PONTIFICAL UNIVERSITY OF URBANIANA

Faculty of Philosophy

Philosophy of God
THE DAWKINS’ DILEMMA
An analysis of the criticisms of Dawkins on Aquinas’ Second way

Joselito Ayo

(24724)

a.y 2020/21
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 3
Per Se and Per Accidens ............................................................................................................. 3
The Primary Cause and The secondary causes ........................................................................... 6
Dawkins’ ‘Aphilosophy’ (A response against the Second Way) ............................................... 7
The Dawkins Confusion ............................................................................................................ 9
Conclusion: «Quam omnes Deum nominant» .......................................................................... 11
Bibliography ............................................................................................................................. 13

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INTRODUCTION

The second way is based on the notion of an efficient cause: We find that among sensible things
there is an ordering of efficient causes, and yet we do not find—nor is it possible to find—
anything that is an efficient cause of its own self. For if something were an efficient cause of
itself, then it would be prior to itself—which is impossible. But it is impossible to go on to
infinity among efficient causes. For in every case of ordered efficient causes, the first is a cause
of the intermediate and the intermediate is a cause of the last—and this regardless of whether
the intermediate is constituted by many causes or by just one. But when a cause is removed, its
effect is removed. Therefore, if there were no first among the efficient causes, then neither
would there be a last or an intermediate. But if the efficient causes went on to infinity, there
would not be a first efficient cause, and so there would not be a last effect or any intermediate
efficient causes, either—which is obviously false. Therefore, one must posit some first efficient
cause—which everyone calls a God1.

The second way takes up the previous argument a bit further by zeroing into the notion of
efficient causes. Aquinas argues that it is an indubitable reality that things that exist around us,
accessible by our senses, did not cause themselves to be. It is pretty much unthinkable that a
thing that does not exist before should by itself cause its existence later. Obviously, that doesn’t
follow a rational argument, for following the same principle in the first way, it says that
something which is in potency can never by itself be in act except by something that is already
in act. Therefore, something which cause it to exist should be another thing that is outside of it,
meaning another thing but that is ‘in existence already’. With this, our experience shows us
series of causes that would seem to be an endless cause and effect reality. But Aquinas did not
leave his argument hanging, not that there is a need to ‘fill a gap’, or perhaps ‘to beg a question’,
but because reason leads us to a specific direction that would ultimately point out to a being that
is ipsum esse subsistens2.

PER SE AND PER ACCIDENS

Before continuing to the following arguments, it is best that we should be able to identify
some important distinctions between two types of these series of efficient causes that would

1
THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa Theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3, (english trans. A. J. FREDDOSO, updated January 10, 2018,
https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/TOC.htm ).
2
THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa Theologiae I, q. 4, a. 2.

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help us more understand what Aquinas was arguing for and what he is not. One reality that we
observe is that there are things caused that are simultaneously dependent to its cause in order
for it to be, and that without which it would ultimately cease from being; on the other hand,
there are these caused causes that has the power to cause another independently from the one
that caused them to be3. The former is what they call a cause per se and the latter a cause per
accidens.

a) One example of an essential causal series, or a cause per se, is a man pushing a
stroller with a baby on it all the way to the park. We can observe that the baby moves
simultaneously with the stroller where he/she rides, which is at the same time being
moved by the man pushing the stroller. Now, the baby on it would not move to that
specific direction without the moving stroller carrying it which is at the same time
being moved by the man pushing it. This example may sound like we are still arguing
about the first way of Aquinas. But if viewed clearly, we are not only concerned
about the thing that undergoes the passage from potency to act; it is already now a
question of what causes it to be moving or changing. The example given clearly
signifies a certain dependence, in a simultaneous way, of the things caused to that of
their prior causes.

Image of type A:

Intermediate Last effect

Primary
efficient
efficient cause
cause/causes

b) The other type of series of efficient causes is the accidental causal series or a cause
per accidens. One of the common examples shown is the relationship between a son,

3
Cfr E. FESER, Scholastic Metaphysics, A Contemporary Introduction, editiones scholasticae, Volume 39, CPI
buchbiicher.de, Stuttgart 2014, 164-165.

