Category: GOD

“[In the highest degree of contemplation] the Soul not only becomes happy by the gift of philosophy, but since, so to speak, it becomes God, it becomes happiness itself.” – Marsilio Ficino

Beyond common prayer and incidental spiritual experience is the highest level of relationship to God or ultimate reality through meditation and contemplation. These forms of mystical undertaking are one of the reasons some believe in God, but are also methods proposed by great spiritualists to connect with the divine.

Meditation is the term used in Eastern philosophy for the process of “concentrating to the utmost degree our latent mental power… training the mind, especially attention and the will, so that we can set forth from the surface level of consciousness and journey into the very depths.” Therein we discover that we are not the body or the mind, and find through a “transcendental mode of knowing.” that we are a consciousness with an unbounded connection to the universe.¹ For Hindus and Buddhists, the goal is enlightenment and Moksha or release from the cycle of reincarnation (samsara). However this form of meditation is not aimed specifically at interacting with God.

For Christians and other religions, meditation can progress to contemplation.  Thomas Merton, a twentieth century Trappist monk,  defines it as “the union of our mind and will with God in an act of pure love that brings us into obscure contact with Him as He really is.”²  It is  “an awakening, enlightenment and the amazing intuitive grasp by which love gains certitude of God’s creative and dynamic intervention in our daily life.”³

Preliminary steps according to Merton are self-discipline and asceticism, detachment from exterior matters and goods, escape from the ‘false self,’ humility, and selfless love for others. The process is one of multiple steps including solitude, silence, emptying of the mind, and prayer for your own discovery. There is a darkness, unknowing, or wilderness before the light of God’s infusion. A spiritual guide may help one avoid the many pitfalls and confusion that results during the ascent.

Paul Tillich is perhaps less mystical when he refers to “contemplating the mystery of the divine ground, considering the infinity of the divine life, intuiting the marvel of the divine creativity, adoring the inexhaustible meaning of the divine self-manifestation – all these experiences are related to God without involving an explicit ego-thou relation.”⁴

You may wonder whether a philosophy site should discuss a specific religious act like contemplation of the divine which defies scientific or philosophical validation. My justification is the vital place of meditation and contemplation in the history of philosophy. Virtually every Eastern tradition identifies meditation as the means to peace, enlightenment or nirvana. The contemplative life is Aristotle’s ideal of eudaimonia, that is, human flourishing. Pythagoras, Plotinus, Spinoza, and other Western philosophers seem to practice a form of meditation, and the great works of Marcus Aurelius and Descartes are known as Meditations. Christian philosophers like St. Augustine, St. Aquinas, and Merton, and Christian mystics such as Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, and St. Teresa of Avila, experienced an indescribable union with the divine. Sufis, such as Mawlana Jalal-al Din Rumi, also describe such a union as breathtaking and life-changing. This supreme of human experiences, if real, must be a consideration in any program of a meaningful life, at least for those who believe in God.

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 ¹Easwaran, Eknath, Meditation.Nilgiri Press, 1991. ISBN 0-915132-66-4, pgs. 8-28.

²Merton, Thomas, New Seeds of Contemplation. New Directions Publishing Corporation, 2007. ISBN 978-0-8112-1724-8, pg. 214.

³Ibid. pg. 4.

⁴Tillich, Systematic Theology Vol 1 pg. 289.

“Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.” – Immanuel Kant,

Spiritual experiences (also called ‘peak experiences’) are another putative interaction with the God and the religious. A spiritual experience is an intense feeling of being uplifted, moved, or inspired often by a calm appreciation of beauty, nature, ideas, or the divine. About one third of the population admits to such experiences which typically include awareness of something larger than oneself, oneness, connection, awe, bliss, love, peace, or insight. Researchers have identified positive impacts from spiritual experiences that can be life changing and give a sense of meaning and purpose.¹

These experiences are traditionally elicited by sacred places such as churches, holy relics, or absorption in natural beauty. One has an unmediated and impartial apprehension like that of a young child, but more intense. One is left speechless, and time seems to stand still. Religious experts claim they are facilitated in those who make themselves loving, pure in heart, humble, detached, and connect to the interior self.

