Month: May 2010

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I’m glad you’ve either come back to this blog or are coming for the first time. If for the first time, feel free to check the archive. There’s plenty to keep you reading for awhile. We’re going through the doctrine of God now and our guide is the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. If you do not own a copy, I recommend you go to newadvent.org and you can read it online for free. Of course, I have no objections to your getting your own personal offline copy. Tonight, we’re going to ask if the names that we apply to God are applied synonymously.

What does that mean? Well when we say that God is good and we say that he is wise, are we really meaning the same thing? How could that be? We’ve stated earlier that simplicity is an important attribute of God in the thought of Aquinas. In fact, right after the existence of God, simplicity is the first one covered.

If that is the case, aren’t we speaking of simply one reality, namely God, and when we say anything, we’re simply speaking of that one reality. Can we really speak of that one reality in different ways? We are not going to be saying that goodness is wisdom after all are we?

Like any good thinker, Aquinas knows what you’re thinking is an objection to his system. In fact, he knows the objection better than you do. He’s also got his answers prepared to all of the objections. Aquinas’s answer is that the names are not synonymous but refer to different things.

While God is one, we see him presented in many diverse ways. It is because on our side we are limited and we cannot take in God all at once. When we use different names, we are speaking of different ways of describing him. When we say that he is good, we mean that he is the one that is supremely desirable. When we say that he is omnipotent, we mean that he is the one who possesses all power.

None of these names give a perfect description of God. They are all imperfect. Our understanding of goodness and wisdom and other attributes of God is imperfect. When we say God is good, for instance, we do not know entirely what that means, but we do know that we have an idea of what that means.

All of these names that we give then do apply to the one reality of God, but they apply differently to the way that one reality is understood by us. We speak of the one reality that is God but when we do so, we speak of him in ways that we can only grasp one idea of what he is like at a time.

We should be thankful we can understand God in so many ways and learn once again how seriously the medievals took the topic of God in that even in discussing the way that we speak of him, they saw that we have to be careful with our language. May we continue to do so.

We shall continue this tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I hope things are going well for you and you’re continuing to pray for me. We are going through the doctrine of God and we’re using the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas as our guide. A copy can be read online at newadvent.org. We’ll be asking the question tonight of if names can be properly applied to God.

One concern with this is that there are several names that definitely cannot be applied to God. We do not speak of God literally when we say that he is a rock or that he is a lion. However, that does not mean that there is no truth to the statements that have been made. When we say God is a rock, we are not saying that he is a material substance that is hard and impenetrable. However, we are saying that he is strong and sturdy and unchanging and will not be moved.

However, there are names in which we do say something of God in his nature. We do such when we say that he is good or that he is wise. Aquinas does make a distinction here however. While we can say that these apply properly to God, they do not apply in the same way. The way that God possesses goodness is different from the way that we do. God is goodness by his eternal act of existing. We are good by our being as Aquinas says earlier, but we exist by grace. There could be no goodness in us unless there was goodness in God.

In other words, creatures do possess these attributes such as goodness and these are perfections insofar as they are possessed, but they are possessed imperfectly. God, on the other hand, possesses all perfections not imperfectly but perfectly. Heis perfect goodness, justice, wisdom, truth, etc.

This doesn’t present a problem either for the idea that many of the names we use of God tell more what he is not rather than what he is. The perfections that we have about him tell us that he is not like any of the creatures that he created. Creatures change, for instance, because they are imperfect. God on the other hand, does not change as he is already perfect and there is no basis for change in him.

What can we get out of this? We can learn that we truly can speak of God and know something about him. This would be important in Aquinas’s day when there was much debate against the Muslims of the time. In Islam, God is ultimately unknowable. This is not a problem for the Christian who believes God has revealed himself and especially in Christ.

We Christians are the ones who can go out and tell a world what God is like and what can be done to know him. In Aquinas’s thought, if you wanted to be God’s friend, you could be considered a Christian. Of course, that has to be the God who is there and not just any god. The only way you can choose to be his friend however is to know something about him. Thankfully, according to Aquinas, that can be done.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I apologize for the lack of updates. I had a late late evening Thursday night so I didn’t blog. As for the rest of the time, I’ve been out of town. I hope no one was too worried. As it is, right now, there should be a feature available on the blog so that fans who like what is going on here and want to support the ministry can do so. Hopefully I will also be able to somehow pull together enough computer knowledge and enough computer imagination to find some ways to update the site from what I fear could be a bland look for the time being. However, tonight we are going to continue our look at the doctrine of God with the guide being the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. A copy is available to be read online at newadvent.org. We will be looking at the second question on the name of God.

This is asking if names can be substantially applied to God. In other words, when we give a name to God, are we able to say something of God in describing the way he is. For instance, some had said that saying that God is good is saying that God is the cause of goodness in things.

However, Aquinas says that we could just as easily then say that God is a body because God is the cause of bodies. When we say God is good, we do affirm that God is the cause of Goodness in things, but we also claim to be knowing something about God.

This is also different from relational terms for God in names. For instance, to say that God is Lord is not describing the substance of God but rather an outworking of God’s relation to creation in light of the nature that he is. Since God is sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient, etc., then he is Lord. However, if there is no creation, there are no beings for him to be Lord over.

Thus, when we are speaking of God substantially, it means that any term that we apply to him is one that could be applied of him if there was no creation. Each of them is saying “I am telling you something about God as he is in himself and with this name, this is what I am saying.”

However, Aquinas agrees that this is not saying entirely that this is what God is. Instead, it is saying that this is what God is like. We see a certain perfection in creatures called goodness. This is limited in them. However, when we come to God, this is unlimited. This does not mean that we understand entirely what this goodness is. We just know what it is like.

So Aquinas does agree that we can state something of what God is like, but it is always going to be limited. He does not however wish us to be agnostic about God and say we can know nothing about the divine nature, but like Paul would say, he does affirm that at this point in time, we see through a glass darkly.

We shall continue tomorrow.