Deeper Waters

Hello everyone and welcome to Deeper Waters. I would like to give thanks to a kind reader who donated to the work being done here and offered support in a difficult time, and thanks to my church. I’ve found out today they’re making a very generous offering. I am thankful that God has indeed provided. We’re going to continue now our look at the doctrine of God in Christianity. Our source for this will be the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas which can be read at newadvent.org. We are on the topic of God’s knowledge and we are asking if God’s knowledge is the cause of things.

This can be a very difficult one because as soon as I answer yes, as Aquinas does, then one can get in a very difficult position. Am I advocating determinism? Am I saying that God’s knowledge is also the cause of all of our actions? I am not saying that. I am saying however that we do work with him in whatever we do and even our rebellion against him is dependent on him. Of course, I am avoiding the Calvinism/Arminianism debate. I leave that for my readers.

When the medievals spoke about transcendentals, they meant attributes something has by virtue of being. These were one, other, good, true, beautiful, and thing. By virtue of being, something can be called a thing. However, this would only refer to a substance, that is, an essence that could have properties.

An event or an action does not fall under the category in the same way and thus I do not believe Aquinas is speaking of God as the cause of our actions, though I do affirm that we cannot do our actions without the power of God. Even the action of rebelling against God relies on having the power of God. Of course, it is still debated amongst philosophers how exactly one defines an event or an action.

Of course, we know that knowledge in God precedes the things that exist. If things were the source of knowledge in God, then God would be dependent on something else for his knowledge and would be growing in knowledge and the systematic theology that has been prior would have to be totally rethought.

We can however say with no problem that God’s knowledge is the cause of things in that these things have to exist in the mind of God before they can exist outside the mind of God. Aquinas uses the example of a painter painting a picture. It must exist in the mind of the painter before it can have actuality and brought to the canvas. In this way, existence precedes essence, however there must be an essence that can be given existence. Something must exist to actualize the essence, but in order to be actualized, that essence must first exist. Existence is added to the essence.

This will get further on into areas that will be more prone to disagreement and already we do have some perhaps. I might write in response to some comments. I might not. Keep in mind however that I welcome readers to comment on this blog and interact with one another. It makes it all the more fun when iron sharpens iron.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello all and welcome to Deeper Waters. I thank you all for your prayers as while I am still unemployed, I have heard news today about income coming in from another place, reminding me of Esther. God does provide in his providence. I do still seek your prayers however. We’re talking tonight about the doctrine of God further and our guide for this has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. We’re studying the topic of God’s knowledge. If you’d like to read in the Summa for yourself, you can do so at newadvent.org. For now, let’s get to our question of the night.

Is God’s knowledge discursive? First off, what do we mean? Well we mean by this that it is first this and then that. God knows one thing and then he knows another thing. I throw a stone into a pond, I know where the stone hits, ripples will come out, but I do not know where the stone will hit. Once the stone hits, it is then that I know where the ripples will come out.

For those in the sciences, the effects are often seen first and then one reasons back from the effects to the cause. This happens in medicine often. A patient comes in to see the doctor with a condition. He describes it to the doctor and the doctor reasons from the symptoms, the effects, to the cause.

The other way we can think like this is also when we go from one thing to another thing in our thinking. There are some of us who can quite easily be distracted when we do something. I, for instance, am watching a forum I participate in right now as well as having IMs going. When I return, my mind is on the blog, but it is too easy to be distracted. Many of us would love to not be distracted from God, who Jesus says we need to keep in mind implicitly in Matthew 6:25-33.

This is not the case for God however. Why? God knows all things by knowing himself, the one. He knows the effects as they are in the cause. He also does not switch from one to another. This has been established because we’ve already seen that God is eternal and to have knowledge discursively would be for God to go from the unknown to the known.

God then knows all things in one eternal now. Because of this, he cannot know something discursively as he would then have to come to knowledge that exists outside of him, which would mean he could not be his knowledge and could not be simple, but we have already shown that he is. This is once again the importance of building our doctrine of God on other prior doctrines. Aquinas did not put this together accidentally. He had an order. We make a mistake if we try to question one part without considering the ramifications for the other parts.

