"Classical" Theism

[Peter_Plato]

The more I look into Fesers positions, the more horrified I am. It seems that I was entirely wrong about Aquinas. I was under the impression that he set forward to show, for example, that God could both be unchangeable, and love us in a way at least analogous to how we love. But that is not true. God does not really love us the way we love, he is pure mind, he “wills us good”.

This post on Feser’s blog fairly well encapsulates it.

I think at this point, if Feser is right and this is what Aquinas says and what the Church means when it says that God is both eternal and unchanging and we must affirm that, then I think I am going to have to leave the Church.

I think you are missing Feser’s and Aquinas’ larger point.

God is not a being who abides somewhere in the universe in some undisclosed locale. He is not a being who possesses goodness and truth at a far greater level than all other beings. In other words, God is not “a being” who happens to be good, who loves, knows the truth and exists, rather he is Goodness Itself, Love Itself, Truth Itself and Existence Itself

I am not clear why this would be problematic for you unless you have some inexplicable desire to defend a “supreme flying spaghetti monster” conception against atheistic barbs.

Feser makes an important point in the article…

But by the same token, it is ridiculous for human beings to think that the divine intellect, the divine will, divine love, etc. must be inferior to ours if God is immutable, impassible, incorporeal, etc. On the contrary, they are unimaginably higher and nobler than our thinking, willing, loving, etc. precisely because they are not tied to the limits of created things. God does not have to reason through the steps of an argument or to make careful observations in order to know something; his love does not vary in intensity given alterations in blood sugar levels, the state of the nerves, over-familiarity, etc.

 

[Kevin12]

I think you are missing Feser’s and Aquinas’ larger point.

God is not a being who abides somewhere in the universe in some undisclosed locale. He is not a being who possesses goodness and truth at a far greater level than all other beings. In other words, God is not “a being” who happens to be good, who loves, knows the truth and exists, rather he is Goodness Itself, Love Itself, Truth Itself and Existence Itself

I am not clear why this would be problematic for you unless you have some inexplicable desire to defend a “supreme flying spaghetti monster” conception against atheistic barbs.

Feser makes an important point in the article…

I’m not surprised that you agree with him, given what you state as your religion. I simply am concerned that Feser, or at least Davies, may be more rightly called an Aristotelian than Catholic if he holds some of the views he does. Because, whatever he may claim to the contrary, he has, by excluding any way of viewing God as personal , reduced Him to a computer.

I don’t disagree with those things you mention. I may have misunderstood on the mater of God’s love. But Feser’s and Davies thesis that God can be in no way a moral agent remains to be seen, and I know that other Thomist philosophers like Fr. Brian Shanley object to it as a reflection of Thomist philosophy. What’s more, all most of the reviews I read of “The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil” have raised most of the same problems I have and found the book wanting

 

[Peter_Plato]

I’m not surprised that you agree with him, given what you state as your religion.

Frankly, I am puzzled by the motivation behind your attack on Davies; even more puzzled, in fact, because of the Chesterton quote in your signature. A little further beyond where you located those words, you will find the following:

Ritual is really much older than thought; it is much simpler and much wilder than thought. A feeling touching the nature of things does not only make men feel that there are certain proper things to say; it makes them feel that there are certain proper things to do. The more agreeable of these consist of dancing, building temples, and shouting very loud; the less agreeable, of wearing green carnations and burning other philosophers alive.

You seem to be engaging in what Chesterton refers to one of those “less agreeable” of the “proper things to do,” to wit: “burning other philosophers alive.” You do understand he is being facetious, both with regard to “proper things” and, more importantly, with “burning other philosophers alive,” right?

Just making sure.

It isn’t so much that you keep depicting Davies as mistaken or even completely wrong, but that you keep bringing up the word “heretic” as if the orthodox view has been grasped by you and you alone and that you cannot possibly be mistaken either with regard to properly understanding the substance of that orthodox view nor with regard to your understanding of Davies’ points.

Perhaps it is your absolute certainty that makes you wear the audacity of accusing others of heresy like an overcoat?

