What is a ' substance ? '

[Bahman]

We are conscious beings that is true but it is our intellect that does the understanding and the communicating. And the world is not conscious.

Linus2nd

How do you know? That is just a false assumption.The very fact that the world function very simply does not mean that it is not conscious meaning that there is at least one agent in charge of these changes, God, god, Devil, devil, etc. Who knows who s/he is?

 

[GaryTaylor]

Another can of worms.

 

[GaryTaylor]

I don’t know the concepts of spirit, mind and soul can be avoided. The more you attempt to eliminate them, the more they appear. To consolidate all that and rectify does look like a long conversation.

Have we expired the conversation on substance? I have a hunch that we didn’t.

 

[lmelahn]

Thank you for an expanded explanation Imelahn. But I think I am saying the same thing. Second substance would be the underlying matter- form composit, which would be an instantiation of the species, its nature minus its accompanying accidents, internal and external. And first substance would be the individual we see, accompanied by all its accidents, and the second substance, which we do not see. I am speaking here of normal substances, not the substances involved in Transubstantiation.

In Transubstantion the substance of the bread and wine have been changed into the Whole Christ, This would be the First substance, accompanied by the Second Substance. In my explanation First Substance would include what I have described as Second substance. Here First Substance would be the substantial presence the Church speaks of, the Whole Christ.

Whereas, the species remain without a substance. And by species I mean all the accidents of bread and wine, both their internal and their external accidents. By internal accidents I mean the matter as expressed by deminsion, weight, mass, shape,size, the detectable characterisics of their atomic, celleular, and molecular structure, if you will. And by their external accidents I mean their color, taste, feel,smell. All of which are present by a special miracle of God, by Divine intervention.

In regard to the internal accidents, this question came up when a poster said to me that matter is not an accident. And to this I had to agree, but was stumped as to how to explain myself, since Aristotle’s categories do not include matter as an accident. Though it certainly was included under substance.

Then I read something in Ott’s Fundamentasl of Catholic Dogma which turned on a light. In discussing the manner in which the Sacred Species existed, it was pointed out ( pg. 383 in my 1960 paper back ed. ) that " By the appearances is understood everything which is perceived by the senses , such as size, extent, weight, shape, colour, taste, smell. " Then it dawned on me that atoms, cells, molecules of which matter is composed also have size, extent, weight, shape, etc as accompanying accidents. So the substance of the matter ( if I may so speak ) has been changed, but the accidents of the matter do remain. So it would seem that my apparent dilemma is solved. Matter is not an accident, but it does have its own special accidents which remain after the change.

I know you will have some interesting comments and I look foreward to them. As always, in such matters I always intend to express the teaching of the Church and if the Church does not speak, I hope always to be faithful to the thought of Thomas - at least in spirit.

Pax
Linus2nd .

You are absolutely right that the two dichotomies are related; however, they are not exactly the same.

Consider, for example, the natural law. That consists in, so to speak, in the judgements that we can form about morality, simply based on our common human nature. There could not really be a “natural law” unless there was an element that is the same across all human beings: human nature “in general,” so to speak, or in the abstract.

Note that “human nature in the abstract” does not really exist, not as a single entity, anyhow. (We could say that it exists in the individual members of the human species.)

That is not exactly the same, however, as my human nature: the human nature that is typing this message right now, that is actuated by this particular act of being, that has this particular intellect and will inhering in it (and this particular skin color, size, form, posiiton, etc.).

You see the difference? There is human nature “in general,” the “universal” or “idea.” That is what Aquinas calls second substance.

Then there is my nature; that is first substance. But we could take that first substance in two ways: as the ontological principle that serves as the substrate for the accidents (and in that sense we usually call it “essence” or “nature”), or as the whole concrete individual (also called “hypostasis” or “supposit”).

Sometimes a diagram is worth 1000 words:

Substance -------+------First (concrete)
                 |        |
                 |        +---------Substance as
                 |        |         ontological principle
                 |        |         ("essence" or "nature")
                 |        |
                 |        +---------Substance as whole
                 |                  individual
                 |                  ("supposit" or "hypostasis")
                 |
                 |
                 +-------Second(abstract)
                         e.g., human nature "in general"

 

[lmelahn]

Excellent question Linus - just noticed.

The problem is, I suppose, is that most wouldn’t know the philosophic history of the word.

