Category: Summa Theologica

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’re studying the Christian doctrine of God right now and seeing how it affects our lives. Our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas which can be found at newadvent.org. We are on the section right now on the names of God. We’re going to be looking at the sixth questions tonight. Are named predicated of God predicated primarily of creatures?

What does that mean exactly? Well we say that God is good, but does that come primarily through what we see of creatures? The concept of goodness is primary in them and only secondarily applies to God? It could seem that this is the way because in Thomistic thought, we know the creator by knowing the creation.

However, we have a problem if we take this route. We do not then really know God. God can once again be said to be good simply because he is the cause of goodness in creatures. Because that could be the case, that does not mean that God is necessarily good. After all, God is the cause of bodies in creatures but he himself is not embodied. We could say God is the ultimate mixed bag then since he is the cause of chickens, humans, dinosaurs, whales, giraffes, etc.

The names are primarily applied to God however in that he is good before his creation is good. Creatures are said to be good insofar as they come to approach the goodness of God. However, for Aquinas, there is one sense in which names are applied primarily of creatures and secondarily to God.

This is when we speak in metaphor. When we say that God is a lion, we do not mean he is primarily a lion. We speak of the lion first and say the lion has a trait that we find in God. The lion is a fierce contender and is king over the area he surveys. In the same way, God is a fierce warrior and the area that he surveys is the entirety of creation.

As we saw when we discussed immutability, I would apply emotions to God in this way. God is not literally angry, but his actions are akin to what would be the actions of an angry person. This is the same when God is described as having a body. To those who have a problem, I will say I am consistent in my hermeneutic. It also works with the philosophical problems of an emotional God.

We should always be watchful for how we interpret Scripture as our ancestors in the faith were. Many people today do not treat the Bible as literature and treat metaphorical language as literal. There is much in the Bible that is literal, but there is much that is metaphorical as well. How do you know the difference? Well that’s part of being a good student of Scripture and literature and learning how to read the Bible as literature.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are continuing our dive into the ocean of truth. We’ve been studying the doctrine of God and our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. If you do not have a copy, you can read it online at newadvent.org. If you have an IPhone or kindle, you can also read it there and it could be free. We’re studying the names of God and tonight we’re going to answer the fifth question on the discussion. Is what is said of God and creatures predicated univocally of them?

God-talk. We’ve talked about it before. In the middle of the twentieth century, a movement came about called logical positivism that said unless statements were analytical, that is, the meaning of the statement was in the term, such as bachelors are unmarried males, or were empirically verifiable, then they were meaningless. The problem with this was that the test itself didn’t pass the test. The idea had been to reduce God-talk to meaninglessness.

There are three ways that we can use language. One is univocally. If you walk down the street and see someone and say “Good morning” to them and say to the next person you meet “Good morning”, they don’t have any reason to think you meant anything different to any of them. The term meant the same thing.

There is also equivocal. If I tell you “I am going to the bank”, it could mean I am going to a building that stores money for me, or it could mean that I am going to a river and I am going to sit on the edge. Without some sort of context, you will not know for sure what I mean as the term “bank” means two completely different things.

The final way we can speak of something is analogically. Consider this proposition. “2 + 2 = 4.” You can see that in two ways. In the first way, your eyes can see the proposition and you have visual input of it. In the second way, your mind can see the truth of the proposition. If I wrote “2 + 2 = 5”, you could see it the first way, but not the second. (At least I hope you don’t see it the second.) In this case, “see” is applied analogically.

This is the way statements are applied of God. I would hope I am wise, but I am not wise the way God is. Wisdom is something added to my nature. It is not distinct from God’s nature. It is his nature. My wisdom is kind of like God’s, but it is not exactly the same. On the other hand, it is not completely different either.

If we have a univocal concept, we have a God who is just like us, just different by degree rather than by kind. If we have an equivocal concept, we have a God who is entirely different from us and we cannot know him at all. If we have analogical concept, we have a God who we have some similarities to, but at the same time is different by kind rather than degree. This is the kind of God we do have.

We shall continue tomorrow.

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.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I hope that by tomorrow night I will have the blog site more updated. We’ve been going through the doctrine of God and right now we’re covering the names of God. The guide for this study has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas which can be found at Newadvent.org if you don’t own your own copy. We’ll start our first night on this with, of course, the first article.

Now in a sense, this is an obvious answer. Of course names can be given to God. We have many names for him, including just calling him God. However, what is meant more is can names be given of him in a truly descriptive sense. This might sound like a strange question, but it is one that the early church dealt with as well.

Can God be given a name truly? The real answer in that sense is no. Names are given by another and they are names given by one who is greater. There is no one greater than God to give him a name and since God does not change, he does not give himself a name either. What we see in the name of YHWH in the OT is that God is the one who exists by necessity of his nature.

