Some Summa for the Summer Time

[_veritas]

ferdgoodfellow:

I take it then that St. Tom does not believe in Plato’s forms? IOW, a universal is just an abstraction of a given characteristic (say, roundness) which only exists in concrete form in individual cases (say, an orange)?

Ahh… Plato’s forms. Every introductory philosophy professor’s worst teaching nightmare! Well, I’ll see what I can come up with here… (Take with a grain of salt… I don’t profess to be either an expert in Plato or Thomas by any means!!)

From how I have understood Plato and his forms (after only one introduction course…), then no, while Thomas and Plato have similar ideas of “abstractions”, they are not exactly identical in their beliefs about them (some of this could be due to variances in definitions/linguistics however… I am not knowledgeable enough to tackle that yet!)

I think that Plato saw his “forms” as being the “higher” (truer?) reality of their participating elements (ie, a Victorian dining room table as opposed to the abstract “tableness”, “tableness” being the true reality and universal idea of what a “table” is)… Remember, however, that Plato himself also believed in “the Good” (ie, what we consider God) as the highest good and the “most real” of anything, with everything (including the forms) beneath it.

As I see it, Thomas’ view may be reconcilable with Plato’s “forms/the Good” view, in that Thomas also sees universals as part of a higher reality (duh ). Thomas does not see a separation between the universals and the highest good (God), he speaks of how God’s very essence is the knowledge that leads to both universals and individual cases. Plato also holds a view similar to this, in that as the individual cases participate in the forms, the forms participate in “the Good”. On the other hand, I think that Plato’s view also tends to have more of a separation between the forms and “the Good”—Thomas is quite clear on his thought regarding the inseparability between the universals and God, while I don’t recall Plato speaking of the relationship between the forms and the Good in quite the same way…his “Good” is a bit more distantly involved I think than Thomas’ understanding of God.

I’m not sure how to say this any more clearly… If this is correct, however, then I see the possible separation/lack of separation between the forms and God as being the the main divergence between Plato and Thomas’ ideas of universals–and it may not really be a divergence, but only a different way of describing (and having a slightly different idea of the dependent relationship between universals and God). Thomas’ view may also be seen as an expanded and wiser explanation of what Plato (a pagan ) could see only vaguely.

Next!

+veritas+

 

[_veritas]

ferdgoodfellow:

So if God conceives or thinks of whatever, that whatever becomes real or actual? What are we then to make of God’s omniscience then? Esp. WRT the future. From our POV as creatures existing in space-time, we think of the past as being a done deal (actual), and the present is now (the experience of future potential becoming actual) and the future as pure potentiality. But apparently St. Tom thinks it is different for God. If we say that God knows the future as well as the past, then the future, for God has already happened. It has already become actual and concrete. This is a great puzzle for me.

First, I don’t know that it follows that whatever God knows becomes “real or actual”, in the sense that it is apparent to us, or even has a *direct *effect on Creation itself. What God knows does become real, according to Thomas, in that since God’s very essence is knowledge, whatever He “knows” has an effect.

This effect could be manifest differently than in a way we can conceive; and definitely not necessarly physically, or even what we would call “intellectually”. We don’t really need to understand this, really–we just have to accept that God, as an all-knowing and all-creating Being, incorporates all that we can see and understand in His very Being (Divine Essence). Thomas understands this relationship as being total–all of Creation is affected by God’s knowledge. All of Creation exists in God. Notice, however, that there is a twist here. In saying that all of Creation is affected, it is not excluded that there is more to God’s knowledge than what is in “Creation”. God’s knowledge can extend beyond Creation and have “effects” that either only affect Him or have some other effect that we cannot even begin to grasp. We have to concede that this is possible, because we are not God! How the effects are “actualized” is also beside the point, the point is that by God’s very knoweldge, Creation in its entirty is an effect of His knowledge.

Whew.

continued…

 

[_veritas]

Now, as far as omniscience is concerned–why would this change how we understand God’s omniscience? The Church teaches that God is outside of “time” as we know it. God exists in eternity, not in some temporal heavenly place.

