How do we come to know things?

[inocente]

And how do we know that what the Bible says is true, how do we know that the Being we call God has actually revealed himself to mankind?

I’d say that for Christians it’s encountering Christ in our lives. But that’s irresponsibly Baptist of me.

 

[utunumsint]

I’m sure Isaiah is crest-fallen .

Paul also writes we live by faith, not by sight, echoed in John’s No one has ever seen God. Turns out Thomas also commented on this, here’s a commentary by a professor at a seminar. I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, but link it to show that Thomas also found transcendence and new depths in scripture by not simply dismissing the hiddenness of God,

ewtn.com/library/THEOLOGY/FR93203.htm

LOL - poor Isaiah.

I’m pretty sure that there is a way to reconcile Isaiah with Paul.

Here is an interesting discussion on Romans 1:20 and Thomas’ understand of the passage.

flashmedia.stthom.edu/videos/levering_aquinas_lectureSP12.html

I like the part where he says the theological virtue of faith presupposes the natural knowledge of God in the same way grace presupposes nature, and although natural knowledge of God does not equal faith, it does remove an obstacle to faith.

God bless,
Ut

 

[lmelahn]

I think we may have to make a correction here. According to Fr. James F. Keenan S.J. and his book Goodness and Rightness in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, in around 1270 when St Thomas was writing Ia IIae, St Thomas made a shift in his thinking concerning the intellect moving the will as a final cause or end to a formal cause or principle. In ST, Pt. I-II, Q. 9, art. 1, St Thomas says:

…]

The end or final cause of the will is God and God only. Only God can move the will efficiently or efficaciously not only as its final cause but also as God is the first efficient cause and the First Mover. God is also the formal cause of the will.

I am afraid that this position is unsustainable. It might be that Keenan was influenced unduly by transcendental Thomism. Here is what St. Thomas says just a few lines above your quote:

Bonum autem in communi, quod habet rationem finis, est obiectum voluntatis. (However, the good in general, which has the notion of “end” , is the object of the will.)

There is no way that this bonum in communi is exclusively God, because Thomas spends all of I, q. 5, explaining that the “good” and “being” are convertible, and that we know the good for what it is because it attracts us. If the will is the rational appetite, there is no question that it tends to things as “ends,” and hence particular goods certainly do move the will. This position is much more consonant with experience anyhow: when we are hungry and see a pizza, we desire to eat it.

Yes, Aquinas wrote the Ia-IIae after the Ia pars, but this kind of shift would destroy his whole system.

In reality, what Aquinas is saying here is much simpler, and it need not (and does not) contradict what Aquinas says earlier about goodness.

He is saying that a power of the soul (in this case the rational appetite, or will) can be changed (moved from potency to act) fundamentally in two ways: by exercise and by specification.

By “exercise,” we just mean “on” or ”off.” The will can adhere to a particular good, or refrain from doing so. It can act, or refrain from acting.

By “specification,” we mean that the will can adhere to this good or that good (between pizza and hamburger, say).

Regarding exercise, the will gets to decide. It decides whether to act or not to act. The freedom of exercise is ex parte subiecti (on the part of the subject; i.e., the will itself).

Regarding specification, what Aquinas is getting at is that the will cannot act without first having some good things presented to it (which Aquinas calls the “objects” of the will). The will, indeed, is blind without the intellect: it is the intellect’s job to present good things to the will, so that it can decide to act on them or not.

Hence, the will’s ability to adhere to this good or that good is ex parte obiecti (on the part of the object). In other words, the will can only work on the objects that are presented to it. If the intellect presents to it a particular good, the will tends to desire that good (but it is not compelled to desire that good); if not, then the will cannot tend to it.

Regarding agent vs. formal cause, this is a little more subtle.

When the will is exercised (when it decides to adhere to a good), it functions as a kind of agent or efficient cause. I think this is fairly straightforward. I am hungry, see a pizza, experience the sensory appetency for the pizza, and decide to eat it (or not). The will has the power to make the rest of me obey it. So far so good, I think.

When the intellect presents something good to the will (e.g., the pizza), it is says to the will, “Hello, will, this is a good that you might want to adhere to." It shows the will what kind of thing it is, and what makes it desirable. It is, therefore, an exemplar to the kind of action that the will could produce: by choosing this good, and not a different one, the will produces a particular kind of act.

This becomes important when we examine moral acts: it is exactly this specification of the will’s actions that determines the moral object of a human act.

