God passing over people

[thinkandmull]

Consciouness logically precedes *reason *and *will *(*two *which must be together)

I don’t think a Catholic must take the Bible most literally when it says God is “the Truth, the Life… and Love” [itself]. Same with Fatherhood and Sonship. Aquinas says that even common spiration is a quality of God. God **has **love

I get it when people say Aquinas had a certain method. Eastern Christians however believe there is light the emanates from God. Aquinas rejected this by says “let us suppose that the divine substance is the cause of its accident. This is impossible, for then one and the same thing would make itself actual in the same respect.” This is a red herring, false argument, or however else you want to put it. An accident is different from the “respect” of the substance

 

[Vico]

Consciouness logically precedes *reason *and *will *(*two *which must be together)

I don’t think a Catholic must take the Bible most literally when it says God is “the Truth, the Life… and Love” [itself]. Same with Fatherhood and Sonship. Aquinas says that even common spiration is a quality of God. God **has **love

I get it when people say Aquinas had a certain method. Eastern Christians however believe there is light the emanates from God. Aquinas rejected this by says “let us suppose that the divine substance is the cause of its accident. This is impossible, for then one and the same thing would make itself actual in the same respect.” This is a red herring, false argument, or however else you want to put it. An accident is different from the “respect” of the substance

He is not saying “respect of the substance”. In CGS, he is explaining a contradiction that would occur to the idea that God is simple (not composite). Note that relations of opposition do not import composition.

St. Thomas Aquinas, in Summa Theologica, refers to notions and some are personal notions.

You are quoting Summa Contra Gentiles, Part I, Chapter 23 - THAT NO ACCIDENT IS FOUND IN GOD

[3] Furthermore, what is present in a thing accidentally has a cause of its presence, since it is outside the essence of the thing in which it is found. If, then, something is found in God accidentally, this must be through some cause. Now, the cause of the accident is either the divine essence itself or something else. If something else, it must act on the divine essence, since nothing will cause the introduction of some form, substantial or accidental, in some receiving subject except by acting on it in some way. For to act is nothing other than to make something actual, which takes place through a form. Thus, God will suffer and receive the action of some cause—which is contrary to what we already established. On the other hand, let us suppose that the divine substance is the cause of the accident inhering in it. Now it is impossible that it be, as receiving it, the cause of the accident, for then one and the same thing would make itself to be actual in the same respect. Therefore, if there is an accident in God, it will be according to different respects that He receives and causes that accident, just as bodily things receive their accidents through the nature of their matter and cause them through their form. Thus, God will be composite. But, we have proved the contrary of this proposition above.

 

[thinkandmull]

Aquinas never proved that God must absolutely and in everyway have no potency, be completely unchangeable in every single way, or lack composition in every single respect.

"Now it is impossible that it be, as receiving it, the cause of the accident, for then one and the same thing would make itself to be actual in the same respect."

All the East is saying is that there are rays of light from God. There is **no **“one and the same thing in the same respect” going on here. So Aquinas’s argument missed its mark in that medieval game of chess

 

[Vico]

Aquinas never proved that God must absolutely and in everyway have no potency, be completely unchangeable in every single way, or lack composition in every single respect.

"Now it is impossible that it be, as receiving it, the cause of the accident, for then one and the same thing would make itself to be actual in the same respect."

All the East is saying is that there are rays of light from God. There is **no **“one and the same thing in the same respect” going on here. So Aquinas’s argument missed its mark in that medieval game of chess

He did show that God is not composite (every composite has a cause) and has no accidents. See Summa Theologica, Q3
I answer that, From all we have said, it is clear there can be no accident in God.
newadvent.org/summa/1003.htm#article6

 

[thinkandmull]

None of his arguments in there, and most of the other sections of the SCG First Part, necessarily follow. He often sets you up with a truism like “everything acts as its in act” and then tries to slide in an argument (some of which are not valid by simple high school logic) underneath right after, although sometimes they can perhaps be justified as probable arguments

In “Is God goodness itself” he makes a mistake with respect to his own position when he says “in a simple beings, being and that which is are the same”. However, earlier he said this only applies to God, and that spiritual beings are actually simply one with their essence, not with their being.

