Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine • Hacker News Board

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#11

Post by cmdli » Fri, Jun 27, 2025, 3:02 AM UTC

Frummy wrote: post #4

galaxyLogic wrote: post #3

> A large part of our civilisation rests on the shoulders of one medieval monk: Thomas Aquinas. The article starts with that but then provides no evidence for that claim as far as I can see. How does our civilization in large part rest on his ideas? What about other civilizations? The claim about the validity of Aquinas' ideas seem to only make sense if we accept his initial assumption which is the existence of God.…

His theological writings had profound effects on the church, the historically dominant power structure in the west and their behaviour for hundreds of years. Yeah defining what's good is difficult, even using information theoretical arguments like preserving or creating order gets messy. But regardless of metaphysical truth there is tons of other stuff to analyse like tracing historical cause and effects of how stuff…

A large part of the development of Europe, especially after the Renaissance, was resistance to the church and its historical teachings. The Reformation, Renaissance, rise of deism, scientific revolution, etc were all in response to and in many cases disagreeing with historical understanding. Saying "our current civilization is based on the teachings of the church" ignores the many aspects of our civilization that came about in spite of said church.

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#12

Post by cmdli » Fri, Jun 27, 2025, 3:11 AM UTC

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #10

tasty_freeze wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreeing with you: "Good" pretty much means "an outcome I desire".

Not at all. People can have bad and harmful desires. The good is determined objectively by the nature of the thing; desire should be aligned with that objective good, but may not be because of some defect.

"Objective good" can only be determined through subjective opinion and belief. What is "good" is judged by us based on our own values, which can differ amongst people. While we may all trend towards similar values, there still can be significant differences amongst people. For example, some may value to live in a freer society while others may value a more restrictive yet more secure society.

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#13

Post by tasty_freeze » Fri, Jun 27, 2025, 3:12 AM UTC

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #10

tasty_freeze wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreeing with you: "Good" pretty much means "an outcome I desire".

Not at all. People can have bad and harmful desires. The good is determined objectively by the nature of the thing; desire should be aligned with that objective good, but may not be because of some defect.

How is what I said different than "good for somebody". A Russian bridge gets blown up. It is good for Ukrainians; it is bad for Russians. There is no intrinsic goodness to the event in this case.

Let's take another case that has people arguing on both sides in the US: universal health care. Some think not having it is an atrocity, and others see it is a threat to civilization. Who is to judge its objective goodness?

You make the call, and then will you just say the people who disagree with you have bad and harmful desires and that is why they don't see the truth as you can?

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#14

Post by Frummy » Fri, Jun 27, 2025, 3:18 AM UTC

cmdli wrote: post #11

Frummy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His theological writings had profound effects on the church, the historically dominant power structure in the west and their behaviour for hundreds of years. Yeah defining what's good is difficult, even using information theoretical arguments like preserving or creating order gets messy. But regardless of metaphysical truth there is tons of other stuff to analyse like tracing historical cause and effects of how stuff…

A large part of the development of Europe, especially after the Renaissance, was resistance to the church and its historical teachings. The Reformation, Renaissance, rise of deism, scientific revolution, etc were all in response to and in many cases disagreeing with historical understanding. Saying "our current civilization is based on the teachings of the church" ignores the many aspects of our civilization that cam…

Yeah there's many influences. Pagan gods, greek philosophy, trade with asia, egypt, middle eastern religious inspiration and so on. And cultural geniuses maybe put their trust mostly in their lived experience and craft and so on like the sheer product and infrastructure of civilisation is mostly made by nonbelievers just doing their thing

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#15

Post by lmpdev » Fri, Jun 27, 2025, 3:21 AM UTC

cmdli wrote: post #11

Frummy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His theological writings had profound effects on the church, the historically dominant power structure in the west and their behaviour for hundreds of years. Yeah defining what's good is difficult, even using information theoretical arguments like preserving or creating order gets messy. But regardless of metaphysical truth there is tons of other stuff to analyse like tracing historical cause and effects of how stuff…

A large part of the development of Europe, especially after the Renaissance, was resistance to the church and its historical teachings. The Reformation, Renaissance, rise of deism, scientific revolution, etc were all in response to and in many cases disagreeing with historical understanding. Saying "our current civilization is based on the teachings of the church" ignores the many aspects of our civilization that cam…

> Reformation

I’d argue the Catholic Jesuits probably had a more profound impact on science than any counter-catholic Christian denomination - purely from their intellectual output

They were formed around the same time as the reformation, but obviously had vastly more money and power (not that this should discount their contributions)

Examples:

- Christopher Clavius (created our modern Gregorian calendar)

- Anathasius Kircher (somewhat helped pull geology and medicine from vague Natural Philosophy into actual disciplines)

- Rodger Boscovich (atomic theory and a lot of basic everyday lab work was first used by him)

- A lot of contributions to astronomy and mathematics by many priests

- Probably their biggest contribution was the communication to the west and preservation of Chinese and Indian cultural artefacts/traditions. Without their work later anthropologists would have lost entire fields of study

Protestants had, what? Max Weber? That’s more cultural than intellectual or scientific

I agree with you though the later scientific revolution and age of enlightenment were in spite of the Catholic church, but I’d also probably broaden that as in spite of Christian belief altogether

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#16

Post by exac » Fri, Jun 27, 2025, 3:29 AM UTC

This is the type of religious propaganda that would appear in a worksheet for children in a Catholic school. It doesn't belong here. There are no arguments here, just the presupposition of some deity.

