Scsc Theodicy Notes (School Year 2005-2006)

1 1. July 4, 2005, Mon. (0900-1000)

PHILOSOPHY 12 - THEODICY [OR RATIONAL THEOLOGY OR METAPHYSICAL THEOLOGY OR NATURAL THEOLOGY] Initial Bibliography [School Year 2005-2006]

Brody, Baruch A., ed. Readings in the Philosophy of Religion: An Analytic Approach. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc., 1974. [available at the SCSC library] Ceniza, Claro R. and Romeo E. Abulad. Introduction to Philosophy. Vol. I: Metaphysics, Theodicy, Cosmology. Manila: University of Sto. Tomas, 2001. Dinapoli, John. The Science of Theodicy: An English Translation of the Latin Theodicy of John Dinapoli. Trans. Felino J. Caballa. TP. San Carlos Seminary College, Mabolo, Cebu City, 1982. Drees, Willem B., ed. Is Nature Ever Evil? Religion, Science, and Value. London: Routledge, 2003. Gilson, Ẻtienne. God and Philosophy. Second Edition. 1941. 1969. Reprint. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, Yale Nota Bene, 2002. Glenn, Paul J., Ph.D., S.T.D. Theodicy: A Class Manual in the Philosophy of Deity. 1938. Reprint. London: B. Herder Book Co., 1957. [available at the SCSC library] Guzman, Fr. Marciano Malvar. Guide to Christian Belief: A Concise and Systematic Explanation of the Apostles’ Creed. Mandaluyong: Aletheia Foundation, Inc., 1986. Lavine, T.Z. From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest. New York: Bantam Books, 1984. Manson, Neil A., ed. God and Design: The Teleological Argument and Modern Science. London and New York: Routledge, 2003. Mautner, Thomas, ed. The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy. London: Penguin Books, 2000. Montalbo, Fr. Melchor B., Jr., Ph.D. Philosophy of God. Serviam Series Philosophy. Makati City: San Carlos Seminary, 1996. [available at the SCSC library] Morris, Thomas V., ed. God and the Philosophers: The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Nicholi, Dr. Armand M., Jr. The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life. New York: Free Press, 2002. [available at the SCSC library] Palmer, Michael. The Question of God: An Introduction and Sourcebook. London and New York: Routledge, 2001. Peterson, Michael, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Bassinger, eds. Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings. Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. [available at the SCSC library] Plantinga, Alvin. God and Other Minds: A Study of the Rational Justification of Belief in God. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1967. Renard, Henri, S.J. The Philosophy of God. Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1951.

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Richmond, James. Theology and Metaphysics. New York: Shocken Books, 1971. Swinburne, Richard. The Existence of God. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. __________. Is There a God? New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. __________. Providence and the Problem of Evil. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Thomas Aquinas, St. Commentary on the Gospel of St. John: Part I. Aquinas Scripture Series. Vol. 4. Ed. James A. Weisheipl, O.P., S.T.M. and Fabian R. Larcher, O.P. Albany: Magi Books, Inc., 1980. Thomas Aquinas, St. Summa Theologica. Complete English Edition in Five Volumes. Vol. One: 1a QQ. 1-119, 1a Iiae QQ. 1-4. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger Brothers, Inc., 1948. Timbreza, Florentino T. Quest for Meaning: Philosophy Made Easy for Filipinos. Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 2000. Wolff, Robert Paul, ed. Ten Great Works of Philosophy. New York: A Mentor Book, New American Library, 1969. Yarza, Ignatius. History of Ancient Philosophy. Trans. Cesar Santos. Manila: Sinag-Tala Publishers, Inc., 1994. Young, Julian. The Death of God and the Meaning of Life. London and New York: Routledge, 2003. Supplementary Readings On the Problem of Evil Guillemette, Nil. “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” In Greeted From Afar: God-Tales for Young and Old (Vol. 16). Makati City: St. Pauls, 1999.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE IN THEODICY I – THE NAME “THEODICY” “Theodicy”  theos + dike (“God”) (“right”; “custom”; “usage”; “manner”) Used by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716) in his Essays on Theodicy vs. Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), an atheistic philosopher.1: TO DEFEND THE JUSTICE AND RIGHTEOUS MANNER OF GOD’S DEALINGS WITH MANKIND, DESPITE THE EVILS OF THE WORLD. THEREFORE… LITERALLY / ETYMOLOGICALLY  THEODICY = “God’s justice” or “God’s righteous way” LATER, “THEODICY”  “natural theology.” Theodicy came to be understood not just as the defense of God’s beneficent providence but as the study of the whole of God – His nature, attributes, and operations. NATURAL THEOLOGY: THEODICY: science of God as knowable by unaided human reason. “THEOLOGY” SUPERNATURAL THEOLOGY: DIVINE THEOLOGY: science of God as manifested by Divine Revelation.

1

Richard Popkin, “Bayle,” The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy, ed. Thomas Mautner (London: Penguin Books, 2000), 63. Pierre Bayle – French Protestant, trained by the Jesuits at the Jesuit college in Toulouse; for a brief period of time was a convert to Catholicism. He later studied at the Calvinist University of Geneva. But later on he… - wrote criticisms of intolerant and dogmatic views of Catholics and Protestants alike. - Some say he was really trying to undermine all religious beliefs by showing that they were irrational and intellectually indefensible. - MOST IMPORTANT WORK: The Historical and Critical Dictionary 1697, 2nd edn 1702, which included several entries on biography of persons from the Bible, Greek mythology, the ancient and medieval world, and the political, philosophical, scientific and theological figures of modern times. - SOME IMPORTANT TEACHINGS: o Skepticism about all kinds of philosophies and theologies… o Religion must be accepted on the basis of faith alone. o Complete toleration of all views, heretical, non-Christian and even atheist ones. o False religion is not preferable to atheism. Atheists can be morally upright. They ought to be tolerated. o Human conduct is determined by passion, rather than reason.

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∆

“THEODICY”  the philosophical science which sets forth all that human reason can discover by its unaided efforts about God, His existence, His nature, His attributes, and His operations.

II – DEFINITION / DESCRIPTION THEODICY  THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCE OF GOD. a) Theodicy is a science [from the Latin word scire = “to know”]: knowledge through causes and reasons: - “systematized” (knowledge that is clear, orderly, logical, and complete) - “evidenced” (it offers evidences and proofs at every step of its development) - “certain” (the evidences and proofs that it offers are those which the mind requires to make it give its full and unwavering assent to the doctrines proposed”) b) Theodicy is a philosophical science. - human (not divine) science, i.e., it is built up by reason unenlightened by Revelation. - ultimate (not just proximate causes and reasons), i.e., seeks the very last discoverable causes and reasons for its data. c) Theodicy is the philosophical science of God. - preposition “of” – not possessive (as in the Papacy of Benedict XVI), but objective, i.e., “science about God.” - not knowledge that belongs to God but knowledge that man can gain about God in Himself and in all the phases (existence, nature, attributes, operations) under which He is viewed by the limited human mind.2 III – OBJECTS Material Object (scope / field of investigation / subject matter)  GOD Formal Object Quod (the aspect under which the material object is considered; the special way, or purpose, or end-in-view, which a science has in dealing with its subject matter)  E.g. GOD AS THE FIRST CAUSE AND LAST CAUSE of the world. (In this sense, Rational Theology differs from Revealed Theology, which studies God as Father, as the First Person of the Blessed Trinity, etc.).3 2

Ibid., 2-4.

5 Formal Object Quo  REASON, specifically, the “third degree of abstraction.” (Again, here Rational Theology differs from Revealed Theology, which uses revelation.) Because it uses the third degree of abstraction, Rational Theology is called Metaphysical Theology. REVIEW OF GENERAL METAPHYSICS OR ONTOLOGY: To use the third degree of abstraction is to present a thing from all considerations, i.e., to consider a thing as a being. When a thing is considered as a being, the thing is considered immaterially. There are two forms of being as far as immateriality is concerned. First is the negatively immaterial being (common being) – that which in itself is material but is considered immaterial. Second is the positively immaterial being (Special Being) – that which in itself is immaterial and so is considered immaterial. These forms of being justify the division of metaphysics into Ontology, the study of the negatively immaterial being; and Theodicy, the study of the positively immaterial being or the Special Being. And there is only one positively immaterial being, one Special Being  God.

In theodicy, the analytico-synthetic method is used. This is a study which first tries to analyze the world. From our analysis of the world, we shall know the nature of God. And knowing the nature of God, we go back to the world and study the relationship between God and the world. We synthesize God and the world. EXISTENTIA DEI -------- NATURA DEI ------- REL. BET. GOD & THE WORLD IV – THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY OF THEODICY 1. Theodicy is the most important of all human sciences because it deals with the most sublime subject – God. 2. Many other sciences rest ultimately upon certain assumptions that theodicy attempts to prove. These other sciences are based upon notions of primal causality, of an ordered universe (and hence an Orderer), of an arrangement and balance, of a consistency and constancy in nature. E.g. Ethics needs theodicy, if only to emphasize that there exists a consistent divine moral law-giver. 3. Theodicy meets the highest and strongest tendencies of the human mind. “[Theodicy] is important because… it gives meaning to the bewildering universe of sentient experience; because it makes intelligible the resistless human bent 3

Compare theodicy and theology with this parallel example: Although the following “earth sciences” have a common material object (EARTH), each one differs from the others in the specific aspect it studies about the material object: - GEOLOGY  studies the earth in its rock formations - GEODISY  earth in its contours - GEOGRAPHY  earth in its natural or artificial partitions - GEONOMY  earth as subject to certain physical laws - GEOGENY  studies the earth to discover its origins - GEOMETRY  earth in its mensurable bulk and its mensurable movements.

6 and bias for moral conduct. Theodicy is the best that the human mind can do for man, for that strange being whose life is a blending of the most curious and even opposite elements; for man, the creature of penetrating reason and unseeing passion; for man, who moves among the hard and gross things of sense with the deepest spiritual longings in his soul; for man, whose tendency to be willful and perverse is inextricably bound up with an insatiable appetite for what is moral and good. So great is the essential service of theodicy…”4

V – DIVISION / COURSE OUTLINE / “BACKBONE OF THE COURSE” 3 QQ.

- Is there a God? - What is God? - What does God do?

2. July 11, 2005, Monday [0800-0900]

RATIONAL THEOLOGY General Introduction A Short Historical Survey of the Philosophy of God I – De Existentia Dei A. De necessitate demonstrandi existentiam Dei B. De possibilitate demonstrandi existentiam Dei C. De demonstratione existentiae Dei a mundo II – De Natura Dei (The Essential Attributes of God) A. De essentia metaphysica Dei B. De essentia physica Dei C. De unicitate Dei (The Operative Attributes of God) D. De superintellectu Dei E. De supervoluntate Dei F. De superpotentia Dei III – De Causalitate Dei Erga Mundum A. De creatione mundi a Deo B. De concursu Dei ad operationes creaturarum C. De providentia Dei

4

Ibid., 7.

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A SHORT HISTORICAL SURVEY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF GOD SITUATIONER: The “God of the Philosophers” vs. the “God of the Theologians.” Are they the same? - In Christianity = yes theologian poets - In ancient Greece = problematic because of two traditions the philosophers [of nature] As in the history of Western philosophy we usually begin with the Greeks, we begin our brief history of the philosophy of God with the ancient Greek philosophers. CONTEXT: THE QUESTION ON THE PRIMARY STUFF / SUBSTRATUM: What is the basic element or principle of all things which exist? What is that from which they all are and from which they first come into being and into which they are finally destroyed, the substance remaining and its properties changing? Most of the first philosophers thought that material principles alone were principles of all things. THALES OF MILETUS5 (625 – 545 B.C.) - (Aristotle, speaking of Thales’ teaching) The first principle, or element, or substance, of which all things are born and to which all things ultimately return, is water. [Aristotle, Metaphysics, 983b6-11, 17-27]6 - (Aristotle, speaking of Thales’ teaching in another text) “all things are full of gods.” - Comments: There are problems determining what really Thales meant in these statements. One interpretation says that for Thales, the supreme god and the cosmogenetic god are one divine power, that is, Water. But, we ask, did Thales really say that water was a god, or that, among the gods which crowd this world, there was a supreme god, and that this supreme god was water? ANOTHER INTERPRETATION: there is no trace of theological speculation in Thales or in his immediate successors, so that, when Thales says the world is full of gods, he did not really mean gods, but simply some physical and purely natural energy, such as water, which according to his own doctrine, is the first principle of all things.

5

Ẻtienne Gilson, God and Philosophy, 2nd edition (1941; 1969; reprint, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, Yale Nota Bene, 2002), 1. 6 Jonathan Barnes, trans. and ed., Early Greek Philosophy, Second Revised Edition (London: Penguin Books, 2001), 11-12.

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ANAXIMANDER OF MILETUS (c. 612-545 BC) Anaximander taught that the first principle that was the source of all things was not any determinate element but the apeiron or boundless, the Indeterminate. But when Anaximander says that the Indeterminate is divine, he may not have really thought of this first principle as a god which is a possible object of worship. In other words, it was a non-religious use of the words “god” and “divine.” And this non-religious use of the word god was characteristic of the period. ANAXIMENES OF MILETUS (585-528 BC) (flourished circa 545 BC) - Infinite air is the cause of all that is . Air is the original matter of the universe. When air is rarefied, it becomes fire; when it is condensed or ‘felted’ it becomes successively wind, clouds, water, earth, and stones… (The same comment may be made, i.e., Anaximenes did not really take this first principle as a god to be worshipped). For Anaximenes, the boundless expanse of air that surrounds the cosmos is divine. This controls the world, just as air is the principle of life which controls humans.7 ANAXAGORAS OF CLAZOMENAE (c. 500-428 BC)8 - Like his contemporaries, Anaxagoras spoke of a first principle that is the origin of the universe. Anaxagoras made Mind (nous) a principle of philosophical explanation. “He posited an initial chaos in which no distinct substance was discernible, but which had ‘seeds’ of all things in it. Besides the mixture of substances there was Mind (nous), which, though extended in space, does not mix with anything else, but has a principle of self-rule and a power to control physical substances… [This] Mind ordered all things, whether past, present, or future.”9 (Plato and Aristotle would later praise Anaxagoras for making Mind the cause of order in the universe. Anaxagoras assigned an essential causal role to Mind.)

7 Daniel Graham, “Anaximenes,” in The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy, ed. Thomas Mautner (London: Penguin Books, 2000), 23. 8 Anaxagoras is one philosopher who accepted Parmenides’ principle (1) that nothing is generated or destroyed. Anaxagoras “defends the reality of change by maintaining (2) that there is a universal mixture of everything in everything, (3) that matter is infinitely divisible, and (4) that whatever predominates in a given mixture determines the character of that mixture. “Since there is no generation and destruction, every substance we meet in experience must always exist; when one substance appears to change into another, for instance when water appears to change into air through evaporation, what we are really witnessing is the emergence of ‘separating off’ of a second substance previously contained in the first: air was already in the water. Since water predominated in the mixture, we did not perceive the air, but it was there nonetheless. And since any substance can eventually produce any other, we must suppose that traces of every substance are in every other substance. On this account there must be an element corresponding to every kind of substance we perceive: water, air, blood, bone, etc.” – Daniel Graham, Anaxagoras,” in The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy, 22. 9 Daniel Graham, “Anaxagoras,” in The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy, 22.

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NOTE: One problem(?) of the Greek use of the word “god” is that its origin is not a philosophical one.10 When the Greek philosophers began to speculate, the “gods” were already there. They inherited the “gods” from the so-called “Theologian Poets.” There was already Greek mythology. There was already HOMER (fl. 850 B.C.), a Greek epic poet. The word “god” was applied to a wide variety of different objects. A Greek god could be conceived as what we would call a person, such as Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Athena, and all the gods of Mt. Olympus. But the “god” could also be some physical reality, such as the great god Ocean, or the Earth itself, or the Sky. But whatever their real nature, the gods of the Greeks were thought to be living powers or forces endowed with a will of their own. They operate human lives and sway human destinies from above. Characteristics of the Greek Divine Powers: 1. Life. Hence, they are called “The Immortals” 2. All of them are related much more to man than to the world at large. (E.g., Earth, Sky, Ocean, Rivers, which bring life to man; Sleep and Death, Fear and Strife, and Rumor, who is the Messenger of Zeus.) 3. A divine power that reigns supreme in its own order may have to yield, on some definite points, to other gods equally supreme in their own order. (E.g., Although the Immortals never die, they sleep. Thus, Sleep is called “the lord of all gods and of all men.”11

3. July 11, 2005, Monday [0900-1000]

XENOPHANES OF COLOPHON, IONIA (c. 570 – c. 475) - criticized traditional views of the gods and developed a rational theology to replace them. - challenged anthropomorphic religion with his new concept of a transcendent God. Anthropomorphic religion gave human qualities to the gods. Humans in general make the gods according to their own image. Epic poets for instance made the gods guilty of immorality. - Xenophanes wrote that mortals are fond of thinking that gods are born, just as mortals are born. Like themselves, humans think that the gods have dress, have voices, and have forms like those of human beings. If horses could only draw and accomplish works like men, then, Xenophanes muses, they would also draw the forms of the gods like horses. Africans would describe the gods as snub-nosed and black. Thracians would say the gods are blue-eyed and red-haired. - But for Xenophanes, there is in reality one God, unlike humans in body and mind, who, remaining motionless, causes change by thought alone. And all of him sees, thinks, and hears.12

10

Gilson, op. cit., 6. Ibid., 7-10. 12 Daniel Graham, “Xenophanes,” in The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy, 606. 11

10

SOCRATES13 (470? – 399 B.C.) Socrates was sentenced to die for the crime of impiety, for “not believing in the gods of the city and for introducing new deities” into popular belief [Xenophon, Memoirs, I, 1, 1]. And yet, Socrates was a deeply religious man. Socrates was opposed to the traditional religion of the State like the sophists; but unlike them, he did not subscribe to agnosticism and much less to atheism. On the contrary, he had a very lofty notion of the divinity, which far surpassed the anthropomorphic character of the Greek gods. Like Anaxagoras before him, Socrates conceived of God as the Supreme Intelligence, source of universal order and chief among the pantheon of Gods which he no doubt believed in. His notion of God was very much in keeping with his ethical principles and his philosophy of man. This is clearly seen in the following words of Xenophontes which explain what we might call the Socratic proofs of God’s existence. “Don’t you think you have a share of intelligence?… And you still think that the intelligence is not to be found at all elsewhere? Don’t you see that your body contains a small portion of the earth, taken from the great mass of earth that we have around us; and that it also has some amount of water that everywhere exists? Don’t you realize that someone must have been responsible for the formation of your body, someone who took small amounts of the different elements from their superabundant supply and joined them together in your constitution? If no intelligence existed, how do you explain your possessing it – could you say it happened all by chance? How do you explain the wonderful order we observe among the different elements, infinite as they are in number and tremendously great in size? Can a non-intelligent force really be the source of all this?” [Xenophon, Memoirs, I, 4, 8]. Another feature of the religious life of Socrates was his belief in the presence of a divine voice (daimonion) in him that guided his actions. “You have heard me speak at sundry times and in diverse places of an oracle or sign which comes to me, and is the divinity which Meletus ridicules in the indictment. This sign, which is a kind of voice, first began to come to me when I was a child; it always forbids but never commands me to do anything which I am going to do.” [Plato, Apology, 31 c.]

For Socrates, the daimonion was a privilege granted to him by the gods. It was a proof of the reality of divine providence. 4. July 18, 2005, Mon. [0800-0900]

PLATO (427-347 BC) After the pre-Socratic philosophers and after Socrates, we go to PLATO. In his dialogue Timaeus,14 Plato speaks of the dēmiourgos (demiurge = worker, craftsman), which for him is the supreme artificer/architect or ordinator of the world. The Demiurge 13

This whole section on Socratic theology is lifted from Ignatius Yarza, History of Ancient Philosophy, trans. Cesar Santos (Manila: Sinag-Tala Publishers, Inc., 1994), 73-75. 14 Plato, “Timaeus,” in The Mayfield Anthology of Western Philosophy, ed. Daniel Kolak (Mountain View: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1998), 187-189.

11 is not all-powerful, but does as best he can, given the constraints imposed by the Forms and by Necessity. [In Gnostic speculation, he is an inferior deity, subordinate to the highest God, producer of the sensible world, and thus the originator of imperfection and evil].15 But Plato also teaches a doctrine on the world of ideas in which he refers to the Highest Idea, which for him is the Idea of the Good, the Idea of the Infinite or the Absolute, the One, the Good, the Beautiful. Plato had a dualistic view of the world. There is a world of becoming where images, illusion, and sense particulars reside. And there is a world of being where transcendental “Forms” or universal ideas or ideal realities reside (e.g. Justice itself, Holiness itself, Beauty itself, Equality itself, etc). All things in the world of becoming are copies of the universal ideas, or “Forms,” in the world of being, which in turn participate in the One, the Good, the Beautiful. [See the schemas below.] Sensible objects are named after the corresponding Form since they participate in that Form. E.g. Socrates is just because he participates in Justice. Sensible goods are good because they participate in the intelligible and subsistent idea of the good. But, as has been said, the transcendental Forms (like goodness, justice, etc.) in turn participate in the only one Source – the One, the Good, the Beautiful. The One is the unifying principle where all universals derive their essence, intelligibility, and relation. For Plato, the Idea of the Good is the supreme form. It is the ultimate aim of the soul. “The Idea of the Good is the end or fulfillment or purpose for which all things exist, and thus it alone gives intelligibility, truth, and goodness to all the other forms, which are dependent upon it, and it alone provides their coordination and unity. Seen in the light of the Idea of the Good, the plurality of the many forms becomes the unity of total reality. “Plato compares the Idea of the Good to the sun. As the light of the sun makes the concrete things of the world visible and is the source of their life, growth, and value so the Idea of the Good gives truth which makes the forms intelligible and is the source of their being and goodness. Plato says of the Idea of the Good that it is ‘The universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this world, and the source of truth and reason in the other.’ And again he says, ‘The good is not essence but far exceeds essence in dignity and power.’ “In the Idea of the Good, Plato has given expression to a vision of an absolute source of truth and goodness. The Idea of the Good is the source of the intelligibility, truth, and value of all the other ideas or forms; the Idea of the Good is the source of the world’s moral purpose. With the ascent to the Idea of the Good, to an absolute one of truth and goodness, Plato prepared the way for the Christian God. Like the God of Christianity, the Idea of the Good is the supreme value. It is the source of all other value. The Idea of the Good is Plato’s conception of the absolute, the perfect principle of all reality, truth, and value…”16

15

“Demiurge,” The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy. T.Z. Lavine, From Socrates to Sartre: The Philosophic Quest (New York: Bantam Books, 1984), 41-42. 16

12

WORLD OF BECOMING

DIAMETRICALLY O P P O S E D

IMAGES ILLUSIONS SENSE PARTICULARS

shadowy shifting fleeting undefinable unscientific

WORLD OF BEING

FORMS UNIVERSAL IDEAS UNIVERSALS

fixed limited definite definable scientific eternal universal subsistent

WORLD OF

WORLD OF

BECOMING

BEING

BECAUSE THINGS EXIST AS THEY

BECAUSE THINGS EXIST AS THEY

APPEAR

ARE

THE WORLD OF REALITY

13 APPLICATION white wall

W

white shirt

white board

whiteness

world of becoming rationality Adolf Hitler

Jesus

R Christ

world of

Gloria Arroyo

being ANOTHER SCHEMA:

ONE WORLD OF BEING

WHITENESS

JUSTIC E

A

B

C

WORLD OF BECOMING

A

B

RATION -ALITY

C

A

B

C

14 QUESTION: DID PLATO CALL THE GOOD / the ONE A GOD? ANSWER: NO! Plato’s View of Reality When He Sees It as an Object of Philosophical Knowledge “… When Plato says of something that it truly is, or exists, he always means to say that its nature is both necessary and intelligible. Material and sensible things, for instance, cannot truly be said to be, for the simple reason that, ceaselessly changing as they are, none of them ever remains the same during two successive instants. As soon as you know one of them, it vanishes, or else it alters its appearance, so that your knowledge either has completely lost its object, or no longer answers its object. How then could material things be intelligible? Man can know only that which is. Truly to be means to be immaterial, immutable, necessary, and intelligible. That is precisely what Plato calls Idea. The eternal and intelligible Ideas are reality itself. Not this and that particular man, but their unchangeable essence. The only thing that truly is, or exists, in a given individual, is not that accidental combination of characters which constitutes him as distinct from every other individual within the same species; it is rather his own sharing in the eternal essence of this species. Not Socrates as Socrates, or Callias as Callias, is truly a real being; in so far as they really are, Socrates and Callias are one and the same thing, namely Man-in-Himself, or the Idea of Man. “Such is Plato’s view of reality when he sees it as an object of philosophical knowledge. Let us now ask ourselves what can deserve the title of divine in such a philosophy? If that which is the more real is also the more divine, the eternal Ideas should eminently deserve to be called divine. Now, among the Ideas there is one which dominates all the others, because they all share in its intelligibility. It is the Idea of Good. Just as among the gods in heaven the sun in the lord of all that shares in the essence of light, the Idea of Good dominates the intelligible world because all that is, in so far as it is, is good . Why then should we hesitate to conclude that in Plato’s philosophy the Idea of Good is god? “I am far from disputing the logical validity of such a deduction. Plato should have made it. I even agree that we can hardly refrain from reading as a definition of his own god the famous lines of the Republic where Plato says of the Idea of Good that it is ‘the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in the visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.’ [Plato, Republic, 517] Assuredly, nothing more closely resembles the definition of the Christian God than this definition of the Good. Yet, when all is said, the fact remains that PLATO HIMSELF HAS NEVER CALLED THE GOOD A GOD… “What makes it so hard for some modern scholars to reconcile themselves to this fact is that after so many centuries of Christian thought it has become exceedingly difficult for us to imagine a world where the gods are not the highest reality, while that which is the most supremely real in it is not a god. It is a fact, however, that in Plato’s mind the gods were inferior to the Ideas. The Sun, for instance, was held by Plato as a god; and yet in his doctrine the Sun, who is a god, is a child of the Good, which is not a god. In order to understand Plato’s own idea of a god, we must first imagine some individual living being, similar to those we know from sensible experience; but instead of imagining it as changeable, contingent, and mortal, we must conceive it as intelligible, immutable, necessary, and eternal. This is a god for Plato. In short, a Platonic god is a living individual endowed with all the fundamental attributes of an Idea. This is the reason why a Platonic Idea can be more divine than a god, and yet not be a god. If we take man as a body quickened by a soul, man is not a god. On the contrary, human souls are such living individual beings as are of intelligible nature and immortal in their own right; hence the human souls are gods. There are many gods higher than our own souls, but none of them is an Idea. There are the Olympians, whom Plato does not take too seriously, but nevertheless preserves after purifying them of their human weaknesses; after them come the gods of the state; then the gods below, without forgetting the demons or spirits, the heroes, ‘and after them… the private and ancestral gods who are worshipped as the law prescribes in the places which are sacred to them.’ [Plato, Republic, 717] Clearly enough, the world of Plato is no less full of gods than the world of Thales or that of Homer; and his gods are just as distinct from his philosophical principles as an order of persons is distinct from an order of things.”17 17

Ẻtienne Gilson, God and Philosophy, 2nd edition (1941; 1969; reprint, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, Yale Nota Bene, 2002), 23-29.

15 REQUIRED READING: Book XII, Numbers 1-10 but especially nos. 6, 7, and 8 of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. See Justin D. Kaplan, ed., The Pocket Aristotle, trans. ed. W.D. Ross (New York: Washington Square Press, 1958), 143-152.

5. July 18, 2005, Mon. (0900-1000)

ARISTOTLE (384-322 BC) After Plato came ARISTOTLE, who taught that the world was eternal and unproduced (uncreated). This would mean that the world had no beginning and no end. In addition to this Aristotle also taught about an UNMOVED MOVER in order to explain motion in the world. For him, this Unmoved Mover did not move the world through efficient causality which is to be found in action but through final causality which is to be found in attraction. The idea of an Unmoved Mover comes closest to the idea of God.

Aristotle examines the question on God in book VIII of the Physics and in book XII of the Metaphysics.18 He deals separately with two different but related aspects of the question in each of these places. The nucleus of Aristotle’s analysis consists in affirming that beings in potency must have as their foundation a being which is Pure Act. This Pure Act is what Aristotle calls God. In the Physics, Aristotle demonstrates the existence of the Prime Mover and explains its nature. In the Metaphysics, he demonstrates the existence of the being which is Pure Act. The Existence of God (Proof from the book of Physics) The argument for the existence of the First Mover , the cause of the movement of the entire universe, rests on the principle of causality. “Everything that moves is moved by another” (Physics, VII, 241 b 24). If every thing that moves is moved by another, this other – if moved – must in turn be moved by another. We see that, in order to account for any movement, it is necessary to arrive at the existence of a principle which is unmoved, for if we must explain the origin of motion, we cannot proceed infinitely along a series of moved movers. To proceed infinitely along a series of moved movers would only delay any explanation. Hence, along with the existence of motor causes of particular movements which are themselves moved, there must exist a first absolutely IMMOBILE PRINCIPLE, which causes the movement of the entire universe. Without it, nothing at all would move (Physics, VIII, 5). Besides being immobile, the First Motor is also ETERNAL, for if it had begun to exist, it would have needed a cause. Moreover, Aristotle’s contention that the movement of the universe existed from all eternity is another proof of the eternity of the Prime Mover.19 18

The following section is taken from Ignatius Yarza, History of Ancient Philosophy, trans. Cesar Santos (Manila: Sinag-Tala Publishers, Inc., 1994), 157-163, abridged or paraphrased at certain points. 19 The eternity of movement does not have any relation to the demonstration of the existence of the Prime Mover, but only to the demonstration of its eternal nature. There are many difficulties involved in

16 A third attribute follows from the preceding two: PURE ACTUALITY. The Prime Mover must be pure ACT since it cannot be in potency in any way. Aristotle deals with this in the book of Metaphysics. 6. & 7. July 22, 2005, Fri.

(The Proof from the Book of Metaphysics) If the starting point of the Physics is movement, the starting point of the Metaphysics is substance. After pointing out the characteristics proper to substance, Aristotle asks himself what kinds of substances exist: do sensible substances alone exist, as affirmed by the ancient pre-Socratics? Or do suprasensible substances (not in the Platonic sense) exist as well? The existence of sensible substances needs no demonstration for Aristotle; it is evident. This is not the case, however, with suprasensible substances, whose existence Aristotle demonstrates in book XII of the Metaphysics. Aristotle affirms that if all substances were sensible or corruptible, nothing would exist. He reasons as follows: what is corruptible did not exist at some moment; moreover, nothing moves from potency to act except in virtue of a being in act. Therefore, the principle that explains the series of the generations of corruptible beings cannot be a corruptible being. It can only be an incorruptible one, a being that is pure act without any admixture of potency; because, if it were potential, in order to pass from potency to act, it would have to be caused in turn by another being in act, and so on up to infinity. This demonstration should be understood in the context of an eternal universe, without beginning or end, and which is continuously in movement. The cyclical movement of the heavenly bodies and the generations of terrestrial bodies are caused by an act which transcends corruptible beings; eternal and immortal, this being is God, Pure Act (Metaphysics, XII, 6, 1071 b 12). We have already seen how Aristotle, in the book Physics, ascends from the reality of movement to the existence of the First Unmoved and Eternal Mover. In the Metaphysics, Aristotle demonstrates that the First Principle is also Pure Act, without any admixture of potency; for if it were in potency, the existence of a prior cause would be necessary to explain its passage from potency to act. (By movement, Aristotle means not only local movement but all kinds of generations and corruptions, any kind of ontological change.) To summarize: the reality of movement can only be accounted for by the existence of a First Principle characterized by the following attributes: a) eternity – because only thus can it explain the eternity of the movement of the world; and also because if the First Principle were not eternal, it would not be Pure Act; b) immobility – because the First Cause of movement cannot itself be subject to change; c) pure actuality – because if it were in potency, it would not be the First Cause. This, therefore, is the Pure Act that Aristotle was looking for, the suprasensible substance which he called God. A QUESTION arises: how can the First Mover move and at the same time remain absolutely unmoved? Among the things we know, is there anything capable of moving while yet remaining unmoved? Aristotle answers in the affirmative, and cites the object this physical demonstration of the Prime Mover, and much remains unresolved. Among them, there are two which are most important: the question of the transcendence of the Prime Mover and the question of its relation to the world (how it exercises its causality in the world).

