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All right. Let me pray for our
class and pray for the whole day. Father in heaven, thank
you for what we've heard already from your word. And we pray as
we end this class out that it would be fruitful and that we
would know more about you as a result. We confess that you
have revealed in us and even in the pagan your rules, your
order. We confess that in our sin, we
have ignored it, and therefore created more ignorance in ourselves. But Lord, we pray that we would
be better servants, not only to your saints, but to the watching
world, as we consider these things and develop sharper minds as
a result. So Lord, let that be the end of this class. and all
the others we do here. We pray that you would bless
this entire day and all that we do. For your glory and your
namesake, we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, so this
last class in part one of the Thought of Thomas Aquinas is
deducing the attributes of God. So last week was demonstrating
the existence of God, and now this one's going to be called
deducing the attributes of God, and that chart on the board is
going to explain the flow from last week to this week. You're
going to hear Aquinas say probably, I don't know how many times in
these four questions that we're going to be looking at today
from question three to question six, you're going to hear him
say a bunch of times things like, as has already been proven, as
was already shown, and he'll cite question 2, article 3, and
so on. So, having proven the existence
of God in five ways, Aquinas turns to infer from these truths
many other things that must also be true about God. That's the
key. Must necessarily be true, because
this is true, therefore this is also true. Two elements of
this section of the Summa are unmistakable. I think all historians
of philosophy would agree with this. First of all, his method
is now deductive. However much he may have begun
from some elements of induction. In other words, beginning from
our own experience of effects, our own experience of motion
in this world, our own experience of gradation in things. our own
experience of things moving toward ends. You may say that there
is an inductive element in there, and that's fine. People are going
to differ on what to call Aquinas. Is he an empiricist? To what
extent is he an Aristotelian? But now, I don't think anybody's
going to disagree that now having shown that, he's going to deduce,
he's going to make a particular... There's two kinds of reasoning,
essentially. Induction and deduction. Induction
is working from particulars to general principles, well, however
much of that he may have mixed into his arguments at the beginning,
here he's going to be working from general truths that are
true, and having proven them, he's now going to deduce. Deduction
works from the universal or general to the particular or specific. So, that's the first thing we
can tell from this section. His method is now deductive.
He's going to be working off the assumption of what sometimes
is called the via negativa, in other words, the negative way
to show things about God. The assumption that we cannot
know directly what God is in his essence. but only what he
is not. And at first you might look at
that and it might be a little bit puzzling, but since he's
proceeding in his overall train of reasoning from effects to
the first cause, there is a sense in which Thomas has not yet spoken
of the divine essence per se, but only his effects. I don't
think he's saying that we can't buy that. nor were any of the
medieval thinkers, saying that we cannot know anything about
the essence of God. That's not what they're saying.
I think that's one way that modern interpreters have interpreted
it. It's by way, the key is way, via negative. In other words,
the way of. There you're speaking of method. How do you get to
that point? And the point right now is that
he hasn't said anything about the essence of God except, in
a sense, by negation. But in that very act of negation,
so in this process, things are going to fall off, things are
going to be shaven off. And what I mean by that, in a sense, these
are going to be non-things. These are going to be things
that you say, well, that can't be true about God. And because
that can't be true about God, that can't be true about God
either. And if that's impossible, then this can't be true about
God either. And themes are going to fall
off. But they're really not things at all, they're more like square
circles. The idea of a potential first cause. We can't have a
potential, that's what we're going to see. So as these things
are taken away, this is what he's going to mean by the negative
way. Showing what God cannot possibly
be. That God is necessary has already
been shown from the insufficiency of the effects to explain themselves. In this method, Most historians
of philosophy see a departure from Augustine or Anselm. Again,
the departure is on method, not on their basic beliefs. Gilson
provides us with the upshot of this by saying about this, where
he is so far, quote, knowing that a thing is, one has only
to ask in what way it is. in order to know what it is. So, if you follow, you know,
sometimes Gilson will speak like Deepak Chopra. In order to know, sorry, this
is what he said so far, that it is, that's existence. To get
what it is, we're going to be unpacking this the way that it
is. And that'll get you closer to what it is. that you're talking
about. This is purely just about method. Here's the problem I have today.
There's a lot of attributes of God you can talk about, and Aquinas
begins with the simplicity of God, the perfection of God, and
the goodness of God. In my original notes, I moved
on to talk about his infinity, his immutability, and his eternality,
but as I'm taking notes and I'm writing things, I realize I've
got nine or ten pages after those first three. I'm going to stop,
because we don't have enough time. So, we've only got three
points, and notice the form of these three points in your notes.
It says, therefore, God is necessarily simple, second point. Therefore,
God is necessarily perfect, third point. Therefore, God is necessarily
good. What is the therefore about?
Why would I start the point that way? As has already been proven,
God exists. In other words, we're at step
two now. Aquinas has already proven God's
existence. That doesn't mean he's not going
to be your friend or meet you at Starbucks if you're still an agnostic.