If you have ever traveled to a peak in the Rockies, scuba-dived in the Caribbean, peered at the Milky Way in an unlit rural area, sat alone quietly in a large Gothic Church, listened intently to a truly beautiful piece of music, or beheld one of many similar sensations, you likely know the speechless wonder and transcendence that results. From personal experience, I can only say it is difficult to explain, but it feels like a fusing of reality, self, and time into a unit and a meaning which is unforgettable.

And spiritual experience is not antithetical to science – consider the following from Albert Einstein:

“…whoever has undergone the intense experience of successful advances in this domain [science], is moved by profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence. By way of the understanding he achieves a far-reaching emancipation from the shackles of personal hopes and desires, and thereby attains that humble attitude of mind toward the grandeur or reason incarnate in existence, and which, in its profoundest depths, is inaccessible to man. This attitude, however, appears to me to be religious, in the highest sense of the word. And so it seems to me that science not only purifies the religious impulse of the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to a religious spiritualization of our understating of life.”⁵

Therefore even in the absence of religion or church participation, we can increase our spirituality and spiritual experiences through communion with nature, study of the universe, reflection on existence, detachment from our everyday concerns, and opening a door to our inner self through love, humility, and virtue. Unexpected benefits of discovered meaning and purpose may follow.

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¹Henry, Jane, Quieting the Mind and Low Arousal Routes to Happiness in The Oxford Handbook of Happiness, edited by Susan David, Ilona Boniwell, and Amanda Conley Ayers. Oxford University Press, 2015. Chapter 32; pages 411-421.

²Einstein, Albert, Out of My Later Years. Philosophical Library, New York, 1950, page 29.

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“In rational prayer, the soul may be said to accomplish three things important to its welfare: it withdraws within itself, it accommodates itself to destiny, and it grows like the ideal which it conceives.” – Santayana, Life of Reason

Should you conclude there is sufficient evidence or reason for belief in God and that He is a personal deity, you will next likely decide whether to practice an established religion. Either way there will be a critical subsequent step – relationship to or experience of the divine. There are three basic methods of this interaction – prayer, spiritual experience, and meditation or contemplation.

Prayer is of course direct conversation with or appeal to the divine. This can take the form of thankfulness, reverence (worship), remorse (seeking forgiveness), or intercession (help for oneself or another). According to Aquinas, Socrates thought we should pray only for ‘good things’ as God knows best what is good for us (Aquinas’ source is Valerius Maximus). But Aquinas thinks “our motive in praying is not that we may change the divine disposition, but that, by our prayers, we may obtain what God has appointed.,” He also says, “prayer …directs man’s intellect to God,” while inspiring us with holy desires;, and praying for our salvation conforms our will to God’s will.¹

Paul Tillich expresses a more existential meaning of prayer as a self-transcendence which serves to “reunite the creature with its creative ground” and is “an actualization or our ultimate concern.”  But like Aquinas, he denies that in prayer, one expects God to interfere with existential conditions, rather one hopes to direct the given situation toward fulfilment. The faith the person has in God is the power which transforms the existential situation.²

Meister Eckhart expresses this more ethereally, “Not for the first time tomorrow will God grant thy supplication and thy prayer: he has granted it already in his eternity ere ever thou becamest man. Suppose they prayer is foolish or lacking in earnestness, God will deny it thee not then, he has denied it thee already in his eternity.”³

If you have ever been in a crisis, particularly one which threatens your life or that of a loved one, you probably appealed to the divine to intervene. In a sense, this can be interpreted as an instinctual ‘belief’ in God – i.e. by default in circumstance of helplessness. It may be worth mentioning that clinical studies of intercessory prayer for the sick give mostly negative results, although a 2009 review article of ten studies on 7446 patients concluded the evidence did not support a recommendation for or against prayer for aiding the sick.⁴

Non-crisis prayer however requires more conscious belief and is experienced as calming and rewarding in itself to its practitioners. It can lead to a spiritual experience – the topic of the next section.

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¹Brody, Baruch A. Readings in the Philosophy of Religion. Prentice-Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs, NJ. 1974. ISBN 0-13-759340-6, pages. 546-547.

²Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology, The University of Chicago Press, 1967. ISBN 0-226-80336-8. Volume 1 p. 267.

³Perry, Whiteall N., A Treasury of Traditional Wisdom. Fons Vitae Edition, 2000. ISBN 1-887752-33-1, p.524.

⁴Roberts, Leanne, et. al. Intercessory prayer for the alleviation of ill  health. 2009. https://www.cochranelibrary.com

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“True religion is rather the power to contemplate nature with a mind set at peace.” – Lucretius.

A subject close to the issue of the existence of God is that of religion. This is another word that is difficult to define because of its many nuances. Webster’s first meaning (of nine) is “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.”¹

The Encyclopedia of Philosophy lists nine features of religion: (1) belief in supernatural beings, (2) distinction between sacred and profane objects, (3) ritual acts focused on sacred objects, (4) a moral code believed to be sanctioned by the gods, (5) religious feelings aroused by sacred objects and ritual practice, (6) prayer and other communication with the gods, (7) a world view with a place for the individual, (8) a more or less total organization of one’s life based on the world view, and (9) social group bound by the above.²

Professor Robert Oden in his lectures on comparative religions uses a more modern sounding definition by H.H. Penner: “…a communication system that is constituted by supernatural beings and is related to specific patterns of behavior” (his italics).³

Traditionally there are 11 recognized major world religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Taoism, Shinto, and Sikhism (several have major branches). Most of us have first-hand experience of one or more of these religions and have practiced a religion at least part of our life. One of the great enigmas of humanity is the fact that each religion believes itself to be true and the others untrue.

In his book, Truth in Religion, Mortimer Adler notes that pluralism is desirable in matters of taste or ‘poetic truth’ (which includes religion), but not in matters of factual or logical truth as in science which he classifies as ‘transcultural.’ His principle of the ‘unity of truth’ requires that parts of the whole truth be compatible with one another. The truth of science and the truth of religion are either (1) truths of different kinds (Averroes position), (2) truths of the same kind and therefore compatible (Aquinas’ position), or (3) separate logic-tight compartments. Religious beliefs cannot be proven, but can be disproved or discredited by science or philosophy. Since philosophy more readily becomes transcultural than religion, it is a useful criterion for religious truth. As an example, he claims philosophy demonstrates the existence of a ‘single supreme being as the indispensable, creative, or exnihilating cause of the cosmos,’ which challenges the truth of most eastern religions.⁴

I view religion from the opposite vantage point as essentially instant philosophy, that is, following a specific religion’s teachings means accepting its answers to the most important questions philosophy poses: Is there a God? How do I relate to Him? What is good and evil? How should I conduct myself in the world? What is happiness? And even what is the meaning of life? However, this appears too easy, even dangerous, until perhaps there is an example of Voltaire’s ideal religion – one that teaches “nothing but the worship of God, justice, tolerance, and humanity”.⁵

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¹Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, Barnes & Noble, Inc. 2003. ISBN 0-7607-4975-2, p.  1628 – definition 1.

²Edwards, Paul (editor), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. & The Free Press, 1972.   Volume 7, pages 142-143.

³God and Mankind: Comparative Religions, Robert Oden. The Teaching Company, 1998.

⁴Adler, Mortimer, Truth in Religion. MacMillan Publishing Company, New York. 1990. ISBN 0-02-500225-2, Chapter 5, pages 101-110.

⁵Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary. Basic Books, Inc. New York. 1962. Page 445.

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In the last post we began the discussion of subjective belief in God looking at faith, mystical experience, revelation, and miracles. Now we will look at additional subjective rationales.