17 of desire and intellection as examples. The object of appetite is what is beautiful and good, and these attract the appetite without undergoing any movement. Likewise, what is intelligible moves the intellect while remaining unmoved. This is the kind of causality proper to Pure Act: Pure Act moves in the manner of the object of love as it attracts the lover. The Prime Mover of Aristotle, which constitutes the object of his theology, is therefore perfectly integrated into his search for the science of the first causes of being. It also constitutes the apex of this science, for, at this point, the science reaches the first motor cause. The First Unmoved Mover is the first of all substances, the substance without which all other substances would not be. It exercises efficient and final causality on all other substances in the sense that every movement tends towards it as its end. 8. July 25, 2005, Mon.

THE UNITY AND THE MULTIPLICITY OF THE DIVINE Aristotle thought that God alone could not account for the movement of all the celestial spheres. God directly moves the first mobile being (the heaven of fixed stars). Between this sphere and the earth, however, Aristotle presupposes the existence of many other concentric spheres, each one of a smaller size than the preceding sphere, and the larger sphere containing within itself the smaller sphere. What moves each one of these spheres? There are two possible answers; either they are moved by the movement that comes from the first heaven, and this movement is then transmitted mechanically from one sphere to the next; or they are moved by other suprasensible, immobile and eternal substances, which move in a manner analogous to that of the Prime Mover. Aristotle opts for the second since the first does not fit the view of the universe according to which there is diversity (i.e., non-uniformity) among the various movements of the spheres. In order to account for this heterogeneity, Aristotle says that there are many unmoved movers. He conceived these unmoved movers as intelligent substances capable of moving other beings in a manner analogous to God’s – i.e., they acted as the final causes of the different spheres. It is not clear whether, to Aristotle’s mind, these intellects were instruments which transcended their corresponding spheres. Basing himself on the astronomy of the time, Aristotle, after making the corrections he thought were necessary, fixed at 55 the number of celestial spheres. He, therefore, assumed a similar number for the intelligent movers that caused the celestial movements. God, or the Prime Mover, only moves the first sphere; it moves the other spheres indirectly. In spite of this multiplicity of intelligences, Aristotle says in his Metaphysics that things are governed, not by a multiplicity of principles, but by a single principle. There is no doubt that Aristotle conceives these intelligences as distinct from the Pure Act. Ultimately, therefore, the Stagirite affirms the unity of God as Supreme Cause. “…they give us many governing principles; but the world refuses to be governed badly. ‘The rule of many is not good; one ruler let there be’.” CLASS ACTIVITY: Reading in Class and Textual Analysis of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, selected portions from Bk. XII, nos. 6, 7, and 8.20

18

In conclusion, the following theses may be cited as constituting the clear elements of Aristotles’s theology: - the personal nature of the Prime Mover (i.e., it has intellect and will); - God itself is the sole object of its knowledge (which does not mean, however, that it is oblivious of the world: for Aristotle, knowledge of the cause can also involve knowledge of what is caused) - God is not the only cause (it is the universal motor and final cause, but along with it there are other independent and necessary causes that explain the world: the material cause and the formal cause). 9. July 25, 2005 Mon.

STOICISM HEADED BY ZENO OF CITIUM (c. 332-c.265 BC) The STOICS, headed by ZENO et al., taught about the world as the absolute and that the world is God. “As to the great Stoics, it is impossible to open their works without meeting there, in practically every chapter, the name of god. But what is their god if not fire, the material element out of which this universe is made? Owing to it, the world is one; an all-pervading harmony, or sympathy, links together its parts, and each of us is in it, as one of its many parts: ‘For there is both one Universe, made up of all things, and one God immanent in all things, and one Substance, and one Law, one Reason common to all intelligent creatures, and one Truth.’ ”21

Stoicism [coming from stoa, or portico, (or stoikos [stoa poikilē = painted portico]) where Zeno conducted his philosophical activities c. 306 BC] is a way of life designed to attain the supreme good of happiness, understood in terms of impassibility and imperturbability.22 Stoic imperturbability is not that of Epicurus. It means the practice of virtue. Virtue consists in wisdom – but not wisdom understood as speculative knowledge or contemplation, but as the domination of reason over human life. Stoicism divides philosophy into three – logic, ethics, and physics (which includes theology). Stoic physics is akin to the physics of the pre-Socratics: it is a science that embraces all that is real – God, man the world, etc. Its basic assumption is the identification of reality with corporeal being. Every being is corporeal and individual: God, the soul, the world, the good, etc. “Being is said only of that which is a body” (Cf. H. Von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, Lipsiae 1903-1924, II, fr. 329; Seneca, Epis., 106, 2). 20 Justin D. Kaplan, ed., The Pocket Aristotle, trans. ed. W.D. Ross (New York: Washington Square Press, 1958), 143-152. 21 Ẻtienne Gilson, God and Philosophy, 2nd edition (1941; 1961; reprint, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, Yale Nota Bene, 2002), 35. 22 The following section is taken, with some omissions and paraphrases, from Ignatius Yarza, History of Ancient Philosophy, trans. Cesar Santos (Manila: Sinag-Tala Publishers, Inc., 1994), 201-205.

19 The corporeal nature of everything real should be understood in terms of what can be called an active materialism. Every body necessarily acts, either by receiving or carrying out an action. This means that a body is composed of matter and an immanent form (the logos or ratio). “As you know, our stoics affirm that, in reality, there are two essential principles from which all things are born: the cause and the matter. Matter underlies everything like an inert substance; it is ready to receive any kind of change, but will remain inert if no one moves it. The cause or the reason, on the other hand, gives form to matter, it works on it as it pleases, and draws from it the variety of its works. It is necessary, therefore, to have a principle out of which something is drawn, and another principle whereby the same thing is formed. The first active principle is the cause, the other first principle is the matter” (Seneca, Epist., 65, 2).

Matter and the ratio are eternal. Matter is finite, inert, and unknowable. It is the subject of the active principle that causes the individual corporeal being. In saying this, the stoics are repeating the Heraclitean doctrine of the logos, for they conceive of the active principle as a living and intelligent body which is very subtle, and which they sometimes identified with fire (Cf. Cicero, De nat. deor., II, 9, 23). They conceived of this active principle as the universal law or reason immanent to the cosmos, in virtue of which the cosmos is orderly, and matter is permeated with form and vivified. Everything in the universe is governed by this active principle. Following the teaching of Heraclitus, the stoics affirm that the universe follows a permanent rhythmic or cyclical movement. All things emerge from matter only to dissolve into matter once again following the rule of the universal logos or reason, which acts as the soul of the world. In general terms, the entire universe for the Stoics is a body composed of matter and logos. Whatever happens to the whole also happens necessarily to the parts – i.e., to the individual beings which are conceived of as so many microcosms. The form of incorporeity whose existence is recognized by the stoics is, above all, that of predicable things or universals. Universals exist in the mind and can be predicated of many individuals. Since corporeal things are always singular, universals are incorporeal and, hence, devoid of any reality. They exist only in thought and do not correspond to anything in the real world. Also of an incorporeal nature are the void, time and the infinite, on account of their inability to act and to suffer. Logos = God  Pantheism The stoics do not use precise terms to designate the active principle. Sometimes, they identify the logos with God, and thus fall into pantheism. God for the stoics is not a living being superior to the rest, but the individual whole, the world, the cosmos. Eternal Cycles: Providence, Fate or Destiny, Determinism When the stoics refer to the logos as the origin of order in the universe, they call it providence. It is a providence which is immanent to the world, and which they identify with the soul of the world or with the purposiveness permeating the universe. If this same providence is looked at from the standpoint of the eternal cycles that govern all the events

20 that happen in the world, then it is called fate or destiny. It is understood as an intelligent and inexorable law that rules everything. Hence, stoicism falls into fatalist determinism. Everything happens necessarily. Fatalist Determinism vs. Human Freedom Crisippus (282-204 BC) [or Chrysippus] was aware that such determinism rules out the possibility of human freedom. Nevertheless, he did not deny the existence of human freedom altogether but limited its exercise considerably. The only way man can exercise his freedom is by either accepting or rebelling against fate. He hastens to add, however, that any kind of resistance to fate is ineffective. In fact, it is the real cause of all our sufferings. Hence, true liberty consists in resigning oneself to the designs of the law of necessity by which the entire world is governed. “The stoics categorically affirm that all things happen according to fate. They illustrate this in the following way. Imagine a dog tied to a cart. If the dog wants to follow the cart, it will follow the cart while being led by it at the same time. It does voluntarily what it would have to do necessarily. If, on the contrary, the dog does not wish to follow the cart, it would be obliged to do so just the same. So it happens with men. If they do not wish to follow fate, they shall in any case be obliged to meet with whatever has been so established by destiny” (Hippolytus, Philosoph., 21 [Von Arnim, S.V.F., II, fr. 975]).

CLASS ACTIVITY: A CRITIQUE OF STOICISM Weaknesses: Strengths: 10. July 27, 2005, Wednesday

PLOTINUS: THE THEORY OF EMANATIVE PARTICIPATION 23 The Neo-Platonic doctrine of the cosmos is a take-off from that of Plato. Plato laid the foundation of his binary world-view. PLOTINUS (205-270) and PROCLUS (AD 410 – 485), among other Neo-Platonists, provided the enfleshments to this foundation. The Neo-Platonists built on Plato’s doctrine of participatio (that sense objects are called after the eternal Forms because they participate in these forms, e.g., that Socrates is called a just man because he participates in the Idea of Justice, which exists in the World of Ideas, or world of being; or that this particular horse participates in the real Idea Horse existing in the world of ideas). The Plotinian world-view is more elaborate than Plato’s in that, for Plotinus, originating reality is divided into cosmic strata or hypostases. Each in its own dynamism exhibits twofold movements: proodos (going out, procession or emanation) and 23

Handouts on Special Questions in Metaphysics, Lecture of Fr. Antonio Aureada, O.P. First Semester, SY 1999-2000, University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Philosophy, Manila, 31.

21 epistrophe (going back, reversion or return). The One is the first hypostasis, followed by the Spirit-Nous (or the Divine Mind), and, lastly, the Soul. Below the world of the suprasensible stands the sensible world of matter. THE PLOTINIAN WORLD-VIEW PROODOS FIRST STRATUM (HYPOSTASIS)

ONE

EPISTROPHE

PROODOS SECOND STRATUM (HYPOSTASIS)

NOU S

EPISTROPHE

PROODOS THIRD STRATUM (HYPOSTASIS)

SOUL EPISTROPHE

FOURTH STRATUM (HYPOSTASIS)

MATTE R

The One, the Prime or Supreme Principle of Law, which, following Plato, Plotinus calls the Good or the Beautiful, has actually all by itself. It is simply God. In and by itself, the One is the cause of itself. It wills its own reality: “God is the cause of Himself, for Himself and of Himself is what He is, the First Self, transcending the Self.” (Enn. VI, 8, 13-14). The One, however, has only one radical attribute: absolute simplicity: “Generative of all, The Unity is none of all.” (Ibid., VI, 9, 3). Since it is uncaused and yet causes the other hypostases, its proodos is its epistrophe and vice-versa. Hence, the One is plenitude, devoid of any participated perfections and yet the source of all perfections. It is the measure of all measured. In short, it is ineffably infinite. Now, in the attribution of infinity to the One, the first Plotinian novelty arises: And here we see that … [the] most important step has been made, that is, the traditional Greek conception of the infinite has been changed. Traditionally, the Greek conception had identified the infinite with the formless, the indeterminate,

22 the unintelligible, in short with matter and the principles of imperfection. For Plotinus, the source is at once perfection and infinite, a doctrine which has the most important consequences. (Fay, “Participation, The Transformation of Platonic and Neoplatonic Thought in the Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas,” Divus [1973]: p. 53).

In search of a new terminology to express this infinity in the One, Plotinus resorts to the old Greek for infinite, apeiron used by the Ancient to refer to that from which the world originated. He thus seeks to set forth a new interpretation of the content of indetermination, different from the age-old signification of finiteness and so, to identify infinity with plenitude of perfection, the all-Embracing Form, the One. By virtue of the simple activity of the One, i.e, its willing its own reality, the immediate procession of the next hypostasis occurs. This procession is more technically called the emanation of things from the One. The word “emanation,” latent in and unexplained by Plato, appears, for the first time in Plotinus, another novelty, as a clear indicator of the derivation of all from the One. The Divine Mind (Nous) is a faint and inferior image of the One. It returns to the One by contemplation and thereby, attains greater similitude to the One and a firmer constitution of itself as Divine Mind. The next hypostasis, the Soul, is generated as its faint image of the Divine Mind. The same pattern of emanation and return in a gradual diminishing way is conceived by Plotinus for all levels of reality. Basing himself on the model of the rays of the sun, Plotinus holds that the further away the reality is from the One, the fainter its reflection of the One; and, therefore, the greater the dissimilarity. This is the plight sustained by the sensible world of matter. All intelligible essences below the One now appear as limited and hence imperfect participations of this supremely perfect and absolutely simple first principle, which somehow contains within itself the perfections of all the lower determinate essences but in none of them in particular. (Clarke, “The Limitation of Act by Potency: Aristotelianism or Neoplatonism,” NS [1952], p. 186.

This emanative participatory view of reality interprets Plato’s doctrine of participation more prominently in terms of “more or less.” From the emanative, participative theory of Plotinus, we can trace the earliest stage of the concept of image. In this respect, the following points are worth spotlighting: An image depends upon, and accompanies, some emanation or generation from a higher principle. Every image is like its model and principle, but always inferior to it; an image is always a degraded copy. An image had impressed in it, together with likeness to its principle, a tendency to return to the principle and model; an image is always turned toward its model. In fact, by this return upon its principle the image attains full likeness, the fullest possible to it, and then imitates its model by engendering a copy of itself. The latter process is always conceived of as being some sort of illuminative operation. At the farthest provinces of being, that is, at the level of matter, the dynamic return is almost totally lacking, and granted, that images are always degradations, it is better described as only a trace, rather than as an image, of the Supreme. (Sullivan, The Image of God, The Doctrine of St. Augustine and Its Influence (1963), p. 6-7).

Hence, each successive, consequent hypostasis will be a faint image of its preceding hypostasis. Hence, the farthest hypostasis called matter is the faintest of all

23 hypostases. Hence, in matter is found the image of the One in its most degraded participation. SCHEMA: THE PLOTINIAN WORLD-VIEW Ultimate exemplar ONE

FIRST STRATUM (HYPOSTASIS)

Image PROODOS

PROODOS

of

SECOND STRATUM (HYPOSTASIS) Exemplar for the Soul

EPISTROPHE the

NOU S

One

EPISTROPHE

PROODOS Image of the Nous THIRD STRATUM (HYPOSTASIS)

SOUL

Exemplar for Matter

EPISTROPHE

FOURTH STRATUM (HYPOSTASIS)

MATTE R The Vaguest Image  a Trace or Vestige of the One

COMPARE: God = Self-Subsistent Existence, Eternity, Fullness of Life, Fullness of Being, Infinity, Plenitude of Perfection, Highest Intelligence, Omnipotence, etc. Human Being = rational, sentient, living, bodily substance

THE ONE IMAGE OF GOD

Brutes = non-rational, sentient, living, bodily substance Plants = non-sentient, living, bodily substance Minerals = non-living, bodily substance

TRACES OR VESTIGES OF GOD

24

The basic principle gathered from theses initial observations is the fact that the image in whatever hypostasis it is found is always participated. Being participated, it will surely fall short of the perfection of its preceding hypostasis. ANALOGY: A photograph is a copy of the actual living person whose face is imprinted on the photo. But of course it falls short of the perfections of the living person. It does not capture the totality of the person, only some of the features of the person. If that photograph would in turn be photographed, then the new photo becomes even farther from the living person.

In point of origin, all is in the One, and all proceeds from it by means of successive, emanative diversifications. The Return to the One “Besides the emanation of all things from the One, Plotinus’ philosophy also teaches the eventual return of all things to their Principle. “For man, this return is primarily achieved through the practice of virtue, which renders man more and more similar to God. Virtues are lived with a view to liberating man from the sensible world. Once this degree of virtue is attained, man can contemplate the Spirit and live its very life. “Moreover, man can also count on the help of everything in this world which reflects the Good; in other words, he should contemplate the forms that remind the soul of its divine origin. By means of this contemplation, man should ascend, first from the sensible forms and then from the incorporeal ones, until he reaches his Principle [Enneads, I, 6, 6]. “At the beginning, all things were in the One. It was through a process of successive differentiations that all these things emanated from their Principle. The way back to the One therefore entails overcoming all differentiation. Man achieves this by separating himself from the body and from everything sensible – from the affective part of the soul, from discursive reason, from everything that separates the soul from the One [Enneads, VI, 6, 5 and VI, 9, 7]. The soul must first recover its original purity before it can be united to the Spirit, and through the Spirit, to the One. ‘No longer can we wonder that the principle evoking such longing should be utterly free from shape. The very soul, once it has conceived the straining love towards this, lays aside all the shape it has taken, even to the Intellectual shape that has informed it. There is no vision, no union, for those handling or acting by any thing other; the soul must see before it neither evil nor good nor anything else, that alone it may receive the Alone’ [Enneads, VI, 7, 34].

25 “This union with the One is what Plotinus calls extasis. It consists of a contemplation whereby the soul, filled with the One, becomes assimilated to it [Enneads, VI, 9, 11].”24 11. July 29, 2005, Fri.

PROCLUS: THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSATIVE PARTICIPATION25 It is to PROCLUS (AD 410 – 485) that we owe a deeper presentation of the NeoPlatonic world view. Proclus is the principal philosopher of the Platonist school of Athens, which was the last bastion of pagan Greek philosophy in a world that had become predominantly Christian. He was born in Constantinople but transferred to Athens at the age of twenty and remained there until his death. Of his writings, the most representative are the Elementatio Theologica and the In Platonis theologiam.

Proclus’ thought is not only speculative, but religious as well for he says that the way to arrive at truth (God) is not only reason and contemplation but also myth and faith . This explains why Proclus was interested in the Greek poets and the practice of theurgy (praying to the gods and communicating with them by way of symbols).26 Proclus follows the lines marked out by Plotinus, but he multiplies the hypostases and complicates their relations. The supreme principle, highest in perfection, and origin of all the rest is still the One, just like in Plato and in Plotinus. However, between the One and the intelligible hypostases are what Proclus calls the enades (or Henads). The Henads, which have a nature similar to that of the One, are countless intermediaries that explain the emanation of the many from the One. All multiplicity must proceed from the First Principle (the One), which is incommunicable and ineffable, the secret cause that lies above and beyond being, and which produces all things and attracts them back to itself. Now, the sensible world cannot proceed directly from the One because, according to Proclus, what is inferior can only be joined to the superior by means of an intermediary. This is why the first hypostases can be united to the One by way of the Henads, which lie above Being, Life, and Thought. Though the Henads are different from the One, they are similar to it and yet can be communicated to other things and become the object of knowledge. It is from the Henads that we have the divine action on the world; the One remains totally unrelated to it.27

The first emanations of the Henads are Being, Life, and Thought. Each of these emanations participate in a likeness of the other two. They co-mingle with one another. “Being is the first among these principles because it is present in all living and intelligent things (for everything that lives and everything that participates in intelligence must necessarily exist, while the reverse is not true: not everything that exists is alive and possesses the use of the intelligence). Life comes second since everything that participates in thought participates as well in life, whereas the reverse is not true: there are many living things that lack intelligence and do not have knowledge. The third principle is Thought 24

Ignatius Yarza, History of Ancient Philosophy, trans. Cesar Santos (Manila: Sinag-Tala Publishers, Inc., 1994), 234-235. 25 Handouts on Special Questions in Metaphysics, Lecture of Fr. Antonio Aureada, O.P. First Semester, SY 1999-2000, University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Philosophy, Manila, 36-37. 26 Yarza, op. cit., 239-240. 27 Ibid., 240 - 241.

26 because everything that, in some way, is capable of knowing possesses life and existence as well. If Being is what produces the greater number of effects, followed by Life which produces a fewer number, and then by Thought whose effects are even smaller, then, Being must come first, followed afterwards by Life, and afterwards by Thought.” [Elements of Theology, 101]

Being is composed of the unlimited (or infinite force) and the limited. From Being comes what is mixed (or the essence). Essence is the first real being in the sense that it participates in being. All beings participate in existence, and hence are composed of the unlimited and the limited. The other realities are deduced from the other two hypostases. A triad proceeds from Life, and proceeding from this triad are still other triads. From Thought there proceeds the hebdomads. Proclus identifies the Henads and the hypostases with the gods. In this way, the emanation of the many from the One is explained, while at the same time a justification is provided for traditional polytheism in the context of divine unity. While Proclus seems to complicate the Platonic and Plotinian world-view, we are interested not primarily in the details of the system of emanation but their underlying laws. THE GENERAL LAW that governs all the processions is characterized by THREE MOMENTS: 1. the unaltered permanence of the superior principle 2. the procession or emanation of the effect from the cause 3. the return or conversion of the effect to the cause. This general law applies not only to every reality but also to each one of the particular principles of the procession. The law is repeated at every step of the procession. As also taught by Plotinus, every hypostasis is always a degraded/faint copy of the hypostases preceding it. This declining scale is accounted for by a basic Neo-Platonic principle: “Every productive cause is superior to that which it produces,” thus the emanated structure of the universe from a single highest Principle (the First Cause, the One) to the lowest effect (matter, which no longer can produce anything else). This unitary conception of the universe as hierarchical is pictured as a tree drawing out its lifesource and nourishment from its roots with branches at different distances from its trunk. The superior principle or cause remains unchanged in the process of producing its effect. The cause is, as it were, multiplied because of the procession, since the effect is similar to the cause from which it proceeds: it has the same nature as the cause, though an inferior or less potent one, since it is produced. Moreover, because of its similarity to the cause, the effect aspires to be reunited to it.

A corollary to the principle just set forth is thus: “Everything which by its existence bestows a character on others itself primitively possesses that character, which it communicates to the recipient,” (Elementatio Theologica, Prop. 18). Here the stress lies on a characteristic or perfection which is found in the cause as well as in the effect. Since the cause is superior to its effect, however, the perfection transmitted is primarily in the cause and is in the effect only by way of derivation or participation. Still the cause

27 may be known via its effect. It is by virtue of this derivational character that the caused (effect) by its affinity with the cause, returns to its origin: “All that proceeds from any principle reverts in respect of its being upon that from which it proceeds.” (Ibid., Prop. 31). The consequence of all this is that everything is in everything, since the cause is found somehow in the effect, and vice-versa. The inferior principle is found in the superior principle as in its cause; the superior principle, in turn, is found in the inferior principle inasmuch as this inferior principle participates in it.

COMPARE: Man (the effect) is found in God (the Cause). Man started as a possible being in the mind of God. To this possible being, God gave actual existence. And thus man came about. God (the Cause) is also somehow found in man. Man possesses intellect and will – a participation of God’s Intellect and Will. Thus man is called the “natural image of God.” (Redeemed man – man in the state of grace – shares / participates in the very life of the Triune God. Thus man in the state of grace is also called the “supernatural image of God.”)

Emphasis in Proclus falls on the difference between the existence of the perfection in the cause and its existence in the effect. However, the Neo-Platonic “law of continuity” accentuates the similarity between the caused and the cause as the former derives its being from the latter. In other words, the cause remains in some way in the caused (effect) and the caused in the cause. The inferior principle is in the superior as to its cause; the superior is encountered at the same time in the inferior, inasmuch as the latter participates in it (Ibid., Prop. 30): “All that is immediately produced by any principle both remains in the producing cause and proceeds from it.” If there is a relationship between the cause and effect, the basis must be a certain kind of similarity. Hence, the premise based on the continuities in the development of the universe from a first cause is set in place.

Another law in the system of Proclus is the above-mentioned composition of the unlimited and the limited found in all beings. With the exception of the One, every reality, whether intelligible or sensible, is composed of these two elements, and hence, is a mixture of the two of them. The One only has unlimited perfections.

Ultimate exemplar FIRST STRATUM (HYPOSTASIS)

PROODOS ONE

28 EPISTROPHE Image PROODOS

of

SECOND STRATUM (HYPOSTASIS) Exemplar for the Soul

the NOU S

One

EPISTROPHE

PROODOS Image of the Nous THIRD STRATUM (HYPOSTASIS) Exemplar for Matter

SOUL EPISTROPHE

FOURTH STRATUM (HYPOSTASIS)

MATTE R The Vaguest Image  a Trace or Vestige of the One

Neo-Platonism focuses its understanding on what will come to be one of the major aspects of analogy, participation undergirded by causal emanation. In the light of a probable identification of the One with the Christian God, Mondin presents in terms of analogy a putative theology based on the key doctrine of Neo-Platonism, to wit: First, it [analogy] accounts for the possibility of speaking of God… God is the cause of everything. Hence, all created perfections and their names belong to God primarily and to creatures analogously, not univocally. Secondly, analogy provides a principle of unity between the various levels of reality. Reality is proportionately distributed in different degrees. This proportionate distribution is called analogy. The degree of reality of something is designated by its definite “proportion” to things of higher and lower grades, (Mondin, The Principle of Analogy in Protestant and Catholic Theology, [1963]), p. 3. COMMENTS:

Clarke pinpoints the strength of Neo-Platonism in its ability to express satisfactorily the fundamental genetic and hierarchic structure of the universe, i.e., the relation of creatures to a first Source from a participative and causal angle. Its obvious weakness rests on its doctrine of necessary emanation.

29

Quick Review of Platonism and Neo-Platonism: Key Concepts PLATO: “Participation”  Particular things that appear in the world of becoming participate in the Transcendental Forms existing in the world of ideas. E.g. This horse and that horse participate in Horseness Itself. This action is just and Socrates who performs the just action is a just man because they both participate in Justice Itself. Horseness Itself and Justice Itself derive their perfection from the One, i.e., they participate in the One. The world of ideas is more real because there things exist as they are. The world of becoming is less real because here things exist as they appear. PLOTINUS: “Emanative Participation”  The One necessarily emanates into lower strata / hypostases starting with the One emanating into the Nous, and then down to the Soul, and then to matter. The farther from the One, the fainter is that hypostasis a copy of the one, i.e., the less perfect. Each emanation participates in the perfection of the strata above it and displays a tendency towards the strata above it, and ultimately towards a return to the One. PROCLUS: “Causative Participation”  The One necessarily emanates into the lower strata / hypostases by means of countless intermediaries called enades. The first emanations are Being, Life, and Thought, in that order. The higher principle (the above stratum) causes the lower principle (the lower stratum) and remains present therein as cause to its effect. Each effect participates in the perfections of its cause, though in a less dignified extent. In each stratum (effect) there is the tendency to return or convert to the higher stratum (the cause), and ultimately to the One, the source of all perfections.

COMMON OBSERVATIONS IN THE PLATONIC AND NEO-PLATONIC TRADITION: In Plato, Plotinus, and Proclus, matter and material things belong to the world of becoming and constitute the lowest stratum in the dualistic worldview. Matter, because it is farthest from the One in the hierarchy, is looked upon negatively as evil and as the cause of evil . Applying this to man, it can be said that the body is the cause of evil, whereas the soul is originally good and pure. In the Platonic tradition, man is essentially a soul now imprisoned in a body. How did this imprisonment in a material body come about? The soul may be compared to the union of powers in a team of winged steeds and their charioteer. With human beings, one steed is white, noble and good while the other is black, crooked, deaf, and difficult to control. The charioteer represents reason, the soul’s pilot. The good white horse represents the power to act in so far as its innate tendency is to be in harmony with the commands of reason. The bad black horse represents man’s unbridled physical desires, which Plato calls the “appetite.” Virtue for man thus consists in man’s honest efforts to free himself from the demands of his physical appetites and to bring himself towards the spiritual contemplation of the Transcendental Forms. To be wise and just, a man must contemplate the Forms of Wisdom Itself and Justice Itself. The Forms, after all, are the standards, ideals, or perfect models of which things in the everyday world are at best imperfect copies. The Form of the wise, the courageous, the just, and the good are the standards of wisdom, courage, justice, and goodness. It follows therefore

30 that only the life devoted to knowing the good and the wise has any chance of being good and wise.28 This philosophical life of knowing the Forms is a matter of remembering. Why so? All human souls once had direct experience of the Forms… Originally the soul belonged to the ‘train’ of one of the gods as it made its journey around the ‘rim of the heavens.’ (If, for example, one exhibits ‘constancy’, ‘wisdom’, and is a ‘leader of men’, then one probably belongs to the train of Zeus; if one possesses a warlike disposition, then to that of Ares; if musical, then that of Apollo; if gifted in speaking, to that of Hermes; if a natural homemaker, to that of Hestia; and so on.) From its vantage point on the rim of the heavens, the soul was able, periodically, to receive its ‘true nourishment’, illumination by the Forms.29

The Forms

The soul’s journey

28

Julian Young, The Death of God and the Meaning of Life (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), 13-16. 29 Ibid., 14.

