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Paddy_Walker
Guest
the potential always existed.
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John_Martin
Guest
I see everyone is talking about movement/motion/change versus potentiality.
Then there seems to be an equating of movement or change with Act (actuality).
For the dear St. Thomas, potentiality was not potentiality to movement, but potentiality to some End known as Act or Enactment or Actuality. Movement was the journey to that End. And it takes something to initiate that journey to the fulfillment.
Something in motion is still in potentiality to the somewhere else than it is in a snapshot during its journey.
Viewed in this way, God is not in motion, but at rest in his End, his Fullness. Knowing all, always knowing, and what he knows is not just an internal knowledge but always is objective reality as well as internal knowledge. Something he knows, has always known, is a temporal and corporeal reality, which was created in/by his knowing: Every corporeal thing set in motion toward potential Ends. And a Final End is where there is no other potentiality. We are in potential in some things, in movement in others toward temporal ends and toward a Final End.
A billiard ball at rest is not in potential to roll anywhere, but it does have the potential (ability) to be rolled. A mover, the white ball, strikes it. Suddenly it is in motion rolling, and it has potential toward some temporal ends (this cushion, that cushion, another ball) and it has potential to a final end (either stopping to roll when friction wins, or a pocket in pocket billiards).
The above sentences and paragraphs took shape in my thinking, word by word, becoming slowly a set of complete thoughts and typed words, making sense (at least to me) as each word came to mind. That “unconscious” origination place of these thoughts and words is my soul, which moves my mind to choose the correct images and words in temporal succession until the completed sentences are done. My mind has potential to use many thousands of words at any time, but it is moved to know that at a specific time in a specifc thought process that these specific words are the words desired by my incorporeal soul.
Anyway, my musings after reading all of your posts.
Read St Thomas himself, and let yourself be his student - even if you are unsure, then pretend that he knows the truth and that you want to learn the truth from him.
John Martin
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belorg
Guest
But it has moved from potentiality to actuality. And thta, Paddy is the standard (Thomistic) definition of change.
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Linusthe2nd
Guest
And if the interlocutor can’t accept that; well, we have done all we can. We are not required to Prove anything to his satisfaction. Personally, I don’t think it possible. 
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belorg
Guest
Pretending that somebody knows the truth is not a good basis for philosophy. Wanting to know the truth and not taking the truth for granted,on the other hand, is.
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Linusthe2nd
Guest
" The fool says in his heart there is no God, these do abomdibale things. " ( Psalms, David )
again,
And Christ said to the Apostles, " …you believe because you have seen, blessed are those who have not seen but believe…"
or,
“…Thank you Father for having revealed these things to the little ones…”
or,
Blessed John Paul ll, “… Fear not…”
On the other hand. Who’s pretending, we didn,t stutter, we do know the truth !!!
Come join us !!!
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Paddy_Walker
Guest
He is called the Father of Creation; His continuous potential is creative, which actuality is Creation. and that, belorg, is Paddy’s standard (Paddyistic) definition of change.
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John_Martin
Guest
Well, being a student of someone means trusting them to teach you.
If we are studying St Thomas, we grant him the the position above us, and learn. A student is not above his teacher if he wishes to learn from the teacher. You must approach philosophy as one who does not know, and granting (in your understanding) that your teacher knows what you do not know.
Pretending may be a poor choice of words, but I see people speaking as if to correct St Thomas rather than to be his student first, not understanding yet speaking as if they know where he went wrong.
Rather, one must learn from him all he knows growing from ignorance of what he knows to a point of knowing all he knows, and then, if you come to understand more, you will be believable.
Someone who is unsure can still be a student and learn if they grant their time and trust to a teacher. It is like walking with Jesus - If you walk with him and listen to him you will know him, whether you are one who says “You are the Christ” or you say “Help my unbelief”.
