Is Falsity In Things?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’re going through the doctrine of God and recently, we finished up a look at the doctrine of truth. Now, we’re going to turn to the other side of the coin and see what we can find out about falsity. Our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. You can read that online at newadvent.org. Tonight we’re going to be asking if falsity is in things.

When I was younger, I remember walking the railroad tracks with my Dad on some summer afternoons. I also remember him trying to tell me how we had stumbled across gold on the tracks. Singer Geoff Moore of Geoff Moore and the Distance has a song called “Good To Be Alive” where he echoes the same thought of how at the age of eight, he had a pocket full of rocks that he knew were made of solid gold.

Well, it’d be nice if we did have that gold, but we have in fact what is called fool’s gold. This is something that has the appearance of being gold and you could fool someone who did not know better, but it only goes to the point of appearance. It does not have the substance of gold.

In a similar way, falsity does exist in things. All things are true insofar as they are knowable, but they’re false insofar as they are not what they can often appear to be. The only exception of this, though not mentioned by Aquinas explicitly, would be God in whom there dwells no falsity.

Our moral culture certainly needs to learn this as we have gone on a quest to find the ultimate. In the west, Christianity has been forsaken and in its place we have had for awhile secularism, but people are finding they cannot live in a godless universe and there is still a hole in their hearts. Unfortunately, rather than return to Christianity, they are turning to Eastern thought.

These have the appearance of truth, but they are false. Many times today people get taken in by claims that sound spiritual, but aren’t. The Mormons are an excellent example of this. It sounds really spiritual to hear things Mormons say about relying on God alone and having faith based on a confirmation of the Spirit. It’s just not biblical. People were told to examine claims and test them. A person was to know Christ rose from the dead based on the evidence and not a burning in the bosom.

Ultimately, falsity exists in things in which they appear to be what they are not, including being a unity when in reality they are not unity itself that is found in God. It is said that an actor is a false Hector. If someone is on stage playing a role, they are pretending to be a character and thus necessarily they are not that same character.

Thus, we conclude falsity does exist in things.

We shall continue tomorrow.

The Karate Kid Review

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. Our study of the doctrine of God in the Summa Theologica will have to be put on hold yet again. This evening, I went to see The Karate Kid with a friend. It is an excellent movie I highly recommend. Thus, as is my custom, I offer a review. If you plan on seeing this soon, wait until after the movie before you come back and read this lest I spoil anything, which is certainly never my intent.

The movie starts out with the main boy, Dre Parker seeing wall markings of himself at his home of how he’s grown. Conspicuous by its absence is one event. “Daddy died.” I found this odd as nothing is ever said about this Dad. The kid never refers to him. His Mom never refers to him. He disappears just as quickly as he’s introduced.

I found this saddening as I have a deep concern about the disappearances of fathers in the culture. Men are disappearing from view. A boy can grow up without a father and no one thinks anything about it. However, this boy is not growing up well as he is twelve years old and he and his Mom are moving to China.

How this Mom gets the money, I have no idea. They live in luxury apartments and the only thing we’re told is her job has something to do with cars. The absence of a man in the boy’s life is apparent and he has is seen early on to be one with no work ethic, no respect, and no discipline. He doesn’t want to learn Chinese and he’s concerned because everything there is old. If only we could get our youth past this to appreciate the rich heritage of the past!

When he gets to China, early on, he starts trying to impress a girl, only to end up being bullied, and this bully is no ordinary bully. He’s a student of kung fu and Dre is outmatched. Later on, Dre gives him and his buddies a rude awakening by throwing a bucket of sludge on all of them.

Why would he do that? Well you have to understand the way a boy is and a man in turn. We have to fight something. We don’t like being beaten down and we will do what we can to fight back. It is often our manhood that is on the line. The bully, Cheng, and his friends chase after Dre and knock him down. One of the students tells Cheng that they’ve done enough, but Cheng reminds him of what was seen in Cheng’s class earlier under Master Li. “No weakness. No pain. No mercy.”

As Cheng comes in to add further injury, a hand stops him. It is Master Han, the maintenance man at the apartment Dre lives in, and singlehandedly, Han ends up defeating all of the bullies for Dre. They then go to Master Li’s studio where Han challenges Master Li on what his students did. Master Li says either Dre or Han must fight him since his studio has been disrespected. Han says Dre will fight at a kung fu tournament.

So begins the long trek of teaching Dre, Kung Fu. What happens? That’s for you to find out as a viewer, but it is a story of wisdom and determination and respect and attitude. Dre matures throughout all of this and watching him learn the art is an enjoyable part.

