Deeper Waters

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are continuing our dive into the ocean of truth from a Christian worldview. We’ve been going through the doctrine of God lately which is central to the Christian worldview. Last night, we finished discussing ideas and tonight, we’re going to start discussing the doctrine of truth which has eight sections to it. Our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. If you do not own a copy, you can go to newadvent.org and read one for free. For now, let’s get to the question. Does truth reside only in the intellect?

Truth should be a doctrine central to all worldviews. All of them need to have an accounting for truth. What is it, can it be known, and how can we know it? In the Christian worldview, truth is that which corresponds to reality. It is something that we can know and we can know either by reason alone or by reason with the help of divine revelation. We can know that God exists by reason, for instance. We can only know that he is a Trinity by revelation.

Aquinas says that truth resides in the intellect as well. When you desire something, the desirability lies in the object that you desire. When you know something however, the knowledge does not lie in the object. It lies in the knower. For instance, if I desire a refreshing beverage, the desirability of the drink lies in the drink itself. If I claim knowledge of what makes that up, the knowledge does not lie in the drink, though it is about the drink, but the knowledge lies in me.

The truth of things however does not lie in relation to our intellect. If it was, then truth would be changing as there is hardly a proposition that everyone on Earth will agree to. We have people who are flat-Earthers and people who deny that Jesus existed and people who deny moral absolutes. However, if there is a divine intellect, then there is eternal truth as truth is based on the knowledge of that divine intellect. The reason eternal and unchanging truths can exist is because there is an eternal and unchanging intellect that is the source of all truths.

If truth depended on our intellects, then we would have the conclusion that contradictory statements could be true, which is what Aristotle dealt with when he dealt with the philosophy of Protagoras. Something is not true because one happens to believe it or holds a position sincerely. It is true regardless of one’s own beliefs on the matter. However, truth resides in the divine intellect and we all seek to grasp the knowledge that is in that intellect. This is one reason also why Christians should be seekers out of knowledge. In gaining knowledge, are getting closer and closer to the mind of God.

In conclusion, Christians are to be people of truth. It behooves us that if we are to claim this for ourselves, then we must have a good doctrine of truth. As we go along in this study, we will learn more about truth and be able to answer more the three questions presented earlier.

We shall continue tomorrow.

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 now and we’re using the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, the great medieval theologian, philosopher, and apologist as our guide. If you do not own a copy, you can read it online at newadvent.org. Tonight, we’re going to finish up the section on ideas. Let’s go to the question.

Aquinas brings up tonight the term exemplar. What does this mean? In the Aristotlean mindset, there were four causes. The material cause was what something was made of. The formal cause was what it is. The efficient cause was what brought it into being. The final cause was the reason for its being.

The medieval theologians added two more causes. The instrumental cause was that through which something came into existence. The exemplar cause, which is what Aquinas is speaking of, is that after which something comes into existence. He does not mean after as in chronology, but after as in the basis for it. The blueprints of a house are the exemplar cause of the house for instance.

In this way, the forms are the exemplar cause of all that is. God is the efficient cause of what he creates, but the exemplar cause are the ideas in the mind of God. We could even say that the Son is the wisdom of God allegorically and thus the Son is the instrumental cause of creation.

An objection comes up at this point however. What about evil. If there are exemplar causes for all that God knows, does that mean that there is a form of evil? God does know things that are evil, but it is said that he himself does not know evil. How can this be if there are ideas of all that God knows?

I hope some of you are thinking this through and are already seeing the solution. God does not know evil as a substance but rather he knows evil in the way he knows the lack of goodness. There is no idea of evil because evil is not a substance but rather a lack in a substance.

Since this is the case, this does not mean that there is an idea of evil but rather God knows evil as it is a likeness. It tries to resemble that which is good in a sense but it does not. It is parallel to the way we describe God. We best describe him by what he is not. We know evil only by what it is not. There can be no such thing as pure evil.

Our application is that all things are good because God created them. It is when they are twisted from what they were that they become evil or if they are used in a way that is not intended. While the environmental movement I do believe does go too far, we should celebrate the diversity of life that God has created and in doing so, we honor him.

Tomorrow, we shall start the study on truth.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’re discussing the doctrine of God right now and our guide is being the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. If you do not have a copy, you can read one for free at newadvent.org and I encourage you to do so. We’re covering the topic of ideas right now and tonight we’re going to ask if there are many ideas.

Ideas are essentially forms as we said. A form is what makes a thing what it is. Last night, we did state that there are forms. Plato had just misplaced them. The forms were in the objects themselves for Aristotle and for Aquinas, they are also ideas in the mind of God.

