E012 Why Does Truth Depend Upon Being in St. Thomas' Fourth Way?

Lesson 12 - Why Does Truth Depend Upon Being in St. Thomas' Fourth Way?

In the past few episodes of Aquinas 101, we have been examining the 7 steps of St. Thomas’s 4th Way for proving the existence of God. In the previous episode, we saw how it is that truth can come in degrees of more or less in step (2). Steps (1) and (2) naturally show the truth of step (3): there must be some instance where the properties of being good, true, noble, etc. are all found to a maximal degree. In today’s episode, we shall look at step (4): If there is something that is maximally true, then there is something that is maximally being.

Course Reading

Excerpt from A Companion to the Summa | Walter Farrell, O.P.

Summa Theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3 | St. Thomas Aquinas

Excerpt from the Summa Theologiae I, q. 2, a. 3:

The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But "more" and "less" are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.