He says he can prove from reason that angels exist, which is surely impossible. He says that angels must each be a species of sorts unto themselves, which could just as likely be said instead about humans since we all have different matter.

Earlier I tried to balance oldcelt’s position with Thomism in saying that God, being His intellect itself, does not add an actual idea to His mind in deciding non-necessarily to create. Since many on here like Aquinas, I pointed out that their position could be reconciled by what Aquinas says in that God has no relation to us, that even Jesus’s humanity is, in the relation to God’s necessary, a relation of nothing to Everything.

However, my personal belief (which I stated several months ago) is that God is not His intellect, and that Aquinas’s attempt to prove that God is some perfect circle or something isn’t the whole picture.

The Church has said that God is simple, and has said very little on what She meant by this

 

[Vico]

…

It is not required for faith to assent to all idea of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Catholic Church has many theologians. The Catechism, however, does address the simplicity:

202 Jesus himself affirms that God is “the one Lord” whom you must love “with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength”.6 At the same time Jesus gives us to understand that he himself is “the Lord”.7 To confess that Jesus is Lord is distinctive of Christian faith. This is not contrary to belief in the One God. Nor does believing in the Holy Spirit as “Lord and giver of life” introduce any division into the One God:

We firmly believe and confess without reservation that there is only one true God, eternal infinite (immensus) and unchangeable, incomprehensible, almighty and ineffable, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; three persons indeed, but one essence, substance or nature entirely simple.8

8 Lateran Council IV: DS 800
​

Denzinger, from Lateran Council IV:

Firmly we believe and we confess simply that the true God is one alone, eternal, immense, and unchangeable, incomprehensible, omnipotent and ineffable, Father and Son and Holy Spirit: indeed three Persons but one essence, substance, or nature entirely simple. The Father from no one, the Son from the Father only, and the Holy Spirit equally from both; without beginning, always, and without end; the Father generating, the Son being born, and the Holy Spirit proceeding; consubstantial and coequal and omnipotent and coeternal; one beginning of all, creator of all visible and invisible things, of the spiritual and of the corporal; who by His own omnipotent power at once from the beginning of time created each creature from nothing, spiritual, and corporal, namely, angelic and mundane, and finally the human, constituted as it were, alike of the spirit and the body. For the devil and other demons were created by God good in nature, but they themselves through themselves have become wicked. But man sinned at the suggestion of the devil. This Holy Trinity according to common essence undivided, and according to personal properties distinct, granted the doctrine of salvation to the human race, first through Moses and the holy prophets and his other servants according to the most methodical disposition of the time.

We, however, with the approval of the sacred Council, believe and confess with Peter Lombard that there exists a most excellent reality, incomprehensible indeed and ineffable, which truly is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, at the same time three Persons, and anyone of the same individually; and so in God there is Trinity only, not a quaternity; because any one of the three Persons is that reality, namely, substance, essence or divine nature, which alone is the beginning of all things, beyond which nothing else can be found, and that reality is not generating, nor generated, nor proceeding, but it is the Father who generates, the Son who is generated, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds, so that distinctions are in Persons and unity in nature. Therefore, although “one is the Father, another the Son, and another the Holy Spirit, yet they are not different” * but what is the Father is the Son and the Holy Spirit entirely the same, so that according to the true and Catholic Faith they are believed to be consubstantial. For the Father from eternity by generating the Son gave His substance to Him according to which He Himself testifies: “That which the Father has given to me is greater than all things” [John 10:29]. But it cannot be said that He (the Father) has given a part of His substance to Him (the Son), and retained a part for Himself, since the substance of the Father is indivisible, namely, simple. But neither can it be said that the Father has transferred His substance to the Son in generating, as if He had given that to the Son which he did not retain for Himself; otherwise the substance would have ceased to exist. It is clear, therefore, that the Son in being born without any diminution received the substance of the Father, and thus the Father and the Son have the same substance, and so this same reality is the Father and the Son and also the Holy Spirit proceeding from both. But when Truth prays to the Father for His faithful saying: “I will that they may be one in us, as we also are one” John 17:22]: this word “one” indeed is accepted for the faithful in such a way that a union of charity in grace is understood, for the divine Persons in such a way that a unity of identity in nature is considered, as elsewhere Truth says: “Be . . . perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect” [Matt. 5:48 ], as if He said more clearly, “Be perfect” in the perfection of grace “as your heavenly Father is perfect” in the perfection of grace, that is, each in his own manner, because between the Creator and the creature so great a likeness cannot be noted without the necessity of noting a greater dissimilarity between them. If anyone, therefore, shall presume to defend or approve the opinion or doctrine of the above mentioned Joachim, let him be refuted as a heretic by all.

