Month: June 2010

Does God Know The Enunciable?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the Ocean of Truth. Thank you Manwe and Richard for your comments last night on Stormy. My family is doing better today, but it’s still hard, and last night as I went to bed, I do admit the world seemed a bit empty. However, today we need to continue our study of the doctrine of God using the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas that can be found at NewAdvent.org. We are discussing the topic of the knowledge of God and we are asking if God knows the enunciable.

Think of something. Anything. Really ponder it.

Does God know what you’re thinking? Do you have to say it?

That’s the question.

Aquinas answers that God does indeed know our thoughts. Now when it comes to prayer, I think it can be important to still pray out loud and honestly, I don’t know if I do or not. It’s something I haven’t thought about, though I’m thinking that usually I don’t, and personally, I’m not the best at public prayer.

This is good news for those of us then that are like me. Of course, I do think there is a place for public prayer and I do think there is something to sometimes saying what you believe out loud. I think saying it out loud can really show the depth to which it reaches in you.

But how is it that God knows the enunciable? He knows it the same way that he knows everything else. He knows it by knowing himself. Because he knows all the ways that being can be, he knows all the ways we can think about being. We are incapable of thinking of something new. It is like trying to think of a new primary color. It cannot be done.

All works of imagination bring out some kind of being and just change it in some way. Consider one of my favorites of Superman. We simply took a man and gave him unique powers that were alterations of what was already there and then we threw in things like unique weaknesses such as kryptonite and magic.

On a related note, some people ask if the demons know our thoughts. It’s my opinion that they don’t. They don’t have the range of being that God does. I do believe they could be great readers of human nature. Many times, we can get an idea of what someone is thinking by watching them and it wouldn’t surprise me if demons did that. I do also think demons and angels can both in some way influence our thinking. They can’t see into our thinking, but I have no problem with them trying to send us thoughts to get us to do what they would have us to do.

What can we conclude from this? God knows those little silent prayers you pray when you can’t confess something vocally. He hears you. We also need to learn to watch our thought life and try to get it under control. We can’t control random thoughts that come into our minds, but we can control what we do with them.

We shall continue tomorrow.

For Stormy

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I am going to diverge from our study of the knowledge of God to write on a different topic. As it stands, my family, which I live independently of, had to make a difficult decision today. Our family cat had been suffering greatly from numerous injuries and it was only a matter of time. Thus, the difficult decision had to be made to put him to sleep. I ask for your prayers in this time, particularly for my family as they are the ones coming home to an empty house. In light of what I would normally write, I am going to write a tribute blog tonight to Stormy.

Stormy was around 14 years old. We got him shortly after the death of our first cat. He was a beautiful Himalayan who wanted attention, especially from his “Mommy.” (Of course, not a cat Mommy.) My mother would hold him very closely often and he was just in Heaven whenever she did that.

For me, if I held him, he would stretch out his arms and legs as if he was flying upside-down, to which we called him Superkitty when he did that. He didn’t seem to do this for anyone else besides me and we never understood why it was that I was the only one who got that reaction.

Like any cat, everything had to be his idea, but his ideas were always amusing. It could be a picture of him in a travel case or a picture of him on my Mom’s head or a picture of him lying in the sink or a picture of him on top of my computer screen. Stormy found the strangest places to explore.

The only contention he really had was when there was another stray cat visiting our house and when Stormy and the other cat saw each other through a glass door, the two would hiss at each other. We called that cat Duke. After all, Stormy was the king so this would have to be the duke.

He had his own strange characteristics. Whenever he was done using the litter box usually, he would meow as if to announce what had happened. My own mother was the only one who could always understand him, even knowing when she came home one time from a trip and he meowed that the neighbor who had been taken care of him had been giving him the wrong kind of food.

We also had to get special bowls for him. Why? Because he had a habit of knocking over the bowl with his paw so he could eat off of the floor. Even when we got him bowls that he could not knock over, he would take each piece of cat food still and scrape it out of the bowl and knock it onto the floor so he could enjoy it there.

There were numerous times I would get him catnip and watch him “get drunk” off of the stuff. It was so amusing to see him lying near this towel with catnip and him deliriously rolling around. Like most any cat however, it didn’t last too long. When it came to any other kind of playing, it had to be his idea and only for a short time. Still, it didn’t take much. While we could often get toys at the store, he was just as fine playing with a rolled up paper wad.

Most enjoyable also was a time I found out a laser pointer was a great toy for a cat. Not only that, my IPhone whenever I used it around him brought much enjoyment. I would play the catpiano app and he would look around wondering where that sound came from and if another cat was nearby.

When my mother’s fiftieth birthday rolled around, I got her a picture I had an artist paint of Stormy taken from a photograph I had of him. Along with it was the caption “Love my Mommy” and indeed he did and she loved him and she still does. She will always hold a place in her heart for Stormy.

Sometimes, I had to take him to the vet when I lived there. It was never an easy time as first off, I often had to get the neighbor to help him into the kitty carrier. Then, the whole way there he would whine whine whine. Ironically, when the visit was done, he had no problem getting back into the carrier and when we got home, he would hide for a couple of hours until he was convinced it was safe to trust us again.

Things were getting tough for Stormy. His pelvic bone was torn and we found out he had spine damage. He was dehydrating and before too long he would be completely paralyzed. The decision was not easy I’m sure and when I got the phone call this morning, my mother was bawling. She didn’t have to say anything. I knew.

