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The Aristotelian Proof Revisited: A Reflection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2024

Tyler McNabb Open the ORCID record for Tyler McNabb [Opens in a new window]
Tyler McNabb*
Affiliation:
Franciscan Studies, Theology, and Applied Ethics, Saint Francis University, Loretto, PA, USA
*
Email: Tylerdaltonmcnabb@gmail.com
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Abstract

McNabb and DeVito have recently argued that Graham Oppy’s objections to the First Way are found wanting. In response, McNabb and DeVito restructured the First Way on behalf of St Thomas. More recently, Joseph Schmid and Daniel Linford argue that the restructured argument given by McNabb and DeVito is problematic, claiming that it is either valid but unmotivated or it is plainly invalid. In this paper, I argue that McNabb and DeVito’s schematic glossing of the First Way is both valid and motivated.

Keywords

AristotleFeserOppypure actthe First Wayunmoved mover
Type
Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 105 , Issue 2 , March 2024 , pp. 144 - 152
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Copyright
© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers.

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References

1 Graham Oppy, Arguing about Gods (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 103.

2 Ibid.

3 Summa Theogica, 1.2.3, trl. Fathers of the English Dominican Province.

4 Summa Contra Gentiles, 1. 13.3, trl. Pegis.

5 Tyler McNabb and Michael DeVito, ‘Has Oppy Done Away with the Aristotelian Proof?’, Heythrop Journal, 61:5 (2020), 7–8. <https://doi.org/10.1111/heyj.13604>.

6 Quoted above, footnote 4.

7 McNabb and DeVito, ‘Has Oppy Done Away with the Aristotelian Proof?’, 2–3.

8 Joseph Schmid and Daniel Linford, Existential Inertia and Classical Theistic Proofs (New York: Springer, 2022), p. 19.

9 Ibid., p. 22.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid., p. 28.

13 Ibid., p. 29.

14 Ibid., p. 21.

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

17 Gaven Kerr, Aquinas’s Way to God: The Proof in De Ente et Essentia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 147.

18 See chapter 7 of Schmid and Linford, Existential Inertia and Classical Theistic Proofs.

19 See Alexander Pruss, The Principle of Sufficient Reason: A Reassessment (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009–2010).

20 Thanks to Gaven Kerr for making this point to me.

21 Schmid and Linford, Existential Inertia and Classical Theistic Proofs, p. 247.

22 See, for example, Tyler Dalton McNabb and Erik Baldwin, Classical Theism and Buddhism: Connecting Metaphysical and Ethical Systems (London: Bloomsbury, 2022).

23 Psudeo-Dionysius: The Complete Works, trans. by Colm Luibheid (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1987).

24 Schmid and Linford, Existential Inertia and Classical Theistic Proofs, p. 249.

25 Graham Oppy, ‘On Stage One of Feser’s Aristotelian Proof’, Religious Studies, 57:3 (2021), pp. 491–502. <https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412519000568>.

26 McNabb and DeVito, ‘Has Oppy Done Away with the Aristotelian Proof?’, 7–8.

27 Ibid.

28 Schmid and Linford, Existential Inertia and Classical Theistic Proofs, pp. 211–12.

29 Ibid.

30 Ibid.

31 Keith Campbell, ‘The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 6 (1981), 477–88.