a broad consensus may be discerned on Aquinas’ ‘five ways’ for proving the existence of
God: either he is responding to atheism per se by means of five rational arguments, or he is not
responding to any formal denial of God’s existence. Both of these approaches ignore the two specific
objections Aquinas raises prior to the five ways: evil is incompatible with the existence of an infinite
goodness (the first objection), and the world does not require an external explanation (the second
objection). While some have speculated on the structural significance of the second objection, the
first has been universally regarded as irrelevant. This, I argue, is an oversight; Aquinas’ first
objection (from evil) is central to the quinque viae. Seen in this light, while Aquinas’ five ways are
not responses to atheism per se, they do address, and ultimately subvert, a specific form of disbelief.

INTRODUCTION

Aquinas’ five ways in the Summa Theologiae (ST) Prima Pars, Question 2, Article 3 are
commonly treated as arguments against the general atheistic proposition that there is no God.
Focussing on specific features of the world, each is viewed as attempting to prove, a posteriori,
that God exists. The first cites the observation of change in things; the second, efficient
causality; the third, contingent and necessary existence; the fourth, degrees of perfection, and
the fifth, the directedness of things.1 These features are first observed to entail something
external to that which possesses them. Since the series of things possessing these features is
similar, it is then argued, something must exist which accounts for the series itself. This
something, Aquinas states, is quod omnes dicunt Deum, that ‘which everyone calls God.’2 The
view that Aquinas’ five ways thereby attempt to refute atheism is shared by many, and includes
both those who affirm the validity of Aquinas’ arguments,3 as well as those who do not.4
Against this however, some have recently argued that Aquinas’ five ways are not intended as
arguments against any form of atheism. Notably within this camp is Fergus Kerr, who cites
Aquinas’ use of Psalm 52 (‘the fool says in his heart there is no God’) as exemplifying the way
in which Aquinas does not appear engaged with any actual unbelievers.5 If Aquinas were
arguing against atheism, Kerr surmises, one would expect him to give an example of someone
independently espousing this position, instead of referring his readers to the Bible.6 Aquinas,
Kerr maintains, regards the denial of God’s existence as falling within a ‘theological category’
of sinful behaviour, and is not a position to be intellectually engaged with.7 Moreover, Kerr
notes that none of the five ways are original to Aquinas, but rather derive from other, non-
Christian sources, such as Aristotle.8 Consequently, the five ways should not be read as proofs
directed against a formal denial of God’s existence, but rather as demonstrations within an

© 2014 Trustees for Roman Catholic Purposes Registered. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350
Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
68 GREG MARCAR

established medieval tradition of arguing that the deity pagan philosophers attempt to prove is
in fact the same God worshipped by Christian believers.9 In this way Kerr argues that Aquinas’
arguments have been misunderstood; they are not addressing disbelief in the existence of God.

AQUINAS’ TWO OBJECTIONS TO THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

Contemporary interpretations of the five ways therefore either posit that Aquinas is addressing
a general denial of God’s existence, or else that he is not addressing any form of non-belief. In
making these cases both schools neglect the potential import of the two objections which
immediately precede Aquinas’ five ways:
Objection 1. It seems that God does not exist; because if one of two contraries be infinite, the
other would be altogether destroyed. But the word ‘God’ means that He is infinite goodness.
If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world.
Therefore God does not exist.
Objection 2. Further, it is superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few
principles has been produced by many. But it seems that everything we see in the world can be
accounted for by other principles, supposing God did not exist. For all natural things can be
reduced to one principle which is nature; and all voluntary things can be reduced to one principle
which is human reason, or will. Therefore there is no need to suppose God’s existence.10

