Aquinas's First Way

[Linusthe2nd]

Linus I’d like to use your expose above to explore a few off-topic points with you…

(a) Is any given identification of a sensible “substance” actually absolute?
The dividing line between substance/accident in actual practice seems to me to be arbitrary. And if is the case then this identification is simply a mental construct that we apply to reality so we can “manage” or classify it. That is all. Would you agree.

Take your example above of alleged substantial change of water…

Sure, at a common sense observable level it seems that we are dealing with completely different things after water is electrolysised.

But with the eyes of the mind (which are not fooled by the senses) and modern scientific enquiry it would also be true that this is merely an accidental change in the local/spatial arrangement of the underlying atomic constituents which have only changed relative position (and sharing of electrons). The same number and mass of constituent atoms remains after as before.

Sure, Aristotle took account of this unbroken, underlying continuum of “existing” potentiality that existed both before and after his alleged “substantial” changes … he called it prime matter.

However the insights of Physics suggest his analysis of everyday “substantial changes” was limited. The underlying “prime matter” in such cases is not “prime matter” at all.

It is simpler than this - the underling principle is actually other more simple substances (atoms in this case) of “finer grain” whose characteristics are very different from the grosser composites that can emerge when these atoms undergo accidental change.

So one’s man’s “accidental change of atoms” is another man’s “substantial change of compounds.”

We can wax eloquent about “substantial change” and “accidental change” on a blackboard … but in the tangible world…there appears to be no absolute dividing line in any example we might suggest.

(PS I am not saying Prime Matter (as a co principle of sensible things) is a mistaken concept. But given that simple substances are not in fact infinitely divisible… then it seems to demonstrate that traditional examples of Aristotelian substantial/accidental change judgements are actually more layered more complex and more subjective than Aristotle perhaps realised).

Watch Dr. B’s video, that is what I will be doing. You can also sign up to learn something about Thomistic philosophy at his institute.

Linus2bd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

No. Potency cannot resides in matter since we don’t call two separate elements of H2 and O which are hold far apart water. One you breath and other one you use to burn things. From scientific point of view potency is held in something called force field generate by particles so they can experience each other and move.

Watch Dr. B’s video, that is what I will be doing. You can also sign up to learn something about Thomistic philosophy at his institute.

Linus2nd

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Let consider the example of your water. Water is made of O and H2 the former we breath and the later is flammable yet once together they can turn into water through a chemical reaction. Hence it is a property of distance which allows the mixed stuff to turn into water otherwise O and H2 stay as separate things forever. Do you call O and H2 in separate container as water? No.

But where potentiality/awareness really resides? From scientific point of view it resides in space between elements as a force field. Lets say, one particle generate the field and another particle experience the existence of field only and then it acts into the field. This is what I call it awareness in very simple physical world. In simple word one particle does not act accordingly if it does not experience the force field.

The same principle applies to us but in a very richer sense as our physical bodies are made of same stuff.

The key question is however whether what we call matter is conscious or not. There are three scenarios available here:

1. Each single irreducible particle has a self (Huh, to be hones I don’t know anybody who would like to defend this, so I defend it myself)
2. The whole have a single self (Descartes demon)
3. There is no self in physical world (Solipsism)

To be hones my mind is jumping from one of the above mentioned option to another one as I am already thinking on the very subject matter and I have very high hope to find open minded people like you to help me in this regards.

We need an eliminative method based on reason to proceed further. Now balls are in your field.

How Aristotle explain the potentiality?

Well, I think my position is clear by now. Hope to have a fruitful discussion.

Sorry B.
Your unique and syncretist application of principles from different disciplines with dubious applicability to the case at hand is so great I’d rather not go to the effort of trying to grasp your chain of reasoning.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Watch Dr. B’s video, that is what I will be doing. You can also sign up to learn something about Thomistic philosophy at his institute.

Linus2bd

Thanks for nothing .

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Linus I’d like to use your expose above to explore a few off-topic points with you…

(a) Is any given identification of a sensible “substance” actually absolute?
The dividing line between substance/accident in actual practice seems to me to be arbitrary. And if is the case then this identification is simply a mental construct that we apply to reality so we can “manage” or classify it. That is all. Would you agree.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

(a) Is any given identification of a sensible “substance” actually absolute?
The dividing line between substance/accident in actual practice seems to me to be arbitrary. And if is the case then this identification is simply a mental construct that we apply to reality so we can “manage” or classify it. That is all. Would you agree.