It's not what it means. What it does mean is that he's
already proven that, and so for anybody who is, A, intelligent
enough to understand what he's saying in question two, and B,
honest enough to... and three, I guess, assuming
you don't have the munchies, you put all three of those together,
for these people, students of theology, we're going to move
on here. We're not going to live our life in this perpetual limbo
and owe our speech to the agnostic or the unbeliever, okay? So,
first you're going to talk to them, But for anybody who gets
the proof, we're going to move on from that and see that because
God exists, and what we mean by God exists is what it is,
therefore, there are things we can infer or deduce or conclude
that must also be true about His essence. So here's the big
idea. Here's the big idea, and this
summarizes it. That God must be all that He is, has already
been proven. Okay, so we're moving... what's been proven is his existence,
but if A equals A, then everything else that is true about God is
necessarily true. Now, for the guy at Starbucks,
the agnostic I was just talking about, it doesn't mean Thomas
is not going to go back and meet him where he is, nor that you
shouldn't. You should. However, as Christians, let's
move on, let's deduce more, let's see more about God and see that
it must necessarily be so. By the way, this isn't just medievalists
that talk like this. Have you read A.W. Pink or even
A.W. Tozer? A.W. Tozer's book, The Knowledge
of the Holy. How many times does Tozer say something in that book
like, it is unthinkable that God should be changing because
of such and such. What's Tozer doing? Pretty much
the same thing. Now, is he drawing it out philosophically like Aquinas?
No. But for the layperson, Tozer
is doing a great service, because he's saying, in effect, if this
is true about God, it is unthinkable that this would not also be true
about God. If God is infinite, He must be
immutable, because what's immutability? Changelessness, inability to
change, because if He changed, then He wouldn't be eternal,
and you get the idea. That's the way Christians are
supposed to think. Aquinas is just really, really good at it.
That's the way to say it. That's a big idea. God must be
all that he is, as has already been proven. So everything else
we're going to talk about is already contained in the subject.
It's what's called an analytical truth. Now, to an angel or a
Christian philosopher, this might be what's called a tautology.
In other words, because God's existence immediately implies,
just as surely as A equals A, or that man is rational. Wait
a minute. Man is rational is not as clear as A equals A. True
to us, maybe, as we're first coming to logic, but somebody
who's studied logic for 20 years, that man is rational is just
as self-evident as A equals A. It's contained in A equals A. So all you're doing in analytical
truth is you're unpacking the drawer more. Then you find another
drawer inside the drawer and you unpack that more. That drawer
was already inside the other drawer. You just didn't see it
because you hadn't unpacked it yet. So all Aquinas is doing
is showing the sense in which everything is already true, invincibly
so, we're just catching up. This is why Thomas is hated.
And by the way, this is why Protestant scholasticism was hated after
the original Reformation. Because what they're showing
you in unpacking the drawers is a bunch of stuff people that
want to hedge their bets don't want to see, so they push the
drawers back in. There's a right way to think about everything,
and we can prove it. That's not a popular idea. That's
very imperialistic. That's very suffocating, because
that means that I've got to get this right. Now, eventually George
is going to get too mysterious, and you run right into Romans
14.23, and there's stuff that God just has not been clear about.
Okay, that's a separate subject. What about this stuff? Okay,
let's get to the first one. Therefore, God is necessarily
simple. Every word counts. Therefore,
because it's already been proven, God is necessarily simple. By the way, simple doesn't mean
easy to understand. That's not what he means by simple.
He's talking about metaphysically his being. In other words, a
unity not composed of parts. Singular thing. Singular being. So, this is in question three.
It's the first one Aquinas chooses to speak about, and that might
interest us. I think it should. We should ask ourselves, why
would Aquinas list the simplicity of God first? And again, he's
going to do this by logical negation. And what he's going to negate
is that God could ever be composed of parts. So the first thing
that falls off this non-A is composition. Or, say it this
way, the first thing that falls off, the first thing, it's not
a thing, that falls off is divine composition. Divine composition,
you're going to say after today, why that's like a square circle.
And that's exactly right. That's exactly what he wants
you to get. Eight articles in this third question, and they
all flow from the most crass, simple, and this is how I mean
simple, like crass or superficial, notion of composition to the
most subtle. And so he's going to first answer the idea that
God could have a body. You might think, my goodness,
everybody knows why God can't have a body. No, they don't.
Have you read the shack? And that's why we have one of
those children's catechism questions. What is God? God is a spirit
and doesn't have a body like a man. That's pretty important. Five distinct objections Aquinas
faces, and all of these argue, quote, from the scriptures that
God has a body, in a sense. You can find people, lots of
people, who will argue, quote, from the scriptures that God
has a body in these five ways. Aquinas deals with all of them.
One, because there are scriptures that talk about dimensions, high,
wide, and so on. Secondly, appearance. Thirdly,
body parts, the mouth of the Lord, His arm. Fourthly, posture,
that He comes down from where He turns His face. And fifthly,
location. Dimensions, appearance, body
parts, posture, and location. All of the above are only ascribed
to bodies, and therefore it would seem to the objector that God
does indeed have a body. Well, I think we can all remember
being presented with such difficulties before. Here's what Aquinas does.
He quotes John 4.24. Again, this is the method in
the scholastics. They'll say, on the contrary,
and then they'll quote either a scripture or a church father
or a philosopher. And here he quotes John 4.24.
God is a spirit. And then he proceeds to prove
that God is not a body in three ways. First, because no body
is in motion unless it be put in motion, as is evident from
induction. Now, it has already been proved,
question 2, article 3, so what is he doing in that reference?