The fact that Aquinas presents only two objections to the existence of God indicates their
significance, as it breaks with Aquinas’ general pattern throughout the ST of posing at least three
objections to every proposition. In addition, a similarity of focus may be discerned between the
five ways and the two preceding objections: both the ways and the objections focus on the
terrestrial, observable world. The example Aquinas uses in his first way (the argument from
motion) is a fundamentally ordinary one, readily observable within the terrestrial world: fire
heating wood. This is also the case with the remaining four, including the ‘natural bodies’ and
arrow cited in the fifth way (where it could be argued that a non-terrestrial ‘heavenly body’
would have made an equally suitable example). As Denys Turner remarks, each of the five ways
‘begins from basic human earthbound experience.’11 Moreover, akin to his two objections to the
existence of God, Aquinas’ ways appear to ‘lump together’ (as Peter Geach puts it)12 things
within the empirical world, so as to treat the entire mundus as a single object in need of
explanation.
One response that could be made here is that although the five ways and two objections agree
in subject matter, they nevertheless differ in the sort of explanation they seek. While the two
objections are focussed on explaining the state of the world as it is presently exists, the five ways
(particularly the first three) are often read as ancestors to the modern ‘cosmological argument’
which claims that a ‘first mover’ or ‘first cause’ is needed to explain how the world began. This
reading of the five ways is found amongst contemporary atheist critiques of Aquinas’ five ways,
such as Richard Dawkins.13 However, as Turner,14 C.F.J. Martin15 and others note, Aquinas’
arguments must be viewed within the context of his later doctrine of creation. In q.46 of the ST,
Aquinas denies that the eternality of the universe (and therefore the question of infinite temporal
regress) can be either denied or affirmed by reason.16 Aquinas’ ways should therefore be read
as concerned with the world’s present and continuing existence, rather than its starting point.
Here again, Aquinas’ five ways and the two objections that precede them would coincide in
what they seek to address: the present, terrestrial world, regarded as a whole by reference to its
observable features.
 AQUINAS’ QUINQUE VIAE: FOOLS, EVIL, AND THE HIDDENNESS OF GOD 69

Despite this thematic unity and shared focus, commentators have typically not read Aquinas’
five proofs for the existence of God as bearing on the objections that precede them. Two
exceptions are Robert Fogelin and Anthony Flew. In his ‘A reading of Aquinas’ five ways’,
Fogelin notes this apparent oversight and seeks instead to interpret the five ways in their light.17
He argues that ‘the Five Ways are . . . specifically in response to the challenge presented in the
second objection,’ namely, that the world is such that God is explanatorily redundant.18 This is
also the view of Anthony Flew, who regards Aquinas’ five ways as directed against a ‘presump-
tion of atheism’.19 Both of these thinkers reject, however, that any relevance that might be found
in Aquinas’ first objection to the existence of God. Flew describes the form of Aquinas’ first
objection as ‘slightly awkward’ for his argument,20 while Fogelin similarly notes that his
argument ‘gains little support from this first objection’, before proceeding to dismiss any
relevance it might have to interpreting the five ways.21 In this way, therefore, while some have
attempted to interpret Aquinas’ five ways in light of the second of his two objections, no one has
thus far attempted to read them in the light of both.

THE RELEVANCE AQUINAS’ FIRST OBJECTION RE-EXAMINED

(i) ‘Evil’ and ‘goodness’ in Aquinas

One possible explanation for why Aquinas’ first objection has been disregarded as irrelevant
may be that the objection has been consistently been viewed within the terms of the contem-
porary ‘problem of evil.’, which asserts that the existence of God (as an omnibenevolent,
omnipotent being) is at odds with the occurrence of pain and suffering within the world. This
problem, it appears to have been presumed, is what Aquinas’ first objection is referring to.22 In
response to this, however, it may be argued that this is not the issue that the first objection is
presenting. For Aquinas, to say that something is ‘evil’ does not necessarily involve subjective
experiences of pain and suffering; it is rather a disinterested, objective judgment that a privation
of being (privatio) is manifest in something. Such privation may well be the cause of unpleasant
psychological states, but it is not equivalent to them.
Similarly, to say that the word ‘God’ entails an ‘infinite goodness’ does not, for Aquinas,
describe God as having any moral quality. For Aquinas, rather, ‘being and goodness are really
the same.’23 Aquinas’ first objection can therefore be paraphrased: ‘if one of two mutually
exclusive things were to exist unbounded, the other would be destroyed. But the word ‘God’
means that He is infinite actuality. So if God existed, no privation would be discoverable.
Privation, is, however discoverable in the world. So God does not exist.’