Do pets go to Heaven? I don’t believe there’s a definitive answer to this question, but when I think about this, I hope. I have no theological basis for thinking it or any philosophical evidence, but there is a strong part of me that says “Surely somewhere out there he’s waiting to see us again.” If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but I wonder if the God who created such variety of animals will not have some that were strongly bonded with us on the other side as well.

As I went through this day, it was hard for me as well. My mother on the phone bawling in the mid-afternoon was hard to hear. As I drove down the road then, my Dad texted me a picture of Stormy that said “A great friend.” (I get teary-eyed even as I write this now.) I was glad to finally park where I needed to as I thought that I would just break down. The sadness was great and certain recent events have got me more emotionally in touch with myself so that things hit me in this fashion.

Maybe I am away, but I miss him. I always have. Whenever I return to see my family, seeing Stormy has always been one of the highlights. I do hope I will see him again someday. In closing, I think I can end it best with a quote that a friend’s husband used at the death of their cat.

“My heart has joined the thousand, for my friend stopped running today.”

R.I.P. Stormy. June 3rd, 2010. We love and miss you.

Does God Know Future Contingent Things?

Hello everyone and welcome to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We are continuing our quest into the knowledge of the doctrine of God with our guide being St. Thomas Aquinas and his Summa Theologica. You can read a copy of his work for yourself at newadvent.org. We are studying the topic of the knowledge of God right now and we are on the thirteenth article. Tonight’s question is if God knows future contingent things.

I am sure this will be a very controversial one and if I have to do another blog to answer objections, I’ll do that. My rule is to do only one more however and I leave it to readers if they want to debate it out here in the comments. I might jump in. I might not.

To begin with, I think it’s important to start with our doctrine of God. We have to keep in mind all that has been said about God before with regards to his simplicity, eternality, immutability, infinity, etc. If we change something here, we must go back and see the ramifications of what that will be on God. If God does not know the future, what will that mean?

Also, for those who are strict Calvinists, Aquinas does believe in free will and when he gets to his doctrine of man, he will defend that. For now, he assumes it and so will we for the sake of argument. That, however, is not a discussing I wish to get in. I avoid that debate like the plague.

By contingent, we mean things that were not necessary to be. We could simply ask that if God knows something is it contingent? Could it have been another way? My answer to this is that if God knows you will do something then yes, you will do it. However, he also knows what kind of action it is. It is an action that you freely do.

Our actions are contingent because we are. None of us had to be and God did not have to create any of us in order to be God. God could have gone without creating anything and he would have still been God. God alone is the one who is necessary for if he is not, then nothing else can be. If you and I were not, the universe could get on just fine.

However, if God does not have knowledge of the future, then he is informed by something outside himself which means first off that he’s not without limits and is thus not infinite. It also means that he’s not eternal for he goes from not knowing X to knowing X. That would mean that he changed in some way which means he’s not immutable. Then, that counts as motion and whatever undergoes motion has parts which means God’s simplicity is called into question.

Now of course, there are many who do say that these doctrines aren’t true, but we must begin with God before we decide that. I fully believe in the free will of man. I have no hesitancy saying God knows my future entirely but also saying that my future is free. God has entire knowledge of what I will freely do.

So now, let the objections fly!

Maybe we’ll continue tomorrow.

Does God Know Infinite Things?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. Much praise to God for a large donation that came in from a friend today. It is good to know that when you are at hard times in your life, you do have friends in your life. God always provides. Today, we’re going to go back to our study of the doctrine of God and we’re going to crack open once again the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. If you do not have your own copy to crack open, you can use your browser instead and go to newadvent.org. We are discussing the topic of God’s knowledge and asking if God knows infinite things.

This is an interesting one for we know that an infinite can only be known successively by us. We know one part after another and as soon as one person thinks he knows all the parts, there are still more parts. We cannot know infinite things for this is how we possess knowledge in this life.

Aquinas asks us to consider how we know what men are. When I look at an individual, I can know this man or that man. For instance, I have friends who are identical twins. However, there are some minor differences that I can see so that when I see one of them, I know which one it is. (Granted, I still have not learned to tell their voices apart)

However, it is not by my senses alone that I can tell they are men alone, but it is by the intellect pondering what has come through the senses. I can look at each of them and tell certain things about men. I can look at women and tell certain things about women. I can look at men and women and tell certain things about humanity.

All of these I learn through inference. I take this piece of information and from that I reason to this piece of knowledge. However, God does not think in the same way as he learns nothing by inference for if he did, then he would be dependent on something else for his knowledge. There would be, in essence, knowledge that existed outside the mind of God.

God, rather, knows all things at once as it has been said, by knowing himself. Aquinas does not include this in the knowledge of vision however as we’ve already seen his position on infinities in the material world. Things can be relatively infinite, but he does not hold to actual infinities, save for God alone who is infinite not in a quantitative sense but in a qualitative sense. God is without limits.

The importance of this question for us is that it helps us better understand how it is God knows the material world. We are beings that reason from sense experience and the drawing of inferences to conclusions. This is also a problem with a scientism worldview that believes that all truth is that which can be explained through the scientific method. Proper inferences are to be followed for every field and that is philosophical. The method collects the data. Sound reasoning works with the data. God, however, does not know as we know. He knows all things eternally by knowing himself.

We shall continue tomorrow.