(Incidentally, I am in Rome, so the pizza is automatically good. )

 

[lmelahn]

In the same article, Q.9, art.1, St Thomas says the will is an agent cause and the first mover of the other powers of the soul including the intellect. He says the same in Pt. I, Q. 82, and in other articles. “Since every agent acts for an end… the principle of this motion lies in the end.” The final cause is the first of causes and since God is the final cause of all things, “God is the cause of every operation as its end. Again it is to be observed that where there are several agents in order, the second always acts in virtue of the first; for the first agent moves the second to act. And thus all agents act in virtue of God Himself: and therefore He is the cause of action in every agent.” (ST, Pt. I, Q. 105, art.5). The second part of this quote concerning agent causes, St Thomas is referring here to God as the first efficient cause which he proves in the second proof for the existence of God. Since the will is a second agent cause, God as the first agent moves it.

Although this is strictly true, we should not misunderstand it. It is true that in a way we desire God in every good thing our will adheres to. However, this occurs because those good things are participants in the goodness of God.

Just as God is the First Cause in the order of agent, or efficient causes, He is also the First Cause (or “Last” Cause, depending on your point of view) in the order of final causes. If something is attractive to us, it is so because it ultimately derives its perfection from God. Moreover, God makes his creatures good and attractive so that they will lead us to Him.

We must, however, assiduously avoid a Malebranche-like confusion of the two orders of causality. God is the First (or Last) Cause; that means that He gives His creatures their act of being. Creatures, however, are real and proper secondary causes; they bring about real effects in other creatures. It is true that secondary causes bring about “becoming” rather than “being” as such, but they are real agents of change.

Hence, good creatures really move the human will to action. They do not compel the will to action, but they do exert a real attraction.

Personally, at present and without further study and reflection, I’m not sure what to make of the shift Fr. Keenan says that St Thomas made concerning the causality of the intellect on the will or in what manner the intellect moves the will, not that I don’t believe what St Thomas says, but I can see how before the shift St Thomas says the intellect moves the will as an end moves an agent. As Fr. Keenan points out though, this does present some problems.

I don’t think that Aquinas ever affirms that the intellect is the “end” of the will’s appetency. That would certainly go against what he says in I, q. 5: it is clearly the bona, good things that are the object of the will. He says the same in his De veritate.

If you can find such a passage, I would be curious to know about it.

(The intellect can be desired by the will, inasmuch as we experience delight when we learn things, but it is not the intellect as such that is desired, but rather its perfection.)

Take for example what St Thomas says in Pt. I-II, Q. 3, art. 4, whether happiness is essentially an operation of the intellect or the will.
“Objection 3: Further, the last end corresponds to the first mover: thus the last end of the whole army is victory, which is the end of the general, who moves all the men. But the first mover in regard to operations is the will: because it moves the other powers, as we shall state further on (Question [9], Articles [1],3). Therefore happiness regards the will.”

“Reply to Objection 3: The intellect apprehends the end before the will does: yet motion towards the end begins in the will. And therefore to the will belongs that which last of all follows the attainment of the end, viz. delight or enjoyment.”

As you can see, St Thomas says the intellect apprehends the end before the will does, however, movement towards the end begins in the will.

I think this is obvious, based on what we saw above. When we are presented with something good, the will then needs to go ahead and choose it (or not).

 

[inocente]

I agree that the ancient world (and other non-Western cultures even today) did not have a “scientific” outlook. That is a great advantage on our part, because we have become used to looking at common opinions with a healthy critical thinking. (Sometimes we get a little carried away, however.)

But that isn’t exactly what I was referring to. An example of something “evident” is the color of the trees. How you explain that color involves the use of reason.

A “scientific” culture will investigate the biological, chemical, and physical properties of the leaves (as well as how our eyes work), and rightly so.

A culture that still uses “myth” will invent some story about how the gods painted the trees green in some primordial struggle.

I’d say we have myths (traditional stories) just like every other culture. Human is as human does, and the Enlightenment didn’t stop us being human.

Are you making a moral judgment there? That scientific/reasoned explanation is right, non-scientific wrong? To some extent I agree, it does tend to debunk many tall tales. But that same scientific spirit dismisses teleology in nature, in which case the purpose of humanity isn’t to pursue reason or anything else. The psalmist writes “How good and pleasant it is / when God’s people live together in unity!”, and with well-chosen myths any culture can achieve that.

But neither conclusion is evident quoad nos (from our perspective). One is the result of a rational method, and the other is rather far-fetched, but both involve the use of our reason.

How can we discern which one is a viable theory, and which one is a quack theory? Well, need to make sure that the logical process that leads to the conclusion is solid. In the first case, the logic is quite solid (but, since we are dealing with empirical sciences, never “apodictic”). The second suffers from major gaps in logic.

My point is, no one can dispute the raw data that all men see; the difference is all in the conclusions drawn.

