St. Thomas' Motion Argument and Modern Physics

[Love4All]

God is not three separate entities which when unified is love. Jesus is God, the holy spirit is God, and the father is God. But it is just one God. God created the universe because that is what love does, and God only does what he is. God is not arbitrary. That God would create is just a fact of God being love and is perfectly predictable given that nature.
The trinity merely shows that Love as a being is intrinsically a community of persons. To love only that which is eternally perfect is not love. That would mean that God loves only himself and therefore would not tolerate anything imperfect existing outside of his own essence. True love also loves that which is imperfect and that is what we call the mercy of God because love is mercy. Creation itself is an act of mercy.

Um, I am inclined to agree with you on most of this, but a few points. The Holy Trinity IS God. That is Who He Is. The Persons of the Trinity are Real, the relationships among the Divine Persons is the Mystery of Infinite Love. Thus — one of my only points of disagreement with you in the above — the Trinity doesn’t “merely show” some fact about Love as if to say that it is not the Holy Trinity Himself who IS Love. The Holy Trinity is not a philosophical construct to help us understand love. It is, rather, Who God Is, in Himself. The doctrine of the Trinity is His own intimate self-revelation to us. Not a device for understanding, but rather the central Mystery of Being.

The second point is that God, in fact, will not allow anything but total perfection in the New Heavens and the New Earth. He does love us as we are, but He wills to perfect us, and to refuse means to enter Hell. God lowered Himself to us when He came among us as Jesus. Jesus ascended into Heaven. Now He means to raise us to Himself. That is Love.

 

[inocente]

The tone of inocente’s comment appears to disparage human reason. Intellect or reason is a gift from God, and it’s what separates man from the brute animals. The Apostle Paul never asked converts to leave behind their reason behind when they were baptized. To the contrary, Paul commands us to have a “reasoned worship”.

Methinks you’re ignoring Paul’s argument and substituting your own.

He writes “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord”, not “Let the one who boasts boast in Aristotle”.

For every philosopher who “proves” something there’s another who disproves it again. Philosophical arguments have never cured a disease or put food in mouths, and I seriously doubt they have ever brought any lost soul to a true understanding of Christ.

Unless you think gnosticism is a good idea.

Furthermore, the existence of a Supreme Being and his attributes can be known by the natural light of reason, ie. without Revelation, as Paul teaches the Romans: “For what can be known about God is evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made. As a result, they have no excuse; for although they knew God they did not accord him glory as God or give him thanks” (Rom 1:19-20).

Err, Paul says “evident”, not “theorized” or “hypothesized”.

He is writing for and about all people of all capabilities, not just those with the time, education and disposition to read the Summa or take part in CAF debates (“Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.”).

Finally, why St. Thomas Aquinas came to view all he had written as “straw” was not for the reason asserted by inocente. It would be better to study the works of Aquinas rather than degrade them with such groundless speculations.

Groundless speculations? No, just the common viewpoint - see Catholic Answers.

Paul had a revelation which led him to say “God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe” - faith in Christ, not in dry theories. Thomas also had a revelation, after which he never added to his theories again - “I have seen things that make my writings like straw.”

You can’t see any parallels?

 

[belorg]

This reader declares that your position remains supported only by bare assertions and faulty logic. No victory, earned or not.

You have the right to declare anything you want, but without any argument to support it, it’s just that, a declaration.

 

[inocente]

Let us take a line from the text you referred to, where St. Paul says, “ … Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? (1 Cor. 1:20) Did you see what God has made foolish? It was the wisdom of the world, - that means, the wisdom of the wordly wise, the wisdom of the proud and the greedy; it does not refer to the honest wisdom of the believer, whose reason is enlightened by faith.

The motion argument (doesn’t it originally come from Aristotle?) just attempts to prove the existence of an unmoved mover, an abstracted entity that might possibly be God. This tells the believer nothing, and anyway the believer doesn’t need so-called proofs, we walk in faith.

As Paul says, human reason, human wisdom, is unable to know God. Only through the Gospel, only in Christ, can we know.

It is incorrect to interpret the words of St. Paul in 1 Cor. as an outright condemnation of our attempt to use reason in understanding the faith. Did not our Lord say that we must worship the Lord our God, not only with all our heart and soul, but also “with all our mind” (Matthew 22:37)? When we use our reason, inspired by faith, to acquire a rational understanding of Him whom we love with all our hearts, - are we not loving Him also with our mind?

No. God didn’t choose a philosopher to expound the Gospel!

Christ is for everyone, not just an elite. The least educated, most ignorant Christian may have a fuller understanding than a dozen highly qualified theologians and philosophers.