31

On account, however, of the struggle to control the black horse, some souls had their wings broken. No longer able to fly, they fell to earth where they became incarnate, entered into material bodies. (See next diagram.)30

The Forms

The soul’s fall

earth

Normally, there is no return to the rim of the heavens (and to the soul’s ‘true nourishment’) for ten thousand years. Rather, the soul is condemned to repeated reincarnations in bodily forms, its current position in the order of things being determined by the merit or otherwise of its previous life. If, however, the soul has three times lived the best life – the ‘philosophical life’ – then the period that must be endured before a return to the heavens is abbreviated to three thousand years.31 This “philosophical life,” as has been pointed out already, is a kind of ASCETICISM. It is a life spent in “spiritual contemplation, a life of meditation and reflection directed towards the Forms.” It is a “life directed away from the earthly and towards the heavenly.” It also involves “a disciplined aversion from things of the earth and of the flesh.” Therefore, it is a life of “abstention from physical enjoyment, from, in particular, enjoyment of each other’s bodies.”32 Some Comparisons Between Platonism and Christianity In the Platonic tradition, there is thus a three-part structure in regard to the soul. It is a story of: a) an initial state of grace – a paradise – a place of integration, being at home, being in place, being in the right place, b) a fall – a fall from grace to a place of alienation and exile, and c) redemption – a kind of homecoming, a return to the place from whence one came.33 Undoubtedly, Platonism continues to dominate Western thinking. Julian Young even goes so far as to say that even Christianity is basically a version of Platonism(!), of the true-world/true-home view of reality. One does not, I think, need much convincing that Christianity … is basically a version of Platonism, of the true-world/true-home view of reality. There is, of course, not a complete identity between Platonism and Christianity. There is, for example, no omnipotent creator-God in Plato.34 And neither is there anything corresponding to the crucifixion, to the idea of God’s ‘dying’ in order to make it possible for us to achieve 30

Ibid., 15. Ibid. 32 Ibid., 17. 33 Ibid., 19. 31

32 salvation. Yet in both the Platonic and the Christian story there is the same immortal, immaterial soul which figures in the same three-part story of sin, fall and redemption. In both stories there is the same metaphysical division between the natural and the supernatural worlds, between earth and heaven, with the latter portrayed as home and the former as place of exile. In both stories, therefore, physical desire in general, and sex in particular, is presented as something deeply problematic, something to be avoided as much as possible. In both stories, moreover, the fall is our own fault (in the Christian story, it occurred because we disobeyed God’s command and ate the forbidden fruit).35

12. August 1, 2005, Monday

GOD AND CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY One of the problems of the ancient Greek philosophers was what place to assign to their gods (whom they learned from their tradition and from their myths) in a philosophically intelligible world. Christian philosophers, for their part, have the Jewish tradition, to build on. The first character of the Jewish God was his UNICITY. God is one and He has revealed himself to the people of Israel. “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord.” Although this was not primarily a philosophical statement but a religious one, still it brought about a momentous philosophical revolution. Any Christian philosopher would henceforth identify his supreme philosophical cause with God. CHRISTIAN PHILOLOSOPHY: SUPREME PHILOSOPHICAL CAUSE = GOD … [w]hereas the difficulty was, for a Greek philosopher, to fit a plurality of gods into a reality which he conceived as one, any follower of the Jewish God would know at once that, whatever the nature of reality itself may be said to be, its religious principle must of necessity coincide with its philosophical principle. Each of them being one, they are bound to be the same and to provide men with one and the same explanation of the world.36

Moreover, for the Jews this God is “somebody” (not some thing). This God loves and takes care of his people. Hence, for the Jewish-Christian philosopher, the relationship between God and his people was one of personal relations, i.e., relations between persons and another person. And WHAT IS THE NAME OF THIS JEWISH-CHRISTIAN GOD? From the Book of Exodus: 34

Here Julian Young adds a note that for Plato, as he puts it in his dialogue Timaeus, “the world is the creation of a divine craftsman who, following the model of the Forms, attempts to reproduce their perfection in his creation. Forced, however, to work with inadequate and unstable materials (matter), which he did not create, he cannot do so.” See Julian Young, op. cit., 217. 35 Ibid., 20. 36 Ẻtienne Gilson, God and Philosophy, 2nd ed. (1941; 1961; reprint, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, Yale Nota Bene, 2002), 39.

33 MOSES: “Lo, I shall go to the children of Israel, and say to them: The God of your fathers hath sent me to you. If they should say to me: What is His name? What shall I say to them? GOD SAID TO MOSES: “I AM WHO AM… Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: HE WHO IS, hath sent me to you” (Ex. 3: 13-14). Thus, the Jewish God is named Yahweh, for Yahweh means “He who is.” Again, this is not a philosophical statement but a religious one. And yet this statement has great metaphysical import for the Christian philosopher. For the Christian philosopher, “I AM” (his religious first principle) must be one with his first philosophical principle, the supreme cause of all things. ∆ “I AM” == THE FIRST PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLE AND THE SUPREME CAUSE OF ALL THINGS Plato had taught that the ultimate philosophical explanation for all that which is should ultimately rest, not within those elements of reality that are always being generated and therefore never really are, but with something which, because it has no generation, truly is, or exists. In short, FOR PLATO, THE ULTIMATE PHILOSOPHICAL EXPLANATION IS “THAT WHICH IS,” namely, in the One.

For the Christian philosopher, if God is “He who is,” he also is “that which is,” because to be somebody is also to be something. Yet the converse is not true, for to be somebody is much more than to be something. When Christian revelation posited as the supreme cause of all “that which is,” “somebody who is,” and of whom the very best that can be said is that “He is,” it was establishing existence as the deepest layer of reality as well as the supreme attribute of the divinity. …

SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO (354 – 430 A.D.) During the Christian era the question about God was made very popular especially by ST. AUGUSTINE, the first great Christian philosopher, who in a way followed Plato and christianized Platonic philosophy. For him, the world of ideas of Plato was the mind of God.

The Platonic and Neo-Platonic Ideas That Augustine Imported and Christianized Augustine  fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding)  credo ut intelligam (I believe that I may understand.) 1. Augustine adopts Neo-Platonism: the soul is the innermost reality = “the inner man.” Man is essentially a soul using a body. ∆ “CONFESSION”  Augustine’s dialectic in the search for God. To make a confession is to confess God, i.e., to profess God as the One to Whom one must return and be united with. By means of the confession, man strives to return to God as the goal of his being. Man does this by trying… - to raise his soul from the body to the contemplation of itself,

34 -

then to reason, and finally to the light illuminates it, GOD Himself.37

which

To arrive at God, one begins with the reality of creation, and especially with the inner nature of man. The soul, by natural reason (ratio inferior), knows things, itself, and, indirectly, God, Who is reflected in His creation. Man can receive supernatural illumination from God (ratio superior), and thus, can raise itself to the knowledge of eternal things. 2. Man is an image of God. [Cf. Neo-Platonist terms: image, model, exemplar, etc.]. Man finds God, as in a mirror, in the intimacy of his own soul. (Cf. Neo-Platonist idea: The cause/superior principle is to some extent found in the effect/image.) - ∆ to turn away from God = to rip one’s own vitals, to empty oneself, to wane constantly.38 [Cf. Augustine’s personal testimony; Cf. Augustine’s definition of SIN (peccatum) = (aversio a Deo et conversio ad creaturas) aversion from God and conversion to creatures, i.e., man turns away from his striving to reunite himself with God and chooses to identify himself with creatures.] 3. The hierarchical structure of reality: E.g. man is an image of God, while other creatures are just vestiges/traces of God. Augustine retained from Neo-Platonism this hierarchy of beings. But Augustine makes clear that man and the rest of the world are not necessary emanations from God, but free creations of God. God was already complete all by Himself. He did not have to create anything outside of Himself. He did not have to emanate into lower strata, namely, the rest of reality. By His action ad intra He was already a relationship of three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). But at “one moment in eternity” God freely decided to act ad extra. Thus, God created the world from nothingness (not, that is, as emanations from His own Being). Augustine did however retain the hierarchy of beings, i.e., that beings are “more” or “less” perfect depending on where they are located in the hierarchy of beings [Cf. God, man, brutes, plants, minerals] and how proximate or remote they are from the One God Who is the source of all perfections. 4. Augustine adopts Plato’s theory of Ideas, but for him the Ideas are located in the Divine Mind. They are the exemplary causes (or models) according to which God created the things of this world by virtue of a decision of His will. [Review: the four causes (material, formal, efficient, and final) + the exemplary cause and give examples from ordinary life.]

37

Julian Marias, History of Philosophy, trans. Stanley Appelbaum and Clarence C. Strowbridge (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1967), 116. 38 Ibid., 117.

35 The Divine Essence is never exhausted. There are so many possible combinations not yet given real existence. They remain as possible beings in the mind of God: “Possible” beings if the conceptual features are componible/compatible (e.g. a flying horse, a Pegasus), but not possible, unimaginable even by God, if the conceptual notes are incompatible. e.g. a square circle  the idea of a circle (series of points equidistant from the center) clearly contradicts that of a square (a series of circles not equidistant from the center). Thus even God cannot imagine, much less create, a square circle, which really does not mean anything. e.g. “Can God make a stone so heavy that he cannot lift it?” (the idea of Omnipotence in God – e.g., able to lift anything – contradicts the idea of a God being unable to lift something material).

13. August 3, 2005, Wednesday

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS (1224-1275): (RATIONAL) WAY OF KNOWING GOD

THE INTELLECTIVE

Four paths through which people arrive at the knowledge of God (taken from the Prologue of St. Thomas Aquinas to his Commentary on the Gospel of St. John):

1. GOD’S AUTHORITY. “Some attained to a knowledge of God through his authority, and this is the most efficacious way. For we see the things in nature acting for an end, and attaining to ends which are both useful and certain. And since they lack intelligence, they are unable to direct themselves, but must be directed and moved by one directing them, and who possesses an intellect. Thus it is that the movement of the things of nature toward a certain end indicates the existence of something higher by which the things of nature are directed to an end and governed. And so, since the whole course of nature advances to an end in an orderly way and is directed, we have to posit something higher which directs and governs them as Lord; and this is God…”39 2. GOD’S ETERNITY. “Others came to a knowledge of God from his eternity. They saw that whatever was in things was changeable, and that the more noble something is in the grades of being, so much the less it has of mutability. For example, the lower bodies are mutable both as to their substance and to place, while the heavenly bodies, which are more noble, 39

St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John: Part I, Aquinas Scripture Series Vol. 4, ed. James A. Weisheipl, O.P., S.T.M. and Fabian R. Larcher, O.P. (Albany: Magi Books, Inc., 1980), 23.

36

are immutable in substance and change only with respect to place. We can clearly conclude from this that the first principle of all things, which is supreme and more noble, is changeless and eternal…”40 3. GOD’S DIGNITY. “Still others came to a knowledge of God from the dignity of God; and these were the Platonists. They noted that everything which is something by participation is reduced to what is the same thing by essence, as to the first and highest. Thus, all things which are fiery by participation are reduced to fire, which is such by its essence. And so since all things which exist participate in existence (esse) and are beings by participation, there must necessarily be at the summit of all things something which is existence (esse) by its essence, i.e., whose essence is its existence. And this is God, who is the most sufficient, the most eminent, and the most perfect cause of the whole of existence, from whom all things that are participate existence (esse)…”41 4. THE INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF TRUTH. “Yet others arrived at a knowledge of God from the incomprehensibility of truth. All the truth which our intellect is able to grasp is finite, since, according to Augustine, “everything that is known is bounded by the comprehension of the one knowing”; and if it is bounded, it is determined and particularized. Therefore, the first and supreme Truth, which surpasses every intellect, must necessarily be incomprehensible and infinite; and this is God…”42

40

Ibid., 24. Ibid. 42 Ibid. 41

37

GOD AND MODERN PHILOSOPHY From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, the question concerning God was still discussed within philosophical circles. Thus, we have the following philosophers: Rene Descartes, Francis Bacon, John Locke, Nicholas Malebranche, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, and George Berkeley. RENẺ DESCARTES (1596-1650): The Idea of an Infinite Being 1. “When we think more attentively of God, we soon find that the nonexistence of God is, strictly speaking, unthinkable. Our innate idea of God is that of a supremely perfect being; since existence is a perfection, to think of a supremely perfect being to whom existence is wanting is to think of a supremely perfect being to whom some perfection is wanting, which is contradictory; hence existence is inseparable from God and, consequently, he necessarily is, or exists. [Adapted from Descartes’ Meditations, V]”43 2. I doubt; therefore, I exist. But the fact that I doubt means that I am imperfect, for if I were perfect I would not doubt. However, even if I am imperfect (as evidenced by my doubt), I still have an idea of a perfect being. Where did this idea of a perfect being come from? Not from me, because I am imperfect. Not from the mind, because the mind doubts. Not from sensation, because sensation changes. Therefore, only a perfect being existing in reality could have implanted this perfect idea on my mind. This perfect being is God. FRANCIS BACON (1561 – 1626) and JOHN LOCKE (1632 – 1704) started their theodicy from their analyses of the world. The world is incapable of existing by itself without God. GOTTFRIED WILHELM von LEIBNIZ (1646 – 1716) started his theodicy from his idea of God and from the necessary truths that demand a divine intellect. GEORGE BERKELEY (1685 – 1753) started his theodicy from the necessity of admitting a cause for all perceptions. Finally, NICOLAS MALEBRANCHE (1638 – 1715) started his theodicy with his proposal of the theory concerning the immediate vision of God by man. This was also the time when ATHEISM became very popular within philosophical circles. The eminent atheistic philosophers during this time were in the persons of THOMAS HOBBES (1588 – 1679), PIERRE BAYLE (1647 - 1706), DAVID HUME (1711 – 1776), LAMMETRIE, and D’HOLBACK. Another group of philosophers led by BARUCH SPINOZA (1632 – 1677) began to teach about God as the very substance of the world. 43

Ẻtienne Gilson, God and Philosophy, 2nd ed. (1941; 1961; reprint, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, Yale Nota Bene, 2002), 81-82.

38 After the eighteenth century, the greatest “persona” as far as theodicy is concerned was IMMANUEL KANT (1724 – 1804) who taught about the existence of God being a postulate (exigency or demand) of the practical reason, although the existence of God being provable by pure reason was vehemently denied by him in his Critique of Pure Reason. In his doctrine of antinomies, both the existence of God and the non-existence of God are equally philosophically valid and defensible propositions, i.e., they are antinomies. The question therefore on the existence or non-existence of God cannot be resolved with finality using pure reason. After Kant there came into the scene the philosophy of GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL (1770 – 1831) and JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE (1762 – 1814), which was better known as Immanentistic Idealism. Both philosophers taught that the absolute is the totality of all things in this world. This being so, God is therefore immanent in this world. After them came GIOBERTI and ROSMINI, who, like Malebranche, taught that man is capable of intuiting or knowing God directly. The philosophy of EXISTENTIALISM in modern times should be mentioned in the history of theodicy. Such philosophy is of two kinds: Atheistic Existentialism and Theistic Existentialism. Atheistic Existentialism was represented by MARTIN HEIDEGGER (1889 – 1976) and JEAN-PAUL SARTRE (1905 – 1980). Theistic Existentialism was represented by GABRIEL MARCEL (1889 – 1974), MARTIN BUBER (1878 – 1965) and KARL BARTH (1886 – 1968). For them, the existence of God is accepted because of the needs of man (pragmatism). *

*

*

*

*

*

*

39 14. August 5, 2005, Fri.

THEODICY PROPER Review of the Outline of the Course THEODICY or RATIONAL THEOLOGY General Introduction A Short Historical Survey of the Philosophy of God I – De Existentia Dei A. De necessitate demonstrandi existentiam Dei B. De possibilitate demonstrandi existentiam Dei C. De demonstratione existentiae Dei a mundo II – De Natura Dei (The Essential Attributes of God) A. De essentia metaphysica Dei B. De essentia physica Dei C. De unicitate Dei (The Operative Attributes of God) D. De superintellectu Dei E. De supervoluntate Dei F. De superpotentia Dei III – De Causalitate Dei Erga Mundum A. De creatione mundi a Deo B. De concursu Dei ad operationes creaturarum C. De providentia Dei

[Main Source: Glenn, Paul J. Theodicy: A Class Manual in the Philosophy of Deity. 1938. Reprint. London: B. Herder Book Co., 1957: pp. 13-28.]

CHAPTER ONE – DE EXISTENTIA DEI THE QUESTION: IS THERE A GOD? A. MEANING OF TERMS “EXISTENCE”?  first and obvious meaning  “ACTUAL”? (i.e., when we ask whether a thing exists or not, we are asking whether the thing in question is actual, i.e., whether it is present among those realities which are not merely possible [or potential] but which are here)44 REVIEW OF ONTOLOGY 44

Paul J. Glenn, Ph. D., S.T.D., Theodicy: A Class Manual in the Philosophy of Deity (1938; reprint, London: B. Herder Book Co., 1957), 14.

40

A being is a reality. Anything that exists (actual reality) REALITY (an existible thing)

OR Can be thought of as actually existing (potential reality)

CLASSIFICATION OF REALITY:

POTENTIAL REALITY (can exist because…)

a) NO CONTRADICTION in its conceptual features. - e.g. glass mountain, mermaid, Pegasus, etc. but not, e.g. a square circle, etc. bec. this would be self-contradictory and self-cancelling. b) There is already in existence a being, a power which is able to draw the potential thing out of its state of possibility and confer actuality upon it. In short, there is a being which can CAUSE IT TO EXIST. a) because it has been PRODUCED BY ITS CAUSES (i.e., no longer a mere possibility but - an actualized being - a caused being - an effect - a contingent being (i.e., contingent upon or dependent upon its causes)

ACTUAL REALITY (one that is really here EITHER…)

OR

b) because it is so completely perfect and selfsufficient that IT INVOLVES IN ITSELF THE PERFECTION CALLED EXISTENCE. ∆ It must exist and cannot be non-existent. - uncaused being - not an effect

41 - necessary being - pure actuality (no potentiality which has been or is to be actualized by the action of causes) NOW, BACK TO THE QUESTION: IS THERE A GOD??? - Here, we speak / ask o NOT of potential, BUT of ACTUAL EXISTENCE o NOT of caused, BUT of UNCAUSED EXISTENCE o NOT of contingent, BUT of NECESSARY EXISTENCE o NOT of effected existence, but of PURE ACTUALITY. THE TERM “GOD”  ??? [In asking whether something exists or not, one at least has a general conception of what that thing is.] MAN-ON-THE-STREET: “God is the Almighty Ruler.” PHILOSOPHER: “God is the Necessary Being, the Pure Actuality.” God – a Being (whatever be true of His existence or non-existence) that is thought of as actual, one, first, supreme, the originator and the ruler of the universe. He is the Being conceived as the Almighty Ruler, the Necessary Being, and the Pure Actuality.45 B. THE URGENCY AND THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF THE QUESTION Upon the existence or non-existence of God depends the whole nature of the business of life, and the business of life is surely practical. If there is a God, and I am His creature, made to serve His purposes; if I am doing nothing of the sort, and am not even trying to know his purposes, then assuredly I am in a bad way and there is occasion for terror and quaking knees. For, quite apart from threatening punishment, I face the terrifying fact that my whole existence – my views, my aims, my thoughts and ideals, my work and my amusement, my attitudes, my dreams, my dealings with my fellows – comes to a sum-total of futility and failure, of disaster and defeat. I who have prated of practical things, have been running a race towards a wrong goal. I who have talked of the needs of life, have missed them all. I who have demanded plain facts, have failed to see the plainest fact. I who have gloried to lead others, have led them all astray. Surely, there is no imbecility so monstrous, no insanity so vile and inexcusable, as the bland assumption that the question of God’s existence is of no practical urgency. For fundamentally, it is the only urgent question, and the only practical question, that a man needs to face. Once that question is rightly answered, the whole pattern of life and of conduct takes form and lies with meaning before the eyes, and the one path that it is essential to discover opens clear before the feet.46

Cf. The Wager Argument of Blaise Pascal47 [1623-1662] 45 46

Ibid., 15. Ibid., 22-23.

42 Blaise Pascal argues that we see “too much to deny and too little to be sure” that God exists [Blaise Pascal, Pensees, trans. W.F. Trotter (New York: Modern Library, 1941), 229]. We are thus incapable of knowing whether God exists or not. Through reason we can neither prove one nor disprove the other; we cannot defend either of the two. Nevertheless, the affirmation or the denial of God’s existence is too important to ignore; it is a very crucial decision to make; in fact, it is a very crucial game of chance, a crucial wager, that an individual must play. The decisive question is: to believe or not to believe, to wager or not to wager, or to bet or not to bet on this crucial game of one’s life. One must make the risk, insofar as there is an equal risk of gain and of loss. By all indications, according to Pascal, there is an infinity between the certainty of winning and the certainty of losing in this game of chance; and so we have to weigh our options, the gains and loses, in wagering that God exists. If we wager (believe) that God exists, and in the long run, there is really God, then we shall have everything to gain, namely: infinite happiness and immortality; but if, in the end, there is no God after all, then we shall have nothing to lose anyway, except our mistaken belief. On the other hand, if we don’t wager (do not believe) that God exists, and in the end, there is really God, then we shall lose everything, especially eternal life and happiness. For these reasons, argues Pascal, it is better to believe than to deny that God exists; it is far better to wager than not to wager that there is God, because the risk of not wagering is far worse than the risk of wagering; the chances of winning seem to be far greater than the chances of losing. This is the big gamble that we have to take… If you cast your coin for God, you will be faithful, honest, humble, grateful, generous, and a sincere friend; and you will experience a very rewarding and pleasant life of devotion and belief in God, plus the greatest bonus you will gain in the hereafter: eternal happiness. But if you choose the other option, you will live a life of poisonous pleasures, the glory of possessions, and a luxury of passions, yet you will gain nothing at all in the end. In Pascal’s perception, we should learn our inability to believe not by increasing proofs of God (demonstrating his existence), but by abating our passions. As mentioned earlier, reason is incapable of proving whether God exists or he does not exist. One thing, however, is clear: “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.” … For instance, the heart by nature loves the “Universal Being,” yet reason cannot fathom this natural inclination. The heart is willing to take chances on uncertainties; for there are so many things in life which we do on an uncertainty, like sea voyages, air travels, battles, among others. Yet we embark on them by taking the risks. Now, the greatest risk that everyone must take is to bet on the existence of God, precisely because the stakes are overwhelming.

15. August 8, 2005, Mon.

C. SOME THEORIES ON THE EXISTENCE OR NON-EXISTENCE OF GOD: Does God exist? If so, can He be known? If He can be known, how is this knowledge obtained? The following are some of the doctrines propounded in answer to the question. Each one of these will be taken up again (and criticized) in their proper places in a later part of the course. 1. THEISM (from the Greek word Theos = “God”) is a general name for any belief in God. 2. ATHEISM (from a = prefix meaning “no”; and theos = “God”) means the declaration that God does not exist. However, there is hardly any atheism in a pure form, for in many 47

The whole section on Blaise Pascal is taken verbatim from Florentino T. Timbreza, Quest for Meaning: Philosophy Made Easy for Filipinos (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 2000), 166-168.

43 cases it is not just a simple denial, but some form of a replacement, where the atheist substitutes for God some such notion as force, or energy, or nature, or even “value.” 3. AGNOSTICISM (from a = prefix meaning “no”; and gnosis = “knowledge”) is the theory that God cannot be known, that men must be content to remain in ignorance about His Being and Essence. It is not the denial of God’s existence, but of His knowability. 4. PANTHEISM (from the Greek word pan = “everything”; and theos = “God”) identifies, in one way or another, God and the universe. a. Emanationism - Pantheism that makes the bodily world part and parcel of the substance of God. All things are outpourings or emanations of God. b. Idealistic Pantheism – Pantheism that teaches that the world and all things in it are the manifestations of God, not His physical parts. This type of pantheism tends to declare that the visible universe is only a projection of ideas or fancies, to deny its solid actuality, and to fall back on one invisible divine substance as the only thing that truly exists. [Cf. Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel]. 5. MONOTHEISM means the doctrine that there is only one God. 6. POLYTHEISM is the doctrine that there exists a plurality of gods or at least of worldcontrolling forces. 7. DEISM (from Latin Deus = “God”) is the theory which admits the existence of God, and even his knowability, but which denies His providence and His governance of creatures. Deism holds that God has made the world, but has since ceased to care for it, and has tossed it aside to fend for itself. 8. ONTOLOGISM (from Greek on (onto) = “being,” and logos = “science; knowledge”) is the doctrine that the order of science or knowledge reflects the order of reality or being, and that, in consequence, the First Actuality is the first thing known by the mind. Therefore, says ontologism, the very first act of the mind is a vague but fundamental conception of deity. 9. TRADITIONALISM is the doctrine which holds that the human mind is not able to demonstrate God’s existence, but that it gets its knowledge of God by way of faith in a primitive revelation made to the first men by Almighty God Himself, and handed down through all the generations of men by oral tradition. 10. SKEPTICISM is a theory of doubt or denial about man’s ability to know anything for certain, and thus it includes doubt or denial of his ability to know God. 11. RATIONALISM is the doctrine that human reason can fully cope with all the truths that exist or are existible, and that anything involving a reach into mystery or an

44 acknowledgment of infinity is – since reason cannot cope with it – to be rejected as something untrue, fictional. 12. PRAGMATISM holds that the workableness of any thought, scheme, action, or its suitableness in its circumstances, determines its character as true or as good. Thus pragmatism denies or at least ignores the eternal standard of morality and the eternal source of truth which, considered objectively and fundamentally, is God, the Divine Essence. 13. RELATIVISM (of which pragmatism is one form or variety) is the general theory that every truth depends for its being upon the aspect in which it is seen or the circumstances to which it is referred; and thus relativism involves a denial of the absolute, the non-relative, truth of the existence of God. 48

A. THE NECESSITY OF EXISTENCE OF GOD

DEMONSTRATING

THE

As far as knowing God by means of reason is concerned there are two possible ways of knowing God’s existence: a) DIRECT WAY (Way of Intuition/Intuitive Way). Here there is no need to demonstrate the existence of God because God Himself becomes the object of man’s intuition. b) INDIRECT WAY (Way of Demonstration/Demonstrative Way). Here the existence of God is postulated by an analysis of the world. So we have to start from the world in order for us to know God’s existence. For Scholastic philosophy, this is the only possible way, and therefore the only tenable way of knowing God’s existence. A demonstration is not simply a proof. A demonstration is always a compelling proof. It is a process of reasoning that is so thorough and so complete that the person who understands every step of the process is compelled to recognize the truth of the thing in question. Now, do we require a demonstration for the truth of God’s existence? We do unless the truth is self-evident. For there are two sorts of truths that do not require demonstration. One is the sort of truth considered in reference to history, in which demonstration is not required because it does not apply and indeed is not available. [E.g. There can be no strict demonstration of the historical theory/opinion that the first Mass in the Philippines was held in Limasawa, Leyte (or Masaw, Butuan). There may be proofs based on statements and documents and the word of man. But such proofs are not so compelling as to leave no shadow of a doubt.] The other sort of truth that does not need demonstration is that truth that is inevitably recognized at first glance (or intuitively, by immediate or direct grasp) [E.g. No demonstration is necessary for such self-evident truths as “I exist.” I do not need to demonstrate my own existence and compel myself to recognize the fact that I am here, for my own existence is itself a simple and an elemental thing, not subject to further 48

Glenn, op. cit., 24-27.

45 analysis. I have a direct and an intuitive grasp of it. Even if I deny my existence I affirm it. If I am to deny my existence for instance and to express that denial in intelligible terms, I would have to say, “I do not exist.” But why do I say “I” in the first place? That would be like saying “I am here to say that I am not here.” If I must doubt my own existence, I must lapse into complete and endless silence, and in the dark despair of my non-existent mind, I must forever admit that even my doubts are non-existent. Thus, the truth of my own existence is so simple, inescapable, and self-evident that no demonstration is necessary in order to arrive at it. But what about God’s existence? Is it a self-evident truth? If it is self-evident, it needs no demonstration. But if it is not self-evident, then it needs some demonstration. From experience, we learn the truth of God’s existence from our parents (or teacher’s or catechist’s) teaching, and later we notice that the world and all things in it require an accounting First Cause. Then later on our reasoning teaches us that the more direct evidence for God’s existence would be the existence of creatures and an ordered universe. Therefore, God’s existence is not something obtruded upon our senses and our minds as self-evident. It is something that has to be learned. It is a truth to be reasoned out, directly or indirectly. Therefore, we say, the truth of God’s existence is not selfevident, but requires demonstration.

But before we proceed any further, we take a look at some philosophers who insist that no demonstration of God’s existence is required, because his existence is directly known by man. 16. August 10, 2005, Wed.

INTUITIONISM - that philosophy which teaches that God is the object of human intuition. Three Forms of Intuitionism:

1) INTELLECTUAL INTUITIONISM (Ontologism) Argument: We know that God exists because his existence is immediately known by the human intellect. This was proposed by Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) and Gioberti (18011852). Malebranche was an occasionalist. He did not, therefore, admit the activity of bodies upon the sense faculties of man. Knowledge is immediately from God. God Himself causes the knowledge of man directly and not through creatures. God, therefore, is immanently present to our intellect as the immediate source of knowledge. Hence, Malebranche concludes, “Only God is known by Himself.” Other things are seen in God. This however is not to see God in His essence, as He is, but only in so far as “the divine essence is relative to creatures and participated by them. In this way we see all things in God.”49 For Malebranche, thus, the intellect sees God directly as if in a mirror.

49

5.

Henri Renard, S.J., The Philosophy of God (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1951),

46 Gioberti defines and develops the mild ontologism of Malebranche. Gioberti identifies the ontological order with the order of knowledge. Thus, the first ontological reality, God, is the first known object. “God,” he declares, “the first truth in the existential order is the first truth in the order of knowledge.” He speaks of a first intuition which, although imperfect, is an intuition of God.50 For Gioberti what the human intellect directly and properly knows is the attribute of God as Creator, and from this direct knowledge of God as the Creator, man concludes that God exists. Approximating intellectual intuitionism is the teaching that the proposition “God exists” is a proposition which is per se nota (or an analytic proposition). This teaches that God’s existence can be concluded from the analysis of the subject – God. For the proponents of this argument, the proposition “God is an Existent Being” is like the proposition “A triangle has three sides and three angles” – a proposition whose truth is very self-evident in the sense that the predicate is included in the subject. By just analyzing the subject “triangle,” one knows that the predicate “has three sides and three angles” is inevitably included in the subject. In the same way, they say that God exists necessarily, for He is all-perfect, and involves in Himself the perfection called existence. Existence is of His very essence and nature. Therefore, according to the argument, to the mind that thoroughly understands the whole meaning of the idea God, the note of existence is evidently contained in the subject God.

2) VITALISTIC INTUITIONISM (Irrationalistic Intuitionism) Argument: We know that God exists because life itself (sentiments, passions, subconscious needs of man, longings of man, etc.) makes Him present to each and every man. And so, if God is made present to each and every man by life itself, then man knows God directly. Oftentimes, this is also called Irrationalistic Intuitionism since this seems to give more emphasis on the irrational forces of man. “We cannot demonstrate God,” they say; “we experience, we live God… There is question here of a moral certitude based upon a direct experience of a moral reality.” This experience or intuition of God is a religious emotion which does not manifest any revealed truth but gives us a consciousness, an “awareness” of God’s existence. Nor is this divine reality anything distinct from our own awareness of it. God, therefore, is so immanent to us that He is somehow identical with our consciousness.51 PROPONENTS:

Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819) Friedrich (Ernst Daniel) Schleiermacher (1768-1834)

3) APRIORISTIC INTUITIONISM (Rationalistic Intuitionism) 50 51

Ibid. Ibid., 7.

47

Argument: We know that God exists because His existence is clearly shown to us in its very idea, that is, the idea of God. N.B. Aprioristic  would mean that we are not to prove God’s existence by depending on experience but just by thinking of the idea of God. THREE FORMS OF APRIORISTIC INTUITIONISM:

A) INTUITIONISM OF ST. ANSELM52 (1033-1109) Ontological Argument: The idea “God” is that idea greater than which nothing can be thought of. But that which exists both in the mind and outside the mind is greater than that which exists only in the mind. Therefore, if the idea “God” is that idea greater than which nothing can be thought of, then he must exist extramentally. Otherwise such an idea is not that idea greater than which nothing can be thought of. EXPLANATION The argument begins with the idea of God as the greatest being, the idea which a man has of God, even if one denies his existence. Now, in the minor premise, it is stated that if that than which no greater can be thought existed only in the mind, it would not be the greatest. So, that than which no greater can be thought must exist not only in the mind but also in reality. In other words, insofar as God is conceived as the greatest being, it necessarily follows that he exists. Existence is a part of his greatness. That is to say, for a being to be really the greatest one, existence must be one of its attributes, otherwise it cannot be the greatest. To accept then that God is the greatest being but does not exist would involve a contradiction, in Anselm’s view; for his existence necessarily follows from his greatness or perfection. Therefore, being that than which no greater being can be thought, God exists.53

B) INTUITIONISM OF DESCARTES (1596-1650) 52

During the Medieval period, theodicy was the most popular philosophical subject. In fact, all philosophies in the Middle Ages were centered on theodicy. Reality was explained “a Deo, per Deum, ad Deum” (from God, through God, and to God). Some of the more important philosophers during this time include St. Anselm of Canterbury, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Anselm (1033 – 1109), popularly known as Archbishop of Canterbury, was the originator of the ontological argument for the existence of God and one of the foremost figures of medieval theology. Faith, according to him, is the starting point of man’s search for truth; for unless one believes, one cannot understand. One must have faith that seeks to understand, Fides quaerens intellectum. This should be borne in mind as we discuss the Anselmic version of the argument. 53

The whole section on St. Anselm and His Ontological Proof for the Existence of God is taken verbatim from Florentino T. Timbreza, Quest for Meaning: Philosophy Made Easy for Filipinos (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 2000), 153-154.