He's giving you a premise in his argument. It has already
been proved that God is the first mover and is himself unmoved. Therefore, it is clear that God
is not a body. Secondly, because the first being
must of necessity be in act, and in no way in potentiality. For although in any single thing
that passes from potentiality to actuality, the potentiality
is prior in time to the actuality. Nevertheless, absolutely speaking,
in other words, not of things in this world, absolutely speaking,
actuality is prior to potentiality. For whatever is potentiality
can be reduced into actuality only by some being in actuality. Now, it has already been proven
that God is the first being. It is therefore impossible that
in God there should be any potentiality. But every body is in potentiality. The continuous, as such, is divisible
to infinity. It is therefore impossible that
God should be a body. Thirdly, because God is the most
noble of beings. Now, stop right here, because
I made a typo here, so cross it off in your notes like I just
did in mine. Now, it is impossible for a body, it says God, I totally
messed up there, so cross that out and put a body. Now, it is
impossible for a body to be the most noble of beings, for a body
must be either animate or inanimate. And an animate body is manifestly
nobler than an inanimate body. But an animate body is not animate
precisely as body, otherwise all bodies would be animate. Therefore, its animation depends
upon some other thing, as our body depends for its animation
on the soul. By the way, he's going to use
that same line of reasoning to show that the soul is in that sense prior
to the body. They're not separable, but you'll
get the idea. Well, they are separable temporarily,
but I mean ultimately, I'm talking about. Hence, that by which a
body becomes animated must be nobler than the body. Therefore,
it is impossible that God should be a body. Now, obviously at
any of those points, first of all, this is unfamiliar to us.
Talking like this with proof is unfamiliar to us. We are backwards
in the modern world. Oh, just the more garden variety
set in motion. Just motion versus non-motion.
Yeah, so just on the most generic level. And so at any of those
three points, I suppose, we might need to review some of the proofs
from last week. And noble, there's another one.
Noble, according to who? And again, we're subjectivists.
Noble just means greater. It's greater to be in motion
than to need to be set in motion. Why? Because you have less existence,
and existence is greater than non-existence. So by greater,
he means something mathematical and logical. It doesn't mean
like, what happens to, oh, I think that color is nicer than that.
He doesn't mean it. He doesn't talk like that. That's
not the way people used to talk. We're actually the lame brain
subjectivists. This is actually talking about
reality as if it's real. I'm sorry to interrupt you. Yep. Third point. Right. Right, yes, so right after it
says, because God is the most noble of beings, and right there
it says, now it is impossible for, and I typed God, right there,
cross that out and put a body. Yeah, it is impossible for a
body to be the most noble of beings. Right, no, that's fine,
that's fine. Okay, so in those three ways.
So, now notice how he did that. Three basic ways to move from
what was already proven, in question two, to what God cannot be, namely
a body. So let's just trace this from
last week to this week. So he's going to go from existence
to essence. And what he's going to do from
last week is he's going to borrow from the first way, the first
way, and then a hybrid of the fourth and first way to show
his three ways that God cannot be a body. The first way, he
talked about motion. So from motion, it is impossible
that a body can be the most noble of all beings because it's not
in motion except that it is put in motion by another. So if the
first way was right, then that follows by resistless logic.
In the second way, still from the first way in existence, there
was actuality preceding potentiality. And this is going to be crucial
as we go on, because if that's true, that ultimately something
has to be activated by another substance and act, Well, let's
skip ahead to the third one, the most noble of all beings,
but a body cannot be in pure act. It always has to be activated
by another. Remember, a potential thing,
the actual thing, but that process can't get started unless a third
thing, namely the substance in act, activates it. Now, that's
not ultimately true of any body. So a body cannot be in a pure
state of actuality. What about the Law of Inertia?
The Law of Inertia is just descriptive of something already in that
process. That's all that is. It's descriptive, it's not ultimately
ontological. It's true in heaven too. Of the pure actuality? Yes. In that sense, we're always in
motion, but we're always in a greater motion. In a sense, there's always,
to borrow from thermodynamics, there's always new energy being
pumped into the system, new knowledge of God, new whatever. But of
course, in that, where's that coming from? It's coming from
God. God's upholding us. God's giving us greater and greater
capacity, growing our soul, and so forth. And then the third
way to show that a body cannot, that God cannot be a body was,
oh yeah, because God is the most noble of all beings, in other
words, the most excellent. That was shown from the fourth, okay, and now
he's going to borrow a little bit back from the first because
there was an impossibility of an infinite regress. That's actually
the first and the second argument. There can't be an infinite regress. And so in those noble beings,
animate or inanimate, he's ruling out inanimate, so an animate
has to be a greater being. Why? Same reason over here. It
goes back to this. So you see what's going on here.
There's deduction, deduction, deduction. If this general thing
is true, one species of it is true, and so forth and so on.
That actually works. The reason why this is not taught
in school and everything's focused on induction is because you have
more general truths, you have bigger circles, in other words,
a more threatening world to the modern educator and the modern
state. But this isn't just the way they thought back then, this
is the only right way to think about anything. Two things about Aquinas' thoughts
so far are going to give us a clue of why he chooses divine simplicity
first. This is not a random choice. And by the way, I am not saying
that other doctrines of God that don't start here are doing something
deficient. For example, on the other side
of the ledger, you could look at John Calvin in the Institutes
of Christian Religion. He only mentions two attributes
of God in the Institutes, namely His infinity and His spirituality. Calvin has a reason for that,
and it's also brilliant. They're doing something different.
They're both teaching, they're both training up introductory
theology students, but Aquinas is doing it philosophically at
this point in an act of deduction. Calvin's trying to prevent people
from idolatry, because that's where he's coming out of. Okay?