Take your example above of alleged substantial change of water…

Sure, at a common sense observable level it seems that we are dealing with completely different things after water is electrolysised.

But with the eyes of the mind (which are not fooled by the senses) and modern scientific enquiry it would also be true that this is merely an accidental change in the local/spatial arrangement of the underlying atomic constituents which have only changed relative position (and sharing of electrons). The same number and mass of constituent atoms remains after as before.

Sure, Aristotle took account of this unbroken, underlying continuum of “existing” potentiality that existed both before and after his alleged “substantial” changes … he called it prime matter.

However the insights of Physics suggest his analysis of everyday “substantial changes” was limited. The underlying “prime matter” in such cases is not “prime matter” at all.

It is simpler than this…

/QUOTE]

Dear Blue Horizon:

“… simply a mental contruct…”?

“…the eyes of the mind (which are not fooled by the senses)…”?

I have never had the chance to visit one of those sophisticated modern laboratories where some scientists make experiments to determine the structure of matter. I certainly can tell you though that those scientists do not have an extremely acute vision that allows them to see with their own eyes the “atomic particles”. What they observe is the result of an interaction between a number of physical entities (certain amount of matter, certain wavelength, certain transducing instruments…). And they have a model (a mental construct) that allows them to predict the result of the interaction. When they find a close approximation (they have to define what that means) between the prediction and what they observe, they tend to think that the model is good.

Titus Lucretius Carus was able to deduce the existance of atoms (the indivisibles) centuries ago based on such simple observations that you wouldn’t believe. And as those particles were unaccesible to our senses, he used to say that they were accesible to our Reason. Lucretius’ atom was what you call “simply a mental construct”. But I would eliminate the word “simply”, because those mental constructs allow us to promote marvellous interactions. They are nothing despicable.

I mentioned in one of my previous messages the example of the hydrogen atomic particles that come close to oxygen atomic particles and give place to groups (H2O molecules) that show quite new interactions (It is dramatic: Hydrogen is a combustible, oxygen is a comburent, and liquid water can be used to quench certain fires). However, I was using “mental constructs” in combination with other kind of observations. We see hydrogen, oxygen and water (we identify each one of them thanks to their typical interactions); but we don’t see any “atomic particles” at all.

What was “prime matter” for Aristotle. Before him, there were other philosophers (the pre-socratics) that used to think about the principle of everything (Thales, for example was one of them, and he said that the principle of everything was water). There were some others that thought that the principle was something else. But Aristotle on his side thought that just matter could not explain the differences that we see between one piece of matter (bread, for example) and another (like blood, for example). There must be something else that differentiates them. And we must remember that there were other important antecedents besides the pre-socratics that made remarkable contributions. Among them was Plato, with his theory of “forms”, that could be accesible to Reason. Aristotle discusses all the theories that he knew, and he tries to take advantage of all of them (its hard to think that everything someone says is false. Surely there is something true that can be used). Aristotle said that besides the principle that the pre-socratics were looking for, “forms” were an integral part of physical entities. So, for example, when we eat bread and it becomes human blood, it is the same “matter” that acquires a new “form”. But every piece of matter that we see around us is already a matter with a form. Then, the deduction comes into plays to produce a new mental construct: if a particular piece of matter can asume different forms, we can conceive a matter without any form. Such is the aristotelian “prime matter”. However, it actually cannot be conceived. It is a peculiar mental construct -similar to the notion of “nothing”-, because every matter that we can conceive is already an informed matter. Whatever we can conceive has a “form”. It is the form what makes something inteligible (this is an interesting word). And as “prime matter” does not have any form, it lacks inteligibility. It cannot be conceived! It is a negative notion. And not only that, prime matter does not exist at all. It is not something underlying below I don’t know what. It is just a negative notion that appears as a peculiar extrapolation.

Substantial and accidental changes from a modern point of view! Let me come back to this tomorrow. I owe you now some thoughts about efficient causes and now something about changes.

Best regards!
Juan Florencio

 

[Bahman]

Sorry B.
Your unique and syncretist application of principles from different disciplines with dubious applicability to the case at hand is so great I’d rather not go to the effort of trying to grasp your chain of reasoning.