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 his father and his grandfather. Obviously, there is a flow of efficient causes from this
example as well as from the example above. The difference however lies in the
power of each of these subjects to be an efficient cause without being dependent
from its prior cause in order to produce their proper effect. Which means to say that
the Father can have his child even when his father, in this case the grandfather of his
son, is already deceased. The same goes on with the son and his very own future
sons, etc. Now it may seem that this type of efficient causal series does not concern
the construction of the proof of Aquinas in the second way. We will however see
also later how a Primary cause would still be a necessity to sustain the existence of
each efficient cause in this type.

Image of type B:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Primary efficient secondary efficient

causes/ effects secondary efficient
cause cause/effects

In the second way, Aquinas gives priority to the former type (type A) of causal series.
From his argument, we can observe how Aquinas points out to the necessity of the first cause
to maintain the chain of efficient causes down to its last effect. He argues that if we take away
the first cause, the intermediate causes, which evidently in this case are instrumental in nature,
together with the last effect would ultimately cease to be. As given in our example above, the
stroller would cease to move together with the baby on it, if at some given point the father would
stop pushing it. In a word, the causal power of the first cause, from where the intermediate
causes borrowed their causal power, is necessary to maintain the chain of cause and effects.
With this type of causal series, Aquinas then argues that it is impossible to proceed to infinity
but at the same time there should exist an uncaused cause, which at the end of the argument
speaks of God.

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THE PRIMARY CAUSE AND THE SECONDARY CAUSES

As per the efficient causes, we also must note the difference between the secondary
causes and the primary cause (as seen in the image of type B). We have it earlier in the above
arguments that these series of efficient causes, having their existence caused by another—which
means they cannot have the explanation of their existence by their own but by another— indicate
something which is to be considered as Primary but that it must be outside of these chains of
causes. Prof. Congiunti writes that:

Nature is not explained by itself, but it claims a “first” cause that is not the first of the second
causes and is not the first of the natural causes, but it is “first” because it is outside and above
the chain of natural causes, and is a transcendent cause, able to give explanation about nature,
because it is a cause that is not caused. Such an uncaused cause can only be a being in itself
subsisting, that is, God4.

With this in mind, we can also note that even the accidental causal series, or causes per
accidens, described to have independent powers, in relation to their prior cause when causing
another kind of their species, would still have to point out to a being that ‘sustains’ their very
existence, for without which they would simply cease to be. A poor analogy here would be a
transformer supplying electricity to all electric apparatuses. As we can observe, a transformer
does not necessarily have to be one like the other electric apparatuses but that it has to contain
or produce the electricity that would then be the source of electricity of these electric
apparatuses. Remove the source and everything else would lose their power. Same thing is true
about nature (in broader sense). The idea that their existence is derived from something outside
that caused them to be opens us to another distinction that would ultimately explain how an
uncaused cause being is possible, and why it should be one instead of many. In Being and
Essence, Aquinas argues that:

Huiusmodi ergo substantie, quamuis sint forme tantum sine materia, non tamen in eis est
omnimoda simplicitas nec sunt actus purus, sed habent permixtionem potentie; et hoc sit patet.
Quicquid enim non est de intellectu essentie uel quiditatis, hoc est adueniens extra et faciens
compositionem cum essentia, quia nulla essentia sine hiis que sunt partes essentie intelligi
potest. Omnis autem essentia uel quiditas potest intelligi sine hoc quod aliquid intelligatur de
esse suo: possum enim intelligere quid est homo uel fenix et tamen ignorare an esse habeat in

4
L. CONGIUNTI, Outlines of Philosophy of Nature, English trans. S. OKELLO, Urbaniana University Press, Roma
20162, 214.

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 rerum natura; ergo patet quod esse est aliud ab essentia uel quiditate. Nisi forte sit aliqua res
cuius quiditas sit ipsum suum esse, et hec res non potest esse nisi una et prima […]5.