(ii) The form of the objection

Even if this is conceded, one could still argue that the first objection remains fundamentally
different in form from the five ways. Unlike the second objection (which argues that God as an
hypothesis is redundant), the first appears to make a stronger claim by charging a logical
contradiction: since actuality and privation are ‘mutually exclusive’, if an infinite amount of one
were to exist, the other would be impossible. Viewed this way, Aquinas’ first objection is no
more related to the a posteriori argumentation of the five ways than is the contemporary
theological problem of creaturely suffering.
However, another reading of Aquinas’ first objection is possible. On the above interpretation,
Aquinas’ first objection would not only appear different in form from the argumentation of the
70 GREG MARCAR

five ways, but also to the post-article reply Thomas gives to it. As a response to the first
objection Aquinas writes:
As Augustine says: ‘Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His
works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil.’ This
is part of the infinite goodness of God, that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce
good.24
If Aquinas’ first objection is understood as positing a logical incompatibility between evil and
(perfect) goodness, then it could be argued that the reply he gives (citing Augustine’s
Enchridion) is woefully inadequate. A logical contradiction between a y and x, it may be
supposed, cannot to be remedied by invoking belief in the existence of x and stating that, due
to the nature of x, it will eventually bring about good from y. Such an approach would constitute
an elementary example of begging the question.
Another way of reading the first objection, however, presents itself through consideration of
Aquinas’ preceding articles in ST 1a, q.2. Aquinas begins this Quaestio by asking whether
God’s existence is self-evident (ST 1a, q.2, a.1). After detailing three objections to the view that
God’s existence is not self-evident, Aquinas counters with a quotation from Psalm 52, ‘the fools
says in his heart, there is no God.’25 In beginning his question on God’s existence in this way,
Aquinas is often read as distancing himself from others, such as Anselm, who regarded the
existence of God as self-evident and the fool of Psalm 52 as therefore committing an error in
logic.26 For Aquinas by contrast, whilst God’s existence is self-evident in itself, it is not
self-evident to the minds of human beings. Put another way, it is true that ‘God does not exist’
is contradictory, due to God’s existence being His essence; however, it is not a contradiction for
human beings to assert that from their standpoint (in which God’s essence is unknown), it seems
as if God does not exist. For Aquinas therefore, there is nothing illogical in human beings
denying God’s existence.27 Having established this in ST 1a, q.2, a.1, Aquinas claims that it is
possible to demonstrate that God exists (ST 1a, q.2, a.2), before proceeding to the five ways in
Article 3. Preceding the argumentation of the five ways is therefore a psychological claim: the
existence of God is not evident to some human beings, as exemplified by the fool of Psalm 52.
The five ways should therefore be read in the context of Aquinas’ chosen target of the biblical
‘fool’ he cites in the first article of Question 2. As noted above, this is one reason why Kerr
claims that Aquinas is not addressing any actual atheistic interlocutors. One may agree with
Kerr on this point, along with his related observation that for Aquinas unbelief is sinful, yet deny
Kerr’s conclusion that Aquinas’ arguments are not therefore addressing any sort of disbelief in
God. On the contrary, the ‘fool’ of Psalm 52, for Aquinas, refers to a particular state of disbelief
that is focussed on a Judeo-Christian conception of God. In his Commentary on Psalm 52,
Aquinas writes of the fool that ‘he who denies any effects of God whatsoever, including the
Providence of good and evil men and all things universally, and miracles from God . . . denies
God.’28 The content of the fool’s denial is therefore specific: the fool denies the existence of God
because he cannot perceive God’s effects within the world. Aquinas makes a similar claim on
the disbelieving fool in his Commentary on Psalm 13, writing that ‘someone says that there is
no God at that time when he thinks that he is not omnipotent, and that he has no concern for
human affairs.’29 As with the fool of Psalm 52, Aquinas is maintaining here that those who
(sinfully) disbelieve in a providential God of infinite goodness do so out of a state of wilful
ignorance in which they fail to perceive any divine effects within the world.
Seen in this light Aquinas’ first objection in Question 2, Article 3 can be viewed as expressing
an experiential and epistemological claim: if God (defined as infinite goodness/being) existed,
one would be able to see His effect, in that the evil found within the world ‘would be being totally
 AQUINAS’ QUINQUE VIAE: FOOLS, EVIL, AND THE HIDDENNESS OF GOD 71

