They impose limits on either God’s love or power which don’t exist! In their view the Creator is inferior to us in at least one respect and is reduced to an impersonal force whose only function is mechanistic, amoral and purposeless.Why not? I understand the hardcore deist position but why none who would allow for the occasional miracle?
St Thomas also states that natural evils, like animal blindness, suffering and death, lethal earthquakes, tornadoes, and the like, are only incidentally evil, that is, locally and relatively undesirable by affected creatures. They are the result of coincidences that are not intended but permitted by God because they are inevitable in an immensely complex, dynamic system with countless creatures pursuing different goals.St Thomas Aquinas says that “as to the order of divine providence, nothing in the world happens by chance, as Augustine declares.” This means that nothing happens in the world by sheer chance or randomness. What appears to us as a random or chance event according to some proximate cause as in the workings of nature is reduced to God as the first cause whose divine will nothing can resist. The efficacy of the divine will which is the cause of things and which works through secondary causes brings about its desired or intended effect. Nothing escapes the providence of God and His plan for the world even the free actions and sins of human beings. We depend on God and his causality even in the free exercise of our free will but God does not will or cause us to sin though without God we could do neither good or evil. The workings and forces of nature which are without free will are directed to their actions and ends ultimately by God as He is the first cause of all things. Human beings who possess intellect and free will have the power of choice and are master of their own actions and thus they are subject to praise and blame, unlike the whole of irrational nature.
I’m no expert on Deism but that is a little hard to swallow. As I understand deism, and I am confessing my ignorance, God is the prime mover and otherwise not interfering in creation.They impose limits on either God’s love or power which don’t exist! In their view the Creator is inferior to us in at least one respect and is reduced to an impersonal force whose only function is mechanistic, amoral and purposeless.
To remain aloof when others are suffering unnecessarily is certainly not a sign of perfect love but of impotence or indifference.I’m no expert on Deism but that is a little hard to swallow. As I understand deism, and I am confessing my ignorance, God is the prime mover and otherwise not interfering in creation.
My question to Deists (we had at least one), why can’t God mostly remain aloof but occasionally meddle?
My question to Catholics is why does a non-meddling God imply limits on God’s love and power? It could be that perfect love and absolute power implies noninterference.
I would recommend the book of Job. We are in no position to judge God on what is “unnecessary”.To remain aloof when others are suffering unnecessarily is certainly not a sign of perfect love but of impotence or indifference.
Without getting into a long tangent about what is genuinely random, let’s agree that St Thomas Aquinas believed that nothing in the world happens by chance. St Thomas Aquinas was not a scientist and had no access to theories of quantum mechanics but relied, instead, on his own belief about God’s nature.St Thomas Aquinas says that “as to the order of divine providence, nothing in the world happens by chance, as Augustine declares.” This means that nothing happens in the world by sheer chance or randomness. What appears to us as a random or chance event according to some proximate cause as in the workings of nature is reduced to God as the first cause whose divine will nothing can resist. The efficacy of the divine will which is the cause of things and which works through secondary causes brings about its desired or intended effect. Nothing escapes the providence of God and His plan for the world even the free actions and sins of human beings. We depend on God and his causality even in the free exercise of our free will but God does not will or cause us to sin though without God we could do neither good or evil. The workings and forces of nature which are without free will are directed to their actions and ends ultimately by God as He is the first cause of all things. Human beings who possess intellect and free will have the power of choice and are master of their own actions and thus they are subject to praise and blame, unlike the whole of irrational nature.
And this is a crucial distinction: “not intended but permitted”. We allow for that in the case of creatures of free will but why should we balk at it in the rest of creation?St Thomas also states that natural evils, like animal blindness, suffering and death, lethal earthquakes, tornadoes, and the like, are only incidentally evil, that is, locally and relatively undesirable by affected creatures. They are the result of coincidences that are not intended but permitted by God because they are inevitable in an immensely complex, dynamic system with countless creatures pursuing different goals.
The number cast by the dice is said to be random, but that does not change the fact that it involves a number of causal events to make it happen.. . . a narrow understanding of causality. Suppose I throw a die. Whatever number comes up, I was the cause of it. It seems perfectly reasonable that if God can create creatures with free will that he could create a universe that is not deterministic outside those free will creatures. And this is a crucial distinction: “not intended but permitted”. We allow for that in the case of creatures of free will but why should we balk at it in the rest of creation?