This in turn gives us the idea of a hierarchy of beings that are caused but would
ultimately point out to a need for a being whose essence is no other than his existence,
responsible for the existence of everything else. A being that cannot be more than one because
as we have seen in the argument of Aquinas, only those who are made up of a composition of
essence and existence would be many inasmuch as their existence is received by their essence,
resulting to a multiplication of existence participated. This composition will lead us to varying
genus composed of species, species to individuals, etc. On the other hand, ‘a being whose
essence is his existence’ is what we consider to be a ‘Simple Being’, that is pure act or pure
esse.

DAWKINS’ ‘APHILOSOPHY’: A RESPONSE AGAINST THE SECOND WAY

A common observation one can have from these authors, St. Thomas Aquinas and
Richard Dawkins, is that both have their opuses written, the Summa Theologiae and The God
delusion, within a certain context of belief: the former speaks of the existence of God while the
latter denies it all together. The difference however, narrowing our attention to that of the five
ways, is that Aquinas reasons soundly while Dawkins, in his attempt to argue against them, just
missed the point. With this, the expression ‘Aphilosophy’ best describes his entire arguments
inasmuch as it is only a product of hate not only to the notion of God but also to the reasonable
arguments presented in the five ways.

From this point, we will try to analyze Dawkin’s analysis on the second way, which he
generally argued to be of the same substance with that of the first and the third way. We answer
it first by simply stating without going into details that obviously there are differences among
the arguments that zeroes-in to the principles of 1) Acts and Potencies, 2) Causation, and 3)
Necessary and Contingent beings. The first way which explains why things undergo change is
different from the second way which explains why they exist at all. The third way which talks
about the nature of contingent beings and that there should exist a necessary being is just another
topic different from the first two. It is not however surprising how Dawkins singled them out as

5
TOMMASO, L’ente e l’essenza, 4, 38 ((trad.it. a cura di P. PORRO, Città Nuova, Roma 2000).

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“different ways of saying the same thing” when he bracketed these important details and thereby
focused on his analysis, limiting his scope only to the ‘impossibility of infinite regress’.

The result was a tragic summarization of the contents into his own limited understanding
of the following ideas, and worse arguing against something which was not mentioned in the
first place by Aquinas. For example, he restated the second way by saying that «nothing is
caused by itself. Every effect has a prior cause, and again we are pushed back into regress. This
has to be terminated by a first cause, which we call God6».

First thing, Dawkins was not careful enough not noticing that Aquinas did not say
‘everything’ has a prior effect. That single detail itself makes the biologist’s argument void. The
tendency of identifying everything to have a prior cause, or at least try to apply the same
characteristic to all the realities, will eventually lead to having God unexempted from the chain
of finite causes and effects. This is of course impossible—brought by an error of
understanding—about how Aquinas presented his argument as was explained earlier above. He
forgot—or simply failed to admit—the difference between the Primary Cause and the secondary
causes. It might have served him better if he would have written first a treatise against the
Aristotelian metaphysical concepts, how they are not possible, before criticizing Aquinas’ proof.

Next would be his idea of a God-terminator. It fascinates me how Dawkins interpreted

the origin of finite realities as simple as a terminator! The sound of how he used the term, it
seems to me, is not so much of a being that explains the existence of everything as just somebody
that exist as a ‘stopper’. If this is what he meant God to be, then his argument is nothing but
bizarre and far-fetched. Adding finite examples to justify his claim just pushed his arguments
even further from that of Aquinas’s. The idea of Aquinas’ first cause presents God in the end of
the first three ways as that which initiates and sustains the existence of everything else.
Obviously, his allegiance with naturalism as an ideology blinded him of the realities that
transcends mere scientific evidence. This is very evident during his debates made available by
different content creators in YouTube. «Scientific methods are the appropriate methods7» was

6
R. DAWKINS, The God delusion, Houghton MIfflin Company, Boston-New York 2006, 100.
7
FIXED POINT FOUNDATION, Richard Dawkins vs John Lennox, The God Delusion Debate, (October 3, 2007,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF5bPI92-5o ) 37:14.

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his usual response to some of the questions that he would be asked in return. Now that is what
we call ‘faith’ in Science!

