I've been reading Edward Feser's Beginner's Guide to Aquinas, and the use of final causality to critique materialistic, mechanistic science has been fascinating! Deny teleology, and you make efficient causes (which is all materialistic science wants to acknowledge) unintelligible. It's an interesting argument. Glad to discover more of Aquinas's thought!
Thank you so much for this course. I am doing it from Kenya. always wanted to read st. Thomas but the language and volumes of Coplestone I would have had to go through daunted me. this is way easier for me. praying for your good work.
Wow! We are most fulfilled, when we are pulled or heading towards our purpose. Gives new meaning to going with the flow and trusting in the universe or God, which are one and the same for me. Thank you!
"God could not keep, as it were, the secret of His Love - and the telling of it was Creation. Love overflowed. Eternity moved and said to time: “Begin.” Omnipotence moved and said to nothingness: “Be.” Light moved and said to darkness: “Be light.” Out from the fingertips of God there tumbled planets and worlds." -Ven. Archbishop Fulton Sheen The universe is a product of God's love!
Here is a philosophical critique of the video on teleology and some alternative perspectives: The video presents teleology - the explanation of phenomena by their purpose, ends, or goals - as a sound philosophical principle. However, this viewpoint can be challenged. First, relying on teleological explanations makes assumptions about inherent purpose in nature that go beyond what can be empirically verified. Causation based on physical laws provides an alternate means of explaining phenomena without invoking unobservable purpose. Second, the anthropic projection of human goals, intentions, and values onto nature is considered a problematic philosophical approach by many modern perspectives. Natural phenomena can be explained without framing them in terms of goals or intention. Third, the view of a cosmic hierarchy with lower ends serving higher ones risks justifying social and political inequalities as part of a "natural order." Alternative philosophies emphasize justice, equality, and critique of power structures. Instead of teleological explanations, philosophies of science provide alternatives like: - Mechanism - explanations based on laws, forces, and physical causation - Instrumentalism - theories judged by predictive success, not claims about reality - Emergentism - complex wholes emerging from simpler interactions Rather than deriving purpose from assumed ontological principles, these perspectives build explanations from observed evidence and predictive power. The validity of teleological explanations in philosophy remains contested.
Do you denie there are functions and aims in natural processes? Why do some atoms build grids or christals or cells? Organisms has instincts, needs, desires. Intentionaltity don't begin with selfconscious animals like men. If every perception is intentional, and that means, pointing to an aim. You accept emergentism? Right. Isn't there a long emergent chain from the begining of the first nukleosynthesis to a work of art? And don't forget Nietzsche (maybe not the best philosophoer): there is a will in everything. Wereever there is order (amidst chaos), there is a trace of telos. Best of all, you don't need god, to argue. So I hope my philosophical point of view takes part in your contest. ;-)
I think the discerning person can sense that teleology leads naturally and smoothly to ethics. If things have an ordered purpose (e.g. teeth are for chewing food), then it would seem that the proper or "right" things to do are those acts that facilitate the purpose of "this or that" thing. This, though, is why the Postmodern Western world is at war with teleology. No teleology, no necessity to discover the ethical way of living.
In my very short and limited study of classical philosophy that im undertaking, it seems that formal and final cause are so closely related that one must tale care to distinguish the two. What i mean by this is that teleologically, it seems a match is for the purpose of making fire. Pertaining to its very essence, is the eminent causal power of creating fire (along with its other accidents), thus its Formal Cause as well. I suppose this will probably lead to the Teleological final cause being the cause of the formal cause, which acts on the matter to make it a match, which when put in "motion" to be stricken by an efficient cause (like me), creates the change of fire and that whole sequence (per se) cant be infinite. Am I in the ball park here? Sorta, kinda?
Well done. I wish the world could be more civil, and understand that order is all around us. Instead-- so many people default to not using the brain they've been given.
Gavin Meese pick up Edward Feser's book "Aquinas", he defends it there. He also has an article called "Between Aristotle and William Paley: Aquinas's Fifth Way"
The Summa Contra Gentiles is a little easier to read than the big Summa. I recommend "Book One: God." Chapters 47-55 explain how God is His intellect and how all the universe participates in His understanding. The chapters are short.
🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:22 🎯 Teleology, the idea that everything has an end or purpose, is crucial for understanding things. It's the "for the sake of which" something exists. 01:20 🌿 Teleology isn't limited to conscious intentions; even inanimate and natural things exhibit directedness or tendencies. For example, a match generates heat, a tree grows toward sunlight, and a stone resists being broken. 02:41 🌌 The order and intelligibility in the universe, as discovered by science, suggest an underlying purpose and direction. Aquinas believes this order ultimately comes from an intelligent source, which he calls God. 03:33 🌟 Things are most perfect when they fulfill their natural tendencies or ends. Understanding a thing's purpose helps determine what is good for it and leads to its flourishing. Made with HARPA AI
Excellent question: I think that it's something written into our experience of and inquiry into the world. We have difficulty imagining that something is for no purpose. We are naturally accustomed to ask "Why?" Final causality teleology is the phenomenon to which we are responding in this type of questioning.
strange philosophy: if i take a match and scrape off most of the flammable material, at what point is it "better" to become a better match, or a better *stick*? a stick is not a match, but a match with all the flammable material removed is definitely no longer a very good match, while it may be a very good small stick. therefore this idea of a 'fundamental' end for an object seems more ambiguous than not.
Erroneous thinking. You need to understand that it is our free will that constitutes “the end” of a thing. We can create, but not without God. Why? Because God is the first mover, and he is what has enabled us to create.
@@williammuk886 That's the point of his analogy. You're just making an assumption that "free will" exists and that it's "the end" of a thing. We can create, we create all the time, it's only an assumption and assertion that we can't create without god. We created god after all.
Hi!!! You probably would see this but anyway... Can you use teleology to argue the morals of an action? So if the match was creating fire, as it’s design to do, is the match morally good...? Furthermore, does teleology look at the consequences, so if the match set fire to a house, even though it’s doing what it’s meant it, is the match morally wrong now? Sorry if this doesn’t make sense, I’m clueless right now and trying to understand the difference between teleology and consequentialism!!!!
now, here is another perspective on said topic, what if the thing is a device and the device has many ends? we are no longer dealing in cooking over the bonfire anymore, fire provides heat.... but it also provides smoke, smell of wood burning, light, combustion?, also a place to sit around with friends and have a picnic while camping? my problem is that I can not make my choices effective because the means at my disposal, to reach my desired ends, are indirect.... meaning, if I want to buy food in order to feed myself, the money which I will need to buy food for myself, has to come from someone else who won't be eating the food. religion is a complex form of socialization, it is good for its evocative capacity, it can be counter productive for its provocative potential. therefore, it is necessary for someone like me, to ensure checks and balances. or else, the "group of wellwishers," had already resorted to propaganda and coercion. so they are in no way shape or form, a replacement for "supreme-being" or the "transcendental dimension of human spiritual pursuits." ... trust me I got this.. yes, I am familiar with thomistic philosophy from reading the canon of medicine
but you can also see that certain things don't need to have a purpose. when I scream "aaa beh la ableh", it has no purpose, it's just a gibberish. or certain things have many or even unlimited purposes. like, what's the purpose of water? drinkin' it? sure! but also: creating wetness, making rains and whole phenomenon of clouds, water makes oceans, it's crucial in many chemical things etc. etc. same goes for many many things in world so saying that we can understand/know the exact purpose of said thing is just unrealistic. especially that we're looking from just our perspective and our perceiving of "purpose"
There is some purpose to incoherent screaming, even if that purpose isn't clearly defined in our minds. It could be as basic as the desire to release some energy, or the enjoyment of employing one's capacity for incoherent screaming. Just because the purpose isn't consciously perceived doesn't mean it isn't there. Water has many purposes, but one that comes to mind is being flowy. It tries to flow, and works hard to maintain the properties needed to flow, albeit without any awareness that it is doing so. I think what throws us is that we have the ability to be aware of many of our purposes or designs, and this awareness becomes so coupled with them that tend to conflate the realities.
