Month: August 2010

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Deeper Waters. We are continuing our look at the doctrine of God in Christian teaching. Our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. If you do not own a copy, you can read one for free online at newadvent.org. Certain tools like Kindle, an Ereader, and an IPhone can provide a way for you to read as well. Of course, I think the best way is to go pick up the book and read it. We’ve come a long way and tonight we’re going to answer the question of if providence imposes necessity, which will wrap up our look at the providence of God.

What this means is that if all things are under the divine providence, then wouldn’t it follow that all things must happen the way they do and that all things are thereby necessary and not contingent. Aquinas will argue that this is not the case and some things are contingent.

Now some things are necessary. It is necessary that if anything exists, it participates in being. It is necessary that all things be ordered to the divine goodness by the providence of God. However, Aquinas does believe that there can be numerous ways to get to a necessary end.

Suppose we use this as an illustration. I wish to go to the store to purchase some items. I have a number of means at my disposal. I can walk if it’s close enough. I can drive if I need to. I can call a friend to pick me up. I can also call a taxi or take a bus to get there. It could be that reaching my end is necessary, but the means by which I choose to reach that end are contingent.

Divine providence has worked out that some things will happen necessarily, but these can also come about through different means. For instance, Christians will necessarily be conformed to the image of Christ. However, all that happens in their life is not necessary. God will still use these events that happen to bring about the goal that he has for us.

This also does work fine with the freedom of man. God does know what I will do for all time. He knows what will happen to me tonight and what will happen to me a year from now, but he also knows that I will freely choose to do whatever it is that I will do.

How this works with providence is the trust that if God has willed that something will necessarily happen, we can be sure that it will. Thus, if God has willed us to be conformed to the likeness of Christ, then this truly means that we can rejoice at all that happens in our lives. We can look and say that whatever it was, the master worker is capable of molding the clay in such a way that even this that has happened will be used to bring about his purpose. It’s all about trusting God and not trying to be God.

Tomorrow, we start a new subject.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are continuing our dive into the ocean of truth. We’re going through the doctrine of God now in Christian thought. The text that we are using is the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. This can be read for free at newadvent.org. Remember also readers that these posts are available for further discussion at theologyweb.com in the Deeper Waters section. Tonight, we’ll be looking at whether God has immediate providence overall. Let’s go to the question.

Aquinas sets out two kinds of providence. One is the idea of guiding things towards an end and the other is the execution of that providence. For the second, that does not apply to God as God is not the primary efficient cause of everything in the sense that he causes all things directly. He acts through secondary means often. He allows others to take part in governing the universe out of the goodness of his abundance to give what Aquinas refers to as “the dignity of causality.” This is a term readers of Pascal and Lewis should recognize as spoken of in relation to what they say of prayer.

But does it not belong to the dignity of a king to have ministers under him in order to bring about what he desires? These ministers are the ones who have immediate providence over the areas that they rule. Since it is part of a king’s dignity to be this way, what of God who is much more dignified?

However, the reason a king has such ministers is because there is a deficiency in himself. He cannot be in all places at once and know all things. He must rely on His subjects due to a deficiency that He possesses in His finitude. God does not possess any such deficiency however and so He can rule over all things immediately and do so with dignity, however, as was said earlier, He grants some of us to be able to have some providence as well to give us the dignity of causality.

However, if God has immediate providence, wouldn’t there be no secondary causes? Not at all. The secondary causes are the executors of the order of God. God can act through these secondary causes still to bring about what He desires. Especially for the angels that are bound to Him, He can bring about what He desires.

We are also told that Augustine says it is better to not know some things, such as ignoble things. It would be better for us for instance to not know the evil that we are capable of lest we be tempted to bring about that evil. If such is better, then it follows God must not have providence over wicked and ignoble things.

However, this is only for us for we are finite. It is better for us to not know them because we do not possess true knowledge of the higher good and our wills are easily bent towards evil. This does not apply to God who is perfect goodness and cannot be bent towards evil.

Thus, we conclude with Aquinas that God does have immediate providence over the universe, something that should help us all sleep easier tonight.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we continue our dive into the ocean of truth. I think Mr. Minder for his question and I hope sometime soon to start up a thread in the Deeper Waters section of theologyweb.com where that can be discussed. For now, we’re going to continue our look at the Christian doctrine of God as it is found in the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. This can be read for free at newadvent.org. Our topic now is the providence of God and tonight we’re asking if all things are under God’s providence.