Does that matter is another interesting question.

Who is the judge as to what a word “should mean”?
Unlike substances words evolve over time and by reason of translation and jumps into other cultures.

Does “substance” (English) have to mean the same as “substantia” (Latin) or any other allegedly equivalent word in any otgher language preceding or postceding Greek?

What right did the Philosophers of Greece (who disagreed amongst themselves) have to take a relatively vague everyday word from the common Greek people and give it a much narrower and very specific meaning anyway?

But to answer your question…

For me as a colonial English speaker trained in ancient and modern Philosophy, who prefers to speak philosophy in modern everday terms … I think “substance” refers to “something” that has an enduring, recognisable identity.

Usually I would also mean that it stands in its own right (hence “red” is not really a substance because it only exists in something else as a quality). But people don’t always hold fast to that bit in practise.

That opens a whole can of worms.

How do we know when that identity, through time and outward change, is no longer there?
That is the far more difficult question.

But the really hard question I think is the practical applicability of such a concept:

…if we can only have an abstract “definition” of “substance” like I defined above … and never with certainty be able to apply it to any particular changing sensible thing … what is the real point of having such a precise word in our toolbox?

Sure, it is mostly obvious when complex living creatures (which we would rightly call a substance) are no longer there (ie death). Though its hard to tell sometimes as a person on life support may not actually be human any longer (just a warm corpse artificially kept from corrupting).

But inanimate objects … its hard to know on what basis we might say water and clouds are the same substance, have the same identity.

O2 behaves differently from O … yet chemists tell us there is an abiding identity so they must be the same substance.

H2O and D2O are pretty much the same - yet chemists aren’t convinced we can say there is an abiding identity between the two because D2 is not really H2 at the atomic level.

Isotopes are problematic when it comes to defining identity even for Chemists.

But all that’s fine.

Over time we learn that our concepts of the real world always fall short of what the “real world” actually does as we learn more about it by observation and experiment.

The Greeks (well, Aristotle, anyway), said “ousía,” not “substantia.” It was, I believe Seneca who first translated ousía as substantia. It was kind of an unfortunate translation, because sustantia would correspond better etymologically with hypostasis; it would have been better to stick with essentia to translate Aristotle’s word.

Ah well, we will simply have to live with the consequences .

 

[lmelahn]

Thank you for an expanded explanation Imelahn. But I think I am saying the same thing. Second substance would be the underlying matter- form composit, which would be an instantiation of the species, its nature minus its accompanying accidents, internal and external. And first substance would be the individual we see, accompanied by all its accidents, and the second substance, which we do not see. I am speaking here of normal substances, not the substances involved in Transubstantiation.

In Transubstantion the substance of the bread and wine have been changed into the Whole Christ, This would be the First substance, accompanied by the Second Substance. In my explanation First Substance would include what I have described as Second substance. Here First Substance would be the substantial presence the Church speaks of, the Whole Christ.

Whereas, the species remain without a substance. And by species I mean all the accidents of bread and wine, both their internal and their external accidents. By internal accidents I mean the matter as expressed by deminsion, weight, mass, shape,size, the detectable characterisics of their atomic, celleular, and molecular structure, if you will. And by their external accidents I mean their color, taste, feel,smell. All of which are present by a special miracle of God, by Divine intervention.

In regard to the internal accidents, this question came up when a poster said to me that matter is not an accident. And to this I had to agree, but was stumped as to how to explain myself, since Aristotle’s categories do not include matter as an accident. Though it certainly was included under substance.

Then I read something in Ott’s Fundamentasl of Catholic Dogma which turned on a light. In discussing the manner in which the Sacred Species existed, it was pointed out ( pg. 383 in my 1960 paper back ed. ) that " By the appearances is understood everything which is perceived by the senses , such as size, extent, weight, shape, colour, taste, smell. " Then it dawned on me that atoms, cells, molecules of which matter is composed also have size, extent, weight, shape, etc as accompanying accidents. So the substance of the matter ( if I may so speak ) has been changed, but the accidents of the matter do remain. So it would seem that my apparent dilemma is solved. Matter is not an accident, but it does have its own special accidents which remain after the change.

I know you will have some interesting comments and I look foreward to them. As always, in such matters I always intend to express the teaching of the Church and if the Church does not speak, I hope always to be faithful to the thought of Thomas - at least in spirit.