But then we have a problem. If his ideas are his essence, then is he not many instead of being simple? If he is not simple, then it would seem that we have a problem with our system. On the other hand, if there is but one idea, then it would seem there cannot be many things, but we know that there are many things. How do we deal with this?

However, the answer to this is really quite simple. We have already said that God’s knowledge is his being and in himself, he understands all things that can be and all the ways that they can be. If we will ponder on this then, we will find the solution to the problem.

Aquinas asks us to picture a builder and the builder has in his mind the idea of a house. However, in order to understand the house, he also has to understand all the parts that make up the house. There are many facets of the one idea that he understands.

In the same way, in understanding himself and all the ways being can be as he is being, God thus knows all the forms. These forms of course are not something external to him that he learns about. God does not learn about anything through a likeness. God cannot be informed by anything outside of himself. You will never tell God anything that he does not know.

Also, the forms are not that by which he understands but that which he understands. God does not understand catness by seeing the likeness of cats. He understands cats because he knows that that is a way of being and thus, he can have understanding of it.

Our conclusion today is that there are many forms and this does not present a problem for the doctrines of Thomism. Our benefit today is that we must recognize that there are tough problems for every system of thought, but the best thinkers are those who know the problems and are able to deal with them. We should be just as diligent in our studies today. I have said before that if you are to argue for one side, you had better understand the opponent’s side well enough that you can argue for it as well. Let’s be faithful in learning arguments today.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the Ocean of Truth. We’re studying the doctrine of God in Christian thought right now and we’re on the topic of ideas. Our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. You can read along in this study on an online copy of the Summa at newadvent.org. The section on ideas has three articles. Let’s begin!

Ideas are essentially forms. What needs to be understood is that the question of forms comes from Plato’s philosophy. Plato tried to explain the essence of things by speaking of forms and there were forms for everything. Not only physical objects but such relations as “larger than” or the one one of my philosophy professors decided was his favorite form, “To the left of.”

Aristotle did not deny the existence of the forms, but he denied them the way that Plato presented them. Plato had the forms independent of God. For Aristotle, the forms were in the objects themselves and all objects partook of a certain essence that made them what they were.

In Aquinas, the forms are ideas in the mind of God, but the ideas are equal to his essence. His nature is his knowledge after all. It is by these that things are what they are. The idea of the cat is always in the mind of God. Of course, we could say the idea of a unicorn is as well, although in the world as far as we know, that idea has never been actualized.

But do the forms really exist in God? After all, forms are the way by which we apprehend knowledge. However, one objector quotes Dionysus as saying that God does not know things through ideas. After all, God does not understand things through something outside of himself.

Aquinas’s answer is that he agrees. However, the way of ideas in the mind of God is not that God may understand. In Plato’s philosophy, this would be the case. In Plato, the ideas existed of themselves and did not exist in the intellect as they did in Aristotle’s worldview.

God also knows all things through himself, but then the objector says that if this is the case, then God does not know things through ideas. Of course, Aquinas agrees that God does not know things through ideas but it is by the ideas that all other things are. Ideas in the mind of God are given actuality in the world outside of the mind of God and thus exist. God does not know himself through an idea.

The reason that this is the case should be obvious to those of you who have been paying attention. God is the one being who has his essence as his existence. Because of that, there can be no idea of God that is granted existence. Interestingly, some theologians did think of God the Father eternally thinking of himself and this thought would have to be absolutely perfect and thus would have to have existence, hence, the Son who would be as eternal as God is then. Second, there would be love between these two, hence the Spirit.

But that’s another debate.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. Here, we seek to go pass Sunday School material of most churches sadly and dive into the ocean of truth. It is my hope that leaving here, you will have a deeper knowledge of the faith handed down to all the saints. Right now, the aspect of that faith that we’re covering is the doctrine of God as discussed in the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. Speaking of deeper knowledge, we’re going to wrap up tonight the topic of God’s knowledge. We’re asking tonight if God has speculative knowledge of things. Now if you want to follow along, a copy of the Summa can be found at NewAdvent.org. Let’s begin!

There are two kinds of knowledge being discussed in this case. A practical knowledge is a knowledge more of the use of things. A speculative knowledge is more at the truth of things. Speculative knowledge concerns realities like the good, the true, and the beautiful. In fact, any knowledge that relies on abstraction falls into this.

Consider a triangle. If you want, draw the triangles I describe. First, draw a scalene one. Next, draw an isosceles triangle. After that, draw an equilateral. If you’re not drawing, just try to picture one of each of these in your mind. Consider each of them. They all three are triangles though of quite different shapes.