Huh?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Dr. B’s video discusses this, so I hope you do view it.

OK I will have a look at Dr B when I get some spare time.
However I don’t believe you’ve quite got the gist of my main point above.

]…there is no doubt that …birth or death are substantial changes.

That is what I am calling into doubt.
Your judgement of substantial or accidental arbitrarily depends on what level of intellectual “zoom” you apply to the “reality” under observation.

You see death as a substantial change only because you have decided to “bring into intellectual focus” that unity of organic material dimensioned by the borders of a body which cannot be divided without losing its “substantial” identity.

I can look at the same body as but one (marvellous) possible combination/collocation of a huge but fixed number of around 45 different atoms that still remain after “death” unchanged.

So I do not see “death” as a substantial change but an accidental change at this level … a re-arrangement of a marvellously integrated and complex organic structure into much cruder structures. Yet still the same collection of un-changing atoms. Accidental change.

(But lets keep to the electrolysis of water, its a simpler example to understand and the same analysis appears to apply.)

I am observing that substance/accident distinctions (and changes) only make sense relative to each other and are not absolutely fixed/defined at any specific “layer” of reality (ie the six basic sub-particles, atoms, molecules, compounds, cells, bodies etc etc.)

Much like we use genus/species classifications not absolutely but relatively at any arbitrary level of Porphory’s Tree we choose to focus on.

I am saying that “reality” is based on a hierachy of semi-autonomous layers of differing indivisible building blocks. So depending which layer of semi-fixed organisation we focus on … one man’s substantial change turns out to be another mans acidental change.

A fairly simple insight but not one anyone seems to talk about.

But though the product of electrolysis results in the same ratio of hydrogen and oxygen atoms, the product is two gasses. And each of these has an entirely different nature than the nature of water. You can breath the gasses, you cannot breath the water, for example.

As above I don’t deny any of this. It doesn’t engage my point though.

12727158Assuming we didn’t start out with heavy water and that we have a sample of pure H2O.

From a Physics point of view I don’t quite know why this is significant? In heavy water H2 and O2 atoms are still in a ratio of 2:1 - though the mass ratio of the respective atoms will of course be approx halved.

By the way Edwared Feser has a few things to say about the subatomic world as well in this link. It is difficult reading but worth while.
See " Causality and Radioactive Decay " in Strange Notions, strangenotions.com/

Thanks.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

OK I will have a look at Dr B when I get some spare time.
However I don’t believe you’ve quite got the gist of my main point above.

That is what I am calling into doubt.
Your judgement of substantial or accidental arbitrarily depends on what level of intellectual “zoom” you apply to the “reality” under observation.

You see death as a substantial change only because you have decided to “bring into intellectual focus” that unity of organic material dimensioned by the borders of a body which cannot be divided without losing its “substantial” identity.

I can look at the same body as but one (marvellous) possible combination/collocation of a huge but fixed number of around 45 different atoms that still remain after “death” unchanged.

So I do not see “death” as a substantial change but an accidental change at this level … a re-arrangement of a marvellously integrated and complex organic structure into much cruder structures. Yet still the same collection of un-changing atoms. Accidental change.

(But lets keep to the electrolysis of water, its a simpler example to understand and the same analysis appears to apply.)

I am observing that substance/accident distinctions (and changes) only make sense relative to each other and are not absolutely fixed/defined at any specific “layer” of reality (ie the six basic sub-particles, atoms, molecules, compounds, cells, bodies etc etc.)

Much like we use genus/species classifications not absolutely but relatively at any arbitrary level of Porphory’s Tree we choose to focus on.

I am saying that “reality” is based on a hierachy of semi-autonomous layers of differing indivisible building blocks. So depending which layer of semi-fixed organisation we focus on … one man’s substantial change turns out to be another mans acidental change.

A fairly simple insight but not one anyone seems to talk about.

As above I don’t deny any of this. It doesn’t engage my point though.

From a Physics point of view I don’t quite know why this is significant? In heavy water H2 and O2 atoms are still in a ratio of 2:1 - though the mass ratio of the respective atoms will of course be approx halved.

Thanks.

