Month: March 2010

Hello everyone and welcome to Deeper Waters. Tonight, put on your scuba gear again for we are continuing our plummet into the ocean of truth. We’re going through the doctrine of God and we’re talking about the goodness of God. Our guide on the journey is Thomas Aquinas using his Summa Theologica. A copy of that can be found at newadvent.org. I wish to offer my prayer requests before we begin. First, I ask for prayers for my Christlikeness. I have found I tend to be self-conscious lately, when I need to be other-conscious, especially Christ-conscious. Second, I ask for prayers for my financial situation. Finally, I ask for prayers for a third related area in my life to both of these.

Our question tonight. Is God the highest good? One objection will be that goodness seems to add something to God, but God is simple as has been shown. However, if we say he is good, then have we not added this to his being?

What about goodness being included in a genus? Doesn’t that put God on the comparison level? Are we not then saying that God can be compared to other things? All we have going on is a comparison game.

Basically then, we’re coming back to simplicity and asking if this goes against the simplicity of God. Of course, Thomas is going to say no and the way he explains this is by telling how we do God-talk properly.

One way we can talk about anything is univocally. If I say that my Dad is a man and I say that I am a man, I mean man in the same way. Now we are different men, but the idea of man hasn’t changed meaning. Whenever you use a word and it has one meaning throughout, that is univocal language.

The second way is equivocal language. Equivocal language would be like saying “I am going to deposit my money in the bank” and “I am going to go by the bank of the river.” Bank in that sense means two different things. Thus, equivocal is when you use the same word and it has two different meanings.

The last way is analogical language. Imagine writing out on a sheet of paper “2 + 2 = 4.” Now you can say “I see that” and when you say that, you mean you see the proposition written on the sheet of paper is visible to your eyes. However, you could also say “I see that” and you mean that you see with your mind that 2 + 2 = 4. See has different meanings, but there’s also a similarity to them, which is what analogical language is.

That’s how Aquinas answers the objection. God is a greater good not by degree than we are but by kind. You cannot add more and more goodness to us and get the goodness of God. This is something we need to realize. God is not a superman. You do not take our qualities and add them up and lo and behold, there’s God! He is altogether unique. Thus, he is the highest good not by comparison but by degree.

Also, goodness does not add to being. Goodness is a relation. We say God is good not in the sense that goodness is added but that he is what goodness itself depends upon. In the same way, God is knowable because the existence of knowledge is only possible because there is a God who exists.

Thus, we start to see more as we go along why simplicity is so important and why Aquinas started there. We shall see more of why he’s taken the route he has in the Summa as we continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are once again taking a plunge into the ocean of truth. We’ve been studying the doctrine of God and the Summa Theologica has been our guide. Those who do not have ready access to a copy of the Summa can find one at newadvent.org that can be read online, although I have no objections to readers going to Amazon and buying a copy. Tonight, our question starts the chapter on the goodness of God. Before we get to our question, I wish to present my prayer requests. First off, I ask for prayer for my growing Christlikeness. Special people in my life are showing me great ways to improve. Second, I ask for prayers for my finances. Third, I ask for prayers for a third related area in my life. Now, let’s get to the question.

Is God good? As I prepare to write about this question, I wonder how many readers might be surprised to find out that the medievals actually asked this question. Some of us could say “Well it’s in the Bible that he is.” The medievals knew that, but they wanted to be able to demonstrate what they could apart from the Bible as well, particularly when dealing with those who did not accept any divine revelation.

But the question still remains. Aquinas of course answers in the affirmative and says that indeed God is good. This is because each creature that is out there seeks its own perfection. Everything is good according to its desirableness and everything desires its own perfection. Any effect that is perfect bears a likeness to its cause and so its cause in its perfection must be great. God as the first cause is the cause of goodness in all other things and he being the perfect one is good above all.

There is an objector however and he wants to know that if God is good because he is what all desire, then what of those who do not know God? What about those who even deny his existence? Are we going to say that they’re desiring God?