Now what if I told you “Those are good pictures, but I want to know what makes a triangle? Can you draw a picture of triangularity?” At this point, you would be stumped. That is something that cannot be drawn as triangularity itself cannot be material. You can draw material representations of what a triangle will look like, but you cannot draw triangularity.

Some would say God would not have this knowledge because his knowledge is the cause of things and speculative knowledge is the end of things. Aquinas disagrees. Speculative knowledge is the end of things of course, but that does not mean that God does not possess that knowledge for not all of his knowledge has to be causal knowledge.

Practical knowledge refers to objects in so far as they can be operated on. In this, God does not have practical knowledge of himself as that would be impossible. He cannot be operated on. He does have speculative knowledge of himself however as he has knowledge of who he is and that he is the end of all things as well as the cause of all things. God also has practical knowledge of evil in the same way that a doctor has practical knowledge of sickness, as he can work to eliminate evil the way a doctor works to eliminate disease.

For our purposes, we can take a benefit in this. One of my favorite passages is Romans 8 where we find the verse that says all things work together for good to those that love the Lord. Here, we find both kinds. God has the speculative knowledge of the good that is to be reached. He also has the practical knowledge of how to get that good. We can be sure that he will do such for us.

Tomorrow, we begin a whole new section.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We’ve been going through the doctrine of God and right now, we’re studying the knowledge of God. Our text for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas which can be read at newadvent.org. Tonight, we’re going to be asking if the knowledge of God is variable.

Part of the problem with the Aristotlean system was to ask how God could know all things in a changing world if he himself was unchanging? One of the problems however that Aristotle had was that he had not really developed a doctrine of existence itself. This was a more medieval formulation. Aquinas helped shape much of this thought for his time period and for ours as well.

To begin with, if God has knowledge of the variable, does that means his knowledge is variable? No. All that follows from the fact is that God knows things that vary. However, God can know what they will be like at point X in time and then he can know what they will be like later in point Y.

However, it could be that God had created more than he created. Even if you wish to posit a multiverse for the sake of argument, we can always say God could have created one more of any object that we see. If that is the case, and God knows all that he makes, it would seem that he can know more than there is since there could be more.

Again however, this does not mean that God’s knowledge is changing but he knows how things that he made could change. If God had created X that doesn’t exist, he would know it as an actuality. As it is, he knows X as a potentiality that will simply never be. By knowing himself, God knows all things as they are and all things as they could be and all things that could have been.

What about temporal truths? For instance, that Christ was born is a historical fact. Around 2000 years ago, Christ is born would have been a historical fact. 4,000 years ago “Christ will be born” would be a fact about the future, but still true. Can the eternal God know a truth that is temporal?

This assumes however that God knows the things as they happen as if he is in time. He doesn’t. God sees the entire spectrum but he can look at any point on it and know the truths that are at that point. He also knows them in relation to all other points. That does not mean of course that his knowledge is changing but he has knowledge of things that can change.

What we can learn from this is that God is not in flux in his knowledge. If he knows something, he knows it, and that will not change. This is something helpful to keep in mind when we wonder if God knows what is going on in our lives. Yes. He does. He has always known it and he will be there if you choose to trust in him.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the Ocean of Truth. Thank you Manwe and Richard for your comments last night on Stormy. My family is doing better today, but it’s still hard, and last night as I went to bed, I do admit the world seemed a bit empty. However, today we need to continue our study of the doctrine of God using the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas that can be found at NewAdvent.org. We are discussing the topic of the knowledge of God and we are asking if God knows the enunciable.

Think of something. Anything. Really ponder it.

Does God know what you’re thinking? Do you have to say it?

That’s the question.

Aquinas answers that God does indeed know our thoughts. Now when it comes to prayer, I think it can be important to still pray out loud and honestly, I don’t know if I do or not. It’s something I haven’t thought about, though I’m thinking that usually I don’t, and personally, I’m not the best at public prayer.

This is good news for those of us then that are like me. Of course, I do think there is a place for public prayer and I do think there is something to sometimes saying what you believe out loud. I think saying it out loud can really show the depth to which it reaches in you.

But how is it that God knows the enunciable? He knows it the same way that he knows everything else. He knows it by knowing himself. Because he knows all the ways that being can be, he knows all the ways we can think about being. We are incapable of thinking of something new. It is like trying to think of a new primary color. It cannot be done.

All works of imagination bring out some kind of being and just change it in some way. Consider one of my favorites of Superman. We simply took a man and gave him unique powers that were alterations of what was already there and then we threw in things like unique weaknesses such as kryptonite and magic.