As Romano Gaurdini put it, in the Incarnation, God “entered into history”. Past, present and future have no meaning in eternity. Minutes, hours, years–none of that is even comparable to the timelessness of eternity. This is why the Holy Mass is not a “re-sacrifice” of Christ, it is a “re*-presentation*” of the ONE sacrifce of Calvary. This is possible because in eternity all things are always happening–Calvary is still “happening”, the moment of Christ’s sacrifice is eternally present. The Mass is our “connection” between the temporal and the eternal (Guardini calls the altar the “threshold” between heaven and Creation).

If God is omniscience, then he knows all outcomes–there is no uncertain future. Now, this whole issue cuts to the heart of the debate about free will and predestination–doesn’t this mean that by God’s very will he has pre-made us either for heaven or hell?? By His knowledge of whether we will choose heaven or hell (assuming that we believe that we do have that choice!) and creating us anyway, isn’t this cruelty? Yet He is “all-good”!!

This is a concept that is far beyond me (and every other philospher/theologian I can imagine )! No one has quite been able to reconcile the idea of free will with a God who, by His very essence and nature, has created all things out of Himself and knows all things, including the ends of the things He creates. Thus, can God create something with a truly free will? Yikes, now those are the questions that keep philosophers busy!

Coming back to the heart of your post, Ferd, I have to ask whether understanding this really makes any difference to our own existence… We can debate and consider this philosophically and abstractually for all time but when you get right down to it, you are absolutely correct–we, as temporal beings, see the future as “pure potentiality”. God, however, as an eternal being, “sees” the future as “concrete and actual”. In the end, does it matter to our daily life if we ever understand this concept more fully?

Ok, your turn!! (Or somebody else’s turn!! )

+veritas+

 

[squirt]

re: Thomas and Plato

My understanding is that St Thomas would not concur with Plato, but with Aristotle … Thomistic philosophy is sometimes referred to as the ‘baptism of Aristotle’ …

 

[squirt]

JimG:

Squirt, that’s an impressive summary you did. Maybe you should be teaching Thomism.

JimG

Yeah … thanks for the compliment, but they’d all be wondering what the heck “intellibilbe” is … … maybe next time I post in the morning I’ll drink some coffee first

 

[tmak]

+veritas+:

Now, as far as omniscience is concerned–why would this change how we understand God’s omniscience? The Church teaches that God is outside of “time” as we know it. God exists in eternity, not in some temporal heavenly place.

As Romano Gaurdini put it, in the Incarnation, God “entered into history”. Past, present and future have no meaning in eternity. Minutes, hours, years–none of that is even comparable to the timelessness of eternity. This is why the Holy Mass is not a “re-sacrifice” of Christ, it is a “re*-presentation*” of the ONE sacrifce of Calvary. This is possible because in eternity all things are always happening–Calvary is still “happening”, the moment of Christ’s sacrifice is eternally present.
+veritas+

Would you then say that our words and deeds here in time will continue into the timelessness of eternity?

 

[_veritas]

tmak:

Would you then say that our words and deeds here in time will continue into the timelessness of eternity?

In a sense, yes… But remember, we are still in temporal history when we are celebrating Mass, therefore we are using the eternal reality to “cross-over” to the moment of Calvary. Once history is completed and we are all are in eternity, we won’t need to bridge any particular moments–all moments will be co-existing, not really “continuing” so to speak.

As for for the Mass and how it can be a “re-presentation”, think of it this way – A person on the top of a very tall building (with really really good eye-sight ) can look down and see both the front of the parade and the end of the parade, and everything in the middle. That’s what happens when we a being is in eternity–all such beings have viewpoints like this. Past, present, and future do not exist from this perspective (the parade isn’t a perfect analogy… but I hope the basic idea can be understood using it)

Now, if we are still down along one point of the parade route, and only got there when it was half-way through (thus only seeing the present float, and only able to remember some of the previous floats), it is possible that the person on top of the building can communicate with us; the person can “make present” for us an aspect of the parade that we have not seen (either because we didn’t arrive at the parade at the beginning, or because we have yet to see the future floats down the line).

Likewise, because we were not born until the 20th century after Christ, we came into the parade route half-way through–we were not present at the beginning. Only Christ, through his apostles, can make Calvary “present” for us, by bridging history with eternity.

Did this help or just make everything clear as mud?

