Is Aquinas’s De Ente Just Another Contingency Argument?

Not quite. More like its weird but brilliant cousin.

Of course, in a broad sense, Aquinas’s De Ente argument (for the existence of God) falls within the family of contingency arguments, insofar as it effectively argues from something that is possibly non-existent (which is to say, contingent) to something that is not possibly non-existent but rather necessary. There is, however, much more to this story, so let’s begin to tell it.

Often—but not always, since there are many variations—contingency arguments seek an explanation for the totality or conjunction of contingent facts. A contingent fact is just some state of affairs that could have been otherwise or not at all. The basic idea is that the totality of contingent facts, in order to be adequately explained, must be the result of some necessary fact. Obviously, the engine behind contingency arguments of this sort is some version (or other) of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR), which broadly claims that everything is intelligible—that everything has some adequate explanation for why it obtains. In application, then, PSR wraps around all contingent facts—whether finite or infinite—and, to avoid circularity, demands we seek explanation in some necessary fact.

The biggest hurdles for getting a contingency argument like this off the ground are: (1) defending some version of the PSR strong enough to actually cover all contingent facts; and related to that, (2) explaining why an infinite regress of contingent facts wouldn’t count as a sufficient explanation for why there’s anything contingent at all. (I think it clearly wouldn’t, since any one contingent thing already presupposes—and so cannot explain—the fact of contingency.) There’s also the concern of aggregation—that is, whether one can legitimately “smush” all contingent facts together and claim they are jointly caused by some necessary fact or facts. (For those interested, I say more about all of this in my book.) Finally, there’s the task—perhaps the most significant of all—of establishing why there is just one necessary fact, and why that necessary fact is God.

Now, I believe the contingency argument is powerful. But in many respects, it doesn’t go quite as deep as one can go in metaphysical matters. First off, it focuses on facts—but what is a fact, exactly? I take it that a fact represents some concrete state of affairs. And what is a concrete state of affairs? Well, it seems to be comprised of some actual being or collection of beings, along with the expression and interaction of their causal powers. In other words, facts depend on states of affairs, and states of affairs depend on actual beings. So we get this basic hierarchy:

Facts ← States of Affairs ← Actual Beings
(For example: It is a fact that Socrates is sitting ← the state of affairs that Socrates is sitting ← Socrates, a being with the power to sit)

Facts, then, are not the most fundamental kind of thing. Actual beings are.

OK, so this is where De Ente comes in.

Aquinas is clearly focused on actual beings—literally, their act of existence. In De Ente, and elsewhere, he does not begin with an argument for God but with a series of arguments aimed at establishing what’s called the real distinction between essence and existence. It’s important to note that Aquinas is operating within a particular metaphysical paradigm: a broadly Aristotelian and real essentialist framework. He also takes it that existence is a first-level property of concrete individuals—something individual things have, or better, participate in. Existence is that in virtue of which a thing has actuality, real presence in reality (can be counted, etc.).

Only after Aquinas believes he has established the real distinction does he venture the actual argument for God, which proceeds fairly quickly: anything whose essence does not entail its existence must be causally explained. Further, Aquinas situates this sort of causal relation as one of deep metaphysical dependence, and one that is necessarily terminating. That is, it must terminate in a primary (not necessarily temporally first) member that has the causal property in virtue of what it is. In this case, that would mean a being whose essence just is its existence—a being of pure actuality. Indeed, I think Aquinas’s approach actually makes establishing a primary cause (in a sense) easier, given his more fine-grained understanding of causality, his distinctions between types of causal series, and so on.

Anyway.

From there, because Aquinas holds to a thick theory of existence, he is able to conceptually derive the divine attributes from the notion of a being whose essence just is existence: radical uniqueness, ontological simplicity, omnipotence, omniscience, perfect goodness, etc. (Again, I make extensive use of Aquinas’s method in my book, for those interested in more detail.)

The advantages of Aquinas’s approach are several. First, it avoids the need for any sort of aggregation strategy—he doesn’t need to lump a bunch of contingent facts together and claim they are jointly caused. His argument can proceed from just one familiar particular. Second, Aquinas’s wider metaphysical system tells us more about the necessary being: why it is actually necessary (because its essence just is its existence), and why things that are contingent are contingent in the first place (because their essence is really distinct from their existence). And because of Aquinas’s underlying metaphysics, it becomes much easier—ultimately—to establish that this ontologically independent (and primary metaphysical) cause is God.

Of course, there are potential disadvantages, too. The most obvious is that De Ente doesn’t start from (somewhat) metaphysically neutral ground the way many contemporary contingency arguments try to. But I don’t really see that as a disadvantage, to be honest. The truth is, if one is going to get a contingency argument through—of any significant theistic or metaphysical interest—one will have to take on various (increasingly controversial) metaphysical commitments at some point or other. Aquinas, as is only proper, has already done his philosophy of nature and metaphysics, and his arguments for God are really just a natural outgrowth of his already well-developed system.

Naturally, more could be said about the differences between Aquinas’s approach to God and contemporary formulations of the contingency argument, but to highlight those differences would require looking at more specific versions, and probably wouldn’t yield much beyond what’s already been pointed out here. So, I’ll just leave it at that.