Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas which can be found at newadvent.org. We’re going through the doctrine of God as each Christian needs to have a good understanding of God. If you enter into a relationship with someone, it’s important to know who they are. Remember that Jacob should have known who he was marrying the first time around. First off, I have my prayer requests. I ask for prayer in my Christlikeness. Mainly, I need to get my thought life under control. This is something that I regularly struggle with and it’s keeping me from being the man that I need to be. The second is for my financial situation. Then I have a third request on a related are in my life I am working on. For now, let’s get to the question.
Aquinas gives a really short answer to this one. When we consider it, we will also see how simple it is. Aquinas says that before we can think of something, we must have an idea of that something. If we have an idea of something, then we must see that that something is. It is only when we have an idea that something is, that we can ask if that something is good.
When we ask if something is good, we want to know “A good what?” As soon as we say what, we imply that we are talking about something existing. We can’t think of goodness apart from the idea of something existing. We can think of something existing however and not seeing it as good, even though Aquinas would disagree. For Aquinas, all that exists is good insofar as it has existence.
Aquinas also has raised the objection about the person who desires non-being. Are they not desiring goodness apart from being? Aquinas answers that what they are desiring is relative non-being. They want that which they are going through to be that which they are not going through. They want non-being in the sense that they don’t want being as they have it now.
Le us remember what was said earlier. Even the suicide wants to be happy. It is because he is not happy that he is committing suicide. He thinks he’ll be better off and if that means non-existence, well that’s something better to him than what he’s going through at the moment. He’s just not thinking straight.
Aquinas would say that what is wanted is the removal of an evil and Aquinas has already said that goodness and being are really the same. Hence, what is wanted is the removal of non-being. This is one reason we all hate sin in ourselves and in each other. The reason we hate it is that it detracts us and others from being who we were meant to be, which is good. When we get to Heaven, we will have the removal of all that is not us, and then we shall be entirely good. Keep in mind this with good theology. It always has application to how we live.
We shall continue the topic of goodness tomorrow.
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