Category: Summa Theologica

Hello readers and welcome back to Deeper Waters, a blog dedicated to diving into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we’re studying the doctrine of God in Christian thought. We’ve been using the Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, which can be read for free at newadvent.org, as our guide for this study. Right now, we’re studying the topic of the power of God and the question we’re asking tonight is “Can God Do What He Does Not?”

This might seem like a difficult question at first in the sense of wondering what exactly is being asked. The idea is whether or not God is forced to do what he does. Does he have to do one thing and if something happens, then that is the only thing that could happen? Is everything predetermined in the sense that even God is predetermined?

Aquinas says no and points to Matthew 26:53 as his authority with the reminder that Jesus said the Father could send down twelve legion of angels. We know from Scripture that that didn’t happen. Keep that in mind would-be philosophers. The greatest Christian philosophers used Scripture. (As one of my philosophy professors said in our class one day before reading Scripture, “This is a Bible.”) A good Christian philosopher will know Scripture well.

It has been said when we looked at the will of God that God does not act from necessity. The only thing that He wills of necessity is Himself. That means everything else that he wills he wills contingently. He did not have to create, but he chose to create.

Aquinas tells us to look at what the purpose of creation is. Creation is for the glory of God. All things were created that God might have glory and so the divine wisdom acts through the creation in order to bring glory to God. It should be obvious that the end for which creation was made is greater than creation itself.

Because of this, the creation does not restrict God. He can do whatever He wants in it that will bring about glory for Him. God could have acted in any number of ways a number of times. This is especially so if you have beings that have free-will roaming around creation who act out of their own freedom, though acting in a way that is foreknown to God.

But is there any restriction on the way God acts? Yes. God acts according to his nature. God cannot lie for instance. God cannot violate the laws of logic either. God will always act in a way that is wise and just. The point is that there are many different things God is capable of doing in a situation that are wise and just.

For us, we should learn then to trust God. Because God does not act the way that we want Him to, it is easy to think He acted in the way He ought not. God has a number of options on how He can perform and whichever way He chooses, we should believe that He is working all things to our good (if we are Christians) and more importantly, his glory.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters, a place where we dive into the ocean of truth! We’re studying the doctrine of God right now in Christian thought. Our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, a work that can be read for free at newadvent.org. Tonight, we’re going to be looking more at the topic of the power of God and asking if this power of God is capable of changing the past.

Why shouldn’t God be able to change the past? It would seem as if this would be something simple. My wife and I spent the evening watching a favorite program together. Maybe he could make it so that instead, we played a game on the Wii together.

However, Aquinas says that this is not the case. To say of Socrates that he sat and then say of him that he did not sit is to take what is true and then to make it false. It is asking God to make what is true to be false. He also has the belief of Aristotle behind him on that one. Aquinas gives this quote from Book VI of the Ethics that can be found in section 2.

For this alone is lacking even to God,
To make undone things thathave once been done.)

Quite revealing is the whole section before that:

The origin of action-its efficient, not its final cause-is choice, and that of choice is desire and reasoning with a view to an end. This is why choice cannot exist either without reason and intellect or without a moral state; for good action and its opposite cannot exist without a combination of intellect and character. Intellect itself, however, moves nothing, but only the intellect which aims at an end and is practical; for this rules the productive intellect, as well, since every one who makes makes for an end, and that which is made is not an end in the unqualified sense (but only an end in a particular relation, and the end of a particular operation)-only that which is done is that; for good action is an end, and desire aims at this. Hence choice is either desiderative reason or ratiocinative desire, and such an origin of action is a man. (It is to be noted that nothing that is past is an object of choice, e.g. no one chooses to have sacked Troy; for no one deliberates about the past, but about what is future and capable of being otherwise, while what is past is not capable of not having taken place; hence Agathon is right in saying

What this means is that once something is done, it is not undone. Indeed, were God to ever change the past, we would not know that it had been changed. How could we? If God made it so that my wife and I played the Wii together, then it would be in my memory that we did that. If I asserted otherwise, would I be speaking truthfully or a lie? We could have indeed watched a program, but then it would be that it was changed so that we played the Wii together.

If I say we played the Wii together, did we really do it, or did God change our choices for us? Will I have a memory of us doing that, or will I remember what I know we freely chose to do, namely watching a program together on DVD? The complexities that arise from such an issue are staggering.