 

[thinkandmull]

God is unchangeable because He cannot stop being good. Also the Council, as you quoted, says “indivisible, namely, simple”. No one believes God can be divided and thus cease to be as He is. Scholastics have added other terms of understanding to the word simple. That’s their right, but not there authority.

My understanding of God is one who could whisper in your ear “I know you can do this” without any reference to His foreknowledge. I don’t see this as consistent with Aquinas, for whom God is very far away. Some of what He writes in the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles seems to be red herring, like when he says in the chapter on the existence of God when he mentions that nothing can be in potency and actuality with regard to the same thing at the same time. Schrodinger’s cat theory has nothing to do with the argument, yet it can appear to be part of the structure he is building. When I mentioned logical mistakes, I was referring to the couple of times in that work in which he uses the form “A then B, therefore sine B than A”. I didn’t write down the couple sections where he does this was I didn’t consider it all that important.

 

[Vico]

God is unchangeable because He cannot stop being good. Also the Council, as you quoted, says “indivisible, namely, simple”. No one believes God can be divided and thus cease to be as He is. Scholastics have added other terms of understanding to the word simple. That’s their right, but not there authority.

My understanding of God is one who could whisper in your ear “I know you can do this” without any reference to His foreknowledge. I don’t see this as consistent with Aquinas, for whom God is very far away. Some of what He writes in the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles seems to be red herring, like when he says in the chapter on the existence of God when he mentions that nothing can be in potency and actuality with regard to the same thing at the same time. Schrodinger’s cat theory has nothing to do with the argument, yet it can appear to be part of the structure he is building. When I mentioned logical mistakes, I was referring to the couple of times in that work in which he uses the form “A then B, therefore sine B than A”. I didn’t write down the couple sections where he does this was I didn’t consider it all that important.

God’s providence is unchangeable. Dei Filius (Vatican I) “… 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. … But God protects and governs by His providence all things which He created”

Efficacious prayer is contained in God’s providence. Summa Theologicae 1 Q22 A1.I answer that, It is necessary to attribute providence to God. For all the good that is in created things has been created by God, as was shown above (Question 6, Article 4). In created things good is found not only as regards their substance, but also as regards their order towards an end and especially their last end, which, as was said above, is the divine goodness (21, 4). This good of order existing in things created, is itself created by God. Since, however, God is the cause of things by His intellect, and thus it behooves that the type of every effect should pre-exist in Him, as is clear from what has gone before (19, 4),** it is necessary that the type of the order of things towards their end should pre-exist in the divine mind: and the type of things ordered towards an end is, properly speaking, providence.** For it is the chief part of prudence, to which two other parts are directed–namely, remembrance of the past, and understanding of the present; inasmuch as from the remembrance of what is past and the understanding of what is present, we gather how to provide for the future. Now it belongs to prudence, according to the Philosopher (Ethic. vi, 12), to direct other things towards an end whether in regard to oneself–as for instance, a man is said to be prudent, who orders well his acts towards the end of life–or in regard to others subject to him, in a family, city or kingdom; in which sense it is said (Matthew 24:45), “a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath appointed over his family.” In this way prudence or providence may suitably be attributed to God. For in God Himself there can be nothing ordered towards an end, since He is the last end. This type of order in things towards an end is therefore in God called providence. Whence Boethius says (De Consol. iv, 6) that “Providence is the divine type itself, seated in the Supreme Ruler; which disposeth all things”: which disposition may refer either to the type of the order of things towards an end, or to the type of the order of parts in the whole.
God is not far away, per St. Thomas Aquinas. See Summa Theologicae Q8 A1:I answer that, God is in all things; not, indeed, as part of their essence, nor as an accident, but as an agent is present to that upon which it works. For an agent must be joined to that wherein it acts immediately and touch it by its power; hence it is proved in Phys. vii that the thing moved and the mover must be joined together. Now since God is very being by His own essence, created being must be His proper effect; as to ignite is the proper effect of fire. Now God causes this effect in things not only when they first begin to be, but as long as they are preserved in being; as light is caused in the air by the sun as long as the air remains illuminated. Therefore as long as a thing has being, God must be present to it, according to its mode of being. But being is innermost in each thing and most fundamentally inherent in all things since it is formal in respect of everything found in a thing, as was shown above (Question 7, Article 1). Hence it must be that God is in all things, and innermostly.