+veritas+

 

[tmak]

+veritas+:

Once history is completed and we are all are in eternity, we won’t need to bridge any particular moments–all moments will be co-existing, not really “continuing” so to speak.

+veritas+

So then our good choices while here on earth will continue to give glory to God and our bad choices (sins) will continue to haunt us(have a negative effect in someway) for eternity?

Tom.

 

[_veritas]

“Haunt” isn’t the right way to put it–in the moment they happened in history the sins will still “exist” and thus we will be aware of them.

However, the difference is that whether through purgatory or perfect contrition/state of grace at death, we will also be enjoying the Beatific Vision in what we call “heaven”, and the mercy of God will have overcome all despair or regret. Consider how one might have stolen a candy bar when they were 12-years-old (ie, earthly sin). The child then repented of the sin, and made reparations/penance for it (ie, confession/purgatory). Do we think that this would “haunt” someone when they were 55 (ie, heaven)? I hope not.

The difference between any sin we committ on earth, and the mercy and forgiveness of the eternal God is so great as to be incomparable–God can forgive anyone of any sin, as long as they repent and come to Him. Therefore, I would expect that through the purifying of our souls, either in this life or in purgatory, we will be “aware” of what we did while on earth, but it will not cause us any grief or regret in heaven. We will accept it, because we have been forgiven for it by our Father.

(Oh, and obviously, if we are in hell for eternity then yes, I guess then our sins will still “haunt” us for eternity… I’m talking about heaven here, since I assume that’s what you were referring to )

+veritas+

 

[tmak]

" I would expect that through the purifying of our souls, either in this life or in purgatory, we will be “aware” of what we did while on earth, but it will not cause us any grief or regret in heaven. We will accept it, because we have been forgiven for it by our Father.

+veritas+

This awareness and its eternal effect is what I’m wondering about. It seems to me that the awareness will have some negative effect.

Does Thomas Aquinas say anything about this?/

Tom

 

[Sherlock]

Tmak,

I am no theologian, and so will have to rely on Veritas here, but my amateur reading of this would lead me to think that in hell, yes, this “awareness” will have some negative effect. Perhaps, in hell, souls are consumed with thoughts of “if only I had…” In heaven, however, the mercy of God will have overcome all despair or regret. In the Beatific Vision we will see God’s justice and mercy, and so “every tear shall be wiped away…” Regret, that is, the “negative effect”, will be overcome by the realization of what Justice and Mercy really are—God Himself.

Boggles the mind, doesn’t it?

 

[GloriaDeo]

nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/gc3_73.htm

Book III ; 73

That Divine Providence is not inconsistent with Freedom of the Will

Is this Aquinas endorsing free will when it comest to man’s salvation? I’ve read that he believes man has counsel over his salvation. What is the final say on this matter?

 

[squirt]

nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/gc3_73.htm

Book III ; 73

That Divine Providence is not inconsistent with Freedom of the Will

Is this Aquinas endorsing free will when it comest to man’s salvation? I’ve read that he believes man has counsel over his salvation. What is the final say on this matter?

I think he is basically saying that it is good that God gave us free will. It is an important way in which we are made in God’s likeness. It would be worse if we didn’t have free will, since we would really have no virtue. God could ‘force’ us to be good … but we would be less in God’s image … and being more in God’s image is by definition ‘better’ than being less in His image.

 

[LizzieBennet]

Veritas,

Sorry to just jump into this conversation - I hear you are from the University of St. Thomas! I have been in contact with an ethicist from your University - have you ever come into contact with Dr. Steven Heaney?

I’m hoping to jump into this conversation as well, but I’ll have to do a lot of reading to catch up! What a terrific summer project, though!

      ardently yours,
          Miss Elizabeth Bennet

 

[Fr.Frank]

tmak:

So then our good choices while here on earth will continue to give glory to God and our bad choices (sins) will continue to haunt us(have a negative effect in someway) for eternity?

Tom.

This is not fully on topic, but since God promises us that He will not remember our sins, why will we remember them in heaven?

I ran this idea by my Archbishop a few years ago, and he agreed with me with only one “proviso”. What I said to him was that I have come to believe that in heaven we will not remember any of our sins, the only things that will remain with us in heaven are those things we have done on earth that give glory to God. All sin will be forgotten - by God and by us. The proviso from Archbishop Curtiss was that we will remember that we have been forgiven. But what we have been forgiven for will no longer be remembered.