With regard to “my religion,” it is actually my uncertainty that I can adequately speak for Catholicism that keeps me from - possibly falsely - depicting my position as truly “Catholic.” Unlike you, I don’t have the degree of certainty you seem to possess with regard to what is the definitively “Catholic” position on these very difficult and obtuse matters, which is, I suspect, one reason Chesterton refers to “burning other philosophers alive” as one of those “less agreeable” things to do - a compromised position wherein ‘thoughtful’ persons sometimes find themselves holding the torch.

I suggest you, at least, take Chesterton seriously. I am not clear that the work from which your signature was gleaned was intended as a manual for hunting down heretics, despite its name.

 

[Peter_Plato]

But Feser’s and Davies thesis that God can be in no way a moral agent remains to be seen,

Perhaps some clarity is in order.

Can God be an ‘agent’ for goodness? Not if by ‘agent’ we mean someone who acts on behalf of someone or something else. That would entail that ‘goodness’ is something apart from God and God acts on its behalf, which denies that God is ‘Goodness Itself,’ which Aquinas held to be true by definition.

The problem is that if God is a moral agent then ‘goodness’ becomes something apart from God that God chooses to align himself with. God is then only ‘good’ because he measures up to a standard - apart from him - which defines what ‘good’ is completely independently of the nature of God. So what is this standard and where is it located if not in the very Being and Essence of God?

So is it that God "just happens to be moral?’ Could he have just as easily been immoral if he decided to be?

What Davies is getting at is the long-held Thomistic idea that Being and Goodness are one and the same thing. Goodness is what God IS. There is no other candidate for what constitutes goodness. Ergo, God cannot be independently judged as being “good” or “moral,” because human goodness and morality derive from, albeit analogically, the nature of God as Being Itself and Goodness Itself.

I would submit that you just don’t understand the reasoning behind Davies’ position, nor do you get that what he is doing is attempting to look down a rabbit hole with regards to the implications of that reasoning. I would further suggest that if you could logically show where he went of the rails, he would be the first to acknowledge his error. This is what philosophers do. Unfortunately, error is not such an easy thing to uncover - as merely throwing the word “heretical” at a line of thought to see if it sticks or turns pink.

 

[Kevin12]

Frankly, I am puzzled by the motivation behind your attack on Davies; even more puzzled, in fact, because of the Chesterton quote in your signature. A little further beyond where you located those words, you will find the following:

You seem to be engaging in what Chesterton refers to one of those “less agreeable” of the “proper things to do,” to wit: “burning other philosophers alive.” You do understand he is being facetious, both with regard to “proper things” and, more importantly, with “burning other philosophers alive,” right?

Just making sure.

It isn’t so much that you keep depicting Davies as mistaken or even completely wrong, but that you keep bringing up the word “heretic” as if the orthodox view has been grasped by you and you alone and that you cannot possibly be mistaken either with regard to properly understanding the substance of that orthodox view nor with regard to your understanding of Davies’ points.

Perhaps it is your absolute certainty that makes you wear the audacity of accusing others of heresy like an overcoat?

With regard to “my religion,” it is actually my uncertainty that I can adequately speak for Catholicism that keeps me from - possibly falsely - depicting my position as truly “Catholic.” Unlike you, I don’t have the degree of certainty you seem to possess with regard to what is the definitively “Catholic” position on these very difficult and obtuse matters, which is, I suspect, one reason Chesterton refers to “burning other philosophers alive” as one of those “less agreeable” things to do - a compromised position wherein ‘thoughtful’ persons sometimes find themselves holding the torch.

I suggest you, at least, take Chesterton seriously. I am not clear that the work from which your signature was gleaned was intended as a manual for hunting down heretics, despite its name.

I include that quote against certain Catholics who speak of the Novus Ordo mass as though it was some sort of heresy. I take Chesterton plenty seriously.