48

Argument: The idea “God” is the idea of an infinite being. But an infinite being must possess all perfections. Since existence is a perfection, then God exists. C) INTUITIONISM OF LEIBNIZ (1646-1716) N.B. Leibniz’ intuitionism starts from the idea of a necessary being as a possible. POSSIBLE IDEA  is that idea which is fit to exist. NECESSARY BEING  is that being which must exist and cannot not exist. Argument: The idea of God as a necessary being is possible. But if God does not exist he can only exist through effection (i.e., he exists if he is produced by someone else), which is a contradiction of a necessary being. Therefore, the idea of God as a necessary being, being possible, must include already the very fact of his existence. Otherwise, he ceases to be a necessary being. 17. August 12, 2005, Fri.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST INTELLECTUAL INTUITIONISM THESIS: intuition.

The existence of God is NOT the object of intellectual

Argument 1 (direct argument): The object of intellectual intuitionism must be the proportionate or proper object of the human intellect. But the proper object of the human intellect is the intelligible from the sensible and in the sensible. The existence of God however is not intelligible from the sensible and in the sensible. (God is pure intelligible.) Therefore the existence of God is not the object of intellectual intuition. Argument 2 (indirect argument) If God is the object of intellectual intuition in the present life, revelation would become useless and mysteries would be impossible.

49

Ontologism therefore logically results in the negation of supernatural revelation and of any spiritual order. And this is very dangerous. This results in the negation of Christianity. Argument 3 (against the argument that the proposition “God exists” is a per se nota proposition) The proposition “God exists” is indeed per se nota because the predicate “exists” is proper to the subject “God.” In other words, God ceases to be God if he does not exist. But this is true only insofar as the thing “God” is concerned. But this is not true insofar as we the knowers are concerned because although in God essence is the same as existence, we in this life do not know this identity immediately. While the proposition “God is an Existent Being” is self-evident in itself, and would be known with absolute certitude, not needing or admitting demonstration, by a mind adequate to understand its subject in the fullest and completest and most instantaneous manner, yet this proposition is not self-evident to the limited human mind, and, for that mind, it is a proposition which both admits and requires demonstration. In other words, we say that the proposition in question is self-evident in itself, but not self-evident to the human mind. To use the old Latin formula, the proposition is per se nota quoad se but not per se nota quoad nos, “self-evident in itself, but not self-evident to us.”54

ARGUMENT AGAINST VITALISTIC INTUITIONISM THESIS: The existence of God is not the object of vital intuitions through sentiments, actions, etc. Argument 54 Ibid., 32-33. Take this parallel example: Man is made in the image and likeness of God  true insofar as the thing (reality) is concerned, but not true insofar as we the knowers are concerned. As far as we the knowers are concerned, it could be that “God” is “made” in the image and likeness of man. This simply means that insofar as our knowledge of God is concerned, we cannot be totally free from anthropomorphism in the sense that we apply human categories (forms, qualities) to describe God. [Cf. later “the way of eminence” in the second chapter of this course on theodicy.] The way of eminence tells us that we know about the attributes of God by looking at the perfections we see in the world and in our experience of ourselves as human beings. And then we try to apply these perfections in God, minus the limitations of these perfections. E.g. We see that love among human beings is a perfection. Love is such a good and wonderful thing among us humans. Then we apply this perfection to God. And we say “God is Love” or “God is the most loving and the most lovable being.” That “God is Love” may indeed be a per se nota proposition insofar as the reality of God is concerned. God must be Love (He indeed must be the most loving and the most lovable being. Otherwise, he is not God.) But insofar as we the knowers are concerned, this identity is not self-evident. This would have to be arrived at by means of argumentation based on our experience of love and our reflection on the perfection of loving.

50

Goodwill, sentiments, actions, life itself indeed are of value in disposing human reason to know the existence of God. They are often occasions or motives for man’s quest for God. But they are good only up to there. They never bring man to the undeniable acceptance of God’s existence. They are not demonstrative factors but only dispositive factors of the existence of God. ARGUMENT AGAINST APRIORISTIC INTUITIONISM THESIS: The existence of God is not proven by aprioristic arguments (i.e., the arguments of St. Anselm, Descartes, and Leibniz). Argument All three philosophers – St. Anselm, Descartes, and Leibniz – are logically faulty because if the existence of God is not proven previously, there would always be in their conclusions an illegitimate jump from the ideal order to the real order. One rule in Logic is that neither the minor nor the major term may be universal in the conclusion if it is only particular in the premises. In other words, nothing in the conclusion must be wider in comprehension than it is in the premises (Syllogistic Rule No. 2). St. Anselm, Descartes, and Leibniz however take God only in the ideal order in their premises while in their conclusions they take God already both in the real and ideal orders. (E.g. In the ontological argument, the legitimate conclusion would only be “From God who is thought of as infinite” – to “the God who is thought of as real.” The phrase “thought of” in the conclusion would not break syllogistic Rule No. 2 since it takes God still in the ideal order as in the premises. But then the ontological argument concludes “From God who is thought of as infinite” – to “God who is really infinite and necessary.”) In other words, the ontological argument is not valid. Its conclusion is not justified by its premises. Let us restate it, drawing the only allowable conclusion, and we shall see the fallacy of the original form: God is the most perfect Being we can think of; But the most perfect Being we can think of must be thought of as existing. Therefore, God must be thought of as existing.

Manifestly, we can grant this conclusion and still have no valid proof that God, who must be thought of as existing is, in fact, actually existing outside thought. Thus, the argument

51 proposed by St. Anselm involves a “jump” from the order of thinking to the order of actual being, and Logic condemns as fallacious any argument with such a gap or jump in its structure. 18. August 22, 2005, Mon.

B. THE POSSIBILITY EXISTENCE OF GOD

OF

DEMONSTRATING

THE

Having eliminated intuitionism, we now show the possibility of demonstrating the existence of God. PHILOSOPHERS WHO DENY THE POSSIBILITY OF DEMONSTRATING THE EXISTENCE OF GOD: 1. The Fideists and Traditionalists deny the possibility of demonstrating the existence of God a posteriori because they deny the capacity of human reason to know God and they attribute the knowledge of God only through faith and tradition. 2. The Empiricists (e.g. David Hume) and the Positivists (e.g. Auguste Comte) deny the possibility of demonstrating the existence of God because for them nothing can be known outside the experience of phenomena. The existence of God is not phenomenal. 3. Immanuel Kant denies the possibility of demonstrating the existence of God because for him human knowledge offers nothing except the reality of phenomena through the apriori forms.

SCHOLASTIC THESIS: The existence of God can be demonstrated a posteriori. Here, we are going to show the possibility, the value, and the way of demonstrating the existence of God. ARGUMENT 1. The possibility of demonstrating the existence of God is established from the many things we learned from previous courses. 1. Human knowledge has transcendent value. Therefore it can know something outside this world. 2. Human knowledge has objective value. It can look at the world and know the world with objectivity. And from this analysis of the world, it can reach up to the knowledge of God. 3. Human knowledge possesses transcendental notions like cause and effect, etc., and consequently it possesses transcendental principles such as the principles of contradiction, causality, finality, sufficient reason, etc. These are notions and principles that help man in concluding the existence of God from the existence of the world. 4. Human knowledge knows that the world, at least within the ambit of experience, is a complex of devenient beings (de venire ad = beings which come from

52 potency to act). Therefore human knowledge knows the world as a complex of beings that change. 19. August 24, 2005, Wed., 0800-0900

C. THE MODE OF DEMONSTRATING THE EXISTENCE OF GOD 1. The demonstration starts with an observation taken from sensible things (although before that some knowledge of God must be possessed by man. Every man has a preconceived notion of who God is). 2. The process of demonstration therefore is divided into two premises. a. The first premise indicates either the fact of sensible things or the nature of sensible things. b. The second premise is composed of two propositions one of which is the principle of causality expressed in its various forms. The other proposition affirms the impossibility of an infinite process. 3. The end of the demonstration is the very thesis itself “God exists” expressed according to the diversity of the fact which is assumed in the major premise. THE FIVE WAYS OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS of proving the existence of God until now still remains the official Scholastic Way of Demonstrating the Existence of God. The five arguments included in the Quinque Viae are called the demonstrative arguments.

Quinque Viae 1. VIA MOTUS Certum est et sensu constat aliqua moveri in hoc mundo. Omne autem quod movetur ab alio movetur. Hic autem non est procedere in infinitum. Ergo necesse est devenire ad aliquod primum movens quod a nullo moveatur. 2. VIA EFFICIENTIAE seu Via Effectus seu Subordinationis Causarum Efficientum Invenimus in istis sensibilis esse ordinem causarum efficientum. Non est possibile quod aliquid sit causa efficiens sui ipsius. Non autem est possibile quod in causis efficientibus procedatur in infinitum. Ergo est necesse ponere aliquam causam efficientem primam: quam omnes Deum nominant. 3. VIA CONTINGENTIAE Invenimus in rebus quaedam quae sunt possibilia esse et non esse. Impossibile est autem omnia quae sunt, talia esse…, sed oportet aliquid esse necessarium in rebus. Non autem est possibile quod procedatur in infinitum in necessaries quae habent causam suae necessitatis.

53 Ergo necesse est ponere aliquid quod est per se necessarium, … quod omnes dicunt Deum. 4. VIA GRADUUM ENTIUM Invenitur in rebus aliquid magis et minus bonum, et verum et nobile… Sed magis et minus dicuntur de diversis secundum quod appropinquant diversimode ad aliquid quod maxime est. Est igitur aliquid quod est verissimum, et optimum, et nobilissimum et per consequens maxime ens. Quod autem dicitur maxime tale in aliquo genere est causa omnium quae sunt illius generis. Ergo est aliquid quod est causa esse et bonitatis et cuiuslibet perfectionis in rebus omnibus. Et hoc dicimus Deum. 5. VIA ORDINIS Videmus quod aliqua quae cognitione carent, scil. corpora naturalia, operantur propter finem. Ea autem quae non habent cognitionem non tendunt in finem nisi directa ab aliquo cognoscente et intelligente. Est ergo aliquid intelligens, a quo omnes res naturaliter ordinantur ad finem. Et hoc dicimus Deum. The arguments for the existence of God are classified in many different ways. There are metaphysical arguments, physical arguments, cosmological arguments, and psychological arguments. But all these arguments are contained in the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas in one way or another. Thus in demonstrating the existence of God we usually present the Quinque Viae as containing the most exhaustive arguments.

COMMENTARIES 1. The WAY OF MOTION. It is certain to the senses that some things in this world move. But everything that moves is moved by another. This however is not to proceed to the infinite. Therefore, it is necessary to come to a being which is a Prime Mover, not moved by another (The Unmoved Mover). MAJOR PREMISE: “It is certain to the senses that some things in this world move.” - MOTION here must not be understood only in the physical or local sense. Motion must also be understood in the metaphysical sense. Motion is any mutation, any passage from potency to act.

54 -

-

The formula “It is certain to the senses” shows that the fact that some things in this world move is established both by the intellect and the senses. [Certus  intellect; sensu  senses] Why does St. Thomas say “some things” instead of “all things”? This is a very careful stance of St. Thomas in order to preempt the objections of some philosophers who might say that the human mind cannot know all things in the world.

THE FIRST PART OF THE MINOR PREMISE is the principle of causality expressed according to the Aristotelian formula – “That which is moved is moved by another.” But here St. Thomas Aquinas differs from Aristotle. While Aristotle meant only finalistic motion (motion because of the attraction of another), Thomas Aquinas meant also efficient motion (motion because of the action of another). Then Aquinas proceeds by reducing the principle of causality according to the Aristotelian principle to the principle of contradiction. This implicit reduction runs as follows – That which is to be moved is in potency while the mover is in act. If something moves itself then it would therefore be both in act and in potency – or it could be and not be in potency, which is contradictory. SECOND PART OF THE MINOR PREMISE: “This is not to proceed to the infinite.” - An infinite process is repugnant for if there is no prime mover no movement at all is possible. And so motion which we experience all the time would not have any explanation at all. An infinite process would delay an explanation of motion but it does not explain motion. - E.g. A series of rings forming a chain could not be suspended strongly unless it begins with one which is a strong ring. Likewise, a series of wheels cannot move unless there is a first wheel which explains the movement of the series. Without this first wheel motion is not possible. CONCLUSION: “Therefore it is necessary to come to a being which is a Prime Mover, not moved by another.” - The Unmoved Mover is then concluded. He is understood as an Act which is responsible for the passage of physical things from potency to act. But He himself does not pass from potency to act since He is the Pure Act. This Prime Mover, this Pure Act, is God.

2. The WAY OF EFFICIENCY or THE WAY OF EFFECT or SUBORDINATION OF EFFICIENT CAUSES We find that in this sensible world there is an order of efficient causes. It is not possible that something be the efficient cause of itself. But it is not possible that in this series of efficient causes we proceed into infinity. Therefore it is necessary to admit a certain efficient first cause: which everybody calls God.

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The first way (the way of motion) considers sensible things inasmuch as they are subject to mutation. The second way considers sensible things inasmuch as they act or inasmuch as they are efficient causes. Thus, if the first way is called mechanical metaphysics, the second way is called dynamic metaphysics. MAJOR PREMISE: “We find that in this sensible world there is an order of efficient causes.” The fact asserted in the major premise is that in this sensible world there is an order or a series of interdependent efficient causes – that the efficiency of one agent is subordinate to the efficiency of another. (E.g., The efficiency of a tree to bear fruit is dependent on the efficiency of the soil to nourish the tree and the efficiency of the soil is dependent on the efficiency of the minerals to make the soil fertile.) FIRST PART OF THE MINOR PREMISE. “It is not possible that something be the efficient cause of itself.” This is the principle of causality under the form of efficiency. This Thomistic principle that “nothing is the efficient cause of itself” is equivalent to the Aristotelian formula that “every efficient cause which depends on another for its efficiency does not explain its own efficiency by itself.” This is similar to another Aristotelian formula that “whatever is made is made by another.” SECOND PART OF THE MINOR PREMISE. “But it is not possible that in this series of efficient causes we proceed into infinity.” As in the first way, we cannot proceed infinitely. We have to stop at some point or we cannot explain efficiency. CONCLUSION: “Therefore it is necessary to admit a certain efficient first cause: which everybody calls God.” God is considered as the First Cause – the radical source of all efficiency in the things of this world. (By “things of this world,” we include man.) 20. August 24, 2005, 0900-1000

3. The WAY OF CONTINGENCY We find that in this world there are some things which are contingent (possible to exist or not to exist). But it is impossible that all things that exist are contingent… but it is necessary that there must be a being which is not contingent, i.e., which is necessary. But it is not possible that we proceed into infinity in necessary things which have the cause of their necessity. Therefore it is necessary to admit something that is in itself necessary, … which all call God. The SECOND MINOR PREMISE (“It is not possible that we proceed into infinity in necessary things which have the cause of their necessity”) is no longer needed now if we

56 take the classification of things into contingent and necessary. But during the Middle Ages, this premise was necessary since in the prevailing philosophy of that time – Church philosophy – there were two kinds of Necessary beings: a) necessary being per se; and b) necessary being per aliud – that being which has a beginning but does not have an end. In terms of time, the necessary being per se is eternal; the necessary being per aliud is immortal. In the Middle Ages, the heavenly bodies were considered immortal and indestructible. The “necessary things which have the cause of their necessity” mentioned in the second minor premise are the necessary beings per aliud. The necessary being per se has no cause for its necessity. The FIRST MINOR PREMISE: “It is impossible that all things that exist are contingent… it is necessary that there must be a being which is not contingent, i.e., which is necessary.” Why is it possible in the FIRST MINOR PREMISE to admit that not all things are contingent? (contingent – “touching on reality”) Contingent beings proceed from non-being to being. They are born and therefore, according to St. Thomas, there was a time when they did not exist. [one sign of contingency: there’s a beginning and an end] Hence, if all things are contingent there must be a time in the past when there was nothing at all. Consequently, contingent beings could not pass from non-being to being by themselves. They don’t have an explanation of their existence by themselves. Their existence is not part of their nature. They depend on another for their existence. And so even now, by themselves, they could not come to be. If we deny a necessary being, even until now there would be nothing. A contingent being needs a necessary being – this is the principle of causality. CONCLUSION: “Therefore it is necessary to admit a being that is in itself necessary... which all call God.” God is considered as a being which is necessary – a being having in himself the necessity of existence.

4. The WAY OF HIERARCHY OF BEINGS We find in this world that things are more or less good, more or less true, more or less noble. But “more” or “less” is applied to things according to their proximity to that which is the highest. There is therefore a being which is the most true, the most good, and the most noble, and consequently the “most” being or the highest being. That however which is the highest in a certain classification or genus is the cause of all things which belong to that classification. Therefore there is a being which is the cause of being, and of goodness, and of any other perfection in sensible things. This being we call God. COMMENT: This way looks at things in their hierarchical relationship or gradation in their possession of perfections.

57 The MAJOR PREMISE: “We find in this world that things are more or less good, more or less true, and more or less noble.” The gradation asserted in the major premise of more or less in perfection is applied to transcendental perfections or quasi-transcendental perfections. [Transcendental perfections – unity, truth, and goodness. Quasi-transcendental perfections – e.g., nobility (connected with goodness)]. Therefore in the major premise there is an assertion of the gradation of unity, truth, goodness, and of beingness in itself since the transcendentals, as learned in Ontology, are convertible with being. The FIRST MINOR PREMISE: “But ‘more’ or ‘less’ is applied to things according to their proximity to that which is the highest.” The measurement of “more” or “less” cannot be understood unless in relation to the highest because greater and lesser are applied inasmuch as there is a major or minor approximation to the highest. (If there is no highest good, there would be no reason why a good should be called a higher good and another good a lesser good. A good is a higher good or a lesser good because of its approximation to the highest good.) In this first minor premise, the principle of causality is stated – a being through participation needs a being through essence. A participated being needs a toticipated being. Those which only participate in perfection (those things with no perfection in themselves) demand a being which toticipates perfection or which has total perfection in himself or a being through essence (being per essentia). In other words, a “more” or “less” being needs a “most” being. FIRST CONCLUSION: “There is therefore a being which is the most true, the most good, and the most noble, and consequently the ‘most’ being or the highest being.” The admission of the most true, the most good, the most noble, and the highest being is actually a replay of the Platonic teaching of the world of ideas wherein Plato placed Ideas as supersensible beings and most perfect beings. Nevertheless, this Platonic philosophy is clarified by St. Thomas Aquinas when he converted the transcendentals and quasi-transcendentals with being. For Aquinas what is the most true, the most good, and the most noble is the highest being or the “most” being. SECOND MINOR PREMISE: “That however which is the highest in a certain classification is the cause of all things which belong to that classification.” The argument which concluded with the first conclusion arrived at the most perfect being, and it is most Platonic in character inasmuch as it statically considers the gradation of being. But Aquinas wanted to place a causal connection or dynamic connection between the participated being and the toticipated being. He arrived at the toticipated being as the cause of the participated being. This causal connection between the participated being and the toticipated being first of all is only a connection of exemplar causality (the causality of a model to its copies). The highest being is the exemplar cause of participated beings. We are copies of the highest being. But St. Thomas Aquinas did not stop at exemplar causality. He also put efficient causality because he insisted that beings with limited perfections always need a being with unlimited perfections in order to exist.

58 The fourth way is thus a synthesis of Platonic philosophy and Aristotelian philosophy. It is Platonic in that it teaches that the highest being or toticipated being is the model of the participated beings. It is Aristotelian in that it teaches that the toticipated being is also the efficient cause of the participated beings. CONCLUSION: “Therefore there is a being which is the cause of being and of goodness and of any other perfection in sensible things. This being we call God.” God is considered as the toticipated or unparticipated being (the exemplar cause and the efficient cause) which causes the participated beings.

5. The WAY OF ORDER We see that some things which have no intelligence, namely, natural bodies, operate on account of a final end. But those which have no intelligence do not tend to their final end unless directed by a being which has knowledge and intelligence. Therefore, there must exist a certain intelligent being which ordains all natural things to their final end. And this being we call God. COMMENT: This way is called the teleological argument (from the Greek word teleos meaning “end”). MAJOR PREMISE: “We find that there are some things in this world which lack knowledge, but which nevertheless operate on account of a final end.” The major premise notes that things of nature work toward an end or on account of an end. In other words, nature operates with an order. This can be shown even aprioristically by using the principle of finality or final causality – Omne agens operatur propter finem (Every agent acts on account of a final end.). But for the sake argument, St. Thomas makes the observation that some things which have no intelligence operate toward an end. Here, St. Thomas uses his knowledge in astronomy, chemistry, and biology. There is indeed order in the world. Heavenly bodies do not collide. A certain combination of elements produces a certain compound. Plants have their roots in the ground. Animals have only one head each. Deformed organisms are called freaks and monsters. They are called such in relation to the natural order. Freaks and monsters are thus direct proofs of this order in the world. St. Thomas makes these observations (that there is order in the world) even if this fact can be asserted aprioristically. Finality can be both intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic finality is that finality referring to operations of things in themselves. Extrinsic finality refers to operations of things according to their relationships with one another. The finality of a tree – that its roots are always down – is an example of intrinsic finality. The finality of heavenly bodies – that they do not collide with one another – is an example of extrinsic finality. St. Thomas refers to both intrinsic and extrinsic finality in his argument. Because of intrinsic finality and extrinsic finality, order arises in the world. St. Augustine defines ORDER as the disposition which attributes to different things their own places. A more syntactically correct way of translating St. Augustine’s original Latin would be “Order is

59 the disposition which gives different things their proper places or which puts different things in their proper places.” MINOR PREMISE: “But those which do not have knowledge cannot tend towards their final end unless directed by a being which has knowledge and intelligence.” This states the principle of causality under the formula “Every effect requires a proportionate cause.” Order is an effect. Order requires a proportionate cause – and this proportionate cause of order could only be a being who is intelligent because order has three elements to be considered: a) the elements to be ordered/arranged/ordained; b) the end to which the elements are to be ordained; and c) the relationships and laws according to which the elements are to be ordained. All these three, but especially the last two, require an intelligence because end as an end belongs to the conceptual order and consequently needs an intelligence. There is no order if there is no intelligence. The proportionate cause of order is intelligence. CONCLUSION: “Therefore there must exist a certain intelligent being which ordains all natural things to their final end. This being is God.” The intelligent being who gives order cannot be man or any other created intelligence in this world. Two reasons are given: a) Order in the world is so total that even man is included in this order. Man is subject to the order in the world. If we equate order with Law and suppose that man is the giver of order, then man would be both lawgiver and subject, in which case man can always excuse himself from the law. But this cannot be. Thus, the intelligent being which gives order can only be God. b) Finality is a thing so intimately connected with the beingness of things so that the cause of finality must also be the cause of the beingness of things. The cause of the beingness of things is God. And so the cause of finality must also be God.

SYNTHESIS OF THE QUINQUE VIAE OF ST. THOMAS AQUINAS Things in this world are mutable, dependently efficient, contingent, hierarchical in perfection, and ordained towards an end. But mutable things, dependently efficient things, contingent things, things hierarchical in perfection, and things ordained towards an end require a cause. Therefore, there exists a being who is a Pure Act as the cause for mutable things, the First Cause for dependently efficient things, the Necessary Being for contingent things, the Most Perfect Being for things hierarchical in perfection, and the Highest Intelligence for things ordained towards an end. This Being we call God.

August 29, 2005, Mon. – NO CLASS – National Heroes Day

60 21. August 31, 2005, Wed., 0900-1000

CONFIRMATORY ARGUMENTS for Proving the Existence of God 1. The Argument from Eternal Truths. (This argument was intensively and extensively used by St. Augustine and Leibniz.) There are truths which are necessary, immutable, and universal. But truths of this kind require an intellect. But such an intellect cannot be the human intellect or any other created intellect. Therefore, an intellect which is highest and supreme exists. And this Highest Intellect is God. St. Augustine’s ARGUMENT FROM TRUTH to Prove the Existence of God St. Augustine’s argument for the existence of God is the interioristic approach, i.e., from within the self, insofar as truth dwells in the inward man. When I look inwards upon myself, says St. Augustine, not only am I aware that I exist and know, but I also find other truths within. For instance, I find mathematical truths (e.g., 4 + 3 = 7) as well as ethical laws (e.g., “do good, avoid evil,” “the eternal is to be preferred to the temporal”). Now, apprehending these truths, I do not see sensible things, but eternal, intelligible, and necessary laws . How are we to explain and account for these truths in the soul? Of course, they could not have been caused by sensible things for these are changing and contingent, whereas truth is unchanging and necessary. Nor can the mind be the source of these truths, for it is also subject to change. Besides, truth cannot be caused by my individual mind, for truth is universal; it is truth for you and me, it is truth for all. Most of all, my mind submits to truth and is ruled by it. While truth is in my mind, it is also above my mind. Hence, truth transcends me; it exists above the human mind and that it is necessary, immutable, and eternal. But these qualities are attributes of God. Therefore, to prove the existence of truth is at the same time to prove the existence of God, who is Truth.

COMMENTARY: Necessary, immutable, and universal truths are called eternal truths because they are presupposed to exist in an intellect from all times, without beginning and without end. (However, they are only negatively eternal truths. That intellect in which these necessary, immutable, and universal truths reside is the positively eternal being. Only God is positively eternal.) The intellect wherein these necessary, immutable, and universal truths reside cannot be the human intellect or any other created intellect for that matter because the human intellect or any created intellect is contingent, mutable, and particular. This required intellect must also be necessary, immutable, and universal – the intellect of God. This intellect of God is parallel to Plato’s world of ideas. Plato’s world of ideas was Christianized by St. Augustine. For Plato, eternal truths reside in a world of their own – the world of ideas. For St. Augustine, eternal truths do not reside in a world of their own but in the mind/intellect of God.

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2. The Eudaemonological Argument (from the Greek word “eudaemonea” = “happiness” or “beatitude”) – argument coming from the desire for happiness in man. In man there is the fundamental/basic desire for happiness which cannot be frustrated. (Each and every man has this desire for happiness and he must fulfill this desire, otherwise he cannot fulfill himself.) The fulfillment of this desire cannot be accomplished through imperfect goods. Therefore, there exists the most perfect good which is the object of man’s desire for happiness – God. St. Augustine also used this argument. He expressed man’s fulfillment in God with his statement, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, my God.” The major premise of the eudaemonological argument is evident and undeniable. The minor premise states that the fulfillment of the desire for happiness cannot be accomplished through imperfect goods. This is so because human reason already has the concept of the Perfect Good. Even if man tends to imperfect goods, these imperfect goods will not satisfy him because he will always compare these imperfect goods with his concept of the perfect good. The conclusion would be that from the insufficiency of imperfect goods, we have to admit the existence of a Perfect Good which we call God. Immanuel Kant also used this argument extensively. The existence of God is a postulate of practical reason. Man has this desire to seek for God. He needs God. God must exist.

3. The Deontological Argument (from the Greek word “deon” = “duty”) In man there is a moral law which rules him absolutely – that the good must be done and evil must be avoided. But a law needs a legislator or lawgiver. But the legislator cannot be immanent in this world (i.e., cannot be one in this world and stays in this world) but one who is transcendent to this world. The legislator cannot be a single person nor a political society. Therefore there exists a lawgiver who transcends this world – God. COMMENTARY: The MAJOR PREMISE states the categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant. Kant used this argument very extensively in his ethics – in his teaching on the categorical imperatives. In man there is always the concept of the “ought” – what man ought to do. The FIRST MINOR PREMISE (“A law needs a lawgiver”) is evident. The SECOND MINOR PREMISE (“The lawgiver cannot be immanent in this world, i.e., cannot be a single person nor a political society”) states, first – that the lawgiver cannot be a single person because otherwise the person would be both lawgiver and subject and therefore he can always exempt himself from the law. This is not possible. Every man has the moral obligation – that the good must be done and evil avoided. Secondly, the premise states that the lawgiver cannot be a political society

62 because a political society itself, if it wills to rule legitimately, must found or must base its right to rule in the moral law itself. Therefore, it is not the moral laws that supposes the state but it is the state that supposes the moral law. (It is not the state first and then the moral law, but it is the moral law first and then the state. The state depends on the moral law in order to rule legitimately. The moral law is presupposed.) The CONCLUSION follows logically  “Therefore there must exist a lawgiver who transcends the world. This is God.”

4. The Ethnological Argument (from ethnos = “people”) (This argument is based on elementary and fundamental truths held universally as a valid or sufficient criterion of truth. This means that if a truth is so fundamental that it is held universally by all men (though not absolutely), then it must really be the truth. An example would be the truth and about life and death. Another would be the truth of the immortality of the soul. If there is no proof that the soul is not immortal and all men believe in the immortality of the soul, then the soul must indeed be immortal.) The ethnological argument runs thus:

All men at least morally (i.e., 90% of all men hold the view; this is already a moral percentage; there are only ten dissenters) admit the existence of a Supreme Being, whatever is his nature. But the general consensus of men in elementary truths is a criterion of truth and certitude. Therefore it is true that God, the Supreme Being, exists. There are objections to this argument. 1. Some say this general consensus can be a product of prejudices. But we answer that the general consensus cannot be the product of prejudices because prejudices in their nature are varied among certain groups of people. Prejudices cannot be universal (e.g. prejudices of the blacks against the whites). 2. Another objection says the general consensus is product of fraud perpetuated by priests and princes or leaders. To this objection we say fraud cannot be this universal. Hence in a general consensus, fraud should be ruled out as its cause. As one American statesman would say, “You can fool some of the people at all times but you cannot fool all of the people at all times.” The product of fraud cannot be this universal. 3. A third objection would say the general consensus is a product of fear. This explanation of the general consensus does not suffice because even markedly brave men and heroes believe in the existence of God. 4. The general consensus may be a product of social coaction. This means that people have been forced to believe in the existence of God. This explanation does not prove anything because belief in the existence of God brings interior certitude. This belief in the existence of God is not just in words but something being lived out. And indeed this interior certainty cannot be produced by social coaction. The interiority of a person cannot be touched by another person. This is based on the freedom of man. This is shown in the fact that atheism was not successful in many communist countries (e.g. Union of

63 Soviet Socialist Republic, East Germany, Poland, etc.) since it was something forced. Externally, people coming from many communist countries may be said to be atheists. But surveys have shown that in the lives of many such people, Christianity is very alive. 5. A fifth objection says that the general consensus is a product of ignorance. This does not explain general consensus. Many men who are learned accept the existence of God.