destroyed.’ Since this is not the case, God’s existence remains undemonstrated (from the
perspective of the unbeliever), and is thus to be denied. Whereas the contemporary ‘problem of
evil’seeks to assert that the existence of an omnibenevolent God is contradicted by evil within the
world creaturely suffering, the denial of God’s existence from evil in Aquinas’ first objection is
primarily a denial of divine providence. Further illustrative of this point is Aquinas’ Commentary
on the book of Job. In contrast with contemporary interest, Aquinas is nowhere concerned to
defend the benevolence of God in the face of Job’s suffering.30 The problem that Job highlights
for Aquinas is rather how to perceive the providential activity of God in a world exhibiting evil.
It is this construal of the problem of evil with which Aquinas’ first objection is concerned.
Aquinas’ second objection formulates the same concern in a different manner: since the
workings of the universe can be explained through natural principles, it would appear that God’s
effects are nowhere to be seen. The conclusion of both is that belief in a providential God
appears unfounded and redundant. God’s effects are not manifest within the world, as the state
of things within it (featuring evil and fully explainable in terms of natural principles) bears
witness. One may therefore assert that Aquinas is indeed focussing on a form of denial of God’s
existence, consisting in an ignorance based by the apparent hiddenness of God.31 The unbelief
with which Aquinas is concerned in the second question of the ST Prima Pars is not a general
atheism, but rather a disbelief in the Judeo-Christian God, based on a denial of divine provi-
dence. This is also his focus in the Summa Contra Gentiles (SCG), the third book of which
consists of 163 questions devoted to defending the providence of God.32

(iii) Evil discoverable in the world and the five ways

Under this rubric it might be asked where, exactly, Aquinas believes evil (in terms of
privation) resides within the world and how this relates to the argumentation of the five ways.
According to Aquinas, the subject of evil is ‘being in potentiality.’33 As such, evil may be viewed
as a constitutive part of the world, insofar as things exist in, and operate through, potentiality.
As Brian Davies notes in Thomas Aquinas on God and Evil, ‘for Aquinas . . . evil suffered is built
into the notion of a material world.’34 In Question 48 of the ST, Aquinas remarks that ‘it is in this
that evil consists, namely, in the fact that a thing fails in goodness . . . evil is found in things, as
corruption also is found; for corruption is itself an evil.’35 While the corruption of things
(substantial change which leads to a thing ceasing to be) is mentioned explicitly only in the third
way, as evidence for the contingency of things within the world, the features of the other ways
are all also intrinsically related to corruption.
The subject of the first way, motion (motus) or accidental change, involves the acquisition of
one form (for instance, something gaining the accident of being hot) and the corruption of
another (its previous form of coldness). Material things go from potentiality with respect to an
accidental form, to actuality with that form and potentiality towards others. With the exception
of heavenly bodies, everything that undergoes motus is also corruptible in the sense of being
capable of substantial change, due to this process of accidental change taking place in the
context of conflicting ‘contraries’ (in the above illustration for instance, hotness and coldness).
It is this (following Aristotle’s Physics) that explains why everything in the (non-heavenly)
world corrupts.36 Integral to the phenomenon of the first way therefore (which Aquinas calls the
‘most obvious’) is the corruption of things within the world.
The second focuses on efficient causality, by which things are generated or come into being.
At first glance this might appear to be opposed to the phenomenon of corruption. Following
Aristotle’s On Generation and Corruption, however, Aquinas holds that ‘the generation of one
thing is the corruption of another.’37 Indeed, when discussing the nature of evil in the ST 1a,
72 GREG MARCAR