No one can dispute that we are using up resources such as oil that will make life difficult for our grandchildren. No one can dispute that we are on the verge of causing the extinction of many other species. The data says we’re not any more rational than they were.

*To the degree that the Scriptures, or anyone else, makes it seem as though God were physically “located” above the earth, we must view that as strictly metaphorical. In reality, God, in His Divine Nature, is omnipresent.

The one exception here is Acts 1, which describes the Ascension: in that case, Jesus (hence God) could well have ascended physically; however, that could only have occurred in his human nature. This is basic Chalcedonian doctrine: the operations done by Jesus are truly and properly attributed to God, but nevertheless, those operations that require a physical body are accomplished through Jesus’ human nature.*

I think we should not impose our own expectations on scripture. It may be inconvenient for some later theologians, but if we respect the texts then it seems obvious that a number of the writers, or at least the audiences for which they wrote, believed that God lives in heaven, and that heaven is in the sky.

Note that inductive reason is still a kind of reason. (But the birds are not engaged in reasoning, just in memory reinforced by reward.)

That was my point. If the birds are not reasoning, then neither were the hunters.

*You do not have to “do philosophy” in order to use your reason. All human beings learn to reason pretty quickly: just take our ability to learn language. No other animal—and that includes the higher apes, and yes, that includes Koko and company—can learn language as fluidly and efficiently as man can. And language is nothing other than the verbal expression of our reasoning process.

So the hunters saw indentations. How is that they “learned” that they belonged to certain animals? By observing animals make those tracks. Unlike the birds, the hunters would have had no trouble learning what “animal tracks” are and what they signify*

The hunters are more adept, but the process is the same. One bird learns that pecking at a bottle cap produces a reward of cream. Other birds watch, and learn to recognize white-bottle-shiny-top (or however they see it) to get their own reward. Sure the hunters have something much more advanced between their ears, but there’s no reason to assume anything different in kind is going on.

Faith is a gift of God that perfects our nature, and God gives it to those to whom He wishes to give it. It was only after the coming of Christ that God wished to proclaim the Good News to all men.

So, you are right: faith is not a “part” of human nature, but it is necessary for us to reach our fulfillment.

(Those who, like Aristotle, are not in a position to have faith, through no fault of their own, will still, of course, have the opportunity to be saved and to have the Beatific Vision, which takes the place of faith.)

I’m sure Aristotle had faith in many things. At the very least that the sun would rise tomorrow. But I guess you are interpreting faith to mean a special kind of faith in a special kind of target.

How long has it been since you were allowed out of that seminary???

 

[John_Martin]

It is enough if you have the inherent ability to establish relations…, but, are you saying that there is an inherent relation (an accident) in God?

The accident is inherent in the creature (“the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are without excuse.” (Rom 1:20)) since anything caused in some way is like the cause, therefore related in itself to the cause.

 

[lmelahn]

Concerning the voluntary and the involuntary, St Thomas says in Pt. I-II, Q. 6, art. 5,:
“Now in order for a thing to be done for an end, some knowledge of the end is necessary. Therefore, whatever so acts or is moved by an intrinsic principle, that it has some knowledge of the end, has within itself the principle of its act, so that it not only acts, but acts for an end.” Now knowledge of the end is obviously in the intellect. So, it appears that there is some sense to make out of what St Thomas previously held before the shift that the intellect moves the will as an end moves an agent. However, as I said previously, Fr Keenan points out in his book some of the difficulties involved in this view especially where St Thomas says in some passages that the will is as a passive power before the intellect. Now, I think St Thomas realized later in his career the difficulties involved with his previous thinking.

I don’t think there is any special difficulty. The intellect gets to know things, recognizes them as attractive, and presents them to the will for action. In this respect, the intellect has power over the will.

The will, as a principle of operation, can, if it wishes, to some degree overpower the intellect and direct its gaze on something else. It can say to the intellect, “no thanks, intellect, I want to be presented with a different good.”

As a solution to some of these difficulties, I think we may need to look at the distinction between a final cause and an efficient cause so here are some of my thoughts. Though the end moves the agent to act and it appears to me that knowledge of the end is in the intellect, the intellect is not a motive power.

No, the intellect isn’t a “motive” power, but it does present the motive power—i.e., the will—with the matter that it needs in order to act (or not).

The motive power is the efficient cause and the will is a motive power and the first mover of the other powers of the soul. The final cause though it is the first of causes, is not an efficient cause. So that though the intellect apprehends the end before the will does, movement towards the end begins in the will as St Thomas says.

The will never apprehends the end (that is the intellect’s job); the will’s job is to desire and tend toward that end.

 

[lmelahn]

Certainly! If we go from “not having established a relation” to “having established a relation” we have passed from potency to act. It is a brief way to say it, which I like. What I deny is that something external to us impresses the relation in us.