Aquinas’s answer?

Yes.

They desire God in that they desire their own perfection and that perfection can only be found in God. We would speak of seeking the transcendentals. I have said before that if someone is truly seeking the good, the true, and the beautiful, they will eventually find their way to God. It is not enough that they seek a thing that is good, true, or beautiful. They must seek that which is the cause of goodness, truth, and beauty.

When the atheist searches like this, they will find their way to God. Of course, in our world, it’s becoming more and more common to deny the existence of all three of these. Beauty has been one to go as we say that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Moral relativism is removing goodness from us. Today with the postmodern movement, there are many who are questioning the existence of objective truth and if we can even know it if it exists.

What will happen when our society loses all sense of these? I don’t like to think about it. I don’t think it can happen entirely however. I don’t think anyone can live in constant denial of the good, the true, and the beautiful. As soon as you choose to do anything, you admit a goodness exists. Even if you choose suicide. You choose that because you think it better than other options.

Nevertheless, our society needs to return to embracing these three.

We shall continue studying the goodness of God tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth, particularly in our study of the doctrine of God. Our guide for this study has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. An online version of it can be found at newadvent.org. In our study, we are discussing goodness itself. Before we get to tonight’s question, I’d like to share my prayer requests. First off, I ask for prayers for my personal Christlikeness. I am becoming more aware of how fallen I am regularly. Second, I ask for prayers for my finances. Finally, I ask for prayers for a third related area in my life. For now, let’s get to the final topic in goodness itself.

When Aquinas asks if goodness is rightly divided, he wants to know if it’s rightly divided into the beneficial, the useful, and the pleasant. If the appetite is moved towards something that is meant to serve as a benefit to something else, then Aquinas says that that is what is called the useful. The thing that is sought after for its own sake and not for anything beyond itself is called the befitting. That which is sought after that ends in rest of the thing desired is called the pleasant. Naturally, with the last two, there can be some overlap.

I find this question interesting because just yesterday, I had someone asking me if goodness and pleasure were the same. I think an excellent read on that for a questioner is the Philebus of Plato. However, I hope that person comes to this blog tonight because we will naturally be looking at that question.

Let’s consider the category of the useful. An excellent example of this is money. Some people might like a lot of money as a status symbol, but generally, money is good for what it can do for you. It’s the reason we have things like cars. It’s good for what it can do. I’m thankful my apartment has heating this time of year because of the good that I can get from that.

The beneficial is that which is desired for its own sake. For Aristotle, this was happiness mainly. Everyone desires happiness for its own sake and not for anything beyond itself. When we get to the medieval thinkers, we find that they sum this up in the beatific vision. This would be when you died and you got to see God as he is. Once you see God, all your questions are answered.

Tomorrow, we shall begin covering the goodness of God.

The pleasant is that which we long to rest in. Romantic love is an excellent example of this. When someone loves someone of the opposite sex, they long to rest in the embrace of that person. One wishes to embrace the goodness simply to embrace it and not for any other reason. People work so they can play. They don’t play so they can work.

All of these are proper ways in which the good is understood. We as Christians should learn to seek these out and treat them rightly. For instance, we should be careful in that we don’t treat something good in itself as just something merely useful. Don’t treat the guy who checks you out at the grocery store as an object for instance. He’s a person as well.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’re studying the doctrine of God now and right now, we’re studying goodness itself. The Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, which can be read at newadvent.org, is being our guide on this journey. Before we start looking at tonight’s topic, I wish to present my nightly prayer requests. The first is my prayer for Christlikeness to which I’ve come to realize today that there are some things that you don’t have to have absolute certainty on, and that’s fine. Second, I ask for prayers for my financial situation, which does seem to be improving. Finally, I ask for prayers for a third area in my life. For now, let’s get to the question.

These kinds of topics we’re talking about relate to the created order. God is without limit, he has no species, and he does not have order. To begin with an interesting study, let us consider the topic of angelology. When we think about angels, there are two mistakes we can make. We can give them no heed and treat them like they don’t exist, or we can make them be everything.