q.48, Aquinas implies that the corruption of one thing is in fact necessary for the generation of
another thing: ‘fire would not be generated if air was not corrupted.’38 As with the motus of the
first way, therefore, the efficient causality of the second does not merely co-exist with corrup-
tion in the world; it entails its occurrence.
A similar observation may be made with regard to the gradations of perfection that are the
subject of the fourth way. Aquinas writes that ‘the more perfect the fire is in strength, so much
the more perfectly does it impress its own form, so also the more perfectly does it corrupt the
contrary.’39 Similarly the teleological movement of natural bodies, which is the subject of the
fifth way, essentially involves the corruption of others: fire would not achieve its end of
expansion if it did not corrupt the surrounding air, ‘nor the life of a lion be preserved unless the
ass were killed.’40 The features that form the basis for the five ways are therefore constitutive of
a world in which things corrupt. Put differently, a world in which things change accidentally
(the first way), are dependent on another for coming into being (the second way), display
gradations of perfection (the fourth way), and move towards their ends even when lacking
intelligence (the fifth way) is necessarily also a world in which things visibly manifest their state
of potentiality (evil) in corrupting (the third way). In this manner therefore, the evil which is
discoverable within the world is, for Aquinas, intrinsic to the features he uses in the five ways
to demonstrate God’s existence.
Moreover, Aquinas explicitly connects the focus of the first objection with the subject matter
of the five ways in his post-article reply to the second objection. Aquinas here states that what
has been demonstrated is that ‘all things that are changeable and capable of defect must be
traced back to an immovable and self-necessary first principle.’41 Being ‘changeable’ (muta-
bilia) and ‘capable of corruption’ (defectibilia) is indicative of things which do in fact change
and corrupt, which, as noted above, is how evil is visibly manifested in the world for Aquinas.
Leaving aside the question of whether any of the five ways are formally valid as individual
arguments, it seems that Aquinas conceives their common strategy as drawing on features of the
world intrinsic to its corruptibility, showing how these features entail that the world as a whole
is not self-sufficient, and concluding from this to the existence of God.
As a result, the two objections which precede the quinque viae undermine themselves: it is
precisely because the focus of the first objection, evil, exists that the world’s existence is not
self-explanatory, contrary to the second objection. It might here be noted that Aquinas takes a
markedly similar approach in the SCG, albeit in a manner that reflects this earlier work’s
different purpose from the ST. Chapter 70 of the SCG (book 3) addresses the same issue as that
raised in the second objection of ST 1a, q.2, a.3: ‘when a thing can be done adequately by one
agent, it is superfluous for it to be done by many . . . [therefore] if the natural power adequately
produces the proper effect, it is superfluous for the divine power to act for the same effect.’42
Aquinas answers by saying that ‘though a natural thing produces its proper effect, it is not
superfluous for God to produce it, since the natural thing does not produce it except by divine
power.’43 In Chapter 71 of the SCG, Aquinas then raises and answers an argument against divine
providence that mirrors the first objection to the existence of God in ST. Under the heading
‘Divine Providence does not entirely exclude evil’, Aquinas argues against the ‘the error of
those who, because they noticed that evils occur in the world, said that there is no God’ by
noting that ‘it could be argued to the contrary: “If evil exists, God exists.” ’44 Here, as in ST 1a,
q.2, a.3, Aquinas impresses upon his readers that rather than excluding divine providence, the
existence of evil (as privation) in fact demonstrates that the world, with its observable order and
natural operations, must be sustained by the active existence of God.
It is only from this standpoint that Aquinas in his post-article response to the first objection
in ST 1a, q.2, a.3 cites Augustine’s Enchiridion and the hope it expresses that God (as the
 AQUINAS’ QUINQUE VIAE: FOOLS, EVIL, AND THE HIDDENNESS OF GOD 73