And certainly too!, to establish relations you need either elements of interactions, interactions, or relations.

But you are sure that the realities in the world had nothing to do with reducing our potency to act?

 

[lmelahn]

(continued)

St Thomas says that the end and the universal good is the object of the will.

Remember what I said earlier: it is not so much that God, the “universal good,”*is necessarily the object of the will. Rather, all beings, to the degree that they are objects of desire, are possible objects of the will. Now, it is true that God is the ultimate good, the Summum Bonum, but he is not exactly an object of the will for those of us still on earth, because we cannot apprehend Him directly (except insofar as we have the theological virtue of charity, for which the theological virtue of faith is necessary).

The question can be asked here, does the end or final cause pertain more to the will or to the intellect?

It pertains to both, but in different ways. The intellect discerns the end; the will executes the movement toward that end.

From what I just said, it appears that St Thomas says the end pertains to the will as good which is the object of the will has the nature of an end. However, what is sort of confusing to me is when St Thomas says the intellect apprehends the end before the will does and it appears to me that knowledge of the end is in the intellect for knowledge refers to the intellect.Accordingly, the end appears to be in the intellect too in some manner… As a possible solution to this difficulty, St Thomas says that the intellect understands what the will wills. So the end and the good which is the object of the will, the intellect apprehends and understands this for the very ideas of an end and appetible good is in the intellect.

As I mentioned before, the intellect does the apprehending; the will executes the movement toward the thing desired (which culminates in rejoicing in the good, once it is acquired).

In the end, St Thomas holds that the intellect or any object it presents to the will cannot move the will efficiently or to the very exercise of the act of the will. He says “no object moves the will necessarily, for no matter what the object be, it is in man’s power not to think of it, and consequently not to will it actually.” (cf. Pt. I-II, Q. 10, art. 2).

All that he means is that no created good can compel the will to seek it out. That is the fundamental reason why we are free. On the other hand, the Beatific Vision of God does compel our will, which is why committing sins is impossible in Heaven.

Here he makes a distinction in the will between the exercise of its act and to the specification of its act derived from the object.

We fleshed this out in a previous post. The will’s fundamental freedom is that of exercise: it can act, or refuse to act. The will is specified by the goods (objects) that the intellect presents to it.

As to the very exercise of its act, God as the first efficient cause alone moves it, “For everything that is at one time an agent actually, and at another time an agent in potentiality, needs to be moved by a mover.” (Pt. I-II, Q. 9, art. 4).

If you read article 6, you will see that God is the the First Cause of the will, because He is the creator of the soul, in which the will has its origin. He is fundamentally the Cause of the will’s very being, not its “coming to be.” Note his comment in the responsum of this article:

Wherefore nothing else can be the cause of the will, except God Himself, Who is the universal good: while every other good is good by participation, and is some particular good, and a particular cause does not give a universal inclination.

The immediate objects of the will are those particular goods, which are, however, good by participation in the Summum Bonum. A particular (i.e., created) good can move the will partially; only God can perfect the will completely and irrevocably.

Any thoughts? Imelahn, would you like to comment on this?

I hope I was clear. There will be a quiz on on all this next Friday .

 

[lmelahn]

OK, now I found a place where Aquinas says that the intellect moves the will as the end moves an agent. Very interesting.

Full disclosure: I have not yet read Fr. Keenan’s book. I am just answering according what I know of St. Thomas’ theory of the powers of the soul.

…]Reply to Objection 3: There is no need to go on indefinitely, but we must stop at the intellect as preceding all the rest. For every movement of the will must be preceded by apprehension, whereas every apprehension is not preceded by an act of the will; but the principle of counselling and understanding is an intellectual principle higher than our intellect —namely, God—as also Aristotle says (Eth. Eudemic. vii, 14), and in this way he explains that there is no need to proceed indefinitely.

I love it when St. Thomas agrees with me, heh, heh . You see, according to Aquinas, there is apprehension (the assumption of concepts—and, although he leaves this implicit—also the making of judgments) before there is volition.

Now, in the body of this article, St Thomas says the intellect moves the will as an end moves an agent and the will moves the intellect as an agent cause…]

Although it is possible that Aquinas changed his mind (there are a number of interesting occasions where he did so), I don’t think there is necessarily a contradiction between this passage—in which the intellect moves the will as an “end” (final cause) moves an agent—and the other one we saw, in which the object of the will moves the will as a formal cause.

I think what I said earlier still stands: it is not the intellect as such that usually is the object of the will’s appetite.

But, in essence, I really don’t see why the objects of the will can’t be both final and formal cause in different respects. After all, God is both our Exemplar and our Supreme Good.