Pax
Linus2nd .

I am going to have to look this up, but if I remember rightly, Aquinas says that the prime matter does not remain—otherwise it would not be a true transubstantiation, but simply a “corruption and generation.”

(It is not that Jesus Christ becomes the substantial form of the Eucharistic species, in other words.)

What remains is something that Aquinas calls the quantitas signata, which is, if you like, the geometric form of the Eucharistic species. In material beings, the quantitas signata (itself the first accident that proceeds from purely material things) serves as a sort of intermediate substrate for the other accidents (such as color, texture, etc.).

Among those accidents would be the properties of the atoms and molecules (charge, mass, chemical bonds, electron states, and so on).

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You are absolutely right that the two dichotomies are related; however, they are not exactly the same.

Consider, for example, the natural law. That consists in, so to speak, in the judgements that we can form about morality, simply based on our common human nature. There could not really be a “natural law” unless there was an element that is the same across all human beings: human nature “in general,” so to speak, or in the abstract.

Note that “human nature in the abstract” does not really exist, not as a single entity, anyhow. (We could say that it exists in the individual members of the human species.)

That is not exactly the same, however, as my human nature: the human nature that is typing this message right now, that is actuated by this particular act of being, that has this particular intellect and will inhering in it (and this particular skin color, size, form, posiiton, etc.).

You see the difference? There is human nature “in general,” the “universal” or “idea.” That is what Aquinas calls second substance.

Then there is my nature; that is first substance. But we could take that first substance in two ways: as the ontological principle that serves as the substrate for the accidents (and in that sense we usually call it “essence” or “nature”), or as the whole concrete individual (also called “hypostasis” or “supposit”).

Sometimes a diagram is worth 1000 words:

Substance -------+------First (concrete)
                 |        |
                 |        +---------Substance as
                 |        |         ontological principle
                 |        |         ("essence" or "nature")
                 |        |
                 |        +---------Substance as whole
                 |                  individual
                 |                  ("supposit" or "hypostasis")
                 |
                 |
                 +-------Second(abstract)
                         e.g., human nature "in general"

O.K. so we have to to keep in mind that substance ( " first substance ) is under the accidents ( as A & T attest ). Then we have to be careful when discussing substance. We might be speaking of the underlaying essence or nature, the matter-form construct. Or we might be speaking of a specific individual substance, including its accidents. Unfortunately, writers, even Thomas does not often specify which he has in mind.

But what we see and sense is not the substance but the accidents. We know the substance by a judgment of the will. If this is not so we could not explain how the substance of the matter of the sacred species, left after the Consecration, is changed while the accidents remain ( post 47 ).

Linus2nd

 

[Blue_Horizon]

But inanimate objects … its hard to know on what basis we might say water and clouds are the same substance, have the same identity.

Yes, but we don’t need many examples to establish the principles. But most of the Thomistic philosophers I’ve read ( in English ) for the last hundred years tend to use that specific example. Whereas, the more modern Thomistic writers, like Feser, are more adventurous.

This is prob where we, as in the past, do not philosophically see eye to eye Linus.
As someone equally as well trained in Natural Science as Philosophy…I see your response above (“we don’t need many examples”) as an inability to take seriously the philosophy that is actually inherent in modern Science.

By that single statement you appear to trivialise Scientists as if they have nothing philosophic to say re your brand of metaphysics.
I believe there is a highly important philosophic point here that you must face if you ever want the philosophers of modern science to take you seriously.

How can you tout metaphysical as “true” principles that are allegedly reasoned from but a few examples of observed change in nature…and not be concerned that there are new examples that don’t seem to be consistant with those examples from which you or Aristotle
allegedly reasoned your metaphysic principles in the first place.

In short many Philosophers of modern Natural Science would prob argue that your metaphysic principles wrt change are only as good/certain as the examples of sensible change available.

They may further argue that the type of reasoning involved in coming up with Aristotle’s system of substance/accidents, subst change, acc change etc…is mostly inductive reasoning.

If it is inductive reasoning then your assumption (that your principles are invulnerable to new contradictory sensible examples) is mere assertion.

You essentially state that this is not the case. You seem to assert that metaphysic principles of change once formulated can be seen to be true always and everywhere by the first principles of reason.

That means you see those principles as certain “apriori”. One need no longer be grounded by any further examples from nature because you are certain they will conform to the original principles.

