Act and potency aquinas

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ttabor33

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I have been studying Aquinas on Act and Potency and the infinity of God. My understanding of the metaphysics of Being according to Thomas is. Everything is pure Actuality or a mixture of act/potency. Pure Actuality would be infinite. There is where I would like some (name removed by moderator)ut and confirmation from Thomistic philosophers out there.

So if God is Pure Actuality then the Act of knowing or the Act of Power would be infinite since he is simple. So one could say that the Act of knowing is infinite and all of creation is a limited participation in the Infinite know ability of God.

So according to Aquinas does unlimited mean that it has no terminus? So when we say God’s knowledge is unlimited we mean that there is no terminus to God’s knowledge. That it is Inexhaustible? Would that be a true statement? Is that what act is only limited by Potency implies?
 
My understanding is that when philosophers talk about the infinite in God’s attributes what they often mean is He is unlimited, and are not describing the mathematical term for infinity. So for God having infinite power would simply mean that he has all power that exists, which is because He is not limited by anything else. Of course this would make sense if he is the source of everything that exists.

Similarly, with God’s knowledge. Since He is the source of existence for everything at any moment that is how he has all knowledge of everything. It’s not that he just has a huge amount of knowledge or facts from somehow ‘seeing’ the world. But, rather he is the cause of the world’s existence at every moment. And therefore has intimate knowledge of everything.
 
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well according to actuality and potency if all the power that existed was finite then it would have a limit. If something has a limit then it would have potency because act can only be limited by potency. So all the power that exists must be infinite. That would be my understanding. That is what I am asking the group. Am I wrong?
 
If one has all the power that exists then one is not finite or limited but unlimited. Since it can not be limited by anything else. If something else has more power than it then it is not unlimited.

Since God is defined as existence itself, nothing that exists can have power over God. Since everything derives its existence from Him.
 
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fisherman_carl

God is Simple. So God’s Power would be the same as his existence. I think by saying God has all the power that there is kinda places power and God as separate terms. As if there exists something called power outside of God and God has all of it and we creatures have some of it. I don’t think that is what Aquinas had in mind when he called God pure actuality.

Actuality is only limited by potency. So god does not have any potency so he must be unlimited. so if there are degrees of power and we see that in the world because we creatures are a mixture of act/potency then God should have it in an unlimited inexhaustible way. Maybe i am wrong.
 
and if god is pure actuality and actuality is only limited by potency and seeing how God does not have potency wouldn’t that make his power endless
 
We must remember, with Aquinas’s metaphysical stance that God is pure act, this is not to say that act is purely bounded by that which is but everything which could be. Within God’s act, everything which could be already exists in idealized form (in the mind of God, that is, His foreknowledge). This idealized form of act, while wholly act, has potency in the fact that it can be bounded in matter and come into being out of nothing. This, Aquinas likens to an artist’s concept of a masterpiece existing first in the mind of an artist before being realized in matter. This is termed ‘active potency’ and does not compromise God’s pure act. It is not composite as it is not bounded in matter and does not compromise His simplicity. It is this concept of active potency that St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) bases her Christian form of Phenomenology.

This active potency allows God’s power to be unbounded by the simplicity of that which currently is and extends without terminus as the mind of God is, itself, infinite.
 
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CRM_Brother

By saying the Mind of God is itself infinite that is because of his being pure actuality and without and passive potency correct? So he is unlimited meaning his mind is infinite as having no terminus to what he knows and can do
 
Exactly. The infine power for creation stems from the infinite nature of the mind of God.
 
ttabor33 said:
and if god is pure actuality and actuality is only limited by potency and seeing how God does not have potency wouldn’t that make his power endless
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I don’t see how actuality could be limited by potentiality. Since God is defined as pure Act he has no potentiality. That means of all that actually exists, He is the source of it. It doesn’t mean he is the source of that which is hypothetically existing.

The whole concept of Act and Potency is to describe change. For a being that is pure Act does not change and is the source of all change we see in the world. Fully actualized means to have no unactualized potentials. But it can only describe that which actually exists not what hypothetically exists. God doesn’t have a fulfiled potential to be a rabbit . Even though hypothetically he could be. Just because something hypothetically could be it doesn’t mean it is an unfulfilled potential.
 
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according to Thomistic metaphysics:

All reality is divided into pure actuality and pure potentiality (prime Matter) and everything in creation is a mixture of act/potency. Prime matter does not exist in itself because that would just be non-being. so everything that is limited is a mixture of act/potency. God does not have any passive potency so he is pure actuality. Something that is pure actuality is something that is not limited in any way. If God is his existence and if God is his Power. knowledge, being etc then those attributes are all infinite in that they have no terminus. Why would you assume that God just knows only what is in actual existence in the world?

Act and potency used to describe change was originated with Aristotle. Aquinas expanded that and used it for form and matter and existence and essence.
 