They are formal causes inasmuch as they specify the act of the will (i.e., by choosing this good, it prevents the will from choosing that other good); final causes inasmuch as they inspire desire*, and in this way move the will to act (i.e., to exercise itself).

This is all fine and I don’t doubt that such is the case at times (at the very least if not always) especially if we take supernatural grace into consideration. As the Church teaches, we can have no good thought or do any good work conducive for salvation without God’s prevenient grace. By grace, God moves both our mind and will. As a side note here, in St Thomas’ treatise on grace, he also calls grace that general help from God by which God is the first mover of our intellects and wills and indeed of all creatures. This general help from God as first mover of all things is distinguished by St Thomas, of course, from supernatural grace.

Yes, but in both cases God is the First Cause, which means that he offers to us the principles for acting in accord with grace, but He never compels us to act. (That is important, because some interpreters of St. Thomas want to make him a Calvinist…)

Pt. I, Q. 82 was written before Aquinas wrote Pt. I-II where as Fr. Keneen notes, St Thomas makes a shift from the intellect moving the will as an end or final cause moves an agent to the intellect being as a formal cause or principle moving the will as presenting its object to it.

The object specifies the act of the will if the will chooses it so that this specification is as a formal cause since form is what places some thing into a class of things or species. Here it means what kind of act is it, for example, walking, eating, drinking, etc.

Now that I have analyzed both texts, I think I can affirm that the intellect functions as both final and formal cause, in different ways (which echo, actually, the two ways in which the will can be put into act: exercise and specification).

To move on, in Pt. I-II,Q. 17, art. 5, Whether the Act of the Will is Commanded, St Thomas says:
…]
Reply to Objection 3: Since command is an act of reason, that act is commanded which is subject to reason. Now the first act of the will is not due to the direction of the reason but to the instigation of nature, or of a higher cause, as stated above (Question [9], Article [4]). Therefore there is no need to proceed to infinity.

The “command” (imperium) of reason he is talking about essentially the judgment of the intellect that says, in a moral situation, “you need to do this,” or, “you need to avoid that.” He is basically saying that the “command” of the will (the fact that my will can make the rest of me obey it) is a different animal, so to speak.

Note that the “instigation of nature” refers to the will moving itself. (Remember that throughout Article 9, Thomas is saying that the will can move thanks to two principles: in intrinsic one, and an extrinsic one. The intrinsic one is ultimately the person himself; the extrinsic one is ultimately God.)

In Q. 9, art. 6, St Thomas goes on to say that this external principle or mover of the will is none other than God. …].

Although God is ultimately the cause of the will’s tendency to the good, that does not prevent created goods from being the proximate (or secondary) cause of that tendency. This all presupposes that the person knows about the goods in question and is in a position to desire them.

Note that Aquinas says that we have a natural desire to see God; that is related to God being the ultimate mover of the will. (He can also give more direct motions, like when He gives actual graces.)*

 

[lmelahn]

St Thomas realized that the intellect and will react on each other and move each other in one way or another. I guess what I’m getting at here is whether the apprehension in the mind is before the act of the will or after it or maybe simultaneous with it or if it even makes sense that an apprehension in the intellect can come after an act of will. In this last case, we would seem to have an act of the will with no purpose or end which doesn’t make much sense. We can’t love what we don’t know as Augustine says (cf. Pt. I-II, Q. 3, art. 4).

I think it is clear that Aquinas holds that knowledge always precedes volition. That makes sense: you can’t desire (much less enjoy) what you don’t know. As I commented in the previous post, when Aquinas says that nature and God ultimately move the will, that always presupposes the mediation of the intellect. (He characterizes the will, after all, the rational or perhaps better said, intellectual appetite.)

St Thomas places the intellect as the highest power absolutely and happiness consists essentially in an act of the intellect of course the will is also involved.

Right, because when we apprehend the object of supreme desire (i.e., God) directly, we will rejoice perfectly in our union with Him.

According to our understanding of the Trinity, what he says makes sense. God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, the Word of God, proceeds from the Father’s intellect. The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, proceeds from the will of the Father and Son. According to this order in the Trinity, the affirmation “we can’t love what we don’t know” makes sense. Duns Scotus’ doctrine of the primacy of the will does not seem to follow this order of the Trinity.

There is another indication of the superiority of the intellect: all beings, even the basest, in a sense have a kind of volition. All tend to their own perfection. But only some creatures know what their end is, and these are precisely the nobler, spiritual creatures.

According to Fr. William Most who follows St Thomas, God moves us with supernatural grace by presenting a good to our mind which He wishes us to perform, and by moving our will to take pleasure in that good. The good present to our mind and the complacency in the will may occur simultaneously. Is it possible to have one without the other?