William James in his essay, The Will to Believe, argues the pragmatic view that at some point we must live life with the assumption of the existence, non-existence, or uncertainty of existence of God. While the skeptic places the emphasis on avoiding the error of belief in a non-existent God, James sees no reason to assume that is superior to avoiding the error of not believing in an existent God. He quotes Fitz James Stephen, “…If a man chooses to turn his back altogether on God and the future, no one can show beyond reasonable doubt that he is mistaken. If a man thinks otherwise and acts as he thinks, I do not see that anyone can prove that he is mistaken…What must we do?… Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes… If death ends all, we cannot meet death better.”⁵

In his Pensees,⁶ Pascal argues that a decision to believe in God can be reformulated as a wager. To him it is a better bet to believe and follow religious dogma with its minimal downside in exchange for the possibility of an infinite joyous afterlife then to choose disbelief with its minimal upside. Of course the skeptic can simply counter, belief requires behavioral change and sacrifice of our only demonstrable asset – our lives. Alternatively, it seems unlikely that the mere hope of future benefits can lead to genuine conviction.

The last explanation  of religious belief is well expressed by philosopher, Roger Scruton; it  derives from “metaphysical loneliness.” In this formulation, the gap between human longing and satisfaction drives man to believe he is not “of this world, but only in it” (his italics). Humans resolve this dilemma by resorting to belief in a transcendental deity and religious ritual.⁷

In summary, the basis for most belief in the existence of God is not strict proof, but inexact and subjective reckoning. There are two basic types –  compelled as in the case of a mystical experience or a perceived miracle, or justified, as with faith, will, or hope for potential future benefit.  Metaphysical longing is perhaps explanatory of belief in God if neither logical argument nor other subjective reasoning succeed.

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¹Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, Barnes & Noble, Inc. 2003. ISBN 0-7607-4975-2, p. 693 – definition 2.

²Edwards, Paul (editor), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. & The Free Press, 1972.   Volume 3, pages 165-166.

³James, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience. Penguin Books, 1982. ISBN 978-0-14-039034-6, pages 380-381, 422.

⁴Honderich, Ted (editor), The Oxford Guide to Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN 978-0-19-534093-8, page 615.

⁵James, William, The Will to Believe and Other Essays. Dover Publications, New York, 1956. ISBN 48620291-7, pages 1-31.

⁶Pascal, Blaise, Pensees. Encyclopaedia Britanica, 1952. The Great Books, Volume 33, pages 214-215.

⁷Scruton, Roger, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Philosophy. Penguin Books. New York, 1999. ISBN 0 14 027516 9, page 89.

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“The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason”- Blaise Pascal

The absence of a definitive proof of the existence of God does not make belief in God irrational. In fact the original belief in God for humanity and individuals was not based on logical argument, but subjective considerations. These include in rough order of frequency and cogency (except the last):

1.   Faith

 2.   Mystical experience

 3.   Revelation

  4.   Miracles

  5.   Will

  6.   Pascal’s wager

  7.   Response to the human metaphysical predicament

If we define faith as “belief that is not based on proof,”¹ it could be argued that as nothing is certain or absolutely proven, all human beliefs are based on faith. Thomas Aquinas states faith stands between scientific knowledge and ordinary opinion, involves the unseen, cannot be arrived at by reasoning, and depends on divine grace. Friedrich Schleiermacher sees it is a kind of feeling of absolute dependence on a higher reality. Soren Kierkegaard sees critical human truths as subjective and emphasizes the objective uncertainty of the religious realm must be reached by a ‘leap of faith.’²  Skeptics however are troubled by the apparent overlap of faith and superstition.

Regarding mystical experience, William James in two of his 1901 Gifford lectures addressed mysticism as a justification for belief in the divine. He identifies four characteristics of the mystical experience – (1) ineffability- cannot be expressed, (2) noetic quality – feeling of knowledge and profound illumination, (3) transience (typically <1-2 hours), and (4) passivity or abeyance of the will. However he notes mystical states are authoritative only for the individual experiencing them.³

By revelation I mean religious texts accepted as evidence of the existence of God (as opposed to direct revelation by God which I would include in mystical experience). Obviously, the Bible, Koran, and the Vedas serve as justification of the beliefs for many religious. The validity and historical accuracy of these texts is of course open to debate and acceptance of their divine origin must still be based on faith.

Miracles are defined as “violations of a law of nature by a supernatural being.”⁴ They are presumably rare in occurrence and hence the source of belief by the minority. In addition the concept of a miracle suffers from some logical inconsistency – can an event occur in the world and still not be defined as natural? Lack of explanation by known physical law is not proof of supernatural cause; as an explanation it simply begs the question of cause.

