Being a mere layman when it comes to philosophy, I had to read Feser's book twice in order to grasp it's concepts, even though, i'm sure, just about anyone in philosophy would tell you it's philosophical concepts are simple. In The Last Superstition, Feser isn't content to present arguments for the existence of God like they are typically done these days. Instead, Feser is basically saying "lets back up a little bit," and examine how we got here. It doesn't take much research to realize that secularization is spreading. In England, the percentage of Christians has tanked over the past decade, while the number of non-believers has rose significantly. Feser's point is not in the significance of debates such as Intelligent Design vs Darwinians, which he believes is missing the point, but rather to backtrack to how secularization even started - and why he thinks the abandonment of Aristotelian Metaphysics has been "...the greatest mistake in the history of Western thought."
The Last Superstition has a large scope, starting from pre-Socratic Greek thought, and moving to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle themselves. He then fast-forwards to the middle ages, with the completion of Aristotelian thought by Thomas Aquinas, and Aquinas's famous "Five Ways" to God. He then moves towards modern thought, in thinkers like Kant, Decartes, and Bacon. While not all of these people had bad intentions, the abandonment of Aristotelian metaphysics lead to bizarre and unnecessary conclusion, according to Feser, and the culmination of this bizarre thought can be thoroughly realized with the post-modern philosophy of the mind and the denial of free will by means of eliminative materialism.
All the while, Feser's tone is one of absolute disbelief to the ignorance being spewed in the academia around him. He comments extensively on the works of Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens - noting how ignorant they are not just of philosophical matters, but of theology in general. I haven't read any of the work by these four, but I have seen debates they took place in, and typically they seem to be ranting, but not actually producing much as as far as reasons for what they believe, other than an obvious disdain for religion. Feser feels the secularist movement, then, is not actually based on solid, positive arguments, but rather a disdain for religion, as well as smear-attack driven propaganda. Feser combats this nonacademic approach by taking every chance he can to smear them back - and while I enjoyed it, and felt it was in large part warranted, at some points I felt it was over-the-top.
Summary:
Like I mentioned in the paragraphs above, Feser starts out his book talking about the secularist movement, and how it is it's own 'religion.' They have a belief system that holds that religion is not just wrong, but harmful to society. It usually holds that 'science' and 'reason' are there staples, but only insofar as they agree with there preconceived notions of the world. Usually, the New Atheist will set up a straw man of what 'faith' actually means, and do his best to tear that apart. The New Atheist will typically misrepresent the arguments for God's existence, thus making it an easy victory for him, in order to more quickly return to his religion-bashing rants. If it isn't clear by the end of the first chapter, titled "Bad Religion," Feser really doesn't like these guys.
Chapter Two starts with pre-Socratic thought, and culminates in the explanation of Aristotle's metaphysics. He begins by making the distinction between realism, nominalism, and conceptualism by first helping us understand Plato's 'Theory of Forms.'
To use the example of a triangle, we have all seen countless triangles, some drawn in chalk, some in pencil, etched in sand, and some digitally. Furthermore, some will have squiggly lines, some have corners that don't match up, etc. All of these triangles are associated with the concept of 'triangularity' even though none of them, no matter how carefully drawn, are ever actually a perfect triangle, even if the errors are not noticeable to the human eye. According to Plato's theory, once we grasp this idea, we understand that the concept of 'triangularity,' and its necessary features (such as angles that add up 180 degrees), and unnecessary features (color, size, obtuse, acute, etc.), we can see that the concept of triangulation in no way depends on the existence of triangles in the material world. Triangles go into and out of existence all the time, and even if we managed to erase every triangle from the world, the angles of a triangle would still be 180 degrees, and the Pythagorean Theorem would still be true even if there was nobody around to form a triangle and measure the angles. Thus, according to Plato, we can see that the concept of triangularity is not something physical, nor is something only in the human mind, but rather a 'third realm' or the realm of 'Forms.'
According to Plato, all things, such as the Form of 'Man' or 'Dog' or 'Square' are concepts that have necessary attributes, and persons in this world are merely participating in them. For example, you and I are participating in the 'Form' of 'Man' right now, which has the essential feature of 'Rationality.' Furthermore, the concept by which we judge the participation of elements in the material world against the pure 'Form,' such as being more good or less good, in how it is participating, is called the 'Form of the Good,' and is, according to Plato, the highest of the 'Forms,' and the source of all other Forms.
