Category: Summa Theologica

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!

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 our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Right now, we’re on the topic of the eternity of God. If you do not have a copy of the Summa, you can read one online at newadvent.org. Last night, we discussed aeviternity and tonight, we’re going to discuss if there is more than one aeviternity. Before that, I do wish to bring my prayer requests. First, my Christlikeness. I do believe I’m getting my thoughts more under control and realizing where my devotion lies, but it’s a work in progress. Second, for my finances. Third, for a situation in my life related to both of these.

For now, let’s get to the question. For those who do not remember, aeviternity, as we discussed last time, and I urge you to read yesterday’s blog, is the halfway point between eternity and time. Eternity is that which has no beginning and no end. Aeviternity refers to that which has a beginning, but no end. Time is that which has a beginning and an end.

Aquinas begins the question by looking at the corporeal thing, which is time. This is always something that he does. Aquinas does not begin with the idea. He begins with what is seen and it’s an excellent strategy for apologists to follow. When we begin with what is seen, we are beginning where the non-believer is as well and we can guide them to the truth from there.

So what of time? Where does it lie? An idea would be to consider length. Let’s suppose you want to measure a foot in your wall, say you want to put up a picture or something. Does the foot lie in the wall? Or, is it a measure of a part of the wall but “foot” is not itself included in the nature of the wall. Inches and feet are not things that dwell in the objects. They are measurements that are used on the objects.

The same with time. We can measure something in many ways. A day can be referred to as 24 hours, or 1/365th of a year, or 1,440 minutes. I could go on. None of those lie in the object itself, but rather are a way of measuring the movement that is taking place in the object.

For Aquinas, the first movement is one and so the time is one as well. All time comes from that movement. He takes the same route with aeviternity. Since time is one and then simple, he reasons that aeviternity is as well. All things that are aeviternal then are measured by the first object that is aeviternal. Which object is that? Well we will likely never know. Of course, Aquinas does spend much time getting into the fall of the angels and the time between their creation and their fall or even if there was any time. That might be a later study, but it is not our focus now.

We shall start a new topic in the doctrine of God tomorrow.

Welcome back readers to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been discussing the doctrine of God and tonight, we’re going to be going over more of eternity and this time discussing aeviternity, which I’m sure is a new expression to several readers. This is part of our study and our guide is the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. If you do not have one of those, then pity you. Just kidding! Then you can go to newadvent.org and read one online for free. We’re in the tenth section right now. Before I begin the blog, I wish to offer my prayer requests. First, my Christlikeness as I seek to get my thoughts under control and replace them with better ones. Second, I ask for prayers for my financial situation. Finally, I ask for prayers that a third situation related to these two in my life will work out well.

What is Aeviternity? It’s the halfway ground between eternity and time. Eternity is an existence without a beginning or an end. Time has a beginning and an end. Aeviternity has a beginning but no end. This is the kind of existence that spiritual beings dwell in other than God, such as angels.

Aquinas was known as the angelic doctor. He wrote quite extensively on the nature of angels. We in the Christian world do need to learn more about the doctrine as well. Too often, we’ve had our image of angels colored by shows such as “Touched by An Angel” and movies that depict human beings as becoming angels when they die and the idea of simply playing a hard for the rest of our existence while wearing a halo. No wonder some people think Heaven is boring!

This will help us in our study of angels some mainly. When angels are made, they are made unchangeable in their substance but they can change in their place. What happens with a fallen angel is that its apprehension is tied to its will. We can go for particular goods, but angels on the other hand can only go for the good or not.

Thus, when the angel makes a choice to go for evil, then he is locked in that choice of evil and he cannot come out of it. It is the same with the angels that chose good. They are locked in it and they cannot come out of it. They are incapable of sin. If you are one who thinks you could pray for the repentance of the fallen angels, it is a wasted effort.

We as Christians do need a doctrine of angels and how they experience time. The Bible does speak about these creatures and we cannot be harmed by learning all that we can about them. Of course, it is not essential to our salvation to know these things, but it can enrich our spiritual lives. It can also increase our confidence in the world when we know that God has his angels watching over us and that we are not alone in our fight.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome to Deeper Waters, where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’re studying the doctrine of God right now and our topic is eternity. For those who are just joining us, the guide that we’re using is the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Don’t have one? SHAME! Just kidding….You can go to newadvent.org and read the Summa for free there. We’re on question four of the tenth section. Before that, I do ask that you pray for my Christlikeness first that I will see the world as I ought to see it. Second, for my finances. Third, for a related area in my life.

Now on to the question. For tonight, we’re asking if time is different from eternity. Aquinas says they do. To begin with, Aquinas is open to a universe without a beginning. This does not interfere to him with the doctrine of creation. He states that even if the universe had always existed, it would still not be eternal.