THE DAWKINS CONFUSION

Dawkins, in his confused ‘beliefs’, goes beyond what he argues with to a totally
different topic. He continued saying that:

Even if we allow the dubious luxury of arbitrarily conjuring up a terminator to an infinite

regress and giving it a name, simply because we need one, there is absolutely no reason to
endow that terminator with any of the properties normally ascribed to God: omnipotence,
omniscience, goodness, creativity of design, to say nothing of such human attributes as
listening to prayers, forgiving sins and reading innermost thoughts8.

This time, he poses another seeming ‘delusion’, invoking the very same argument of L.
Feuerbach about humans projecting to God the qualities that in themselves are nothing but
human9, which means we are talking of a man-made god not far from those of Zeus and Poseidon
of the Greek mythologies.

It is right to say that these attributes were not simply attributed to God without any
reference to the reality around us. Nevertheless, it does not mean that God is but only a
projection of these realities. Aquinas’ method, rising from the effects to its cause, used in his
‘five ways’ can also be of help to understand how we are able to come up with, to name some
few, an Omnipotent and Omniscient God. It is basically by these effects that are immediate to
us that we can point out to a being that possesses these attributes in their perfection. There is no
need to go into details what these attributes mean when talking about the nature of God. I believe
it is enough to attribute to God the perfection these attributes possess inasmuch as He is
considered as the pure Esse, i.e., Pure Act, which holds all the perfections possible. Within these

8
R. DAWKINS, The God delusion, 100.
9
Cfr A. ALESSI, Sui sentieri del sacro, Introduzione alla filosofia della religione, Biblioteca di Scienze Religiose
– 135, Libreria Ateneo Salesiano, Roma 20163, 85-86.

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perfections flow also an identity that is very close to ours: Persona. Aquinas in the Summa
Theologiae speaks of God as Person in its fullness:

‘Person’ signifies that which is most perfect in all of nature, viz., that which subsists in a
rational nature. Hence, since everything that involves perfection should be attributed to God—
given that His essence contains within itself every perfection—it follows that the name ‘person’
is appropriately said of God. However, it is not said of God in the same way in which it is said
of creatures; rather, it is said of God in a more excellent way—just like the other names which,
having been imposed by us on creatures, are attributed to God10.

E. Feser in his book Five Proofs of the Existence of God distinguishes these analogies of
attribution between the Primary analogate, proper only to God, and the secondary analogates
which belongs to those whose causal power are derived from the primary11. In this case, our
being a person, human person, with the rationality that specifies our essence, can be considered
as a secondary analogate in relation to that of the ‘Person’ of God as the primary analogate. In
a word, our being a human person is a shared essence to that of God which possesses it in its
fullest sense. We are again reintroduced to the hierarchy of beings which was earlier mentioned
regarding the relationship of the primary cause and the secondary causes.

Dawkins also argued some seeming inconsistencies as regards the compatibility of an

omniscient God who is at the same time omnipotent.

Incidentally, it has not escaped the notice of logicians that omniscience and omnipotence are
mutually incompatible. If God is omniscient, he must already know how he is going to
intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. But that means he can’t
change his mind about his intervention, which means he is not omnipotent. Karen Owens has
captured this witty little paradox in equally engaging verse: ‘Can omniscient God, who/Knows
the future, find/The omnipotence to/Change His future mind?’12.

First, the context of the argument is not clear enough to present the said inconsistency.
It only says that God can only be omnipotent if he would have the power to intervene and change
the course of the history. For whatever reason God would have to change the course of history
was left vague. Nevertheless, the argument just failed to present what God’s omniscience means.
Being omniscient means that God knows everything. ‘Everything’ here means all the truths in

10
THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa Theologiae I, q. 29, a. 3.
11
Cfr E. FESER, Five Proofs of the Existence of God, Ignatius Press, San Francisco 2017, 230.
12
R. DAWKINS, The God delusion, 100.

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the present and the possible truths that would be. In the argument above, there is only ‘one
possible truth’ presented (assuming that “the course of history” entails a one way determined
course) of which God is being tested to intervene. In this case, the argument does not in any way
put to risk his omnipotence.