I don’t think so. Toward the end of his life St. Thomas realized that there was much more to be learned and to be said about God than his philosophy could ever accomplish. He was so humbled by this realization that his work – great as it was – appeared to him as so much straw. St. Thomas did not think that what he had written was nonsense. He was simply filled with awe, so much so that perhaps he could have said what Shakespeare later put in the words of Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

I think the commonest scholarly view is that Thomas had a revelation from God, not that he had an intellectual realization, and afterwards it wasn’t that he thought his work was wrong so much as insignificant compared to what had been revealed to him.

As Paul writes “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength”.

 

[inocente]

You have the right to declare anything you want, but without any argument to support it, it’s just that, a declaration.

Don’t know if this has been said before on the thread, but while Malachi has “I the Lord do not change”, Genesis is very clear that God did change:

“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work”. One day God was working, the next He rested. God had a need or desire for rest that He hadn’t had the day before, so that’s definitely a change.

The author of Genesis seems to view God as having human characteristics, while the later Malachi has perhaps sussed that God is supposed to be perfect and perfection can’t change.

 

[davidv]

You have the right to declare anything you want, but without any argument to support it, it’s just that, a declaration.

Pot…meet kettle.

 

[Love4All]

Don’t know if this has been said before on the thread, but while Malachi has “I the Lord do not change”, Genesis is very clear that God did change:

“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work”. One day God was working, the next He rested. God had a need or desire for rest that He hadn’t had the day before, so that’s definitely a change.

The author of Genesis seems to view God as having human characteristics, while the later Malachi has perhaps sussed that God is supposed to be perfect and perfection can’t change.

Here is where philosophy could help you, if you don’t despise philosophy. Philosophy can help you to understand the Truth written about in Holy Scripture. It is impossible that God should have a “need,” for rest, food, or any other thing that we biological organisms experience as need. God is completely sufficient to Himself. It is called the doctrine of Divine Aseity.

newadvent.org/cathen/01774b.htm

 

[Love4All]

You have the right to declare anything you want, but without any argument to support it, it’s just that, a declaration.

As if davidv doesn’t know his own mind.

 

[inocente]

Here is where philosophy could help you, if you don’t despise philosophy. Philosophy can help you to understand the Truth written about in Holy Scripture. It is impossible that God should have a “need,” for rest, food, or any other thing that we biological organisms experience as need. God is completely sufficient to Himself. It is called the doctrine of Divine Aseity.

newadvent.org/cathen/01774b.htm

Straw man. Genesis doesn’t say that God needs to rest, it doesn’t say why God decides to rest, it just says “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work”.

So one day God is working and the next is resting, which is a change over time. You can cite all number of post hoc doctrines, but if we’re debating the biblical God and not some other deity then it’s right there in scripture, God changed.

 

[rom422]

Don’t know if this has been said before on the thread, but while Malachi has “I the Lord do not change”, Genesis is very clear that God did change:

“By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work”. One day God was working, the next He rested. God had a need or desire for rest that He hadn’t had the day before, so that’s definitely a change.

The author of Genesis seems to view God as having human characteristics, while the later Malachi has perhaps sussed that God is supposed to be perfect and perfection can’t change.

God does not change. The Holy Scripture says: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17 – NIV). You see, Inocente, it is right there in the Bible, too. Problem is, you read only one part of the Bible; you did not read the rest of the Scripture.

If you used philosophy, you could have avoided your error. Because we all know that God is all perfect. If He were to change, then that means He either loses a perfection that He has, or gains a new one. If He loses a perfection, then He ceases to be God. If He gains a new perfection, then He was not the all-perfect God to begin with. But neither alternative is tenable. Therefore, God cannot change.

 

[rom422]

No. God didn’t choose a philosopher to expound the Gospel!

But He didn’t choose a proud idiot to expound the Gospel either. He chose a man like St. Paul, who used his reason to defend the faith. That is totally unlike some people in this forum who waste everybody’s time arguing to prove that argumentation is useless.

Inocente, maybe you have misunderstood the spirit of Thomism. St. Thomas never thought that philosophy should be a substitute for the faith. Far from it. Philosophy is a preparation for faith, a great tool if you want to discuss with unbelievers. You think that in our sophisticated world you can win the atheists, the agnostics, the scientistic rationalists, etc., by your faith alone? Try to convert Belorg!

I agree, of course, that prayer would help a great deal than pure arguments alone.

 

[inocente]

God does not change. The Holy Scripture says: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17 – NIV). You see, Inocente, it is right there in the Bible, too. Problem is, you read only one part of the Bible; you did not read the rest of the Scripture.

