Thomistic metaphysics is primarily based on Aristotelian metaphysics. But it is not completely based on it. Aquinas did make some alterations.I have a problem with Aquinas’ metaphysics but only because it is really Aristotle’s metaphysics
God is uncaused, not caused. So, efficient causality does not apply to God. Also, Aquinas does not hold that God is one being among other beings. God is being itself (ipsum esse subsistens) in which all other finite beings participate…If Heidegger is right, i.e., that the horizon of Aristotle’s concept of “being” (esse, the ‘to be’) is time, then Aristotle’s metaphysical categories (substance, efficient causality, etc) cannot be applied to God who is “outside” of time.
But you raise an interesting point.
Is there another way of thinking that is not subject to the horizon of time?
But both Thomas and Aristotle share the same understanding of “being” as “presence”.Thomistic metaphysics is primarily based on Aristotelian metaphysics. But it is not completely based on it. Aquinas did make some alterations.
Thomas ascribes efficient causality to God in the creation and maintenance of the world. This by the way is where he diverges from Aristotle whose God is only a final cause but not an efficient cause.God is uncaused, not caused. So, efficient causality does not apply to God. Also, Aquinas does not hold that God is one being among other beings. God is being itself (ipsum esse subsistens) in which all other finite beings participate…
Aristotle believed in a static universe. Yes.But both Thomas and Aristotle share the same understanding of “being” as “presence”.
Thomists ascribe efficient causality to God in the creation and maintenance of the world (God is the uncaused efficient cause). This is a major difference with Aristotle whose God is only a final cause but not an efficient cause (Aristotle didn’t know about the divine creation of the world).
Also, by describing God as a substance, as a concrete entity, how does Thomas prevent God from becoming “one being among other beings”? Certainly, Aristotle sees God in this way.
Because only God possesses esse substistens. His primary act of creation is producing the ens commune of created beings which are a combination of esse and essence. The essence limits the esse. We only come to know God through ens commune, which we identify as entirely contingent, therefore pointing to the necessity of God’s esse substistens.If a finite being participates in the “esse subsistens”, then how does it “possess” its own unique “esse” (which is a Thomistic principle)?
Would you say that the ens commune “participates” in “esse subsistens”? It’s important to clarify this because “participates” has a Platonic connotation.Because only God possesses esse substistens. His primary act of creation is producing the ens commune of created beings which are a combination of esse and essence. The essence limits the esse. We only come to know God through ens commune, which we identify as entirely contingent, therefore pointing to the necessity of God’s esse substistens.
utunumsint;11901036) said:I’d like to look at this - can you give me a reference?
The author I am reading is Father Benedict Ashley’s “The Way Toward Wisdom”Would you say that the ens commune “participates” in “esse subsistens”? It’s important to clarify this because “participates” has a Platonic connotation.
I’d like to look at this - can you give me a reference?
This Thomistic view of the multitude and diversity of creatures results also in a conception of their hierarchical order very different from that of Neoplatonism, which so closely resembles the views of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. It was Pseudo-Dionysius, who first introduced the term “hierarchy” (hieros-arche “sacred order”) into theology, although in present usage it is often used without any connotations of the sacred. Neoplatonism conceived this hierarchy of beings as perfectly linear, so that whatever perfections were contained in an inferior member of the series were totally contained and in a better way in its superiors, from which it received them less perfectly. This model of hierarchy resembled the series of the natural number, in which the units of any given number X are contained in any number greater than X.
Aquinas accepts the analogy to the number series, but with a very important distinction. For him, this analogy is more perfectly realized in the hierarchy of pure spirits and less perfectly realized in the hierarchy of material things, but is always qualified, since it is true only generically, not specifically. For example, the human being is higher in the hierarchy of creatures than minerals, plants, and animals, and contains their perfections, but only generically. We humans, although we are the highest members of the material universe, cannot sparkle like a diamond, nor flower like a rose, nor swim like a fish. Instead, within the generically ordered hierarchy of creatures, each species of creatures has some unique perfection possessed by no higher creature, not even the highest, but only by God. What is true of species is also true in the case of material things of individuals within species, so that in a Thomistic Metascience no substance in the universe is a mere “clone” of another. The higher a creature is in the hierarchy the more distinct it is from other creatures. Two grains of sand are not identical in their perfections, though their differences are minimal. The differences among individual plants are greater, among animals greater still (think of the individual “personalities” of a pet dog!), and very great among human beings.