And of new and very contradictory real-world examples (such as those I have given above) such thinking as you represent…will trivialise those “outliers” by saying, “yes they seem contradictory but that is because scientists must be mistaken in their observations”.

Humour me if I repeat my usual stories that exemplify this consistant but flawed type of circular, tautological “reasoning”:
(1) my standard example is Galileo who invited a bishop to look through his telescope one night to see the moons orbiting Jupiter. The bishop pretty much said, “Galileo I do not need to look through your misty lenses to know that what you say you see is but a figment of your craving imagination - everybody knows such a thing is impossible by Scripture.”
(2) My next favourite is the “Black Swan Problem”: Wikipedia describes it well
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Inductive_categorical_inference
and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
Needless to say those educated European philosophers who believed “all swans are white” (an ancient example in logic) could not accept the discovery of black swans in Australia. They were blind to aposteriori contradictions to their apriori “truths” and consistently enough concluded the explorers were mistaken. “They cannot be swans, they have mistaken geese for swans.”

Linus your style of Aristotelian philosophy is indeed consistent - but is it in accord with the real-world?

Modern Scientists who also reason philosophically will see deep flaws in such apriori assumptions about the sensible world.

Until you allow for the possibility (in principle) that some metaphysic principles (esp those behind substance and change) may be falsified by a single contradictory (new) real world example…few thinking Natural Scientists will ever be convinced by your interpretation of Aristotle.

Sure you can say that such an approach (inductive reasoning) is not Metaphysics.
But that to me, and many others, is just another form of circular reasoning that demonstrates you have not yet escaped the Black Swan vortex.

I believe that if you truly understood the way Aristotle reasoned, and if he were alive today to see the very valid atomic experiments and atomic conclusions reached by modern science…Aristotle would have amended much of his hylomorphic terms and principles.

I don’t expect you to agree…but from my discussions with you over the last 2-3 years this is where your battle to win the hearts and minds of philosophically inclined modern scientists must be waged.

To date I do not think you have yet recognised the battle-field.

Quote:
O2 behaves differently from O … yet chemists tell us there is an abiding identity so they must be the same substance.

The writers I mentioned above tried to avoid questionable examples for the reasons I have given.

Seems Classic Black Swan trivialisation of the real problem. So you absolve yourself from actually getting into the nitty gritty of this problem. There IS a philosophic problem here for you.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

…continued…

Quote:
H2O and D2O are pretty much the same - yet chemists aren’t convinced we can say there is an abiding identity between the two because D2 is not really H2 at the atomic level.
Isotopes are problematic when it comes to defining identity even for Chemists.

As I said, there are always questionable cases. The point is to establish the principles and not to explicate each possible example. That would be more in the line of the hard sciences.

Another Black Swan trivialisation - You do not accept that the new findings of hard science (sensible change examples) has anything to say about metaphysics. Yet your metaphysic principles (hylomorphism) was established by reasoning from older consistant examples of change in the sensible world. This suggests your view of hermetically sealed distinctions between Physics and Metaphysics is flawed in some way.

Quote:
But all that’s fine.
Over time we learn that our concepts of the real world always fall short of what the “real world” actually does as we learn more about it by observation and experiment.

Yes, science can help philosophy and philosophy can help science.

Linus2nd

As above you seem to conceive of the help that science gives philosophy as very weak if you will not admit that some principles of metaphysics can be falsified by outlier examples in science.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I am going to have to look this up, but if I remember rightly, Aquinas says that the prime matter does not remain—otherwise it would not be a true transubstantiation, but simply a “corruption and generation.”

(It is not that Jesus Christ becomes the substantial form of the Eucharistic species, in other words.)

Correct. The substances of the bread and wine have changed into the body and blood of christ ( and consequently the Whole Christ, with all his substantial accidents).Tthat is why the act of Consecration is called Transubstantiation, one substance has been changed into another. But this is not an ordinary substantial change because the accidents of the species are left without a substance in which to inhere. In other words it is the pure substance of the bread and wine that have been changed, their mater-form essence/nature, only.

What remains is something that Aquinas calls the quantitas signata, which is, if you like, the geometric form of the Eucharistic species. In material beings, the quantitas signata (itself the first accident that proceeds from purely material things) serves as a sort of intermediate substrate for the other accidents (such as color, texture, etc.).