And yet, I wonder how often we take time to enjoy that part. We live in an instant society and we’re so busy looking on a destination, that we lose sight of the excitement of getting there. I can sadly read books checking to see how long they are and how much time till the end. We enjoy a movie, but we can still look at our watches. We want the gratification without the investment of time. For non-entertainment goals, such as goals of overcoming difficulties in our own life, we can spend so much time looking at how far away we are from our goal that we never spend time enjoying getting there.

Han wants Dre to focus. Maybe we need to do the same? Have we lost focus on what really matters and are so caught up in ourselves that we cannot truly enjoy the world around us?

Maybe we need to return to the past some. Maybe the past as in 2,000 or so years ago in an area called Palestine.

In conclusion, I highly recommend this movie. Enjoy!

For Reagan

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Tonight, I know I had said prior that we would start looking at falsity, and we will in the future, as in tomorrow hopefully, but not tonight. Tonight, I have received word that my folks back in my hometown have a new kitten named Reagan and I have been being texted with several pictures of the new member of the family. I have also been told some about what he’s doing and so I thought tonight I’d do a blog in honor of Reagan.

I called them to ask about the new kitty and heard my Dad laughing in the background. What was going on? Our new kitty has a whole new world to explore. He is running around and jumping and looking at everything. As I was told, he has big eyes with which he is taking everything in. I immediately thought of what G.K. Chesterton said when he said the wonder of a child exists in its ability to exult in the monotonous.

Oh if only we could all have the wonder of a child, and why should that not apply to kittens? Do my folks have a big house? No. It’s average size. However, to a true child, all of the world is a playground and we are too prone to not see it that way. A child is not surprised when he sees that there is a dragon in the world. In fact, he expects there to be a dragon. At the same time, he also expects there to be a dragon slayer.

So at their house, Reagan has been busy playing with everything. Even a tiny paper wad that is no bigger than your thumb has been an object of great amusement. Boredom is one of our serious problems today and it is because we seem to think things have a quantity of wonder that is dragged out of them rather than having a quality of wonder that is part of what they are.

And of course, let us not forget love. I have already seen a picture of Reagan and my mother together and she is very happy with the new addition to the family. The child needs wonder, but the child also needs love. In fact, we all need it, and only God can truly give us the love that we need. This is not to discourage the other kinds of love. In a sense, Jesus does give us all we need, but Jesus gave us people to be friends, family to love us, and for some of us, spouses that will love us as well.

To my family and the newest member, I wish the best and I look forward to when I can get to see you in person. Enjoy life as you are brand new to this world (Just 7 weeks tonight I hear) and may we all learn something from your wonder at the world and may we too, in thinking about you, try to look at the world through the eyes of a child and see the wonder.

Is Truth Immutable?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we’re diving into the ocean of truth. We’re going through the doctrine of God right now and our guide for the journey has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. If you want to read the work online, you can do so at newadvent.org. We’re on the topic of the nature of truth right now and we’re going to wrap that up tonight and start studying the converse of falsity tomorrow. Tonight’s question is if truth is immutable.

By immutable, of course, we mean unchanging. Aquinas again gives us two different answers. In the case of the divine intellect, truth is most certainly unchanging. This is the way that a fallable and finite mind can know immutable truths. The truths are greater than the mind is actually and the mind is subject to the truth. If truth resided only in our intellects, then all truth would ultimately be mutable and nothing could then be true.

This is why I often tell people in debate that when truth is properly understood, it is immutable. It is always amusing to hear someone say the truth of “I am sitting down” is not immutable because it is subject to change, as if such a counter has not been thought of in advance. When properly understood, that statement is tied to what one person said at a specific time and place. While it is tied to a specific time and place, it is true for all people and all times and all places. Thus, it is true that at this time, I, the Deeper Waters blogger, am sitting down. That will be true for all people in all times in all places even if they don’t believe it. The fact that I can stand up in the next minute has no bearing on the fact that I was sitting.

Truth in our minds is quite mutable however as we are subject to change. I was told earlier today that it is impossible for me to change my opinions and become a Muslim because I would not go counter to my experience and data. It’s simply false. It’s highly unlikely that I would do that. However, we all know that there are times that we have taken an opinion that we had previously seen as contradictory to our experience and data. Any time we change our minds, we do that. We say that new data or new experiences or some combination thereof has made itself known that we can now see the prior opinion we held was in fact false.