But even this “remembering we have been forgiven” is something that reveals the glory of God.

“Forgive and forget” we often say. But we acknowledge that God is the only one who can truely do that. I think this partially explains Purgatory as well: even the **memory ** of our sins will need to be purged from us for us to enter and enjoy the Beatific Vision.

So this places us in a “positivist” stance with God: it is not that we are meriting heaven by our good deeds, but that our good deeds (when they reveal God’s glory) are what pleases Him and us . To do the things of God for the sake of His glory and not our own is to truely die to ourselves for the sake of our King. This is where our Catholic moral theology becomes “positivist” as opposed to “restrictive” or “negative”.

As I said, I know this is not well on topic, but I wanted to address your question, Tom.

If God has forgotten our sins, why would **we ** remember them - wouldn’t that be introducing imperfection into the presence of Perfection?

Does this need more clarification? I have never written this out before, only talked to people about it. I have preached it many times when preaching on Purgatory.

 

[_veritas]

Fr. Frank:

This is not fully on topic, but since God promises us that He will not remember our sins, why will we remember them in
heaven?..

Hmm… but then this seems to fall into the “open theism” idea that the Protestants are into debating heavily nowadays – can an all-knowing God choose to NOT know something??? Technically, open theism’s big debate stems from the salvation/free will issue (ie, can an all-knowing and eternal God create beings with truly free wills and choose to not know what decisions they will make; can God, apart from the self-emptying kenosis of His Incarnation, self-limit Himself and not know some aspects of the “future”?) I see your concept of Purgatory and Heaven being connected with this open theistic concept (please correct me if I am wrong!) in that you are also saying that God can self-limit Himself, particularly His memory. (Can an eternal God have a “memory”? Apart from Jesus’ human nature of course.)

From what I understand, the Church has rejected any notion of the open theism theory, on the basis that anything that limits God is potentially heretical. (Any Catholic theologians out there that can speak with more knowledge on this?) These comments on God truly forgetting sins seems to fall under the notion of open theism, and if so, and if open theism was rejected for those reasons, then this idea of Purgatory may also be questionable.

Secondly, I know that it does say that God promises that He will not remember our sins in the Bible, however, what is the official Church’s interpretation on that passage? Is it to be taken literally, or is it within the Church’s “interpretation boundaries” to consider that it might be stated in that way to refer to the fact that we have no need to worry about our past sins affecting us (ie, regret) in heaven? Now, I’m not promoting individual interpretation here, I’m just wondering if the Church has already spoken on this matter in the past.

You probably already realized this, but I should make sure to note that I am only speaking regarding God’s not remembering our sins… Fr. Frank’s idea of ourselves not having memory of (or be unaware of the actual nature of) our sins in heaven I am able to accept. I can accept the idea that we may “forget” , as a result of Purgatory/redemption–we are not God after all

In the end, though, does it matter whether we “know” whether or not we will either A) Remember our sins but not feel regret, or B) Not remember our sins but know we are forgiven them, in heaven?? Probably not—either way, I want to be there and not the fiery place (or “state of being” if you prefer!! )!

As for Thomas Aquinas and what he has to say on this… offhand, I do not know of anywhere that he specifically addresses this issue, though I am sure he did somewhere, at least indirectly! I and others would greatly appreciate it if someone who does know this would enlighten the rest of us with references where to look!

+veritas+

 

[tmak]

Fr. Frank:

As I said, I know this is not well on topic, but I wanted to address your question, Tom.
.

Thank you!

Tom

 

[Fr.Frank]

+veritas+:

Hmm… but then this seems to fall into the “open theism” idea that the Protestants are into debating heavily nowadays – can an all-knowing God choose to NOT know something??? Technically, open theism’s big debate stems from the salvation/free will issue (ie, can an all-knowing and eternal God create beings with truly free wills and choose to not know what decisions they will make; can God, apart from the self-emptying kenosis of His Incarnation, self-limit Himself and not know some aspects of the “future”?) I see your concept of Purgatory and Heaven being connected with this open theistic concept (please correct me if I am wrong!) in that you are also saying that God can self-limit Himself, particularly His memory. (Can an eternal God have a “memory”? Apart from Jesus’ human nature of course.)