Thomas is definitely worth my time reading as a “humble student” rather than reading with an attitude of “I will find where to prove you wrong, Thomas”. Truth comes from a source, a teacher. It is the teacher that must not be taken for granted. If I do not trust my teacher, I find someone else. If I trust my teacher, I do not question that he is right or wrong but I assume he is right. What is questioned is my understanding of him so I ask him to explain more. And so, I continue to read and study St Thomas as my teacher teaching me more, and it is delightful, beautiful, good, Truth, refreshing. And in the course of it all, I feel like I am coming to know my own self in ways I never dreamed could be known. All from subjecting myself as his student to his tutelage.
It is somewhat similar to the way Christians subject themselves to the Pope and Bishops, knowing they will faithfully raise us in our faith and morals. We often seek clarification, but we do not state that we know better than they do.
John Martin
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Linusthe2nd
Guest
But not just St. Thomas’s. He got it from Aristotle who lived @1,500 years before Thomas. Have you read Aristotle? Fascinating, and we think so little of the great minds of times long ago. We know everything don’t we. We moderns can dismiss all before us as not worthy of notice or not having merit. Here is a bit on Aristotle from the Catholic Encyclopedia. Remember he was a pagan and that Thomas did modify his ideas some. Still they are remarkable.
" A point which should be emphasized in the exposition of this portion of Aristotle’s philosophy is the doctrine that all action consists in bringing into actuality what was somehow potentially contained in the material on which the agent works. This is true not only in the world of living things, in which, for example, the oak is potentially contained in the acorn, but also in the inanimate world in which heat, for instance, is potentially contained in water, and needs but the agency of fire to be brought out into actuality. Ex nihilo nihil fit.
This is the principle of development in Aristotle’s philosophy which is so much commented on in relation to the modern notion of evolution. Mere potentiality without any actuality or realization–what is called materia prima–nowhere exists by itself, though it enters into the composition of all things except the Supreme Cause. It is at one pole of reality, He is at the other. Both are real. Materia prima possesses what may be called the most attenuated reality, since it is pure indeterminateness, God possesses the highest and most complete reality, since He is in the highest grade of determinateness.
To prove that there is a Supreme Cause is one of the tasks of metaphysics the Theologic Science. And this Aristotle undertakes to do in several portions of his work on First Philosophy. In the “Physics” he adopts and improves on Socrates’s teleological argument, the major premise of which is, “Whatever exists for a useful purpose must be the work of an intelligence”.
In the same treatise, he argues that, although motion is eternal, there cannot be an infinite series of movers and of things moved, that, therefore, there must be one, the first in the series, which is unmoved, to proton kinoun akineton–primum movens immobile. In the “Metaphysics” he takes the stand that the actual is of its nature antecedent to the potential, that consequently, before all matter, and all composition of matter and form, of potentiality and actuality, there must have existed a Being Who is pure actuality, and Whose life is self-contemplative thought (noesis noeseos).
The Supreme Being imparted movement to the universe by moving the First Heaven, the movement, however, emanated from the First Cause as desirable; in other words, the First Heaven, attracted by the desirability of the Supreme Being “as the soul is attracted by beauty”, was set in motion, and imparted its motion to the lower spheres and thus, ultimately, to our terrestrial world. According to this theory God never leaves the eternal repose in which His blessedness consists.
Will and intellect are incompatible with the eternal unchangeableness of His being. Since matter, motion, and time are eternal, the world is eternal. Yet, it is caused. The manner in which the world originated is not defined in Aristotle’s philosophy. It seems hazardous to say that he taught the doctrine of Creation. This much, however, may safely be said: He lays down principles which, if carried to their logical conclusion, would lead to the doctrine that the world was made out of nothing. "
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belorg
Guest
And that, Paddy, is about as far from the Thomist notion of actuality you can get.