The difference between a substantial change and an accidental on is more than a matter of perspective. At death man disappears and the body breaks down into its constituent physical elements. That is a substantial change, the substantial form for the man has left the body. The elements no longer have the soul to coordinate their activity for the good of the man. That is something altogether different that getting a sun tan.

Likewise with water. The form of water gives water a nature with properties which are all together different than that of the constituent gasses separated from the substance of water.

So, in substances we are dealing with real natures. It is not simply a matter of " layering. " Man is not simply the ultimate layer, it is an entirely different nature. Philosophically, Aristotle would say that the constituent elements, considered individually, would be accidents of the substance that is man. The same would apply to water and its constituent elements.

Look at the following post where I invoke the teaching of the Church and Divine Revelation to defend the objective reality of substances.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Blue,

The Dogmatic statements from the Council Vatican speak directly to the issues here. God Almighty created real substances, beings both material and spiritual, living and inanimate. In otherwords he created beings with real natures. In the material realm of course these beings have material constituents comprised of various ultimate particles. These however do not have an indepent nature as constituents of the created natures but function under the power of these natures for the good of the whole natures - they are not independent operators. And while they may be isolated in a laboratory setting for brief, nano seconds of time, that is not their normal state of existence. They normally and in nature exist as a functioning part of the natures of which they are a part. They do not determine the natures in which they exist, it is the natures in which they exist that determine their functionality. And these natures are really existing substances. God creates really existing things, he does not create illusions. And those who claim other wise are… well, are having problems facing reality.

THE VATICAN COUNCIL 1869-1870

Ecumenical XX (on Faith and the Church)

SESSION III (April 24, 1870)

Dogmatic Constitution concerning the Catholic Faith *

1781 But now, with the bishops of the whole world sitting and judging with us, gathered together in this Ecumenical Council by Our authority in the Holy Spirit, We, having relied on the Word of God, written and transmitted as We have received it, sacredly guarded and accurately explained by the Catholic Church, from this chair of PETER, in the sight of all, have determined to profess and to declare the salutary doctrine of Christ, after contrary errors have been proscribed and condemned by the power transmitted to Us by God.

Chap. 1. God, Creator of All Things

1782 [The one, living, and true God and His distinction from all things.] * The holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church believes and confesses that there is one, true, living God, Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, omnipotent, eternal, immense, incomprehensible, infinite in and will, and in every perfection; who, although He is one, singular, altogether simple and unchangeable spiritual substance, must be proclaimed distinct in reality and essence from the world; most blessed in Himself and of Himself, and ineffably most high above all things which are or can be conceived outside Himself [can. 1-4].

1783 The act of creation in itself, and in opposition to modern errors, and the effect of creation] . This sole true God by His goodness and “omnipotent power,” not to increase His own beatitude, and not to add to, but to manifest His perfection by the blessings which He bestows on creatures, with most free volition, “immediately from the beginning of time fashioned each creature out of nothing, spiritual and corporeal, namely angelic and mundane; and then the human creation, common as it were, composed of both spirit and body” [Lateran Council IV, see n. 428; can. 2 and 5]

1784 [The result of creation] .But God protects and governs by His providence all things which He created, “reaching from end to end mightily and ordering all things sweetly” [cf. Wisd. 8:1]. For “all things are naked and open to His eyes” Heb. 4:13], even those which by the free action of creatures are in the future.

Linus2nd

 

[thinkandmull]

Let consider the example of your water. Water is made of O and H2 the former we breath and the later is flammable yet once together they can turn into water through a chemical reaction. Hence it is a property of distance which allows the mixed stuff to turn into water otherwise O and H2 stay as separate things forever. Do you call O and H2 in separate container as water? No.

But where potentiality/awareness really resides? From scientific point of view it resides in space between elements as a force field. Lets say, one particle generate the field and another particle experience the existence of field only and then it acts into the field. This is what I call it awareness in very simple physical world. In simple word one particle does not act accordingly if it does not experience the force field.

The same principle applies to us but in a very richer sense as our physical bodies are made of same stuff.

The key question is however whether what we call matter is conscious or not. There are three scenarios available here:

1. Each single irreducible particle has a self (Huh, to be hones I don’t know anybody who would like to defend this, so I defend it myself)
2. The whole have a single self (Descartes demon)
3. There is no self in physical world (Solipsism)

To be hones my mind is jumping from one of the above mentioned option to another one as I am already thinking on the very subject matter and I have very high hope to find open minded people like you to help me in this regards.