(continued next post)

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“God cannot do all things…his own death…bring to pass that one who lived did not live…he hath no power over things past…nor that twice ten should not make twenty. Whereby is proved the power of nature, and how it is she only which we call God.” – Pliny the Elder

The last section presented the argument from evil as evidence against the existence of God as all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. In this section we will think through some additional reasoning used in challenging the existence of a deity with these attributes, and as creator of the universe.

The first type of contentions are based on the logic of God’s presumed characteristics.  The term all-powerful appears to be logically inconsistent. Can God make 2+2 = 5?  Does God have the power to limit His own power or to end his existence? If God is all-good, does he have the ability to cause evil? Presumably the answer to these questions is no, in which case there is a limit to his power. The traditional response to these arguments is to say that his power is limited to the logically possible. But in that case God is limited by something outside of Himself, logic, making God something less than the greatest being imaginable or the totality of reality.

Similarly, if free agency exists, then God cannot force a free being to act in a particular manner, and again He is limited. If free will is real, then God cannot “know” what a free being will do. It seems odd if not irrational to say God always knew Shakespeare would write Hamlet, and every word of the play before Shakespeare wrote it; in which case, is Shakespeare truly its author?  Rational limits on God’s power and knowledge undermine  the attributes of omnipotence and omniscience .

The second type of disputation is from the scientific standpoint. As we learn increasing details on the origin of the cosmos and the physical laws that govern it, it appears to be progressively unnecessary to postulate a creator. It simply adds unverifiable and unnecessary complexity to cosmology. If any evolving scientific explanation is countered by the theologian as being just one more step back to the final explanation of a ‘hypothetical’ divine being, it appears no better than insisting on the existence of unicorns in the absence of evidence for them.  Philosophically, the theologian should be able to present positive evidence of His existence in the face of modern science rather than default to the position that scientists or nonbelievers must disprove his existence.

At the end of the day, logic and common experience of the world appear unable to prove the existence of or even a high likelihood of the Divine (at least in the traditional form). Rather faith, mystical experience, and the like  seem to be the basis for most religious belief. We will discuss these in the next blog.

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“Before the holocaust, Jews believed in God but not the devil. But after the holocaust, Jews believed in the devil but not God.” – Elie Wiesel

There are in fact no philosophical proofs against the existence of God, as such. Rather the traditional arguments are against God as all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. The basis of this argument is that there is evil in the world, which is logically inconsistent with such a divine being. Most of us have experienced this doubt when confronted by horrible natural disasters or great human evil. The deaths of so many in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany or natural disasters such as a tsunami invariably make us ask: “would an all-powerful and all-good God permit this?”

The rebuttals to this argument from evil are called ‘theodicy’  (the roots of this word are  ‘god’ and ‘justice’) a term first used by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The argument from evil has remained a challenge for Christian theologians. The various refutations to the argument include the propositions that evil is due to:

1)  punishment by God for sin especially original sin of the first humans  – i.e. it is justified,

2)  free agency of imperfect beings including humans and demons (especially Satan), that is, free will is a good worth consequent evils,

3)  logical requirements – i.e. the current world is the best of all possible worlds (Liebniz’s position),

4)  it’s function in moral strengthening (the higher-order goods defense),

5)  illusion, misinterpretation, or simple privation, or

6)  reasons beyond human understanding  (the conclusion of the biblical Job).

None of these is completely successful and the details of these responses are beyond the scope of this site. However readers will have little trouble finding detailed discussions in readily available books and on websites and in debates posted on YouTube.

Nonetheless, for most philosophers, I suspect the reality of evil in the world makes an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God implausible and perhaps a logical contradiction.