And so there's a reason they do what they do. I'm not saying
one's better than another. They're doing what they're doing for
their particular time and place. But two clues about why Aquinas
starts with divine simplicity. First of all, remember what we
started with, that idea of the negative way, the via negativa. He's showing what God is like
by showing what cannot be. He's negating, he's negating,
he's negating. That means that when he gets
going, he's really still only at this idea of a supreme act
of being. And he is not yet at the idea
of God's existence being his essence in every way. He's got
to build that. It doesn't mean he's building
God. It means he's building our idea of God. And so by distinguishing
between simplicity and composition, have that in your mind, that's
the opposites. Simplicity versus composition. By doing that, he
is removing from our whole idea of God any attributes which can
be either accidental or potential. So, in getting rid of this square
circle of divine composition, contradiction in terms, by getting
rid of this idea as a non-A, as a square circle, two other
things we have to get out of our mind, and fall with it, I
should say, the idea of any accidents in God, and the idea of any potentiality
in God. So, let's put potential. So,
let's put A and B. By chopping down the tree of
divine composition, you are also chopping the branches of accidents
and potential in God. So, if the tree of divine composition
falls, then so do its branches of accidents in God and potential
in God. That's what he's going to show.
That's why he's doing it. In other words, he has demonstrated
that no attribute of God can be separate from God. The simplicity
of God means that he is not a complex of matter and form, like things
in this world. Nor is he even a complex of form
and form, such as an angel. Unlike any other being, God is
all of his attributes. So when this falls off, One of
the things that you should see remaining, which doesn't mean
you see the whole of God, the caricature, but it means you
see one thing must be true. God must be all of his attributes,
which implies further, though Thomas doesn't go there right
now, but that all of God's attributes must be all of his other attributes.
His holiness must be infinite, for example. His justice must
be loving and his love must be just. God must be all of his
attributes. Now, to the argument that God's
existence is not his essence, Aquinas answers that this can
be disproven in three ways. So stop. An objection has arisen—I'm
just summarizing because I can't read it word for word, we'd be
here forever—an objection has arisen that God can't be all
of his attributes. So they're still trying to revive
this idea. God can't be all his attributes. Aquinas disproves
this in three ways, and this quote is in your notes. Whatever a thing has besides
its essence must be caused either by the constituent principles
of that essence or by some exterior agent. Now, it is impossible
for a thing's existence to be caused by its essential constituent
principles, for nothing can be the sufficient cause of its own
existence if its existence is caused. Therefore, that thing
whose existence differs from its essence must have its existence
caused by another. But this cannot be true of God,
the first efficient cause. Therefore, it is impossible that
in God his existence should differ from his essence. So, let's do
that on the board. So, if you want to maintain that
God is one of the beings, whose essence is different from
his existence, then these things are going to have to be caused
by something outside of himself. As we're going to see, if they're
caused by something inside of themselves, then something has to activate
that, some other substance and act. So, that process can't go
on forever. What you're going to eventually
back up to is an essence that creates the existence. So I have
over here essence number one flowing left to right into the
circle. The circle is going to represent this particular substance.
So the existence of this substance will be caused by its essence.
Any being in which you can separate the essence from the existence,
that existence is caused by its essence. We saw that with the
blue ball and a few other examples. So, he shows that if that's true
about God, then God is not the first cause, but since he's already
proven that he is the first cause, then that falls by resistless
logic. Secondly, here's the second way to show it. Existence is
that which makes every form or nature actual. Now, stop right
there. Somebody get me some water, this
happened last week too. And everybody's just kind of watching me choke. Anyway, remember this whole thing
from left to right, whether it's the scrap of lumber or the table
or anything else, do you remember there had to be a third thing
to activate? Because remember how did Aquinas say it? No potentiality
can raise itself to actuality or everything that is in motion
is put in motion by another. There's two ways he says it.
So you always need a third thing, namely some other being in act. So existence, ultimately, is
always going to precede essence. Why? For the same reason that
actuality is always going to precede potentiality, ultimately. On the linear plane, locomotion,
what's potential precedes what's actual. That's introductory physics. But metaphysics, ultimately,
potential can only be raised to actuality by another substance
in act. Okay, so the second way he's
going to say it, existence is that which makes every form or
nature actual. He says, for goodness and humanity
are spoken of as actual only because they are spoken of as
existing. Existence must be compared to
essence, if the latter is a distinct reality, as actuality is to potentiality. So what did he do? He just said
the same thing I did. Ultimately, existence comes before this happens,
which is the same way of saying, ultimately, actuality precedes
potentiality going to actuality. Therefore, since in God there
is no potentiality as shown above, so now he appeals back to article
one of this, since he's already proven that in this section,
since there is no potentiality in God, as shown above, it follows,
he's just this massive deduction, it won't stop. It follows that
in him, essence does not differ from existence. Therefore, his
essence is his existence. Thirdly, Because just as that
which has fire but is not itself fire is on fire by participation,
so that which has existence but is not existence is a being by
participation. So why does it pick fire? It
doesn't matter. The particular example he uses doesn't matter.