S.T., 3, ques 74-77, very deep!!!

Among those accidents would be the properties of the atoms and molecules (charge, mass, chemical bonds, electron states, and so on).

Indeed. And it is important to stress that the substance of the matter ( along with its form) has been changed into the Substance of Christ.

I’ve been harping away at this for two years. It is very difficult for the ordinary Catholic to grasp what is happing here. Yet I think it must be preached, again and again. I am stunned at the lack of understanding, even among devoted Catholics.

Linus2nd;

 

[Linusthe2nd]

This is prob where we, as in the past, do not philosophically see eye to eye Linus.
As someone equally as well trained in Natural Science as Philosophy…I see your response above (“we don’t need many examples”) as an inability to take seriously the philosophy that is actually inherent in modern Science.

By that single statement you appear to trivialise Scientists as if they have nothing philosophic to say re your brand of metaphysics.
I believe there is a highly important philosophic point here that you must face if you ever want the philosophers of modern science to take you seriously.

How can you tout metaphysical as “true” principles that are allegedly reasoned from but a few examples of observed change in nature…and not be concerned that there are new examples that don’t seem to be consistant with those examples from which you or Aristotle
allegedly reasoned your metaphysic principles in the first place.

In short many Philosophers of modern Natural Science would prob argue that your metaphysic principles wrt change are only as good/certain as the examples of sensible change available.

They may further argue that the type of reasoning involved in coming up with Aristotle’s system of substance/accidents, subst change, acc change etc…is mostly inductive reasoning.

If it is inductive reasoning then your assumption (that your principles are invulnerable to new contradictory sensible examples) is mere assertion.

You essentially state that this is not the case. You seem to assert that metaphysic principles of change once formulated can be seen to be true always and everywhere by the first principles of reason.

That means you see those principles as certain “apriori”. One need no longer be grounded by any further examples from nature because you are certain they will conform to the original principles.

And of new and very contradictory real-world examples (such as those I have given above) such thinking as you represent…will trivialise those “outliers” by saying, “yes they seem contradictory but that is because scientists must be mistaken in their observations”.

Humour me if I repeat my usual stories that exemplify this consistant but flawed type of circular, tautological “reasoning”:
(1) my standard example is Galileo who invited a bishop to look through his telescope one night to see the moons orbiting Jupiter. The bishop pretty much said, “Galileo I do not need to look through your misty lenses to know that what you say you see is but a figment of your craving imagination - everybody knows such a thing is impossible by Scripture.”
(2) My next favourite is the “Black Swan Problem”: Wikipedia describes it well
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Inductive_categorical_inference
and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_swan_theory
Needless to say those educated European philosophers who believed “all swans are white” (an ancient example in logic) could not accept the discovery of black swans in Australia. They were blind to aposteriori contradictions to their apriori “truths” and consistently enough concluded the explorers were mistaken. “They cannot be swans, they have mistaken geese for swans.”

Linus your style of Aristotelian philosophy is indeed consistent - but is it in accord with the real-world?

Modern Scientists who also reason philosophically will see deep flaws in such apriori assumptions about the sensible world.

Until you allow for the possibility (in principle) that some metaphysic principles (esp those behind substance and change) may be falsified by a single contradictory (new) real world example…few thinking Natural Scientists will ever be convinced by your interpretation of Aristotle.

Sure you can say that such an approach (inductive reasoning) is not Metaphysics.
But that to me, and many others, is just another form of circular reasoning that demonstrates you have not yet escaped the Black Swan vortex.

I believe that if you truly understood the way Aristotle reasoned, and if he were alive today to see the very valid atomic experiments and atomic conclusions reached by modern science…Aristotle would have amended much of his hylomorphic terms and principles.

I don’t expect you to agree…but from my discussions with you over the last 2-3 years this is where your battle to win the hearts and minds of philosophically inclined modern scientists must be waged.

To date I do not think you have yet recognised the battle-field.

Seems Classic Black Swan trivialisation of the real problem. So you absolve yourself from actually getting into the nitty gritty of this problem. There IS a philosophic problem here for you.

I think the problem is that you have fallen into the ideology of scientism, one of whose tenents is that philosophy, especially Scholastic philosophy has nothing to offer science or the world in general for that matter. If your mind is closed there isn’t much else to say.