 

[thinkandmull]

Aquinas’s version of God is that He does not change at all, so He doesn’t weep when we sin, for example. In a prayer written by Cardinal Ratzinger he says that we are necessary to God’s love. Aquinas believes that God’s ideas are Himself, so when he wrote that God does not have a relation to us, he meant to say that God’s idea of us are so nothing that it in no way alters God to have thoughts of Himself creating us (a contingent choice). I feel like Aquinas tries to get too philosophical. I enjoy Hegel better, even though he definitely had issues on another level

 

[Vico]

Aquinas’s version of God is that He does not change at all, so He doesn’t weep when we sin, for example. In a prayer written by Cardinal Ratzinger he says that we are necessary to God’s love. Aquinas believes that God’s ideas are Himself, so when he wrote that God does not have a relation to us, he meant to say that God’s idea of us are so nothing that it in no way alters God to have thoughts of Himself creating us (a contingent choice). I feel like Aquinas tries to get too philosophical. I enjoy Hegel better, even though he definitely had issues on another level

The Catholic Church does teach that God is unchangeable spiritual substance (e.g., Dei Filius and Lateran Council IV).

 

[thinkandmull]

No one is denying here that God is spiritual. Even humans are spiritual, so surely God is as well. The Church quotations you’ve cited says “since the substance of the Father is indivisible, namely, simple.” So simple here is limited to being indivisible, which in turn means unable to be divided, unable to cease to be what it is. “nature entirely simple”; yes, incapable of being divided by any power

Adding too much to interpretation can be illustrated by the Bible’s statement about Jesus
being tempted “in everyway like us, but without sin.” St. Faustina and others have written
that Jesus was never tempted sexually, since that would not be fitting. Yet the Bible says
“in everyway”. We have to be careful how we exegete something.

I feel like Thomas Aquinas places too much emphasis on God’s essence, instead of on His good will. I also see nothing un-Catholic about believing that God is changed in a way through His experience of creating and being loved by humans.

 

[Vico]

No one is denying here that God is spiritual. Even humans are spiritual, so surely God is as well. The Church quotations you’ve cited says “since the substance of the Father is indivisible, namely, simple.” So simple here is limited to being indivisible, which in turn means unable to be divided, unable to cease to be what it is. “nature entirely simple”; yes, incapable of being divided by any power

Adding too much to interpretation can be illustrated by the Bible’s statement about Jesus
being tempted “in everyway like us, but without sin.” St. Faustina and others have written
that Jesus was never tempted sexually, since that would not be fitting. Yet the Bible says
“in everyway”. We have to be careful how we exegete something.

I feel like Thomas Aquinas places too much emphasis on God’s essence, instead of on His good will. I also see nothing un-Catholic about believing that God is changed in a way through His experience of creating and being loved by humans.

