Is There An Intellect Directing Nature Towards An End?

About this sermon

Edward Feser, who has an excellent explanation of final causality in The Last Superstition, sums up Aristotle’s case this way: "Now go back to the vast system of causes that constitutes the physical universe. Every one of them is directed toward a certain end or final cause. Yet almost none of them is associated with any consciousness, thought, or intellect at all; and even animals and human beings, who are conscious, are themselves comprised in whole or in part of unconscious and unintelligent material components which themselves manifest final causality. Yet it is impossible for anything to be directed toward an end unless that end exists in an intellect, which directs the thing in question toward it. And it follows, therefore, that the system of ends or final causes that make up the physical universe can only exist at all because there is a Supreme Intelligence or intellect outside that universe which directs things toward their ends." ― Stealing from God: Why Atheists Need God to Make Their Case (pp. 76-77).

Topics

• Wisdom