It is my conclusion that God does not and cannot change the past for he does not change either what he is eternally doing. The first place ultimately to look for the answer is again, not in the world that we see around us, but in the very nature of God himself.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello readers and welcome back to Deeper Waters, a place where we seek to always dive into the ocean of truth! Right now, we’re talking about the doctrine of God and we’re going through it little by little. It’s a huge topic after all! Fortunately, we have a great guide on our journey. Thomas Aquinas, the 13th century monk, is our guide, and his Summa Theologica, which can be read for free at newadvent.org, is our text. Tonight, we’re on the topic of the power of God. We’re asking the question “Is God omnipotent?”

Many Christians have been stopped in their tracks sadly by this question: “Can God make a rock so big he can’t lift it?” My personal favorite answer to this question was the one given by Dr. Gary Habermas when I heard him bring it up at a talk one time. The answer is as follows:

“No.”

Some Christians fear that we have abandoned omnipotence at this point. In reality, we haven’t. Why? Aquinas tells us. Aquinas points out that contradictions are impossible and power is only capable of doing all that it is possible to do. To make something like a square circle is nonsense. If it is square, it is not a circle. If it is a circle, it is not a square. C.S. Lewis once said that nonsense doesn’t cease to be nonsense just because you add the words “God can” before it.

The big rock question is just such a question. For one thing, a rock like that would to be infinite, but rocks are finite by nature since an infinite quantity does not exist. If it was measurable in some way, it could not be infinite. In other words, the questioner wants a rock that is finite and infinite.

Most essentially however, the answer is no because God can handle whatever he creates and to ask if he can create something that he can’t handle is nonsense. It means that there is a weakness on the part of God and weakness is not a sign of omnipotence but a sign of impotence. In fact, it is because God is omnipotent that he cannot do what the questioner asks if he can do.

This is also why it is impossible for God to sin or to lie or do any number of things. He cannot do these things because these are signs of imperfection and God does not have imperfection. Of course, we realize there are some differences when we get to the incarnation as Christ is fully God and fully human and in his humanity, he does take on the limitations of humanity, such as being able to be subject to death. In his deity however, he never is.

Unfortunately, Christians have for too long defended a view of omnipotence that is simply nonsense. There are a number of things that God cannot do and these are things he cannot do not because he is impotent, but because he is omnipotent. While there are still questions in this area, such as how the medievals would debate if God could swim, to which I’d say it’s nonsense to ask if an immaterial being can in immateriality do a material action, let us make sure we are not spending our time defending a view of omnipotence that is not biblical or historical.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone, and welcome back once more to Deeper Waters, where we plunge into the ocean of truth! We’re going through the doctrine of God right now in Christian thought and the text that is our guide is the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, a work that can be read for free, which is always a great price, at newadvent.org. Right now, we’re discussing God’s power and tonight, we’re going to ask if the power of God is infinite.

It had been said that everything that is infinite is imperfect. However, the power of God is not imperfect. If that is the case, then the power of God cannot be infinite because if it was, it would be imperfect. Therefore, the power of God must not be infinite.

While this is attributed in thought to Aristotle, the section being referred to is about an infinite body. This could be a problem for groups like the Mormons who have a deity that is necessarily bodily, but it is not a problem for orthodox Christians as we do not have a God who is material by nature. The reason that the infinite body would be a problem is that the infinity would refer to quantity and not quality. We do not mean when we say that God has infinite power that you keep building up more and more power and then you reach the point of infinite power. An infinite cannot be transversed. It means that God has all the ability of power and that he can do what power can do.

Isn’t a power known by its effect? After all, if a power is at work and the effect that fits that power does not come about, then that is power in vain and there is nothing in God that is in vain. However, if the cause of an effect was infinite, then the effect would need to be infinite, and this is impossible. Nothing can be infinite besides God.

However, this is the case of a univocal agent. God is not one of those as he does not belong to a genus or a species, as was shown when we went over divine simplicity. His effect will always be less than his power. However, this does not mean that his power is in vain. Power that is in vain is power that does not reach the end that it desires. God always gets the end that He desires for He is His own end.

Again, the reason why God’s power is infinite is the doctrine that Aquinas treats first, the simplicity of God. God does not have part of anything but He is what He has. He is His power. He has power to perfection and so because of that, we can know that the power of God is infinite.

What does this mean for us? If we know this, we ought to live like it is so. We can read about Moses asking God how it could be that He could provide meat for all the Israelites and reading the text it is so easy to say “Moses! He’s God! He can do it! Why do you doubt?”

Until we come up with something far smaller in our lives and doubt.

The God who acted for Moses acts for us today. Trust Him. His power is infinite.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Deeper Waters, a blog that seeks to take its readers into a dive in the ocean of truth! We’ve been going through the doctrine of God in Christian thought with our guide being the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, which can be read for free at newadvent.org. Last night, we finished looking at the topic of the Book of Life so tonight, we will begin an all new topic, the power of God! Let our first question then be the one we should be asking first, does God even have power?