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I don’t think you understand what I am saying.
ttabor33 said:
Why would you assume that God just knows only what is in actual existence in the world?
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God’s knowledge is based on reality, not on fantasy. He knows everything there is to know. He knows all true propositions. Does that mean he knows an infinity of things? No. Not necessarily. Are there an infinity of things in existence to know? If there are an infinity of true propositions then God would know all of them since he causes them. What you seem to be saying though is that God is somehow limited if He doesn’t know all the other infinite possible endings of Lord of the rings or Star Wars. Or that He must know all the infinity of possible things that could exist but do not exist. Like fairies and unicorns. Since his knowledge has no terminus. What I am saying of all that is true and does actually exist he knows all of it. Since He is the cause of it.

Using Act and Potency I don’t see how you could derive God as having an ‘infinity’ of power since it does not take an ‘infinity’ of power to cause a finite effect, namely the creation of the universe. God could as pure Act be the cause of all else that exists in a finite creation without having an ‘infinity’ of power whatever that means. He is all powerful meaning He is the cause of all power. Therefore His power is not limited by anything else.
 
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fisherman_carl said:
God’s knowledge is based on reality, not on fantasy. He knows everything there is to know. He knows all true propositions.
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I am sorry, but I think you may have this backwards.

God’s knowledge is not based upon reality, reality is based upon God’s knowledge. Everything which can be known, can only be known because it is already known in its perfection by God. He does not know all true propositions, propositions can only become true by participating (to some degree) in the perfection of the things involved which reside in God’s thought.

An infinite amount of things may come into being because they participate in various degrees and composites of the thoughts which already reside in the mind of God.

By saying that God’s thought, that is, His mind (which Aquinas says is equivalent with his nature and existence) is bound by that-which-already-is contradicts the the fact that God is the First Cause and causes everything which was, is and will be.
 
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CRM_Brother said:
God’s knowledge is not based upon reality, reality is based upon God’s knowledge.
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CRM_Brother said:
God’s knowledge is not based upon reality, reality is based upon God’s knowledge.
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Sure, I agree with reality being based on God’s knowledge. But that is the same as what I am saying. I have already stated God is the source of everything. So you are quibbling over words.
CRM_Brother said:
He does not know all true propositions,
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I disagree. You are saying God does not know all true propositions. I could say God knows all true propositions and that would be a true statement. I could also say God causes all true propositions and that would also be a true statement. He can both know and cause all true propositions at the same time without any contradiction.
 
CRM_Brother said:
By saying that God’s thought, that is, His mind (which Aquinas says is equivalent with his nature and existence) is bound by that-which-already-is contradicts the the fact that God is the First Cause and causes everything which was, is and will be.
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Who is saying that God’s mind is bound by what already is? As I stated earlier God is the source of all that exists. So obviously He is not bound by it.
 
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CRM_Brother said:
An infinite amount of things may come into being because they participate in various degrees and composites of the thoughts which already reside in the mind of God.
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You have lost me here. And a potential infinity is not the same as an actual infinity. As I said before if there is an infinite number of true propositions then God would know all of them. But that doesn’t mean He knows everything that could potentially exist but does not. Since God doesn’t change his knowledge doesn’t change. He knows everything, ie he knows all true propositions. And He knows everything that exists without being limited by them.
 
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fisherman_carl said:
Who is saying that God’s mind is bound by what already is? As I stated earlier God is the source of all that exists. So obviously He is not bound by it.
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I am sorry, I misunderstood the purpose of your mention of imaginary things. I thought your mention of the human intellectual composites of attributes found in reality into hypothetical conjectures held in potency was trying to assert that God’s mind was bound by those composites which were already in existance.
 
I think we are not necessarily using an equivocation of terms. Actual infinity can only exist in God, as he is pure act. In speaking of infinity with regards to physical things, there is always a sense of potential infinity. I am using Aquinas’s concept of physical infinity seen as a progression of things without end. He wrote an entire work on this, De aeternitate mundi, contra murmurantes in 1271.
 
CRM_Brother said:
I am sorry, I misunderstood the purpose of your mention of imaginary things. I thought your mention of the human intellectual composites of attributes found in reality into hypothetical conjectures held in potency was trying to assert that God’s mind was bound by those composites which were already in existance.
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You raise a good point that God’s capacity is not bound by his Creation. I was considering how the limits of how Thomas derives God’s existence from considering change in creation. Act and potency. Everything that changes is changed by another. Anything that has potentiality can only be brought into actuality by something else that has the potential to actualize it. This leads us ultimately to an actualized actualizer of all things. However, correct me if I am wrong, but if all things are in fact a finite number of things this method can only show us that the purely actual actualizer of all things is the actualizer of those things but does not show us that it is the actualizer of an infinity of things not actually actualized.
 
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