We need an eliminative method based on reason to proceed further. Now balls are in your field.

How Aristotle explain the potentiality?

Well, I think my position is clear by now. Hope to have a fruitful discussion.

“2) The whole have a single self (Descartes demon)” What do you mean?

 

[thinkandmull]

OK I will have a look at Dr B when I get some spare time.
However I don’t believe you’ve quite got the gist of my main point above.

That is what I am calling into doubt.
Your judgement of substantial or accidental arbitrarily depends on what level of intellectual “zoom” you apply to the “reality” under observation.

You see death as a substantial change only because you have decided to “bring into intellectual focus” that unity of organic material dimensioned by the borders of a body which cannot be divided without losing its “substantial” identity.

I can look at the same body as but one (marvellous) possible combination/collocation of a huge but fixed number of around 45 different atoms that still remain after “death” unchanged.

So I do not see “death” as a substantial change but an accidental change at this level … a re-arrangement of a marvellously integrated and complex organic structure into much cruder structures. Yet still the same collection of un-changing atoms. Accidental change.

(But lets keep to the electrolysis of water, its a simpler example to understand and the same analysis appears to apply.)

I am observing that substance/accident distinctions (and changes) only make sense relative to each other and are not absolutely fixed/defined at any specific “layer” of reality (ie the six basic sub-particles, atoms, molecules, compounds, cells, bodies etc etc.)

Much like we use genus/species classifications not absolutely but relatively at any arbitrary level of Porphory’s Tree we choose to focus on.

I am saying that “reality” is based on a hierachy of semi-autonomous layers of differing indivisible building blocks. So depending which layer of semi-fixed organisation we focus on … one man’s substantial change turns out to be another mans acidental change.

A fairly simple insight but not one anyone seems to talk about.

As above I don’t deny any of this. It doesn’t engage my point though.

From a Physics point of view I don’t quite know why this is significant? In heavy water H2 and O2 atoms are still in a ratio of 2:1 - though the mass ratio of the respective atoms will of course be approx halved.

Thanks.

As we are discussing on another thread, something can’t be indivisible and still be in space.

Also this: *Being Christian *(Franciscan Herald Press, 1970), Cardinal Ratzinger:

“The concept of substance, with which the idea of change seems to be closely linked, appears to be completely unobjective since the bread, considered from a physical and chemical point of view, is seen as a mixture of heterogeneous materials, made up of an infinite multitude of atoms which, in turn, are composed of an enormous number of elemental particles to which we can ultimately apply no certain concept of substance since we do not even know if their existence is corpuscular or undulatory. What, then, does ‘change’ mean? How and where can the Body and Blood of Christ be present here? And what does eating his Body and drinking his Blood mean?” (p. 59).

I disagree. Substance is what a thing is. Is *this *a pen? That’s its substance!

 

[thinkandmull]

The difference between a substantial change and an accidental on is more than a matter of perspective. At death man disappears and the body breaks down into its constituent physical elements. That is a substantial change, the substantial form for the man has left the body. The elements no longer have the soul to coordinate their activity for the good of the man. That is something altogether different that getting a sun tan.

Likewise with water. The form of water gives water a nature with properties which are all together different than that of the constituent gasses separated from the substance of water.

So, in substances we are dealing with real natures. It is not simply a matter of " layering. " Man is not simply the ultimate layer, it is an entirely different nature. Philosophically, Aristotle would say that the constituent elements, considered individually, would be accidents of the substance that is man. The same would apply to water and its constituent elements.

Look at the following post where I invoke the teaching of the Church and Divine Revelation to defend the objective reality of substances.

Linus2nd

I don’t think the “substance” which is changed during the consecration can be proven by reason to exist. This spiritual “breadness” is there because the Faith tells us. But reason alone would say that the substance of water is there before your eyes. Its water! When the Hydrogen and Oxygen react together, they create something unique, but that’s physical, the senses perceive it. The substance of the wax, first solid, then melted, which Descartes spoke of is not he substance of the Eucharest

 

[Bahman]

“2) The whole have a single self (Descartes demon)” What do you mean?