The point is that anything that's in existence is either existence
itself or is in existence by participation. But God is his
own essence, as shown above, article 3. And there he means
question 2, article 3. God is his own existence. Remember,
necessary being versus contingent being. Since I've proven that... If, therefore, he is not his
own existence, he will not be essential, but participated being. He will not, therefore, be the
first being, which is absurd. Remember, you needed a first
being, even if you want to play that game and say, fine, he's
not the first being. Well then, just like Anselm's
proof, then you have to pick one that is, because he's already
proven that there must not be a first being. What are you going
to do, put that dog out of its misery here? It's just funny,
because I hear the howling, and then I see him go out there,
and it's like, huh, I wonder how he's going to handle it. Okay. All right, so that's
the end of that statement. So he shows in three ways that
God's existence must be his essence. And that brings up the second
reason that Aquinas begins with divine simplicity, and that is
that in addition to banishing from our minds composition in
God, he also seeks to banish any notion of divine potentiality
as self-contradictory. He's already kind of drew that
out, that with chopping down the tree of divine composition,
he also cuts down the branches of divine accidents or divine
potentiality. Those, again, should be regarded
as square circles. It's a contradiction in terms
to think that in the first cause there could be any accidental
properties, because then it would have to be caused by another
outside of himself, square circle. Or any divine potentiality, because
then it would have to be activated by something other than the first
cause, square circle. So because of all that has already
been proven, it is logically impossible that anything in God's
being or anything in His working Anything in his motive, anything
in his reason, anything in his decree can never be actualized
by another. This is why Thomas should have
been a Calvinist. And of course, he was in a lot
of areas, but not in others. But if you're a Catholic and
you buy into these arguments, you should immediately leave
the Catholic Church and become Reformed. Because, if this is
true, he's already saying in the early going that it is impossible,
it is a square circle, to suggest that God could ever even do anything
for any other reason than His own glory. It is logically impossible. Nothing else exists outside of
Himself to move Himself. So he's already proven, in looking
at this, an idea that is attributed to Aquinas, and I love this idea. If all of this is true, then
the first cause must be a synonym for a pure act of being, or what's
sometimes called pure actuality. It's just the opposite way of
saying that in God there can be no potentiality. Nothing dormant,
in other words. Nothing inert, in the sense of
needing something to activate him, or put him in a different
direction, or re-channel him, or anything else. So from this
it follows that there are no accidental properties in God,
since an accident, classically defined, is any predicate or
any property not essential or substantial. Even, for example,
when we say that God is related to Abraham. God made a covenant
to Abraham. Is making a covenant to Abraham a predicate of God?
Yes, but only in our conception of him. He did not need to make
a covenant with Abraham, so there's no accidental properties in God's
being. Those are relational properties
that relate to the creature and not something that are necessary
about him. So if it does not belong to such
a substance to exist, any other accidental thing, then of accidental
things it's possible for such a thing to either be or not to
be. We saw that in the third way to show the existence of
God. So when Thomas gives us his reason for the impossibility
of accidents in God, he picks right back up in that same stream
of thought, and he says, I answer that from all that we have said,
it is clear that there can be no accident in God. First, because
a subject is compared to its accidents as potentiality to
actuality. So let's draw one more picture,
and it's the same picture. A subject, any subject. Okay? Actually, let's do it the other
way around in this case. Now I'm going to make the circle to be the subject. So in other
words, anything, any substance. Okay, so watch what he says.
A subject is compared to its accidents as potentiality to
actuality. So a subject is something that
is accidental. Maybe I should have done it the
other way. All of its properties, in other words, so remember the
blue ball. All of these things are things that affect it. They're
things from the outside. Blueness existed before it, it'll
exist afterwards. Roundness existed before it,
it'll exist afterwards. In other words, everything about
that thing, even baldness, existed before it, it'll exist after
it. So in any of these things, a
subject is compared to its accidents as potentiality to actuality. Because a subject is, in some
sense, made actual by its accidents. But there can be no potentiality
in God, as was shown in question 2, article 3, and so on. And he adds more to the inference.
And so, one last piece to why God is altogether simple and
not composed of parts is this. He adds this. This is sort of
a second way to show it. Because every composite, everything
made of parts, is posterior to its component parts. So now let's
just change the words in the same picture. Over here with
subject we'll put composite. In other words, something made
of parts. And then over here in accidents we'll put component
parts. And just to make it picturesque,
let's divide it up like a pizza pie, just to demonstrate that
it has parts, that that's what we're talking about. Every composite
is posterior comes after its component parts and is dependent
on them. Stop right there. Have you ever
thought of that? Is that clear? Is that obvious
to you? Everything you can think of that
has a body, is made of parts, is an effect, or that you can
attribute things to, is caused entirely by all the things, not
the other way around. Did you know that? Or do you
tend to think of things as the thing, and then all the things
that make it up? It's like it's a glass. Okay, but what's the glass? Right? So this is entirely made up of
things which come before it. And, because every composite
has a cause, for things in themselves different cannot unite unless
something causes them to unite. So, why can't there be multiple
gods and why can't there be multiple things in God? Answer, because
then something would come before Him to do the uniting, to bring
them together. Now, I can imagine an objection
to that, which I'll get to in just a second. But there's more
to this. He lists actually, I think there's
between five or seven different answers to this objection. But
these two reasons will suffice. Because what composition amounts
to is a collection of thing, one thing. If the plurality of
things can be spoken of as one thing at all, then it is because
the collection itself is an effect of that by which they were collected. So there cannot be any composition
in God. If anyone objects, that perhaps
God's the one that does this. So now God is the glass and all
the stuff that fills in our attributes. So you might think of it like
that. Maybe God does this with his own attributes from all eternity. But then I would have to ask
that person, what is God? That he does this with things
that are not his own essence. Is he nothing before he starts
collecting his somethings? And from where does he get his
somethings? In other words, it may be asked in what sense these
separate things are really his attributes at all and not separate
entities. The second way to see it, the
same thing, is that there has to be an intelligibility of the
unity itself. How can we call these composite
parts one except by a unity that is above them all? How can we
say the words of God when we say the words the righteousness
of God? or the immutability of God, and
so forth, except by something higher and greater than any of
the attributes, which is the real first cause, instead of
these. Consequently, it is illogical
that the first cause can be composed of parts, for then the cause
of the unity of the parts, the cause of the existence of the
parts, could not be. So, hopefully I've sufficiently
smothered, destroyed the idea that there can be anything such
as divine composition. And if that's true, then contained
in that is the impossibility of divine accidental properties
and divine potentiality. So, why is divine simplicity
chosen first? Well, I don't know all of Aquinas'
real reasons. All I know is this. In showing that, he's shown this.