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It is clear that science too rests on faith; there is no science without presuppositions.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

In the last two sections, we examined the ontological and cosmological arguments for the existence of God. Now we will look at the teleological argument which is based on thinking about the possibility of a design of the universe (also seen in Aquinas’ fifth way). It was most clearly articulated in its early form by William Paley in his Natural Theology. He points out that while we might find a stone on the ground and assume it to be unworthy of explanation, if we find a watch on the ground, we naturally ask how it came into existence recognizing the parts are so placed as to demonstrate a purpose and thus require a designer. He then applies that metaphor to the universe in general and to living beings in particular, seeing them as mechanisms with many interacting parts that similarly must have a designer, that is, God.

David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion counters that there are a finite number of configurations of particles and given adequate time, they would eventually take on forms that appear designed- that is suggesting chance could lead to the apparent design of the universe and living things. He also points out that this argument allows for multiple designers, perhaps mortal rather than divine, and that the imperfections in the universe argue against a particularly excellent designer.

Later science, including physics, cosmology, and biology (for example the theory of evolution) undermined much of Paley’s simplistic argument, but left an enigma. We appear to be able to demonstrate many of the physical laws underlying the universe, matter, and life, but the probability of the universe appearing spontaneously in a form with these finely tuned physical laws appears to be unlikely to be the result of chance alone. For instance take the finely tuned gravitational or cosmological constants which mathematics tell us could not have been off by 1/10⁶⁰ to 1/10¹²⁰ without the universe flying apart or collapsing in on itself.

Science’s best answer to date is the theory of a ‘multiverse’ where there are an infinite or very large number of ‘universes’; the one we inhabit being a fortunate one where galactic stability and physical laws allow life – the corollary being that if this universe did not meet those criteria, we wouldn’t be here to question it, as may be the case in alternate universes.¹

However the idea of a multiverse borders on metaphysical speculation and is not based on science per se. Moreover the postulation of infinite universes seems to violate ‘Ockham’s razor’ wherein explanations should not multiply assumptions unnecessarily. Alternatively, the skeptic would point out the infinitesimal likelihood of a spontaneous creator with the ability to fine tune the universe we inhabit.

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¹Hawking, Stephen, A Brief History of Time. Bantam Books, 1996. ISBN: 978-0-307-29117-2, Chapter 8.

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“…the truth about God such as reason could discover would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors.” – St. Thomas Aquinas

Last time we discussed the ontological argument for the existence of God. Now we will examine the cosmological argument which is based on thinking about contingency in and of the universe. For a philosopher a contingent thing may be or may not be, or might have been or might not have been, that is, it depends on something outside itself. For instance, you and I are contingent; we might have never been born, but were brought into existence by the actions of our parents. The color of grass is green to the human eye, but might have been otherwise, that is, there is nothing about grass that logically demands it be green. Alternatively a non-contingent thing is necessary or necessarily true and cannot be imagined otherwise – take for example the equation ‘2+2=4.’

The cosmological argument looks at the contingent facts of the universe and proceeds backwards to find an independent or non-contingent explanation. It was developed most famously by St. Thomas Aquinas in the first three of his five proofs for the existence of God, called by him the ‘Five Ways’* in Summa Theologica. Expressed briefly, they are:

1.  Motion – what is moved must be moved by another and so forth, but one cannot go back infinitely, therefore there must be a first mover which is God.

2. Cause – all contingent things have a cause and again the non-infinite regress takes one to the first cause which is God. 

3. Possibility – all individual things are possible, but must derive from something ultimately necessary, that is God.

This is an example of an a posteriori argument; it depends on experience of the world rather than entirely on logic. There are cogent arguments against it, for example, David Hume argues that an infinite series of causes or motions is not illogical and needs no outside explanation. He also denies the meaning of necessary existence and points out that the universe itself might be necessarily existent. Very involved arguments continue into modern times, some of which make up an entire chapter in Baruch Brody’s Readings in the Philosophy of Religion and an intriguing entry in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Volume 2 for the curious.

Perhaps the critical take-away is that the cosmological argument is the theologian’s answer to the question: ‘Why is there anything at all?’- perhaps the most profound question in philosophy. Later we will consider other proposed answers.

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 *The fourth and fifth ways are briefly:

4. Gradation of things – each comparison of a thing, for example its goodness, must be compared to a greater thing, the greatest being God

5. World Governance – things are directed to an end, which requires an intelligent director which for the universe is God.

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