Aquinas makes a distinction between passive power and active power to explain how there is power in God, which he of course says there is. Passive power is the ability to be acted upon. My computer keyboard has passive power. I am the one with the active power capable of acting on it. Of course, once it’s acted on, somehow, it has active power that sends the signals out that cause these letters to show up. I also have passive power. I can be acted upon.

God’s power is only active. God cannot be acted upon in the sense that we change God. For instance, while we are told to pray, we are not told to pray to change God. We are to pray mainly to align ourselves to God and realize that everything that we have comes from Him and we are to be dependent on Him for all that we have.

Another point to be brought up is once again the simplicity of God. In other beings, there is the will to act and then the power to bring about that will and these are separate things. In God, the will and the power are the same but they only differ in idea. It is a hard point again to understand, but it is a foundation of the doctrine of Aquinas and the first attribute of God he discusses after establishing God’s existence.

There is also the question of matter. Why? Matter is a force that is passive. It acts according to set laws. Aristotle said that better than every power is its act. Form is also better than matter. That is, what a thing is by essence rather than by matter. Action is also better than active power. Therefore, if God is power, then it would seem that God could be better. Since he cannot be, he surely cannot be power and thus cannot have power.

This is the case only where there is a distinction. In God however, there is no distinction. His active power is how he brings about his will. He is able to do that which he wills to do. God is the most powerful of all not only in quantity, which is infinite as we shall see later, but quality, as he is capable of acting on all other things in whatever way he desires.

Thus, we conclude that there is power in God and we should all realize that. God has the ability to bring about change, but too often, we look at our world as if He could not. Let us forsake such a view for such a view is of a god who does not exist, an idol.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello readers, and welcome back to Deeper Waters, the blog where we dive into the ocean of truth! At the moment, we are studying the Christian doctrine of God. We’ve had as our guide the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, a work readable for free at newadvent.org. Tonight, we’re going to wrap up our look at the Book of Life in the work of Aquinas and ask the question “Can Anyone Be Blotted Out Of The Book Of Life?”

I suspect that many readers were asking this question somewhere in predestination or in this topic. The question of salvation being something that one can lose or not is a divisive topic sadly in Christian circles. Once again, while I do have an opinion on this, I am at first simply trying to get across the views of Aquinas, as I try to not take a firm stance on secondary doctrine in this blog.

Has it not been said earlier that predestination is based on foreknowledge? If it is then based on the foreknowledge of God, and predestination is the same as the Book of Life but only differ in idea, then it would seem that since the foreknowledge of God cannot change and is eternal and immutable, then no one can be blotted out of the Book.

However, Aquinas does believe that it is possible for someone to be blotted out of the Book of Life. There are passages of Scripture that are cited that give this impression. Revelation 3:5 and Psalm 68:29 are two such examples. Moses also when he interceded for Israel said that he would prefer that if Israel could not be redeemed that God would just blot him out of the Book of Life.

Yet how can Aquinas hold this position if he believes that the foreknowledge of God cannot change? To begin with, let us remember that Aquinas definitely does believe the foreknowledge of God cannot change. The question then to ask is what is it that God has foreknowledge of?

God has foreknowledge of things that can change and there are two ways one can be in the Book of Life. One is by predestination and if that is the case, then that will not change. The other is by having some form of grace by which one could be made worthy, but losing that grace. We must remember that Aquinas spoke in the previous article of being in the book relatively.

What God has foreknowledge of does not change insofar as it is the knowledge of God. God does have knowledge however of things that are changing. For instance, God knows right now I am sitting at my computer. However, he also knows I plan on sleeping tonight and that will not be sitting at my computer. (At least I hope not!) God knows right now infallibly that I am doing what I’m doing, but he also knows in the same way what I will be doing in the future. (And while I have plans, I will not be so presumptuous to say they won’t go perfectly as is presented in James 4)

Thus, God knows unchangeably what will happen to changing things. The change does not lie in God but in the object. In this way, Aquinas can speak of God having eternal knowledge of who will have eternal life, but also having some names being blotted out of the Book of Life. It’s not as if God is taken by surprise.

For our purposes, rather I agree or disagree, my advice to Christians who struggle with salvation is this. First off, I have not met anyone before that I have met wrestling with salvation who I have not believed is saved. Second, if you are worried that you are going to lose salvation based on not doing enough or because you made a mistake at one point, I would say I do not agree with that. Your salvation is not so flimsy that it is easily lost.

Most importantly however, simply live your life in trust of God. Live as if you were saved if you are doubtful. Live a life of praise and trust to Him and trust that he will guide you.