And in showing this, you're pretty much already at the Reformed
phase. because there can't be anything else true other than
what we believe about everything. He's already proven that you
stop everything and join the Reformation. Now, the Catholics
didn't necessarily take everything that way, and Aquinas, I believe,
makes a boo-boo later in his thought, and we'll get to that
when we talk about the second class, but this is a powerful,
earth-shattering idea that eliminates anything else. Secondly, God
is necessarily perfect. This is question four and it's
divided into three articles. Are you kidding me? Okay. The three questions that are
asked are whether God is perfect, whether God is perfect universally,
in other words, having in himself the perfection of all things,
and whether creatures can be said to be like God. In other
words, if God is perfect, how can you say perfect things are
like him? Now, a lot of the objections to divine perfection in this
section might seem odd to us, but the value of the section
is to get a good handle on the idea of perfection, not least
because of how it's going to set us up to understand the opposite
idea, defection. This idea of perfection and defection
is actually going to help us again when we get to nature and
natural law. But in any event, yes, God is
perfect. Aquinas says, A thing is perfect in proportion
to its state of actuality. What's he doing? He's going back.
I know, it's beautiful. He's doing it again. He's moving
from this to this. He's not off on a new subject
now, which has nothing to do with anything. He's saying, because
I've just proven all that stuff, therefore I prove that thing.
And because of that thing now, I'm going to bring out another
drawer, or another circle within the circle. He's even defining
perfection this way. Well, how can he not? How can
perfection be anything other than what's in God? Because of
what he's already proven. So a thing is perfect in proportion
to its state of actuality, in other words, its state of being.
Because we call that perfect which lacks nothing of the mode
of its perfection. And yes, the perfection of all
things is in God, by which Thomas means that the universal of any
particular thing is in God's essence. And so a couple of objections
are going to help clarify things for us. There's three of them
that I have here. There's three of them in this section. Objection one,
it seems that the perfection of all things are not in God. For God is simple. So what's
this objector doing? He's saying, you just said that
God is simple, not composed of parts. He's one thing, not many
things, right? So what is he going to borrow from Aquinas'
language in order to form the objection? For God is simple,
as shown above, whereas the perfections of things are many and diverse. Therefore, the perfections of
all things are not in God. Objection 2. Further, he's going
to build off the same idea, opposites cannot coexist. Now, the perfections
of things are opposed to each other, for each thing is perfected
by its specific difference. In other words, what's the perfection
of good? What's the perfection of evil? This is one example.
But the differences by which these genuses are divided and
species constituted are opposite to each other. Therefore, because
opposites cannot coexist in the same subject, it seems that the
perfection of all things are not in God. In other words, you
can't say God is good and God is bad. And if the perfections
of both, which are opposites, are in him, then he is a living
contradiction, if ever there was one. That's the idea. There's a category mistake, hopefully
you catch it. Objection 3. Further, a living thing is more
perfect than what merely exists, and an intelligent thing than
what merely lives. Therefore, life is more perfect
than existence, and knowledge more perfect than life. but the
essence of God is existence itself. Therefore, He has not the perfections
of life and knowledge and other similar perfections." In other
words, this person is thinking in their mind, you're defining
God as this, you're defining the first being as this, all
these other things coming from this, and yet, there are other
things, and not merely things, but more excellent, because It is more excellent
to live than simply to exist, and it is more excellent to be
intelligent living things than merely be alive. Therefore, it is more excellent
to be intelligent than merely to exist. But you're starting
God's perfections over here. What about the perfections of
these? So there's category mistakes everywhere. And against these
misunderstandings, Aquinas argues that God pre-possesses all things. And this can be shown in two
ways. First, he appeals once again to the principle of sufficient
reason. He shows that of the perfection of things, every effect
can only possess what its cause has the power to produce. Since
he had already proven that this process of sufficient causes
cannot go back to infinity, it follows that of perfections,
only God possesses them in his being. He says, quote, from what
has already been proved, God is existence itself, in itself
subsistent. That should say in, by the way,
I think it says if in your notes. In itself subsistent. So consequently,
God must contain within himself the whole perfection of being. Now these are sufficient to refute
the objections, which is probably why the specific replies he gives
are pretty brief. But then he goes on to talk about
how things can be called like God. And that's interesting,
but we'll actually wait till part two to get to this, because
it starts to get into his theory of language, all speech being
analogical and not the other two. So we're not going to get
into that right now. But the idea, again, in this
idea of goodness and evil, the way—actually, we're going to
show this a little bit in God Being Good, but when we call
something evil, we're calling something not perfect. And so
the perfection of that is just a matter of speaking. If I speak
about a perfection of defection, or in a sense if I say, what
is the most excellent extent of evil? I'm not talking about
a perfection of being, but I'm talking about a spectrum of non-being.
So it's the very opposite. Last section, therefore God is
necessarily good, trying to streamline this. I've already streamlined
by getting just these three attributes, but God is necessarily good.
This is important, though, to get an objective view of goodness. So to show what's meant by the
goodness of God, Aquinas must first deduce certain things about
goodness in general, and so question five of the Summa is called,
goodness in general. Six articles are going to help
him work out that Augustine was right to inherit from Plato the
language that goodness must follow being in our conception of it.