But there are ways in which we can give God names. However, these names do not define God but they rather describe him. Words are things that signify something beyond themselves. Each word you see on this blog is not an end in itself. It is an idea meant to point to something beyond itself. This is one of the amazing things about language.

We can use that language to name God based on what we do understand about him and nothing totally captures who he is. If we call him Almighty, then we have not captured his omniscience. Saying he is holy does not capture his power. Saying he is Lord does not speak entirely of his love. All of these give us glimpses simply into who God is. The best name for him is still the one that he used to describe himself to Moses.

Interestingly then, for Aquinas, God is not really Lord in himself. Lord is something that describes God’s relationship to the creation. In this way, he is not really creator in himself. He is the creator of the universe and he is the Lord of the universe but saying such things do not add anything to God. After all, God cannot be added to.

By the use of the name however, we make a statement about who God is in relation to the creation. God is Lord in that he is sovereign over his creation for if there had been no creation, there would have been no one for him to be sovereign over. God is creator in that he is the one who is the efficient cause of the creation. Had there been no creation, he would not be creator.

What more can be found out about the names of God? We shall find out as we continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I’m still working on figuring out the HTML so give some time and hopefully this site will have the added feature for those who want to give some support to Deeper Waters due to be being blessed by what goes on here. Even if none do, I hope this blog is a blessing to many of you. We’ve been going through the doctrine of God and we’ve been using the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas as our guide. We’ve been answering the question of how God is known by us and we’re going to finish up that question tonight. Starting tomorrow, Lord willing, we’ll be looking at the doctrine of the names of God.

Can we know more about God by divine grace? We’ve already seen that we can know him by natural reason alone, but if God chooses to grace us, can we know more about him? Aquinas says we can. There are some things even that natural reason cannot figure out, such as God being a Trinity.

At the start, let this be a warning to those of us on the philosophical path. It can be tempting to leave out the Bible when we study God. We have an urge to want to know as much about God as we can through natural reason and use that in an attempt to convince the nonbeliever that God is there.

I have jokingly had professors in Seminary start a class with Scripture reading in philosophy and say “This is a Bible. Many of you haven’t seen it in awhile.” Of course, some of us in the class who are humorous will answer and say something like “Is that a new book?”

In the very first question in the Summa, Aquinas tells us that the knowledge of God could be reached by reason alone, but few have the intellectual ability or the commitment to make such a journey. Therefore, in order that more people may be saved, God has revealed himself.

The answer is already there, but God helps some of us to get to the answer by reaching down to us. He doesn’t just leave himself there saying “Well I’ll wait and see how many people can reach me on their own.” Instead, he comes and reaches down for us to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. It’s not just salvation, but even knowledge of him.

This can be done through dreams and visions, but most notably this is done in Scripture and in the revelation of Christ. Had God not revealed himself, we would never know that he is three in one. We would also never know the way of salvation as natural reason cannot work out that doctrine.

Thus, we conclude the study of how God is known by us with the good news that he has allowed us to know him and helped us on the way. The apostle Paul spoke to some philosophers one time and said that he is not far from each of us. That still holds today. He is not far.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I’m still in the process of updating the site. The work of the HTML on the blog itself is quite difficult. Hopefully that will be up and running before too long. I’m also always open to suggestions on what can be done to improve Deeper Waters. We’re going through the doctrine of God now and we’re using the Summa Theologica. Those who do not have a copy can read it at newadvent.org. We’re studying how God is known by us and we’re on the twelfth article now.

Can God be known by natural reason? In other words, when you’re out in the world and you meet the non-Christian who does not accept the revelation of God in Scripture in anyway, can you use natural reason to show the existence of God at least? Is it possible by philosophical ideas and the study of the world around you to come to the conclusion that God exists.

Something to note is that when these kinds of arguments are given, it’s not necessarily to prove the Christian God. These arguments are necessary for Christianity to be true but not sufficient. After all, God must exist for Christianity to be true, but it could be true that God exists and he’s Allah in Islam. (I do not think for a moment such is true, but the point is there for the sake of argument.)

Aquinas argues that we can know God by natural reason. Now this doesn’t mean we can know all about God. Some things about God cannot be known by natural reason, such as that God is triune or that God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, but some things can and many such things were found by the pagan philosophers before Christ, such as Aristotle.

For Aquinas, there are no a priori ideas. We are not born with knowledge. All our knowledge arises from sense experience. Now sense experience will not get us to see the essence of God, but sense experience will get us to the point where we can better understand the essence of God.

The way of understanding God in Thomistic thought is really not understanding what he is, but understanding what he is not. What is it about God that makes him distinct from his creation to the point that he doesn’t even need to be created? For instance, when we look at divine simplicity, we come to the conclusion that God is not composed.

This was also the evangelistic method that Aquinas held to in his own life. When one was debating the heretic, one could use the New Testament and the Old Testament for even heretics often accepted them as valid. When debating a Jew, one used the Old Testament. When debating a Muslim, reason would be used. Today, there are many other groups we’d add to the list besides Muslims.

