Month: April 2010

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. We’ve been studying the doctrine of God right now and we’re on the question of how God is known by man. Our guide for this study has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. If you do not own a copy, and I do hope many of you are going to invest in one, you can read it online at newadvent.org. Before we get to tonight’s question, I’d like to mention my prayer requests. First off, continued Christlikeness, and I am pleased thinking of the way it does seem my thought life is changing and I hope that continues. Second, my finanical situation. Finally, I ask for prayers for a third related area in my life.

Can God be seen by the bodily eye? After all, while Aquinas has said we can know God, it is not enough to say that. We need to know how we can know God.  But won’t we see God with our bodies? Isn’t that what Job 19:26 says? In our flesh, we will see God? Aquinas says it’s not as simple as that and we should agree.

When we consider the text of this passage, (Yes everyone. Philosophers, medievals, and thus medieval philosophers can read the Bible) it does say that in our flesh we will see God, but it does not say that BY our flesh, we will see God. The passage is instead an affirmation of the faith of Job saying that he will live to see another life and in that other life, he will see God. He does not say how he will see God.

But do we not have appearances of God in the Old Testament? What about the many times where someone is said to see God? Indeed, if readers remember our Trinitarian commentary, we looked at those verses. We did indeed affirm that in some sense, God was seen, however, we have to affirm what sense that was.

Every time we concluded that it wasn’t God in his full nature being seen. After all, John 1:18 says that no one has seen God. We instead stated that it was an appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ who has the nature of God. In this case, God is seen through something else in the sense that in our bodily flesh as it is, we could not see God.

The ultimate question however is to ask why it is we cannot see God with our bodies. I hope many of you are having your theological minds turning already and have thought of the conclusion. Our bodies are great with their senses of getting data about sensible objects. God is not a sensible object however and our quest has been to find God by what he is not more often.

How will we see in our bodies? That is something that is to be addressed later on, but it is apparent that we will have to have some sort of transformation, perhaps that which comes about in the resurrection when we have new and glorified bodies, so that we may see he who is.

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 a study of the doctrine of God now and we’re looking at the topic of how we can know God. Our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. If anyone wants to read the work and they do not have it, a copy can be found at newadvent.org. Before we begin, I wish to make my prayer requests. First off, my Christlikeness which I notice is coming about more and more in thinking the way that I ought to, though I seek to get my thought life under control. Second, for financial concerns. Finally, I ask your prayers in a third related area in my life. For now, let’s get to the question.

Last night, we asked if it would be possible to ever see God and considered what a huge question this is for us as Christians. Tonight, we’re going to be asking if we will see God as he is or if we will just see some likeness of him. This is an important question for us as well. When we see God, will we see him as he is or will we just see something that gives us some sort of idea of him?

Note I am not saying that we will see God with full comprehension. I do not think that is possible for finite intellects. However, God will appear to us as he is. We will be beholding the real deal and the amount that each of us gets will be however much we can take and I do believe that could be proportional to how much we’ve sought God in this life.

Aquinas says we know God as he is. To begin with, he states that with material things, we do not behold the essence of the thing with our sight. For instance, if I see a rock, the likeness of the rock is in my vision, but the substance of the rock is not within me. That remains within the rock.

Note also that the nature of God could not be known through something inferior. We do see through a glass darkly. Right now, all we see is meant to give us ideas of what God is like. Consider it in a way as if God is flirting with us now. It will not be until we get to experience the consummation of his love as it were that we shall fully see him as he is.

How does he do this? God enables our intellect to be able to grasp him. We are not told how, but we are just told that this will happen. There is something in us however that can correspond to understand the nature of God insofar as we can. We have something in us that can take in the nature of the material and understand it. So we also have something within us that can take in the nature of the immaterial and understand it.

What does this mean for us? It means we really will see God. The Bible isn’t joking on this! It’s a reality! Christian! Grasp that for a moment even and I mean this for myself as well. You will see God. It is a shame we do not get excited about that as we should and I am including myself in that. We worry so much about future events that may never happen instead of rejoicing over the one certainty. We will see God.

Rejoice!

We shall continue tomorrow.

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 our guide for this journey is the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Those who do not own a copy of the Summa are free to go to newadvent.org and read the one online. We’re going to start tonight discussing the topic of how God is known by us. Before that, my prayer requests. First off, my Christlikeness in realizing the many great blessings I have in my life at the moment. Second, I ask for prayers for my financial situation. Finally, I do ask prayers for a third related area in my life to both of those. For now, let’s get to the topic.

As I began to write this blog, I really thought about this question and realized just how important it is. I’d like you to consider it as well. Let’s suppose that we answered this question and the answer to the question was “No.” Would you live your life differently? What would you think of Heaven? Could you even conceive that there could be such a place in Heaven if you could never see God?