If you used philosophy, you could have avoided your error. Because we all know that God is all perfect. If He were to change, then that means He either loses a perfection that He has, or gains a new one. If He loses a perfection, then He ceases to be God. If He gains a new perfection, then He was not the all-perfect God to begin with. But neither alternative is tenable. Therefore, God cannot change.

I see. So we decide what we want God to be, find a confirmatory verse and ignore any conflicting verses. And in philosophy we do the same, choose a school we like and ignore all those with different views.

I guess if it works for you.

 

[inocente]

But He didn’t choose a proud idiot to expound the Gospel either. He chose a man like St. Paul, who used his reason to defend the faith. That is totally unlike some people in this forum who waste everybody’s time arguing to prove that argumentation is useless.

Inocente, maybe you have misunderstood the spirit of Thomism. St. Thomas never thought that philosophy should be a substitute for the faith. Far from it. Philosophy is a preparation for faith, a great tool if you want to discuss with unbelievers. You think that in our sophisticated world you can win the atheists, the agnostics, the scientistic rationalists, etc., by your faith alone? Try to convert Belorg!

I agree, of course, that prayer would help a great deal than pure arguments alone.

I think you’ll find it’s God that wins people over. When a lost soul walks into your church looking for a Friend, they’ll run straight out again if you start rattling on about unmoved movers and the like.

We walk in faith, not in technical manuals. He gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life. Filling your head with abstractions doesn’t help you to know the mind of Christ.

 

[rom422]

I think you’ll find it’s God that wins people over. When a lost soul walks into your church looking for a Friend, they’ll run straight out again if you start rattling on about unmoved movers and the like.

We walk in faith, not in technical manuals. He gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life. Filling your head with abstractions doesn’t help you to know the mind of Christ.

You are correct on that one. Ultimately salvation is God’s work. Souls are saved by Christ, not by philosophy. However, people have souls, but they are not souls. People are a *composite *of body and soul. They have bodily eyes and ears by which they know God. In other words, they need by their ears to hear the word of God preached to them, or their eyes to read of Christ either in Scripture or some other literature. After that it is the Holy Spirit that gives them faith, which is a gift.

Faith, therefore, presupposes prior knowledge. Here is where science and philosophy become important as a preparation for faith. People learn of God from the things that they have seen, and from things that they have heard, and from their own experience. If they therefore acquire the right science and the right philosophy, then this paves the way for faith for them.

To be sure, philosophy is not always the way that people find God. Some people find God in the arts, some in the love of a friend, some in the generosity of a merciful stranger, some in their failures and frustrations, some in the emptiness of their lives. As Jacques Maritain once said, “There are as many approaches to God as there are paths leading to the human heart.”

In this forum we talk about God as an Unmoved Mover. This is because this is a philosophy forum, a place where we try to gain and improve our knowledge of the Ultimate Reality by the use of reason. In many cases the participants here already have faith. The knowledge they gain here, instead of impeding their faith, actually reinforces and enhances their faith. For we have a faith seeking understanding (fides quaerens intellectum), and philosophy helps us to accomplish that.

The philosophy forum, therefore, is not always where you find people being converted to the faith. Conversion could also happen, but not always, and even if somebody finds the faith here, it is still largely the work of the Holy Spirit, through the instrumentality of the people who are contributing here. If you think I am here because I want to convert Belorg, that is your straw man. I am not here to convert Belorg or other atheists. I am here to explain my faith. Whether others accept my explanation or not is God’s work.

Therefore, I do not disagree with you in your idea that we walk in faith. I believe that, too. But if you think I’ll throw away my philosophy manuals because faith is more important than philosophy, then you are mistaken. I think that good philosophy, though not more important than faith, is also very necessary. Because the world right now is full of bad thinking. The antidote to bad thinking is good thinking. Good philosophy is necessary because, as St. Paul reminds us, there is a lot of bad philosophy in the world. You and I must work together to combat the world’s hollow and deceptive philosophy with the kind of good philosophy that is inspired by faith in our Lord Jesus. And that is what Thomism is all about.

 

[Linux]

Straw man. Genesis doesn’t say that God needs to rest, it doesn’t say why God decides to rest,

It didn’t say you are meant to take it literally either.

 

[rom422]

I see. So we decide what we want God to be, find a confirmatory verse and ignore any conflicting verses. And in philosophy we do the same, choose a school we like and ignore all those with different views.

I guess if it works for you.

Of course, not. We know that God does not contradict Himself. Therefore, if we find a verse in the Bible that seems to conflict with another verse, then it gives us a motivation to inquire the reason for the apparent conflict. For example, is the reason for the conflict because we misinterpreted the first verse (or the second verse)? Or is it because the first verse is referring to one thing, and the second verse to another? We have to resolve this conflict by reading the proper context in which the sacred writers wrote their text.