Yes, because rejoicing in a good is the fulfillment of desire. If we fail to act on our desire for some reason, we will remain with desire and never obtain the fulfillment. Note that when God “moves” the will with an actual grace, He never compels the soul; he simply inspires desire for the good He is offering.

St John of the Cross calls infused contemplation “loving knowledge,” and he says it generally affects both the intellect and will together. But there are times I think he says that God causes this contemplation only in the intellect or will or that the person experiences it more so in one or the other faculty.

Evidently, it affects the will through the mediation of the intellect. Intellect and will always work together; the intellect knows or “sees;” the will desires and rejoices.

 

[lmelahn]

I’d say we have myths (traditional stories) just like every other culture. Human is as human does, and the Enlightenment didn’t stop us being human.

Are you making a moral judgment there? That scientific/reasoned explanation is right, non-scientific wrong? To some extent I agree, it does tend to debunk many tall tales. But that same scientific spirit dismisses teleology in nature, in which case the purpose of humanity isn’t to pursue reason or anything else. The psalmist writes “How good and pleasant it is / when God’s people live together in unity!”, and with well-chosen myths any culture can achieve that.

Folklore can be OK as long as we don’t confuse it with reality. I enjoy Aesop’s fables as much as anyone, but I know that they never actually happened. As vehicles for teaching virtue or lessons, they are fine, but myths that are mistaken for reality need to be purified.

No one can dispute that we are using up resources such as oil that will make life difficult for our grandchildren. No one can dispute that we are on the verge of causing the extinction of many other species. The data says we’re not any more rational than they were.

We are not less rational either. Don’t forget that “rational” can mean at least two things: namely (1) possessing a spiritual nature and an intellect; or (2) acting in way that is becoming to that spiritual and intellectual nature (i.e., acting morally).

Both we and our ancestors are equally rational in the first sense. We may or may not be more “rational” in the second way. Clearly, using up resources wantonly is an “irrational” action, but it is irrational because it is unbecoming, not because the creatures that produce the action are not endowed with an intellect.

I think we should not impose our own expectations on scripture. It may be inconvenient for some later theologians, but if we respect the texts then it seems obvious that a number of the writers, or at least the audiences for which they wrote, believed that God lives in heaven, and that heaven is in the sky.

And yet the Scriptures themselves take pains to avoid that view. Consider the episode of the Tower of Babel, or Psalm 94:

Understand, O dullest of the people!
Fools, when will you be wise?
He who planted the ear, does he not hear?
He who formed the eye, does he not see?
He who disciplines the nations, does he not rebuke?
He who teaches man knowledge—
the Lord—knows the thoughts of man,
that they are but a breath.

If you examine the Old Testament, you will see that, as their knowledge of God increased, the Jewish People gradually became less attached to anthropomorphic images of God. Or else, in the New Testament:

No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known (John 1:18).

The transcendence of God is something that the People of Israel learned gradually.

That was my point. If the birds are not reasoning, then neither were the hunters.

The hunters are more adept, but the process is the same. One bird learns that pecking at a bottle cap produces a reward of cream. Other birds watch, and learn to recognize white-bottle-shiny-top (or however they see it) to get their own reward. Sure the hunters have something much more advanced between their ears, but there’s no reason to assume anything different in kind is going on.

But, unlike the birds, the hunters are able to understand what they are doing. They learn what animal tracks are, and what they mean. (Similar to the way you are reading the words I write now and understand what they mean.) The birds are just follow their instincts blindly.

I’m sure Aristotle had faith in many things. At the very least that the sun would rise tomorrow. But I guess you are interpreting faith to mean a special kind of faith in a special kind of target.

How long has it been since you were allowed out of that seminary???

Faith in the strict sense is the theological virtue by which we know God (and as a consequence, and based on His authority, everything that He proposes to us for belief as revealed by Him). It is a free, unmerited, supernatural gift from God. It is very different from the human faith that Aristotle would have experienced.

 

[Richca]

JuanFlorencio and Richea, we could be up all night talking about this. The magnitude of this topic is an entire year’s metaphysics course .

If you really want to understand Aquinas on the intellect and the will, you have to start (at a minimum) with Summa, I, q. 77.
.

Thanks Imelahn for all your previous comments. Your comments seem to be in accord with what St Thomas says and are sensible. Concerning the “shift” Fr. Keneen thinks St Thomas made in Pt. I-II, q. 9, art 1 (formal causality), you do not see any contradiction to what he said earlier in Pt. I, Q.82, (final causality). In your view, the intellect can be considered as a mover of the will under both kinds of causality in different respects. All good.

Here is something I’m wondering if you could try to explain because I don’t get it.

Pt. I-II, Q. 9, art. 3, “Whether the will moves itself?”

