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#14 What is Knowledge?

October 28, 2022 by clarevmerry, posted in Theology

Thomas Aquinas’ thoughts culminate in the analysis of what thought is in itself. He reflects upon human thought and then upon God’s thoughts.

Human understanding is based on what can be perceived by the senses and captured in the imagination. The proper object of the human intellect is the ‘whatness’ or quiddity of the material thing. Aquinas is down-to-earth in being concerned about thoughts based on things that can be perceived.

The judgment of things is, however, based on innate first principles – principles infused into the human soul by God. We judge things through uncreated truth.

God is the efficient cause of all things. God is really related to creatures as their Creator, and their relationship with God is one of dependence. God knows his own essence and every creature as participating in his essence. Every creature has its own proper form in which it is like God. God knows the form or idea of every creature. In this way God both made the creature and knows the creature.

As human beings, we only know ourselves and are ourselves through God.

#13 To Be or Not to Be? That is the Question

October 21, 2022 by clarevmerry, posted in Theology

When William Shakespeare put this in his play Hamlet he was, of course, quoting Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica Volume 2. Hamlet asks the skull of a man who has ceased to be whether it is better to live or die?

In the original reference Aquinas states that every contingent thing has in it something necessary. Contingency arises from matter. Things made of matter have in them the potentiality to be or not to be.

Shakespeare was quoting the following reference:

Summa Theologica Volume 2: Treatise on man: What our intellect knows in material things: Whether our intellect can know contingent things?

REALISM

The principle of identity – in the order of being (ontology) Aquinas states that everything is identical with itself. This signifies the unity of things. Ontologically something must either be or not be; it cannot both be and not be at the same time and in the same sense.

Most people find ontology difficult to follow, but they get the bit about the dialogue with the skull. They get that life is a difficult and painful business. Maybe we sometimes wish not to be.

#12 What is Act?

October 14, 2022 by clarevmerry, posted in Theology

Some theologians have said that Aquinas’ argument is not dependent on a past, but only on a present cause of being. It is true that act is a continuous present. God is the continuous present of creation. What is made is maintained in actuality by God’s own existence.

Aquinas writes that creatures exist and live through their participation in God. This is one truth, but it does not discount the truth that God conferred existence upon them in the first acts of creation that brought their forms into existence.

Therefore created things had a beginning as well as continuing existence.

#11 A Beginning to Creation

October 7, 2022 by clarevmerry, posted in Theology

Thomas Aquinas, along with all the other Church Fathers of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, believed that creation had a beginning. The beginning brought time into being.

Thomas Aquinas also shared the Evangelical Creationist belief that God created many forms of life and the substrate upon which they depend directly; he brought creatures into existence that had not previously existed.

While God’s sustaining of creatures is continuous, their creation refers to their origin in the beginning.

Aquinas’ explanation of creation is that it is to make things by combining form with matter. God created forms according to ideas in his mind, ideas which are perfect exemplars of forms; each idea is a concept and each concept is a word.

The specification of the form is from mind and from nothing; creatures are made out of matter, but matter does not dictate their original form. (Just as writing is in ink, but the ink does not determine what is written on the page).

Thomas Aquinas states that to create something from nothing shows infinite power.

#10 Creation and Act

September 30, 2022 by clarevmerry, posted in Theology

The creative power of God is common to the whole Trinity and belongs to the essence of God.

God is the Father of the Son from eternity; while He is the Father of the creature in time.

Reference: Summa Theologica Volume 1: Treatise on the creation: The mode of emanation of things from the first principle: Whether to create is proper to any person?

To the Father is appropriated power which is chiefly shown in creation, and therefore it is attributed to Him to be the Creator. To the Son is appropriated wisdom, through which the intellectual agent acts; and therefore it is said “Through Whom all things were made.” And to the Holy Ghost is appropriated goodness, to which belong both government bringing things to their proper end, and the giving of life – for life consists in a certain interior movement.

“God is the cause of things by His intellect and will, just as the craftsman is cause of the things made by his craft. Now the craftsman works through the word conceived in his mind, and through the love of his will regarding some object. Hence also God the Father made the creature through His Word, which is His Son; and through His Love, which is the Holy Ghost.” [Page 510]

To create belongs to God according to His being, that is His essence and this is common to the three persons. Hence to create is proper to the whole Trinity, and not only to one of the Persons.

Reference: Summa Theologica Volume 1: Treatise on the Most Holy Trinity: Of the person of the Son:

Word implies relation to creatures. For God by knowing Himself, knows every creature.

The knowledge of God is cognitive and operative of creatures “He spake, and they were made.” Because in the Word is implied the operative idea of what God makes.

#9 The Trinity

September 23, 2022 by clarevmerry, posted in Theology

Who is God?

This is the most fundamental question for any believer who feels God’s presence but does not comprehend the Being who is felt, the One who calls.

The vision of Thomas Aquinas is truly sublime. It is he who consolidated the Christian concept of God as Trinity.

This post is longer as it contains the most important part of this article.

This is what Thomas Aquinas writes in Summa Theologica Volume 1: Treatise on the Most Holy Trinity (I will not quote page numbers too much as they will be different in different editions).

God is one essence and three persons. The divine persons are distinguished as each subsists distinctly from the others in the divine nature. There is only one essence though and one Godhead.

God the Father is existence itself, the principle without principle. The Father is the principle of the whole deity. It is the property of the Father to beget the Son. God is the Father of the Son from eternity.

Jesus, the Son is begotten of God the Father receiving the whole Godhead from God.

Jesus is the principle from a principle. He is wisdom.

Jesus is the image of the invisible God.

The Holy Spirit is the spirit of Jesus.