Aquinas did do much thinking about angels. He was and is called the Angelic Doctor. Angels by their nature are immaterial creatures. They consist of form + existence. We as human beings do have a soul that is a form, but we are also differentiated by the matter that we possess. The matter in my body is not the same as the matter in your body. Matter cannot be in two places at once.

However, angels cannot be differentiated in this way because there is no matter to them. Thus, the only way they differ is by form. Because of this, two angels cannot have the same form. There is not an angel nature that is shared by many angels, although the nature they share can be similar. You and I can share the same human nature because we are differentiated by matter.

Because of this, each angel is its own species. As Peter Kreeft says, “When he made Michael, he broke the mold.” There can be no other, and for this reason Christ does not die for angels, for he would have to assume angel nature somehow and then he would have to die in the place of the angel, which could not happen since angels cannot die anyway.

But for us, these are good things. There is limit to the creation. There are various species. There is order. God has set the boundaries whereby the universe is to be and we are meant to play our part in that.

What does this say for us today on an applicational level. God made us to be who we were meant to be. Now we are fallen, but he is shaping us into the likeness of his Son. Romans 8:28-29 makes it clear that we will be conformed. It is a guarantee. Who we are is good and God has made us to be like his Son.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the Ocean of Truth. We’ve been going through the doctrine of God and the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas has been our guide. Those who do not have a copy of the Summa are invited to go to newadvent.org where they can read a copy for free. I ask for your prayers especially as I go through this series and in my life period. As I prepare this, I want to eliminate the illusion that those of us in this field are spiritual giants who have no struggles in our life and have such an intimate walk with God that we don’t feel normal sufferings. We do, and can do so deeply. Also, while our minds can work well in these areas, they can seem to lack in our struggles. Thus, my first prayer request is for continued Christlikeness. The second is my finances. The third is an area in my life related to both of these.

Now to the question. Is goodness a final cause? We need to look back and remember our causes in Aristotle and the two the medievals added. Our formal cause is what something is, to which we are good by formal cause as is God, though he has no cause technically. Our material cause is matter, which is also good. We’re not Gnostics. Our efficient cause, that which brings us into being, is God who is good. Our instrumental cause is God’s Wisdom, which I’ve argued elsewhere is Jesus, who is good. Our exemplar cause, that which we are made after, are the eternal ideas in the mind of God, which are also good. The final cause is the why of our existence and that is goodness.

Those who have been following along will see this question is really obvious in a way. If all desire perfection, then we all desire to be the best we can be and ultimately, being is good. What is especially interesting about this question, particularly for me, is that Aquinas ties in beauty with this, and regular readers know I am a philosopher of beauty.

Starting with the final cause, we all desire goodness. Why we do anything ultimately is we perceive that there is some good to be obtained, hence this would be a problem for moral relativism. If there is no good, there really is no reason to do anything. There is no reason to even disagree with me unless you think it is good that people believe your position over mine.

What about beauty? Beauty is another aspect of being and beauty relates to the mind, it is that which pleases when seen. Aquinas does not mean anything subjective by this however as if to say “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” He would balk at that. Beauty for him is that which is in due proportion.

This is important in our times where people think things have to fit some sort of ideal to always be beautiful. Aquinas’s philosophy allowed room for a lot more beauty than ours does today. Now there is no doubt some qualities a thing must possess to be beautiful or else beauty would be subjective, but our categories today are way too exclusive.

If we do not see our fellow human beings as beautiful, then our standards are way too exclusive. Now Aquinas would agree there are some things we ought not to see as beautiful, but these are because the humans themselves as beautiful and the things we see detract from what is.

If we meet someone with a missing limb for instance or a deformity of some sort, Aquinas would think that the missing limb or deformity is not beautiful, but who would really disagree? It is not beautiful because it points to a lack that the person ought to have. In fact, we as Christians believe this is something good about the resurrection of the body. We will have good and complete bodies that won’t be lacking.

