Philosophia Christi

Volume 12, Issue 2, 2010

Theism and Ultimate Explanation

Guidance for Doting and Peeping Thomists
A Review Essay of Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide

This essay is a review of Edward Feser’s Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide. In the first part, the author summarizes the book’s five chapters, drawing attention to Feser’s application of Aquinas’s thought to contemporary philosophical problems. Part 2 is dedicated to Feser’s Thomistic analysis of Intelligent Design (ID). The author explains Feser’s case and why Aquinas’s “Fifth Way,” which is often labeled a “design argument,” depends on a philosophy of nature that ID’s methods implicitly reject.