OTHER ARGUMENTS Proving the Existence of God 1. Argument from the Origin of the Human Soul. The human soul on account of its spirituality cannot have any origin except from God through creation. 2. Argument from the Origin of Life. Living things cannot originate through spontaneous generation. Therefore living things require creation from a Supreme Being – God. 3. Argument from Miracles (thaumatological argument – from thaumatus = “wonder,” “miracle”). There are recorded facts which are against and above the order of nature. But no natural being can effect such facts. Therefore there exists a transcendent cause of these facts – God. __________oOo__________

Let us now take a look at the opposite proposition: “God does not exist.” ATHEISM Atheism in general can be defined as the denial of the existence of God or of any (not merely rational) possibility of knowing God. ATHEISM PRACTICAL (b)

THEORETICAL (a)

NEGATIVE (d)

POSITIVE (c) TOLERANT (e) SCIENTISM (g)

MILITANT (f) POLITICAL (h)

MORAL (i)

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(a) THEORETICAL ATHEISM  denial of the existence of God or of any possibility of knowing God. (b) PRACTICAL ATHEISM  There is the admission of the existence of God, but this theoretical acceptance of the existence of God does not have any bearing in one’s life. One still lives as if there’s no God. (c) POSITIVE THEORETICAL ATHEISM  the denial of the existence of God. (d) NEGATIVE THEORETICAL ATHEISM  the denial of the possibility of knowing anything about God but the existence of God is accepted. In philosophy the denial of the possibility of knowing God is called agnosticism (from a = prefix meaning “no,” and gnosis = “knowledge”). But if we apply accurate terminology, agnosticism is the denial of any rational way of knowing God. Thus, Immanuel Kant, for example, is an agnostic. He says the existence of God cannot be proven by pure reason. But Kant is not an atheist. Through practical reason he believes in the existence of God. (e) A positive theoretical atheism is said to be TOLERANT if it is an atheism that does not have any objective of propagating itself. There is no missionary aim. (“I don’t believe in the existence of God, but I’m not forcing others to believe in the non-existence of God.”) (f) A positive theoretical atheism is said to be MILITANT if it has an objective of propagating itself. Militant positive theoretical atheism has three forms: (g) SCIENTISM  The birth of scientism came with Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626). There was the great restoration of the sciences. Reason was subjected to experimentation. Scientism consists in the doctrine that science is more valid than God and if science proves the wrongness of God, then God necessarily does not exist. E.g. The controversy concerning the finding of Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642). The Church during that time taught that the sun revolved around the earth. This was based on the Biblical passage that says Jacob held the sun and that it did not set. So, the Church concluded, the sun could be held and prevented from setting. Thus, the sun revolved around the earth. Galileo taught the opposite. It is the earth that revolves around the sun. Galileo’s findings were based on experiment. And he was right. The Church was proven wrong. God was represented by the Church and the Bible. And God was proven wrong. He must not exist. There is no God who can be wrong. [In modern days, the Church of scientology teaches the same doctrine.]

(h)

POLITICAL ATHEISM  This, being a militant positive theoretical atheism, aims to propagate itself. Political atheism is found both in Marxism and Communism. Both Marxism and Communism have this tenet: God has to be

65 ousted from existence so that the state could become God. 55 In political atheism there is a denial of a personal God. The state is not a personal God. (i) MORAL ATHEISM  The aim of moral atheism is to deny God in order to affirm man. Moral atheism is represented by: a. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900): “God is dead and so man is born.” b. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 – 1980), the existentialist who said: “Atheism is humanism. If you deny God, you’re actually affirming man.” c. Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908 – 1961): “The moral conscience dies on contact with the Absolute. But the moral conscience (man) does not die. And so it is the Absolute (God) who must die.”

A CRITIQUE OF ATHEISM56 THESIS I – Atheism in pure form cannot be formulated as a doctrine or held as a philosophy. For, as Karl Adam rightly observes, “Man cannot live by mere negation.” When a man has denied God, he has nothing further to say; his remarks on ultimate things and his deep explanations have all been made; they are all in that one little statement of denial, and he has come to a full stop. Of course, as a fact, the atheist does not come to a stop; he goes on almost endlessly making gods to take the place of the God he has denied. For the denial of God leads inevitably to the answering of a lot of questions; take away God and you knock all sorts of gaps into any consistent theory which seeks to interpret the universe or to assign place and character and function to man. And so the statement of the atheist is never a simple denial; it is always a substitution. It is so with the denial of any fundamental truth in theology, philosophy, or science. Those, for instance, who deny the existence of real substances in the world, always end by substantizing accidents. And those who deny the existence of a life-principle in a living thing, end by assigning separate life-principle to every cell of every living thing. And those who deny God end by multiplying gods. The universe, after all, is here before our eyes, and even if it be 55

Investigative journalism has been able to document instances of the excesses of the communist regimes of the past. Now, many still speak of the horrors of a communist regime. This is not to say of course that communism is the worst form of government or that democracy is the perfect form of government. But the fact remains that in a communist nation, the state rules supreme. Sometimes, the interests of the individual are subordinated to those of the state. In extreme circumstances, the individual exists for the state, and not the state for the individual, so that if the individual no longer serves the state, or worse, becomes a hindrance to the growth and development of the state, he or she may be “done away with.” Cf. Craig Simons, “Yuppie Flight,” Newsweek, 16 August 2004, 42-43. “Wang Junxia… a skinny prodigy… rose through state sports schools to the national team under Ma Junren, a former prison guard who coached like a drill sergeant. He demanded daily marathons on the Tibetan plateau, banned dating, inflicted corporal punishment on laggards. As the anchor of ‘Ma’s Army,’ Wang set numerous world records and went on to win gold and silver medals at the Atlanta Games. But in 1997 she retired, at the age of 25, after developing a nervous disorder that she attributed to Ma’s ‘brutal training.’” 56 Copied verbatim from Paul J. Glenn, Ph.D., S.T.D., Theodicy: A Class Manual in the Philosophy of Deity (1938; reprint, London: B. Herder Book Co., 1957), 101.

66 regarded as an unreal universe, a dream-universe or a ghost-universe, it still calls imperatively for some explanation, and for ultimate explanation. Even to deny the favorite explanation of the ghost is to assert that there is some other explanation for the ghost; the need of explaining the ghost is not in the least ghostly but a solid and real necessity. And whether or not the atheist professes to have the answer when he denies what the generality of mankind have always reasonably considered the right (and indeed the inescapable) answer, he professes at least to know that there is a right answer, and in so far he is not a pure atheist but a qualified atheist, that is, an atheist who is also a vague theist. Sometimes the atheist denies God and makes mankind divine, and then he is called a humanitarian, a terrible fate for any son of Adam. Sometimes the atheist wipes the image of God out of the cosmos, and then finds it at once in the mirror [i.e., sees the divine in himself]. Sometimes he denies God, and mumbles something half-witted about a superman and the universe tending to build up its god in the man of the future. Sometimes he worships the clock and the calendar and spends his time going about crying, “But this is the twentieth century.” Often he makes gods of vague names and labels, and speaks piously of forces, and energies, and impulses, and élans, and of Nature with the capital initial. ∆ It is absolutely impossible to frame a theory or doctrine in terms of simple denial, that is, of simple negation. Such is the structure of the human mind that it requires affirmation, thesis, positive statement of fact or theory. It is impossible to go on forever saying what a thing is not, and the mind has no use for such a process, even for a limited time, except in so far as it is a process of gradually weeding out error for the purpose of clarifying some central and obscured positive truth. And for this reason it is manifest that atheism in pure form is not to be formulated as a theory and cannot exist as a philosophy.

THESIS II – Atheism conflicts with reason; it balks man’s finest tendencies; it leads to impossible consequences. First, atheism conflicts with reason. Reason demands an explanation of things, and it wants an explanation that really goes back to beginnings. In outlining our direct demonstration for the existence of God, we have presented the careful and incontrovertible findings of reason, and with these atheism is in open conflict. No normal man who has the use of reason can be in ignorance of the fact that the visible world around him, and he himself as part of that world, are contingent things, things that do not have to be here; but, as a fact, they are here, and their presence requires an accounting. And the moment an accounting is made, a god is set up. And when the careful and strictly reasoned accounting is made, the one True God is recognized. This is the status of reason

67 on the point, whether one regards reason in its own nature or takes the record of what it does from history. And with this status of reason atheism is in conflict. Therefore, atheism conflicts with reason. Secondly, atheism balks man’s finest tendencies. The tendency of man towards happiness, which, as we have seen, is an elemental and essential and necessary human tendency, is made illusory and cruel if the atheistic denial have any value. Man tends, by heart and will, towards goodness and happiness, and out of this tendency rightly and reasonably controlled, come all acts of devotion and of heroism, all the lives of nobility, all that approaches to what normal and decent men acknowledge as ideal. But the tendency is meaningless if its ultimate Object is taken away, as it is taken away by atheism. Atheism in its chill denial, and in its dead substitutions, has nothing of lasting value to offer to human hearts and wills. Therefore, atheism balks man’s finest tendencies. Thirdly, atheism leads to impossible consequences. For atheism takes away the only foundation for decency and good moral conduct. If man is not responsible to a Supreme Judge, his morality amounts to little more than a set of rules of etiquette and to what Bill Nye calls “a rugged fear of the police.” Atheism makes pure tyranny of all human governments, since “all authority is from God,” and a human government is always based upon the concept of some higher and invisible authority which will back it up; this is true even of bad governments… Now, if the moral law and human law are only conveniences that bind externally, their force cannot long endure, and the human race is doomed to early destruction. Towards this unthinkable end atheism clearly points. For this reason, we assert that atheism leads to impossible consequences.

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22. September 2, 2005, Fri., 0900-1000

MIDTERM EXAMINATION

68 23. September 5, 2005, Mon.

CHAPTER TWO – THE NATURE OF GOD INTRODUCTION TWO MOST PREVALENT CONCEPTIONS OF GOD IN PHILOSOPHY Philosophers are classified into two as far as the conception of God is concerned – those who hold a metaphysical understanding of God and those who hold an anthropomorphic understanding of God. 1. METAPHYSICAL CONCEPTION OF GOD  The predicates that we usually attribute to God must be used only in a metaphorical, symbolic, or analogous sense.57 This is a key theme of the philosophy of Paul Tillich (a modern philosopher, 1886 – 1965), which is based on his words: “God infinitely transcends every finite being.” This means that between the finite and the infinite there is an infinite break, and God therefore is the Absolute Other completely different from us. When we call God kind we attribute the predicate to him only in a symbolic sense, never real at all. God is kind and merciful. Peter is kind and merciful.

God is angry. Peter is angry.

“kind and merciful” is predicated of God and Peter analogically. “Kind and merciful” is primarily applied to Peter. Since God is absolutely different from Peter, “kind and merciful” can only be predicated of God metaphorically and symbolically.

“angry” is properly applied to human beings. It is only in a metaphorical and symbolic sense that we say God is angry.

2. ANTHROPOMORPHIC CONCEPTION OF GOD  The predicates that we usually attribute to God must be applied literally to God. This is held by most empiricists who insist that unless these predicates are attributed in the same sense for God and men at the 57

REVIEW OF LOGIC: UNIVOCAL TERMS – two terms used in two propositions in exactly the same sense. E.g. Peter is repentant. Mary Magdalene is repentant. EQUIVOCAL TERMS – two terms used in two propositions in completely different senses. E.g. The pig is in the pen. The ink is in the pen. ANALOGOUS TERMS – two terms used in two propositions in partly the same and partly different senses. E.g. Peter is healthy. His food is healthy. His urine is healthy. His medicine is healthy. E.g. foot of Juan, foot of a table, foot of a mountain.

69 same time, it is evident that every syllogism concerning the nature of God will be found always to consist of four terms and therefore illogical. The anthropomorphic school is represented by: a. John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873): “The fleshless abstraction of a metaphysical God cannot be the answer to the cravings of the human heart. The metaphysical God can never be loved.” b. Miguel de Unamuno (1864 – 1937): “Only the anthropomorphic God can be the loving God – the God to whom we can come through the way of love and suffering.” When we studied the existence of God in the first chapter, we knew somehow about his nature. We now know God as Pure Act / Prime Mover, First Cause, Necessary Being, Highest Being, and Most Intelligent Being. In this chapter we study the nature of God in a more detailed manner. We can begin our study of the nature of God by first affirming the possibility of man to know the nature of God. Man can know God because God is part of the adequate object of the human intellect. In Scholastic rational psychology, we learn that the adequate object of the human intellect is the object of the human intellect as intellect, namely, being, inasmuch as it is being – being in its widest sense, the whole width of being, the whole latitude of being. And since God is a Being, God is included in the adequate formal object of the human intellect. The concept that man can have of God cannot be a proper concept because God is not the proper object of the human intellect. The proper object of the human intellect is the intelligible from the sensible and in the sensible. God is not intelligible from the sensible and in the sensible. God is pure intelligible. Thus, man cannot know God directly.58 The concept that man can have of God cannot also be a common concept – a concept that is applied indiscriminately to many beings. There is a common concept of God if a property possessed by beings is applied to God in the same way that it is applied to other beings. But this is not the concept of man about God. On the contrary, the concept that man has of God is a concept taken from a common concept but applied exclusively to God. In this sense, the concept of man about God is an analogical concept. Thus when we know God as Act, we know that he is not just an act but the Pure Act. God is not just a cause but the First Cause. God is the Prime Mover, the Unmoved mover, not just any mover. God is necessary Being per se, the Most Perfect Being, and the Highest Intelligence. Following the Scholastic tradition, we adopt the analogical concept of God. What we apply to creatures, we also apply to God but not in the same way.

58

See the discussion on the object of the intellect in Benny Tao’s Rational Psychology notebook, pp. 23 – 29.

70 THREE WAYS BY WHICH MAN KNOWS THE NATURE OF GOD: (All three ways are analogical ways by which man knows the nature of God. These are the ways of causality, remotion, and eminence.) 1] The Way of Causality. This way first considers the transcendental or quasitranscendental properties of the beings in this world. And thus man knows that the things in the world have unity, truth, goodness, nobility, value, etc. From this knowledge of man of the transcendental properties of the things in this world, man comes up with the knowledge of God. Man knows that God is the cause of these transcendental properties in the things of this world. If there is unity, truth, goodness in this world, then God must be one, true, and good. To produce so much unity, truth, and goodness in the world, God must be the Most One, the Most True, and the Most Good (for no one can give what he does not have). [Nemo dat quod non habet.] 2] The Way of Remotion. (from: Latin: removere = “to remove”). In this way, man no longer looks at the transcendental properties but rather he looks at the imperfections in this world. In this world, for example, there is multiplicity (division), temporaneity (limitation by time), finitude, measurability (limitation by space), and mutability. (the state of being in potency, not yet in act). Knowing these imperfections of the things of this world, man in a way removes these imperfections from God and applies the opposite to God. Hence, God is immutable (not in potency, but always a pure act), unique (not divided, and not divisible), immense (not measured by space), eternal (not limited by time), infinite (not limited in perfection). 3] The Way of Eminence. In this way, man no longer considers the imperfections but the perfections of some things in the world, such as intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, power, freedom. Seeing that some things in this world possess the perfections of intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, power, and freedom, but only in a limited way, man applies these perfections to God, no longer in a limited way, but in an eminent way. Thus when man finds knowledge in the world, man concludes that God is all-knowing (God has the Superintellect). There is power in the world; God is most powerful (Superpower of God). There is freedom in the world; God has the greatest freedom of will (Superwill of God). From these THREE WAYS man knows the nature of God. But what is applied to creatures is definitely different from what is applied to God. Thus, the wisdom of man, for example, is not identified with the wisdom of God. But the wisdom of man resembles the wisdom of God. 24. September 7, 2005, Wed.

THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD The concepts that man can have of God are properly speaking the attributes of God. The attributes of God can be defined as the different elements that constitute the essence of God according to the human way of conceiving God . We put emphasis on the phrase “according to the human way of conceiving God” because philosophically we know that in God there is perfect unity (indivision: God is so simple…) so that His

71 unity is the same as His immensity, eternity, immutability, infinity. BUT God is so complex that in order to understand Him we have to divide Him to different concepts.59 Because of our human limitation we need this division of God to different concepts. But in reality there is in God absolute simplicity, absolute identity of His attributes. There is no division in God, no multiplicity of his attributes. TWO KINDS OF ATTRIBUTES OF GOD 1) ABSOLUTE ATTRIBUTES  Those attributes that are applied to God in Himself alone (E.g. eternity, immutability, immensity, superintellect, superpower, etc.) 2) RELATIVE ATTRIBUTES  Those attributes that are applied to God in his relationship to the world (E.g. the attribute of God as Creator, as Preserver or Provider, as Conservator, etc.) The absolute attributes of God are subdivided into two:

59 See the discussion on Distinction in Benny Tao’s Ontology Notebook, 17 – ff. DISTINCTION is the relationship between two or more individuals whereby they are divided from each other. This relationship results from a being’s unity. A being is divided from other beings precisely because it is undivided in itself.

MAJOR DIVISION OF DISTINCTION: I – REAL DISTINCTION – distinction between real individuals (e.g. distinction between James and John) or between one real individual and one of its modes. A. Major Real Distinction – the distinction between one real individual and another real individual. (e.g. between James and John) B. Minor Real Distinction – distinction between one real thing and any one of its modes. e.g. a) the distinction between Jose Rizal and his shortness b) the distinction between St. Thomas Aquinas and his bulk c) the distinction between motion and velocity. (Velocity is one mode of motion.) II – LOGICAL DISTINCTION – distinction between concepts or logical things (e.g. distinction between the Wisdom and the Justice of God. Both are one in the essence of God. There is only a logical distinction between the two. In reality, they are one and the same being considered under different aspects. A. Logical Distinction with Foundation in Reality – the distinction between two or more concepts of one thing which is so complex that our human reason can understand it only if it is divided into separate or different concepts. e.g. a) The distinction between the concepts of rationality and animality of man. To understand man we have to divide him to these concepts. The logical distinction between the concepts of rationality and animality of man has foundation in reality because they represent something real – man. b) The distinction between the Justice of God, the Wisdom of God, and the Mercy of God. God is so complex a thing that He has to be separated into separate concepts. B. Logical Distinction without Foundation in Reality – the distinction between concepts which have the same meaning. The foundation of this distinction is only in words, not in meaning, not in reality. e.g. a) the distinction between man and rational animal. b) the distinction between God and Omnipotent Being c) the distinction between non-being and nothing

72 a) Negative attributes  Those attributes which are a result of the way of remotion. They are also called the essential attributes because they belong to the essence of God in Himself (E.g. eternity, immutability, immensity, infinity, unicity). The essential attributes of God are incommunicable. They cannot be communicated by God to creatures. For instance, no creature can be called eternal, immutable, immense, etc., even in an analogical sense. b) Positive attributes  Those attributes which are a result of the way of eminence. They are also called the operative attributes because they refer to the operations of God (E.g. The Superintellect of God, the Superpower of God, the Superwill of God). Strictly speaking, these attributes do not belong to God’s essence. They belong more to the operations of God. The positive attributes of God are communicable. God can communicate these attributes to creatures. Thus, while God has the Superwill (the greatest freedom of will), man has freedom though in a limited way. While God is the Highest Intelligence, man also has intelligence. While God has superpower, man has power, but to a limited extent. NOTE: While we say it is possible for man to know the nature of God, we also say it is impossible for man and all creatures (including angels) to know the nature of God completely. Man can never comprehend God even in the Beatific Vision. If there were complete comprehension of God, God would become finite in a way because knowledge of his nature would be placed in a finite mind. Because the nature of God cannot be known completely, God’s nature is called ineffable. This means that we can never have an adequate concept of God and consequently we can never give an adequate name to God. God is ineffable. He cannot be named adequately. There is no name adequate enough for God. THE STUDY OF THE NATURE OF GOD IS DIVIDED INTO: - First, the ESSENTIAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD - Second, the OPERATIVE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD

THE ESSENTIAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD In the study of the essential attributes of God, three questions are asked: A) What is the METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD? What constitutes Deity or Godness? B) What is the PHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD? What are the perfections that together constitute Deity/Godness? C) Is GOD UNIQUE? Can there be only one God? Or can there be a multiplicity of Gods? (Unicity is an attribute of God resulting from the way of remotion. We see multiplicity in the world. When we remove multiplicity, we are left with unicity.

73 While there is multiplicity of creatures, there is the unicity of God. God is unique. There can be no other God [See the discussion below]). Review of Logic and Ontology THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE AND THE PHYSICAL ESSENCE OF THINGS Anything can be known according to its metaphysical essence and physical essence. To know something indepthly and not just peripherally, we ask what is its metaphysical essence and physical essence. METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE. There are three elements of metaphysical essence. The metaphysical essence of a thing is a) that which constitutes a thing in itself; b) that which distinguishes a thing from other things; c) that which is the source of all other perfections that belong to the thing. E.g. The metaphysical essence of man – his rationality and animality. His being a rational animal makes man a man, distinguishes him from other beings, and is the source of all the perfections belonging to him. PHYSICAL ESSENCE. The physical essence of a thing is the sum total of the perfections or notes that belong to the thing as it exists. E.g. The physical essence of man is the totality of his perfections as a rational animal – e.g. capacity to pray, to laugh, to socialize with others, freedom, and all perfections found in man including his animality and rationality. The metaphysical essence of a thing is composed of the constitutive notes of the thing. It is what constitutes a thing in itself. Thus in man, we can zero down only on his being rational and his being an animal. The physical essence of a thing is composed of both the constitutive and the consecutive notes of a thing (those which are consequent to the constitutive notes). Thus, part of the physical essence of man is his freedom, which is only a consequence of one of his constitutive elements – his rationality. In Logic, we say the metaphysical essence of a thing is its proximate genus and specific difference. They physical essence of a thing is its proximate genus and specific difference (which together constitute species) plus its properties – notes which result from its species. Thus risibility (the capacity to laugh) and religiosity, for example, belong to the physical essence of man. They do not belong to the metaphysical essence of man. They are neither man’s proximate genus nor specific difference nor species, but they are a direct result of man’s species. Man would not laugh were he not a rational animal. (The laughing hyena does not really laugh.) Man would not be religious were he not a rational animal. September 9, 2005, Fri. – NO CLASS: Osmeña Day 25. September 12, 2005, Mon.

A. THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD CHARACTERISTICS OF THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD: The metaphysical essence of God must be: 1) SUBSTANTIVE  must be that which constitutes the Deity, that which makes God God. It must not be something added to his essence [but it is something to which some things are “added”]. 2) DISTINCTIVE  must be that which distinguishes God from all other beings. 3) the RADICAL (root) SOURCE of all the ATTRIBUTES/PROPERTIES found in God.

74

DOCTRINES CONCERNING THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD. THE QUESTION: What is that note in the idea of God which, first and foremost, puts the Divine Essence before the view of our understanding in so far as this may be done at all? SOME THEORIES ON THE POINT: 1. THE NOMINALISTS led by WILLIAM OF OCKHAM (1285–1347)  The metaphysical essence of God is His actual infinity, i.e., His actual possession of all perfections without limit. The Nominalists deny objective or trans-subjective value to all ideas and reduce them to mental names handily invented by man to indicate unknowable essences. God’s metaphysical essence is neither more nor less than the collection of all the perfections (so called, so named) which we attribute to God. The Nominalists can allow no real value to ideas beyond names, and hence they are logical enough to say that the collection of names (i.e., mental names) which are applied to God is all that is knowable about God, and that it is futile to pick and choose among names – none of which has any true trans-subjective value – to find one that is a valid source of all the others.60 2. THE SCOTISTS led by JOHN DUNS SCOTUS (1266–1308) The metaphysical essence of God is not the actual infinity, but rather the root-infinity or radical infinity of God. The actual infinity, according to John Duns Scotus, is the physical essence of God. But the metaphysical essence of God is His radical infinity, i.e., the right of God to possess all perfections without limit. God’s being requires all perfections in infinite degree.61 3. RENẺ DESCARTES, as well as SOME THOMISTS  The metaphysical essence of God is his actual superintellectuality (or infinite understanding, or boundless comprehension of all knowables), i.e., God’s actual possession of the perfections by which he knows himself and all other things. [This is also taught by Godoy, a scholastic.] The metaphysical essence of God is the fact that He is all-beholding and allcomprehending.62 4. FERRẺ, as well as SOME THOMISTS  The metaphysical essence of God is not His actual superintellectuality but His radical superintellectuality (or fundamental understanding), i.e., the right of God to possess all perfections by which he knows Himself and all other things. In other words, the mind need not advert reflexly to the actual infinite extent of God’s existing knowledge, but finds its idea of God first and

60

Paul J. Glenn, Ph. D., S.T.D., Theodicy: A Class Manual in the Philosophy of Deity (1938; reprint, London: B. Herder Book Co., 1957), 133-134. 61 Ibid., 134. 62 Ibid.

75 foremost in His infinite understanding considered as such and not necessarily in exercise.63 5. LACORDAIRE, as well as SOME THOMISTS  The metaphysical essence of God is His aseity (from the Latin words a se = “by himself” or “of himself”). Aseity (or “of Himselfness”) is that attribute by which God exists by Himself and not by another. God attributes His existence only to Himself and not to another. He exists “of Himself,” without cause, necessarily, independently, and self-sufficiently.64 6. ST. THOMAS AQUINAS and SCHOLASTICISM (the majority of Thomists) The metaphysical essence of God is His Ipsum Suum Esse Subsistens (freely translated as “the very subsistent existence of God”). God is SELF-SUBSISTENT BEING ITSELF. A being is subsistent when it is complete and substantial and existing and autonomous. All finite substances which subsist do so in virtue of their constituting and supporting causes. But God has no such causes. He subsists Himself causelessly, necessarily.65 The ipsum suum esse subsistens means that the existence of God is not an act which is received by the potency of His essence, and neither is it an act which is in potency to receive other acts. In Ontology, we learn that all beings except God have their existence received by their essence. Moreover, all beings in act except God are in potency to receive other acts. GOD IS THE PURE ACT (ACTUS PURUS). The existence of God is neither a received act nor a receiving act. It is an existence which is already essential. The existence of God is essential and the essence of God is existential. In other words, the existence of God is the same as His essence. His essential existence is that which makes Him God, which distinguishes Him from other beings, and which is the source of all His other attributes. God IS existent while all others merely HAVE existence. ALL OTHER BEINGS  mixed acts GOD  Pure Act GOD’S EXISTENCE

unreceived unreceptive

REJECTION OF THE DIFFERENT METPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD

DOCTRINES

ON

THE

We have said earlier that the metaphysical essence of God must be SUBSTANTIVE, DISTINCTIVE, and the RADICAL SOURCE of all the perfections or attributes of God. Other doctrines propose a metaphysical essence of God that is either 63

Ibid., 135. Ibid. 65 Ibid., 135-136. 64

76 not substantive, not distinctive, or not the radical source of perfections. Therefore what these doctrines propose to be the metaphysical essence of God cannot be the true metaphysical essence of God. 1. The actual infinity of Ockham is a collection of perfections. This is not radical because it indicates better the fact of infinity rather than the root of infinity. 2. The radical infinity of John Duns Scotus is not a substantive essence because radical infinity is a right and therefore it is something which is only added to a substance. A right always supposes a subject which has the right. A right cannot exist in itself. It can only exist in a subject. Moreover, infinity suggests the way in which God exists rather than God Himself . Of course, we realize upon reflection that God’s infinity is absolutely identified with Himself. But the present quest is for the “metaphysical essence” of God – that note in the idea of God which, first and foremost, puts the Divine Essence before the view of our understanding in so far as this may be done at all. And, we repeat, to say that a thing is infinite seems to be saying something about a thing already there, already grasped. Such a note or predication of the mind is made in the second place after the grasp of the essence is made in the first place. For we conceive of a thing as existing (or, more accurately in the present case, as subsisting, that is, existing as a complete, autonomous, substance) before we conceive it as existing in infinity; we conceive it to be before we conceive it to be infinite. For this reason, we do not favor the view of those who declare that God’s metaphysical essence is discerned in His radical infinity. 3. The actual superintellectuality of Descartes and the radical superintellectuality of Ferre are not substantive essences because intellectuality presupposes a being which has intellectuality. Intellectuality, like right, cannot exist in itself. It presupposes a being, or, more precisely, it presupposes an intellect. Intellectuality is not substantive. It is something added to a substance. The actual comprehension of all things by Almighty God suggests an operation of the Divine Essence; and, of course, an operation presupposes an operator; the idea of an operation is not the first or fundamental note, but the secondary note in our knowledge of an existing and operating being. The radical comprehension or understanding of God (that is, the understanding considered, not as an operation exercised, but in itself, so to speak, as a capacity) suggests a power or a faculty. And, of course, to our way of understanding, a power or a faculty presupposes the existence of one that has the power or faculty. THEREFORE, the idea of God’s superintellectuality (God as all-comprehending – whether as actually or radically comprehending) is not the first and fundamental note in our knowledge of God, but is secondary to, and consequent upon, our knowledge of God as subsisting. 4. Aseity is something negative (i.e., it is a negative attribute) which presupposes the positive. God is an Ens a se – not an Ens ab alio – a Being which by Himself can explain His existence – because He is existence Himself. His existence is essential. Therefore, the

77 aseity of God presupposes His Ipsum Suum Esse Subsistens – His being a Pure Act. Aseity is not radical. There is something more radical than it – God’s essential existence, God’s Ipsum Suum Esse Subsistens, God’s being a Pure Act. This Ipsum Suum Esse Subsistens (the Pure Act of God) is the root of aseity.

DIRECT PROOF OF THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD That which is substantive, distinctive, and the radical source of perfections or attributes is the metaphysical essence of God. But the Pure Act of God or the ipsum suum esse subsistens is understood as substantive, distinctive, and the radical source of His perfections and attributes. Therefore, the ipsum suum esse subsistens or the Pure Act of God is the metaphysical essence of God. PROOF OF THE MINOR: The Pure Act of God is understood as substantive for it is not something added to God. It constitutes the substance of God. In fact we call it the essential existence of God. The Pure Act of God is understood as distinctive because it is through it that God is distinguished from all other things. While all other things merely have or receive existence, God IS existent. He is Existence Himself. GOD IS SELF-SUBSISTENT BEING ITSELF. The Pure Act of God is truly radical because it is the source of all His perfections or attributes. There is nothing more radical than it. [This shall be shown in the subsequent discussion on the physical essence of God.] 26. September 14, 2005, Wed.

B. THE PHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD The physical essence of a thing is the sum total of all the perfections in the thing as it exists. Thus, all the perfections of God together with His metaphysical essence constitute His physical essence. God has so many perfections that it is impossible to name them all. Hence, in our study of the physical essence of God, we concentrate only on the perfections or attributes that flow immediately or directly from God’s metaphysical essence, which is His being a Pure Act  simplicity, infinity, immutability, immensity, and eternity. In a capsulized form, we thus give a description of the essence of God:

The essence of God is that by which He is a pure act (ipsum suum esse subsistens), and therefore He has all perfections without composition (simplicity), and in the highest degree (infinity), and cannot change (immutability) either in space (immensity), or in time (eternity).

78 We take these perfections or attributes one by one.

1] SIMPLICITY  that attribute indicating that in God there is an absolute negation of any composition. There are three kinds of composition which we negate in God. a) METAPHYSICAL COMPOSITION, which results from metaphysical entities like potency and act, essence and existence, substance and accidents, nature and suppositum. We deny all these in God. Therefore, God is metaphysically simple. b) PHYSICAL COMPOSITON, which is had from essential or quantitative parts, which are matter and form. In God we deny the composition of matter and form. God therefore is physically simple. There is no physical composition in God. c) LOGICAL COMPOSITION, which is a result of the composition of a proximate genus and specific difference giving us species (or in logic “definition”). To give a strict definition of a thing is to give its proximate genus and specific difference. Because there is no proximate genus and specific difference in God, there is no strict definition of God. Therefore, God is logically simple.