So when I say that, I mean he was right to borrow the lingo
from Plato. But Plato, remember, wasn't going
to be able to answer the question of what goodness ultimately is
as a singular being. Now remember, Aquinas has already
proven that God must be simple and perfect. So he's already
proven that when he gets to goodness. But there's going to be a distinction
here. Let me say it like this. Metaphysically, let's say in
a sense, up here in God, being equals goodness. Remember? From
simplicity. But, two, epistemologically,
down here for us, as we're looking at good things, it is crucially
important that we understand being preceding goodness. In other words, that we understand
a distinction between them. Epistemologically, it is crucially
important that we define goodness by being, but that doesn't mean
that they're separated in God. And you're going to see why as
we go on. So it's not that there is being apart from the good. But, here's why, catch every
word of the sentence, it is that all things are good insofar as
they subsist in the one whose essence is to exist and to be
in pure act. Here's how Aquinas says it, quote,
goodness and being are really the same. and differ only in
idea, which is clear from the following argument." So, ready
for Aquinas' argument that this must be? And I'm going to show
it in the form of a Venn diagram and a syllogism when I'm done
with this paragraph, because it takes the form of a syllogism.
First he quotes Aristotle from his Ethics in saying, goodness
is what all desire. So he starts out with that premise.
Goodness is what all desire. Now he's going to come back to
it and justify it, but let's just start with that. Goodness
is what all desire. Now it is clear that a thing
is desirable only insofar as it is perfect. In other words,
the not just the nth degree of that thing, but if you knew that
there was a greater degree, you would want that, if it was inherently
desirable. So, only insofar as it is perfect. For all desire their own perfection. Now, that's another premise he's
going to add. But everything is perfect so far as it is actual. Therefore, there's the conclusion
of the syllogism, therefore it is clear that a thing is perfect
so far as it exists. For it... Stop! Wait a minute!
So everything that exists is perfect? No! Remember? Nothing
exists but God in this sense. Remember? Everything is either
potential or actualized. And that thing, this simultaneous
motion, it is in His being that we live and move and have our
being. Nothing is actually existing except what He's speaking into
existence. So it has to be perfected. In other words, it can lack nothing,
and that nothing includes the something of actuality. Nothing
is more of a being than being. And if it lacks being, which
is everything except for God, it's not perfect. He says, therefore
it is clear that a thing is perfect so far as it exists. For it is
existence that makes all things actual, as is clear from the
foregoing." And he quotes Question 3, Article 4, that's the... Question 3 on simplicity, Article
4, and then Question 4, Article 1, on perfection. So he's shown
from simplicity and perfection that it is existence that makes
all things actual. So, since I've already proven
that, it is clear that goodness and being are really the same. But, goodness presents the aspect
of desirableness, which being does not present. In other words,
it's not that they're different things, it's that we have an
idea here of desirableness. And so, for our sake, we treat
them differently. They're intelligible. Now, let
me draw out the syllogism and the diagram that I promised you.
Here's what he said in that argument. In premise one, it is clear that
a thing is desirable only insofar it is perfect. Remember, all
S is P. In this case, all goodness is desirable in that, or only
in so far as it is perfect. So all goodness, desirableness,
depends on perfection. And, then he says, but everything
is perfect so far as it is actual. Another all S is P. Okay? Well, that's another way of saying
the syllogism. All goodness is of the perfect. All that is desired
is of the perfect. All that is perfect is of what
is. Therefore, all goodness is of
what is. Now, why on earth does that matter? Is that just an intellectual
exercise for a little logic class? No. Now, the first reason it
matters might seem entirely theoretical at first, but I think as we'll
see, all the practical reasons will also fall back on this theoretical
truth. So first, quote, that thing is
prior in idea which is first conceived by the intellect. Now,
the first thing conceived by the intellect is being, because
everything is knowable only in as much as it is in actuality. Hence, being is the proper object
of the intellect and is primarily intelligible, as sound is that
which is primarily audible. Therefore, in idea, being is
prior to goodness." Now, if you got lost in any point here, here's
why this matters. Aquinas is meaning what is good,
his definition of what is good, is in an objective sense. So,
immediately we think of the concept of goodness entirely subjectively,
and that is exactly why we have all the problems in the Church
that we do today. Ultimately, it's because people
don't get this idea. So that's horrible, that's a
deeply philosophical idea, why would they do that? I understand
that, but that is the idea that if they got, that would be straightened
out. An objective sense of goodness. Now the term in idea here that
he uses, it's this way, they're separate in idea, has a referent
in the way it is, goodness. Not in the subjective sense of
how this or that finite mind may be able to comprehend what
is good, or may choose to comprehend what is good. This objective
or theoretical reason immediately implies all the practical reasons.
Here's the practical reason. To the degree that we don't define
what is good by what is, ultimately, then we have nothing left but
the subjective sense. In other words, what happens
to please my finite set of expectations? But these are all largely the
product of the error that in turn results from our being finite
and being sinful. And that raises a lot of other
difficulties that unfortunately I don't have the time to get
into, but the idea that, wait, that implies that all things
are good. So, for example, triangles are good, dead flies are good,
they exist. Okay, then we can catch the first
point about what is meant by existence. Does that also necessitate
that either evil doesn't really exist, or maybe the evil things
are really good, and isn't that a contradiction? Well, let me
close with this, because this is Aquinas' summary answer to
all of these misgivings, by saying this, on the contrary, every
being that is not God is God's creature. Now, every creature
of God is good, and he quotes 1 Timothy 4.4, and God is the
greatest good. Therefore, or in that way, every
being is good. He says, I answer that, every
being as being is good. for all being as being, in other
words, in the sense that it is a being, or only insofar as it
is being, has actuality as and is, in some way, perfect. By perfect, remember, he means
that objectively, not subjectively and gooey like we do. Perfect
meaning it is lacking nothing in what it ought to be. You say,
well, who gets to define that? Glad you asked God. God's the
one who exists, and He fills up the sum of everything being
exactly where it ought to be. He says, and perfection implies
desirability and goodness, as is clear from Article 1. Hence
it follows that every being as such is good. As such just means
as a being, being as being. Now that answers all the suspicions
that there could ever be a sort of mundane being, or mundane
subject of study in school, such that it is neutral to goodness.