My last post addressed unchangeable. What I posted before from Lateran Council IV shows this:
Firmly we believe and we confess simply that the true God is one alone, eternal, immense, and unchangeable, incomprehensible, omnipotent and ineffable, Father and Son and Holy Spirit: indeed three Persons but one essence, substance, or nature entirely simple.

 

[Richca]

With regard to either humans or God, why is a relationship considered as something, as an entity, separate from simply the father and son as persons?

Fatherhood and sonship or filiation are real realities but these realities are not substances but accidents in creatures. Fatherhood does not exist all by itself but in a human being, a man for example who becomes the father of a child. The human being or person is the substance and is a human being before he becomes a father. An accident has being only in a substance. The substance of a man who begets a son does not change when he has a son, he is still a man, a person, and a human being. But, by having a son, the man is now a father and such relations are accidents.

What is an accident in creatures though, when applied to God is substantial. Relation in God is not an accident but is substantial because there are no accidents in God.

 

[Richca]

Consciouness logically precedes *reason *and *will *(*two *which must be together)

I don’t think a Catholic must take the Bible most literally when it says God is “the Truth, the Life… and Love” [itself]. Same with Fatherhood and Sonship. Aquinas says that even common spiration is a quality of God. God **has **love

God is the one and only source of Truth, Life, and Love. So when Jesus said “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”, we should take this literally not only because Jesus said it so but also because as Jesus is God he is Truth itself, Life itself, and Love itself, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

 

[thinkandmull]

My last post addressed unchangeable. What I posted before from Lateran Council IV shows this:
Firmly we believe and we confess simply that the true God is one alone, eternal, immense, and unchangeable, incomprehensible, omnipotent and ineffable, Father and Son and Holy Spirit: indeed three Persons but one essence, substance, or nature entirely simple.

As I said, it didn’t say God is unchangeable in every possible sense, in the Thomistic sense.

 

[thinkandmull]

Fatherhood and sonship or filiation are real realities but these realities are not substances but accidents in creatures. Fatherhood does not exist all by itself but in a human being, a man for example who becomes the father of a child. The human being or person is the substance and is a human being before he becomes a father. An accident has being only in a substance. The substance of a man who begets a son does not change when he has a son, he is still a man, a person, and a human being. But, by having a son, the man is now a father and such relations are accidents.

What is an accident in creatures though, when applied to God is substantial. Relation in God is not an accident but is substantial because there are no accidents in God.

You’d have to prove that a relation is a thing at all in order to show it is an accident. Take have a son and a father… what else is there?

 

[thinkandmull]

God is the one and only source of Truth, Life, and Love. So when Jesus said “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”, we should take this literally not only because Jesus said it so but also because as Jesus is God he is Truth itself, Life itself, and Love itself, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

The Bible often uses imagery to get a point across. Love itself, or so loving it might as well be love it? Catholics are not bound by Thomism or any other school of thought

 

[Vico]

As I said, it didn’t say God is unchangeable in every possible sense, in the Thomistic sense.

The Church defines as a dogma of faith that God has an unchangeable immaterial spirit who has an entirely simple (incomposite) nature (a.k.a., essence or substance). That is what is significant here.

 

[thinkandmull]

The quotes you provided specifically defined simple as indivisible. You are adding scholastic meaning to it. God is not necessarily as unchangeable as you may think. Sure He can’t turn evil or divide into something lower, but I think He is a highly emotional being, not some static pure act or whatever. Also, when the Church doesn’t offer an explanation for a term we are free to take it as we wish. Some mystics see God as an every revolving being of goodness, like colors constantly passing into each other. If you prefer a single white light, that’s your right. But with ecumenism the Church is not condemning the East for example for believing God has light surrounding Him as an accident.

 

[thinkandmull]

As for the topic of this thread, an old book I have quotes Duns Scotus as follows, allegedly saying that God can force something to convert: “Deus potest de potential sua facere Unum et non creare aliud, et ita expellere culpam etsi non infundat gratiam et e converso”

I know a little Latin, but I don’t recognize a couple words their so I don’t know that full meaning of this. I doubt Scotus was a Jansenist.