This is because there would be a before and after in it and a change from potency to actuality, which gets to what someone was asking about the blog last night. The Bible does say we will have eternal life, but for that, it means more than just the duration of life but the quality of life. We will have the finest quality of life.

In a universe without a beginning and end, there would still be before and after. Because of that simple fact, it could not be eternity because as has been said earlier, there is no before and after in eternity.  It is also because that we can speak of the parts of time. We can speak of a day or an hour or a millennium. We cannot do that with eternity because eternity has no parts. Thus, eternity and time are different.

But couldn’t eternity be considered the now of time? Aquinas says no. The subject is the same. There is always now. What is that now however is constantly changing. When I started this blog, now was something different from what it was then. When I started this sentence it was something different and when I finish it will still be something different.

Now I do believe the now is the closest we have to eternity, but it is not part of eternity. Now readers. Why is it that time could not be part of eternity also? Those who have been following should realize this. Eternity is the nature of God and God is simple and thus has no parts. If he has no parts, then eternity, which is his nature, has no parts to it either.

Still, we do well to live our lives more in the now. Look to the past for reflection. Do not look to beat yourself up. Look to the future with hope. Do not look to it with dread. However, the now is the only moment you can really enjoy. Live in the now. It is where you are.

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 our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, which can be read at newadvent.org for those who do not own a copy. We’re on the tenth chapter now on the eternality of God. Before we begin, I ask you to remember the Deeper Waters blogger in prayer. First off, for my continued Christlikeness. I do become more aware of the attitudes of the flesh and my desire to eliminate them more and more. Second, I ask for prayers for my financial situation. Third, I ask for prayers for a third related area in my life.

Tonight, we’re asking if God is the only one who is eternal. We often speak of a number of other eternal realities. For instance, we often speak of eternal life. I had someone just recently telling me that we will have eternal life to which I said “No. You won’t have eternal life, but you will live forever.” Also, what of necessary truths such as the Law of Noncontradiction? Are those not eternal?

Let’s answer the second one first. Aquinas says that there are some things that do participate in the eternality of God, but that is because they are aspects of his being and reside in the divine intellect. Of course, this is in a way that does not deviate from the doctrine of divine simplicity. It is not as if the Law of Noncontradiction is a Platonic form just floating out there somewhere.

What about eternal life? This is a case where eternal is used to describe duration in a way to indicate that it will never end. It is at this point that Aquinas brings up that there is a difference in regards to the relationship people have with time depending on if they are in Heaven or Hell.

Now he doesn’t mention Heaven, but it is an inference that can be drawn, so let’s start with the doctrine of Heaven first. In Aquinas’s system, when a Christian dies, they get to partake of the beatific vision where they will see God as he is. This doesn’t necessarily mean with the eye of the body, as we won’t be in bodies then, but with the eye of the soul. What will we see when we are in our body? I do not know entirely, but it will be great.

In that regards, we will lose all sense of time. Think about a time when you were doing something that you really enjoyed. Time was going on, but you were in so much joy that you were unaware of its passage. That’s the way the beatific vision will be.

What about people in Hell? It’s the opposite. Time will be going on for them too, but now think of something that was just dragging on and on for you and you were wondering if it would ever end. That’s what people in Hell have. They have the realization of time passing, which is part of their torment. They will never be lost in something greater than themselves that they don’t notice time. They will always just be trapped in themselves and fully aware of each passing moment.

Dreadful to think of? Yes. What do we do then? Get the word out to make sure we do our part to keep people from going there.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Greetings once again dear readers and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we continue our dive into the ocean of truth. Tonight, we’re going to be continuing our study of the doctrine of God and the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas will be our guide. A copy of that can be found at newadvent.org. Before we get to our topic tonight, I do wish to present my prayer requests. First off, my Christlikeness as I notice my view of my fellow man really needs to change to one of more grace and understanding. Second, my financial situation. Third, I ask for prayer for a third related area in my life. Now, let’s get to the question.

Is God eternal? Last night, we came up with a definition of eternity from Boethius and defended that definition. Aquinas will of course argue that God is eternal and that this follows from his immutability. Once again, we are reminded that Aquinas spent much time thinking about his doctrine and had it worked out systematically.

Why does this follow? It follows because immutability means that there is no movement in God. If there is movement of time however, then God is not immutable. If he is immutable however, that means that he does not move across time. Rather God is the one who transcends time whereas since he is eternal, he is in all times at once and is the cause of their being.

How does this work however with something like prayer? Are we not told that God does things in response to our prayers? Thus, I would like to spend our time looking at God’s actions and thinking about how we are to understand the way he acts. Does it really make a difference that we pray?

In reality, it is not accurate to say God responds to our prayers. It is more like he pro-responds to our prayers. God sees what we are praying even before we ask and then he responds to us even before we ask in a sense. What is the purpose of praying then if God knows what we are doing? It is good to pray because that is the means whereby God chooses to act. He would not do some things if we did not pray about them.