self-sustaining source of the world) will bring goodness out of evil. The God that the five ways
affirms is not a neutral deity, but precisely that which the fool of Psalm 52 denies: namely, the
providentially active God of Judeo-Christianity. Aquinas follows the two objections to God’s
existence in ST 1a, q.2, a.3 with a sed contra which quotes Exodus 3:14,45 where God reveals
Himself to be self-subsistent existence (ipsum esse subsistens) – ‘I am who I am’ – within the
context of rescuing the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Matthew Levering argues that in
choosing to precede the five ways with this passage from Exodus, Aquinas is ‘acutely aware’ of
the ‘salvific context’ he thereby invokes.46 Even if this claim appears difficult to substantiate, it
is evident from the articles that follow the five ways that the God Aquinas attempts to demon-
strate in ST 1a, q.2, a.3 is infinitely powerful, loves the world, and is that by which everything
else reaches ontological fulfilment.
As discussed above, Aquinas’ five ways indicate how observable features within the world,
which are constitutive of a world in which evil manifests itself through corruption, in fact
demonstrate the dependence of all that exists on a self-subsistent God. In ST 1a, q.25, a.2,
Aquinas argues that God must be infinitely powerful. ‘Active power exists in God according to
the measure in which He is actual. Now His existence is infinite . . . Wherefore, it is necessary
that the active power in God should be infinite.’47 Not only must the God whose existence is
demonstrated in ST 1a, q.2, a.3 be actively and imminently involved in sustaining all that exists;
for Aquinas it also follows logically that this God possesses infinite active power.
According to Aquinas moreover, to say that God is the efficient cause of the world is also to
say that God ‘loves’ all that exists. Responding to the question how God can be said to love
everything that exists, he writes in Question 20 of the Prima Pars that:
a thing has existence, or any kind of good, only inasmuch as it is willed by God. To every
existing thing, then, God wills some good. Hence, since to love anything is nothing else than
to will good to that thing, it is manifest that God loves everything that exists.48

As that which exists can only do so insofar as God continues to will it to be so, to say that God
(qua Creator) loves all that exists is, for Aquinas, a tautology. Indeed, it may be argued that it
is precisely through an appreciation of the world’s lack of existential self-sufficiency that God’s
love becomes apparent.49 This existential dependence, Aquinas later asserts, also has implica-
tions for the fulfilment of things within the world. It is ‘since God is the First Mover’, Aquinas
writes in the Prima-Secundae Pars of the ST, that ‘by His motion that everything seeks to be
likened to God in its own way.’50 Although the understanding of God as that by which things are
brought into fulfilment is only therefore explicit in the fifth way, for Aquinas it is also implied
by the conclusion to the first.
Seen thus, the five ways not only bring out the self-defeating nature of the two objections to
the existence of God; they also provide resources for responding to the problem of evil. From
the changeability and corruptibility of things within the world, it can be demonstrated that there
must be something of infinite goodness that existentially sustains (and therefore ‘loves’) the
world and, as such, is capable also of bringing about further goodness from it. Within Aquinas’
context, this is what ‘everyone calls God.’

CONCLUSION

Anselm attempted to show that the fool was prima facie confused in saying in his heart ‘there
is no God’. While Aquinas does not suppose the fool to be any wiser than Anselm held him to
be, he rejects this approach.51 It is not the proposition that there is no God that is contradictory
74 GREG MARCAR

for Aquinas, but rather the flawed rationality (manifested by his two a posteriori objections in
ST 1a, q.2, a.3) that lie behind this denial. The fool who denies God’s existence (as considered
according to Aquinas’ Commentary on Psalm 52 and his two objections to God’s existence)
focuses only upon how the world presently functions, rather than abstracting from this and
asking how the world, as such, exists at all. It is through pursuing this latter line of questioning
that Aquinas’ five ways provide a clear rebuttal to the fool. God’s discernible effects (and
therefore existence) are not confined to extraordinary events (such as miracles) within the
world. Rather, that evil is discoverable within the world for Aquinas demonstrates by that fact
that the world must be sustained as the effect of God, who can bring about further goodness
from its present state. To paraphrase Aquinas’ assertions in ST 1a, q.2, a.2, it is not that God’s
effects are hidden per se; rather, it is that human beings are sometimes foolishly blind to them.