St. Augustine asked us to picture a scenario where God makes us an offer. We will have eternal life, youth, and health. We will live in Paradise with no pain. We will never be bored. We will be able to do whatever we want. There will be nothing that will be sin for us. God grants us all this on one condition. We may never see his face.

Such a place does not strike us as Heaven. In fact, it could very well be a Hell instead. Thus, it is very important to us how we answer this question and we are quite fortunate that Aquinas does say that the answer to this question is yes.

The answer to this question is more from the faith tradition. It could be tied into the argument from desire used by apologists like Augustine, C.S. Lewis, and Peter Kreeft. (I am sure Kreeft is quite honored to be tied in with the two former) We have all these natural desires in us and there is something that fulfills them. What about the desire for God? Does that have fulfillment? (For those curious about the argument from desire, I recommend Peter Kreeft’s book “Heaven: The Heart’s Deepest Longing.”)

We were created for God as Augustine said. “You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their peace in thee.” We all desire to find the purpose of our lives. Many of us think of “God’s will for our lives” being along the lines of education, career, marriage, etc. Many of us don’t spend enough time instead thinking about the ultimate will for our lives. The ultimate will is that we will see God.

Christian. Whatever you are going through in your life, consider that if it is difficulty, that you should have this sentence going through your head. “I will one day see God.” If it is instead a good thing going on, pause and consider what better joy lies ahead for you can say “I will one day see God and that’s even better than this.”

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 right now we’re studying the unity of God which we will conclude tonight. Our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. For those of you who do not own a copy, you can read one online at newadvent.org. Before we go to the blog, I have some prayer requests to share. First off, for my continued Christlikeness, such as in handling the many changes of life. Second, I ask for prayers for my financial situation. Finally, I ask for prayers for a third related are in my life. For now, let’s get to the blog.

Is God supremely one? What does this mean? For Aquinas, one refers to an undivided being. In order to be supremely one then, something must be undivided supremely and to be being supremely. God qualifies for this of course since he is simple and based on the other arguments that we’ve seen, we can be sure that he is the only one who matches the criteria.

Interestingly, while he does not go into this now, Aquinas uses a quote from Bernard that says that the divine Trinity is supremely one. When we get to Aquinas on the Trinity, we will see how he handles this, but for the time being, while we may disagree with Aquinas on some points, we can be assured that he was not an idiot not were his contemporaries. If they can easily assert the tri-unity of God and his being supremely one, there is no contradiction between the two.

But are not all things one? How can something be more or less one? When we are dealing with the transcendentals, we must remember that all things insofar as they are partake the transcendentals. Thus, all things are good, true, beautiful, things, and all things are one. If that is the case, what keeps us from being one the same way God is?

Again, we return to the doctrine of analogy. We have oneness in us but not the way that God has it. God has it as the source. We have it by gift. Our oneness is also a limited oneness. We have limitations to our being since we are finite and we can be divided by nature as we are mutable beings.

None of this applies to God. God is simple as Aquinas has said earlier and because of this he cannot be divided. God is also then supremely being due to his perfection as well. He possesses full and unlimited being. Our being is limited by that our natures and by that which is external to us. Our being is a gift and we do not possess it by nature.

We conclude saying that God is indeed one and he is supremely one like no other. While we have written extensively on the Trinity of God, we must never lose sight of the oneness of God either as the oneness of God is essential if we are to even talk about the Triunity of God. Let us not lose sight again of how unique God is in Christian thought.

We shall start the next chapter tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. We are diving into the ocean of truth and into the deepest ocean that we can, the ocean that is the doctrine of God. We’ve been using as our guide the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Those of you who do not have the Summa in your possession can go to newadvent.org and read it online. We are right now studying the Unity of God. Before that, my prayer requests. First, I ask for your prayers for my Christlikeness as I learn to seek the true, the good, and the beautiful. Second, I ask for your prayers for my financial situation. Finally, I ask for your prayers for a third related area in my life. Time to get to our question tonight!

We’ve been going over the topic of unity and tonight, we’re going to bring God into it. Is God one? Aquinas says he is of course. He draws this from a number of points and as we can expect from Aquinas, he will be building on the earlier points he’s established in the doctrine of God.

To begin with, he starts with God’s simplicity. He uses Socrates, the classic example in philosophy, saying that which makes Socrates a man is had by many. Because of that, there can be many men. However, that which makes Socrates Socrates is particular to him. If he was Socrates by what makes him a man, then there could not be many men. However, God is God in turn by his nature being his essence. Because of this, there cannot be many gods and God is one.

This is also shown by his infinity. Because God is infinite, he possesses in himself all perfections of being. This is an important argument and one in fact that I am dialoguing on with a Mormon at this point as Mormon theology is quite lacking. In it, God only differs by degree and not by kind.