But it also gives us a clue as to how instances of evil depend
for their reality upon the being which is perfectly good. And
so in reply to Objection 2, in Article 3, he points out that,
quote, no being can be spoken of as evil formally as being. In other words, you can't call
a thing evil as being. but only so far as it lacks being. Thus a man is said to be evil because he lacks some virtue.
And an eye is said to be evil because it lacks the power to
see well. And by evil he just means, you
know, I'm bringing this... Where were you? Eye on the date
of... He doesn't mean that. He just means this is a bad eye.
My eye sucks. That's all he means by that.
So there's degrees of evil he's talking about. So let's think
about that for a second, because I think that's going to help
us. When we call a man evil, it's not because he's a man.
Well, if you're a feminist, it is. But when you call a man evil,
it's not because he has being. It's just the opposite. It's
because of the degree to which he has fallen away from that
which a man is. Right? If I say, not man, or
say like, bad man, what do I mean? I mean, not man. Not as a man
to be. In other words, it is defection
precisely from perfection that the word evil means. Evil is
nothing but the defection from being. Therefore, it is certain
that goodness is being. Last point. Somebody could object.
Wait a minute. Wait a minute, Thomas. We don't
call an eye evil for lacking the power of sight, but we call
an evil eye that which sees perfectly well and uses it for wicked designs. But such an objector should have
stuck around for Article 4, because Thomas considers the role of
the end cause in any good thing. So think about this, both the
blind eye and the evil eye, if you have something sinister in
mind, both of them ultimately are going to lack the same being,
different degrees. So, the reason that the evil
in the eyes of the blind and the evil eye of the seer or the
sorcerer, the reason that they're species of the same darkened
genus is because in both instances the eye is not what it was meant
to be. One's just physical. But they
both have a moral dimension. Whether the deprivation of being
is the consequence of a prior defection, like when the disciples
in John 9 said to Jesus, was this man born blind because...
And Jesus doesn't deny that his parents were sinners or that
sin causes this thing. He was just saying that's not
what's on display here. So whether that deprivation of
being in the eye is cause of a prior defection before the
man was born, or whether the deprivation of being is a process
of defection that you're morally culpable of right now, such as
in the case of Saruman's false wizardry and his crystal ball.
In both cases, notice that the I is and is not. That is, the
end of eyes, seeing, is not what it is in its perfection. The
eye is, it's participating in being, and it is not in its perfection. It is not what ultimately is
in seeing. Aquinas does a pretty interesting
breakdown about the way goodness is manifested in the world, and
the way goodness is manifested in us, in our seeking, in our
ends, and it's only then that he gets to the goodness of God,
which is comparatively a smaller section. Why? Because he does
such a thorough job on the goodness of God in general that he has
very little else to prove. I don't even know what else to
say because we don't have time and it's only three attributes
and what do you do with that? I don't know. Here's the point. It's
all deduction. He's unpacking the jury. That's
the most important thing I think I can say today is that the reason
this is so great And why people who don't like truth are so annoyed
by it is, by the way, it doesn't mean confounded by it. We can
all be confounded. I look at things seven times, twenty times,
like, what is he saying? I'm not talking about that. I'm
talking about these authors who are critical of Aquinas or critical
of the medieval way of thinking or scholasticism. This is why
they don't like the suffocation of realizing, wait a minute,
there's a right way to think about everything and I can prove
it and that has moral consequences. That means you've got to get
on the right side and you've got to do it quick. You're going
to die sometime in the next 10 years, 60 years, whatever. And
they're saying that the drawers have been unpacked and your job
is to get the next drawer or take this stuff into the fight
and that is absolutely suffocating if you don't like truth. So,
let me end it with that. In the sense of the order that
he's going in, it won't be any different at all. One difference
is that Aquinas is working by negation, so he's cutting off,
I want to say branches, but he's shaving off, sanding off things
that can't be the case, and the same picture is ultimately emerging.
except that he hasn't really even gone beyond God, whereas
with Augustine and the chain of being, you would talk about
God and angels and man and less rational animals, such as the
animals, and nature and so on. So Augustine's is more metaphysical
and kind of all at once, big system, versus Aquinas is going
to draw it out by negation. Any other questions or comments?
Matt, you still there? Our South Carolina campus? Got
any questions? Yes. All right. Well, I've got five
minutes left. I have a quick question. Sure. Just real quick, a simple
one. In the first stage of your notes, When the reference to
potentiality being continuous and as such is divisible to infinity,
is that a reference to Zeno's? He may have had Zeno in mind,
but the most general reference it has is just the two different
kinds of quantity. So in mathematics, there's discrete
quantity, in other words, points or entities in and of themselves
versus continuous quantity. And in continuous quantity, whether
you're talking about a line that has infinitely divisible points,
or whether you're talking about a physical substance of some
sort, in either case, the continuous, by definition, is infinitely
divisible. Um, in principle, of course,
that, again, that proff forever, which is part of Aquinas's point,
but yeah, absolutely. Uh, it, Zeno may have come to
mind, uh, but I think he's going more general, uh, as far as continuity
in anything implies divisibility. So yeah, I think that's where
he was going. Very good. Well, it looks like the kids
are invading, so I think.
Deducing the Attributes of God
Series The Thought of Thomas Aquinas
| Sermon ID | 42114110038607 |
| Duration | 1:06:14 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Language | English |
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