I’m sorry if it seemed that I was trying to throw Davies under the bus. I tried to qualify my statement by saying that I wasn’t certain (I think those were my words), but I think Davies is indeed representing a heterodox opinion (I used heterodox, not heretical), according to my admittedly limited understanding. That is just my opinion, I do not state it with any firmness. The only people in the Church I would firmly call heretics are the Feneyites for denying the baptism of blood, but the Church seems to be trying to make peace with them and bring them back to the right path gently. But on the other hand, I came here because I was having a religious problem - that the views of Feser and Davies were causing me to question my faith, and as such, questioning whether they were really representing the views of the Church was something I did in the hopes someone could either show me they were not, or that I has misinterpreted Feser and Davies views.

But I am fairly sure, at least, that the claim that he is representative of “classical theism” made by Feser is not entirely accurate - or rather, he may be advocating a classical theistic position on Divine Simplicity, but he extrapolates things from it that were not held by Aquinas, Augustine, etc. I also think the distinction between so called classical theism and theistic personalism Feser (I don’t know about Davies, but I would assume him too) are too firmly drawn - I think they could be reconciled.

 

[Kevin12]

Perhaps some clarity is in order.

What Davies is getting at is the long-held Thomistic idea that Being and Goodness are one and the same thing. Goodness is what God IS. There is no other candidate for what constitutes goodness. Ergo, God cannot be independently judged as being “good” or “moral,” because human goodness and morality derive from, albeit analogically, the nature of God as Being Itself and Goodness Itself.

I would submit that you just don’t understand the reasoning behind Davies’ position, nor do you get that what he is doing is attempting to look down a rabbit hole with regards to the implications of that reasoning. I would further suggest that if you could logically show where he went of the rails, he would be the first to acknowledge his error. This is what philosophers do. Unfortunately, error is not such an easy thing to uncover - as merely throwing the word “heretical” at a line of thought to see if it sticks or turns pink.

Again, I think you are not understanding MY position. I understand the premises of Davies position. I am not saying that being is not goodness. I am saying that doesn’t exclude God from moral goodness in any sense, even if he does have not duties to us. Davies position is not something all Thomists are lining up to endorse as I have mentioned. This is from aother review of the book, and I think it sums it up pretty sufficiently:

*In chapter 8, Davies argues that God is good in two senses. First, picking up on a point made at the end of chapter 4, he argues that God is as good as it is possible for God to be. A perfect human being would be perfectly moral, but a perfect God is wholly actual; a God who lacked actuality would be an imperfect God. This seems to imply a rather weak sense of ‘good’; it amounts to little more than the claim that a good God is an existing God. If this is, indeed, all that God’s goodness entails, the problem of evil vanishes, but the concept of God is significantly diminished. Davies’s second sense in which God is good is, perhaps, more promising. In this sense, God is good in that the goodness of created things is reflected in the essence of their creator…

…Thus, Davies solves the problem of evil, but, in so doing, constructs a concept of a God who is good in only the most limited of senses. Evil may be non-existent in one rather contrived sense, but the suffering to which it gives rise is not an illusion. A God who is good only in the sense that He exists as the source of the goodness, which He wills for only some of His creatures and only some of the time, would seem to be more of a hindrance than a help to those who are struggling with the problem of evil. *

However, I didn’t come here to debate anyone. I’m not a philosopher, and if I was interested in Davies or Feser’s philosophy on the level, I would be asking about it where I am now. I’m not concerned about whether Davies is right or not, but his claims to represent “classical theism”.

 

[Peter_Plato]

However, I didn’t come here to debate anyone. I’m not a philosopher, and if I was interested in Davies or Feser’s philosophy on the level, I would be asking about it where I am now. I’m not concerned about whether Davies is right or not, but his claims to represent “classical theism”.

I am trying to make sense of this last paragraph, but …

Why are you concerned about whether he represents “classical theism?” That would seem LESS important than whether he is “right or not,” no? If he is right, then whether he represents classical theism or not becomes a trivial matter.

The other problem is that if there is something he specifically holds that you find disagreeable, then source that point. You keep referencing what others have to say about Davies as if their opinions are more important than what Davies actually says.