Lest anyone think I’m being hard on some, I will pick on myself as well. I have had scoleosis surgery which means that my back has a scar straight down the middle for where a steel rod was put on my spine. Now I already certainly am underweight and definitely do not have what I would consider the manly build that I am supposed to have, but I think Aquinas would say my scar is not beautiful, and I think he’d be right. There will come a day when I no longer have this scar.

Yet beauty is what inspires us to do what we ought to do, and this includes the beauty of Christ. We want our actions to be beautiful. We want our goals to be beautiful. We want to be beautiful. This isn’t just a female thing. Men should want this for themselves as well. Being a Christian means having a Christian view of beauty, and beauty being in the eye of the beholder is not a Christian view.

Beauty is in the object and things are beautiful for we have a beautiful God. We as Christians need to have a doctrine of beauty and be recognizing what all falls into this category.Let us do all we can to honor beauty and help those around us to be more beautiful so we can be presented to Christ as a beautiful bride.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. I was very pleased today to hear someone tell me that this blog is getting them interested in Aquinas and his thought! That’s quite the compliment! For any who are interested in that, I will give the advice of Lewis for another philosopher. “Read Plato. Not books about Plato.” Those interested can go to newadvent.org and read the links there to the Summa. Of course, I have nothing against you getting your own copy. Before we begin tonight, I would like to mention my prayer requests. First off, I ask for prayer for my Christlikeness. There is honestly so much and I see myself as so fallen. There’s work to be done and I depend on the Holy Spirit and I pray I submit more to the scalpel of the divine surgeon. Second, my financial situation. It’s getting better, but it will be an expensive Summer. Finally, I ask for prayers for a third situation in my life. Now on to the blog.

Are all beings good? This is the question Aquinas is asked. Aquinas affirms that they are indeed good, which would be surprising to many of us. Aquinas says that every being as being is good. Why is this the case? All being is some form of actuality and all forms of actuality are some form of perfection and all perfection is desirable. In that case, then everything is good.

This strikes us as odd because we can immediately think about evil and ask “Are we saying that is good?” This is, in fact, one of the objections that Aquinas has to deal with. Aquinas says that nothing is evil insofar as it has being. It is only evil in that it lacks the being it ought to have.

For instance, I do not have the power to run at super speed like Clark Kent. Now I’m not saying it wouldn’t be nice to have that power, but I unfortunately don’t. However, in me, that is not an evil because that is not a power that I possess by nature. When Clark Kent, however, is exposed to green or blue kryptonite, it is an evil because that is a power he ought to have by nature.

On the other hand, I have two eyes and if I lost sight in both of them, that would be an evil in my eyes because the eyes were designed to see and eyes that do not see are evil insofar as they don’t see, although they are good, insofar as they are eyes. What about someone like Hitler? Hitler was not a good man in that he lacked virtue. That is, it is of the nature of man to fulfill a certain role and he was created to be a good being. Hitler was not a good man in that he was not a man of virtue we should admire, but insofar as he was a man, we say he was good for while human beings can fail to be good morally, they are still human. I beg you readers to understand definitely that I am in no way saying the morality of Hitler was good.

For Aquinas, pure evil cannot exist. It is the absence of all being. Evil is a parasite and it requires the existence of good first. If there is no good, there can be no evil. Hence, all beings ultimately are good insofar as they have being. Application for us? We must keep that in mind with our fellow man. They are good because they have being. Not morally good, but ontologically good. We should treat them accordingly.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas which can be found at newadvent.org. We’re going through the doctrine of God as each Christian needs to have a good understanding of God. If you enter into a relationship with someone, it’s important to know who they are. Remember that Jacob should have known who he was marrying the first time around. First off, I have my prayer requests. I ask for prayer in my Christlikeness. Mainly, I need to get my thought life under control. This is something that I regularly struggle with and it’s keeping me from being the man that I need to be. The second is for my financial situation. Then I have a third request on a related are in my life I am working on. For now, let’s get to the question.