On a more therapeutic approach, I recommend the web site of Gary Habermas and having listeners go to his audio material on doubt, pain, and existential suffering. I cannot recommend enough the material on conquering emotional doubt. This can be found at www.garyhabermas.com.

We shall begin a new topic tomorrow.

Hello readers, and welcome back to Deeper Waters, where we go into a quest of diving into the ocean of truth! Right now, we’re studying the Christian doctrine of God. Tonight, we continue the topic of the book of life, using the excellent work of Thomas Aquinas, the Summa Theologica, which can be read at newadvent.org. We are going to be asking tonight exactly what is recorded in this book? Is it the life of the predestined to glory only or is it all life?

For instance, who has more life than God? Does the Book of Life record that there is the God who is living? What about the natural world? Does it record that there are creatures and plant life that are living? What about those who are not elect? Does it record them and then at the moment of their death they are gone?

Aquinas says in response that election relates to something that is not natural to someone. A man is elected to military service not to put on a uniform but for an end, the end of going to war and fighting. The life of glory is that which does not belong to us by nature. Therefore, it too requires that we be elected in order to partake of it.

This would explain why Aquinas believes that the divine life is not recorded in the Book of Life. God is not elected to anything and he is alive by nature. In fact, were God elected to the divine life, then he could not be God for there would be someone that is beyond him who would be electing him to that position.

A similar case applies to the natural world, including lost human beings that are not predestined. These are creatures that have a natural life in them that is, well, natural to them. There is no need to record that in the Book. What this says however about the eternal status of animals, for instance pets, Aquinas does not explain here.

What of passages brought up such as Christ choosing the twelve but one of them, namely Judas, is a devil? Aquinas says that some people are chosen relatively but not absolutely. Judas would be an example of this. He was chosen to have some relation to the life of glory, but he was not chosen to partake of the life of glory.

Once again, how this will work out with debates such as eternal security will have to be settled by readers on their own. However, this is not a new debate and Aquinas has already been thinking in advance about Calvinist and Arminian debates before they ever came around.

What I wish to leave in conclusion is the importance that was placed on salvation however and the knowledge of God in relation to it. While we should all believe in salvation by grace through faith, let us never be lightly about it. Christ told the seventy-two to not rejoice that the demons even obeyed them, but that their names were written in Heaven.

Let us do the same.

Hello readers, as we bid you once again welcome to Deeper Waters where we continue a dive into the ocean of truth! It is our hope that you come here seeking to know the deep truths of your faith. Deeper Waters exists to get past a shallow Christianity and give a reason for the hope that lies within us. Right now, our focus has been on the doctrine of God in Christian thought. Thomas Aquinas, the great medieval theologian, has been our guide as we’ve used his Summa Theologica, which can be read for free at newadvent.org. The Book of Life is our topic for tonight as we consider whether the Book of Life is the same as predestination?

Readers might be wondering that if the Book of Life is the same as predestination, then won’t it be pointless to discuss it? After all, we did just go through the doctrine of predestination. To this, we bring up the same point that has been brought up with simplicity. While in divine simplicity, there is no difference in God in being, there is a logical difference in our understanding. In the same way, there is a logical difference. Predestination refers more to the action of God and the Book of Life refers to the knowledge of God.

The Book of Life is of course not a literal book. It is a metaphorical book meant to help us understand. We write books as a record of information often that we want to be held for future peoples. Of course, there could be some possible exceptions, but even in a fictional story, we want that story to be around for the enjoyment of people after us and many times, for their betterment.

God also has in his mind the names of those who are to receive eternal life and this is referred to as the Book of Life. Of course, Aquinas leaves open that the term can refer to a book that is meant to teach about life. In this case, the Old and New Testaments can be a book of life. A book of war could be a book that tells the names of soldiers who are to go forward and fight, or it could be a book that tells those soldiers how they are to fight.

For God, there is no need of a reminder. The book is presented not for the memory of God but for our assurance. When we see a rainbow in the sky, we do not need to stop and think that God now realizes that he said he wouldn’t flood the world again so the rain needs to stop. The rainbow is a reminder to us that the world did get flooded once and we can remember the promise that it won’t happen again. Communion is meant to remind us of the body and blood of Christ broken and shed on the cross, not for the memory of God, but so that we can get a reminder ourselves whenever we partake of the elements.

For the Book of Life, we are to remember when we hear of it that God knows us. He has written down our names as it were. As words are etched onto the pages of a book, so the knowledge of our salvation is known eternally in the mind of God and we can be sure he will bring it about.