Objection 1. It would seem that the will does not move itself. For every mover, as such, is in act: whereas what is moved, is in potentiality; since “movement is the act of that which is in potentiality, as such” Aristotle, Phys. iii, 1. Now the same is not in potentiality and in act, in respect of the same. Therefore nothing moves itself. Neither, therefore, can the will move itself.

Reply to Objection 1. It is not in respect of the same that the will moves itself and is moved: wherefore neither is it in act and in potentiality in respect of the same. But forasmuch as it actually wills the end, it reduces itself from potentiality to act, in respect of the means, so as, in a word, to will them actually.

In the reply here, I don’t understand how the will by willing the end reduces itself from potentiality to act in respect to the means to will them actually? Somehow here the will is not in act and potency in respect of the same? Thanks.

 

[John_Martin]

Thanks Imelahn for all your previous comments. Your comments seem to be in accord with what St Thomas says and are sensible. Concerning the “shift” Fr. Keneen thinks St Thomas made in Pt. I-II, q. 9, art 1 (formal causality), you do not see any contradiction to what he said earlier in Pt. I, Q.82, (final causality). In your view, the intellect can be considered as a mover of the will under both kinds of causality in different respects. All good.

Here is something I’m wondering if you could try to explain because I don’t get it.

Pt. I-II, Q. 9, art. 3, “Whether the will moves itself?”

Objection 1. It would seem that the will does not move itself. For every mover, as such, is in act: whereas what is moved, is in potentiality; since “movement is the act of that which is in potentiality, as such” [Aristotle, Phys. iii, 1. Now the same is not in potentiality and in act, in respect of the same. Therefore nothing moves itself. Neither, therefore, can the will move itself.

Reply to Objection 1. It is not in respect of the same that the will moves itself and is moved: wherefore neither is it in act and in potentiality in respect of the same. But forasmuch as it actually wills the end, it reduces itself from potentiality to act, in respect of the means, so as, in a word, to will them actually.

In the reply here, I don’t understand how the will by willing the end reduces itself from potentiality to act in respect to the means to will them actually? Somehow here the will is not in act and potency in respect of the same? Thanks.

When the final end is not a simple straight easy movement, but requires other things to be in place first, other things that have no desirability of their own, then the intellect poses a picture of the difficult path, that is not good, other than it gets you to a place where you can have your final end. There is nothing to love on the difficult path, but the will tends to what it does not love anyway, willing the difficult path, because it loves the end envisioned. Love for the end (which is in the will) moves the will to love the unlovable difficult path (for its usefulness) and take it. So the will is moving the will. The will, moved by the desirable final end, is moving the will unmoved by an undesirable task to actualize the undesirable task.
[/quote]

 

[JuanFlorencio]

“Creator” is a revelation from the creator, not a conclusion of observation. And yet, “the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are without excuse.” (Rom 1:20)
Without inherent order (relationship) there would be excuse.

If you think “Creator” is a revelation from the Creator, then you implicitly believe that it is a relation inherent in God, otherwise something unreal and wrong would have been revealed.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

Two questions, then:

(1) The principle of non-contradiction is not self-evident? It seems tough (if not impossible) to affirm anything coherently without it. (I don’t mean that people can readily formulate it, necessarily; but they seem to use it whenever they affirm something.)

(2) So, in your opinion, are the axioms, in reality, purely formal (like in some branches of mathematics)?

I am so fond of the principle of non-contradiction that it is hard for me to answer your question, but…, contradictions are so abundant that I have to say this principle is not evident. I am not saying that people do not understand it, or at least that it is difficult to understand. It is simply that it is not infrequent to find contradictions in human reasonings. I would say that if the principle of non-contradiction were self-evident, then it would not be self-evident, because without contradictions we would not have the chance to formulate it.

I don’t know why you got the impression that axioms might be purely formal. Do you think an statement like “Relations are accidents” is purely formal? That is one of your axioms.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

But you are sure that the realities in the world had nothing to do with reducing our potency to act?

Our ability to establish relations? Yes Imelahn, why?

 

[JuanFlorencio]

The appearance of the “heavens” as “above” the earth (even though we now know that, as a scientific proposition, that idea is misleading) makes a good analogy for the relationship of God and His creatures. (If JuanFlorencio and UtUnumSint are listening, naturally, I think that the relation of God to His creatures is a relation “of reason,” but our relation to God is a “real” relation.)

So, concerning this you would have two relations in your mind: a) a real relation (our relation to God), and b) a relation of reason (the relation of God to His creatures). How do you distinguish, in general, a real relation from a relation of reason?