Feser goes on to say that Aristotle probably thought Plato was going nuts, but admittedly, had touched on something important, namely, the concept of universals. Plato's 'Theory of Forms,' though extreme, is a form of realism, which believes that objective universals exist. This is as opposed to nominalism, which denies universals exist, and conceptualism, which takes a middle ground and says universals exist, but only in the mind.
Nominalism runs into difficulties when we speak of things like geometry, which deals with perfect lines, circles, etc. The concept of a circle is something that is objective, and like we saw earlier, circles were circles long before any mind began to conceive of them. However, no material thing has the perfection that geometrical objects have, therefore, geometrical objections refer to universals neither dependent on the mind or physical realm. Feser goes into around ten objections to nominalism and conceptualism, concluding by noting that opponents of realism notoriously have a difficult time defending there views, and it seems realism should win out if it wasn't for the religious implications that realism has. After his discussion on the concept of realism, Feser moves onto Aristotle's Metaphysics, which seeks to ground Plato's realism into something more moderate.
Aristotle's four causes are (if we take, say, a human heart)
Formal: the form, structure, or pattern that matter exhibits. (this is where the discussion of universals is significant. Since it seems universals exist, then everything will exhibit this formal cause, or participation in some universal.) In the case of a heart - the formal cause will be its organization into atria, ventricles, etc.
Material: The heart is a muscle made out of tissue
Efficient: This would be the biological processes that determined that a heart would be constructed instead of a brain or kidney
Final: It serves the function of pumping blood
The problem, says Feser, is that contemporary thought has abandoned the notion of final and formal causes, in his opinion due to a complete misunderstanding. For Aristotle and Aquinas, the final cause was the 'cause of causes,' and represented a sense of goal-directedness. It's easier to see in biological functions, but he felt it also applied to all of nature, as a planet has the 'goal,' in a sense, of orbiting the sun. This is not be misconstrued as saying the planet wills itself consciously to orbit the sun. In fact, applying final causes is the most crucial thing to Aristotle's theory. It's easy to see in bodily organs, as these organs perform their activities, or 'goals,' without any consciousness. DNA serves a goal, namely, being a code of sorts, but it is in no way conscious of the goal it is serving. The material cause of a thing is the potentiality for it's change (I skipped Feser's explanation of actuality and potentiality, but this goes back to that. Plus - the concepts of actuality and potentiality are somewhat trivial). However, the material cause only has potentiality for some other function, namely it's final cause. It's silly to refer to some potentiality without giving the final cause the potentiality refers to as well.
I don't know much about philosophy at this point, but from what I understand, Hume refers to causes as events, while to Aristotle they were things. Take the example of a brick being thrown at a window. If we are to use events, we woulds say that the brick being thrown at the window caused event two, or the window breaking. But if we form it like this, the two events are disconnected, and logically, anything could happen between the brick being thrown and the window shattering. To Aristotle, it's things that have causes. Namely, the brick making contact with the window, pushing it to the breaking point, and the window giving way and shattering is the cause and effect. It's a simultaneous process - one that can be traced back in a hierarchical way.
In Chapter Three, Feser begins his discussion of Scholastic thinkers, namely, Thomas Aquinas, who completes Aristotle's line of thinking. He also makes the necessary distinction between metaphysical arguments, which use obvious things happening around us to make other conclusions about the way the world works, to 'God of the Gaps' arguments, where God is postulated as an entity to fill in the 'Gaps' of scientific understanding. I agree with Feser that atheists, especially those in science like Dawkins and Stenger, feel that God is merely a scientific hypothesis, and that the amount of unknowns is steadily shrinking, inevitably leading to a time when God is no longer needed. This means that, as is typically seen, any naturalistic explanation, however bizarre or irrational it sounds, will suffice instead. Furthermore, metaphysical arguments are not something that can be 'tested' or 'explained' in the way that these other, scientific, arguments can.