Thus, Aquinas concludes that the Book of Life and predestination are the same, but they differ only in idea and not in actuality. Once again, while we are often caught up in soteriology and how this is brought about, the medievals seemed to be more interested in the idea that this is about the knowledge of God more than anything else.

Maybe we should get back to that knowledge of God.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello readers. Welcome back to Deeper Waters, the place where we dive into the ocean of truth! At the moment, we are studying the Christian doctrine of God and our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. This can be read for free at newadvent.org. We’re going to wrap up our look at predestination tonight and ask the question of if our prayers can affect predestination in anyway.

Interestingly, I recall a professor of mine recently asking this question. Does it do any good to pray for the salvation of our friends? If we believe that free-will is what is involved, then how can it be that we pray that their will will be coerced in such a way that they will come to salvation? If we believe it is all in the hand of God, then we cannot pray that he will change his mind of course. If they are to be saved, they are to be saved.

Aquinas points to the Scripture where Isaac prays and the womb of Rebekkah is opened so that she may conceive. Jacob however was numbered among the predestined. Obviously, this was part of the eternal plan of God, but the eternal plan of God took into account the temporal prayers of Isaac.

This is a question we ask however not just about salvation, but about anything else. Why do we pray if God already knows the outcome? One aspect to consider is that God acts eternally knowing always what we will pray and he does take future prayers into account. For instance, suppose you receive word of a friend who has been in a car accident except the event happened yesterday. You begin praying for your friend. You’re told the next day that surgery will be required and you begin praying for the surgery. However, like the car accident, you hear all the news a day after it takes place so you pray for the success of surgery, for instance, the day after surgery.

God sees that future prayer however and takes it into account. Now Aquinas does have reasons elsewhere for why prayer can’t change the past. The point to make is that the events that God has done in the past are done knowing what you will pray in the future. They are unchanging realities, but they are not done without the input of the saints.

While our prayers cannot change the fact that someone will be saved according to Aquinas, they can affect the secondary means whereby that event will come about. This could be just a person somehow maybe having to go to a hospital and hear the message of the gospel or having a blessing such as a pregnancy or a marriage and getting to hear the good news.

My final piece of advice is that while we may differ at times on the doctrine of predestination, let’s all remember that what matters is the salvation of souls for the glory of God. I will gladly minister alongside a Calvinist, Molinist, Arminian, or anyone else provided they hold to the essentials of Christianity. I would rather lead someone to Jesus than to my particular view on soteriology. Let us pray for the salvation of the lost, but let us also pray that the laborers will be sent, and that if those laborers are to be us, we will be faithful.

We shall begin a new topic tomorrow.

Welcome back everyone to Deeper Waters, a blog where we are going on a plunge into the ocean of truth! Right now, we’re going through the Christian doctrine of God and using as our guide, the great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica. If you wish to join in the reading of this work, you can go and read it for free at newadvent.org. Tonight, we’re continuing our look at the doctrine of predestination and asking if the number of the predestined is certain or not.

Aquinas speaks of the different ways that something can be required for something. For instance, stones and logs can be required to build a house. However, these are required for the sake of the house and not for any good in themselves. Thus, a builder will order a number of stones and logs, but he would not likely order an exact number and expect that every item that he orders would be used.

For the good of the universe, God has pre-ordained a certain number. Aquinas tells us that all things work together for the good of the predestined. Thus, the number of reprobates does not need to be certain as they are there in the long term simply for the good of the elect in some way which will bring about the glory of God. There was some speculation in medieval thought also that the number of men who are saved is to be equal to the number of angels that fell. Aquinas reminds us that it is better to simply say that God knows the number.

When the Bible speaks of a number increasing or decreasing, Aquinas says that it is to righteousness in this life. There are some who will enjoy blessings in this life but that does not mean that they are part of the predestined. This could be a case of what Paul spoke of when he said that not all those who are Israel are indeed Israel. God can raise up from stones children of Abraham.

An objection is that there is no reason why a certain number should be saved and God does nothing without a reason, therefore there is no fixed number. Aquinas tells us that the good of one is to be done in proportion to the whole. The reason for the number of stars in the universe for instance, is based on that which will bring about the most good in the universe, something that our scientists can better tell us about today.

What of passages that speak of the gate being narrow? Aquinas seems to relegate this to a certain kind of happiness that few will experience. My thoughts on this is that Jesus is referring to those who will accept him at the time of his mission. The Bible also speaks of a great multitude in Heaven that no man can number.

My conclusion on the matter? I do believe God does know how many people will be saved and that number is there fixed, but again, this is based on my view of predestination. I cannot say for certain where I stand entirely on the issue yet, but I hope I have presented the views of Aquinas faithfully.

We shall conclude this topic tomorrow.