It doesn’t make you arguments very convincing by resorting to ad hominems. They are even more useless than a well turned phrase.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Another Black Swan trivialisation - You do not accept that the new findings of hard science (sensible change examples) has anything to say about metaphysics. Yet your metaphysic principles (hylomorphism) was established by reasoning from older consistant examples of change in the sensible world. This suggests your view of hermetically sealed distinctions between Physics and Metaphysics is flawed in some way.

As above you seem to conceive of the help that science gives philosophy as very weak if you will not admit that some principles of metaphysics can be falsified by outlier examples in science.

Considering your present state of mind I don’t think a response is called for.

Linus2nd

 

[GaryTaylor]

Considering your present state of mind I don’t think a response is called for.

Linus2nd

You haven’t explained mind to determine anything about its state or existence or being. Further let alone determine what the state of another is.

MInd=X, we have no consensus to X. Solve X.

 

[Nixbits]

Blue Horizon, a sincere thank you for contributing such well-explained and thought-provoking posts. Very interesting. I was disappointed that Linusthe2nd’s responses (if they can be called that) were so dismissive and did not address the issues that you raised. As someone who has struggled with these metaphysical concepts and failed to adequately put into words my difficulties in accepting the Aristotelian view, I was hoping that your contribution might prompt a discussion that would shed some light on it.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Blue Horizon, a sincere thank you for contributing such well-explained and thought-provoking posts. Very interesting. I was disappointed that Linusthe2nd’s responses (if they can be called that) were so dismissive and did not address the issues that you raised. As someone who has struggled with these metaphysical concepts and failed to adequately put into words my difficulties in accepting the Aristotelian view, I was hoping that your contribution might prompt a discussion that would shed some light on it.

Difficulties in accepting the Aristotelian view, and application. For example on the other thread Aquinas and computers with minds ends at substance - accidents. There’s not futher conversation at this point or need. Others disagree.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Alll Popes since the end of the 13 th century have praised the works of Thomas Aquinas. I urge all Catholic viewers therefore to shrug off the prejudices of modern scientism and modernism give St. Thomas a fair and objective hearing. Contrary to the assertions of some here, he speaks the truth to every age and every discipline.

Faith and Reason, Encyclical of Saint Pope John Paul ll

The enduring originality of the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas

1. A quite special place in this long development belongs to Saint Thomas, not only because of what he taught but also because of the dialogue which he undertook with the Arab and Jewish thought of his time. In an age when Christian thinkers were rediscovering the treasures of ancient philosophy, and more particularly of Aristotle, Thomas had the great merit of giving pride of place to the harmony which exists between faith and reason. Both the light of reason and the light of faith come from God, he argued; hence there can be no contradiction between them.(44)

More radically, Thomas recognized that nature, philosophy’s proper concern, could contribute to the understanding of divine Revelation. Faith therefore has no fear of reason, but seeks it out and has trust in it. Just as grace builds on nature and brings it to fulfilment,(45) so faith builds upon and perfects reason. Illumined by faith, reason is set free from the fragility and limitations deriving from the disobedience of sin and finds the strength required to rise to the knowledge of the Triune God. Although he made much of the supernatural character of faith, the Angelic Doctor did not overlook the importance of its reasonableness; indeed he was able to plumb the depths and explain the meaning of this reasonableness. Faith is in a sense an “exercise of thought”; and human reason is neither annulled nor debased in assenting to the contents of faith, which are in any case attained by way of free and informed choice.(46)

This is why the Church has been justified in consistently proposing Saint Thomas as a master of thought and a model of the right way to do theology. In this connection, I would recall what my Predecessor, the Servant of God Paul VI, wrote on the occasion of the seventh centenary of the death of the Angelic Doctor: “Without doubt, Thomas possessed supremely the courage of the truth, a freedom of spirit in confronting new problems, the intellectual honesty of those who allow Christianity to be contaminated neither by secular philosophy nor by a prejudiced rejection of it. He passed therefore into the history of Christian thought as a pioneer of the new path of philosophy and universal culture. The key point and almost the kernel of the solution which, with all the brilliance of his prophetic intuition, he gave to the new encounter of faith and reason was a reconciliation between the secularity of the world and the radicality of the Gospel, thus avoiding the unnatural tendency to negate the world and its values while at the same time keeping faith with the supreme and inexorable demands of the supernatural order”.(47)