For example, did you know that the author of Genesis wrote the story of human origins for the ordinary man in a literary genre that is highly structured, yet not purely literal nor purely fictional? To be sure, it is not a scientific or a philosophical account of human history, but one in which the sacred writer tried to communicate religious truths in an imagery that would be understandable to the common man. He spoke of the creation of the world in orderly fashion, using days instead of years. Do you think he would have been more clearly understood if he wrote the first chapter of Genesis in terms of the laws of thermodynamics, the virtual particles of modern physics, and the epochs of evolutionary theory? He also spoke of God as if He was human, who spoke familiarly with Adam and Eve in paradise, etc. But, of course, you know that God is a spirit, - that means, a being without bodily parts. Strictly speaking, God does not have a material mouth that speaks, or legs that walk in the garden, and so, He does not have a body that can get tired either. So, when you concluded that God is not immutable because the Scriptures said that God rested on the seventh day, are you sure you are reading the Bible correctly, and that you are not falling into the literary imagery employed by the author to dramatize his story?

Inocente, interpreting the Holy Scriptures is not as easy as you might imagine. It is not a question of simply picking a verse that fits our opinion or our lifestyle. It is a matter of understanding what God wanted to communicate to us for our spiritual nourishment and salvation. Genesis teaches us the important truths that the world was created, that our first parents were tested and had fallen, and that God had promised a Savior.

 

[inocente]

It didn’t say you are meant to take it literally either.

We don’t need to take it literally, but it must still have meaning as allegory or the author wouldn’t have said it.

We’re not respecting the author when we ignore the bits we don’t understand or don’t like.

 

[inocente]

For example, did you know that the author of Genesis wrote the story of human origins for the ordinary man in a literary genre that is highly structured, yet not purely literal nor purely fictional? To be sure, it is not a scientific or a philosophical account of human history, but one in which the sacred writer tried to communicate religious truths in an imagery that would be understandable to the common man. He spoke of the creation of the world in orderly fashion, using days instead of years.

I don’t take Genesis literally either, certainly it’s not much use as a science book, and anyway many scholars take Gen 1 and Gen 2/3 to be from completely different aural traditions.

But you can’t just ignore that God worked then rested. It’s been significant to the Abrahamic religions for thousand of years, observance of the Sabbath is even in the ten commandments. Rather that just dismissing it, what do you think the author means?

He also spoke of God as if He was human, who spoke familiarly with Adam and Eve in paradise, etc. But, of course, you know that God is a spirit, - that means, a being without bodily parts. Strictly speaking, God does not have a material mouth that speaks, or legs that walk in the garden, and so, He does not have a body that can get tired either. So, when you concluded that God is not immutable because the Scriptures said that God rested on the seventh day, are you sure you are reading the Bible correctly, and that you are not falling into the literary imagery employed by the author to dramatize his story?

God is spirit, not “a” spirit, God isn’t “a” anything, (for God said to Moses, “I am who I am").

Did Thomas really proclaim that God couldn’t possibly have walked through the Garden? If the Garden and Adam didn’t really exist, how did he square that with the doctrine of original sin? (Baptists subscribe to Original Innocence, of course, so none of that’s a problem for me).

We have one source of revelation, the bible, and at times it can be most subtle. Introducing a competing source in the form of philosophical meanderings just adds confusion.

Inocente, interpreting the Holy Scriptures is not as easy as you might imagine. It is not a question of simply picking a verse that fits our opinion or our lifestyle.

Well stop doing it then and read what is written instead of leaving out the bits you find inconvenient.

 

[Love4All]

Straw man. Genesis doesn’t say that God needs to rest, it doesn’t say why God decides to rest, it just says “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work”.

So one day God is working and the next is resting, which is a change over time. You can cite all number of post hoc doctrines, but if we’re debating the biblical God and not some other deity then it’s right there in scripture, God changed.

So you are saying Scripture contradicts itself.

 

[rom422]

But you can’t just ignore that God worked then rested. It’s been significant to the Abrahamic religions for thousand of years, observance of the Sabbath is even in the ten commandments. Rather that just dismissing it, what do you think the author means?

I am not ignoring the fact that God worked then “rested.” I am simply saying that it would not be a basis for saying that God is mutable, He is an immutable being,

OK, I got to do some meditation soon. It is Good Friday. Also, although I enjoyed this conversation with you, Scripture is not really the subject of this thread, so we have to stop right here. We didn’t completely disagree, as you see. Perhaps in another thread (on Scripture or other topic) we will meet again to continue our conversation. God bless, and may you have a blessed Easter!