Lesson 11 – Can One Statement Be More True Than Another? How?
Can one statement be more true than another? Can things be more or less noble, or more or less good? And what does that have to do with proving the existence of God?
In the previous episode of Aquinas 101, we reviewed the 7 easy steps of St. Thomas’s 4th Way to prove the existence of God. We examined why we should think that step (1) is certainly true - why if some property is found to exist in different things in greater or lesser degree, then there must be some maximal degree of that property.
In today’s episode, we shall look at step (2) — “the properties of being good, true, noble, etc. are all found in different things to a greater or lesser degree” — and see why we should think that it is true.
Excerpt from the Summa Theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3:
The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But "more" and "less" are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.
Course Listening
More Videos
The Fourth Way and How it Works: Proving the Existence of God | Fr. Ambrose Little, O.P.
Does God Exist? | Prof. Michael Gorman
Related videos from earlier in the series
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