1. Another of the great insights of Saint Thomas was his perception of the role of the Holy Spirit in the process by which knowledge matures into wisdom. From the first pages of his Summa Theologiae,(48) Aquinas was keen to show the primacy of the wisdom which is the gift of the Holy Spirit and which opens the way to a knowledge of divine realities. His theology allows us to understand what is distinctive of wisdom in its close link with faith and knowledge of the divine. This wisdom comes to know by way of connaturality; it presupposes faith and eventually formulates its right judgement on the basis of the truth of faith itself: “The wisdom named among the gifts of the Holy Spirit is distinct from the wisdom found among the intellectual virtues. This second wisdom is acquired through study, but the first ‘comes from on high’, as Saint James puts it. This also distinguishes it from faith, since faith accepts divine truth as it is. But the gift of wisdom enables judgement according to divine truth”.(49)

Yet the priority accorded this wisdom does not lead the Angelic Doctor to overlook the presence of two other complementary forms of wisdom—philosophical wisdom, which is based upon the capacity of the intellect, for all its natural limitations, to explore reality, and theological wisdom, which is based upon Revelation and which explores the contents of faith, entering the very mystery of God.

w2.vatican.va/content/john-pa…-et-ratio.html

No I do not apologize for the philosophy of a Catholic philosopher all Popes have praised since the end of the 13 th century. And I urge all Catholic viewers at least to shrug off the prejudices of modern scientism and give St. Thomas a fair and objective hearing. Contrary to the assertions of some here, he speaks the truth to every age and discipline.

Linus2nd

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I think the problem is that you have fallen into the ideology of scientism, one of whose tenents is that philosophy, especially Scholastic philosophy has nothing to offer science or the world in general for that matter. If your mind is closed there isn’t much else to say.

It doesn’t make you arguments very convincing by resorting to ad hominems. They are even more useless than a well turned phrase.

Linus2nd

Quote the ad hominem fpr me please Linus?
I am critiquing your philosophy not you.

Why do you feel the need to demonise people who generously take time to help you influence others by pointing out the weaknesses in your views from the perspective of your opponents .

People are not hating you by not loving your philosophical opinions.
Try not to take philosophic critique so personally.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Quote the ad hominem fpr me please Linus?
I am critiquing your philosophy not you.

Why do you feel the need to demonise people who generously take time to help you influence others by pointing out the weaknesses in your views from the perspective of your opponents .

People are not hating you by not loving your philosophical opinions.
Try not to take philosophic critique so personally.

Your comments that I " trivialize " my opponents.
Your inference that my arguments are examples of the " Black Swan " argument.

And I could also mention that Aristoteliasm/ Thomism is some how to blame for the Galileo incident. Guilt by association.

And I could also mention the general tenor of your comments.

Your assumption that the modern philosophy of nature interpretations are unquestionable superior to the philosophy of A/T.

Your mind is closed. I have given you valid arguments.

Linus2nd

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Your comments that I " trivialize " my opponents.
Your inference that my arguments are examples of the " Black Swan " argument.

And I could also mention that Aristoteliasm/ Thomism is some how to blame for the Galileo incident. Guilt by association.

And I could also mention the general tenor of your comments.

Your assumption that the modern philosophy of nature interpretations are unquestionable superior to the philosophy of A/T.

Your mind is closed. I have given you valid arguments.

Linus2nd

Let me get you right… When I suggest you too easily dismiss the arguments of your opponents by saying their observations are not to do with philosophy… you see that as being dismissive of you as a person ?

Linus you take things far too personally.
If your opponents were equally sensitive you would certainly seem to be doing to them exactly what you accuse me of here.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Let me get you right… When I suggest you too easily dismiss the arguments of your opponents by saying their observations are not to do with philosophy… you see that as being dismissive of you as a person ?

Linus you take things far too personally.
If your opponents were equally sensitive you would certainly seem to be doing to them exactly what you accuse me of here.

Not at all, I explained my position. You have consistently denied that Aristotelian/Thomistic philosophy has anything valid to say about reality, that it conflicts with the reality of the scientific method and of scientific observation. That is basically the position of the error of scientism, which is basically the heresy of modernism, or the scientific expression of it. If you don’t like the way I express myself, then you should read Edward Feser who does not mince his words, but explains exactly what the problem is while, at the same time, explains Thomism very well.

What science deals with are the accidents of substance.

Linus2nd