THESIS I – GOD IS ABSOLUTELY SIMPLE. ARGUMENT: The ipsum suum esse subsistens or the Pure Act is absolutely simple. But God is the Pure Act or the ipsum suum esse subsistens. Therefore, God is absolutely simple. The MINOR PREMISE is evident from the preceding thesis. God is the Pure Act or the ipsum esse subsistens. The burden of proof lies in the MAJOR PREMISE: That which is the Pure Act or the ipsum suum esse subsistens is absolutely simple. We prove this according to the various forms of simplicity. 1) Metaphysical simplicity – God is metaphysically simple because the Pure Act excludes the metaphysical composition of act and potency and of essence and existence. (That is why God is the Pure Act. He is neither a received nor a receptive act. His essence and existence are the same.) If the Pure Act excludes the metaphysical composition of act and potency and of essence and existence, it also excludes composition from substance and accidents because accidents are related to substance as acts to potency. Accidents are acts, or, properly speaking, second acts. God’s being a Pure Act also excludes composition from nature and suppositum because suppositum is related to nature as act to potency. (We must remember that suppositum completes nature by adding individuation, subsistence, and accident. In God therefore, since He does not have the composition of nature and suppositum, that by which He is God (meaning, His Deity) is identical to that

79 by which He is this God (meaning, the suppositum of God)…[The suppositum is the individual.] 2) Material simplicity – God is materially simple because the Pure Act or the ipsum suum esse subsistens excludes the physical composition of form and matter since form is related to matter as act to potency. Therefore, God is not a body and He does not have quantitative parts. He is not also the form or the soul of the world. God is a subsistent form but He is not the form or the soul of the world. 3) Logical simplicity – God is logically simple because the Pure Act excludes the logical composition from proximate genus and specific difference since in the logical order specific difference is related to the proximate genus as act to potency. E.g. Animal  becomes an act as a man if rationality is added to it. From the analysis of the Pure Act, we thus conclude that God is metaphysically, physically, and logically simple. And by that we mean God is absolutely simple. There is no way at all by which He can have any parts.

2] INFINITY  When we say God is infinite, we mean that there is in Him the possession of all perfections without any limit. We said earlier that infinity is a product of the way of remotion whereby man looks at the imperfections of the world and in a way removes them from God. The world is finite. Removing this imperfection, man comes up with the knowledge that God is infinite. The special question which arises from this discussion of God’s infinity is: How can the perfections found in creatures be attributed to God? To answer this question clearly, we need to make a distinction between pure perfection and mixed perfection. A PURE PERFECTION is that perfection which in its concept does not have any trace of imperfection. Any perfection that does not have any connotation of imperfection is a pure perfection. Examples are the perfections of existence/being, intelligence, life, love. A MIXED PERFECTION, on the other hand, is that perfection which in its concept contains a connotation of imperfection. One example would be reason. While reason is a perfection in the sense that by it man knows what he does not experience, it contains a connotation of imperfection in the sense that in it man passes from potency to act. The capacity to walk is also a mixed perfection because it connotes that the one walking is not in another place. One has to leave one place in order to be in another place. Extension, too, is a mixed perfection. Anything that has parts is perfect but at the same time is also imperfect because the composition of parts is an imperfection. A compound being is not a simple being. Matter is also a mixed perfection. PRINCIPLES TO BE FOLLOWED IN APPLYING THE PERFECTIONS OF CREATURES TO GOD 1. No perfection found in creatures can be applied univocally to God and creatures. If a perfection of creatures is applied to God, it is always in the analogical sense.

80 There is nothing univocal between God and man. The goodness of God is different from the goodness of man. There may be a similarity. In fact, God is totally different from creatures. 2. Pure perfections are to be applied to God formally and in the most eminent manner. Love, life, intelligence, etc. are to be applied to God in an eminent manner. God is the Highest Kind of Love, Highest Life, and Highest Intelligence. 3. Mixed perfections are to be applied to God only virtually, i.e., only inasmuch as there is always an equivalent perfection in God to the perfection found in creatures, or inasmuch as God can always cause that perfection found in creatures. E.g. The perfection of walking found in creatures is not formally attributed to God. But God has an equivalent perfection – the perfection of omnipresence. God does not reason but He has Intelligence. The perfection of matter found in creatures is also not formally applied to God but only virtually inasmuch as God is the cause of matter, though formally in Himself he does not have the perfection of matter nor an equivalent perfection. Every being which is perfect is good. Since God is the Highest Being as far as perfection is concerned, He is also the Highest Good/Highest Goodness.

THESIS II – GOD IS INFINITE WITH ALL PERFECTIONS. ARGUMENT: The Pure Act is infinite. But God is the Pure Act. Therefore, God is infinite. Proof of THE MAJOR PREMISE (“The Pure Act is infinite.”): We say the Pure Act or the ipsum suum esse subsistens is infinite because of the fact that limitations come only from potency. An act is limited by a potency. Therefore, it is evident that God who is the Pure Act cannot have any limitation since He has no potency in Him. Thus, the Pure Act is perfection without limit. When we say God is infinite, we also say God is the Highest Good. Perfection is what makes a thing good. Hence, if God is infinite with all perfections, He is also the Highest Good.

3] IMMUTABILITY  that attribute of God by which we deny radically in Him any change. Immutability is the radical negation of change in God. We insist on the word “radical” because when we say God is immutable we do not only mean God does not change but in fact God cannot change.

81 We make a distinction between intrinsic change and extrinsic change. INTRINSIC CHANGE is that mutation which involves a thing in itself. E.g., If a table is cut in two, the table undergoes an intrinsic change. EXTRINSIC CHANGE is that mutation which involves another thing and not the thing in itself, but the thing in itself is given a new denomination. Thus, the change does not actually happen in the thing in itself but in another thing outside the thing. But the thing in itself is given a new denomination. E.g. I have this table in front of me. But if I turn around, the table is given a new denomination. The table is at my back. The table in this case has extrinsic change. We attribute many changes to God. But all these are only extrinsic changes not involving God in Himself. The only changes we can attribute to God are extrinsic changes, which strictly speaking, are not changes at all. Thus, when we say God is angry, there is really no anger in God. He still remains to be Love. God, Who is Love, does not change, but because of the change in the behavior of His creatures, God is given a new denomination, although the change does not involve Him in Himself.

THESIS III – GOD IS IMMUTABLE. ARGUMENT: The Pure Act is immutable. But God is the Pure Act. Therefore, God is immutable. Proof of THE MAJOR PREMISE (“The Pure Act is immutable.”): That the Pure Act is immutable is established from the fact that the Pure Act excludes any potency and therefore any intrinsic mutation either physical or moral mutation because potency is the source of mutation. God therefore… o does not begin to be. o does not cease to be. o is not corrupted. o is not annihilated. o is not created. o does not change his volition. But by the very fact that God’s being a Pure Act excludes any potency, we also exclude in God the radical potency of change because potency is the root of all mutability and mutation. Only extrinsic change is possible to God. 27. September 16, 2005, Friday

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4] IMMENSITY  that attribute whereby we deny in God any limitation of space. In other words, when we say God is immense, we mean God is not limited by space. The term immense comes from the Latin word immensus, literally meaning “measureless.” Thus, etymologically, immensity means measurelessness. A thing is immense when it cannot be measured, confined, estimated, or quantified. As a Divine Attribute immensity may be defined as “a perfection whereby the Divine Substance is enabled to be present in all things and in all places without being limited or measured by them.”66 There are two ways to consider immensity: a) AS AN ABSOLUTE ATTRIBUTE , immensity is an attribute which we attribute to God considered as He is in Himself and not in relation to any other being. Here we say God is immense even without the existence of a spatial world (the world of space). This is immensity simpliciter or simply taken. Immensity simply taken is an absolute attribute whereby the existence of a spatial world is not taken into consideration. b) AS A RELATIVE ATTRIBUTE , immensity is an attribute which we attribute to God in His relationship to the spatial world that exists. God is immense even in this world. If we take into consideration the existence of a spatial world, God’s immensity is better called ubiquity or omnipresence. God cannot be said to be omnipresent (or present everywhere or ubiquitous) if a spatial world is not taken into consideration. The question now arises – WHAT IS GOD’S PRESENCE IN THE SPATIAL WORLD? If a person asks, “Where is God?” the ready answer from our little kindergarten catechism would be “God is everywhere.” Is God in this room? Yes. Is God in me? Yes. Is God in that tree over there? Yes. But what exactly is that manner in which God is present in the world of space and time? For surely, God is not in things in such a way that the things limit, or measure or confine Him. REVIEW OF COSMOLOGY: HOW A THING MAY BE (PRESENT) IN A PLACE: 1. Circumscriptively (from the Latin circumscriptum = “written around”). A thing is in a place circumscriptively when its own dimensions are co-dimensional with those of a surrounding body. The containing body is drawn around the located body somewhat like a line is drawn or written around a coin laid flat on a piece of paper. - E.g. A baseball flying in the air is in the air circumscriptively, because the ball’s external dimensions or measures perfectly fit the pocket of atmosphere. The inner concave surface of the air meets at all points the outer convex surface of the ball. 2. Informatively. A thing is present in another thing informatively when it (i.e., the located reality) serves as a form, i.e., a determining factor that “in-forms” (gives form, whether substantial or accidental, to) the thing that it determines, marks, qualifies, limits, and characterizes. The forms (whether substantial or 66

Paul J. Glenn, Ph.D., S.T.D., Theodicy: A Class Manual in the Philosophy of Deity (1938; reprint, London: B. Herder Book Co., 1957), 156.

83 accidental) are said to be in the bodies which they “in-form,” determine, establish, or characterize, but very clearly, they are not present according to measurements and dimensions. - E.g. The human soul (which is the substantial form of the living human body) is present in a man informatively. It is a presence not based on external dimensions and measurements. Otherwise, an amputee would lose some portion of his soul! Or stouter, taller people would have bigger souls (and therefore more dignified) than thinner and shorter ones! Or adults would have bigger souls than little children! - E.g. The beauty of feature is in the beautiful face. - E.g. The hardness of marble is in the marble. 3. Operatively. A thing is present in another thing operatively when it exercises activity there. a. Operatively and definitively – when the operating or active power (the thing located) is limited to one single substance. E.g. The soul is present in a man operatively and definitively. The lifeprinciple is present in a tree. b. Operatively and extensivel y – when the operating or active thing is present to a plurality of things, spreading its power among them. E.g. The sun is said to be present in all the places on earth that enjoy its light and its warming rays. c. Operatively and incircumscriptively – when the operating power is present unlimitedly to all things. E.g. GOD.

And so, BACK TO THE QUESTION: WHAT IS GOD’S PRESENCE IN THE SPATIAL WORLD? ANSWER: God is not present in things circumscriptively because such a presence is a bodily presence, a presence by outer material dimensions, and God is the Infinite Spirit. Besides, circumscriptive presence is a limiting and determining thing, and God is not limited or determined by His creatures. For any determination is an actualization of potentiality and God is Pure Actuality. God is not in the world informatively. He is not the substantial form of the universe. (The old Greek Stoics thought He was, and called God the soul of the world.) Nor is God the accidental form or determinant of the world, – the shape of the world or its temperature or its appearance or any other item of its accidental determinate being. For God is the supersubstance, the All Perfect and Self-Subsistent Being. He is not the accident (i.e., the accidental form) of anything.

GOD IS IN THE WORLD OPERATIVELY, NOT JUST DEFINITIVELY AND EXTENSIVELY, BUT INCIRCUMSCRIPTIVELY. God is present in the world and in every creature. He is present operatively, for all things depend upon Him as their producing and sustaining cause (their cause in being as well as their cause in becoming) and they discharge their connatural functions only in virtue of their God-given equipment and by reason of God’s preserving and concurring action. God is present in all things operatively but incircumscriptively, for He is in no wise measured, limited, or contained, by the universe or any item of it, while He sustains it in being and operation.

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THUS, GOD’S IMMENSITY MEANS HIS RADICAL OPERATIVE AND INCIRCUMSCRIPTIVE PRESENCE EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL THINGS. His actual operative and incircumscriptive presence everywhere and in all things is His omnipresence or ubiquity.67 GOD’S PRESENCE IN THE SPATIAL WORLD IS also described as INTERMINATE. There are no limits to his presence in the world. God is in everything but He is not contained by anything. He is in this world but not contained in this world. God’s presence is wider than this world.

THESIS IV – GOD IS IMMENSE. ARGUMENT: The Pure Act is immense. But God is the Pure Act. Therefore, God is immense. Proof of THE MAJOR PREMISE (“The Pure Act is immense.”): That the Pure Act is immense is established by the fact that that being which is measured and limited by space is in potency to have its presence from one place to another. (E.g. Simply because I am limited by space, I am in potency to go to another place.) But in God there is no potency because He is the Pure Act. Therefore, God cannot have His presence from one place to another. To be limited by space is to be in potency to be in another place. But God does not have any potency. Therefore He is not limited by space. God is immense.

5] ETERNITY  that attribute whereby we deny in God any succession of time. When we say God is eternal we attribute to Him therefore a permanent duration in being. The philosopher Boethius has a very good definition of eternity. Eternity, for Boethius, is the simultaneously total and perfect possession of interminable life. When we say God is eternal, we mean God has an interminable life (interminus – “no terms”), i.e., His life has no beginning and no end, and this possession is perfect and simultaneously total. If it is simultaneously whole, perfect, and total, it means there is no succession of time in God. In short, the eternity of God is that attribute of God whereby we deny in Him succession of time and terms of life. There is a special question concerning eternity – WHAT IS GOD’S RELATIONSHIP WITH TIME? The eternity of God does not co-extend with time. But the eternity of God coexists with time. God’s eternity is not co-extensive with time but co-existent with time. In other words, time is part of the eternity of God. Eternity cannot be imagined. It can only 67

Ibid., 157-161.

85 be understood. Perhaps the illustration below can help the understanding of the relationship between eternity and succession in time. C B A

D E

A, B, C, D., E, etc. refer to the succession in time. The point at the center is the eternity of God. The succession in time (the before and after), or points A, B, C, D, and E, all touch eternity. They all co-exist with eternity. But eternity does not move.

St. Thomas Aquinas defines eternity as the “permanent now” or “the unchanging now.”

THESIS V – GOD IS ETERNAL. ARGUMENT: The Pure Act is eternal. But God is the Pure Act. Therefore, God is eternal. Proof of the MAJOR PREMISE (“The Pure Act is eternal.”): That the Pure Act is eternal is established from the fact that the Pure Act does not begin to be nor ceases to be, nor has succession because it is an unreceived act and an unreceptive act. If it is an act which is not receptive of another act, it cannot end and it cannot have succession in time. Thus, the Pure Act is eternal. Summary: SCHOLASTIC THESES: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

God is absolutely simple. God is infinite with all perfections. God is immutable. God is immense. God is eternal.

All five theses are proven by an analysis of the metaphysical essence of God – God’s ipsum suum esse subsistens. When we analyze the ipsum suum esse subsistens, the metaphysical essence of God, we realize that it already contains in itself the physical essence of God although not explicitly. But for the sake of clarity and distinction, we divided the essence of God into his metaphysical essence and physical essence.

86 28. September 19, 2005, Mon.

C. THE UNICITY OF GOD The unicity of God means that God is one. This is a direct consequence of His being simple. Because He is simple, God is one. But when we say God is unique we also mean God can only be numerically one. Thus, the whole sense of God’s unicity is that there is only one God and there can only be one God. REVIEW OF ONTOLOGY Closely related to the concept of unity (i.e., the transcendental “one,” as in “Every being is one, true, and good”) is the concept of unicity (the state of being unique). Something or someone is one and can only be one. (What is meant here is numerical unity – the number “one.”) UNICITY is a numerical unity which excludes any other individual of the same nature. E.g. the earth; God. But this table is not unique since it does not exclude any other table. If this table were unique, then that table over there would not exist. This table is said to be “one” (i.e., undivided in itself, though divisible), and it is also numerically one, but it is not unique. Pedro is one, and there is only one Pedro, but philosophically, Pedro is not unique. (Of course, the popular meaning of “unique” as “incomparable,” “rare,” etc. must be distinguished from the philosophical meaning of unicity.) TWO KINDS OF UNICITY FACTUAL UNICITY  if it is the unicity of one which excludes actually but not essentially another individual of the same nature. Actual unicity is unicity in act but not in potency. A factually unique thing may be unique as a matter of fact, but it need not be unique. E.g. Unicity of this world. There is no other world, and we know that as a matter of fact. But it is possible/conceivable that there can be another world. Nothing in the essence of this world excludes the possibility of the existence of another world. God can make another world. JURIDICAL UNICITY (from jure = right) or ESSENTIAL UNICITY  if it is the unicity of one which excludes both factually and essentially another individual of the same nature. It is in the essence of the juridically unique individual to exclude any other individual of the same nature. E.g. GOD. It is in the essence of Godness to exclude any other God.

DIFFERENT PHILOSOPHIES DENYING THE TRUTH OF THE UNICITY OF GOD ARE CLASSIFIED INTO TWO GROUPS: 1] Those who deny the unicity of God by excess are those who teach that there is more than one God. There is more than one absolute principle in reality.

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2] Those who deny the unicity of God by defect are those who deny the unicity of God by teaching that God is identified with the world. (God is identified with the substance of the world. God has one and the same substance with the world.) I – Those who deny the unicity of God by excess are either: A. Those who teach DUALISM  that there are two absolute principles in reality; there are two Gods. B. Those who teach POLYTHEISM  that there are more than two Gods. There are many absolute principles. There are many Gods. II – Those who deny the unicity of God by defect are those who teach PANTHEISM  that there is “less than one” principle in the sense that God is identified with the substance of the world. In short then, philosophies denying the unicity of God are: b) DUALISM c) POLYTHEISM d) PANTHEISM

DUALISM  As its name suggests, dualism teaches that there are two absolute principles. Dualism is of two kinds: a) philosophical, and b) theological.

a) Philosophical Dualism  the dualistic philosophy taught by the ancient Greek philosophers like PLATO and ARISTOTLE, and also the Gnostics. The essence of this dualistic philosophy is that in reality there are two absolute principles, namely, God [The One; Prime Mover] and eternal matter. Both of them are unproduced and therefore both of them are absolute. Between these two absolute principles, there is interdependence. God, which is spiritual, depends on matter for its operation. Eternal matter also depends on God for its operation. b) Theological Dualism  Originally taught by MANI or MANES (AD 216 – c. 275). During the third century after Christ, Mani founded a sect and his teachings came to be known as Manichaeism. [The early Augustine was in fact a disciple of Manichaeism.] Manichaeism teaches that there are two absolute principles in reality – the principle of good, which is the source of everything that is good in the world, and the principle of evil, which is the source of everything that is evil in the world. These two principles are in perpetual conflict with each other.

B. POLYTHEISM  Some commentators would hesitate to call polytheism a philosophy since there is no philosopher who explicitly teaches polytheism.

88 Polytheism is common among tribal peoples. Polytheism connotes that there is a multiplicity of Gods. This takes on many forms:

a) Zoőlatry – the worship of animals b) Anthropolatry – the worship of men (e.g. worship of ancestors); also known as religious animism. c) Demonolatry – the worship of a host of invisible beings, good or bad; this is demon-worship, using the term demon in its Greek sense as a kind of angel or a kind of devil; thus the term demonolatry does not necessarily mean devil-worship. d) Sabaeism (or Sabeism) – the worship of heavenly bodies (e.g. the sun, the moon, and the stars) e) Fetishism (or Fetichism) – worship of natural or artificial objects in the bodily world. [QUESTION: Which is prior, or which first appeared among men – monotheism or polytheism? According to experts, the first belief among men was in monotheism. Polytheism came as a corruption of monotheism itself.]

C. PANTHEISM  God is identified with the world. God and the world are one. Pantheism is therefore a monistic philosophy. QUESTION: Are all monistic philosophies pantheistic? This question seems to be not resolved. As far as Parmenides is concerned, reality is one (monos). He teaches monism. But if there is no mention at all about God, experts would say that monism is not necessarily a pantheism because he does not mention about God. But if we go deeper into the question, we can see that if one says there is only one principle in reality, necessarily that monism is pantheism because it necessarily makes that one principle God. Hence, there is no clear-cut answer to the question. Maybe, we can answer yes, a monism is necessarily a pantheism if the one principle is considered a God.

FORMS OF PANTHEISM a. Static Pantheism  God is considered as the form of the world or the soul of eternal matter. There are two forms of static pantheism: 1. The static pantheism of the STOICS. God is considered as a form or soul of the world.

89 2. The static pantheism of SPINOZA. God is the substance (not just the form) of the world. Spinoza, very interestingly teaching that God is the substance of the world, calls God as the Natura ut naturans or Nature as Manifesting Itself, and the world as natura ut naturata or Nature as being manifested. The world is seen as a manifestation of the substance that is God. There are many attributes of the Natura ut naturans but only two are known to man – the attribute of his extension and the attribute of his spirit/ or knowledge/cognition. All individual things found in this world are considered as the different modes which manifest the two attributes of God – extension and spirit. If that individual thing found in the world is material, then it is a mode of God’s attribute of extension. If that individual thing found in the world is spiritual, then it is a mode of God’s attribute of spirit.

b. Dynamic Pantheism  As its name suggests, dynamic pantheism considers God as constantly moving or operating. There are two forms of dynamic pantheism: 1. Emanationistic Pantheism (or Emanentistic Pantheism, or, simply, Emanationism)  teaches that God is a substance which constantly divides Itself and emanates into the different things in this world. Everything is an emanation from the Substance of God. God divides itself into the world. (Proponents: PLOTINUS and the Neo-Platonists). 2. Evolutionistic Pantheism  sees God as a constantly evolving substance. Everything is an evolution of this (cosmic) divine substance. God transforms Itself into the world [a less perfect being]. (Proponent: GEORGE WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL).

SCHOLASTIC THESES THESIS I – GOD IS UNIQUE. DIRECT ARGUMENTS 1.

The Ipsum Suum Esse Subsistens or the Pure Act is unique. But God is the Pure Act. Therefore, God is unique.

The MINOR PREMISE has already been established in a previous lesson. The MAJOR PREMISE (“The Pure Act is unique”) is proven by the fact that the Pure Act excludes any composition of essence and existence. Because God is the Pure Act, there is no composition in Him of essence and existence. God’s essence is existential and God’s existence is essential. Because in God there is no composition of essence and existence (since His essence and existence are one) God’s existence can never be plurified by his essence since it is the essence which renders existence into its many

90 forms. Essence is the principle of the plurification of existence. Since the Pure Act is not a received act (the existence of God is not an act received into the potency of His essence), the Pure Act is not plurified. Existence is general for all. Existence becomes plurified only by the essence which receives it. Thus, there is existence as an animal if existence is received by the essence of an animal. Existence as Mr. Benny Tao takes place only if existence is received by the essence of Mr. Benny Tao. However, this cannot happen with God because in Him, there is no essence which receives existence. Thus, God’s existence can never be plurified. Therefore, God is unique – He is only one and He can only be one.

2.

The Simple Being is unique. But God is simple. Therefore God is unique.

The MAJOR PREMISE (“The Simple Being is unique”) is proven by the fact that God’s absolute simplicity excludes composition by nature and suppositum. Therefore that by which God is God is the same as that by which God is “this God.” God’s nature and God’s suppositum are one. And so, just as the individual or the suppositum is incommunicable and unique, so also is God’s nature incommunicable and unique.

3.

The Infinite Being is unique. But God is infinite. Therefore God is unique.

The MAJOR PREMISE (“The Infinite Being is unique”) is shown by the fact that if there are many infinite beings, one of them can only be distinguished from another by a perfection which one has and the other does not have. But then they would no longer be infinite. The infinity of God would thus be destroyed. Therefore, the Infinite Being must be unique.

4.

The Immutable Being is unique. But God is immutable. Therefore, God is unique.

The MAJOR PREMISE (“The Immutable Being is unique”) is established by the fact that if there are many Gods, one would be in potency to obtain the perfection of another, and therefore this one can change. Consequently, this would destroy the immutability of God.

INDIRECT ARGUMENTS FOR THE UNICITY OF GOD prove wrong the arguments that prove the opposite doctrine: 29. September 21, 2005, Wed.

1. AGAINST PHILOSOPHICAL DUALISM

91 Philosophical dualism is false because if God would depend on matter for His operation, God would no longer be the Pure Act or the Ipsum Suum Esse Subsistens.

2. AGAINST MANICHAEISM or THEOLOGICAL DUALISM Manichaeism is false because it is absurd, useless, and dangerous. i.

Manichaeism is absurd because evil is the privation of good and therefore it is a non-being. Hence, the highest evil is also the highest non-being. The highest non-being can in no way be the cause of evil because it is a contradictory process to suppose so. To suppose that the highest non-being is the cause of evil would make this highest non-being a being and a non-being at the same time. It would be a being as the cause of evil. And it would also be a non-being in that it is in fact the highest non-being, the highest privation of good.

ii.

Manichaeism is useless in its explanation of evil because evil [as learned in Ontology]68 is caused by a good per accidens. Good tends towards evil not per se but per accidens. Evil is caused by good because of circumstances found in the action, in the agent, or in the object. [See footnote below].

iii. Manichaeism is dangerous because evil is attributed to the highest principle of evil and, consequently, the freedom of man is lost. So also is his responsibility and imputability for his actions. Man’s capacity to accept merits and demerits, rewards and punishments must also be denied. In short, Manichaeism leads to the destruction of all religion and ethics.

THESIS II – GOD IS DISTINCT FROM THE WORLD. ARGUMENT 1 (showing the contradictions found in pantheism) Pantheism is full of contradictions: 1. Pantheism contradicts the PRINCIPLE OF CONTRADICTION itself. 68

PRINCIPLES OF EVIL 1. Evil is in good. As a privation evil needs a subject which is deprived of a due good. The subject, having existence, is a being. Since it is a being, it is good. Hence, evil is in good. 2. Evil is caused by good. Evil is caused by good because as a privation, it needs an agent, and that agent is a being and is therefore good. Therefore, evil is caused by good. 3. Evil is caused by good not per se but per accidens. Good, as an agent, always tends toward something. But something is a being and a being is good. Hence, being tends toward another good per se. How then is evil caused by good? Evil is caused by good per accidens. 4. The per accidens causing of evil by good can happen in three ways: a. By reason of the deficiency of the agent. b. By reason of the deficiency of the object. c. By reason of the deficiency of the action itself.

92 a. If God is the form of the world (the doctrine of static pantheism, specifically, Stoic pantheism) or if God is the constitutive element of the world, the world would become an absolute being. But this contradicts the characteristics found in the world such as contingency, mutability, etc. We know that the world is contingent and mutable.69 b. If the world is an emanation from God, it would possess the attributes of God such as necessity and infinity. But this contradicts the characteristics of the world. The world is contingent and finite. Even if all things in the world are put together, still they would remain finite and contingent. Moreover, emanation involves division of substance. This contradicts the simplicity of God. If God is simple, He cannot be divided because He has no parts. c. If the world is an evolution of God, God would be imperfect and mutable because He would evolve into an imperfect being. But God is immutable and infinite.

2. Pantheism contradicts the PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY. a. In no way can it be denied that “becoming,” or Fieri, exists in this world (or is a reality in this world). If therefore God is the constituent element in the world, “becoming,” or the process of becoming would not have any explanation at all because becoming needs a cause which is outside of itself. This argument brings us back to St. Thomas’ First Way of proving the existence of God, which concluded the fact of God’s actual existence from “the beginning of the motion of the world.” Just as motion cannot be explained without the existence of a transcendental God, so also is becoming inexplicable without the existence of a transcendental God – a God Who is distinct from the world. b. If the world is an evolution of God, then evolution remains unexplained, because evolution, like any mutation, or any becoming, also needs a cause which is outside of itself. If God is the same as the world, evolution would have no explanation. 69 Against Stoic pantheism, Paul Glenn also says that “from the simplicity of God it follows that God is perfectly complete in Himself. Not having parts, He is not conceivably the part of something else. For God, the First Cause of all things cannot be identified with the effects which He produces; the efficient cause is always essentially distinct from its effect, and God is the Efficient Cause of all positive reality. Further, if God were to enter into composition with any creature as its part, He would have to do this as its matter or its form. But God is not matter, for matter is potential and God is Pure Actuality. Nor can God be the form of anything, for such a form is shared or participated unto the in-formed and completed reality of which it is a part, and as such, that is, as a part, it is subsequent to what it is in its own distinct essence . But God is not subsequent to anything; He is absolutely and perfectly the First Being. Further, the form of anything, coming into union with matter to constitute the thing, actualizes its own potentiality; but God is in no sense potential, but is Pure Actuality. Hence God cannot be part of anything else. He cannot be the ‘soul of the world’ as the Stoics thought; He cannot be spread out or manifested ‘in parts’ as the pantheists think; He cannot be identified with the creatural world as a whole (for the world is not simple) nor as its part.” See Paul J. Glenn, Ph. D., S.T.D., Theodicy: A Class Manual in the Philosophy of Deity (1938; reprint, London: B. Herder Book Co., 1957), 122-123.

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3. Pantheism contradicts the PRINCIPLE OF FINALITY. a. If the world is an emanation of God, it can never be explained why a Supreme Being would emanate itself into imperfect beings (lower beings), even into matter, which, according to Neo-Platonists, is essentially evil. b. If the world is an evolution of God in such a way that becoming is its very essence, then it cannot be understood what is the end of this evolution because evolution essentially tends towards an end (or implies an end). Evolution without an end is intrinsically contradictory.

4. Pantheism contradicts the CONSCIOUSNESS OF PERSONS. a. When I examine myself, I see that I am different from others. I am distinct from the other persons and from the other beings in this world. If there is the consciousness of the plurality of persons and things, pantheism can’t be accepted because pantheism teaches that there is just one person in the personality of God.

ARGUMENT 2 (the dangers connected with pantheism) Pantheism is seen to lead into dangerous consequences. 1. Pantheism leads to atheism because if it is asserted that everything is God, it can very easily be concluded as well that there is no God, for this world cannot adore itself. 2. Another dangerous consequence is the tendency of pantheism to reject the freedom of man. If God is the only person and He is the constitutive element in this world, and if I am not a person, then freedom is taken away. If freedom is taken from individual persons, then the imputability of individuals must also be taken away. All would be attributed to God, even sin. (Thus, if Pedro kills Juan, it would really be God killing himself.) 3. Another dangerous consequence of pantheism is that it takes away morality because a transcendent law needs a transcendent legislator, and to say that God and the world are one would imply that the world and individual persons are the legislators. In this case, individual persons can always excuse themselves from the moral law. 4. Pantheism leads to the rejection of any form of religion because any religion is basically a relationship between God Who is adored and persons who adore God. If God and the world are one, there would be no more distinction between Him Who is adored and them who adore. Thus, any form of religion would have to be denied.

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30. September 23, 2005, Fri.

