God's free will and contingency

[LeonardDeNoblac]

I was just thinking that the relationship between the 3 person’s of the trinity might give some further insight into why God created.

The question is not why God created anything.
However, the simplest answer is that God created the world out of His own goodness, and out of a desire to spread His love to other beings, wich is fitting to God, because good people often have the desire to spread their love to others, and if this desire is good - as it is - in man, God should have it at a perfect level.

 

[IWantGod]

However, the simplest answer is that God created the world out of His own goodness, and out of a desire to spread His love to other beings, wich is fitting to God, because good people often have a tendency to desire to spread their love to others; if this tendency is good in man, God should have it at a perfect level.

True, God created out of love. I think this is true no matter what. But i think it is also correct to say that God’s creation is not a fulfilment of a potentiality to some good that God did not already posses. This is to say that God is not potentially good or potentially love; God is intrinsically these things and this gives me the impression that God is love regardless of whether or not God creates anything; otherwise there would “appear” to be a dependency.

I have attempted to address this by saying that God, being love, has something like a tendency towards creating things, but does not have to; he will always create rather than not create, but is not necessarily a creator. I liken this to a charitable person whom has what you might call a tendency to give more than he has to, but does not need to give that amount to be considered charitable.

I know that God creates out of his love but i think we need to be careful not to give the impression that God being love is dependent on creating something.

Do you see what i am getting at?

 

[IWantGod]

The question is not why God created anything.
However, the simplest answer is that God created the world out of His own goodness, and out of a desire to spread His love to other beings, wich is fitting to God, because good people often have the desire to spread their love to others, and if this desire is good - as it is - in man, God should have it at a perfect level.

Perhaps it’s enough to say that God is love and that is why he creates.
It works if we say that God is giving his good to creation rather than creating good. What do you think?

 

[Wesrock]

@lelinator

St. Thomas distinguishes between two types of necessity. The first is absolute necessity. We can deduce that God must will his own goodness. There is no possible alternative. If he didn’t it would be a self-contradiction. There is also the necessity of supposition. So, it is not absolutely necessary that Socrates sits. However, as long as it is the case that Socrates sits, it is necessarily true that Socrates is sitting. To extend that to God’s act of creation, the reality of created things is necessary in this sense. It is not absolutely necessary that they must exist, but if God wills that they exist then it is necessary by supposition that they do exist.

St. Thomas compares God’s openness to variety in creation to an artisan being open to creating the same work in multiple ways. The artisan is perfectly proficient in all types, and all arts can accomplish the work equally well, and neither is necessary. God necessarily wills his own goodness. The creation of things other than God at all, or in this way or that way is not absolutely necessary to willing his own goodness, but is still ordered to his goodness as its end.

Therefore God’s relation to the willed external object is not absolutely necessary, but only necessary by supposition. It is necessary considered absolutely that God wills his own goodness, but it is not necessary for his own goodness that other things be created.

 

[Wesrock]

f my understanding of Aquinas’ argument is correct, then it’s exactly the same as my argument for solipsism.

From the solipsistic perspective, the existence of everything around me necessarily follows from the conscious/intellectual reality that “I am”.

To illustrate, by looking at my computer, I not only know that my computer exists, but I automatically know that other things must exist as well. Like the factory that manufactured the computer, and the people who work in that factory, and the families of those workers, and so on, and so on. In fact, if I follow this line of reasoning to its ultimate conclusion, I’ll likely find that everything else must exist, simply due to the fact that my computer exists.

Then the question becomes, if I can know that everything else exists simply from the existence of my computer, then just how little information must I begin with in order to know that everything else must exist as well?

Ultimately, can I simply begin with the knowledge that “I am” and from that knowledge can I know that everything else must also exist? I think that the answer to that question is yes. Just from the knowledge that I exist, I can know that everything else must also exist.

Which brings me to Aquinas’ description of God, and that from God’s intellect necessarily follows God’s will, and from God’s will necessarily follows everything else. That seems eerily similar to the solipsistic argument that from the intellectual realization the I am, necessarily follows the existence of everything else.

Now some people believe that solipsism is simply nuts, but I think that it’s not really all that different from what Aquinas proposes, that from the intellect necessarily follows everything else.

The difference is that one is an eternal, immutable principle that knows and wills all at once and at all times aware of all things that exist at any moment and is intentional in creating all these things. The other is temporal, mutable, thinks discursively, has conscious and a subconscious, and does not intend that things other than itself exist (it apparently just passively and subconsciously supposedly happens). God isn’t just realizing that other things are. He is an immutable and eternal principle from which all else is intentionally effected and caused. Not as a matter of skepticism and “I can only know myself first”.

The epistemology is also entirely different. You seem to operate on some idea of you having infused knowledge. Thomists hold that as humans our identity is not the first thing we come to know. We come to know the world first by encountering other beings (existent things, not necessarily persons). We come to recognize that there are many beings and that we are something other than those beings. Then it’s only be self-reflection and applying the knowledge we gained from those other beings that we come to identify as selves and I AMs.

I can appreciate you trying to find parallels with solipsism, but your experience of self and thought and consciousness is a mode that can not belong to the First Cause. God is not a mind like you or me.

 

[lelinator]

The difference is that one is an eternal, immutable principle that knows and wills all at once and at all times aware of all things that exist at any moment and is intentional in creating all these things. The other is temporal, mutable, thinks discursively, has conscious and a subconscious, and does not intend that things other than itself exist (it apparently just passively and subconsciously supposedly happens). God isn’t just realizing that other things are. He is an immutable and eternal principle from which all else is intentionally effected and caused. Not as a matter of skepticism and “I can only know myself first”.

The epistemology is also entirely different. You seem to operate on some idea of you having infused knowledge. Thomists hold that as humans our identity is not the first thing we come to know. We come to know the world first by encountering other beings (existent things, not necessarily persons). We come to recognize that there are many beings and that we are something other than those beings. Then it’s only be self-reflection and applying the knowledge we gained from those other beings that we come to identify as selves and I AMs.

I can appreciate you trying to find parallels with solipsism, but your experience of self and thought and consciousness is a mode that can not belong to the First Cause. God is not a mind like you or me.

Thanks for both posts. I know that I should point out the areas where I disagree with them, but I’d rather spend my time attempting to discern the reasoning behind them, rather than any perceived flaws in them. So don’t think that the lack of a response is indicative of disinterest, it’s anything but.

 

[lelinator]

You seem to operate on some idea of you having infused knowledge.

I can understand how my analogy of the computer may have given you that impression. But I don’t think that the mind possesses any mysterious “infused” knowledge, which somehow allows it to create the coherent world that exists around it. In fact I don’t think that the mind creates reality at all.

Remember, as a solipsist, I think that three things can be known to exist, consciousness, context, and cause. And I think that it’s the cause that’s responsible for creating reality, and that consciousness and context are simply inevitable byproducts of that process. But I also think that it’s just that…a process, not an intelligent creator. I think that the process gives the impression of there being a creator where none actually exists.

At the moment I’ve been busy having a discussion with IWantGod, so the limited amount of time that I do have has been required elsewhere. But I would at some point like to continue this discussion.