Thomas Joseph White #8: The Fourth Way (I, 2, 3) 

Thank you Father. I believe you’re generating this commentary extemporaneously which highlights your understanding of Aquina’s thinking. I commend you. I imagine it s as it s 1270 AD and Aquinas is talking to me on RU-vid. I understand the argument in a way. If there s any scale, less or more, faster or slower, then, there presupposes a maximum more, a maximum speed, etc. Now, we can say being is also set up in this way as a fly is less ordered in life as a dog and a human is more ordered in life to a dog. Therefore, there is a maximumly existing Being, and we call this God (my paraphrasing). Out of the 5 ways, this seems the most Neo-Platonic whereas the others are mostly Aristotelian. I do love Platonic philosophy like St. Augustine. However, in reflecting on this argument, how do we know our thinking is not the creator of the scale? Why must a transcendental Being necessarily follow, in other words? Moreover, how do all the transcendentals such as Beauty, Truth, Unity converge into one Being and not stay in separate categories, for example, could a well unified horse be compared to a well unified intellect or a beautiful house compare to a beautiful piece of poetry? Thanks for your the very good presentation.

Thank you. Last part more hermetic tradition than fourth way. The principle of scale is so important to comprehend ourselves.