Since the human soul is a spiritual substance (though when separated from the body an incomplete one), material forces cannot produce it and hence each human soul must be created by a special and unique act of God. This implies a unique relation of each human being to the First Cause in addition to the relation it shares with other members of its genus. Thus, the pejorative sense in which the term “hierarchy” is often used today, notably in feminist thought, to connote an oppressive power stems from the Pseudo-Dionysian, not from the Thomistic, use of that term.
Thus, in the cosmic system, it is efficient causality that produces the existence of beings. In the case of material things this production presupposes the material cause as it exists under some form, but brings into existence a new substance from this previous matter or (in the case of merely accidental change) modified an already existent subject. Immaterial beings, however, including the human spiritual soul as the substantial form of the human body, since such pure forms have an existence that is not dependent on matter, can only be created ex nihilo by the immediate action of the infinitely powerful First Cause especially concurring in the human case with the natural physical cause of bodily generation.
God bless,An efficient cause precisely as such does not itself undergo change when it acts to change another. The change takes place only in the recipient. Thus efficient causality is a fruitful, generous sharing of being with another, precisely because it is not itself diminished by that act. Thus it is a mistake to imagine efficient causality as if it were like pouring water from one glass into another, thus emptying the first glass as one fills the second. In efficient causality as such, the agent loses nothing by giving something to what it effects. Nevertheless, as we have seen in the argument for the existence of the Fist Cause, contingent efficient causes cannot act unless another agent also actualizes them, since change is in the recipient of the action, not in the agent. But all material agents are moved movers, since before they act, they are only in potency with respect to that action,k and must be put into act by another agent. In an engine the fuel cannot generate power unless the fuel itself is ignited by some agent. Yet it is not contradictory that the First Cause is an unmoved mover since, as just said, an efficient cause per se is not moved by the fact that it moved another.
"It should be evident, at least in the present context, that this type of hermeneutical attack on the possibility of metaphysics is relevant only if “metaphysics” is identified with a Platonic conception of philosophy and with a Hegelian historicism. A metaphysics of presence is one that supposes we can arrive at a vision of ultimate truth that is an exhaustive “revealment,” free of all “concealment.” Caputo shows that such views ignore the Aristotelian emphasis on Kinesis (motion, change, dynamism) in favor of Permenides’ denial of the reality of change o at least of a Platonic reduction of change to a mere imitation of real being. On the other hand, Caputo himself sometimes seems to praise Derrida for adopting Heraclitus’s panta rei “All is flux.” Michel Foucault also has proposed an “archaeology of knowledge” that seems to undermine metaphysics by showing how even our most basic understandings of reality are historically and culturally conditioned.
In Chapter 9 I will discuss the nature of historical knowledge and will argue that all theories such as Heidegger’s that imply some “law” of history accessible by human reason are untenable. If history has a predetermined goal, it can only be known by revelation, not by reason. Derrida is right that to suppose, as Heidegger did, that the notion of Plato’s view initiating an inevitable historical process of the “forgetting of Being” is mere mythmaking. More fundamentally, however, I will try to show in this book that Aristotle’s conception of a human wisdom is based precisely on his recognition that the only being we directly know is changeable being, being in process, being becoming. Hence our knowledge of reality, although it can be ins some respects certain, is always inadequate and capable of further refinement.
Even those things that are immediately evident from experience and hence can be used as principles to acquire other knowledge are always capable of more profound and precise formulation in view of further experience. It would be a serious eror to suppose that to avoid Pamenides’ denial of kinesis we need to accept the pure flux of Heraclitus. Aristotle shows a middle way between Heraclitus and Pamenidies that made possible natural science, from which he derives a human wisdom that was always open to the event of more adequate experiences and deeper understanding. Such a “metaphysics” never claims a truth of perfect “presence.”
God bless,Moreover, it must be said of Heidegger’s thought in particular that to hold that the human essence or openness to Being is no more than openness to temporarily or historicity is to jump to an insufficiently explored conclusion. While it is certainly true that by reason of our embodiment we live in the flow of time, and that all our knowledge is conditioned by temporality, this only raises, not answers, the question of what it is to be human. Since only we human beings in the material world of change ask about being and time, about our own being toward death, or about that Being to which we must remain always open for further truthfulness, we cannot avoid the question of whether there is not some aspect of our being that transcends the temporal. Heidegger avoided that question, but we still have to ask it.
What’s your point?But both Thomas and Aristotle share the same understanding of “being” as “presence”.
Yes, God is both the efficient cause and the final cause of creation. But God himself is uncaused. So, efficient causality is something God exerts, but it is not something that applies to God as such.Thomas ascribes efficient causality to God in the creation and maintenance of the world. This by the way is where he diverges from Aristotle whose God is only a final cause but not an efficient cause.
