"Goodness existing eternally apart from God.."

[jimmy]

The fact that a natural law might originate in God does not entail that the natural law cannot exist apart from God. The Greeks (classical philosophers) certainly did not believe that goodness could only be obtained through communion with the gods. Socrates took his opposition to that idea to the death. Wherever the good originated, they believed, and Aquinas believed, that mankind was capable of discovering it on his own, that it exists independent of God.

Actually I am pretty sure that Socrates was condemned because he completely rejected the Greek “gods”. He did not believe they were gods.

Again, you are wrong about Aquinas. You have twisted an idea into what it is not. Aquinas believed that God gave mankind the powers of Intelegence and reason. He also believed, as the author of the gospel of Luke did, that God created things in a logical fashion. He therefore believed that certain things could be understood about God through your intellect and Gods creation. But there was a line that he drew that he did not cross. Certain things could only be know by faith. But that which he could determine through his intelligence was not seperate from God. Aquinas believed that God gave us our intelligence so that we could know Him(God) in this way.

The truths that we confess concerning God fall under two modes. Some things true of God are beyond all the competence of human reason, as that God is Three and One. Other things there are to which even human reason can attain, as the existence and unity of God, Summa Contra Gentiles Part 1 Chapter 3

www2.nd.edu/Departments//Maritain/etext/gc1_3.htm

This whole discussion about Aquinas is about his philosophy. So far nothing has been shown to the contrary that Aquinas believed otherwise than to what we have said.

One does not have to “twist” Aquinas’s position to assert that he believed that knowledge can be obtained through human reason without divine revelation. This was central to his philosophy.

Yes, you are right; Aquinas believed that things could be discovered using your reason. Yet, not a single person on the planet will deny that; otherwise there would be no need to even learn mathematics because you wouldn’t be able to determine what 2 + 2 is. You are distorting Aquinas’ teaching without even backing it up with quotes. You have been shown quotes that show the contrary to what you say.

 

[jimmy]

The Roman Catholic church condemned the Copernican helio-centric view of the solar system at Galileo’s trial. I believe that Pope John Paul officially apologized for this a few years ago.

The trials of Galilleo never condemned Copernicus. As I said above, the pope supported Copernicus and encouraged him to publish his book.

 

[havemercy]

jimmy:

Luther did not know Aquinas’ teaching or many of the other doctors of the Church.

But didn’t Luther study Aquinas? I mean, he was a professor of theology at Wittenburg. I think he’d know Aquinas.

 

[mosher]

havemercy:

But didn’t Luther study Aquinas? I mean, he was a professor of theology at Wittenburg. I think he’d know Aquinas.

Obviously not … if he had understood Thomas he would have remained Catholic.

 

[havemercy]

mosher:

Obviously not … if he had understood Thomas he would have remained Catholic.

ahahsjdhaskld

 

[francisca]

For example, somebody lives in a remote village in a very fertile land in a very friendly community and he happens to have a very ideal family, and he is very happy with all he has, he has nothing to complain about, all day long joyful in doing his good works for himself and others. But he has never hear anything about “God”, thus he has never “reason” in his heart about Him.

Although he does not know God by conscious reason, the good life he enjoys comes from God, therefore his goodness comes from God as well. Yes surely our intellectual reason is not the only way to know God. It does not mean that the lucky man get all the good things “apart” from God. I do not think that Aquinas try to teach goodness can come from somewhere “apart” from God.

The Greeks phylosophers divide reality into two : one is The Ideal reality, which does not exist in our world, the other is our non-ideal world. For example : perfect mathematical round does not really exist in our world, although we can reason mathematically, such object does not really exist in our world. It is their religion to say that we live in this imperfect world, and the ideals only belong to gods. Thus the two world cannot meet.

Having such religion, the Greeks were “ready” for Christian teaching about “God’s Son” who come from above, willingly to experience the imperfection of men although He is perfect.
This is the background of church fathers, in the way that they argue each other about the teachings of Christ. The Chruch fathers agree that Christ coming joins the two worlds in One God, but they argue about the formulation of such teaching.