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belorg
Guest
There is nothing wrong with trying to learn from a teacher. There is lots of things wrong with assuming that your teacher cannot possibly make a mistake…
Real philosophy requires one to at all times remain critical
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Linusthe2nd
Guest
I wish you would refrain from using the word " critical " when talking about philosophy. It has been the bugaboo which has just about destroyed Western culture and society. For it has led to universal doubt and skepticism, resulting in a kind intellectual nihilism and nearly universal moral relativism. It has plagued the West ever since that idiot Descartes uttered the nonsensecal " Cogito ergo sum. " Everyting else then became subject to the " Critical Doubt, " so nothing was any longer certain. I have long suspected this is what is behind much of the agnosticism/atheism of the day. Certainly, it is behind much of it.
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belorg
Guest
Yes, let’s all just swollow everything they teach us and burn at the stake those who don’t agree with us. The West was really a much better place before Descartes.I wish you would refrain from using the word " critical " when talking about philosophy. It has been the bugaboo which has just about destroyed Western culture and society. For it has led to universal doubt and skepticism, resulting in a kind intellectual nihilism and nearly universal moral relativism. It has plagued the West ever since that idiot Descartes uttered the nonsensecal " Cogito ergo sum. " Everyting else then became subject to the " Critical Doubt, " so nothing was any longer certain. I have long suspected this is what is behind much of the agnosticism/atheism of the day. Certainly, it is behind much of it.
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John_Martin
Guest
belorg,
As an atheist, you do not perhaps realize that our people (Catholics, Citizens of the Kingdom established by Jesus), will accept everything relating to faith and morals as directed by our Bishops, most centrally our primary Bishop in Rome, the Pope.
Our people consider that this is from God, and we follow. Leo XIII, in 1879, directed us to learn from St Thomas, that we are learning Truth. And in 1917, in the new codex of Canon Law, our leaders (Priests, Religious, and Professors teaching these leaders) were (and are) directed to follow teach and carry out their studies following the Summa of St. Thomas, and which they are “inviolately to hold”.
So, I read Thomas as a trusting student because his teaching is the Truth (whether you or I understand it all or in part or not at all).
It is indeed about a person, our King Jesus, and those he appointed with a promise to inspire them to teach only truth and recognize truth. Thomas is the person of my teacher in line with the promise of that person, Jesus, as are the persons Leo XIII and Benedict XV. I trust them, that King and his appointed.
You are a person; trust someone.
John Martin
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belorg
Guest
Yes, John, I know that Catholics are required to never question anything, even if it is absurd. And if you want to belive thta, that’s fine with me, but if you ever want to impose some of those teachings on me, you’ll have to bring in much better arguments than that.
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Linux
Guest
I too, as a theist, wish they would refrain from bringing theology into a philosophical discussion.
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Linusthe2nd
Guest
Or with those who hang and quarter! However that has nothing to do with philosophy, nor with Divine Revelation - as you well know.
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belorg
Guest
Philosophy, Linus, is the unbiased pursuit of the truth. Starting from the assumption that something is the truth and that there can be no discussion about it, is fine with me, as long as :Or with those who hang and quarter! However that has nothing to do with philosophy, nor with Divine Revelation - as you well know.
1 Do not expect me to do the same
2 You have the decency not to call this “philosophy”
That’s it.
L
Linux
Guest
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John_Martin
Guest
That is interesting Linux, not discussing theology in a philosophical discussion, when the subject of the discussion is Aquinas and Motion relating to modern physics (which is not philosophy) all the while knowing that Aquinas is doing theology in all his writings.
Aquinas PRESUMED the revelation of this God as the principle knowledge brought to all other knowledge in everything he wrote. Theology cannot be absent from this discussion, nor from any Catholic participated discussion. That is the way it is; it is my understanding that you and belorg are posting and questioning at this site to seek to find a way to find union with Christ’s Church yourselves, so you turn to this People, this site, with your seeking. I am sure there are many sites where personal authority (of Jesus, of the Pope, of St Thomas) is not claimed.
So I must (and will continue) to believe that you are here to find this Jesus, this God, this Theology, even in the face of your words, because your use of this site betrays the meaning of your words.
John Martin
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