The act/potency composition is the metaphysical requirement employed to explain the general law governing all change. All creaturely beings are a composition of act/potency. God is not, God is pure act (actus purus). As such, God is not a being among other beings. God is being itself.Also, by describing God as a substance, as a concrete entity, how does Thomas prevent God from becoming “one being among other beings”? Certainly, Aristotle sees God in this way.
There are two types of potencies: active potency (the capacity to act from within) and passive (the capacity to be acted upon from without). So, It is determined by its inherent potentiality to act or be acted upon.If a finite being participates in the “esse subsistens”, then how does it “possess” its own unique “esse” (which is a Thomistic principle)?
This probably one of the most interesting results of Thomist philosophy in my opinion. It shows God is more like a verb than a noun.The act/potency composition is the metaphysical requirement employed to explain the general law governing all change. All creaturely beings are a composition of act/potency. God is not, **God is pure act **(actus purus). As such, God is not a being among other beings. God is being itself.
Because “act” suggests something “verbal?”This probably one of the most interesting results of Thomist philosophy in my opinion. It shows God is more like a verb than a noun.
I have to break off for the Holy Triduum. Will respond next week.
I have to break off for the Holy Triduum. Will respond next week.Here is his section on Postmodernism and Metascience (his word for metaphysics) and his evaluation of Hiedegger’s attach on metaphysics:
God bless,
Ut
I meant a verb as in a word used to describe an action. I just argued myself out of my position as I typed this though because I was thinking of a noun as a thing which God is not. I forgot that a noun is also a person which God is. So I guess He is both a verb and a noun haha. I guess this illustrates the point that he is beoynd categories.Because “act” suggests something “verbal?”
What’s your point?
So, efficient causality is something God exerts, but it is not something that applies to God as such.
As such, God is not a being among other beings. God is being itself.
God is seen as a primary substance, a “tode ti”, an ontic “this”, although an unusual one (an “esse subsistens”).What’s your point?
You need to clarify “God is being itself”. God is not esse commune, the esse that belongs to creation. Otherwise, entities would not have their own esse (as Thomas insists they do). So how do you distinguish between “esse subsistens” and creaturely “esse”? And what is the relation between them?… God is being itself…
I’m not exactly sure what you’re attempting to argue. But if you are arguing that Aquinas’ metaphysics renders God a being among other beings, then your argument is incorrect. On Aquinas’ view, God is being itself (not merely the supreme being among other beings).God is seen as a primary substance, a “tode ti”, an ontic “this”, although an unusual one (an “esse subsistens”).
“Substantializing God” devolves into ontotheology (e.g., God as something “ontic”, a “present-at-hand” being (to use Heidegger’s terminology).
Once this metaphysical move is made, God becomes one entity among others, albeit the “supreme” entity.
“God is not a particular being among others, not even the highest one: He is his being. One cannot speak of God as if He were ‘this’ but not ‘that’…God is not one amidst others, particularized within the common space of being, but He is ‘being itself’ (ipsum esse).” - Rudi te Velde, “Aquinas on God,” 79
Aquinas sees God as both a “being” and “esse subsistens”.I’m not exactly sure what you’re attempting to argue. But if you are arguing that Aquinas’ metaphysics renders God a being among other beings, then your argument is incorrect. On Aquinas’ view, God is being itself (not merely the supreme being among other beings).
Good article. I think it represents Aquinas’ arguments accurately, although I have some reservations about a few parts. Like this one:And then again …
percaritatem.com/2007/02/21/part-ii-jean-luc-marion-beyond-conceptual-idolatry/#sthash.tL7DEdbR.dpbs
According to this article, Thomas himself put God outside all the metaphysical categories. It was only some subsequent commentators who are guilty of onto-theology.
I think we can know something about God’s being through the idea that He is the cause of ens commune, and in some way, we can know something about the cause in the effect. This is the Aristotelian principle of proportionate causality, which states that whatever is in the effect must also be in the cause (you can’t give what you don’t have). This is also why talk of an analogical similarity between our esse and God’s esse can hold true, even though out concept of God’s esse always falls shot of the reality.Yet, here again in order for God’s transcendence to be upheld, we must understand God’s esse as something completely different than created esse—as excluded from created being—“and consequently from all [that] we understand and know under the title of being. Therefore, God without being (at least without this being) could become again a Thomistic thesis (“Thomas and Onto-theo-logy,” p. 62). - See more at: percaritatem.com/2007/02/21/part-ii-jean-luc-marion-beyond-conceptual-idolatry/#sthash.tL7DEdbR.0cZo3qTx.dpuf