Once again, our effort should be to try to get to the divine mind and would that more Christian counselors would realize this. For instance, if all human beings could realize that God looks at them and says “You bear my image and I want to conform you to the image of my Son”, imagine how much better we would be!

The philosopher after the time of Christ named Epictetus who was a stoic had this to say in his ninth golden saying. Put it with Christian language and oh if we could realize it!:

If a man could be thoroughly penetrated, as he ought, with this thought, that we are all in an especial manner sprung from God, and that God is the Father of men as well as of Gods, full surely he would never conceive aught ignoble or base of himself. Whereas if Cæsar were to adopt you, your haughty looks would be intolerable; will you not be elated at knowing that you are the son of God? Now however it is not so with us: but seeing that in our birth these two things are commingled—the body which we share with the animals, and the Reason and Thought which we share with the Gods, many decline towards this unhappy kinship with the dead, few rise to the blessed kinship with the Divine. Since then every one must deal with each thing according to the view which he forms about it, those few who hold that they are born for fidelity, modesty, and unerring sureness in dealing with the things of sense, never conceive aught base or ignoble of themselves: but the multitude the contrary. Why, what am I?—A wretched human creature; with this miserable flesh of mine. Miserable indeed! but you have something better than that paltry flesh of yours. Why then cling to the one, and neglect the other?

Realize your heritage Christian! You are a child of God and that is an immutable truth!

We shall continue tomorrow.

Is Created Truth Eternal?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through the doctrine of God right now in the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. If you do not own a copy of the Summa, you can read it online at newadvent.org. We’re covering a subset in the doctrine of God right now as we discuss the doctrine of truth, something that is very much needed for our modern times. Tonight we’re going to be asking if created truth is eternal. Let’s go to the question!

In a sense, all truth is eternal and Aquinas does admit that. However, he does say that we do bring about truth through our actions and propositions that was not true at one point in time. What I am thinking is for instance a created truth. I am thinking that I am sitting at this residence at this time writing this blog on this topic and no one else could have ever thought that before.

However, while these are truths that do reside in my intellect, they are not true because they reside in my intellect. For one thing, I know I have thought many things in the past that are frankly wrong and in fact, I know I think many things right now that are wrong. “Well why do you think them?” In some cases, I don’t know what they are, but theology is a deep subject and I’m sure that I can’t have all of the answers to the questions right. I’m certain to have some wrong theological beliefs.

On the other hand, there are also crazy beliefs we all have such as phobias. If I have an intense fear of something, I do realize that that fear is not rational, but I think it. This is also the case in the problem of doubt. If I am doubting something, I could very well know that my doubts are not true, but there is a part that makes it hard to convince me of that.

Aquinas does say however that our truths that we think in our mind are only true if they are true in the divine intellect, which should give us pause. For instance, if you like me are constantly self-critical, you should ask yourself “Is this what the mind of God is saying right now?” Let’s suppose what you tell yourself is that you’re no good. What you need to do is look and say “Does God say I’m no good?” If he doesn’t, then you need to start changing your beliefs. Of course, I do realize that is easier said than done and something I work on myself.

For Aquinas also, it is because there is truth in the divine intellect that there can be any truth at all. In other words, if there were no God, there would be no truth for there would be no eternal intellect for that mind but rather several finite and changing minds and why should one of them hold sway over another? How could a truth like 2 + 2 = 4 be true even if no mind was there who understood that truth?

Thus, we conclude that created truth is not eternal but the truth that is eternal is that in the mind of God and that is what we should be seeking.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Is There Only One Truth By Which All Things Are True?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’re going through the doctrine of God right now and we’re studying the topic of Truth. Our guide for this journey has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. You can read a copy of it for yourself at NewAdvent.org. Tonight, we’re going to be asking if there is only one truth by which all things are true. Time for the question!

Aquinas answers that there is a sense in which this is true. There is also a sense in which it is different. When a thing is said of something univocally, it is said of it according to its proper nature. In this case, when we say many things are animals, we mean the same thing by animal. It is not saying each animal is the same, but each animal is indeed animal.

The counter to this is the idea of healthiness. All relate to the topic of health, but all relate to it different and in this case, analogically. For instance, it is medicine that brings about health in something. It is by studying the urine of the animal in the medieval period that one determined if the animal was healthy and thus urine was the sign of health. It was the animal itself however that was healthy. All three could be said to be healthy and all three did indeed bear a relation to health but all three bore a different relation.

For Aquinas, the main place that truth lies is in the intellect and then it lies secondarily in things. Things are true however only insofar as they correspond to the divine intellect. In this case, there can be many truths because there are many created intellects and there are different truths that reside in those intellects.

