Aquinas’s Fifth Way in Nova et Vetera

My article “Between Aristotle and William Paley: Aquinas’s Fifth Way” appears in the latest issue (Vol. 11, No. 3) of Nova et Vetera.  The article is fairly long and is by far the most detailed exposition and defense of the Fifth Way I’ve yet given, going well beyond what I say about it in The Last Superstition and Aquinas. 

The section titles will give a sense of what the article covers:

I. Introduction

II. Nature versus Art

III. Aristotle contra Anaxagoras and Plato

IV. From William of Ockham to William Paley

V. Aquinas’s Middle Position: First Stage

VI. Aquinas’s Middle Position: Second Stage

VII. Thomism versus the “Design Argument”

VIII. Immanent Teleology in Contemporary Philosophy