Logic and Mystery in the Quarta Via of St. Thomas

LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE QUARTA VIA OF ST. THOMAS IT may seem that the demonstration of the existence of God has been treated so often that very little remains to be exposed by students of natural theology. By the very fact that these arguments lie in the realm of demonstration we recognize that every normal adult using his power of reason can discover, in one way or another, the necessity of God in the universe, In general, the words of St. Paul to his Greek converts, " The invisible things of God are made known to us through the created universe," 1 can be admitted by all. Though granting this unquestionably, we must concede that the formal logical process for the complete demonstration is beyond the ability of many ·people untrained in logic and philosophy. The five demonstrations employed by St. Thomas to reach a first mover, necessary being, first efficient cause, absolute maximum perfection, and first intellect or designer of the universe are powerful accomplishments in the fields of logic, philosophy of nature, and metaphysics yet to be surpassed by the philosophers of any era. St. Thomas was gifted with a mind that seemed to have no difficulty in grasping clearly the relation of the proper to the common, the specific to the generic, the single aspect to the whole. He was able to reconcile extremes and contraries within what is common or total. He resolved those problems which for more limited minds constituted paradoxes and seeming contradictions because he knew how to distinguish, analyze, compare, identify and unite better than most minds. Above all he recognized and admitted where mystery enters, marking the boundary line for mere reason. There is a medieval saying, "Omnia exeunt mysterium,"all things pass into mystery,-which seems to have been given more consideration by St. Thomas and many of his contem1 Romans 1: !tO. LOGIC AND MYSTERY IN THE" QUARTA VIA" OF ST. THOMAS 23 pora:ries than it has by most modern and contemporary philosophers . It is actually the quasi-mysterious thing that leads us on towards the more complete mystery-somewhat as the partial leads to the whole, and the limited to the unlimited. It is a fact that the intellect would not even begin to search logically or analogically for the completely mysterious cause of the universe unless it had first perceived a relationship (afterwards discovered to be necessary) between some mysterious phenomena in the universe of nature and this unknown Principle . Surely no one is so rash as to claim that he thoroughly and clearly understands such naturally mysterious phenomena as movement (as yet undefined essentially by either science or philosophy), derived or participated being, secondary efficient causes, essentially diversified transcendental perfections, and the ordering to ends found in finite beings. H anyone makes such a daim he is either so nai:ve as to be " skirting around " the question or incapable of catching the mysterious elements which have baffied great minds for centuries. Josef Pieper has recently emphasized the fact that the beginning of philosophy lies in man's ability to find wonder, " to marvel at " mysterious reality, so glibly taken for granted by the superficial minded. He points out that the capacity to wonder is one of man's greatest gifts and he deplores the fact that modem philosophy has substituted doubt for the normal movement of wonder.2 "Wonder signifies that the world is profounder, more all-embracing and mysterious than the logic of everyday reason had taught us to believe. The innermost meaning of wonder is fulfilled in a deepened sense of mystery. It does not end in doubt, but is the awakening of the knowledge that being qua being is mysterious and inconceivable, and that it is a mystery in the full sense of the word." 3 Peiper goes on to show that in the state of wonder one is not in a state of resigned ignorance, but searching for truth and on the way to it. One does not know fully or conceive satisfactorily some truths because, as St. Thomas reminds us, " the cause of our • Josef Pieper, Leisure, The Basis of Culture (New York, 195~), p. 133. • Ibid., p. 135. SISTER...