Dr. Robert Delfino on the 5th Way

Dr. Delfino joins us to clarify what the 5th way really means, and answer some common questions and objections. Link to Barnes' book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01L27MSZE/. Norris Clark Quote: “The ordering of the natural properties of these elements [in the Universe] towards dynamic interaction must be constituted prior (priority of causal dependence, not necessarily temporal priority) to their actual operations of interacting, since they interact according to their (already constituted) natures. But this means that they must be ordered toward, constituted in view of, not yet existing future actions, or possible future actions. Now, only a mind can constitute out of possibility a future order, can ‘order means to an end,’ as St. Thomas likes to put it. Only a mind can thus make present in its field of consciousness the future and the possible, which do not exist in themselves and can have only a mental presence. A purely material being without consciousness is locked into the here and now of its place in space and time. To order possibilities with a view to future action is again almost a definition of mind, or certainly one of its most characteristic functions. Thus the cosmos-wide dynamic order of our world system necessarily requires a cosmos-ordering Mind to constitute its order.” W. Norris Clarke, “Is Natural Theology Still Viable Today?,” in Explorations in Metaphysics: Being, God, Person (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 174-175.