We conclude then that God knows all that he knows in the eternal now.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I am thoroughly enjoying our look into the knowledge of God and I hope that you are getting a lot of knowledge out of it. The reason we’re doing this is we’re seeking to understand the Christian concept of God and I have chosen to use the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas as a guide. If you are wanting to follow along, you can read the Summa for free at newadvent.org, though I have no problems whatsoever, and I highly encourage it in fact, with you purchasing a copy of the Summa for yourself.

Tonight, we’re going to ask if God knows things other than himself by proper knowledge. What is meant by proper knowledge? A comparison could be by looking at your English grammar when you were growing up. You were taught about two types of nouns, common and proper.

A common noun would be that which could be general and held by many. A proper noun would be that which referred to a unique one. For instance, you could speak of blogs. We all know what blogs are. However, if you speak of the Deeper Waters blog, you are speaking of a specific blog. Blog is a common term but Deeper Waters is a proper term.

So what about God? It has been said that God knows all things seeing as he knows being, but does he only know a general idea of being? Does he know them as a particular being? The relevance of this question is that while God may love the world as John 3:16 says, do we have any reason to believe that he loves you in particular? He loves humanity, but does he love the human you?

Aquinas answers that God does have proper knowledge. It has already been said that God’s understanding is absolute, but if God did not understand you or I absolutely, then it could not be said that his knowledge is absolute. God cannot then just know us as being, but he must know us as these particular beings. He knows me not as a human being alone but as the particular human being that I happen to be.

We can hear of the Mormon doctrine of pre-existence. While we did not pre-exist as living consciouses before we came here, we certainly pre-existed in the mind of God. In fact, there has never been a time when you have not been on the mind of God. God could not be God if he was not thinking about you. His knowledge would not be complete otherwise.

Let us be careful to not too individualize this however. God still knows himself as the greatest good, but he does know us as good. He also knows you as good. Of course, whether you choose to allow him to shape you into the good that he knows that you can be is up to you. However, you can rest assured you are not an accident. There is a God who eternally knows and loves you.

Isn’t that good news?

We shall continue tomorrow.

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 the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas has been our guide. You can read it at newadvent.org for free. We’re going to be looking further at the knowledge of God tonight and the fifth article there. I do ask for your continued prayers for me. Most readers know I did lose my job a few weeks ago and I have some major expenses coming up and sometimes, it’s easy to get depressed in this case. Well, you have to have faith at the times things seem the most hopeless. I’d just appreciate the prayers of my readers. For now, let’s get to the question.

This comes largely from Aristotle in fact. Aquinas and Augustine both highly valued Aristotle and Plato respectively. However, when they came across something that went against what was plainly taught in Scripture and what was philosophically in error, they were quick to abandon their heroes on that point. Because they were an Aristotlean and a Platonist respectively, it does not mean that they were so blindly.

Aristotle believed in a god, but his god was not the God of Scripture, though in many ways it was close. Aristotle’s god did nothing but think for all eternity about himself. Why? Because for Aristotle, for his god to think about anything else would be to think about something that was less than perfection and that was not befitting for the most perfect being of all.

However, Aquinas does say that God does know himself perfectly and we would have no problem saying that the highest thought in the mind of God is himself. However, God knows himself perfectly and in order to know himself perfectly, God must be able to know all it is that he can do perfectly.

Thus, God must have in his mind all the ideas of things that he could bring about. In this way, we are told that all things exist virtually in God. For instance, does the idea of catness exist? It exists in God not in actuality but virtually. It is something in the mind of God that he knows what is essential to the nature of a cat.

God’s knowledge of these things comes about also by knowing himself. In looking at himself, he sees all other things in himself. He sees that cat that he can create and he also sees you and I that exist. God does not know things through another medium for if he did, that would mean that his knowledge would be dependent on something else and God would not be simple then.

In conclusion then, you can rest assured that the God who exists is not that of Aristotle. This God really is thinking about you. Of course, we will look more at this when we get to the section on the love of God. For now, we will leave it at the point that God thinks about us and if his knowledge does not change, he never stops doing so.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello readers. I bid you welcome 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 topic of God’s knowledge. This one is very important in many Christian circles today and before we get to the more controversial aspects, it’s important that we make sure we have these opening parts right. That will prevent us from having error later on. Our guide for this journey has been the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. That can be found at newadvent.org. Let’s look at the question tonight of if the act of God’s intellect is his substance.

