Having established that God exists, what can we say about him?

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Aquinas himself realised the error of scholasticism when came to know that all he had written was “straw”. Do the Aquinas ‘fans’ think he was right?
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The story goes that Aquinas was given a vision and afterwards he said all that he’d written was as straw compared to what he’d seen.

Did this actually happen? How can we know seven hundred years later?

Did John Kennedy have an affair with Marilyn Monroe? I doubt it. He’d have to been an idiot to take the chance. And yet people accept the story as fact.
Monroe sang a sultry version of Happy Birthday to the President, from which the story arose that she was involved with him. The truth is she couldn’t sing it any other way. She was drunk and barely able to stand up.

People have all kinds of motives for starting stories.

Logically speaking,
Acquinas had already written about God’s infinity, omnipotence, omniscience, perfection, goodness, and all ther rest. What else is there? What else could make all this straw?
I have always thought the story made no sense.
 
tonyrey said:
Love is the most original, powerful, personal, creative, valuable, unifying, enduring, inspiring, fulfilling, comprehensive, independent and significant source of energy that exists…
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I can’t quite make any connection between those attributes and a reason for existing, but thanks for replying.
 
ThinkingSapien,

well lets put it this way, without all these things, what reason is there for a thinking, omnipotent being to exist? Human beings themselves are hopeless without these things.
 
Through Jesus two of Gods greatest attributes are revealed - Love and Mercy.

But also keeping in mind what is said in Isaiah 55:8-9

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
 
empther said:
The story goes that Aquinas was given a vision and afterwards he said all that he’d written was as straw compared to what he’d seen.

Did this actually happen? How can we know seven hundred years later?

Did John Kennedy have an affair with Marilyn Monroe? I doubt it. He’d have to been an idiot to take the chance. And yet people accept the story as fact.
Monroe sang a sultry version of Happy Birthday to the President, from which the story arose that she was involved with him. The truth is she couldn’t sing it any other way. She was drunk and barely able to stand up.

People have all kinds of motives for starting stories.

Logically speaking,
Acquinas had already written about God’s infinity, omnipotence, omniscience, perfection, goodness, and all ther rest. What else is there? What else could make all this straw?
I have always thought the story made no sense.
Click to expand...
I think may be Aquinas looked at a crucifix, and saw that he had given his life to be a follower of Jesus- not some kind of Prime Mover, non-contingent being.

For all we know, this Prime Mover, non-contingent “Being” could be a lump of rock in space- or it might not exist at all. Does it even matter to a follower of Jesus?

Instead of arguing with athiests about “First Causes”, why not show them the charity of Jesus? After all , we are Christians, not “Worshippers of the First-Cause.”

I imagine this is what St. Thomas realised.
 
I think may be Aquinas looked at a crucifix, and saw that he had given his life to be a follower of Jesus- not some kind of Prime Mover, non-contingent being.

For all we know, this Prime Mover, non-contingent “Being” could be a lump of rock in space- or it might not exist at all. Does it even matter to a follower of Jesus?

Instead of arguing with athiests about “First Causes”, why not show them the charity of Jesus? After all , we are Christians, not “Worshippers of the First-Cause.”

I imagine this is what St. Thomas realised.
Click to expand...
Aquinas was not preaching to a Church congregation. He was writing for professional theologians like himself. Who else would have access to his books 700 years ago?

He was systemitizing theology for those who needed to learn, that is, other priests. For as we’ve seen on these forums there will be people who will argue against everything we believe about God. It was his job to make suire priests had a solid intellectual foundation to stand on.

If he had been assigned as a parish priest, I’m sure he would have talk about Jesus all day.
That was not his vocation.
It’s nice if you’re a cradle Catholic and was raised on the love of Jesus and so on,
but some people don’t come around to religion until late in life, college professors or business executives maybe, who will want to have their intellectual reasons for religion satisfied before they become emotionally involved.

I doubt the “straw” story is true, but if it is, it’s not about Aquinas realizing he’d mispent his life or anything like that.
 
If we claim that God is outside of time (indeed everything natural) and able to see all time and space in its immediacy. I claim that this implies there is no such thing as change. Since God can see all of time, and has already made all his changes then our perception of change is not correct. To God, everything is decided and fixed. While we may perceive change, it is an illusion. We are like statues that extend through time.
 
To God, one second is like a billion years, and a billion years is like one second. In spite of this statement, it does not say that everything/everyone is predestined. (BTW that is what the Calvinist believe.)

God gave us free will, and lets us choose whatever paths that we want. We can pick whatever paths our hearts desire. Just think about it. IF you are all powerful would you want to make something that you knew in advance what it was going to do and what was going to happen at every instance.

God may have the ability to see every possible outcome, but why would He. It would take all the enjoyment out of watching what will happen. God set in motion an almost limitless universe and He wants to see us succeed BUT He gives us free will, so we would want to Him willingly. He did not want to create automatons, that He knew would obey Him mindlessly.

For love to be worthwhile, it has to come voluntarily. So even though it is possible that God could look into the future and see what will happen, I don’t think He does, at least not all the time.
 
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