The Fourth Demonstration of God‘s Existence, or How to Make God out of Grammatical Form Cover Image

Ketvirtasis Dievo Buvimo Įrodymas, Arba Kaip Iš Gramatinės Formos Padaromas Dievas
The Fourth Demonstration of God‘s Existence, or How to Make God out of Grammatical Form

Author(s): Gintautas Vyšniauskas
Subject(s): Metaphysics, Philosophy of Middle Ages, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy of Language
Published by: Visuomeninė organizacija »LOGOS«
Keywords: the fourth way; gradation; grammar; cause; God; Aquinas;

Summary/Abstract: Considering the fourth way of proving God’s existence as it is presented by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae, the author of the article finds that the core of its argumentation is this: there are positive, comparative and superlative degrees of properties seen in things, and the superlative are the causes of being of comparatives and positives; therefore must be an unseen ultimate superlative which is the cause of being of all superlatives; and that super-superlative is God. So the argument starts from grammatical degrees, reduces all superlatives into metaphysical one, announces it the cause of all lesser degrees and calls it God. Therefore the author of the article concludes that the fourth way makes God out of grammatical form of qualitative adjective using dubious metaphysical speculations concerning causes. Moreover neither things nor God are necessary to the proof: things – because they are directly related to degrees; God – because he is arbitrarily appended to it: God can be easily substituted there by anything else, say the singularity point. Since the basis of the argument is grammatical form and the driving force is metaphysical reasoning, the fourth way can be regarded not only as failed instruction how to make God out of grammar but also as an ancient germ of postmodern grammatology.

  • Issue Year: 2010
  • Issue No: 63
  • Page Range: 80-87
  • Page Count: 8
  • Language: Lithuanian