That is like deciding whether what he writes is “heterodox” based simply on what others claim he holds rather than by what he actually holds. Hearsay, no?

I haven’t read his book so I can’t comment directly, but I have some of his articles and a great deal of Feser. I trust what Feser says because it is very much in line with Aquinas and Catholic orthodoxy. Feser would have identified infringing ideas from Davies and has not. He has, however, made some astute observations about where Van Inwagen may be a tad mistaken. This is not to short Mr. Van Inwagen who holds his own, but merely to show that Feser is very particular about arriving at defensible conclusions.

At this point, you have actually peaked my interest and I am seriously considering getting and reading Davies’ book.

By the way, if you have an interest in theodicies and the problem of evil - which seems to be the case - a great book is Nature: Red in Tooth and Claw by Michael J. Murray.

 

[Kevin12]

@Peter Plato (rather than quoting)

I am using outside sources views of Davies because they say what I think of the book better than I can (and also, its very difficult to retype from the book).

I am concerned about the truth of his statements, but that’s not what I want to discuss in this forum. A large part of Feser’s thesis about the problem of evil is that we in modern age have moved from “classical theism” to “theistic personalism”. He claims that the former is original and in line with orthodoxy, and the latter a novelty, probably brought in by Protestantism. This is one of my main concerns in this thread, because there are people here with more extensive knowledge of the Fathers and Aquinas than I have.

The only position where I thought I could explicitly point to something Davies said and question its orthodoxy is about Original Sin, and I linked the book and some of the quotes I thought were relevant.

I agree that something like whether God is a moral agent or not is a hard thing to pin down, and I wouldn’t accuse him of heterodoxy for that, and that is the part Feser seems to be concerned with, so I am not at all worried about his orthodoxy, even if he holds an interpretation of Aquinas I don’t agree with. He doesn’t bring in his discussion of Original Sin, which I know Feser is quite orthodox on, since he has made several attempts to reconcile theistic evolution, with the domga that Original Sin came to us through our first father by generation. This solution, namely that we can account for human genetic variation by supposing that, after the Fall, the sons of Adam interbred with Homo Sapiens who were already alive but had not been given the"breath of life" - which even if it isn’t a “likely” scenario from a historical perspective, is at least possible.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I agree that something like whether God is a moral agent or not is a hard thing to pin down…

This may give you even something more to chew on…

thomism.wordpress.com/2014/08/27/taking-gods-moral-perfection-seriously/

 

[Peter_Plato]

@Peter Plato (rather than quoting)

I am using outside sources views of Davies because they say what I think of the book better than I can (and also, its very difficult to retype from the book).

I am concerned about the truth of his statements, but that’s not what I want to discuss in this forum. A large part of Feser’s thesis about the problem of evil is that we in modern age have moved from “classical theism” to “theistic personalism”. He claims that the former is original and in line with orthodoxy, and the latter a novelty, probably brought in by Protestantism. This is one of my main concerns in this thread, because there are people here with more extensive knowledge of the Fathers and Aquinas than I have.

I would suggest that after reading the Just Thomism post, at least part of the solution to your problem above lies in chewing on the statement:

Of course this could be taken as a charter for a divine monster. I insist that it isn’t – it really is an attempt to take the idea of a “divine moral perfection” seriously, as opposed to simply assuming we know what it means – which seems to make divine ethics a mere instance of human ethics.

Theistic personalism ought to be rejected, on a moral level, at least, because it simplistically does “make divine ethics a mere instance of human ethics” by assuming the starting point for all ethical deliberation is the human form of being.

 

[Kevin12]

While I appreciate the sentiment, I actually don’t believe that “classical theism” and “theistic personalism” are legitimate designations. However, I have no desire to debate the issue any further.

The main thing I have determined is that Davies position is not universally accepted by other Catholic theologians, so I don’t have to leave the Church because of it. And that is all I really care about.

 

[CrossofChrist]

While I appreciate the sentiment, I actually don’t believe that “classical theism” and “theistic personalism” are legitimate designations. However, I have no desire to debate the issue any further.