On a related note, some people ask if the demons know our thoughts. It’s my opinion that they don’t. They don’t have the range of being that God does. I do believe they could be great readers of human nature. Many times, we can get an idea of what someone is thinking by watching them and it wouldn’t surprise me if demons did that. I do also think demons and angels can both in some way influence our thinking. They can’t see into our thinking, but I have no problem with them trying to send us thoughts to get us to do what they would have us to do.

What can we conclude from this? God knows those little silent prayers you pray when you can’t confess something vocally. He hears you. We also need to learn to watch our thought life and try to get it under control. We can’t control random thoughts that come into our minds, but we can control what we do with them.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. We are continuing our quest into the knowledge of the doctrine of God with our guide being St. Thomas Aquinas and his Summa Theologica. You can read a copy of his work for yourself at newadvent.org. We are studying the topic of the knowledge of God right now and we are on the thirteenth article. Tonight’s question is if God knows future contingent things.

I am sure this will be a very controversial one and if I have to do another blog to answer objections, I’ll do that. My rule is to do only one more however and I leave it to readers if they want to debate it out here in the comments. I might jump in. I might not.

To begin with, I think it’s important to start with our doctrine of God. We have to keep in mind all that has been said about God before with regards to his simplicity, eternality, immutability, infinity, etc. If we change something here, we must go back and see the ramifications of what that will be on God. If God does not know the future, what will that mean?

Also, for those who are strict Calvinists, Aquinas does believe in free will and when he gets to his doctrine of man, he will defend that. For now, he assumes it and so will we for the sake of argument. That, however, is not a discussing I wish to get in. I avoid that debate like the plague.

By contingent, we mean things that were not necessary to be. We could simply ask that if God knows something is it contingent? Could it have been another way? My answer to this is that if God knows you will do something then yes, you will do it. However, he also knows what kind of action it is. It is an action that you freely do.

Our actions are contingent because we are. None of us had to be and God did not have to create any of us in order to be God. God could have gone without creating anything and he would have still been God. God alone is the one who is necessary for if he is not, then nothing else can be. If you and I were not, the universe could get on just fine.

However, if God does not have knowledge of the future, then he is informed by something outside himself which means first off that he’s not without limits and is thus not infinite. It also means that he’s not eternal for he goes from not knowing X to knowing X. That would mean that he changed in some way which means he’s not immutable. Then, that counts as motion and whatever undergoes motion has parts which means God’s simplicity is called into question.

Now of course, there are many who do say that these doctrines aren’t true, but we must begin with God before we decide that. I fully believe in the free will of man. I have no hesitancy saying God knows my future entirely but also saying that my future is free. God has entire knowledge of what I will freely do.

So now, let the objections fly!

Maybe we’ll continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. Much praise to God for a large donation that came in from a friend today. It is good to know that when you are at hard times in your life, you do have friends in your life. God always provides. Today, we’re going to go back to our study of the doctrine of God and we’re going to crack open once again the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. If you do not have your own copy to crack open, you can use your browser instead and go to newadvent.org. We are discussing the topic of God’s knowledge and asking if God knows infinite things.

This is an interesting one for we know that an infinite can only be known successively by us. We know one part after another and as soon as one person thinks he knows all the parts, there are still more parts. We cannot know infinite things for this is how we possess knowledge in this life.

Aquinas asks us to consider how we know what men are. When I look at an individual, I can know this man or that man. For instance, I have friends who are identical twins. However, there are some minor differences that I can see so that when I see one of them, I know which one it is. (Granted, I still have not learned to tell their voices apart)

However, it is not by my senses alone that I can tell they are men alone, but it is by the intellect pondering what has come through the senses. I can look at each of them and tell certain things about men. I can look at women and tell certain things about women. I can look at men and women and tell certain things about humanity.

All of these I learn through inference. I take this piece of information and from that I reason to this piece of knowledge. However, God does not think in the same way as he learns nothing by inference for if he did, then he would be dependent on something else for his knowledge. There would be, in essence, knowledge that existed outside the mind of God.

God, rather, knows all things at once as it has been said, by knowing himself. Aquinas does not include this in the knowledge of vision however as we’ve already seen his position on infinities in the material world. Things can be relatively infinite, but he does not hold to actual infinities, save for God alone who is infinite not in a quantitative sense but in a qualitative sense. God is without limits.

The importance of this question for us is that it helps us better understand how it is God knows the material world. We are beings that reason from sense experience and the drawing of inferences to conclusions. This is also a problem with a scientism worldview that believes that all truth is that which can be explained through the scientific method. Proper inferences are to be followed for every field and that is philosophical. The method collects the data. Sound reasoning works with the data. God, however, does not know as we know. He knows all things eternally by knowing himself.

We shall continue tomorrow.