That is one way to view it. It is not the only way.The number cast by the dice is said to be random, but that does not change the fact that it involves a number of causal events to make it happen.
It does not create itself; the number is determined by the overall effect of these factors.
We do not know all there is to know about what causes events to happen; I would say this is especially so in the case of quantum physics. Random has to do with the role of multiple and/or uncontrolled and/or unknown variables on a dependent variable.
Yes, human beings are vastly more complex than a pair of dice or any device that we are able to construct. And, yet, we are made of the same stuff. Unless you want to reach into dualism you are left to explain how human beings possess free will in a mechanisticly determined universe.Human beings are far more complex than a pair of dice. Added to this is the role of our free will in determining who we are and become.
I see all creation as arising in the Moment through the Word of God.
God creates a universe with a beginning and end, and is thereby in each moment.
Time, I see as including the collection of all our individual moments,
which our soul cleaves from the whole of creation, as it constructs itself as an eternal being.
Everything outside of free will is intended and our choices are permitted.
It is intended from the Source of creation - God.
It can be very, very difficult and even impossible to discern these meanings, sometimes.
Call it speculation, then.It has not been revealed that anyone but the angels and ourselves has free will.
One can speculate all one wants, but I don’t believe that one can even prove to everyone’s satisfaction that human beings have free will; so, good luck with proving that matter chooses what it will do.
:twocents:. . . there is such a thing as true randomness, that not everything is mechanisticly determined. That the desgn of a die allows those random forces to act in their creative way. That the universe is fundamentally creative in this sense. . . God created a universe with random properties, or God is working at the quantum level in a continual, ongoing process of creation.
Yes, human beings are vastly more complex than a pair of dice or any device that we are able to construct. And, yet, we are made of the same stuff. Unless you want to reach into dualism you are left to explain how human beings possess free will in a mechanisticly determined universe. . . .
Here is a definition of random: not caused by the prior state. Let’s look at the throw of the dice again. If it were genuinely random then there would be absolutely now way to discern (e.g. predict) the outcome no matter how much you knew about the prior universe.Randomness means that the causes are not discernable for various reasons, not that they don’t exist. The universe cannot be creative, bringing itself into existence. There must be Someone greater than man (the top of the earthly heap), who is creative, outside of nature. God is working at this level, where we here are meeting as well as at other “levels” of being, in a continual, ongoing process of creation. We are a unity of matter and spirit. Our soul does not control the body; in bringing the two together, we were created as one being who knows and acts.
The outcome is caused by the shape of the dice, the concentration and distribution of matter within them, how they are picked up and moved around, the air pressure of the day, the elasticity of the material on which they are thrown, the friction that they encounter, . . . Unpredictable, yes, undetermined, no.Here is a definition of random: not caused by the prior state. Let’s look at the throw of the dice again. If it were genuinely random then there would be absolutely now way to discern (e.g. predict) the outcome no matter how much you knew about the prior universe.
One simple way to explain that is that at the instant the dice are thrown God reaches into creation and determines the outcome. You may throw the dice but God determines how they turn up.
What you are describing here is the classic mechanistic determinism. That the throw of the dice is not genuinely random (as I defined it above) but merely so chaotic as to defy prediction.It is caused by their shape, the concentration and distribution of matter within them, how they are picked up and moved around, the air pressure of the day, the elasticity of the material on which they are thrown, the friction that they encounter, . . . Unpredictable, yes, undetermined, no. Because we cannot measure what goes on does not mean that the prior state does not produce the result.
If I understand you correctly, you are, here, limiting God to the role of prime mover.Ontologically however, there must exist a reason other than a prior state to explain why they exist in the moment. The explanation is God; and, God is omnipotent, bring everything into existence, including ourselves with free will.
He is our Father - more than Prime Mover.What you are describing here is the classic mechanistic determinism. That the throw of the dice is not genuinely random (as I defined it above) but merely so chaotic as to defy prediction.
If I understand you correctly, you are, here, limiting God to the role of prime mover.
Why?
We are certainly in no position to judge God or impose limits on the extent to which He works miracles.To remain aloof when others are suffering unnecessarily is certainly not a sign of perfect love but of impotence or indifference.
I would recommend the book of Job. We are in no position to judge God on what is “unnecessary”.
