St. Thomas Aquinas & His Cinco Ways

I think that the worst of Aquinas' Five Ways is the fourth one. The Fourth Way states that we are able to judge the good qualities of the things around us because there is a model of every good, which is God. It says that we can see something is ugly because we compare it to our inner knowledge of the perfection of God. This is very like Plato's idea of the world of Forms, which encompass the perfect qualities that everything that we observe on Earth can't match up to.

I think that it may be possible that this is true, but even if it was true that we base our observations on our internal knowledge of God's perfection, there is still a problem with this. The problem is that many people have varying ideas of beauty. For example, Kate Winslet's dress that she wore to the Oscars is given a B+ on the attractiveness. However, I think that this dress, worn by Evan Rachel Wood, though also given a B+, is much prettier. I think that Kate Winslet's dress is kind of....ugly. However, the people who made that piece on the Oscars fashion obviously had a different idea of attractiveness than I did. Therefore, how is it possible that there is one definite beauty? I do think, however, that just the fact that everyone has a sense of observing beauty is proof that there is something more than what just exists here. Though everyone has a different idea of what is beautiful, we all know what beauty is. Everyone has a certain liking for things that appeal to them aesthetically, so we must have learned this somewhere. Perhaps God is not the standard by which we base all other observations, but rather, a common idea of good that we all agree on, and with which no one disagrees. Therefore, maybe we are able to understand what it means to find something beautiful because we once knew God. We can base our ideas of beauty, etc., on this feeling that we all gain from God. I think that it is very confusing because there is a difference between recognizing something as beautiful and defining the word "beauty" itself.

I find Thomas Aquinas' Fourth Way faulty because it implies that there is a common, true standard of beauty that we all agree on. This is clearly not the case. Besides, this would mean that some people truly are uglier than others. This would lead one to wonder, why would God create ugly people? I mean, did God just go like, "Hmm, what to do today? Oh! I'll make an ugly person! Just because." Wouldn't God make perfect creations? Or does he make some people inferior to others? This would be extremely unfair because we are, supposedly, going to be judged according to the same standards when we die, and if some people are born with advantages, then it isn't fair for those who aren't.