The main thing I have determined is that Davies position is not universally accepted by other Catholic theologians, so I don’t have to leave the Church because of it. And that is all I really care about.

I think you’d enjoy de Lubac. There’s a small segment in The Discovery of God that passes over classical ontology (basically he says it’s not of great concern for him). The positions of classical theism square well with Catholic theology, and sometimes classical theism is defined as the Catholic position. But as long as you stick with the doctrines, it’s ok.

There are some people that prefer to leave God at Mystery and don’t try to extend from what the dogmas say in as systematic a fashion as classical Thomism has. What really matters is staying faithful to Jesus Christ and His Church, and having a relationship with him every single day.

 

[Kevin12]

I think you’d enjoy de Lubac. There’s a small segment in The Discovery of God that passes over classical ontology (basically he says it’s not of great concern for him). The positions of classical theism square well with Catholic theology, and sometimes classical theism is defined as the Catholic position. But as long as you stick with the doctrines, it’s ok.

There are some people that prefer to leave God at Mystery and don’t try to extend from what the dogmas say in as systematic a fashion as classical Thomism has. What really matters is staying faithful to Jesus Christ and His Church, and having a relationship with him every single day.

Thank you for your thoughts. I think I am satisfied with the answers I have found out though.

 

[Kevin12]

I am reading a bit more into the doctrine of Divine Simplicity that seems to underlie Davies arguments. It seems to me that if this is God, God is just an abstract force - It (and I can’t think of any other way to describe it but It) doesn’t really care for us at all, since it is completely inhuman. I don’t really know how I’m supposed to pray to an abstract for that Wills my good. What’s worst of all is this oft repeated chestnut “Classical Theism maintains that God is entirely different in nature to the point where we experience the attributes of God in an analogous sense.” - but if God is entirely different from us, then we can’t even know things about It by analogy, so the Bible was not simply metaphorical, but just wrong.

But mainly, it seems to me impossible to square such a doctrine with the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the idea of God’s free will.

I think, very strongly, that I may need to leave the Church. And perhaps most Catholics need to leave the Church, because they certainly believe in a God that is at least compatible with “theistic personalism”, even if it doesn’t exclude that of classical theism.

And Peter Plato, you need not explain to me how eminently rational the concepts of classical theism are, I already understand that. I’m not concerned with that, but with the fact that they don’t appear at all to be compatible with Christianity itself.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I am reading a bit more into the doctrine of Divine Simplicity that seems to underlie Davies arguments. It seems to me that if this is God, God is just an abstract force - It (and I can’t think of any other way to describe it but It) doesn’t really care for us at all, since it is completely inhuman. I don’t really know how I’m supposed to pray to an abstract for that Wills my good. What’s worst of all is this oft repeated chestnut “Classical Theism maintains that God is entirely different in nature to the point where we experience the attributes of God in an analogous sense.” - but if God is entirely different from us, then we can’t even know things about It by analogy, so the Bible was not simply metaphorical, but just wrong.

But mainly, it seems to me impossible to square such a doctrine with the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the idea of God’s free will.
…
And Peter Plato, you need not explain to me how eminently rational the concepts of classical theism are, I already understand that. I’m not concerned with that, but with the fact that they don’t appear at all to be compatible with Christianity itself.

The mystery of Christianity is that the Infinitely Supreme Being became a man. What makes that such a unique event is not that some superior being something like man but just a little greater, somewhat akin to the Greek gods of Olympus, decided to leave the heights and become man, but rather that the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent Source of all that is and could possibly be, THAT God became a man. THAT is what makes Christianity unique in ALL respects.

It is not that some being just a little greater than ourselves is God, but that God who is infintely beyond our understanding and any possibility we can imagine, that God became man.

What you seem to be upset about is that God is not in the realm of your imagination, therefore, he cannot be believable to you. Well, if God WAS within the realm of our imagination, then that would make God rather limited, would it not?