But let us say for example the context is to change something in our future to make it
better. Or perhaps God’s omnipotence is merely being challenged if he could prevent or change
something in the future. Why would God even change something which is ‘not yet’ but only
mere propositional truths or possibilities? The argument just does not make any progress.

CONCLUSION: «QUAM OMNES DEUM NOMINANT13»

In the last part of each of the arguments, Aquinas would always refer to God as the
ultimate reality that explains why everything exists in the first place. Nevertheless, there were
attempts to change the idea of God, reducing the primary cause to a mere secondary cause
among other similar causes. In this case, to invoke the presence of a deity to explain the
impossibility of regress just do not make sense. Of course, naturalists would invoke ‘The Big-
Bang Theory’—which opens to another problem—while some skeptics would just abstain from
giving answers. Pope emeritus Benedict XVI expressed this dilemma perfectly in his book Jesus
of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration:

The issue, then, is the one we have already encountered: God has to submit to experiment. He
is “tested,” just as products are tested. He must submit to the conditions that we say are
necessary if we are to reach certainty […]. The arrogance that would make God an object and
impose our laboratory conditions upon him is incapable of finding him. For it already implies
that we deny God as God by placing ourselves above him, by discarding the whole dimension
of love, of interior listening; by no longer acknowledging as real anything but what we can
experimentally test and grasp. To think like that is to make oneself God. And to do that is to
abase not only God, but the world and oneself, too14.

The Five ways of the proof of God’s Existence, though obviously do not resort to any
other knowledge apart from our common experiences plus reason, is just one part basically of a
huge opus that comprise the theistic mentality of the author. After all, the Summa Theologiae

13
THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa Theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3.
14
J. RATZINGER, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration, Doubleday, trans.
from German by Adrian J. Walker, New York 2007, 37.

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was written not as an apologetic book in substance but as a theology handbook, within the
medieval context15. Nevertheless, the weight of each of the arguments have seen to be very
effective for they do not part from the idea of God but that it should be discovered at the end of
the argument, from empirical realities—the immediate realities around us—to ontological
truths.

Is it possible that a person who doesn’t believe in the existence of God would come up
with the idea of a God at the end of these five ways? I believe we all have our notions of God
in one way or another. The Five ways of Thomas Aquinas are not only to prove that God exist
but also to correct the notion that we have had to a notion that is reasonable. Thomas Aquinas
presented a notion of God that fits into these realities that we all experience in our daily lives.
That the presence of God as the ultimate explanation of everything cannot not be considered
necessary is something fitting to address the humongous reality—seen or unseen—that
surrounds us.

15
Cfr E. FESER, Aquinas: Beginner’s guide, Oneworld Publications, London 2019, 63.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMARY SOURCES

DAWKINS, Richard, The God delusion, Houghton MIfflin Company, Boston-New York 2006.

THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa Theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3, co (english trans. FREDDOSO, Alfred, updated

10 January 2018, https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/TOC.htm ).

SECONDARY SOURCES

ALESSI, Adriano Sui sentieri del sacro, Introduzione alla filosofia della religione, Biblioteca di
Scienze Religiose – 135, Libreria Ateneo Salesiano, Roma 20163.

CONGIUNTI, Lorella, Outlines of Philosophy of Nature, english trans. OKELLO Stephen,

Urbaniana University Press, Roma 20162.

FESER, Edward, Aquinas: Beginner’s guide, Oneworld Publications, London 2019.

FESER, Edward, Five Proofs of the Existence of God, Ignatius Press, San Francisco 2017.

FESER, Edward, Scholastic Metaphysics, A Contemporary Introduction, editiones scholasticae,

Volume 39, CPI buchbiicher.de, Stuttgart 2014.

FIXED POINT FOUNDATION, Richard Dawkins vs John Lennox, The God Delusion Debate,
(October 3, 2007, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF5bPI92-5o).

RATZINGER, Joseph, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration,
trans. from German by Adrian J. Walker, Doubleday, New York 2007.

TOMMASO, L’ente e l’essenza, (trad.it. a cura di P. PORRO, Città Nuova, Roma 2000).

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