It is important to understand that in Thomistic thought that first off, God is a being of pure actuality. Therefore, in God there will not be found any potential understanding. There will only be found true understanding and not just understanding but comprehension. God could not understand any more than he does or comprehend any more than he does.

For we humans, when we understand something, we come to grow in knowledge of that which we did not know. This is not the case in God for Aquinas tells us that form follows being. There must be a form of something for that something to be. However, for something to understand something, it must be intelligible. In this sense, I could say there are things that God does not know, such as not knowing something greater than himself or not knowing a contradictory truth or not knowing another way for forgiveness apart from Christ.

Of course, this is not for ignorance on the part of God but simply because those things are things that cannot be. God certainly knows that they cannot be. However, whatever is intelligible, God does understand. Of course, this will come up more later on when we discuss what exactly is intelligible and what falls under the parameters of things God understands. In essence, whatever it is, it must be in some way.

As for God’s understanding in himself however, his form is not different from his being, as is the case with everything else in the universe, including the angels. For us, we have to have form and then we can have being added to that form. Until then, the form is only a potentiality, an idea in the mind of God that does not have actuality for us yet. (Whether things that do not yet exist have actuality to God in some way will be covered later on.)

In the same way with God as form and being, the intelligible and the one who knows are one and the same. There is no distinction in God in this area. In Thomistic thought, what is important for understanding God is realizing what separates him from his creation. If God is not absolutely simple, then he has derived being as well and thus is a creature. If, however, he is simple, then there are no parts and his act of intellect is his substance.

We shall continue tomorrow with the fifth question.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. I thank you all for your prayers. A job opportunity has opened up again and while it will be a change, I do have hopes that it’s a position I can get. God in his sovereignty will work things out for his good. To get to our topic tonight, we are going through the doctrine of God and our guide is the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas, which can be read at newadvent.org. We are asking the question tonight of if God comprehends himself.

Aquinas says a thing is comprehend when it is known insofar as it is knowable. This is part of his doctrine of truth as well. For Aquinas, a thing is true insofar as it is knowable, which means God is the most true of all for he is the one who is the most real of all. There is more to know about God than any other being for God is not limited by anything. While it would be difficult, it is possible to know ourselves perfectly and we can expect that we will do this in Heaven where we will know as we are known, and we are known perfectly.

A thing can only be known however insofar as it is actual. Thus, an argument from demonstration cannot rely on maybes. When we hear of demonstration today, we can be tempted to think of demonstration as if it would be something that would be done in a science lab. That is a type of demonstration, but that is not what Aquinas necessarily has in mind.

Consider the classic syllogism.

All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Socrates is mortal.

This would be considered a valid approach to demonstrating that Socrates is mortal. Some might think there is some induction involved in that. Thus, let’s use another argument.

Bob is taller than Mary.
Steve is taller than Bob.
Steve is taller than Mary.

If you see this argument and you do not agree with the conclusion, there is really nothing I can do for you. It becomes self-evident at this point. In this case, we have an argument that is demonstrated and thus the conclusion can be known with certainty.

Now let’s suppose for the sake of argument that history had no miracles that had ever happened. We could make this argument.

God has never worked any miracles in history.
Therefore, God will never work any miracles.

Now you could say it would be something probable maybe, but you could not make a case that it is actual knowledge. That doesn’t mean that it’s true however. God is not like the laws of the universe in that he must act a certain way. (I would even say that on the grounds of science alone you cannot know that the laws of science will act a certain way tomorrow)

Thus, something must be actual to be truly known. Aquinas has demonstrated earlier that God is a being who is pure actuality and he is his own intellect. Thus, God knows himself entirely as his intellect is not limited by anything and so his knowledge is not limited. God is infinitely knowable but only God can infinitely know himself for only God is infinite.

We shall continue this tomorrow with the fourth question.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we continue our dive into the ocean of truth studying at the moment the deepest topic of all that we can, the doctrine of God. On this journey, we have had as our text the excellent work of Thomas Aquinas, the Summa Theologica. If you wish to read it for yourself and do not own a copy, simply go to newadvent.org. We’re studying the topic of the knowledge of God and we’re asking the question tonight of if God understands himself.