I am not clear what it is about classical theism that gets your goat, but classical theism does not entail that God is not “personal,” just that he is not “personal” in the limited sense that we think of as personal. In other words, God is supra-personal, or only analogically “personal,” in the sense that he is three in Person yet one in being. Try to explain or “square” THAT, resorting purely to human notions of personhood. Somewhere, the human understanding of what it means to be a person breaks down when we try to apply it to three Persons in one God.

Personally, I don’t think you do understand what classical theism is getting at, but are confusing the divine attributes of simplicity, unity, etc. with some kind of amorphous blob or singularity - a kind of prime matter that just exists but does nothing - because you are exerting too much effort trying to imagine those attributes. This isn’t a proper understanding of what classical theism is getting at.

I would suggest that what you are doing is attempting to visualize or imagine what simply is not amenable to any kind of phenomenological treatment. The personhood of God is not and cannot be rendered in that way by our minds except as mediated to us by and through the person of Jesus Christ. That is why even when he became Incarnated as a human being, he was not recognized - the world did not know him (John 1:10)

Notice that Davies says we can only “experience the attributes of God in an analogous sense.” What he means here is that we cannot visualize, imagine, render to some tangible form, the attributes of God, but only understand them analogously. He is not saying we cannot comprehend them at all - that is your take AND one of your key errors. He is speaking of “experience” and not conception.

It is not as if the world (human society) should have recognized him by its own capacity, but rather that even when it was God himself doing the revealing, the people were blind to what Jesus signified because they relied on their own conception of what God should be like rather than letting God reveal himself to them.

My concern is that by confining your understanding of God to a kind of theistic personalism where God is understood as “person” first and only afterwards as God - in other words, by prioritizing and insisting that in order to be God he must first fit a human concept of what it means to be “a person,” before accepting what it means to be God, the danger is that we are simply projecting superhuman traits onto God and not allowing God to do the revealing. God revealed himself in the humanity of Jesus and no one recognized or accepted him on his terms, but rejected him on theirs. They insisted that they knew what God should be like, Jesus didn’t fit that mould, so they crucified him.

The problem is that they did not allow God to reveal himself in the humanity of Jesus, the people set the terms and for that reason they didn’t see “the Light” in front of their eyes.

It seems to me that by deciding on your own terms, who or what God is or ought to be, you are dictating to God what you expect of him - defining him - which is backwards. The light comes from God to us, not from us to God. It is not whatever we find in the beam of our own light projecting outwards that determines the nature of God, it is the light of God shining into us that reveals who we are to ourselves and obliquely in the reflection of our own being Jesus reveals God to us, but beyond our ability to apprehend in any concrete or sensory way. We “see” with the eyes of faith.

I would also point out that none of us fully grasps what it means to be a “person” because none of us are truly whole and complete persons - we are, all of us, disintegrated particulates masquerading as persons.

 

[Kevin12]

It seems to me that by deciding on your own terms, who or what God is or ought to be, you are dictating to God what you expect of him - defining him - which is backwards. The light comes from God to us, not from us to God. It is not whatever we find in the beam of our own light projecting outwards that determines the nature of God, it is the light of God shining into us that reveals who we are to ourselves and obliquely in the reflection of our own being Jesus reveals God to us, but beyond our ability to apprehend in any concrete or sensory way. We “see” with the eyes of faith.

You keep on deliberately turning my problems into a strawman of a view I don’t even defend which you call theistic personalism.

What you seem to be upset about is that God is not in the realm of your imagination, therefore, he cannot be believable to you. Well, if God WAS within the realm of our imagination, then that would make God rather limited, would it not?

I am not clear what it is about classical theism that gets your goat, but classical theism does not entail that God is not “personal,” just that he is not “personal” in the limited sense that we think of as personal. In other words,** God is supra-personal, or only analogically “personal,” in the sense that he is three in Person yet one in being. **Try to explain or “square” THAT, resorting purely to human notions of personhood. Somewhere, the human understanding of what it means to be a person breaks down when we try to apply it to three Persons in one God.