However, if truth is spoken of as being in the things rather than in the intellect, then we have a case much like the case of health. All things are true not by other intellects but by the divine intellect. The truth of all created things does not come from man but it comes from the mind of God. After all, all things are knowable insofar as they have being and the being that they have is that which they receive from God.

This is why the doctrine of being is also so important. Many people today come with a position that metaphysics is dead, but in reality, everyone has a metaphysics. Some people just happen to have a terrible one. If you are going to understand the world, you will need to have a doctrine of existence and in the study of Thomism, we have understood that it is by understanding existence that we understand all things. God is not the subject of metaphysics but he is a topic of metaphysics insofar as he is the cause of all being. Aquinas rightly saw existence as the main question and today, we are still blessed because of his insight.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Is God Truth?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’re going through the doctrine of God right now and our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. If you do not own a copy , I invite you to go to NewAdvent.org where you can click the Summa link and read it for yourself. We are on the topic of Truth right now in the Prima Pars and tonight we’re asking the question “Whether God is Truth.”

Aquinas answers that he is for truth is that which conforms to an intellect. Now in God not only does his being conform to his intellect but rather his act of intellect is his being. It is his being and his intellect that is the cause of all other being and of all other intellect.

But didn’t we say earlier that truth lies in dividing and composing. If that is the case, then it would seem that God cannot be truth. After all, God is simple in his essence and what is simple does not have any parts in it so there can be no composing and dividing.

However, this is for us in human terms because we must understand things in that way. We understand not innately but by a process. God has no process for he is eternal. Thus, in his one simple act of being God understands all truth. He does not need a process.

Truth has also been said by Augustine to be a likeness to its source and in the medieval times, the authorities of the church in the past and great thinkers like Aristotle were taken seriously. (Would that we had such today!) If this is right, then it would seem God cannot be truth for there is no likeness to a source in God.

The answer to this is to consider another statement. Aquinas tells us that we can say of the Father “The Father is of Himself because he is not of another.” Thus, the divine intellect can be called a likeness of its source seeing that its being is not unlike its intellect.

But what about the truth of sinning? Suppose the truth of God is that Bob is going to cheat on his wife today. If that is the case and God is truth, then it would follow that that truth is from God. However, no sin can be from God and therefore, that truth cannot be from God.

However, Aquinas says that it is a fallacy to think this way. All the truth that exists in the statement is of God. However, that the act itself takes place is not of God for the truth is not the same as the action. God eternally knows that Bob will cheat on his wife today, but that does not mean that God’s knowledge is the cause of Bob doing such.

Let us remember in closing that even Athanasius argued on the basis of John 14:6 that Jesus could be said to be the truth of the Father. We can indeed say that we serve the God of all truth and all truth comes from him so let us be diligently seeking it all the more.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Is The Good Logically Prior To The True?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Right now, we’re going through the doctrine of God and in relation to that doctrine, we are covering the doctrine of truth. Our guide for our study has been the Summa Theologica of the great medieval theologian, Thomas Aquinas. If you do not own a copy of the Summa, you can read it online at newadvent.org. Tonight, we’re going to be asking if the good is logically prior to the true.

Notice first what the question is not asking. The question is not asking what is going on in actuality. It is asking what is going on in our understanding. Why could it not be asking if the good is actually prior to the true? The answer is simple. Aquinas is discussing transcendentals. Transcendentals are those things that exist wherever being exists. It is not that being shows up and then being becomes good and then being becomes true. They are all three there.

However, in our understanding, which comes first? Aquinas answers that the true comes first. We understand that something is before we can understand that it is good. He does of course affirm that the good and the true are the same in substance but they differ only in idea and thus differ in sequence.

Aquinas based this on two ideas. The true refers to being itself and thus something can be true without really being desirable. The devil truly exists and has being. Now contrary to what some people might think, insofar as he has being, he is good. Being is a good thing. The problem is not that his existence is evil. What is evil is what he does with that existence, in which case he is the most depraved of all and one whom our Lord has said was a murderer from the beginning.

No one would desire to be as the devil is for instance. Even the most hardened atheist if he understood the way of the devil now would know that that truly is the way that he is but that that is not the way he would desire to be. Thus, the idea of something that can be known is there prior to knowing how that thing is good or not.