Notes

1 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (‘ST ’), trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, ed. Kevin
Knight (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/), 1a, q.2, a.3.
2 Ibid.
3 See F. C Copleston, Aquinas (London: Penguin Books, 1955).
4 See Anthony Kenny, The Five Ways: Saint Thomas Aquinas’ Proofs of God’s Existence (London:
Routledge and Paul K, 2003).
5 Fergus Kerr, ‘Theology in Philosophy: Revisiting the Five Ways’, International Journal for Philosophy
of Religion 50.1/3 ( 2001), p. 115–30.
6 Ibid, p. 118.
7 Ibid, p. 128.
8 Ibid, p. 116.
9 Ibid.
10 ST 1a, q.2, a.3, arg. 1 and 2.
11 Denys Turner, Thomas Aquinas: A Portrait (Yale University Press, 2013), p. 132.
12 Elizabeth Anscombe and Peter Geach, Three Philosophers (Oxford: Blackwell Basil, 1973), p. 113.
13 Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (London: Bantum House, 2006), p. 77.
14 Denys Turner, Faith, Reason and the Existence of God (Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 241.
15 C.F.J. Martin, Thomas Aquinas: God and Explanations (Edinburgh University Press, 1997), p. 168.
16 ST 1a, q.46, a.2.
17 Robert Fogelin, ‘A Reading of Aquinas’s Five Ways’ , American Philosophical Quarterly 27.4 (1990),
p. 305–313.
18 Ibid, p. 305.
19 Antony Flew, ‘The Presumption of Atheism’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2.1 (1972), p. 9–46.
20 Ibid, p. 45.
21 Fogelin, ‘A Reading of Aquinas’s Five Ways’, p. 305.
22 Ibid; Flew, ‘The Presumption of Atheism’, p. 45.
23 ST 1a, q.5, a.1.
24 Ibid, q.2, a.3,ad.1.
25 Ibid, q.2, a.1.
26 See Brian Davies et al, The Cambridge Guide to Anselm (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 69.
27 See Gareth Matthews, ‘Aquinas on Saying that God does not exist’, The Monist, 47.3 (1963), p. 472–477.
28 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Psalm 52, trans. Gregory Sadler (http://www4.desales.edu/~philtheo/
loughlin/ATP/Psalm_52.html).
29 Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Psalm 13, trans. Ian Levy (http://www4.desales.edu/~philtheo/
loughlin/ATP/Psalm_13.html).
30 Thomas Aquinas, Expositio super Iob ad litteram: Commentary on the Book of Job, trans. Brian
Mulladay, ed. Joseph Kenny, O.P (http://dhspriory.org/thomas/SSJob.htm). For a recent discussion of Aquinas’
commentary on Job and its focus on divine providence, .see Eleonore Stump, ‘Aquinas on the Suffering of Job’
in The Evidential Argument from Evil, Ed. D Howard-Snyder (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1996),
p. 49–68.
 AQUINAS’ QUINQUE VIAE: FOOLS, EVIL, AND THE HIDDENNESS OF GOD 75

31 For an exposition of how the problem of ‘divine hiddenness’ has recently been approached, see Daniel
Howard-Synder and Paul Kenneth Moser, Divine Hiddenness: New Essays (Cambridge University Press,
2002), p. 1–2.
32 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles (‘SCG’), trans. Anton C. Pegis, James F. Anderson, Vernon J.
Bourke, and Charles J. O’Neil (http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles.htm).
33 ST 1a, q.48, a.3.
34 Brian Davies, Thomas Aquinas on God and Evil (Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 72, n.16.
35 ST 1a, q.48, a.2.
36 Ibid, q.66, a.2.
37 Ibid, q.72, a.1.
38 Ibid, q.48, a.2.
39 Ibid, q.49, a.1.
40 Ibid, q.48, a. 2.
41 Ibid, q.3, a.3, ad.2.
42 SCG, book 3, chapter 70.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid, chapter 71.
45 ST 1a, q.2, a.3, sc.
46 Matthew Levering, Scripture and Metaphysics: Aquinas and the Renewal of Trinitarian Theology
(Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2008), p. 60.
47 ST 1a, q.25, a.2.
48 Ibid, q.20, a.2.
49 One might here think of the later Julian of Norwich’s vision of all that exists as a tiny hazelnut, so
vulnerable to corruption that it must be continuously sustained by God: ‘I wondered how it could last, for I
thought it might suddenly fall to nothing for little cause. And I was answered in my understanding: ‘It lasts and
ever shall, for God loves it.’ Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love. trans. Edmund Colledge and James
Jerome Walsh (Paulist Press, 1978), p. 130. For Julian, as for Aquinas, the love of God as it relates to creatures
is intrinsically linked to God’s activity in sustaining all things in being.
50 ST 1-2, q.109, a.6.
51 For a recent discussion on the irrationality of atheism for Aquinas, see Stephen L. Brock, ‘Can Atheism
be Rational? A reading of Thomas Aquinas’, Acta Philosophica 11 (2002), pp. 215–238.