One of the objections is one I’d particularly like to focus on and that is the problem of evil. If there is a good God who is providentially looking out over the world, why is there so much evil? This is not a new objection. It was the objection the Manicheans raised in fact. If God is good, whence evil? The objection in the Summa says that either God cannot hinder these things and is not omnipotent, or else he is not omnibenevolent. Today, it is also asked that he might not know how to stop evil and thus he is not omniscient.

Aquinas points out the different between particular providence and universal providence. Particular providence resides over one particular matter. Consider a conveyor belt at an automobile factory. Suppose you are the guy in charge of the left headlight on the car. That is what you have particular providence over. If a car comes off the line and its tailpipe is damaged, well nothing can be done to you about that. If, however, one comes off the line and the left headlight doesn’t work, the boss will be talking to you.

However, the one who is over the factory has universal providence. It could be he’ll allow some defects to assure the goodness of the whole. He might like to have the best workers possible, but that might not be possible or else they might spend so much time on their job that a car will never come off the line. He puts up with the lesser evil of less than the best workers to bring about the greater good of getting more of the product off of the assembly line.

In the same way, Aquinas reminds us that God is so almighty that the only reason he would allow any evil is if some good will come out of it. Now suppose someone speaks of gratuitous evils? Well if that is their argument, they will have to first name such an evil and then demonstrate how it is that they know no good has come of that or evil will come.

A common one is the story of the young deer caught in a forest fire and cannot escape and is burnt alive. What good comes of that? However, how do they know no good has come? My wife, for instance, is an animal lover. She and several others would be spurred at that to be more watchful in our nation’s forests and take better care to prevent forest fires from taking place so that less animals would be harmed, which would be a good. (Note that I do recognize some forest fires are good as they help destroy the overgrowth)

Aquinas even points to examples of the lion having to slay his prey as being a good and to even martyrdom. Since there are tyrannical despots allowed to persecute the church, then that means the church gets to bring glory to God as everyone sees the reality of their faith. As Tertullian said, the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.

If someone wishes to raise the problem of evil as an objection to providence, it is up to them to show the necessary contradiction. So far, no one has succeeded.

We as Christians then can rest assured that nothing happens that God does not allow. His providence is at watch and in the end, he will bring about the desired outcome.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone. Welcome to Deeper Waters where we dive into the ocean of truth. For all who were expecting a blog last night, I apologize. My wife and I had an exceptionally busy day and when we got home, it was just a time for us to relax. If you ever see a day without a blog, don’t panic. I could just be busy that day.

Having said that, we are going to start a new section in our doctrine of God tonight and that will be the providence of God. Our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica, written by the brilliant 13th century monk, Thomas Aquinas. This can be read for free online at newadvent.org. Our first question will be if providence can even be suitably attributed to God.

Aquinas says it definitely can. Providence is God’s overseeing hand guiding all things to a fitting end. This gets us into the area of teleology, why something is the way it is. This does not apply to God because God does not have an end beyond Himself but rather He is the end of all things.

Thus, to say that God maintains providence over the world is to say that He is actively working in all things to bring things to an end befitting their natures. This also involves the exemplar cause, which is that after which something is made, much like blueprints are the exemplar cause of a building. The end of all things is in God in the sense of an exemplar cause as well.

But how can this be the case since God is eternal? Can he truly have providence eternally since all that he creates is temporal? If providence is a component of the nature of God, then it would seem that either things are eternal other than God, which we know is not true, or that God changed to become providential, which we also know is not true.

Aquinas deals with this by breaking it into two types of providence. The exemplar of order is eternal. That is, in God, there is always the idea of things being ordered towards their end and it is with this in His mind that He creates. The second is the execution of order which is temporal. God was free not to create but any creation he makes he has providence over.

Providence however includes both intellect and will, but God is not composite, so how can this be? Aquinas says that providence does lie in the intellect, but to have providence presupposes an end that one is willing. This still would not be a problem for divine simplicity anyway since in God, intellect and will are one and the same thing.