No but if there is no evidence that God ever answers prayers we would be justified in being agnostic in that respect.Every night I pray for a red Fararri. But God ignore my suffering. Is it proof that God is impotent or indifferent?
This is a good summary of one aspect of the question. I also see this as a continuum hence my questions to both Deists and Catholics on either end.The question being asked, if I am not misinterpreting it, is to what extent does God take an active role in everyday phenomena? I’ve known some who attribute every event as the will of God; from the crane collapse at the mosque recently in the news to stubbing one’s toe on a couch leg. For these folks, Katrina and Joaquin, now approaching the east cost of the USA, are both examples of God’s retribution.
I’ve known others for whom God created the world as it is, with all its imperfections, just as it needed to be to in order to serve for humanities salvation. His interaction in the world is more interior to individuals who then act on His behalf.
To me these both seem extreme endpoints of a continuum between which almost every believer falls. Does the church have a definitive position on this question? I’d be grateful for a CCC reference, if available.
But we can observe that people suffer and die. God allows this in some sense, for some reason, or perhaps for no reason at all.We are certainly in no position to judge God or impose limits on the extent to which He works miracles.
No but if there is no evidence that God ever answers prayers we would be justified in being agnostic in that respect.
David Hume was a sceptic but he realised that the laws of nature cannot possibly ensure that there are no accidents or misfortunes. They are the inevitable consequence of life on a planet where there are an immense number of creatures pursuing different goals. No one has ever produced a feasible blueprint of an earthly Utopia for the simple reason that an earthly Utopia is a naive fantasy. The Catechism sums up the solution succinctly:*We are certainly in no position to judge God or impose limits on the extent to which He works miracles.
385 God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil.
Without getting into a long tangent about what is genuinely random, let’s agree that St Thomas Aquinas believed that nothing in the world happens by chance. St Thomas Aquinas was not a scientist and had no access to theories of quantum mechanics but relied, instead, on his own belief about God’s nature.
When St Thomas says that nothing in the world happens by chance, he means just that, namely, in the eyes of God and of divine providence, nothing happens by chance nor is it possible. This can be argued from many angles such as in philosophy and metaphysics, Holy Scripture, the teaching of the Church such as what is said concerning divine providence in the CCC beginning with #302. It appears to me that chance excludes belief in divine providence. God’s intellect and will is the cause of things, indeed He is the first cause of whatever takes place in the world, and He knows whatever and all the effects that result from His causality and wills to happen. God created the world from a plan he conceived in his intellect for it and for an end and purpose in which are included the entire history of the universe and all the effects which result from his universal causality. God’s will does not operate blindly but according to the plan and knowledge of his intellect.
No, St Thomas was not a scientist. He was a philosopher, metaphysician, and principally a theologian. As a philosopher and metaphysician, St Thomas argues from metaphysical principles which are meant to be the most universal kind of natural knowledge above that of the natural sciences such as physics. The theories of modern quantum mechanics which you are appearing to present as an argument for the role of chance or pure randomness in the world does not do away with St Thomas’ teaching. The fact is we only know so much about the world from the study of nature and quantum mechanics and we will probably never know everything about how the world operates. It sure is a marvel of the creative activity of God.
Holy Scripture says “she [Wisdom] reaches from one end of the earth to the other, and ordering all things well” (Wisdom 8:1). And “Thou hast ordered all things in measure, number, and weight” (Wisdom 11:21). Everything in the world is ordered and governed by the providence of God who is the absolute Lord over history and the world (cf. CCC#304). This does not mean that secondary causes are not real causes, they are real causes of things, but their causality is dependent on the first cause.
I think, though, that you and he are relying on a narrow understanding of causality. Suppose I throw a die. Whatever number comes up, I was the cause of it.
When St Thomas says that nothing in the world happens by chance, he means just that, namely, in the eyes of God and of divine providence, nothing happens by chance nor is it possible. This can be argued from many angles such as in philosophy and metaphysics, Holy Scripture, the teaching of the Church such as what is said concerning divine providence in the CCC beginning with #302. It appears to me that chance excludes belief in divine providence. God’s intellect and will is the cause of things, indeed He is the first cause of whatever takes place in the world, and He knows whatever and all the effects that result from His causality and wills to happen. God created the world from a plan he conceived in his intellect for it and for an end and purpose in which are included the entire history of the universe and all the effects which result from his universal causality. God’s will does not operate blindly but according to the plan and knowledge of his intellect.