Naturordnung als Quelle der Gotteserkenntnis: Neubegrundung des telologischen Gottesbeweises by Georg Siegmund (review)

BOOK REVIEWS Naturordnung als Quelle der Gotteserkenntnis: Neubegrundung des telologischen Gottesbeweises. By GEORG SIEGMUND. Fulda, Germany: Verlag Parzeller and Co., 3rd Edition, 1965, 4~~ pp. This study is based on extensive biological research, undertaken by the author in the twenties. The book witnesses indeed to solid biological knowledge. It may conveniently be divided into three parts. In a first historical section, which runs from p. ~3 top. 169, the importance attached by the main philosophers to the teleological argument (and to teleology in nature) is discussed. A second section is a study on teleology as found in living beings. A third section (pp. 316-4~~) is purely philosophical in nature: it presents the teleological argument as well as some inferences from it and a refutation of some contrary positions. It follows from the above that the book is extremely wide in scope :and covers much material: the author shows an enviable acquaintance with the history of philosophy, biology and ontology. Generally speaking he seems to this reviewer to have succeeded in establishing his point, viz. the teleological argument of the existence of God. The book is well written, very clear and stimulating. As one would expect, on points of detail some criticisms must be voiced. It is certainly not true that Homeric man did not reach the level of self-decision (p. ~7): Athena repeatedly suggests a course of action to Odysseus," if he wishes himself."-' Kosmos' may originally have signified 'frame,' 'battle array,' rather than decoration (p. ~9). In the pages consecrated to Aristotle one misses a study of the place of chance and failure in Aristotle's physics. The mentality which led to cosmic religion is hardly discussed. The author should have mentioned (and quoted) the very important book by Festugiere La revelation d'Hermes trismeqiste: Le Dieu cosmique, where the history of the cosmological argument is traced. (The author almost exclusively used German works; he does not mention Simpson nor R. Ruyer's Neo-finalisme.) We read on p. 53 a quotation from J. Hirschberger to the effect that the empirical world lies wholly outside St. Thomas Aquinas' interest. In its obvious sense this statement is sheer nonsense as every student of St. Thomas knows. The author remains unaware of a certain contradiction on these pages: with Steinblichel he assumes that Thomas should have 198 BOOK REVIEWS 199 verified that there is finality on every level of being in nature, but shortly afterwards he quotes Hirschberger to the effect that finality is a metaphysical principle. If so, verification in all instances is clearly unnecessary. What Siegmund writes on p. 55 (the mutual connection of things and their sharing in a common order is outside their nature) , is true in one sense, but one may also maintain that the mutual connection of things is because of their natural capacity and desire of such an order. We read on p. 57 that the fourth argument of St. Thomas for the existence of God has no validity insofar as it is based upon the transcendentalia. The author writes this because he did not understand that by ' verum ' St. Thomas here means the so-called 'veritas ontologica causalis,' i.e., the intelligibility of things. Siegmund overlooks the fact that we do find varying degrees of intelligibility in the world, which ask for an explanation. He unduly constructs an opposition between the teleological argument of the Summa contra gentes and the Summa theologica. The author is rather pessimistic on pp. 91 ff. concerning the future of the cosmos which would go towards "grosstmoglichen, vollstiindigen Unordnung." This insight becomes the basis for a following assertion, viz. that a teleological argument is only possible starting from living organisms. The present reviewer is ready to concede that teleology appears most clearly in living beings, yet he feels that there is a much greater unity and cooperation between the anorganic world and life than Siegmund is prepared to admit. Siegmund is right with his assertion insofar as finality appears to require a certain duality of things at different levels, as, for instance, of different functions in the same animal, of an organ and its object, an animal and its environment. If there would be no living...