 

[lmelahn]

Thanks Imelahn for all your previous comments. Your comments seem to be in accord with what St Thomas says and are sensible. Concerning the “shift” Fr. Keneen thinks St Thomas made in Pt. I-II, q. 9, art 1 (formal causality), you do not see any contradiction to what he said earlier in Pt. I, Q.82, (final causality). In your view, the intellect can be considered as a mover of the will under both kinds of causality in different respects. All good.

And in fact they correspond to the two type of freedom that the will has: freedom of exercise, and freedom of choice (of specification).

Here is something I’m wondering if you could try to explain because I don’t get it.

Pt. I-II, Q. 9, art. 3, “Whether the will moves itself?”

Objection 1. It would seem that the will does not move itself. For every mover, as such, is in act: whereas what is moved, is in potentiality; since “movement is the act of that which is in potentiality, as such” [Aristotle, Phys. iii, 1. Now the same is not in potentiality and in act, in respect of the same. Therefore nothing moves itself. Neither, therefore, can the will move itself.

Reply to Objection 1. It is not in respect of the same that the will moves itself [*i.e, is an agent

] and is moved i.e., is the receiver of the action]: wherefore neither is it in act and in potentiality in respect of the same. But forasmuch as it actually wills the end, it reduces itself from potentiality to act, in respect of the means, so as, in a word, to will them actually.

I am assuming here that the fundamental principle is clear: a thing cannot reduce itself from potency to act, at least not in such a way that the agent and the thing (or aspect of that thing) receiving the action is exactly the same, because that would imply that the thing is in act and in potency in exactly the same respect. That would violate the principle of non-contradiction. (Aquinas uses this very same principle in his First Way, as you may recall.)

The fictitious objector (probably one of Aquinas’ students) is asking, “Isn’t the will ‘moving itself;’ that is, isn’t it reducing itself from potency to act in exactly the same respect?”

In the reply here, I don’t understand how the will by willing the end reduces itself from potentiality to act in respect to the means to will them actually? Somehow here the will is not in act and potency in respect of the same? Thanks.

In essence, this occurs because the will is partially in act and partially in potency (in different respects, obviously), as I mentioned in my post on I, q. 77, the other day.

To see what is going on, imagine that you have a good, an “end,” before you. A pizza, say. (It could also be something more important, like some moral obligation you have to fulfill, but it works the same way.) Your intellect has presented the pizza to your will, and your will now is in the position of desiring the pizza. In that respect, the will is already in act; it is also already set up so as to be able to act on this desire. This is what Aquinas means when he says that the will “actually (actu) wills the end.”

Now, suppose that you are hungry and you decide the eat the pizza. As soon as you move your arm to take a slice, you are beginning to take the necessary means to achieve your end. That decision to pick up a slice of pizza was also an act of the will, but one that you commanded. (Or else, looked at a different way: the pizza is exerting an attraction on you. You decide to yield to that attraction, and take the necessary means to obtain the object of desire. There is, therefore, both a “pull” of attraction exerted by the pizza, and a “push” from inside you, because we always seek our perfection and fulfillment.)

By taking the necessary means, you are reducing your will from potency to act; that is possible, because your will is already in act (in a different way) thanks to your natural desire for fulfillment, and still the more because the pizza is attracting you.

That is what Aquinas is getting at when he says (rather cryptically), “inasmuch as it [the will] actually wills the end, it reduces itself from potentiality to act.”

(This odd phrasing comes from Aristotle, who defines “change” as the “act of a thing in potency inasmuch as it is in potency.” It is quoted in the objection.)

Make sense?

 

[John_Martin]

If you think “Creator” is a revelation from the Creator, then you implicitly believe that it is a relation inherent in God, otherwise something unreal and wrong would have been revealed.

Since you were speaking of God’s creating: ("We don’t perceive God’s creative power; we talk about it. ") perhaps I should have phrased it “God being Creator of Heaven and Earth” to distinguish it from other creators of art or architecture.

As to God revealing it, yes he did.

As to the revelation, it is revealed in the mode perceivable to the recipient of the revelation (us) rather than in the mode known by the revealer (God), who addresses us always and only through his messengers, the Angels, the Prophets, the Church, and supremely in his Son.

So, something external to us delivered relation to us, as a predicate of God, and, it seems, as convertible with the subject (God is the Creator equates to the Creator is God), since our knowing is entirely passive. (even when we use “logical syllogism” we are putting a proposal back from the realm of objects of intellectual species via phantasms into the place in ourselves for intellectual sensitive observation of a conscious thought, where it becomes in us a proposed sensitive intelligible individual object, and we may even take it a step further setting up an experiment with an actual real object to have a full cycle of sensitive perception, all so that we can judge, true or false, of what we are sensing, “Is the known species true? do I understand?”).