My best friend asked me about my upcoming paper topic. I began explaining to him that it was about the importance of the distinction of St. Thomas' first and second ways to prove the existence of God. He, being a sophomore, wasn't sure exactly what that meant. Trying to get some fun out of the situation, he quipped, "Oh, you mean blue and green?" and nudged me jokingly with his elbow. "Oh, yes," I replied. We both laughed and he went into his classroom and I into mine.
On the way home from school for this break, I decided to have a little bit of fun myself. I spent about a half an hour writing a paper entitled "Blue and Green." I haven't proof read it or anything, so please forgive any silly errors. I hope you enjoy this nonsensical bit of silliness :)
"One might consider that proving God’s existence using the color blue is redundant after proving the same thing using the color green. This, however, is not the case. The two proofs are deservedly discreet if one properly understands the nature of the two colors as distinct substances.
Descartes asserts that substance is extension. He argues that this is manifest from the fact that when something changes, its qualities all change. The quantity of any given substance, however, remains constant. So when we identify anything as a “this thing” it is based off of the shape. With this reasoning, he reduces even color to shape. Since each color is a distinct shape and shape is equivalent to substance, each color is a distinct substance. Under this consideration, it would be unreasonable to assert that the existence of God can be proven using the color green in such a way that would be inclusive of the color blue. Each substance has it’s own unique properties; just because one substance necessitates the existence of God does not mean that any other does.
So to prove the existence of God from the color green, one must proceed from its characters. It is only found in other objects, but those objects are of a certain type. The most common instance of green is found in plants. The existence of green in these plants indicates that the cause of the plants also has green in it. This is because causes always pass their attributes on to the things that they cause. Anything found in the effect must be in the cause. If one adds to this reasoning the necessity of an uncaused cause, one can see that the first cause must have the substance of green in it in some way.
The argument from the color blue is manifestly different. The objects in which the color resides and the conclusion differ. Blue is not found in concrete bodies except artificially. The blue that we see in the sky is not really a quality of a body. If one were to take any sample of the atmosphere, there would be no traceable “blueness” in it. The blue seen, then, is merely a mirage or trick of the eyes. The blue found in the uncaused cause of nature, therefore, must be in it in a similar manner. It is not an accident in things the same way that green is; therefore, it cannot be in God the same way that green is.
The two arguments have two different conclusions: one proves that God must have the substance green in him as an accident adhering in a body while the other proves that He must appear to have accidents which it does not have properly. To equate the two arguments, then, is clearly an irrational decision. The End."
