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A FEW REFLECTIONS ON "THE THIRD WAY: ENCORE" AITS TITLE INDICATES, Professor Theodore Kondoleon 's recent article, "The Third Way: Encore," ventures still another look at a proof for God that has worried minds for nearly sixty years.1 In leveling strictures on opinions that, on his showing, inadequately justify the passage from each possible to all possibles, he does this writer the honor of evaluating a solution published in this journal a few years back.2 In spite of the acuity and learning Professor Kondoleon brings to his task, I must reluctantly disagree with some main claims of his probing and stimulating essay. First, his dismissal of the prima facie illogicality of the first part stems from a failure to appreciate Aquinas's contrary-to-fact strategy. Second, he misreads one part of my case and inaccurately brands another part scientifically obsolete. Third, inflation of primary matter into something necessary mars his rethinking of the first part. Fourth, his reconstruction of the second part turns the third way into an exceptionable piece of reasoning.3 1. Kondoleon's attempt to spare Aquinas from an indictment of false generalization is nullified by disregard of the counterfactual texture of the argumentation. Again, his reworking of the argument is undercut by an analogy aimed at buttressing it. (i) Some who put down the passage from each possible to all possibles as fallacious, Kondoleon tells us, maintain that the illicit inference B (I) to B (3) has hidden within it another 1 Theodore Kondoleon, "The Third Way: Encore," The Thomist, 44 (1980), pp. 325-856; henceforth cited as K. 2 John M. Quinn, 0.S.A. "The Third Way to God: A New Approach," The Thomist, 42 (1978), pp. 50-68; henceforth cited as Q. 3 Because this short reply cannot do justice to all the nuances concerned, may I ask the discerning reader to weigh textual and other evidences in my earlier article against Kondoleon's reshaping of the third way so as to assay the competing claims? 75 76 JOHN M. QUINN, O.S.A. premise, B (2): "B. (1) Each thing possible not to be at some time is not. (~) Therefore, all things possible not to be at some time are not (missing premise). (3) Consequently, if all things are possible not to be, at some time in the past nothing existed " (K, p. 329). But, says Kondoleon, Aquinas would not condone the insertion of B (2) " because he was philosophically prepared to allow that beings possible not to be could, as a class, continue in existence indefinitely provided that not all beings are possible not to be" (K, p. 329; his italics) . However , this observation seems wide 0£ the mark. Here Aquinas is relying on contrary-to-fact argument, i.e., ascertaining the existence of some necessary being by showing the absurdity entailed by a world made up of possibles alone.4 Since the text does not so much as allude to physical factors bridging the gap between cessation of one possible and that of all possibles and since logical critics of our day are hardly versed in equivocal causality, it is understandable why this bare inference, otherwise unvindicated, invites the charge 0£ faulty generalization. His like criticism of a refinement of B (2) encounters a like pitfall. To be in accord with B (3) , Kondoleon further remarks, exponents of B should make B (2) read B (2') : "All things possible not to be at some time in the past are not" (K, p. 330, his italics). But, he goes on, it is "abundantly clear" that the interpolation of the italicized words is without ground, for " St. Thomas admits the existence, even now, of beings possible to be" (K, p. 330; his italics) . Yet what is crucial is not that Aquinas never denied the present existence of possibles but that his certifying of such actual possibles serves to expose the falsity of the view that only possibles exist in the universe. In other words, Aquinas puts his reference to the total cessation 4 The text in Sum. theol., 1, ~' 3 goes: "It is impossible ... that all beings be such [i.e., physical possibles]: because what is a possible able...

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