Aquinas gives a really short answer to this one. When we consider it, we will also see how simple it is. Aquinas says that before we can think of something, we must have an idea of that something. If we have an idea of something, then we must see that that something is. It is only when we have an idea that something is, that we can ask if that something is good.

When we ask if something is good, we want to know “A good what?” As soon as we say what, we imply that we are talking about something existing. We can’t think of goodness apart from the idea of something existing. We can think of something existing however and not seeing it as good, even though Aquinas would disagree. For Aquinas, all that exists is good insofar as it has existence.

Aquinas also has raised the objection about the person who desires non-being. Are they not desiring goodness apart from being? Aquinas answers that what they are desiring is relative non-being. They want that which they are going through to be that which they are not going through. They want non-being in the sense that they don’t want being as they have it now.

Le us remember what was said earlier. Even the suicide wants to be happy. It is because he is not happy that he is committing suicide. He thinks he’ll be better off and if that means non-existence, well that’s something better to him than what he’s going through at the moment. He’s just not thinking straight.

Aquinas would say that what is wanted is the removal of an evil and Aquinas has already said that goodness and being are really the same. Hence, what is wanted is the removal of non-being. This is one reason we all hate sin in ourselves and in each other. The reason we hate it is that it detracts us and others from being who we were meant to be, which is good. When we get to Heaven, we will have the removal of all that is not us, and then we shall be entirely good. Keep in mind this with good theology. It always has application to how we live.

We shall continue the topic of goodness tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We are going through the Summa Theologica in order to understand the doctrine of God. The Summa can be read online at newadvent.org. Last night, we finished the perfection of God and we’re going to start now with goodness, but before discussing the goodness of God, we need to discuss goodness in general. Before that, I need to go over my prayer requests. Goodness in general is interesting when beginning a prayer request for Christlikeness. I am more aware of where I want to be and just wonder what it will take to get there. Second, I ask for prayers for my financial situation. Finally, I ask for prayers for a third related area in my life.

This might sound like an odd question to some. Does goodness differ from being? Who would ask that? The medievals would. With the advent of uncovering the works of Aristotle, there was an emphasis on the doctrine of being. Goodness was considered to be a transcendental whereas wherever being was, there was goodness.

It is not a shock that Aquinas uses the very definition of goodness that comes from Aristotle, who he and others referred to as “The Philosopher.” When Aristotle defined goodness, he defined goodness as that which is desirable.

By doing this, we can avoid the Euthyphro dilemma. This was the dilemma asking in a monotheistic context, is something good because God wills it, or does God will it because it is good? Aristotle would have been familiar with the Euthyphro, the dialogue of Plato, from which this argument comes.

This can often be used to try to stump Christians on the goodness of God. Some say we define goodness by God’s nature, which is just as circular. Why not go Aristotle’s route? Define goodness first? It is the route that Aquinas takes.

This is the path that Aquinas takes when he says that goodness is that which is desired. This is an important point. The only reason anyone desires anything is they think it is good. There is some good in all that someone desires.

The vigilante for instance who takes matters into his own hands wants justice, which is a good thing. The abortionist aborting their child wants a lot of good things. The suicide even wants a good thing or else he would not be committing suicide. We can agree that there can be good ends in mind to action, such as justice, relief from financial pain, or the end of suffering, but the means to get there are not good.

Aquinas says the real good to be desired however is perfection. All desire their perfection. (Being a constant perfectionist, I agree.) To be perfect is to be actual. That which is most actual is God who is perfect and whose nature is being as well. (Hence, Aquinas would argue that all really desire God. Even the atheist does.)

But how does this answer the question? It would seem they are the same. Aquinas says no because being does not expressly contain the idea of being desirable. Goodness does. However, he does agree that something is good insofar as it possesses being. So what is his answer exactly then?

For Aquinas, they are the same in nature, but not in our conception of them. By saying something is, we state that it exists. By saying that it is good, we are saying that it is desirable. While they are the same in reality, they are different in concept.

We shall continue looking at goodness tomorrow.