This question is different from the question of if God comprehends himself. Most of us understand ourselves to some degree, though none of us comprehend ourselves. We all wonder why it is we do the things that we do or why is it we don’t do the things that we want to do.

This ultimately gets to the question of knowing. We know sensible things through our senses. For instance, I look outside the window and I know that it is dark. I can tell that by looking through my eyes. If I was asked to give an argument for why I think is is dark I do not know where I would begin.

Now let us suppose you are watching a crime drama. One of my favorites was Monk. Let’s suppose then that Monk walks into a crime scene and says “It was a wife who murdered her husband in this case.” Now that is not apparent to every officer who is on the scene. They may see the husband’s corpse and know he’s dead and some may suspect the wife, but how is it that Monk knows that that is what happened?

In this case, since the sense data is all the same, there is something else going on. That is intelligible data. The rational mind is taking the data that has come through the senses and is drawing conclusions based on that. This is one question we have about animals. Animals do not reason in this way as they are driven by their senses without an intellect capable of grasping ideas about ideas. Animals have thoughts but not thoughts about thoughts.

So how about God? How does he know things? Well he doesn’t know them through sense experience. God does not know the experience of eating something or touching something. One could argue that Jesus does, but that is only in his humanity. This will be important when we come to the question of if God knows evil.

Since God’s nature is his existence, God understands things by understanding being. Since he can understand being and he is his own being, then it would follow that he understands himself. Once again, this is a separate question from if he can comprehend his own being which is something we will discuss later on.

For us, we can understand things about God, but it would be hard to say we understand him. This would seem to be what Paul is saying in fact in his doxology at the end of Romans 11. Who can really understand him? We can apprehend him though however based on how he has revealed himself, and for that we should be thankful.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth. Tonight, we start a new section in our study of the doctrine of God and that will be a long one. It’s the study of God’s knowledge. Our guide is the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas which can be read at Newadvent.org. I thank my friend Joel for responding as I know this will be an area of debate. Open View Theists will have contention with much of what Aquinas says here. However, one aspect that needs to be kept in mind is that Aquinas’s doctrine of knowledge in God is built on the prior doctrines he’s established, like simplicity especially as well as perfection, immutability, infinity, and eternity. If someone wants to use my blog for interchange, feel free. Do note I rarely if ever respond. For now, let’s go to the text.

Is there knowledge in God? Once again, we are reminded that the medievals debated everything. For us we could argue “Well it’s obvious that there’s knowledge in God.” Perhaps so, but that does not mean we should not make a case for it. Many of the people in the world today find it obvious that God exists, but that does not mean it does not hurt to have some good reasons for believing in his existence for those who do not think so.

Knowledge for us is really a habit. It is based on a constant study and learning and research. However, there can be none of this in God for that would be a potential becoming actual. Aquinas has already said that God is a being of pure actuality. If the objection holds, there can be no knowledge in God.

However, readers should remember that for God, our talk of him must be analogical. God has knowledge but he does not have it the same way we do. We gain our knowledge through experience. God does not gain knowledge but seeing as he is simple, his knowledge is his substance.

Knowledge is also about coming to conclusions, but God cannot come to conclusions because that would point to a cause in God. Aquinas answers that what exists divided and multiplied in creatures exists simply in God. The knowledge of things, the cause of that knowledge, and the use of that knowledge all exist as one in God.

Aquinas also says that God alone can know things the highest way. The knowledge of a thing is found in the knower and not in the thing known. Knowledge is in the mind after all. The subject of that knowledge of course is independent often of the knower, aside from the case where something knows itself of course.

We are bound by matter and can only know things first through matter. I deduce from the existence of triangles the idea of a triangle, but I cannot produce the idea itself. I can only produce an example of triangles. You cannot show me a bunch of triangles and ask me to pull out the triangularity of them.

The intellect in Thomistic thought is free of matter although it can use matter to understand. However, the more free something is from matter, the more it can know something. God is in the highest degree of immateriality, as Aquinas says however, therefore, he has the highest place in knowledge.