I mean all the changes in physical world(expect those we have direct control on, our bodies) is controlled by an agent so called Descartes demon.

 

[ChainBreaker]

As we are discussing on another thread, something can’t be indivisible and still be in space.

Also this: *Being Christian *(Franciscan Herald Press, 1970), Cardinal Ratzinger:

“The concept of substance, with which the idea of change seems to be closely linked, appears to be completely unobjective since the bread, considered from a physical and chemical point of view, is seen as a mixture of heterogeneous materials, made up of an infinite multitude of atoms which, in turn, are composed of an enormous number of elemental particles to which we can ultimately apply no certain concept of substance since we do not even know if their existence is corpuscular or undulatory. What, then, does ‘change’ mean? How and where can the Body and Blood of Christ be present here? And what does eating his Body and drinking his Blood mean?” (p. 59).

I disagree. Substance is what a thing is. Is *this *a pen? That’s its substance!

I don’t think that any educated Catholic would argue that the body and blood of Christ as taken in mass involves a physical transformation anymore than the word becoming flesh involves a physical transformation. One is still dealing with a physical object completely untransformed and normal from a strictly physical point of view. However God is present to the object and chooses to express his will in relation to the object or concept being employed.

 

[thinkandmull]

The relationship between this “substance” and the “matter” is the question Physical breadness remains, but something more profound has changed. Jesus has replaced a “something” with Himself. What that “something” is, is beyond the senses.

Cardinal Ratzinger *God and the World, Believing and Living in Our Time *(Ignatius Press, 2002). “‘But anyone can see that the wine remains wine’ But this is not a statement of physics. It has never been asserted that, so to say, nature in a physical sense is being changed. The transformation reaches down to a more profound level. Tradition has it that this is a metaphysical process. Christ lays hold upon what is, from a purely physical viewpoint, bread and wine, in its inmost being, so that it is changed from within and Christ truly gives himself in them”.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

On Transubstantiation from the Council of Vatican l

CHAPTER IV.
On Transubstantiation.
And because that Christ, our Redeemer, declared that which He offered under the species of bread to be truly His own body, therefore has it ever been a firm belief in the Church of God, and this holy Synod doth now declare it anew, that, by the consecration of the bread and of the wine, a conversion is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His blood; which conversion is, by the holy Catholic Church, suitably and properly called Transubstantiation. history.hanover.edu/texts/trent/ct13.html

From the Catechism

1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation."204

From Thomas Aquinas

1.Is the Body of Christ in this sacrament truly, or figuratively?
2.Do the substance of bread and wine remain in this sacrament after the consecration?
3.Is it annihilated?
4.Is it changed into the body and blood of Christ?
5.Do the accidents remain after the change?
6.Does the substantial form remain there?
7.Is this change instantaneous? 8.By what words it may be suitably expressed

newadvent.org/summa/4075.htm

It is importnat to keep in mind that the Cardinal was engaged in theological speculation, he was not teaching Doctrine. And we have to ask ourselves, was he a greater theologian/philosopher than Thomas Aquinas, from whom the Fathers of Vatical l borrowed the terms of ’ substance ’ and ’ accident ’ and ’ species? ’

According to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, the real substance of a thing cannot be seen, what we see and detect are actually the accidents of the underlying substance. So the substance of the bread and wine ( which we cannot see or detect ) is changed into the substance of Christ’s body and blood, and wherever his body and blood are ,there is the whole Christ. But the accidents of the bread and wine remain. Accidents remember are what inheres in a substance, except, in this case, they inhere in no substance.

Naturally science would disagree, because all the properties of the bread and wine are present. And this is true, all the properties of the physical substances are still there. But they are present as accidents without a subject, without a substance. Are they physical? Yes they are. And that is just the point. In Aristotelian/Thomistic philosophy, the physical properties are accidents and only accidents.

Linus2nd

 

[Dr.Bonnette]

Hi Thinkandmull,

The proofs for God’s existence are complex and one could write a book on them. In fact, I did. So, frankly, I don’t have the time to go through all of them on this thread –nor to reply to every question.