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#17

Post by btilly » Fri, Jun 27, 2025, 3:36 AM UTC

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #9

galaxyLogic wrote: post #3

> A large part of our civilisation rests on the shoulders of one medieval monk: Thomas Aquinas. The article starts with that but then provides no evidence for that claim as far as I can see. How does our civilization in large part rest on his ideas? What about other civilizations? The claim about the validity of Aquinas' ideas seem to only make sense if we accept his initial assumption which is the existence of God.…

I don't recommend using this article as a serious source of knowledge about Aquinas. Some of the wording is a little iffy as well. For beginners, I would recommend "Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide" [0]. After that, if you want to dig deeper into Scholastic metaphysics in general, consider [1]. There are also books devoted to Aquinas's metaphysics exclusively, such as [2] and [3]. > The claim about the validity of Aquinas…

I encourage you to not be flippant about dismissing people who think that your metaphysical arguments don't hold water.

Thomas Aquinas' actual first cause argument is trivially refuted by the possibility of infinite regress.

Your musings about the nature of a thing and its telos, is an attempt to impose a human conceit about how we understand reality, on reality itself. The "human nature" that you're talking about "fully actualizing" is a concept that exists in human minds, not reality. While you might appeal to some sort of Platonic ideal, there is no evidence that any Platonic ideal actually exists.

Any musings about "the nature of God" establishes nothing more than a concept in someone's mind. That concept has no existence, other than that granted by the thinking of people who have that concept. In particular, a concept created relatively recently by humans, did not create those humans. Let alone the world that those humans live in.

These arguments are all sophistry. They do not, and cannot, establish any meaningful existence to the kind of God that is described in your favorite selection of religious texts. And they are only persuasive to people who are easily persuaded due to the conclusion fitting their preexisting religious beliefs.

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#18

Post by bigstrat2003 » Fri, Jun 27, 2025, 3:39 AM UTC

cmdli wrote: post #11

Frummy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His theological writings had profound effects on the church, the historically dominant power structure in the west and their behaviour for hundreds of years. Yeah defining what's good is difficult, even using information theoretical arguments like preserving or creating order gets messy. But regardless of metaphysical truth there is tons of other stuff to analyse like tracing historical cause and effects of how stuff…

A large part of the development of Europe, especially after the Renaissance, was resistance to the church and its historical teachings. The Reformation, Renaissance, rise of deism, scientific revolution, etc were all in response to and in many cases disagreeing with historical understanding. Saying "our current civilization is based on the teachings of the church" ignores the many aspects of our civilization that cam…

But the author didn't say that. He said "a large part of our civilization rests [on Aquinas]". That can be perfectly true even if there were other, equally significant, influences.

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#19

Post by IncreasePosts » Fri, Jun 27, 2025, 3:41 AM UTC

lmpdev wrote: post #15

cmdli wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large part of the development of Europe, especially after the Renaissance, was resistance to the church and its historical teachings. The Reformation, Renaissance, rise of deism, scientific revolution, etc were all in response to and in many cases disagreeing with historical understanding. Saying "our current civilization is based on the teachings of the church" ignores the many aspects of our civilization that cam…

> Reformation I’d argue the Catholic Jesuits probably had a more profound impact on science than any counter-catholic Christian denomination - purely from their intellectual output They were formed around the same time as the reformation, but obviously had vastly more money and power (not that this should discount their contributions) Examples: - Christopher Clavius (created our modern Gregorian calendar) - Anathasiu…

Team Protestant had, well, lets see. Isaac Newton is a good place to start, who singularly contributed more to science than everyone on your list combined.

And how about Kepler, Boyle, Hooke, Leibniz, Linnaeus, Euler, Maxwell, Lord Kelvin. That's off the top of my head, and this isn't even a subject I've really thought about.

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#20

Post by bigstrat2003 » Fri, Jun 27, 2025, 3:43 AM UTC

exac wrote: post #16

This is the type of religious propaganda that would appear in a worksheet for children in a Catholic school. It doesn't belong here. There are no arguments here, just the presupposition of some deity.

This isn't "propaganda", it's attempting to give a casual look at Aquinas' philosophy (which, as the author points out, does not presuppose a deity). Moreover, if you read the rest of the site, you will see that this author tries to give this sort of casual look at many diverse philosophical ideas (not just religious philosophy or Western philosophy). You are having a knee jerk reaction to a strawman, not responding to the actual substance of the article.