@@delsydebothom3544 Water flowing isn't purpose, it's a property that liquids have. Properties don't have purpose, they emerge from the very nature of the substance.
@@jameslay1489 Purpose is a tendency or inclination to act toward a certain end. That water acts toward the end of flowing is observable. I don't mean, of course, that water is aware of this. We are aware of our purposes because we are conscious and rational. Water isn't, so it acts towards its various ends without knowing that it does so. That doesn't, however, go any distance toward eliminating them.
@@delsydebothom3544 "Purpose is a tendency or inclination to act toward a certain end" which water doesn't have, it has properties it can take and transition between. Flowing isn't the end goal, it's just a property that water has. As for purpose for human being, people can't even agree on what purpose we have. There isn't any "Grand Purpose" that's apparent other than an anthropomorphic purposes we create ourselves. I can ask a dozen different people what our purpose is and I'll get almost a dozen different answers.
@@jameslay1489 It tends to have that property. It is consistent and predictable. That's the point. All things act consistently towards certain ends. It is what makes them intelligible and susceptible to being made the objects of study. Inanimate things are unaware of their desires, as are many animate things, like trees. More perceptive things, like dogs, *are* aware of many of their desires, but that awareness isn't what brings the desire into existence. The awareness is just that: the organism senses it's desire, and is therefore aware of it. Rational beings can differ in their judgements about how to attain our end (happiness), or in what that end formally consists, but the end itself isn't a point of difference. Rational creatures act for their own happiness. Our success in that regard is unreliable, but that does nothing to cast doubt on the end itself.
interesting concept. I am agnostic but my father who is a Christian often denies science concepts like evolution or medicine because of his beliefs. But I always try to tell him that science and faith can be close together. Science is agnostic, it can't prove that God exists, but it also can not prove that it DOESN'T exist neither. So You can be a person of science and faith without any kind of contradiction between your beliefs in God and the truth you look at in the world.
so.... since its all about finding the purpose of something, why is it so hard for people to relate it to God? isnt it the easiest and most logical conclusion?
But the downside of applying teleology on any situations in our lives even in small things, anything/anybody will easily fail only because its value is only tested from its purpose.
*If we only had an educational system that prepares the individual to attain their end* ... And I'm not talking about mere 'citizenship', 'public service' or a 'profession'.
Good morning! It is Plato who gives the example of the carpenter giving expression to the form of the table. Forms are eternal. No one makes them. Philosophers have access to the forms and the greatest happiness for them is to dwell in the world of forms. Carpenter imitates the form and imposes it on a piece of wood. You will find these ideas in Book Ten of the Republic. Exact reference Republic 596a-597d. Thank you. Have a nice day. Dear father I am teaching philosophy. Please realize that most of the teachings of St Aquinas is repetition of plato and Aristotle. However I appreciate you. Fortunately I studied in Angelicum in 1992-93.
I don't believe in the big bang because the question is : where was the big bang? In order for the big bang to happen it must be somewhere. Then where ?
Thomas Aquinas lived in the 1200s A.D. He subscribed to the Nicene Creed and tried to apply logic to the false Neoplatonic premises of the time, derivative of Gnosticism, which itself is a mixture of Christianity and Babylonian Semiramis/Damu worship. This false line of thinking has metastasized into all Protestant and Catholic churches. His mental gymnastics are way off in left field and solve nothing. His circular logic fails to explain why Jesus in Luke 19:40 said the very rocks would cry out. In fact, all things were made spiritually before they were made temporally, and they all obey God. If Thomas Aquinas was placed into a primitive (30-100 a.d.) Christian worship service, which featured a simple sacrament and stories of Jesus, he would not recognize it.
I was going to share this series of videos with my family but now that you've supported evolutionism, nope. Actually after having lost my job as a biochemist because of evolutionism, I didn't expect to find a Church prostituting itself with the God of atheists; I mean, that's new in salvation history. I think I'm just going to go back to science and forget the Church.