Still, let me just make a few general observations. First, I have already distinguished the First Way from the Second in post 34. Second, when you talk about causal regressions, never forget that for St. Thomas, in his proofs for God’s existence, he is always talking about causal chains in which each member exists and causes simultaneously with all other members of the chain. In other words, causal regressions do not go back in time; they exist and act in the here and now. Any attempt to prove God’s existence through regression in time utterly misses the force of the Thomistic proofs. Third, St. Thomas uses the hypothesis of an eternal world to prove God’s existence in the Third Way, but, as a Christian, he believes that the world had a temporal beginning. Fourth, just because the finite things in the world need a cause, this does not mean that God needs a cause. Finite things, upon analysis, reveal their existential contingency. They do not explain themselves, and thus need extrinsic reasons or causes. God, as the Necessary Being – the sole Being in which essence and existence are identical, explains His own existence, and hence, is in no need of an extrinsic cause.

The key to proving God’s existence is to examine the finite things found in this finite world and to come to understand that neither singly nor collectively do they explain their own existence and/or becoming. The need for a transcendent First Cause becomes manifest precisely when we come to realize that the finite world needs an explanation and cannot explain itself. The materialist assumes that the finite material world is self-explanatory. Metaphysics reveals that no finite thing explains itself precisely because of its finitude, and hence, some transcendent cause is needed. Thus, in the First Way, the inability of any finite thing to bring itself from potency to act (to give to itself something it does not yet have) reveals that it needs an external cause of motion, leading, through the impossibility of an infinite regress of moved movers acting here and now, to a First Mover Unmoved. Only in a later part of the Summa Theologiae does St. Thomas make clear that this First Mover, not only fulfills the nominal definition of God, but actually entails the properties properly attributed to God Himself.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

The difference between a substantial change and an accidental on is more than a matter of perspective. At death man disappears and the body breaks down into its constituent physical elements. That is a substantial change, the substantial form for the man has left the body. The elements no longer have the soul to coordinate their activity for the good of the man. That is something altogether different that getting a sun tan.

Likewise with water. The form of water gives water a nature with properties which are all together different than that of the constituent gasses separated from the substance of water.

So, in substances we are dealing with real natures. It is not simply a matter of " layering. " Man is not simply the ultimate layer, it is an entirely different nature. Philosophically, Aristotle would say that the constituent elements, considered individually, would be accidents of the substance that is man. The same would apply to water and its constituent elements.

Look at the following post where I invoke the teaching of the Church and Divine Revelation to defend the objective reality of substances.

Linus2nd

I don’t think I denied any of the above.
My point is a simple one…

It appears equally consistent to say that electrolysis of water is merely an accidental change of the atoms involved whose identity, quantity and mass remains unchanged.

Your logic appears to be limited to an either/or solution: if a view is different from what you hold to be the case then it must be wrong.

Why cannot it be both/and as I have actually shown.
Depending on what “focal-distance” or perspective one chooses to view reality…the same change can be validly seen as either substantial or accidental. Reality is apparantly “layered.”

This appears obvious and an unavoidable logical conclusion from the analysis of the electrolysis of water.

Can you explain why you believe my perspective, at the atomic level, does not meet the criteria of accidental change?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

As we are discussing on another thread, something can’t be indivisible and still be in space.

Not quite sure what brought this up?

What I mean is that to further divide a thing so as to destroy its identity (such as the last atom of a gold bar) … means gold is not infinitely divisible. I am not sure why that would mean it cannot be in space or why its pertinent here.

Also this: *Being Christian *(Franciscan Herald Press, 1970), Cardinal Ratzinger:

“The concept of substance, with which the idea of change seems to be closely linked, appears to be completely unobjective since the bread, considered from a physical and chemical point of view, is seen as a mixture of heterogeneous materials, made up of an infinite multitude of atoms which, in turn, are composed of an enormous number of elemental particles to which we can ultimately apply no certain concept of substance since we do not even know if their existence is corpuscular or undulatory. What, then, does ‘change’ mean? How and where can the Body and Blood of Christ be present here? And what does eating his Body and drinking his Blood mean?” (p. 59).
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I am only mulling on substantial change versus accidental change rather than the substance/acident distinction. As this is a philosophy forum I don’t feel the need to understand articles of faith with Aristotelian principles .

Is *this *a pen? That’s its substance

And its also an aggregation of perhaps five or six different types of atoms (substances) which don’t die (therefore accidental change) when I kill (therefore substantial change) your pen with a sledge-hammer.

We are both right.