Let us then take Thomas’s idea that God has all perfections fitting of being. Let us suppose there was another God who supposed had the same. How would the two differ? Would it be by one having an imperfection? Then the other isn’t perfect. Would one have a perfection the other lacked? Then that other one isn’t perfect. In the end, it would seem that the two would have to be absolutely identical. However, if they are absolutely identical, they are not two but one.

Thomas’s third reason is the order of the universe. For Aquinas, it is easier to have one being the source of order rather than many for even in the multitude, there must be something that makes the multitude one. Oneness is the greater of the two principles. One is the cause of oneness by nature, but there are only many by accident, when there is a division in the oneness. Thus, since there is order in the universe, it follows that that which is the cause of the order is one rather than a multitude. (We will later on see how this works with the Trinity.)

We shall conclude the discussion of God’s unity tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been talking about the doctrine of God and been going through the Summa Theologica in our attempt to understand it. This, of course, is the work by Thomas Aquinas which can be found for free at NewAdvent.org. We’re discussing unity now and tonight, we’re going to be discussing still not the unity of God but what unity is. Before that however, my usual prayer requests. First, for my Christlikeness and tonight I’m thinking of the need to eliminate black and white thinking. Second, I ask for help for my financial situation, which is going better, especially since I had a nice tax return. Finally, I ask for prayers for a third related area in my life. Now let’s get to the question.

What about the topic of the One and the Many? Are they opposed. Now I’m not speaking about the One and the Many in relation to the Trinity, which is a whole other topic. I’m talking about the concepts on their own? Aquinas says they are for the concept of One speaks of that which is not divided while the concept of many speaks of that which is divided.

But an opposite can’t be predicated of its opposite can it? We can’t speak of the hot that it is cold. We can’t speak of the light that it is dark. However, it was agreed when we looked at the question yesterday that we do speak of the multitude in a certain way as being one. Therefore, they cannot be opposites.

However, one is an absolute term. Multitude is a relative term. When we have a multitude of fish for instance, there is absolutely one kind of fish there, but the distribution of that kind is an accident to the subject. It is then something relative. If there was just one fish, it would not change the nature from if there were 2, 12, or 2,400.

Opposites aren’t constituted by their opposites either, but the multitude is constituted by one. Therefore, they are not opposites. For this, Aquinas gets into the difference between homogeneous and heterogeneous substances. I have a glass of Sierra Mist next to me now as an example. The liquid in there is homogeneous. Whatever part you take out of it, it is soda. The glass that it’s in is heterogeneous. It is made of many parts and each part by itself is not a glass. A better example would be a house. The wood or bricks that make up a house are not the house, but they form the house when they come together. In this case, you have many unities coming and thus, a multitude of unities to form one unity.

But doesn’t each thing only have one opposite? However, the opposite of many is few. Not one. Therefore, one cannot be opposed. This is confusing absolute and relative again. In an absolute sense, they are opposed. In relation to an excess however, it is the few and the many that are opposed.

We shall look at this more tomorrow.

Hello everyone! Welcome back to Deeper Waters! I’m back and I hope you all enjoyed reading past blogs while I was away and I hope you had a wonderful Easter to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. We’re going to pick up our study of the doctrine of God. We’re looking at the Summa Theologica to do this of Thomas Aquinas. For those who do not own a copy, you can find one online at newadvent.org where you can read for free. Feel free to read ahead by all means if you want! We’re going to start tonight looking at the unity of God. Before that, I offer my prayer requests. First, my Christlikeness as I come to realize the love of Christ more especially and what that means. Second, for my finances. Third, I ask for prayers for a third related area in my life. For now, let’s get to the blog.

We’re going to be starting tonight on the unity of God and our first question will be to ask if One adds anything to being. One in this case is a transcendental, which means wherever you have being, you have One. When I use One in this sense, I will capitalize it.

So if we are going to ask if God is one, we need to know what that means. Is One truly a transcendental? First off, one is a quantity and to be a quantity is an addition to being. I am one man for instance. Because I am one man, then in addition to being a man, it seems I would have the property of being one and not two.

However, things are one by their substance. If one is something added to a thing, then it is one by this other something. Yet what is this other something one by? We must posit something else. We can go on ad infinitum. In order to avoid an infinite regress. One can add something in the sense of quantity, but it cannot add anything in the sense of substance. One is convertible with being.

But cannot something be divided by one? That which something can be divided by adds something to it and things are divisible by one and by many, so it would seem one does add something to being.

However, even if something is divided, there is nothing to prevent it from being undivided in another way. There can be a species such as man, a rational animal, but there are many who partake of the essence of that One species. There is, on the other hand, one me, and I am composed of many parts. Every multitude is in some way One. As G.K. Chesterton said you cannot speak of “all chairs” unless there is something common to being a chair.

To be One is actually to say what something is not. Something is One in the sense that it is not divided. As we get on in this, we will come to see more of what it means for God to be One. Let us remember that the medievals approached their doctrine seriously because they approached their God seriously. May we do the same!

We shall continue that tomorrow!