Sometimes it is inevitable that when we talk about God, and we relate it with our “natural” existance, we use the word “goodness” in different terms. I think Aquinas vs Augustine are using different terms, but basically both agree that goodness has to come from God. Even if Aquinas separates “natural goodness” apart from “divine revelation/ conscious reasons”, he still think that all goodness comes from God. Morality as the product of our reasons cannot rule God (God outside morality), instead we use morality of the church to measure our behavior, does not mean this morality concept guarantee God’s justice (His true righteousness). The teaching of morality is governed by the teaching of FAITH (The Mystery of Faith). The latter is about Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

 

[Contarini]

havemercy:

But didn’t Luther study Aquinas? I mean, he was a professor of theology at Wittenburg. I think he’d know Aquinas.

No, it does not follow. Theology in the late Middle Ages was divided up into different “schools” or “ways” and you studied the set texts of your particular tradition. Luther was trained in the Occamist tradition–his main theology textbook was written by Gabriel Biel, an Occamist (or “nominalist”). A scholar named John Farthing wrote a dissertation (directed by David Steinmetz, who also directed my dissertation) examining how much Luther would have known about Aquinas from Biel. He concluded that based on Biel Luther would have gotten a rather distorted picture of Aquinas, particularly with regard to questions of grace, salvation, the sacraments, etc.

Of course we can’t rule out the possibility that Luther read Aquinas independently. But I have never seen any evidence that he did.

Other Protestant Reformers, such as Andreas Bodenstein von Carlstadt, Martin Bucer, Peter Martyr Vermigli, and Jerome Zanchi were trained in the Thomist tradition.

Edwin

 

[jimmy]

havemercy:

But didn’t Luther study Aquinas? I mean, he was a professor of theology at Wittenburg. I think he’d know Aquinas.

My statement about Luther was basically from the Catholic encyclopedia. It says that he did not know Aquinas’ writings, was more familiar with the writings of some nominalists.

 

[havemercy]

Mr. X:

The traditional view posits a moral law as a standard independent of God. A person would be called “morally good” if he conforms to that law. In the same way, God would be called “morally good” if he conforms to that law. Christians tend to believe that the law originated with God, but the point here is that this standard exists now independent of God and goodness requires conformity to the standard. This is the view espoused by Aquinas, CSL, nearly all the church fathers outside the primarily German reformed tradition.

For real?

Divine command posits that a thing is good because God does it. God is incapable of doing anything but good; he is sovereign over the very standard of goodness. The example I gave early in this thread is the story of Abraham and Isaac. A divine command theorists looks at that story and sees an example of divine command: God was not commanding Abraham to do anything morally wrong in telling him to sacrifice Isaac, by virtue of the fact that God commanded it. In the traditional view, if God had commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and Abraham had followed through, then the act would be evil nothwithstanding the fact that it was commanded by God.

 

[jimmy]

Havemercy. Your statement fits exactly. This guy does not want to listen. He obviously has never read Aquinas or any of the other Church Fathers. Mr X is dishonest if he is going to continue to give this idea and refuse to read the writings of these authors before he slanders them. He is breaking the ninth commandment, ‘thou shalt not bear false witness.’ He continues to profess this idea that Aquinas taught you can be good apart from God, but Aquinas said things like this.

On the contrary, Boethius says (De Hebdom.), that “all things but God are good by participation.” Therefore they are not good essentially.

I answer that, God alone is good essentially. For everything is called good according to its perfection. Now perfection of a thing is threefold: first, according to the constitution of its own being; secondly, in respect of any accidents being added as necessary for its perfect operation; thirdly, perfection consists in the attaining to something else as the end. Thus, for instance, the first perfection of fire consists in its existence, which it has through its own substantial form; its secondary perfection consists in heat, lightness and dryness, and the like; its third perfection is to rest in its own place. This triple perfection belongs to no creature by its own essence; it belongs to God only, in Whom alone essence is existence; in Whom there are no accidents; since whatever belongs to others accidentally belongs to Him essentially; as, to be powerful, wise and the like, as appears from what is stated above (3, 6); and He is not directed to anything else as to an end, but is Himself the last end of all things. Hence it is manifest that God alone has every kind of perfection by His own essence; therefore He Himself alone is good essentially.