Feser also wants to point out that 'faith,' as defined by the "New Atheists" is not the faith that anyone who is a religious believer has in mind, whether they define it explicitly or not. To me, faith is believing beyond what the evidence around seems to allude at - namely, for me, that this world is not all there is, and there is a higher calling and greater story being told then any of us can comprehend (amongst many other reasons). Atheists seem bent on attacking this crude anthropomorphic conception of God, that any sophisticated believer, and certainly not the great thinkers of the Scholastic era, would have attributed to God. Also, and this is a side-note to what Feser discussed in his book, is the concept of prayer that I hold is in no way like the concept of 'prayer' atheists hold. Atheists seem bent on 'testing' prayer as if it were a scientific hypothesis, seeing just how effective it is in transforming the material lives of people around us. I would be more than happy to agree that a God that intervenes to grant health, finances, and happiness apart from Him does not exist - but not for the same reason they may think. Perhaps I'll talk in another post about what I think prayer really should be about ('bread' not being 'physical bread' but 'spiritual bread'), but suffice to say for now, I can say with a good deal of confidence that the 'God' that atheists attack is not the same God that most believers actually believe in.
Feser then elaborates on Aquinas's 'Five Ways,' and objections to them. He starts with an argument from Augustine, which rests on the premise that universals exist, such as the concept of triangularity. This concept cannot be mental, since it existed before any other human, finite mind came into existence. Furthermore, it cannot be physical, since even if every triangle ceased to exist, the concept of 'triangularity' would still be true. Thus, concludes Augustine, these concepts, or universals, can only exist in an eternal mind, namely God. Aquinas himself doesn't endorse this argument, but I still hear this type of thinking, and it can be related to the concept of 'Where do the laws of nature come from?'
Aquinas's 'The Unmoved Mover' is based on the metaphysical concept of change, and draws a conclusion that whenever change occurs, there must be a finite end to this sequence of instantaneous transfers from potentiality to actuality, ending in an 'Unmoved Mover.' Take, for example, the image of a potter forming a clay pot. The cause of the pot taking a particular shape is instantaneously caused by the potters hand being in place to form it. But the potentiality of the potters hand holding that position is actualized by the nervous system, and then to neurons in the brain, and then other neurons, and then molecular structure, atomic structure, the weak and strong, and gravitational forces, etc.
There is an important distinction to make, because many atheists take the concept of 'The Unmoved Mover' to mean that the universe must have had a beginning at some point in the past. But what Aquinas is talking about is an essentially ordered sequence, as opposed to an accidental sequence. It can be said that the potter was caused to make the pot by him wanting to make a vase, and he wanted to make the vase because a family member wanted it, and a family member wanted it...This is an accidentally ordered sequence, which would relate to events happening throughout time, which would not have to necessitate the next member of the sequence. However, in the case of the instantaneous causes and effects taking place as the potter holds his hand steady, this sequence is an essentially ordered sequence. (I think of it as the potters hand is being held steady by an instantaneous set of hierarchical causes and effects, whereas there is also a series of causes and effects that brought him to that specific moment in time where he is in fact forming the pot).
We can think of this series as a transfer, on Aristotle's system, from actuality to potentiality. The potentiality of the the pot being formed is actualized by the hand of the potter. The potentiality of the potters hand staying in place is actualized by the firing of neurons. This series can continue on and on only until we reach something that is pure actuality, or what Aquinas attributes to God. This 'actuality' must be unmovable, because if it was movable, it would exhibit some sense of potentiality, that which could be actualized by another.
For Aquinas, his next 'way' is called 'The Unmoved Mover,' and again, doesn't deal with any beginning of the universe, but rather what sustains the universe here and now. Feser first helps us distinguish between essence and existence. There can be an essence of a thing, but that does not entail it's existence (unicorns, Bruce Wayne). This leads us to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which goes 'whatever comes into existence, or more generally whatever must have existence added to its essence in order for it to be real, must be caused by another.' This leads us to the universe as a whole - there must be something that adds existence to the essence of the universe.
A key point to make is 'why couldn't the universe itself be the necessary thing?' But the key to this is realizing Aristotle's metaphysics, and realizing that each essentially ordered series must terminate in an Unmoved Mover, an Uncaused Cause. Since the universe contains this type of potentiality, and is undergoing change, it can't itself be that necessary object. Like Feser points out, this leads us to some notion of Divine Simplicity, or the notion that God must be simple, in that, he must not be composed of parts, but rather just is. Furthermore, Feser goes on to demonstrate how many, if not all, the properties we attribute to God can be deduced logically from this type of analysis - showing that the oft parroted 'that doesn't show God is omniscient or omnipotent or anything like the Christian God' is really just a sign that they haven't done their reading.
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