The Holy Ghost proceeds from Father and Son. He is not made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. There is unity between Father and Son by the Holy Spirit.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit have the essence of God which is existence; which is perfection; which is the goal of all things.

Power belongs to the Father who is the principle of the whole Godhead. Wisdom belongs to the Son as the Word. Goodness whose object is love has the likeness of the Holy Spirit.

The Father and Son are in everything one and are one principle of the Holy Spirit. The Father in begetting the Son communicated His whole nature to Him. “The Son was not begotten from nothing, but from the Father’s substance.”

Creatures were originally created from nothing. The principle of each ‘genus’ or type of creature made came from the over-arching principle of God. It’s form was originally established by God it’s maker.

Humans are different from all other creatures in that God, the Holy Spirit may be given to us through grace and reside in our souls. We can begin to know the One who made us.

#8 A Literal Reading of Scripture

September 16, 2022 by clarevmerry, posted in Theology

Aquinas read the Bible in the most literal way that logic would allow, and far more literally than St Augustine’s reading of it.

In Summa Theologica volumes 1 and 2 Aquinas discusses why certain phrases were employed by Moses in writing Genesis and what they actually signify. I, personally have derived great benefit from his insights as a basis to further reflection. However, this further reflection must be done in the light of modern science, not according to the science of the Middle Ages.

Thomas Aquinas believed that none of the Biblical authors erred in composing the Scriptures; if we have the wisdom to understand it, the truth becomes evident. The whole of his theology is based on the Bible and the actual words used. The works of Aquinas read as evangelical as any Protestant Evangelical writings, but he was writing nearly 300 years before the Reformation.

#7 Quest for the Reasons for Things

September 10, 2022 by clarevmerry, posted in Theology

Thomas Aquinas dealt in the analysis of what things are – the subject matter of science and philosophy. Aquinas’ quest was for the reasons for things. In the Christian tradition even the mysteries of faith are not irrational in themselves, but often beyond human grasp unless the meaning is revealed by God to his chosen.

In philosophy Thomas Aquinas sided with Aristotle most of the time, but greatly expanded his ideas, joining them with the ideas of St Augustine. The Greek philosophers were firm believers in God, but Thomas Aquinas took this further and Christianized the ideas.

Aquinas established that creatures, including human beings, have agency and are separate to God. The purposes of creation, however, are drawn towards their conclusion by God’s providence and governance of creatures.

Aquinas proclaimed the God of an ordered universe in which each thing has its place. He likewise ordered his writings such that they could be read – which was unusual in his day. Many ancient books read like a hotchpotch of bits and pieces.

On the question of origins, however, Thomas Aquinas was bound by the science of his historical time period – the High Middle Ages. He could not know what was not available to know. He could not know what we know now with the benefit of modern science. I think that he knew that he couldn’t know because in discussing origins and addressing certain questions, he does not say categorically that it was like this or like that. In these cases Aquinas quotes all the sources and opinions of the erudite of his day without declaring which one should be followed or taken as the definitive true path.

While displaying an openness of approach on questions he could not answer, he was very firm on the truth he could establish. His arguments are built up step by step paying attention to detail. He details the way in which the Bible was written and the particular words used, the intention behind the text, and makes observations relating to the human condition.

There have been many centuries of exegesis of the Bible by theologians; among all exegets, I believe that Thomas Aquinas is among the greatest.

#6 What Thomas Aquinas Achieved

September 2, 2022 by clarevmerry, posted in Theology

Ancient Greek philosophers initiated a dialogue about science and the nature of reality from about 600 BC. The texts written by Greek philosophers were copied and conserved by Orthodox Christians in libraries belonging to the Byzantine Empire prior to the fall of Alexandria in 642 AD. Islamic scholars translated these texts from Greek into Arabic. Orthodox Christians continued to study the texts in Greek up to the fall of Constantinople in 1453.

Catholic Europeans at first read texts translated from Arabic into Latin. When philosophical dialogue was taken up by theologians when universities were first founded in Europe during the 13th century, many of the Latin scholars were Averroeist and Avicenna followers. But Europe was to take its own direction different to that of these Arabic philosophers. The pivot point of this new direction was the work of Thomas Aquinas himself.

Thomas Aquinas accomplished the feat of summarizing all the relevant knowledge known up to his day (1250s – 1270s). He got to grips with the writings of ancient Greek philosophers especially Aristotle, Islamic philosophers such as Avicenna and Averroes, Church Fathers especially St Augustine (354-430 AD) as well as with his contemporary Scholastic scholars. He commented on every part of the Bible which he knew in its entirety. What he bequeathed to future generations was encyclopedic knowledge from the Ancient Greeks through to the Medieval Scholasticism of his day.

#5 Hot Debates and Sainthood

August 27, 2022 by clarevmerry, posted in Theology

Aquinas was quite motivated by hot debates, and had many of them with the medieval philosophers and theologians of his day. Aquinas was outspoken and would not back down. This won him both admiration and enemies.

At the end of his life Aquinas was summoned by the Pope to attend the Council of Lyons. It is unclear whether this was to get a good telling off or to be commended for putting down some heretics and enemies of the church. Thomas did not want to go, but started out. The journey to Lyon was to prove his final voyage, as Thomas Aquinas managed to die en route.

In 1273 Thomas had a vision of Christ (it was witnessed by a brother as he prayed in the chapel). After the vision Aquinas wrote no more and did not finish his great work Summa. By the time he died a year later, Aquinas’ spirit was already residing elsewhere, and his body fairly quickly followed.

Thomas Aquinas was made a saint, a Doctor of the Church and a Father of the Catholic Church. Aquinas’ writing on the Doctrine of Creation was adopted by the Catholic Church as it’s own teaching. His writings on theology were taught to men training to be priests until Vatican II in the 1960s.