Yeah, as I said, if God is only personal in the special sense of the persons of the Trinity, than he is not a person in any way analogous, let alone “supra” to what we call “personal”. It means he is an abstract entity.

 

[Peter_Plato]

What’s worst of all is this oft repeated chestnut “Classical Theism maintains that God is entirely different in nature to the point where we experience the attributes of God in an analogous sense.” - but if God is entirely different from us, then we can’t even know things about It by analogy, so the Bible was not simply metaphorical, but just wrong.

This is an egregious error on your part.

Davies, if that is who you are quoting in the “oft repeated chestnut,” uses the word “experience” which, in neither philosophical nor specifically Thomistic terms, equates to “apprehend” or “know.” Your problem, it seems to me, is that you know far less about philosophy and terms used in scholarly works than you let on. It is your lack of familiarity with the terms that leads you to make huge inferential errors.

When Aristotle and Aquinas speak of the faculties or powers of the soul, the ability to “experience” means to build sensory images, to imagine or visualize. What Davies is getting at here is that whatever “experience” we can have of being a person and whatever that entails in terms of imagining what it means to be a person, THAT experience is not the same as what it means for God to be a person. His personhood is nothing like what our limited sensory constructs tell us about personhood, except by a small glimmer of similarity we might apprehend by analogy.

Davies does not even come close to saying or implying that “…we can’t even know things about It by analogy…” That is a huge logical misstep on your part.

Knowing or “intellection” is quite a different matter than experiencing, imagining, sensing or visualizing.

intellection

Pronunciation: /ɪntɪˈlɛkʃ(ə)n /
NOUN
The action or process of understanding, as opposed to imagination

Did you get that?
Knowing or intellection is not the same as, but in this respect, **opposed to **imagining, visualizing or experiencing.

Experiencing is not the same as knowing. Ergo, that we can only “experience the attributes of God in an analogous sense” does not imply "we can’t even know things about [God] by analogy.”

Davies claims we CAN have a sense that our experiences about personhood apply to God analogously. He says NOTHING about apprehension of God by the intellect, nor about concepts, nor does he come anywhere close to claiming we can know NOTHING about God at all, even by analogy.

If you are still convinced he does, I suspect that you could do with some very basic instruction on philosophical terms and making sound logical inferences before you go madly off in all directions claiming highly accredited philosophers are completely off-base for drawing far-fetched conclusions they never intended.

 

[Peter_Plato]

You keep on deliberately turning my problems into a strawman of a view I don’t even defend which you call theistic personalism.

Pardon me for correctly drawing inferences from your words:

I think, very strongly, that I may need to leave the Church. And perhaps most Catholics need to leave the Church, because they certainly believe in a God that is at least compatible with “theistic personalism”, even if it doesn’t exclude that of classical theism.

It certainly appears that you are defending theistic personalism and are considering leaving the Church precisely because the classical theism generally taught by the Church is not compatible with theistic personalism.

If you are not defending theistic personalism, what are you defending? And why is that version of theism left undefined by you except to function as an open escape route when it turns out that theistic personalism isn’t as compatible with Catholicism and the Bible as you suppose it is?

 

[Kevin12]

I’m getting really sick of this discussion, which makes me wonder why I resurrected it. But as far as I can tell, the Bible seems to imply both classical theism and theistic personalism depending on where you look. And if I had to say which it implied more, I’d say, the latter, by a large stretch - and its not a matter of a few passages you can just pooh-pooh away, it’s like, the narrative and poetic content of the entire thing. It certainly makes the claims of people like Bart Ehrman that the theological content of orthodox Christianity was just lifted from Neoplatonism very plausible.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I thought of a lot of ways to respond to this, but I just don’t think there is any point behind continuing this conversation.

Of course not.

A perfect example of why a little knowledge can be dangerous and humble pie hard to swallow.

If you were intellectually honest you would admit your errors or, minimally, depart with, “Let me think on this a little more.”

Obviously you’ve made up your mind and are rationalizing a decision that has little or nothing to do with classical theism.