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Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

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Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#21

Post by [deleted] »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #19
lmpdev wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[deleted]

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#22

Post by jhanschoo »

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.…

> > A large part of our civilisation rests on the shoulders of one medieval monk: Thomas Aquinas.

For such a grandiose claim, I was honestly thinking of another churchman, though not a medieval monk: Augustine of Hippo

Free will as a mental phenomenon (rather than political freedom), Christian original sin, Western prudence and chastity are some notions that I think were extremely heavily influenced by him, or originated from him.

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#24

Post by lmpdev »

IncreasePosts wrote: post #19
lmpdev wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

All of those are from the later scientific revolution (except Linneaus, Maxwell and Kelvin) and none of those are priests/leaders of a church. You’re correct in that they’re protestant and were surely religious but had little to no influence on protestant theology

Can you find any protestant priests with major scientific contributions during the reformation?

I only mentioned Weber as there are no other major contributions I can think of that actually influenced protestantism/wasn’t primarily from the scientific revolution

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#25

Post by drdaeman »

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…

> Aquinas does not begin with the existence of God.

Excuse my poor knowledge and understanding of all this stuff - but he's absolutely depending on Aristotle, taking existence of telos as a foundation, doesn't he?

And from this, inventing a God isn't a far stretch - if something axiomatically has an intrinsic purpose, it's probably not too hard to state that there should be something with agency to define it all, or something that's has a perfect nature, or however else one wants to define "God".

This said, are any of those books a good read for someone who doesn't think there's any purpose, reason or goal to all of this?

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#26

Post by gtest »

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.…

> The article starts with that but then provides no evidence for that claim

You people are sure allergic to anything religious.

The author's main point isn't that so he or she didn't support it. I don't think it's true, though he is an important figure in philosophy and theology still.

Should the author also first attempt to prove the existence of Aquinas? And that he was a monk? Before writing about him? Does he need to prove that Aquinas wrote the work the work usually attribute to him? Does he need to prove there is a god? Just to talk about Aquinas' view? But I agree his intro is a bit overestimating.

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#27

Post by gtest »

drdaeman wrote: post #25
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Aquinas does not begin with the existence of God. Excuse my poor knowledge and understanding of all this stuff - but he's absolutely depending on Aristotle, taking existence of telos as a foundation, doesn't he? And from this, inventing a God isn't a far stretch - if something axiomatically has an intrinsic purpose, it's probably not too hard to state that there should be something with agency to define it all, or…

> taking existence of telos as a foundation

Not the GP, but I suspect the GP meant that Aquinas's Summa and Aquinas's Contra (his major works) starts with discussing first whether there is a god.

> are any of those books a good read for someone

I am not Catholic. I wouldn't recommend Aquinas.

However, I would recommend "reasonable faith" book by William Craig. Or if you want his lectures to listen to, you can start from his lectures on the existence of God[1]

If you are talking about how can one believe in God in an "axiomatic" way, yet still be rational and warranted, I suggest Plantinga's "warranted Christian belief" or his more popular level book "Knowledge and Christian Belief".

[1] https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-s...

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#28

Post by lo_zamoyski »

cmdli wrote: post #12
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And where do these "values" come from?

Value is objective, as good is a matter of being the kind of thing a thing is. That a subject is making the determination doesn't mean it has no objective reality. The subjective is not a cause of value anymore than a telescope is the cause of the image of the moon. The telescope can distort the image, but it would be nonsensical to call it the cause.

To consign value to mere subjectivity only makes value more mysterious, not less, as all this does is assert it as a brute fact with no relation to reality. On the other hand, an objective basis grounds it in human nature.

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#29

Post by lo_zamoyski »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #13
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?…

The difference is not in the claim "good for somebody", full stop, but your relativistic and subjectivist take as well as your distortion of human nature.

A person with pika desires to eat things with no nutritional value, like glass or polystyrene. A drug addict desires drugs. A pedophile desires sexual relations with children. These are disordered desires that do not advance the good of the subject: eating glass is not good for you; taking drugs is not good for you; having sexual relations with children is not good for you (both the sexual act in itself, but also that harming children like that is gravely opposed to justice and our social nature).

In the case of an armed conflict, our social nature entails justice, and so we can determine the moral features of a war according to justice. We can objectively say that the Russian invasion, broadly, is gravely immoral and that the Ukrainian defense of their country, broadly, is moral (it is still possible for Ukrainians to engage in immoral acts as part of their defense, of course).

W.r.t. universal health care, this is not something that is intrinsically evil, and so whether it would be good to institute universal health care will depend on particular circumstances. That there is debate over such things does not imply that there is no objective fact of the matter. Indeed, if that were the case, then genuine debate would be impossible, as genuine debate presupposes an objective truth. It would be nothing more than a battle of arbitrary wills willing things for no reason.

Re: Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

#30

Post by rawgabbit »

drdaeman wrote: post #25
lo_zamoyski wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Aquinas does not begin with the existence of God. Excuse my poor knowledge and understanding of all this stuff - but he's absolutely depending on Aristotle, taking existence of telos as a foundation, doesn't he? And from this, inventing a God isn't a far stretch - if something axiomatically has an intrinsic purpose, it's probably not too hard to state that there should be something with agency to define it all, or…

I grew up Catholic. While I respect St Augustine as a doctor of the church, I find his writings not to my taste.

I prefer modern apologetics like Peter Kreeft who taught at a Catholic university for a long time. https://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-ex...

My other favorite writer was Cardinal Ratzinger before he became Pope Benedict. The current Catechism was edited by him when he was the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P9.HTM

The basic Catholic argument is that God created the world and mankind out of love. We are incapable of understanding why there is suffering and death. But we believe God sent his son to partially reveal his plan. The bulk of his teaching is the “sermon on the Mount.” Matthew chapters 5 to 7. https://bible.usccb.org/bible/matthew/5

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