Aquinas does believe that every person is good in as much as they exist because existence is good. God exists and is good. God created everything and it was very good according to genesis. It did not turn bad when man sinned. Man was still good in as far as his existence. This existence comes from God though so it can hardly be thought to be seperate from God and Aquinas would not seperate it from God. This is what Aquinas says about the goodness of every being.

On the contrary, Augustine says (De Doctr. Christ. i, 42) that, “inasmuch as we exist we are good.”

I answer that, Goodness and being are really the same, and differ only in idea; which is clear from the following argument. The essence of goodness consists in this, that it is in some way desirable. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. i): “Goodness is what all desire.” Now it is clear that a thing is desirable only in so far as it is perfect; for all desire their own perfection. But everything is perfect so far as it is actual. Therefore it is clear that a thing is perfect so far as it exists; for it is existence that makes all things actual, as is clear from the foregoing (3, 4; 4, 1). Hence it is clear that goodness and being are the same really. But goodness presents the aspect of desirableness, which being does not present.

[Continued]

 

[jimmy]

Reply to Objection 3. Necessary means a certain mode of truth; and truth, according to the Philosopher (Metaph. vi), is in the mind. **Therefore in this sense the true and necessary are eternal, because they are in the eternal mind, which is the divine intellect alone; hence it does not follow that anything beside God is eternal. **

Here is the kicker for you. Prepare for this one. This one should answer the question the guy said above about Abraham and Isaac.

Reply to Objection 2. All men alike, both guilty and innocent, die the death of nature: which death of nature is inflicted by the power of God on account of original sin, according to 1 Kgs. 2:6: “The Lord killeth and maketh alive.” Consequently, by the command of God, death can be inflicted on any man, guilty or innocent, without any injustice whatever. In like manner adultery is intercourse with another’s wife; who is allotted to him by the law emanating from God. Consequently intercourse with any woman, by the command of God, is neither adultery nor fornication. The same applies to theft, which is the taking of another’s property. For whatever is taken by the command of God, to Whom all things belong, is not taken against the will of its owner, whereas it is in this that theft consists. Nor is it only in human things, that whatever is commanded by God is right; but also in natural things, whatever is done by God, is, in some way, natural, as stated in the I, 105, 6, ad 1.

Here is another from his summa which answers the question.

… Therefore since the order of nature is given to things by God; if He does anything outside this order, it is not against nature. Wherefore Augustine says (Contra Faust. xxvi, 3): “That is natural to each thing which is caused by Him from Whom is all mode, number, and order in nature.”
**Reply to Objection 2. The order of justice arises by relation to the First Cause, Who is the rule of all justice; and therefore God can do nothing against such order. **

There is no such thing as a law existing seperate from God. Not in Aquinas’ writings, not in Augustines writings, not in any of the Church Fathers. If this person wants to continue to slander St. Thomas and bear false witness that is his choice.

 

[havemercy]

Thank you for those quotes Jimmy. I used them in my reply.

And I’m thoroughly confused.
Mr. X:

Again, I think you misunderstand this issue. It’s certainly not “slander” to say that someone is of the traditional view on this issue. As I stated above, I have trouble fitting the atonement with divine command theory. The traditional view is the “orthodox” view, and Aquinas is, arguably, the father of the Christian version of this idea of “natural law.”

If you read the parts of Summa you quote, you’ll see evidence of this. He says that the law “emanates” from God, that the law reflects God’s essential nature. This is the traditional Christian view. The law began in God, but now exists separately and provides a standard by which moral behavior is measured.

In the first quote, by the way, I think Aquinas is talking about ontological goodness, not moral goodness.

I don’t think anyone familiar with the history of western philosophy/theology would disagree with my characterization of Aquinas here. But maybe we’ve all misunderstood him.

Either way, the more important thing is to test the ideas themselves. I’m interested in hearing good arguments from both sides. You seem to favor divine command. I’d be interesting in hearing you talk about why you favor divine command, instead of arguing about Thomas Aquinas.