What more can be said of his knowledge? We’ll find out tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the Ocean of Truth. First off, I wish to send a thanks to a kind reader who made a donation to Deeper Waters Christian Ministries. It is appreciated. It is my hopes that someday that will be a ministry with more than just a blog but a website as well. Getting back to the blog, we are going through the doctrine of God now and using the Summa Theologica as our guide. This can be read at newadvent.org. We are asking the question now of if affirmative propositions can be formed about God.

Aquinas answers that they can. While we have said much of the via negativa, that does not mean that for Aquinas, the only things we can know about God is what he is not. In fact, we’ve been affirming quite a lot about him in this blog. Aquinas also knows that much of what we can know about God is found in Scripture, contrary to those who might think only philosophy was the guide of the medievals. (I recall a philosophy professor who opened up class reading the Bible and reminding students what that book was. It’s easy to lose sight of as a philosophy major.) Aquinas had a high view of Aristotle, but he had a higher view of Scripture. We should follow likewise.

Aquinas says there are some things we know through diverse ideas. For instance, man was defined by Aristotle as “rational animal.” We see that man is an animal in that he is a sensible being who relies on sense experience. However, he is also a rational animal in that he can take what comes through sense experience and draw inferences from it and make judgments.

Those two are quite diverse. However, both of them apply to humans. Even accidents can apply to humans. For instance, you could say that brown-haired applies to me. That could change one day. When what is said in the predicate truly fits the subject, then we can say that something has been affirmed.

This must happen with God in some way according to Aquinas. We do know that God is simple and yet we know that we affirm many diverse things about him. We affirm that he is good and true and beautiful for instance. What is important for us as good theologians is that we realize that while we affirm many diverse conceptions about God, this is because of a lack of understanding on our part.

That is something we must grasp. We need to realize that what we know intellectually we need to live out emotionally and spiritually. For instance, I know intellectually that God is in control. However, in practice, this is a difficult system to live out. Aquinas would probably say then that what needs to be done at this point is to realize the intellectual truth and that we must keep moving forward to that and not live in such a way as to give in to what we know to be false.

It is a work in progress, but it is part of becoming like Christ.

Tomorrow, we shall start looking at God’s knowledge.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. It’s been awhile since we’ve got to talk about the doctrine of God seeing as I was away on an important matter and then I had a movie review last time, but now let’s get back into the Summa. Thomas Aquinas is our guide on this journey and a most excellent one he is. Those who do not have a copy of the Summa Theologica are invited to read it online at newadvent.org. We’re going to be covering again an article in the section on the Names of God. I do ask also readers for your continued prayers. I am still unemployed and it’s starting to get tight here. Especially with other major expenses coming up. Anyway, let’s go to the text.

If you were to describe God, how would you do it? What if you had to do it in a short way that would capture his essence. I recall knowing someone who once tried to describe God as “Maker of everything.” Well that can be fine to some extent, but does that mean God cannot be defined unless he creates? Do you consider evil a thing? What about some Christians who don’t believe God made everything. (There are some strong Platonist Christians who hold this kind of view.)

There have been many attempts to describe God in many ways. Jonathan Edwards used beauty for instance. Plato could have said “the Good” possibly. However, Aquinas in pondering this thought that the best way to describe God was to use the name that he gave of himself. We see it as “I AM.” Aquinas sees it as “HE WHO IS.”

So let’s look at this name. When we consider God’s simplicity, this means that God is the only one in existence whose essence is his existence. If you take a being such as an angel, the angel has an essence plus existence as the angel does not necessarily existence. It is simple in that it has no parts in one way, but it is not absolutely simple as God is.

God is the only one who is absolutely simple. This is something that separates him from creation. In fact, I’d say it’s the main thing. All other beings depend on something outside of themselves for their existence. God alone does not depend on anything for his existence. In fact, everything else depends on him for its existence.

In essence, God’s name for himself points to his being. He is being by nature. It is impossible for him not to be. All other beings however exist by his grace. They are contingent and the universe does not depend on them in anyway for their existence. If God were to somehow go away however, then there would be nothing else.

Today, we can be thankful that God is he who is and I find the essence/existence distinction to be a strong argument for theism. In this way, you can see something in existence and say that that is going to be your starting basis for a theistic argument. Let us live today thinking that God is and just how awesome it is that he is.

We shall continue tomorrow.