This is also along the lines of the question of “What was God doing before he created the universe?” Augustine’s answer that had some of his Carthaginian humor in it was “He was creating Hell for people who ask questions like that.” The answer is that there was no before and after in that case.

Thus, God is doing all things at once in an eternal now. He is at once creating the world and he is at once judging it. God does not have before and after. All he has is just himself and his eternal existence where to him, all things are present. The reason we pray however is that he has chosen the means or prayer to bring about his work in the universe, that we may trust him more.

What a glorious God!

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 we’ve been using the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas as our guide. Those who do not have a copy of the Summa can read it at newadvent.org. We are going to start tonight discussing the eternity of God. Before we do that, I have my prayer requests. First off, I ask for prayer for my Christlikeness. Second, I ask for prayers for my financial situation. Finally, I ask for prayers for a third related area in my life.

This is one of the times where the term is defined. We seem to have a difficulty with eternity. We can think of infinity. We can think of goodness. Immutability is no problem. However, what does eternal mean? We are so bound by time that we cannot seem to think of anything outside of it.

Centuries before Aquinas, the Christian philosopher Boethius wrote a book called “The Consolation of Philosophy.” Boethius defined eternity in this book as “The simultaneously-whole and perfect possession of interminable life.” If anyone hasn’t read this book, I do recommend you get it. There is some fascinating philosophy in that.

But is this a good definition? After all, interminable is a negative term, and negative terms don’t belong to what is without defect. Aquinas answers however that we understand the essences by negating what they are not. The negation is not in the essence but in the understanding. Infinite is really a negative term. It means “Without limits. It’s not saying the essence is negative or with defect however.

What about eternity describing a duration? Duration regards being rather than life. Therefore, the idea of life should not be in this definition. However, Aquinas says that what is eternal is not just being but also living and there are things that are that are not living. God however is eternally living and he is eternal. Therefore, life is a valid term to use.

A whole is that which has many parts. How can eternity be a whole then as eternity has no parts? However, Aquinas says it is called whole not in the sense of having parts, but in the sense of lacking nothing.

Scripture also speaks of many days and times together. The goings forth of Christ are from eternity, from the days of old, in Micah 5:2. Therefore, not all of eternity is simultaneous. However, Aquinas argues that this is metaphorical language. It is putting the events of eternity, if they could even be called such, in ways we can understand.

It is superfluous to call it whole and perfect as the two statements mean the same thing. However, Aquinas says whole is used to describe the succession of time. Perfect is used to describe the now of time. The usage of both is to put God on an altogether separate field.

Duration also does not imply possession, but eternity is a kind of duration, so it is not possession.  This is a term however used to describe the holding of eternity immutably. The one who does this is changeless.

For our purposes, Aquinas gives us the further idea that time is the number of movement with regards to before and after. God is eternal, and therefore, there is no before and after in him.

We shall begin unpacking this tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Last night, we took a little sidetrip off of the path to answer an objection. I won’t be repeating that tonight because I have no desire to play biblical ping-pong back and forth. Now it could be fun elsewhere, but we’ll never finish the study. Could I answer the post later? Maybe, but this blogger is a busy blogger. We’re going to wrap up this topic tonight however and then move on to the eternality of God. Our guide in the doctrine of God, in which we’re studying immutability now, has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, which can be read at newadvent.org. Before looking at the topic tonight, I wish to present my usual prayer requests. First, my Christlikeness as I am constantly aware of the need I have to be a better man. Second, I ask for prayer for my financial situation. Finally, I ask for prayer for a related area of my life. Let’s now get to the question.

God is immutable, but is he the only one? What about the angels? They do not have matter at all and so they do not change materially. What about the blessed who are in Heaven? Will they change? What about the forms themselves? Is goodness something that is variable? Is it subject to change?

Aquinas, of course, argues that God alone is immutable. Only he is the one who is simple and infinite and perfect after all. Still, for Aquinas, it’s not enough to just assert it and for we Christians, it should mean more than just an assertion on our part as well. We need to know why it is we believe what we believe, which is a way we could learn from our Christan forebearers.

One sure way things are mutable for Aquinas is that they do not have their own being. This would even apply to the angels. While the angels experience time in a different way than we do, there was a time when the angels were not. Looking further at the angels, although they do not differ by body, they can still fill place. This was the point in asking even how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. No one in the medieval period I know of asked that question, but it is really a most important question as it gets to the nature of angels. Can several angels dance on the head of a pin? If so, why? If not, why? That’s another topic however.

What about the blessed? Well first off, there will be a massive change in the blessed when they receive their bodies again. However, they too can change location. They will not change in their ontology and righteousness in Heaven, but the accidents that comprise them can change.