This gets to the second argument of Aquinas also. Knowledge precedes appetite. Do you really want something that you have no clue what it is? Now someone might say we want Heaven, but we do have an idea of what Heaven is. We know many things mainly by knowing what it is not. You can take away suffering and death and fill the cosmos with the manifest presence of God and you want Heaven. When you know those things are what Heaven is, then it is at that point that Heaven becomes desirable. In the same way, before you can desire anything, you have to know what it is. Knowing relates to the true and desire relates to the good. Therefore, truth is logically prior to goodness.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Are The True And Being Convertible Terms?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’re going through the doctrine of God right now and as a subset as it were of that doctrine, we are discussing the doctrine of truth. Our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas which can be read at newadvent.org. Our question tonight is if the true and being are convertible terms.

Aquinas tells us that something is true insofar as it can be known. For this reason, God is the truest of all in that he is the one who can be most known even if we cannot approach knowing all that he is. God is the one who is pure being and because of that, he is the one who is supremely knowable. However, there are reasons that true is convertible with being.

We can know something insofar as it is and since God is of course, he is most knowable, but we know other things in relation to their actuality. Our intellects come to apprehend them and while the knowledge resides in our intellect, the content of our knowledge, what it is that we have knowledge of, exists often independent of us, as a man can have knowledge of himself.

Aquinas tells us that truth and being really only differ in idea. Truth about something can only be truth insofar as has been said as the thing is. You cannot have truth about something insofar as it is not. You can know that it is truly not this, but you can only know what it truly is insofar as it, well, is.

This is also why we should be constantly seeking out knowledge. We should want to know the world as it is and there is a great joy in having knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Too often, and I have been guilty of this as well, it is easy to complain about a course in school asking “When will I ever use this?” When we do this, we are treating knowledge only as a practical means instead of viewing knowledge as an end in itself. It is good to know things simply for the sake of knowing them.

For the medievals, true was a transcendental. Wherever you had being, there you had the true. It was right alongside the good and the beautiful, which we will discuss the good in relation to the true later on. In all cases, these concepts only differed by idea. Our minds can only grasp certain things about being. We can grasp the truth of being by the intellect. We can grasp the desirability of being in that it is good and this is through the will. We can also grasp through the appetite the beauty of things.

Thus, we conclude that in Aquinas, and in reality, that the true and the being are convertible. Is this something difficult to understand? Indeed it most certainly is, but when we know something, we have to say that we know it as it is not and even if we know what it is not, this is still making some statement about what it is.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Does Truth Reside In The Intellect Composing And Dividing?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’re going through the doctrine of God right now and our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Right now, we’re discussing the doctrine of truth. Some may wonder why we discuss the doctrine of truth when we discuss the doctrine of God, but Aquinas found it important and as we go along, we will come to see why he did so.

Does truth reside in the intellect composing and dividing? What is meant here is the framing of propositions. We must understand that for Aquinas and for Aristotle, there were a number of ways that information could be taken in about the world and ways that people could respond to it.

The first was through the sensible and this is the way that animals can also respond. In this case, when your dog hears you calling his name, he comes to the sound of your voice. He’s cued in to respond to certain sensors in a way. When an animal feels pain, they respond to the pain. However, they do not form a philosophy of pain.

That is the area of the intellectual which is also an area the angels and God have. God and angels do not gather knowledge through sense experience. This is for the simple reason that they do not have bodies through which they can gather information for sense experience. They can know the sun is hot through intellectual means, but not through experience.

There was also desirability. This does not rely on the senses though it can be gained through sense experience and this lies in the area of the appetite. Desirability was different in that the desirability of the object lay in the object itself. For the intellect, the knowledge of the object lies in the mind of the knower.

While we gain some information through the senses, it is the intellect that works on making distinctions. For instance, I can touch two different animals and register them as “furry.” Both of them have four legs. Both of them have tails. Both have two eyes. However, one constantly has its tongue hanging out of its mouth and the other has whiskers around a tiny nose. I conclude the former is a dog and the latter is a cat.

The composing and dividing refers to taking different parts of information that comes through sense experience and learning to make knowledge claims about them. This takes place in the intellect. The intellect receives the information from the senses and in this way it makes distinctions about all that it receives. It can distinguish between a dog and a cat because it knows the sense experience is different. In the same way, it can also distinguish between truthfulness and falsity.

By saying a judgment is true, the intellect is looking at the information it receives and is looking at what it sees in the world and is saying that what the proposition states does indeed correspond to the facts of the world. If it does not, then the intellect says the opposite.

Thus, we agree with Aquinas once again and have learned more about the doctrine of truth.

We shall continue tomorrow.