Aquinas is also noted as saying that his arguments are not just based in documents of faith but on the reasons and arguments of the philosophers themselves. This is a lesson we need to learn. It does no good to argue with an opponent from what you accept as an authoritative source and he doesn’t. Quoting Scripture will not work on an atheist who doesn’t accept Scripture. Using the arguments of the philosophers themselves is different and it should hopefully if they submit get them to the point that they will submit to Scripture, the ultimate authority.

This isn’t to limit Scripture of course, but to help us see how we should debate with an atheist. If you don’t think so, just consider how effective it is to you when you have the Book of Mormon quoted to you or when you have the Koran quoted to you.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Welcome back once more everyone to Deeper Waters. This site is still in the process of being upgraded so that readers can give their support to this ministry. Hopefully everything will be in place by the time we have a post up tomorrow. As it is, we are now going through the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas in order to understand the doctrine of God and we are discussing how God is known by us. If you do not own the Summa, you can go to newadvent.org and read the Summa Theologica online there for free.

Tonight’s question is if anyone in this life can see God. Aquinas does grant one exception at least to this and this is of course by divine grace. Moses was enabled somehow to see God face to face. However, didn’t Jacob also see God face to face?

Aquinas answers no. He saw God in a likeness that did not represent his full glory. Had that been seen, Jacob would not have survived. In this way, seeing Jesus could be seen as seeing God in that Jesus, being fully God, came in the likeness of flesh. That is, the flesh of Jesus was real flesh and it was also a shield to all to keep them from seeing the fully glory that was within that flesh. No one could have seen that in this mortal body and lived.

Aquinas also deals with an interesting argument of Augustine’s called the argument from truth. Truth is something that is greater than us and beyond us, but somehow, truth can be found in finite minds while it itself is not finite. Unchanging truth is found in minds that change. Augustine argues that there must be an unchanging mind that is not finite in which this truth dwells and as Aquinas would say, this everyone knows to be God.

While I believe this argument, of which I’ve given just a brief synopsis, is valid, Aquinas is told that if we see truth and this truth is in God, then it must be the case that we see God somehow. Aquinas disagrees of course. While all truth is in God, it is not in him that we see the truth but rather by him that we see the truth. Aquinas compares it to saying that we see things in this world not by looking at the sun but by the light of the sun. Of course, this will be different in the next life.

The ultimate reason that we cannot see God in this life is because we are in corruptible matter. The things that we see with our eyes are material things. Hence when angels show up, they appear in some material form or else as in the case of Elisha and his servant, ones eyes are altered in such a way that they can see the spiritual realities around them, and we can wonder what it would be like for each of us if we could get a chance to see the spiritual warfare that is going on all around us.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I’m going to be busy updating the site as much as I can. Bear with me. I love theology and apologetics and philosophy, but I am not any good at computer stuff. The sidebar however should contain relevant information soon as well as a way that readers who value Deeper Waters can do their part to make sure the work of this blog keeps going. Our topic lately has been the doctrine of God and we’ve been using the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas which can be found at newadvent.org. We are studying how God is known by us and we’re about to read the tenth article. The question is if we see all in God at once.

Aristotle is quoted as saying “Many things may be known but only one is understood.” In our way of thinking, we can’t easily focus on two things at once. Some of us, like myself, do tend to multi-task, but as I sit here writing the blog, I’ve turned off everything else, although I can still sometimes have an AIM conversation and check on other web sites.

Will this be the way it is when we get to Heaven and see God however? Will we see him and say “Okay. I understand that. Alright. Now I understand that.” In other words, will we have a succession of understanding or will we understand all things simultaneously?

Augustine has also said that God moves the spiritual creature according to time. Now if the angels don’t see all things in God simultaneously, then surely we can’t expect to see all things in God simultaneously. This is common in Aquinas and something philosophers need to realize. Whatever objections you usually have to a philosophical system, the best philosophers are the ones who have already thought of your objection.

Aquinas answers that in fact we do see all in God at once. When we have a diversity of things that we see, we do not understand all at once. I have two different objects before me let’s suppose. I do not understand them both at once. My mind can go back and forth in understanding.

But how does that change the way we see things in God? Aquinas explains Aristotle by saying that when we see a man, we understand the concept of rational and we understand the concept of animal both in the one man. We can do this because both are contained within the one and we understand the two at once because we understand the one.

Hence, when we see God, we see the ultimate oneness and in that oneness we understand the many. Once again, we find ourselves looking back on the simplicity of God.

But what about angels? Well with regards to how they understand things by their natural knowledge, they do not understand all things at once. When they look at God however, they do understand all things at once.

The conclusion is that when we see God, we will indeed understand all things at once. The way to know everything is to know God.

We shall continue tomorrow.