As for the forms, the forms do not change in their nature in that they are not the subjects of change, but they change with regards to their subjects which are changable. They can be in something at one time and not be in it at another time. This cannot be said of God who is in all places at all times equally and fully.

We shall start discussing the eternality of God tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been studying the doctrine of God and we’ve been using the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas as our guide. Last time, we discussed the topic of immutability and with that, impassibility. No one has said anything about God not changing yet, which is clearly taught in Scripture, but I have had a reply about impassibility, to which I would like to address that tonight and keep in mind, this is building on the prior foundation of the other doctrines of God. Before that, I ask for your prayers. First, my prayer of being a more Christlike man. Second, for my financial situation with income tax refunds certainly helped, although with my political stance I do hope the future doesn’t change that too much. Finally, I ask for prayers for a third related situation.

Poster Jeff, who I think I know, left some comments. I’d like to go through them.

My post: “It can produce emotions, but emotions are a trait of bodily beings as they are a reaction to something. Since God does not have a body, then he does not have emotions.”

Jeff: I don’t understand why a spiritual being can’t have emotions.

Reply: Note that saying it’s not understand why a spiritual being can’t have emotions doesn’t mean that spiritual beings have emotions. The best reply at this point would be to be agnostic and say “I’m open to the case.” Of course, Jeff could be, but it seems he’s arguing otherwise.

My case is they don’t because being a body, we have chemicals and physical sensations angels don’t have. Consider the act of love. Love is seeking the good of the other. You don’t need emotions to do that. In fact, we can do that when we don’t have emotions and at times when we have contrary emotions. I’m sure a mother isn’t always brimming with love when she has to wake up early the next morning and she hears crying at 2 A.M.

Jeff: I think what you might be trying to say is that God can’t have “flighty” emotions.

Reply: No. I’m not nor has impassibility throughout the ages taught that. If I had meant flighty emotions, I would have said such.

Jeff: He’s not like a teenager who is your best friend one minute and then two days later can’t stand you; he’s not like a girlfriend who “loves you but isn’t ‘in love’ with you”, etc.

Reply: He’s not one who has flighty emotions because he has no emotions. It’s the same reason God can’t have a toothache. It’s not because he has indestructible teeth, but because he has no teeth.

Jeff: But, for example, you attribute joy to God, and joy is certainly an emotion.

Reply: To which I say “Why should I believe it is?” I think there is an emotion of joy but the danger is we are taking the attitude and making it an emotion. For instance, we read about God having compassion and then thinking “God must have emotions!” No. He has compassion. He seeks the good on those who are in pain.

Now when we do that, we can have a corresponding emotion. Also, we may not always have that. That’s fine either way. What matters is that we do the compassionate thing.

Joy is not an emotion. Joy is having what you want. God does. He has himself. That does not mean he has an emotional response about it. We often do and do so so much that we think it must be an emotion.

Jeff: Do you mean that God can’t have emotions that fluctuate seemingly at random (which is how humans sometimes are), or maybe that He has something like a “posture” that is emotional but permanent — eg God is always in a state of joy, God always loves you, and His posture towards a person or a situation never changes?

Reply: The latter is more like it. I just don’t tie any emotion to this since God is not in a body. Note the word in emotion is motion, which indicates a change. God does not change in his substance to have emotions. In fact, angels don’t change in their substance either. Humans do as body/soul unities. Now when we are just souls apart from the body, we won’t have emotions, but we won’t be fully human.

Keep in mind in all of this I am not condemning emotions per se. Emotions in us are good things for that is how God made us. Of course, we can misuse them and give them a place that they do not deserve, just as we can with our minds and our bodies. However, they do not exist in God because he is a different kind of being.

Jeff: I would likely quibble with that a bit, but I think your statements in your post, taken collectively, require the conclusion that you don’t consider joy to be an emotion, which would be surprising.

Reply: Which is expected for a post-Cartesian person probably in American culture. Go back before Descartes and your view would have been considered the unusual one. This is the post hoc fallacy actually. Because an emotion follows joy, the emotion is joy. No. One can have joy without a strong emotional response and the same for love.

Keep in mind we can go to Scripture where God seems to experience emotions. This is metaphorical language. I could go to Scripture and say God raises us up on eagles’ wings, longs to gather us like a hen, and protects us under the shadow of his wings. Well the conclusion is obvious. God, according to the Bible, is a big chicken. Those would be interpreted metaphorically however to avoid the obviously absurd conclusion.

I’m consistent in my hermeneutic. Does that mean God doesn’t have literal love towards us? No. The love is real. It’s just not an emotion. That distinction needs to be made clear. I haven’t really taken anything from you. God loves you just the same as he always has. He’s just not sentimental. He is eternally unchanging in his nature which means his love for you can never end.

I don’t know about you, but I consider that awesomely good news.

We can continue tomorrow.