THE OPERATIVE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD In contradistinction to the essential attributes of God, which are formed by our mind through the way of remotion, the operative attributes of God are formed by our mind through the way of eminence. We see some perfections in the world. We take away all the negative aspects and apply these perfections to God in an eminent degree. These perfections of God are communicable because they are perfections that God usually communicates to His creatures. Because we know God as an Infinite Being, we also know Him as a living Being. Since He is also the Infinite Being His life must also be of the highest degree. The highest expression of life is intelligence. Thus, if God has life in the highest degree, He must also have intelligence to the highest degree. [The Fifth Way of St. Thomas in Proving the Existence of God also points to God as the Highest Intelligence.] The more intelligent a being, the more “alive” it is (i.e., its life is better expressed). We can deduce intelligence from life. Intelligence at the same time connotes the will. If a being has intelligence, it also has a will. Moreover, the intelligence and the will of a being constitute its potency. (“Potency” here means “power.”) It is therefore all interconnected – the superintelligence, the superwill, and the superpower of God. We see that these attributes of God – His intelligence, will, and power – are communicated to some creatures. Thus, we are intelligent. We have freedom of the will. We are capable of loving. We are free. We also have power. We can “create” although this is a limited creation, not similar to God’s creation.70 Note however:

ANALOGICAL

God’s intelligence, will, and power Man’s intelligence, will, and power71

D. THE SUPERINTELLECT OF GOD The intelligence of God is the highest intelligence. In Rational Psychology, we learn that the intelligence of a being is in direct proportion to its immateriality.72 Thus, the 70

Cf. Benny Tao’s Ontology Notes on “Creatio,” 69. Cf. Benny Tao’s Rational Psychology Notes, 40. 72 Paul Glenn has this to say: “In Criteriology we learn that non-materiality is the root of knowledge and of knowing. A thing that is wholly material, such as a stone, has no amplitude of function, no power of taking in the ‘forms’ of other things as such (that is, as of other things), but is limited to its own form; and any accidental form which it receives it makes its own. But a knowing-creature (animal or man) can receive or take in other things cognitionally; it can know them; it can take in their forms without making them its own; it can possess the forms of other things (that is, can know other things) as other things. 71

95 more immaterial a being is, the more intelligent it is. Since we know God as the most simple Being, necessarily we also attribute to Him the highest immateriality. In God, there is no composition of physical/quantitative parts, no plurality of parts inasmuch as matter and form are concerned. Since God is most simple, He is also most immaterial. And since the intelligence of a being is in direct proportion to its immateriality, God, Who is Most Simple, is also the Most Intelligent Being. OBJECTS OF THE INTELLIGENCE OF GOD There are TWO KINDS of objects of God’s Intelligence. 1. The PRIMARY OBJECT of God’s Intelligence is that which He knows in itself, before anything else, and by which and after which all others are known by Him. a. It is that object which God knows in itself. b. It is that object which is known before anything else. c. It is that object through which and after which all others are known. 2. The SECONDARY OBJECT of God’s Intelligence is – a. That object which God knows not in itself but in the primary object; b. That object which God knows after the primary object; c. That object which is known through the primary object. THREE SCHOLASTIC THESES ON THE INTELLECT OF GOD 1. God knows Himself (His Essence) as the primary object. 2. God knows all other things apart from Him as the secondary object. 3. God’s knowledge is most perfect.

THESIS I – GOD KNOWS HIMSELF AS THE PRIMARY OBJECT. We dissect this thesis into two parts: “In a word, a knowing-creature is less limited than a non-knowing creature because it has less of the limitation imposed by sheer materiality or bodiliness. And the less of materiality about a knowingcreature, the wider and deeper its range of knowledge, and more pure, universal, and abstract are the items or elements of its knowledge. Thus the intellectual knowledge of man is of wide and deep range, is universal and abstract, while the sentient knowledge of man or beast is limited to concrete and singular things. In a word, the more a thing is removed from materiality, the more perfect is its operation of knowing and the more embracing and complete is its knowledge. “Now, God is the Infinite Spirit. In God there is no materiality whatever. Therefore, in God there is nothing to limit and qualify knowledge. It follows that God’s knowledge must be the most perfect possible. In God there is perfect science. God is perfect science; God is infinite understanding.” See Paul J. Glenn, Ph. D., S.T.D., Theodicy: A Class Manual in the Philosophy of Deity (1938; reprint, London: B. Herder Book Co., 1957), 183-184.

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A. God KNOWS HIMSELF if –

1. 2. 3.

He has intelligence;

REQUIREMENTS

His Essence is knowable;

OF GOD KNOWING

There is a connection between His Essence and His intelligence.

HIMSELF

Indeed God has intelligence. We just said God is the Highest Intelligence and that Intelligence follows Immateriality. God’s Essence is knowable (or, that is to say, He is intelligible, because… the more immaterial the more intelligible) because it is the Source of all truths and it is where truth is fundamentally based. There is a connection between His Essence and his Intelligence, in fact, more than just a connection but an identity of His Essence and His Intelligence.

B. God knows Himself AS THE PRIMARY OBJECT because apart from His very Essence, there is no reality that is possible. And so, before everything else existed, there was only His Essence that could be known. The Essence of God was known in itself. For Aristotle, God is the “thinker of the thinker.” God cannot know reality outside of Himself because if He knows things outside of Himself, God changes with the things in this world, owing to the fact that reality outside of God is mutable. Hence, God can think only of Himself and He knows nothing but Himself. MISTAKE OF ARISTOTLE: Aristotle thinks that the things outside of God are considered as the primary objects of God’s knowledge which they in reality are not. They are only known through, in, and after the primary object, which is, God Himself. Thus, they are just secondary objects.

THESIS II – GOD KNOWS ALL OTHER THINGS APART FROM HIMSELF ONLY AS SECONDARY OBJECTS. Again, we dissect this second thesis into two:

A. GOD KNOWS ALL OTHER THINGS. What are “all other things”? How do we make a classification of “all other things outside of God”? These things can be the possible things or the real things. God knows

97 possible things because they are modes of the participability of the Essence of God.73 If God knows His Essence as a primary object, He also knows the modes of the participability of His Essence ad extra [not ad intra – because one cannot add anything to the Essence of God, Who is Infinite] or outside of Himself, but only as secondary objects, as will be shown in the second part of the thesis.

B. God knows all other things apart from Himself ONLY AS SECONDARY OBJECTS because if they are known as primary objects, God destroys His own immutability. The possibles are only the ideas of God, or our ideas of the many modes of His participability. God can know the modes of the participability of His Essence only through His Essence, after His Essence, and in His Essence. Real beings are also known only as secondary objects because if they are known as primary objects, God would destroy His immutability since all real beings except God are mutable. If God knows these mutable things as primary objects, he would also change with them and His immutability is thus destroyed. God knows real beings in His Essence, through His Essence, and after His Essence.

THESIS III – THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD IS MOST PERFECT. The knowledge of God is most perfect – 1. By reason of its object. God’s knowledge is infinite by reason of its object because God knows all things. This fact of God knowing all things is called the extensive infinity of God’s knowledge. God knows all things without exception, and moreover, He knows all things most perfectly. This fact of God knowing all things most perfectly and in a comprehensive manner is called the intensive infinity of God’s knowledge. God knows all things through a proper knowledge, not just in a common way. (E.g. We know water as two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen – H2O – but God knows each drop of water properly, not just in a common way. God knows one drop of water from another.) God’s knowledge is both extensively infinite and intensively infinite. God’s knowledge not only extends to all things, but it exhausts the knowability of things. Such knowledge is called comprehensive knowledge. “Truly comprehensive knowledge is beyond the capacity of any creature; all creatural knowledge is apprehensive merely. For to comprehend a thing is to know it thoroughly in itself and in all its actual and possible relations with other things. To comprehend a thing is not merely to know what the thing is, and how it stands with reference to other things; it is also to know all that the thing could be and how it could stand with reference to all other things actual and possible. Manifestly, such complete knowledge is not within the grasp of a finite understanding. Yet such knowledge must be predicated of the Infinite Understanding… Truly comprehensive, and hence infinite, 73

All things in this world started as possibles in the mind of God. To these possibles, God by His will and power gave actual existence outside of Himself. These are now the actual or real beings. [Cf. Benny Tao’s Notes in Ontology, vol. 2, pp. 44 – ff.].

98 knowledge is called perfect science… [T]his perfect science exists in God and is one with the Divine Essence Itself.”74

GALILEO GALILEI, because of his tendency to geometricize reality, teaches that the knowledge of God has only extensive infinity, i.e., God knows all things. This alone makes the knowledge of God different from ours. Galileo denies that God knows all things in a comprehensive manner. Geometry explains things outwardly not inwardly. Thus, for Galileo, it is not possible for God to know each being intensively or inwardly. Thus God does not know each thing in an intensive manner. As far as Galileo is concerned, God’s knowledge, compared with our human knowledge, is not deeper, only wider. The Scholastic stand is: The knowledge of God is both extensively and intensively infinite. 2. By reason of the subject. God’s knowledge is perfect/infinite by reason of the subject because the subject is most simple since the knowledge of God is not an act added to His Essence, which is neither a receptive nor a receiving act. Rather, the knowledge of God is in complete identity with His Essence. God’s knowledge is not accidental. His knowledge is identified with His very Essence. Our knowledge is only a part of us. It does not become “us.” It is never identified with our essence. It is only an act added to our essence. [We use the term “identified with His Essence” to speak of the relationship of God’s knowledge to His Essence. We don’t use the word “equivalent” since there is in reality complete identity between the “two.” In God, there is complete unity. In fact, the distinction between God’s Essence and Existence is only a rational distinction because in reality they are identified with one another.]

3.

By reason of the means used . God’s knowledge is direct and absolutely immediate. God’s knowledge is intuitive and immediate, not discursive. It does not make use of reasoning or syllogisms. God’s knowledge is not even judicative [or iudicative], but just direct and immediate. In judgment, there is a comparison of two concepts, after which the conformity of the concepts is affirmed or denied. God does not reason and judge because reasoning and judgment are effects of finitude and imperfection. Man reasons and judges because he is imperfect. In Rational Psychology, we learned that reasoning and judgments are both perfections and imperfections.75

4. By reason of the known end (the objects or the things which are known) . The knowledge of God is independent from things because He knows things in His Essence. The knowledge of God is most efficacious because it is not caused by things (while our own human knowledge is caused by things). It is in fact the other way around. The knowledge of God causes things. Here we remind ourselves with the words of St. Thomas Aquinas: “Knowledge is co-extensive 74

Glenn, op. cit., 182. See Benny Tao’s Rational Psychology Notebook, Vol. I, p. 40. See also the discussion on mixed perfections on page 79-80 of these handouts on Theodicy. 75

99 with causality.” And so, the knowledge of God extends itself to all because He causes all. September 26, 2005, Mon. – NO CLASS: Post-Fiesta Rest 31. September 28, 2005, Wed.

E. THE SUPERWILL OF GOD That God has a will is deduced immediately from the fact that He has an intellect because intellectual life includes the existence of the will, in fact, the free will. If we think of God as infinite, then we must attribute to Him a will, which is a perfection found in the world. Moreover, if the perfection of the will is directly proportionate to the perfection of the intellect, then the will of God must also be the Highest Will. In Rational Psychology, we learned that the motion of the will is that of wanting, willing, and loving. Just as when we say the knowledge of God is substantial we mean that it is not something added but something identified with God’s essence so that we can say the knowledge of God is identified with Truth, truth being the relationship of conformity between the knower and the known, so also here, when we talk of the will, we say the will of God is substantial so that we can truly say that between God’s Will, Love, and His Essence there is perfect identity. (Cf. “God is Love.”) To show the close connection between God’s Intellect and God’s Will we can also talk of the primary and secondary objects of the will of God. TWO THESES 1. God loves Himself as the primary object of His will and necessarily. 2. God loves all other things outside Himself as secondary objects of His will and freely.

THESIS I – GOD LOVES HIMSELF AS THE PRIMARY OBJECT OF HIS WILL AND NECESSARILY. A. “God loves Himself…” There are THREE REQUIREMENTS FOR GOD LOVING HIMSELF: 1. That God has a will 2. That God’s Essence is lovable 3. That there is a connection between His Essence and His Will * That God has a will is evident from the fact that He is intelligent. * That God’s Essence is lovable is shown by the fact that the more perfect a being, the more lovable it is. The appetibility of a being is in direct proportion to its perfection. But God is the most perfect Being. Therefore God is most lovable. * Between God’s Essence and God’s Will there is more than just a connection; there is in fact identity as demanded by His simplicity. The will of God is not something added but something identified with His Essence.

100

B. “God loves Himself as the primary object…” because apart from His Essence nothing else is good since things outside of God are just participations of God’s goodness. Therefore God must love Himself first of all.

C. “God loves Himself as the primary object necessarily” because, as learned in Rational Psychology, when the will is confronted with the good as such, necessarily it is attracted to that good, so that there is no longer freedom of choice. When God loves Himself His will is confronted with His Essence, which is the highest good or the Good as such. And so, the will of God does not have freedom of choice because His Essence is the Highest Good.

THESIS II – GOD LOVES ALL OTHER THINGS APART FROM HIM AS SECONDARY OBJECTS AND FREELY. A. “God loves all other things…” because all these are beings and therefore good and lovable. Thus, God loves them.

B. “God loves all other things as secondary objects…” because all these are just participations of His Essence. God therefore loves them in His Essence, after His Essence, and through His Essence. Besides, if all things apart from God are loved by Him as primary objects, this love would destroy God’s immutability because then God would change with these things which He loves.

C. “God loves all other things as secondary objects and freely” because all things apart from God are just relative goods. They are not the good as such, not the highest good, not the absolute good. Thus, as relative goods, when confronted with them, God has freedom of choice whether to love them or not. In other words, God is not forced to love all other things apart from Himself, although in reality He indeed loves these things.

SPECIAL QUESTION CONCERNING THE WILL OF GOD TOWARDS EVIL When we think of the sanctity of God, we understand that He hates evil. But then what kind of hatred is this? What principles govern the will of God in His confrontation with evil? (Evil can either be a physical evil, the denial of a physical good; or a moral evil, the denial of conformity with the moral law.)

FOUR PRINCIPLES GOVERNING THE WILL OF GOD IN HIS CONFRONTATION WITH EVIL

101 1. As any will in general cannot directly will or want or love evil, i.e., cannot love evil per se, the will of God can never will or love evil per se. The will loves only the good. If it wills evil, it is not because of the evilness of the thing but because of the relative goodness found in the thing. 2. God can will physical evil, NOT PER SE, but PER ACCIDENS, if this physical evil becomes a relative good. (Physical evil is that which deprives something of a physical good.) For example, God can make you sick. Your sickness, being the denial of your health, is a physical evil. But God does not will this physical evil per se but only as a relative good. God sees that you become holy through your sickness. In relation to holiness your sickness becomes a relative good so that God can will this physical evil as such. The good which is achieved through sickness – your holiness – is higher than the good which is deprived of you in sickness – your health. Thus, it is possible for God to will the physical evil of sickness on you. This was the case of the conversion of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits. [Perhaps we can give a philosophical answer to the question: Why did God allow the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, which made the lives of many miserable? Why indeed? Perhaps, we can answer, God must have a higher good in mind. Maybe, as some scientists would say, the eruption of the volcano would repair the damage done to the ozone layer. God must have willed then that there would be the greater good for the greater number of people for a longer time, as would be achieved if the ozone layer is preserved.]

3. God can never will moral evil, either PER SE or PER ACCIDENS . There is no reason at all for Him to will moral evil. In moral evil or sin, the good deprived is the conformity with the moral law, which comes from God. The legislator of the moral law is God and the moral law represents God so that, in the last analysis, the good which is deprived in moral evil or sin is God Himself. But there is no greater good than God Himself. Thus, God can never will moral evil. “If God could will moral evil per se or in itself, we should be confronted with the absurdity of Infinite Good contradicting Itself, and showing an intrinsic tendency, so to speak, towards all that conflicts with It. God would be a contradiction in Himself, and hence would be, not only imperfect, but impossible. We should have the Perfect Being as imperfect; the Necessary Being as impossible. Reason cannot accept such absurdities and contradictions, but is forced to acknowledge that God cannot will per se the existence of moral evil or sin. THE SINNER, THEREFORE, IS THE SOLE AUTHOR OF SIN; to him alone it is ascribable; his will is its cause. This does not mean that the sinner is a self-sufficient being, and the creator of his acts; it means that the sinner is wholly responsible for his failures, his lack of due action, the absence of good which should mark his moral conduct. Remember the truth that sin, like every evil, is a lack and a failure, and in itself requires as cause a defecting, a failing, rather than an efficient or effecting agent. “Neither does God will moral evil per accidens. To will evil per accidens is to will it as involved in something willed in itself, directly or per se; it is to will it on account of a good greater than that to which the evil in question stands opposed… Now, God cannot will moral evil on account of a greater good than

102 that to which the evil in question stands opposed. For the evil in question (that is, moral evil or sin) stands opposed, directly and inevitably, to God Himself; for moral evil is evil of human conduct inasmuch as this is out of line with the Eternal Law and is thus opposed to the Divine Essence. And there can be no greater good that God who is the Infinite Good. Therefore, GOD CANNOT WILL MORAL EVIL PER ACCIDENS.”76 This is why the saints would say, “only one thing separates us from God – sin. Physical evil does not separate us from God.” 4. God can allow/permit (not will) moral evil; God can permit us to sin for some reasons. One reason could be: in order to afford man a greater awareness of his freedom – that we may realize how free we are. Another reason would be to make us realize that apart from Him we are nothing. The more immersed we are in sin, the more we are miserable. And the more miserable we are, the more we need God. “Any gift involves the possibility of an abuse which is entirely outside your will and intention, and even opposed to your will. So the gift of freedom involves the possibility of abuse, that is, of sin, though sin is entirely opposed to the will of God who bestows the gift. God gives freedom, and He does not take it away from normally functioning man, even when the gift is used for a purpose directly opposite to that for which it was given… But to give a thing for use, is not to cause or to will its abuse; on the contrary, it is to will and to make possible its proper use. Therefore, though God has given man the freedom which man abuses when he sins or commits moral evil, God does not will, even per accidens, this abuse of what was given, and willed, to be properly used.”77 32. September 30, 2005, Friday – MORE ON THE SUPERWILL OF GOD… 33. October 3, 2005, Mon.

F. THE SUPERPOTENCY / POWER OF GOD (The Omnipotence of God) When we talk of the power/potency of God, we should not think of it as the capacity of receiving, but only as the capacity of acting. It is an active potency, not the passive potency of receiving. (Even the word “capacity” means the power to act / to do.) It is God’s capacity/power to make things outside of Himself. There is nothing more He can do for Himself. He is infinite. We should not understand the power of God as a potential principle but rather as an act considered as the capacity of acting. The power of God is understood as His principle of effection ad extra – ad extra because God’s infinity would not permit anything to be added to Himself. There are TWO WAYS OF CONSIDERING THE POWER OF GOD: 76 77

Glenn, op. cit., 222-224. Ibid., 225.

103 As an ABSOLUTE POTENCY, it is understood as God’s power without any relationship to, or prescinding from, any of His other attributes like His knowledge, His justice, His sanctity. As a RELATIVE POTENCY, it is understood as God’s power considered in relation to His other attributes like His justice, knowledge, wisdom, sanctity. E.g. Taking the power of God as an absolute potency, we can say God can destroy the human soul because the human soul as a creature can be destroyed. But taking the power of God as a relative potency, we say God does not destroy the soul. The power of God is called omnipotence because it is understood as His capacity of making all things / doing all things. God’s power is identified with His infinity and with His Essence since God is simple. If God is infinite, then He must also be omnipotent. The infinity of God and His omnipotence are also in the last analysis identified with His Essence and also with His Existence – His ipsum suum esse subsistens. Since God is the ipsum suum esse subsistens, in the last analysis He is the epitome of non-contradiction. There is nothing at all in God that connotes contradiction. The omnipotence of God rests in the fact that God can make all things as long as they are not in contradiction to each other, i.e., as long as they are componible in notes, as long as they are possible (God cannot make that which is in contradiction. God cannot make evil.) “All things” here means all things which He has not yet made and all things which He has already made, but not at the same time. God cannot make all things at the same time. If he did so, God would be exhausting the possibles, which are infinite since they are modes of the participability of God’s Essence, which is infinite. The doctrine of Leibniz therefore is wrong. Leibniz would say God cannot create another world greater than this world. If God is infinite, then God can make all things which He has not yet made and has already made. We also take into account the teaching of Descartes that God because of His omnipotence can make even the impossible. This doctrine is wrong in the sense that if God can make the impossible He would be assimilating to Himself or to His being a non-being and therefore contradicting Himself because an impossible thing is a non-being. An impossible cannot be made even by God because it cannot be. It cannot have being. IN SUMMARY, about the nature of God, we can say God is a person. We mean he is a distinct being. As a distinct being, God is therefore not identified with the world. We eliminate pantheism. God is subsisting in an intelligent nature – subsisting because he is Existence Himself. When we say God is intelligent, we also mean God has a will. That God is a distinct person does not contradict the theological data of God as a Trinity of Persons. It would have contradicted this theological data if philosophy taught that God has three substances. The three persons known in theology are not three distinct substances but rather three distinct relations.// 34. Oct. 5, 2005, Wed.

QUIZ ON CHAPTER II – DE NATURA DEI – on Wed., Oct. 7.

104 35. October 7, 2005, Fri.

CHAPTER THREE

GOD’S CAUSALITY TOWARDS THE WORLD (The Causality of God in Relation to the World) The relationship of God with the world is either a relationship of identification or of causality. We have rejected identification in our rejection of pantheism. When we say God is related to the world by causality, we mean He is the cause of the world and we mean three things: 1. God gives existence to the world through creation. 2. God concurs with the operations of the creatures of the world. 3. God governs the world. Thus we divide the chapter into three parts: A) Creation B) Concursus C) Providence of God.

A. THE CREATION OF THE WORLD BY GOD That the world has origin in God is a certainty. Seeing that the world is composed of contingent things, mutable things, and things with negative properties, we can therefore conclude that the world cannot explain its own origin. Its origin is outside  God. Given also the perfections of the world, we can say the world cannot have an origin other than God, Who is immutable, infinite, necessary, and most intelligent. The creation of the world by God can be viewed from three angles: 1) from the point of view of efficient causality 2) from the point of view of exemplar causality; and 3) from the point of view of final causality. 1) The efficient causality of God in relation to the world can be either through: a) Emanation  the process of a substance dividing itself into another substance (e.g. the rays of the sun from the sun) but the emanation still retains the same essence as the original substance. b) Evolution  the process of God evolving into the world. Evolution is the development of a substance into another substance. c) Creation  that process by which a thing is produced from the nothingness of itself and from the nothingness of a subject. When you have a true creation, this means the production of a thing from both the nothingness of itself and the nothingness of a subject. Simple creation connotes only the production of a thing

105 from the nothingness of itself. When a carpenter makes a table, he “creates” it from the nothingness of itself but not from the nothingness of a subject because there are always the wood and the nails. When God created the world, there was no world and there was no substance with which God created the world. God as the Creator is the Toticipated Being. Creatures, as participated beings, get their total existence from the Toticipated Being. Aside from the Toticipated Being, there is nothing at all from which the participated beings get their total existence. Before these creatures were created, there was nothing at all but God. 2) When we talk of the exemplar causality of God to the world, we mean the ideas of God which He copies in order to create the world. An exemplary cause can also be called an archetype, meaning, it is the essence of God which He, by contemplating it, communicates to the world. An exemplary cause is like a model which is copied. But it is a model in the mind of God. Sometimes, an exemplary cause can also be called an extrinsic formal cause because it assimilates itself into the very essence of a thing. For example, in a statue copied from Benny Tao, Benny Tao becomes part of the statue although he is outside the statue. In God’s creation of the world, the model which He followed was His essence or His idea of Himself. God seeing Himself as capable of communicating Himself to others created the world according to that idea. 3) The final causality of God to the world. The final cause of the world is God. But it should be explained this way: The final cause of the creation of the world is the extrinsic glory of God. Glory can be defined as a loving/praising knowledge of a certain perfection. The glory of God is a loving knowledge of His perfection. It is a knowledge coupled with love for His perfection. This is called formal glory. But there is also what is called objective glory. By this we mean the perfection itself of God which is being known and loved or praised. Objective glory would no longer be a relationship of knowledge but would refer to the perfection which is known and loved or praised. Now, both formal glory and objective glory can be intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic formal glory consists in God lovingly knowing Himself or His own perfections. Intrinsic objective glory consists in the perfections of God. This would be his essence. Extrinsic formal glory would be creatures knowing the perfections of God Himself with love. Extrinsic objective glory would be the perfections of God or His essence as communicated to creatures. With these distinctions, we can now understand the final cause of the world. God created the world for his extrinsic glory, both objective and formal. The FINAL CAUSE OF THE WORLD is the EXTRINSIC GLORY OF GOD, both objective and formal. OBJECTIVE  communication of his perfections and his Essence. (outside of Himself) FORMAL  communication of his knowledge and love (outside of Himself)

106 N.B. Extrinsic formal glory is applicable only to intelligent beings. Since God communicated His knowledge and His love to intelligent creatures, these special creatures will in turn be able to know Him and His perfections, love Him and His perfections. (As far as the infra-rational world is concerned, the infra-rational world was created for the rational world.)

Cf. COMMON QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS IN ANY CATHOLIC CATECHISM MANUAL [E.g. Guzman, Fr. Marciano Malvar. Guide to Christian Belief: A Concise and Systematic Explanation of the Apostles’ Creed. Mandaluyong: Aletheia Foundation, Inc., 1986.] I – THE PURPOSE OF LIFE 1. Who made us? God made us. When a child is old enough to reason out by himself, he is bound to ask a few basic questions: Who made this world? Who made me? What for? His reason will tell him that someone made everything in the world. That someone is God. “He made us and we belong to him, we are his people, the flock that he pastures” (Psalm 100:3). 2. Who is God? God is the Supreme Being, a pure and infinitely perfect spirit, the loving Creator of all things, and supreme master of heaven and earth. 3. Why did God make us? God made us to show forth his goodness and to share with us his divine life and his everlasting happiness in heaven. Our reason also tells us that God must have made us for some purpose. The first reason why God made the universe and us is to give glory to himself, by showing forth his infinite power and goodness. Since God is an infinitely perfect being, the main reason why he does anything must be an infinitely perfect reason. But there is only one infinitely perfect reason for doing anything, and that is to do it for God. The end of man and all things in this world is the glory of God. They show God’s perfections and proclaim his goodness, majesty, and power. But the principal way God’s goodness is shown is in the fact that he made us with spiritual and immortal souls, capable of sharing in his own life and his own happiness. Even in human affairs, we find that the goodness of a person is shown by the generosity with which he shares himself and his possessions with others. Likewise, the goodness of God is shown, above all, by the fact that he shares himself – his own divine life – and his own happiness with us. Happiness is what every man desires. No material or spiritual good of this life can completely satisfy the human heart. This present life is merely a preparation for the eternal life in heaven. In this life, we are exiles, wanderers, pilgrims. Heaven is our true country, our true home. There God wants us to share with him his own everlasting happiness. “For there is no eternal city for us in this life but we look for one in the life to come” (Hebrews 13: 14). 4. What must we do to gain the everlasting happiness of heaven? To gain the everlasting happiness of heaven, we must know, love, and serve God in this world. God has placed us in this world so that we may lay the necessary foundation for the happiness of heaven. Our chief business in life, the business which God commands us to attend to, is to know, love, and serve him. Love is the key word. It is obvious that we cannot love someone we do not know. That is why we must learn all that we can about God, so that we may love him, keep our love alive, and grow in love for him. But there is no true love unless it is shown in action. By practicing what we learn and obeying God’s commands, we serve him. “Anybody who receives my commandments and keeps them will be one who loves me” (John 14: 21).//

107 The intrinsic glory of God, whether it be formal or objective, cannot be the final cause of the world because, whether we like it or not, God’s Essence is already there, and also God cannot but know Himself. Hence, the final cause or end of the creation of the world is the extrinsic glory of God, both formal and objective. This is to say that, first and foremost, the final cause of the world is the communication of God’s knowledge and love (extrinsic formal glory), and secondly, the communication of God’s essence (extrinsic objective glory). In the last analysis then, the ultimate final cause of the world is the knowledge and love of God’s intelligent creation for his perfections. We find in the world a hierarchy in the communication of God’s perfections. The infra-spiritual world for example can only be called the vestiges of God. They only share in the essence and goodness of God. The spiritual world on the other hand can be called the image of God. They not only share/participate in the essence and goodness of God, but they also participate in the knowledge and love of God. The extrinsic glory of God, being the final cause of the creation of the world, finds verification in the Sacred Scriptures, especially in Psalm 19. “The heavens proclaim the glory of God” (Ps. 19:1). The heavens proclaim the glory of God because their magnificence, showing that they participate in the beauty of God, becomes the occasion, object, and stimulus for the intelligent world (spiritual world) to praise God. 36. October 10, 2005, Mon.

THREE THESES ON THE CREATION OF THE WORLD BY GOD: 1. The world has origin from God through creation. 2. The world has origin from God according to His exemplary ideas. 3. The world has origin from God for the final causality of His extrinsic glory.

THESIS I – THE WORLD HAS ORIGIN FROM GOD THROUGH CREATION. Argument 1 (INDIRECT ARGUMENT) – The world, absolutely speaking, can have its origin either through emanation from the Substance of God, evolution, or creation. But emanation and evolution are repugnant. Therefore the world can have its origin only through creation by God. Proof of the minor: (i.e., that “Emanation and Evolution are repugnant.”) a) Emanation requires identity of nature between God and the world , and we know that this identity of nature is not possible. b) Emanation requires that the emanating substance be a compound substance since emanation is a process of division. But God is simple. Therefore, emanation from Him is impossible. c) Emanation connotes the immanence of the Emanating Substance in the emanated Substance in such a way that there is an identity between the two. But again, there is no such identity between God and the world (as we have shown when we

108 refuted emanationistic pantheism in our discussion of Thesis II [“God is distinct from the world”] under the topic on the unicity of God. See pp. 91 – 92). d) Evolution requires the mutability of the thing which evolves . But God is absolutely immutable. Hence, evolution of God into the world is impossible.

Argument 2 (DIRECT ARGUMENT) – God is the First Cause and therefore He is the cause of all existing beings outside of Himself. But the cause of all existing beings presupposes nothing in His action. Therefore, God in causing the world presupposes nothing, that is, He caused the world through creation. In creation, nothing is presupposed except the existence of an Efficient Cause. Creation is a strictly philosophical notion. It cannot be imagined. You cannot see creation in the world. Nothing in this world shows us what creation is all about. But though creation is a strictly philosophical notion, no philosopher before the philosophers of the Jewish/Christian Tradition has ever thought of it. It was thought of only by the philosophers of the Jewish-Christian Tradition on the occasion given by revelation both in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. They based their philosophy on the JewishChristian Tradition. MOST DIRECT ARGUMENT Toticipated Being  Participated beings

THESIS II – THE WORLD HAS ITS ORIGIN FROM GOD ACCORDING TO HIS EXEMPLARY IDEAS. (God is the exemplar cause of the world.) Every intelligent agent, inasmuch as it acts as an intelligent being, acts according to his ideas, to which he assimilates (makes similar) his own effect. So if a certain effect comes from an intelligent agent, you can be sure that it is made according to the ideas of an intelligent agent, as long of course as the intelligent agent acts as an intelligent agent. But God is the Highest Intelligent Agent and nothing was existing except Himself before creation. Therefore, God created the world according to His ideas existing in His own intellect.

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THESIS III – THE WORLD HAS ORIGIN FROM GOD FOR THE FINAL CAUSALITY OF HIS EXTRISIC GLORY, BOTH OBJECTIVE AND FORMAL. Since the good and the end are convertible to each other, the being which is absolutely good must be the absolute end and the ultimate end of any action. But God is the Absolute Good. Therefore, God, or his Divine Goodness, is the absolute and ultimate end of creation. But Divine Goodness can no longer be acquired. It can only be communicated. Therefore Divine Goodness as communicated is the absolute and ultimate end of creation. The communication of Divine Goodness however is the communication of three things – a communication of His Essence, Love, and Knowledge. But the communication of God’s Essence, Love, and Knowledge is the extrinsic glory of God, both objective and formal. Therefore, the world was created by God on account of His extrinsic glory, both objective and formal. 37. October 12, 2005, Wed.