What we can get out of this is a reminder that we should believe in the providence of God. Too much of what we do in the form of worrying is forgetting that God is in control. Whatever is going on in your life today stop and relax and realize that God is still overseeing the universe. A passage like Romans 8:28-29 is highly helpful in this.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Welcome back everyone to Deeper Waters. We hope this blog is helping you navigate the ocean of truth so that you can avoid sharks. We’re studying the doctrine of God now in Christian thought. Our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. This can be read for free by anyone at newadvent.org. We’re going to wrap up our look now at the justice and mercy of God by asking if these two are found in every work of God.

When we spoke earlier of mercy, we spoke of it as that which removes defects. Not every defect however is that which causes misery but only in one whose lot it is to be happy. This would belong to rational creatures like angels and human beings, and of course, God, though God has no defects. To not remove a defect in a rock does not affect any happiness in the rock since the rock cannot have happiness.

This is important in understanding how God works. He is working for the happiness of rational creatures and does allow some defects. We can all name several defects that exist in us. However, all God does is done in accordance with his wisdom, which means he is acting out the debt he has to himself. In this case, mercy and justice are involved in all that he does.

Also, all that God does, he does for the sake of his goodness and all things eventually reach that goodness. For instance, Aquinas asks why a man has hands. He has hands because it is good for his rational soul. Why does he have a rational soul? So he can be a man? Why is he a man? It is because of the divine goodness. Ultimately, all things come to the divine goodness. So in the above paragraph we saw justice at work. In this one, we see mercy at work.

Of course, justice and mercy are at work in different aspects. Aquinas says justice is more at work in the conversion of Jews in the New Testament due to the promises that were made to the Jews. Mercy was more at work for the Gentiles since theirs was not the promises, as was said of the Gentiles by Paul in Romans.

Also, Aquinas says mercy is always at work in that no one gets entirely what they deserve. Not even in Hell are all getting what they deserve as they still exist even. The reason you and I continue in existence is because God has mercy on us and we should give thanks for that.

When looking at suffering we undergo here, there is also mercy. Suffering for us is designed to remove defects. We are being refined in the refiner’s fire and purified to that we can be presented before the throne without fault and blemish, as we know that there certainly is fault and blemish in us now.

We conclude then with Aquinas that there is justice and mercy in all that God does and for that, we are thankful.

Tomorrow, we start a new topic.

Welcome back readers to Deeper Waters as we continue our dive into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through the doctrine of God in Christian thought and tonight, we’re going to continue our look as we begin a focus on the mercy of God. Our guide that we have been following has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. This can be read for free at newadvent.org. Tonight, we’re going to be asking if mercy can be attributed to God.

Our first objection to this is that mercy is a kind of sorrow. However, as we looked earlier, we found that God is impassible and thus, he cannot be said to have a passion. If we were right earlier, it would seem that we are wrong now and we must look again at several other doctrines. However, could it be that we are wrong now?

Mercy is a passion in the sense of the experience, but not in the act. God acts in ways that are merciful, but this is not because he has a passion within him that is responding to something, but rather because of his divine wisdom. The great joy if impassibility is knowing that God cannot be swayed by something external to himself. Because someone has more emotion, that does not mean God’s heart leans towards them more. You cannot blackmail God in any way.

The second argument says that mercy is a relaxation of justice. However, based on 2 Timothy 2:13, God cannot deny himself. If he were to have mercy then, it would seem that he would be denying himself for he does not possess justice so much as he is justice per his simplicity.

Aquinas answers however that God does not go against justice but rather does something that is more than justice. For instance, suppose you have a debt of $100 to a man. You pay him $200 when you repay your debt. You did not go against justice, but rather, you went beyond it. You gave him what you owed him and then you gave him even more.

Mercy is the same way. Mercy is a gift. To forgive someone something is to bestow upon them a gift. The God who can forgive our sins is one who is indeed terrifying. He can forgive them as a gift and is not forced to punish. What forgiveness we have, we should see as a gift of divine grace.

The purpose of mercy is to remove defects from what one has. Mercy is seen as the goodness that expels defects. Where justice is owed for some lack in something, mercy means going the extra mile. Justice says punish the sinner. Mercy says he can be punished, but he can instead be forgiven as a gift. Justice says repay the man the money you owe. Mercy says to repay and give him even more from what he lacks out of your bounty.

We can be thankful that God is merciful, though it is not in the sense of experiencing a passion, but in the sense that he gives us not only what we owe, but that by which he chooses to bless us. Forgiveness is a benefit to us. God is not benefitted by forgiving us, but we can exalt him for the forgiveness he has given and spread the glory of his Name.