I have not heard the phrase “open theism” before. My understanding of “free will / divine prerogative” is that God chooses to allow our free will completely so that our choice can be genuinely free in response to Him (positive or negative / heaven or hell). I have not analyzed that further and was not forced to in Seminary (remember, I was ordained in 1984 - I am still re-tooling myself in a post-seminary reeducation - if any of my comments are off-the-bubble, I will **gladly ** take correction, which is why this went to my Archbishop).
+veritas+:

From what I understand, the Church has rejected any notion of the open theism theory, on the basis that anything that limits God is potentially heretical.

Is this really a limiting of God? For Him to choose to forget may seem like a limiting of His own memory. But unlike as we make choices that limit us (which car to own), God’s choice would seem to be for more freedom in that He is more perfectly free to love. (That phrase has the difficulty of implying His perfection is not complete if He does not forget all sin, so I don’t like the way it is phrased very much - I just don’t know how else to put it )
+veritas+:

As for Thomas Aquinas and what he has to say on this… offhand, I do not know of anywhere that he specifically addresses this issue, though I am sure he did somewhere, at least indirectly! I and others would greatly appreciate it if someone who does know this would enlighten the rest of us with references where to look!

Yes, please! Anyone with some further help would be welcome.

One last comment on my part: my interpretation of this I see as just one possible explanation for the experience of Heaven and Purgatory. All of our “guesses” can only be that. Remember Plato’s *cave * analogy? I think that is part of our problem describing all this.

I am sure glad all these discussions are so civil. Keep pushing me, folks. I’m still just learning myself.

 

[squirt]

Great to see all of these discussions going on as people pick up on something that starts them thinking fillersoffikly about God and our relationship with Him. Makes for some interesting reading for me (and hopefully for others, too). Gives me lots of things to ponder and to ask Him about … even though he don’t tell me what the answers are …

 

[squirt]

I’m still plodding through SCG from the beginning … and it’s getting a bit tougher as I go …

anyway, here’s what I think he’s getting at in some of it:

What we can figure out once we accept that God is First Cause

1.15
it’s about time! (metaphysically speeking) As first cause, God is unchangeable (there ain’t nothing causing Him and therefore no effects/changes) … only things that change are measured with time … all of God’s being is in one eternal now … no before, no after.

1.16
God has no potential. Well, not in the way we think of it as being some sort of loser. He ‘already’ completely is. There are a few arguments given for this … but given what has been argued by St Thomas so far, I think the easiest one to follow is the one from First Cause. If there is potential, there must be something to activate the potential. For First Cause, there’s nothing outside of itself to activate it. Therefore God is pure actuality without potentiality.

1.17
God ain’t composite. Follows from 1.16. Compounds must have the potential to be properly united into one and to be decomposed. God ain’t got no potential, so He can’t be composite.

1.18
God’s nobody … oops … that’s no body. Bodies have extension and therefore are compound with parts. Therefore, from 1.17, God is incorporeal. This has implications for how we can and cannot understand God based on what we see and sense as corporeal beings. It’s hard for us to imagine a ‘being’ withouth matter and form …

1.19-1.20
God’s existence and essence are the same thing. God IS ‘be-ing’ (or ens in Latin. (This is the crux of the way in which Aquinas looks at the world … we don’t have matter and form in common with God the Father or the Holy Spirit… we have ‘be-ing’ in common with these two persons of the Trinity).

I think the easiest argument to follow in this section is based on a continuation of the line of reasoning followed so far. Existence is actual. God IS. If He isn’t His essence or hasn’t always been His essence, that implies potentiality … and we already saw that He ain’t got no potential.

1.21
No accidents for God. No, that don’t mean that he won’t stub his toe. He ain’t got no toes. It means that there are no ‘aspects’ to God that aren’t part of his essential nature. For me, my hair colour is an accident. It’s not an essential part of my nature. There are no characteristics of God that aren’t part of His nature. Accidents are changeable, God isn’t changeable … therefore no accidents for God.

OK … my brain is getting tired. Enough for now.