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AN ARGUMENT FOR AN UNCAUSED CAUSE JOHN R. T. LAMONT Dominican College of Philosophy and Theology Ottawa, Canada I ST. THOMAS AQUINAS offers five arguments for God's existence in his Summa Theologiae, arguments that he referred to as five "ways." In Three Philosophers, Peter Geach gives an account of them: If we now consider the " five ways" in detail, we shall see that four of them quite clearly depend on the legitimacy of that lumping-together of things by which one would pass from particular things to the world as a whole. The first " two ways " differ only in that one relates to processes of change and the other to things' coming to be: the further argument is quite parallel in each case. If B is the cause of a process going on in A, or of A's coming to be, then it may be that this happens because of a process in B that is caused by a further thing C; and C in turn may act because of a process in B that is caused by a further thing C; and C in turn may act because of a process in C caused by D; and so on. But now let us lump together the chain of things B, C, D, .. ., and call it X. We may predicate of each one of the causes B, C, D, .. ., and also of X as a whole, that it causes a process in A (or the coming-to-be of A) in virtue of being itself in process of change. But what is it that maintains this process of change in X? Something that cannot itself be in process of change; for if it were, it would just be one of the things in process of change that causes the process in A (or the coming-to-be of A) ; i.e. would after all be just part of the changeable system of causes we called X, and not the cause of the process in X. Thus we are led to a changeless cause of the change and coming-to-be in the world.... The number of items in X is irrelevant ; and the changeless cause is introduced as the cause of the change in the whole system X, not as the last link in a chain, directly related only to the last link but one.1 1 G. E. M. Anscombe and P. T. Geach, Three Philosophers (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1961), 113-114. 261 262 JOHN R. T. LAMONT As Patterson Brown points out in his paper " Infinite Causal Regression," 2 Geach's version of Aquinas rests upon an argument from composition. Patterson Brown does not think that this is actually the argument that Aquinas gives, nor does he think that the argument succeeds. I do not know if he is right about what Aquinas actually thought. I do think that the argument given by Geach can be successfully defended, given a few modifications and explanations. (For simplicity's sake, I will refer to Geach's version of Aquinas's argument as "Aquinas's argument ," despite any uncertainty about whether Geach has been faithful to Aquinas's views.) II Arguments from composition are arguments that argue from the parts of a whole having a certain property to the whole itself having that property. Examples would be: -Every part of the fence is made of wood. -Therefore, the fence is made of wood. -Every tile in the floor is green. - Therefore, the floor is green. -Each brick in the wall weighs 1 kg. -Therefore, the wall weighs 1 kg. -Every member of the human race has a mother. -Therefore, the human race has a mother. I want, following Geach, to present Aquinas's second way as a successful argument from composition. The second way argues for the existence of an uncaused cause. I would state it as follows : i. There are effects. 11. To be an effect is to have a cause. 111. Nothing can cause itself. 2 The Philosophical Review 75 (1966): 510-525. Reprinted in Aquinas, A. Kenny, ed. (New York: Anchor Books, 1969), 214-236. AN ARGUMENT FOR AN UNCAUSED CAUSE 263 iv. Premise (i) states...

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