DIVINE CONSERVATION Closely related to the concept of creation is the concept of conservation. Conservation is the preserving of an effect in existence. God did not only create us, but he “keeps us in being.” There are causes in fieri and causes in esse. A CAUSE IN FIERI (or “in becoming”) is required to bring an effect into existence; a CAUSE IN ESSE (or “in being”) is required to maintain an effect in existence. A cause in fieri is a producing cause; a cause in esse is a conserving cause. Conservation is the exercise of a cause in esse. When an effect depends essentially for both production and permanence (for fieri and esse) upon a cause, that one identical cause must continue in activity or exercise as long as the effect exists. Thus fire is required both to make iron hot and to keep it hot; the sun is required both to produce daylight and to maintain daylight. For there is an essential dependency, for both production and permanence, of heat upon fire and of daylight upon the sun. But when the dependency of effect upon cause is essential only in point of production and not of permanence, the effect may be supported in being by another cause than that which gave it being. In other words, the cause in fieri need not, in this case, continue on as the cause in esse. Thus, the sculptor is the cause in fieri of the statue which he carves, but he is not its cause in esse; the accidental form or being which the sculptor confers upon marble by shaping it in a certain way finds a sufficient supporting or conserving cause in the enduring stuff of which the statue is made; its cause in esse is the marble itself, and the statue may continue in existence for centuries after the sculptor is in his grave.

110 But ultimately, as all things work back to first creation as their cause in fieri, so they work back to that same single creating cause as their radical cause in esse; the creating cause must continue on as a conserving cause, else creatures must fall to nothingness. Here we see what is meant by the statement that conservation is a continuation of creation. For creation does not bestow being upon something that is already there to receive and hold it; it produces being in entirety out of nothingness; the creature is, in consequence, dependent for both production and permanence upon its creating cause, and this one identical cause must continue in activity or exercise as long as the creature exists. Conservation is direct or indirect. DIRECT CONSERVATION (or promotive conservation) is the positive preserving of an effect by an activity which supplies actual being to the effect or contributes what actively supports the effect in its being . E.g. Thus, fire directly conserves the daylight; thus the eating of food directly conserves life and strength. INDIRECT CONSERVATION (or preventive conservation) is the negative preserving of an effect by the exercise of a cause which protects the effect, shields it, wards off or prevents what would harm and destroy it. E.g. The placing of a manuscript in an air-tight case is an act of indirect conservation. The enclosing of a delicate vase in a cabinet where it is safe from the sweep of careless hands is also an act of indirect conservation. The nurse-maid who watches an infant so that it does not fall into the fire, or climb to perilous places, or eat what would harm it, is indirectly conserving the welfare of the child.

THESIS I – DIVINE CONSERVATION IS A FACT IN THE WORLD, AND THIS IS NOT MERELY INDIRECT, BUT DIRECT CONSERVATION. ARGUMENT 1 (from the contingency of creatures) Creatures are contingent realities. They have not in themselves any requirement for existence. They are not self-accounting, self-explanatory, self-sufficient. That they exist is a patent fact; that they do not have to exist is equally evident, for they come into being, they change, they are limited, and things subject to beginning, change, and limitation, are subject to the action of causes; such things are effects; they are dependent or contingent or non-necessary things. Now, manifestly, contingent things do not lose their contingency when they are created. They require positive production of their entire being in the first moment of their existence, and they require a continuance of the producing power at every successive moment of their existence. No other lesser power than their first-producing power (that is, their creating power) will account for their continued existence, since their entire being rests wholly and undividedly in that power.

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Therefore, contingent beings require for their existence the continuation of the creating power which is the power of God alone. And the continuation of this power is Divine Conservation. Hence, the contingent beings in the world around us, and the world itself, require and have the support of the activity called Divine Conservation. Divine Conservation is, therefore, a fact. ARGUMENT 2 (from the entire and essential dependency upon the First Cause) An effect which depends for production and permanence upon a certain cause requires the direct conserving activity of that cause . For such an effect has an essential and entire dependency upon its cause; it requires the cause to hold it in being. No mere protection from destructive forces will ensure its existence, for it cannot, in itself, maintain existence. Hence, indirect conservation is not sufficient to account for such an effect in continued existence; direct conservation is required. Now, all creatures are, as we have seen, contingent upon their First Cause by an essential and entire dependency; creatures depend for production and permanence upon causes which are ultimately focused and founded upon the First Cause, and which have their own existence and activity by virtue of the operation of the First Cause. Only the First Cause has in Itself the sufficiency of self-existence without dependency upon any other agency or force or factor. Therefore the First Cause, by Its positive exercise of causal activity, is required to account for the sustained existence of creatural reality. In other words, the exercise of direct Divine Conservation is required to explain the existence of the world and all things in it. Direct Divine Conservation is, therefore, a fact. ARGUMENT 3 (from the positive choice of the Divine Will) A creature depends for existence upon its Creator. It exists by reason of the positive will of the Creator to bring it into existence. It does not exist by reason of the Creator’s mere willingness to leave it alone and not to destroy it. And a creature continues in existence by the sustained positive will of the Creator, not by His merely negative or indirect will. Now, the positive will of the Creator, which is thus manifested in the production and continuation of creatural existences, is neither more nor less than direct Divine Conservation. Therefore, direct Divine Conservation is a fact.

112 38. October 14, 2005, Wed.

B. THE CONCURSUS OF GOD OPERATIONS OF CREATURES. (roughly

IN

THE

translated as divine cooperation by God with the operations of the creatures of the world) Against the Occasionalists,78 represented by Nicolas Malebranche, we are sure that things/creatures of this world enjoy efficient causality. Nevertheless, for this efficient causality of creatures there is needed the cooperation or the concursus of God. Yes, creatures in the world act but they cannot act without the cooperation of God. The concursus of God therefore is the influence of God’s power on the actions/operations of creatures. If the operation is a supernatural action, the cooperation of God is called grace. In ordinary actions of creatures, the cooperation of God is called concursus. Here, we shall talk only of concursus, i.e., the cooperation of God in the ordinary actions of creatures. Divine Concurrence means the Divine Power actively exercised upon the creature (that is, secondary cause) to elicit operations, to determine and direct them, and to support them in being, in such wise that these operations are wholly ascribable to the creature as their secondary cause, and wholly ascribable to God as the sole Primary Cause.79

NATURE OF THE DIVINE COOPERATION IN THE NATURAL ACTIONS OR OPERATIONS OF CREATURES Classification of Concursus: 1) Mediate Concursus (REMOTE COOPERATION)  If God’s cooperation lies only in the fact that He created the world and that He gives creatures powers or forces to act. E.g. The government has concursus of its army mediately if all it 78

Occasionalism was proposed by Geulincx (1624-69) and Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715). Occasionalism teaches that the body and the mind are two distinct substances inherently incapable of affecting each other. “But an event in one’s body can be the occasion for God to produce a corresponding mental event, and a mental event an occasion for God to affect the body… It follows that there can be no genuine causal relations between created beings. This need not imply that God intervenes with a particular decision on each occasion. According to Malebranche, God’s operations conform to his general immutable decrees. But even with regular combinations of so-called causes and effects, only God can give the push, so to speak. He is the only cause properly so called.” See “Occasionalism,” The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy, ed. Thomas Mautner (London: Penguin Books, 2000), 396. 79 Glenn, op. cit., 268. That God is wholly the cause of a creaturely action and that the creature is also wholly the cause of the action, each in respectively different ways, may be likened to the analogy of a man using a pen to write a letter. “Both the man and the pen, each in its own way, is a total cause of the letter; the whole letter comes from the man, and the whole letter is written with the pen. Man and pen are not partial causes which stand on a plane, so to speak, and work together, each contributing a part of the effect” (or, to use another image, like two horses partially contributing some force in pulling one wagon). Rather, “the man writes the whole letter; [and] so does the pen. But the man writes as the principal cause, the pen as the instrumental cause, and from the principal cause through the instrumental cause the finished effect emerges.” See Glenn, op. cit., 266-267.

113 does for the army is to provide arms. Here, the cooperation of the government is remote. 2) Immediate Concursus (PROXIMATE COOPERATION)  refers to the cooperation of God insofar as He not only provides His creatures with forces or powers to act but also influences their very actions/operations directly. E.g. The teacher has immediate concursus to a child he is teaching to write if he not only gives a pencil to the child – which is still mediate concursus – but he also actually guides the hand of the child to write. Immediate concursus may be moral or physical. A) Moral Immediate Concursus  if God merely guides, counsels, or inspires creatures in their actions. The cooperation of God lies only in counsel, inspiration, and guidance. B) Physical Immediate Concursus  if God collaborates physically with the operations of Creatures. This way may be previous or simultaneous. i. Previous Physical Immediate Concursus  if God, for every operation of a creature infuses into the creature His own force. Before the creature operates, there is the previous infusion of God’s power. For example, before you stand, God gives you the power to stand. ii. Simultaneous Physical Immediate Concursus  if God only acts alongside the operations/actions of creatures. In previous physical immediate concursus, there is a predetermination of an action by the concursus of God. Hence, in a concursus which is previous and physical, the concursus of God predetermines the action of a creature. In simulataneous physical immediate concursus, there is no such predetermination. In previous physical immediate concursus, the concursus of God influences the action. There is predetermination. In simultaneous physical immediate concursus, the concursus of God does not influence but merely confluences. There is therefore no predetermination. The creature itself determines, i.e., if the creature is a free agent. Previous  Divine potency/power determines the action of the creature intrinsically. In any human action, there is this determination by God. “Previous” is understood in terms of priority of nature (not of time) or causality. It is like the priority of the sun to its rays. Simultaneous  God just cooperates at the same time that the creatures act. God goes along with his potency/power in the action of His creatures. There is no determination. The divine cooperation goes along with the action of free creatures. This means that human action comes from man himself, not from God.

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SCHOLASTICISM teaches that – a) Creatures enjoy efficient causality. b) The concursus of God is immediate for all operations and every operation of creatures. c) The immediate divine concursus is physical. The mode of PHYSICAL IMMEDIATE CONCURSUS which Scholasticism teaches is torn between two conflicting ideas – whether this is previous or simultaneous. The Dominicans and the Jesuits teach the former and the latter respectively. THE DOMINICANS teach that the physical immediate concursus is a previous concursus. This is Thomism for them. But the Jesuits would say that is not the official Thomistic view, not Thomism but Bañezianism since it is first taught by the philosopher Bañez. THE JESUITS on the other hand teach that the physical immediate concursus of God is a simultaneous concursus. The main proponent of this view is Molina and this doctrine is called Molinism. BAÑEZIANISM (The Dominican View) teaches previous physical immediate concursus for two main reasons: 1) The Law of Causality. According to the law of causality, the creature cannot act without the previous aid of the Creator. If there is no previous physical concursus, it is repugnant for creatures to act/operate. On the other hand, if there is a previous physical concursus, it is repugnant for creatures not to act. 2) The Absolute and Total Dominion of God Over His Creatures . If there is no previous physical concursus, then the operations of creatures would not belong to the dominion of God. MOLINISM (The Jesuit View) would take the side of a simultaneous physical concursus in order 1) to affirm man’s power of self-determination or man’s free will, and 2) to save the sanctity and holiness of God. 1) The problem with the Dominican stand is that it destroys in a way the freedom of man. If a previous physical concursus is applied to man, man somehow loses his freedom because a previous physical concursus is a determining factor which determines his actions. Consequently, man loses his freedom of selfdetermination.

115 2) The Dominican stand also destroys the sanctity of God . We think of God’s absolute hatred for or opposition to evil. But in a previous physical determination, God becomes somehow the author of evil, the author of sin. To this objection, BAÑEZ would answer that the previous physical immediate concursus is applied only in the matter of sin, and not in the form of sin because the form of sin is found only in the non-conformity of an act to the moral law. This nonconformity to the moral law happens because of the defect of the will of man. This, however, is still not a satisfactory explanation because it is clear in his teaching that creatures enjoy previous physical concursus in all their actions.

THE SCHOLASTIC STAND Neither of the two doctrines can be presented as the most certain doctrine. Both are only probable doctrines. And the question on the freedom of man and the concursus of God must always be defended – that God cooperates and that man is free must be kept. Both are true. But how can both of the two happen? There is now this awful word  MYSTERY. God cooperates and determines the action of man, yet man is free. When we say that it is all a mystery, we do not say the two doctrines are in contradiction. This is where the mystery lies. How can they both happen? They are componible. A previous physical concursus is certain and that man keeps his freedom of will is also certain. Our acceptance of the certainty of these two is an assertion that they are componible. This divine concursus is further clarified with the words of Jesus Christ: “Without me, you can do nothing.” Again, the componibility of the two doctrines is a mystery. We do not say that the concursus of God and the freedom of man do not exist. The mystery lies here – how these seemingly contradictory doctrines can exist together. The mystery here cannot be considered a “deus ex machina” which we use to account for the explanation of this controversy. But when we analyze the whole thing, we cannot avoid the word mystery because here we are dealing with the Essence of God. We are dealing with the actions and potencies of God, which in the last analysis are His Essence. And God’s Essence is always a mystery. Otherwise, if we know God’s Essence completely, He ceases to be infinite. 39. October 17, 2005, Mon.

C. THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD Providence comes from the Latin words “pro” = for, before; and “videns” = seeing. Thus, etymologically, it means “a looking before,” or “a looking out for.” Providence means seeing beforehand what is required and planning to meet the requirement. A man is said to be provident if he carefully manages his affairs, looking to

116 the future, estimating his income and computing necessary expenditures. A man is said to be improvident if he lives for the moment, without plan or policy for the future. Providence therefore has something to do with a plan of action, a way (that has been worked out before being put into execution) of directing things to a goal or end. Applied to God –

DIVINE PROVIDENCE is God’s Understanding and Will (that is, the Divine Reason) inasmuch as It eternally and infallibly directs things towards their last end or purpose, meeting with boundless wisdom every situation in its every detail. 80 When we say that God is provident, we mean that God governs the world according to its existence and its operations. This means that God directs the world in order that the world can attain its end. PROVIDENCE is the ordination/arrangement of all things in the world towards their end as preconceived by God in His Mind/Intellect, and as it is commanded for execution by creatures. THREE ELEMENTS OF THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD 1. the preconceived arrangement made by God 2. the execution of such arrangement by creatures 3. the means by which creatures execute the preconceived arrangement/ordination in the mind of God. What are these means? i. the laws given by God ii. the concurrence/concursus of God God gives laws and He cooperates with the operations of creatures. That is therefore what the Providence of God is all about.

QUESTION  IS THERE REALLY DIVINE PROVIDENCE? The main question we ask concerning the providence of God is whether or not it exists. Is there really divine providence? Does God take care of us according to a preconceived arrangement? This is a very legitimate question because it is very easy to deny the providence of God if we consider the overwhelming presence of evil in the world. If there is a preconceived arrangement in the world, how can there be evil in this world? DIFFERENT DOCTRINES TRY TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION:

80

Glenn, op. cit., 281.

117 1. The doctrine of ABSOLUTE OPTIMISM as defended by Spinoza and Leibniz teaches that there is indeed divine providence as evidenced by the fact that this is the best of all possible worlds. It has all the care and providence of God. For SPINOZA, this is the best of all possible worlds because it is identified with the Essence of God. And there cannot be anything better than the Essence of God. For LEIBNIZ, this is the best of all possible worlds because if not, God would have no sufficient reason for creating this world. Why would God create this world if it were not the best of all possible worlds? To explain evil in the world, Leibniz would divide evil into three: a. Metaphysical evil refers to the essential limitation or contingence of creatures. b. Physical evil refers to the deprivation of a physical good. E.g. death  deprivation of life; sickness  deprivation of health. c. Moral evil or sin. The last two evils, i.e., physical evil and moral evil are mainly part and parcel of metaphysical evil. There is physical evil and there is moral evil because the world is metaphysically evil. The world is limited and contingent. 2. ABSOLUTE PESSIMISM (taught by SCHOPENHAUER and HARTMANN) teaches that the world is essentially evil and it directly tends towards evil and travels towards evil. For ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER (1788-1860), the world is essentially constituted by the blind will to exist. Therefore, if the world always wills to exist despite evil, then it is directing itself towards pain and sorrow. [FOR A MORE IN-DEPTH DISCUSSION OF SCHOPENHAUER’S PHILOSOPHY OF PESSIMISM, SEE APPENDIX I – PESSIMISM] Arthur Schopenhauer wrote The World As Will and Idea. Here are the important teachings in that book: -

The world is my idea… The world as it is known depends for its character and existence upon the mind that knows it. By his understanding, man forms the world of phenomena, and by his reason, he achieves harmony in a world of suffering… The entire world of phenomena, including the human body, is objectified will. The will is a striving, yearning force which takes various forms according to its inclinations. By losing oneself in objects, by knowing them as they are in themselves, one comes to know the will as Idea, as eternal form.81

For EDUARD VON HARTMANN (1842-1906), author of The Philosophy of the Unconscious, the constitutive element of all things is the unconscious, and therefore 81

Frank N. Nagill, ed. Masterpieces of World Philosophy (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1990), 359.

118 all things can never know happiness. Sometimes, the “unconscious” of Hartmann is equated to ignorance. 3. FATALISM (taught by the Greek philosophers, especially the STOICS) teaches that everything in this world is subject to fate – a blind drive or force. If it is subject to fate, then there is no providence. Divine providence is out of the question. 4. DEISM of the 17th and 18th centuries admits the existence of God but denies His providence. Deism declares that God, having made the world, has abandoned it now to get on as best it may. Deism teaches that divine providence cannot be reconciled with the existence of evil in this world and that the evil in this world cannot be reconciled with the justice, sanctity, and holiness of God. The proponents of Deism are the ENCYCLOPEDISTS, DIDEROT, VOLTAIRE, and BAYLE. Bayle can be considered the most important of the deists. Against the deism of Bayle, Leibniz wrote his famous work Theos Diken. 5. MODERATE OPTIMISM (This is the stand taken by the Scholastics) admits the providence of God and holds that the world is only relatively perfect, not absolutely perfect. It admits that the providence of God exists but at the same time it teaches that the world is only a relative good. It is only relatively perfect. That is why this world is not the best. There is indeed evil in the world. Evil can be explained.

THREE (3) THESES ON DIVINE PROVIDENCE 1. Divine Providence exists. 2. Divine Providence is universal; and 3. Pessimism is false (in pessimism we already find elements of fatalism and deism).

THESIS I – DIVINE PROVIDENCE EXISTS. ARGUMENT 1 (a priori argument) Every intelligent agent ordains its effect towards an end and this ordination towards an end has a reason or a conception of that ordination… But God is the Highest Intelligent Agent. Therefore God has a reason or a conception of the ordination of the things in the world towards an end. And this is Divine Providence.

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ARGUMENT 2 (a posteriori argument – argument based on experience) In this world, which is an effect of God, we find a most constant order, both in the physical and moral spheres, although such order is subjected to some limitations. But order requires conception or knowledge in the intellect of the creator. Therefore, there exists a divine conception of the order found in the world and this conception of order in the world is called Providence. THESIS II – DIVINE PROVIDENCE IS UNIVERSAL. (Divine Providence is for all and it extends to all.) ARGUMENT (a mixture of both the a priori and the a posteriori arguments) The divine ordination of this world extends itself to all things which are subject to divine knowledge and causality. In other words, the providence of the world is in direct proportion to the knowledge and causality of God. But the divine knowledge and causality extends itself to all things and causes all things. Therefore the divine ordination of this world extends itself to all things and to each individual thing. The divine providence is universal. 40. October 19, 2005, Wed.

CERTAIN DIFFICULTIES82 Those who deny the existence of Divine Providence are deceived by the apparent difficulties which lie in the way of the true doctrine. These difficulties are reducible to two: the fact that so many things appear to happen by chance, and, secondly, the fact that there is evil in world. The Question of Chance If things in the world happen by chance and not by plan; even if only a few events, or even one, were to occur by sheer chance, then, certainly, our whole doctrine of Divine Providence and Governance is done for. But let us be clear on what we mean by the phrase by chance. We do not mean without cause. Chance cannot be conceivably the cause of anything, nor does it mean the absence of cause. CHANCE MERELY MEANS SOME UNEXPECTEDNESS OR “UNFORESEENNESS” IN AN EFFECT. And, 82

The following section is taken from Paul J. Glenn, op. cit., 284-292.

120 however unforeseen by finite minds, however unexpected, the effect which we call chance-effect has its adequate accounting cause in every case. Nor can the fact that an effect is unexpected or unforeseen by finite minds carry unexpectedness or “unforeseenness” to the Infinite Mind. In a word, what happens by chance in our view, does not happen by chance in God’s view. What is no part of our plan is certainly part of God’s plan, and this must be so even when God’s plan is not wholly, or even partially, revealed to us, but is wrapped in mystery. E.g. Apparent evils often turn out to be blessings. E.g. One’s little mind can take in but a small part of the universe of possibilities. The complexities of events, of movements, of effects, remain mysterious to man and full of unexpectedness and so-called chance. A man does wrong to attribute his own limitations to the Infinite Being. God’s plan is an eternal plan viewed in its entirety and in full detail. It is not something that unfolds to God as it unfolds to creatures. Therefore, the notion that things happen by chance, as though they happened in a manner surprising and even baffling to the Almighty, is a false and unreasonable notion. And to allege the fact that we do not always understand the design of God in His government of events as a reason for denying the existence of that design, is a proud and stupid thing to do. Reason compels us to recognize Providence, but it does not enable us to explain in full, and in every event, the actual working-out of Providence. The right attitude of mind, the philosophical attitude, is that of humility and calm recognition of the limitations of the human mind. This does not mean a fatalistic acceptance of all that happens as inevitable, and as inevitably the best that could happen. No; as we have seen in discussing the concurrence of God with free-wills (see pp. 112-ff., esp. footnote # 79), man is a true and total cause of his own free-acts, and man may be perverse. And yet, as we shall see, man is wholly unable to upset Divine Providence or to distort its plan, however much damage he may do to himself. We shall touch this point in our consideration of the next difficulty, namely, that of Divine Providence and existing evil. The Question of Existing Evil We have said earlier (pp. 101-102) that God wills physical evil accidentally (or per accidens) but does not will moral evil (or sin) in any way whatever. But the point we have to consider here may be raised in this question: How does God, if He is the Infinite Provider and Governor, even tolerate evil, especially moral evil, in the world which He rules so absolutely? To answer this, we have to recognize two truths. First, that God’s Providence and Governance is an infinitely wise and absolutely effective direction of things to their true end; secondly, that human freedom is a fact which involves the possibility of abuse. Providence directs realities and events to their true end. What is this end? Manifestly, it is the ultimate end, the last end, the absolutely final end, for this end it is that gives meaning to all subordinate and partial ends. Now the final or ultimate end of all creatures is the manifestation of the external (or extrinsic) glory of God – both objective and formal (see pp. 105-107, 109).

121 We call the end of creation the external glory of God, for nothing internal or intrinsic can be afforded to the Infinite Being which already possesses the fullness of all perfection. By objective external glory, we mean the character of creatures as an expression of God’s power and wisdom and goodness and beauty. Just as a well-executed painting, or a finely sculptured statue, is a credit to the artist who made it, so is God’s world of creatures a credit to God. The world of creatures manifests the perfections of the Creator. Such is the objective glory of God revealed in His works. Revealed? Yes, but to what or to whom? To intelligences, to minds, to persons. And here comes in the second note, the second determinant, in the final end of creatures. They exist to manifest God’s perfections to mankind, and thus to win mankind to a recognition of what they express. And we call that glory, that credit, that expressed perfection in a work which is recognized for what it is, the formal glory of him who wrought the work. The work of art is a credit to the artist in itself whether anyone ever sees it or not. It expresses his glory objectively. Yet the artist has not formal glory unless the work of art be known and in some sense appreciated. Now, creatures exist for the objective and formal glory of God. They exist to express this glory. And this they infallibly do. For by themselves, by their very being, they are expressions of God’s objective external glory. And men must always recognize that objective glory and make it formal, even when they do not turn the recognition to their own account and through it obtain happiness. For man will forever render objective and formal glory to God, and in himself, his works, his mind, he will eternally manifest God’s glory by showing forth the Divine Perfections. The souls in heaven manifest God’s mercy, love, and goodness. The souls in hell manifest God’s justice. Thus, whether a man save his soul or lose it, the ultimate end of creation is absolutely achieved, and man is powerless to defeat it. It appears, therefore, that moral evil (that is, sin) which leads human lives to ruin and to endless misery, does not stand in the way of the attainment of the absolutely ultimate end of all creation towards the attainment of which all things are guided my Divine Providence and Governance. In a word, moral evil does not come in conflict with the fact of Divine Providence at all. Nor does physical evil conflict with Providence. The defects that we call physical evils (sickness, suffering, harsh climate, etc.) are really a kindness to fallen man, who, without them, would never turn to God or to the practice of virtue… Physical evils keep us reminded that we have not here a lasting city. Furthermore, physical evils bring out the best in men; without them, there would be no occasion for the development of that stamina, that character, that heroism, which all men justly admire. It is manifest, without further argument, that physical evils, far from being in conflict with Divine Providence, are…apt instruments for the achievement of its secondary end which is the happiness and eternal well-being of mankind. It is when we forget that man’s welfare is the secondary end of Divine Providence, and not the primary and absolutely ultimate end, that we find the existence of moral evil a difficulty. With this secondary end of Providence, moral evil is indeed in conflict, for it works the ruin of men. But here we must recall the fact that moral evil, like every sort of evil, is an absence and a lack, a defection and a failure, and not something with its own positive and formal constitution. And the failure and lack, the defection and fault, which we call sin or moral evil, is due to the non-conforming of free man with the

122 full measure of God’s concurrence and premotion to good. Human freedom is a fact, and, as we have seen, it is something of its very nature subject to abuse in a finite creature which has not yet attained its final end or goal. Given to man for his own good, as well as for the expression of God’s formal and objective glory, freedom of choice (or freedom of will) is incapable of missing the ultimate end of Providence, but quite capable of missing the secondary end. It can be misused to harm man, although it cannot be misused to harm God or to upset the ultimate plans of God. God does not will its misuse, even indirectly or accidentally, or even in so far as such misuse harms man. He wills its proper use. But he wills that man act freely, and if man freely falls short of what nature and grace enable him to do, the failure is man’s own entirely, and it touches man alone, and in no wise conflicts with the ultimate end of Providence. And even in its secondary end the Providence of God is often indirectly served by moral evil. Out of the evil of persecution came the glory of the martyrs. Out of the hardships vilely imposed upon the poor come nobility of life, strength of character, and the field for the exercise of the splendid social virtues that we call the spiritual and corporal works of mercy… It is abundantly evident that the Providence of God is constantly drawing good out of evil. It appears then that there is no real conflict between the fact of Providence and the fact of evil. No, not even when the evil is that moral evil which brings man to an eternal misery and an endless suffering.

THESIS III – PESSIMISM IS FALSE. (Pessimism in itself already carries some elements of fatalism and deism.) (We have to remember that our main task here is to prove the co-existence of the providence of God and evil in the world. We do not accept the arguments for absolute optimism because we know they are in direct opposition to the omnipotence of God. By the mere fact that we accept God’s omnipotence, we scrap out Spinoza’s and Leibniz’ doctrines on absolute optimism as tenable because they destroy the omnipotence of God.)

The co-existence of evil and the providence of God in the world can be explained by the following principles: 1. Every being is good. Therefore, evil as a privation of good supposes a good and it exists only per accidens. Per essentia, evil does not exist. 2. The world is perfect but only relatively, not absolutely . The world would be absolutely perfect if there could not be a more perfect world than it. But this contradicts the freedom and the omnipotence of God. The world thus is perfect, but only in the relative sense, because it corresponds to the divine idea of the world – that it should be what it is – only a relative good. 3. Every creature inasmuch as it is a creature is finite and therefore subject to limitations. This limitation according to Leibniz is metaphysical evil. But

123 seriously speaking, this is not an evil because a creature is not deprived of a due good. If a creature is contingent, it is not absolutely perfect. But we do not say it is evil because there is no deprivation of a due good. Absolute perfection is not a due good. At most, metaphysical evil can only be called a deprivation, but not evil strictly speaking. On account of this limitation found in creatures, there is the possibility of evil coming from them. 4. God is fully free in the ordination of this world and therefore in the distribution of goods. (We might have asked the question why the U.S.A. is rich and the Philippines poor. Why is there no equality? Ultimately, we would answer God is free in the ordination of this world and therefore in the distribution of goods.) 5. The divine laws of providence are most universal and therefore they are very difficult to understand and even to appreciate in individual cases. We can only ask why very often complaints on the providence of God are based on individual experiences. This would not be very philosophical. 6. In the execution of order, God most often/almost always uses secondary causes . Thus, the execution of this order becomes tainted with many limitations because these secondary causes are limited beings. 7. Insofar as this present life is concerned, it must be considered that original sin can explain so many of the evils of human life. The doctrine of original sin is considered by philosophy as a probable doctrine. Since we are not just philosophers but Christian philosophers, we have recourse to the doctrine of original sin. So many evils in the world can be explained by original sin. 8. The present life is not the principal nor the unique human life . But there is a life after this world which, according to our Christian theology, is the life which is more genuine and true because it is a life with the Author and Source of Life – GOD. --------------------oOo--------------------

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APPENDICES Supplementary Notes ST. ANSELM AND HIS ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR PROVING THE EXISTENCE OF GOD The Ontological Proof of St. Anselm of Canterbury (from Proslogium) God is that than which no greater can be thought. But that than which no greater can be thought must exist, not only mentally, in idea, but also extramentally. Therefore, God exists, not only mentally, but also extramentally, i.e., in reality. ST. BONAVENTURE: INTUITIVE (MYSTIC) WAY OF KNOWING GOD St. Bonaventure (1221 – 1274) – “John of Fidenza”; “the Seraphic Doctor”; an Italian Franciscan.

3 Augustinian doctrines presupposed in Bonaventure’s proof of the existence of God: 1. Doctrine on the Ideas - blends God’s omnipotence, providence, and creation with divine knowledge and freedom 2. Illumination - Truth  to be sought in the innermost being of man - 3 levels of knowledge - “sensation” – common to man and beasts - evaluation of corporeal objects according to eternal/non-corporeal ideas or models - contemplation of eternal things (“wisdom”) - Eternal truths (or things that man knows exclusively through his intelligence and never with the help of the senses) are made “visible” to the intelligence by means of a “Divine Light” that comes from God. This light makes us see the immutability and necessity of eternal ideas and stamps these ideas in the soul. Compare this with the sunlight that illumines…

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COMPARE WITH: St. Augustine’s ARGUMENT FROM TRUTH to Prove the Existence of God St. Augustine’s argument for the existence of God is the interioristic approach, i.e., from within the self, insofar as truth dwells in the inward man. When I look inwards upon myself, says St. Augustine, not only am I aware that I exist and know, but I also find other truths within. For instance, I find mathematical truths (e.g., 4 + 3 = 7) as well as ethical laws (e.g., “do good, avoid evil,” “the eternal is to be preferred to the temporal”). Now, apprehending these truths, I do not see sensible things, but eternal, intelligible, and necessary laws . How are we to explain and account for these truths in the soul? Of course, they could not have been caused by sensible things for these are changing and contingent, whereas truth is unchanging and necessary. Nor can the mind be the source of these truths, for it is also subject to change. Besides, truth cannot be caused by my individual mind, for truth is universal; it is truth for you and me, it is truth for all. Most of all, my mind submits to truth and is ruled by it. While truth is in my mind, it is also above my mind. Hence, truth transcends me; it exists above the human mind and that it is necessary, immutable, and eternal. But these qualities are attributes of God. Therefore, to prove the existence of truth is at the same time to prove the existence of God, who is Truth.

3. Exemplarism (“Every creature proclaims the existence of God.”) - We know that God exists because things are essentially the copies of the Divine Ideas./ Bonaventure has proofs of the existence of God based on the external world. But he prefers the mystic way, that is, he proceeds from man’s interior self [Cf. Augustine]. He prefers knowing God through the soul’s self-reflection. For Bonaventure, God is the God of Christian consciousness. The “God of philosophers” is the same as the “God of faith” (not the unmoved mover)./