Let’s do that.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. Thanks to a commenter who stated that they understand the switch to married life. It’s an interesting one but a good one. Readers can expect the blog to go up earlier. For our studies, we are looking at the doctrine of God and having our guide for that be the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. This can be read for free at newadvent.org. We’re talking about the justice and mercy of God and tonight, we’re going to be asking if the justice of God is truth. Let’s go to the question!

Immediately, we are presented with the idea of great teachers of the past, and in this case, Anselm and then Aristotle, who wasknown as the Philosopher in the medieval period. Dante had referred to Aristotle as “The Master of those who know.” Anselm is especially famous for the ontological argument. A side note here is that the medievals knew to respect those great teachers who came before them. Would that we could learn that!

For Anselm, we are told that he said that justice resides in the will. However, when we did a study on truth earlier, we concluded that truth resides in the intellect. If justice resides in the will and truth resides in the intellect, then it would seem that the justice of God cannot be truth.

Aquinas answers that when we speak of justice, we are also speaking of the law that governs. The law resides in the mind of God. However, when it comes to meting out the justice, that resides in the action. Thus, the idea resides in the intellect but the working out of the idea resides in the will and thus, there is no contradiction.

But what about the Philosopher? He argued that truth is a virtue separate from justice. If that is the case, then it would seem that the justice of God cannot be truth.

Aquinas knows the passage well however and says that the truth that Aristotle is speaking of here is virtue whereby a man shows himself in word and deed to be what he really is. In other words, he is true to himself. This means that it is in conformity with what is signified and is not simply the effect lining up with its cause and rule.

Why is this the case? Aquinas says that truth does consist in the equation of the idea in the intellect with the reality. However, the intellect can also be the rule or measure of things. How true is an artwork? It is true if it corresponds to the idea the artist had in his mind.

This is the same way it is with justice. The way of justice lies in the wisdom of God. When things are done in accordance with that wisdom, they are done truly. It is because of this that when God acts, we say that God acts in truth. He acts in accordance with his wisdom just as an artwork is to be in accordance with the artist.

Tomorrow, we shall look at part 1 of 2 on mercy.

Hello everyone. I hope you all have enjoyed reading back posts on Deeper Waters. I have been enjoying myself on a honeymoon and getting used to married life. This doesn’t mean Deeper Waters is ending. Not at all. The wife and I are interested in expanding Deeper Waters further. We do hope to have a more global outreach however so that my activity in other areas will be shortened so that it can be more focused in still other areas. For now however, we are returning to our study of Thomas Aquinas and the doctrine of God in the Summa Theologica. This can be read for free at newadvent.org. Tonight, we’re going to start discussing the justice of God and asking the question if justice does exist in God.

Aquinas wishes us to realize that there are two kinds of justice. The first is communicative justice. This consists in the mediums of exchange such as buying and selling. This does not exist in God. The other is distributive justice. In this, a ruler gives someone the rank that they deserve. This kind does exist in God since he does give his creation what they have.

But does not justice lie in not doing what one wills but what one ought? However, in Ephesians 1:11, we are told that God works all things according to the counsel of his will. Since doing what one wills and pleases is not justice, then it appears that God is not just.

However, this is answered in that this is the way it is for humans. Humans need a law outside of themselves to reach the potential that they ought to reach. However, there is no moral restraint outside of God on God. I do not even consider it accurate to say God is moral, in that it implies that he does what he ought to do and there is nothing outside of God that says he ought to do such. God does not will anything that is not in accordance with wisdom and is rather a law unto himself. Thus, God is just.

How can God be said to be just however if it cannot be said that there is nothing that he owes anyone?

Justice in God however is the fitting accompaniment of his goodness and is fitted to each person according to the divine wisdom. God has a debt to himself. He is to act according to his will and his wisdom. Aquinas quotes Anselm who said that if God punishes the wicked, that is good for they deserve it. If he does not punish them, that is also good for mercy belongs to his goodness. Essentially, we simply have to trust God.

We conclude then with Aquinas that justice does rely in God. Of course, the outworkings of that justice will be pointed out in further blogs and again, I can highly recommend doing what one reader of Deeper Waters is doing. Going to Newadvent.org and reading up on Aquinas’s thought yourself. There is nothing like approaching the old saint himself.

We shall continue tomorrow.