Friday, February 18, 2022

The failure of Johnson’s critique of natural theology

At the Reformed Baptist Blog, Jeffrey Johnson has responded to my First Things review of his book The Failure of Natural Theology: A Critical Appraisal of the Philosophical Theology of Thomas Aquinas.  He makes nine points, none of which is any more convincing than the book itself is.  What follows is a point-by-point reply. 

1.

I noted in my review that Johnson attributes to Aquinas the view that God “does not have any potencies.”  (The quote is from p. 120 of his book.)  I also noted that this is a misunderstanding of Aquinas.  Aquinas distinguishes between “passive potency” (which is the capacity to undergo change) and “active potency” (which is the power to bring about effects in other things).  What Aquinas actually holds is that God does not have any passive potencies, but is supreme in active potency.  (Cf. Summa Theologiae I.25.1.)  Hence it is not correct to say that for Aquinas, God “does not have any potencies.”  Aquinas insists that God does have active potency.  It is only passive potency that he lacks.

Johnson claims that he did not overlook this distinction and that I have missed his point.  But he did overlook it, and I did not miss his point.  Note first that the words from p. 120 of Johnson’s book that I quoted were directed at something I had written in my book Scholastic Metaphysics, where I noted that for Scholastics like Aquinas, efficient causation is a matter of a thing exercising “its own active potencies or powers.”  Johnson argues that Aquinas cannot coherently take God to be an efficient cause in this sense.  The reason, he says in the full sentence from which I took the words quoted, is this: “How does God exercise his ‘own active potencies’ if he does not have any potencies?”  Obviously, Johnson could think this a telling response to Aquinas only on the assumption that Aquinas denies that God has potencies of any kind – an assumption that is, again, false.  Hence, I did not misunderstand Johnson.  I simply called attention to what he himself explicitly said in his book.

Nor is his misunderstanding of Aquinas’s position confined to this one line.  As I noted in my review, Johnson repeatedly attributes to Aquinas the thesis that God is “immobile.”  Now, Aquinas certainly thinks that God is immutable in the sense that he does not undergo change, and that he is impassible in the sense that nothing external to him can have a causal influence on him.  But Johnson says (at p. 137 of his book) that “immobility” involves something more than immutability and impassibility.  Here’s one explanation by Johnson of what else it involves:

Thomas added to God’s simple and immutable nature an additional attribute not taught in the Scriptures: divine immobility. 

Aquinas made the assumption that mobility – the willful exertion of power – is an essential characteristic of imperfection, finiteness, and temporality.  Because God can’t be any of these things, mobility must not be in God. (p. 5)

So, according to Johnson, Aquinas denies that there is any “willful exertion of power” in God.  And this is, again, simply false.  Indeed, its falsehood is very easily demonstrated.  For example, Aquinas says that “in God there is active power in the highest degree” (ST I.25.1); that God “wills… other things to be” (ST I.19.2); that “God is first in the order of agents” and that “his inclination to put in act what His intellect has conceived appertains to the will” so that “the will of God is the cause of things” (ST I.19.4); and so on.  All of this entails precisely that God does willfully exert power, contrary to what Johnson claims is Aquinas’s view.  Hence Aquinas denies that God is “immobile” in Johnson’s sense.

Moreover, Aquinas even allows that there is a sense in which God is moved.  For example, he writes:

Since the will of God is His essence, it is not moved by another than itself, but by itself alone, in the same sense as understanding and willing are said to be movement.  This is what Plato meant when he said that the first mover moves itself. (ST I.19.1)

Of course, Aquinas is speaking here only of something remotely analogous to what we call “movement” in us, since it does not involve any actualization of passive potency nor any causal influence from without.  But it further underlines how far Aquinas is from attributing to God “immobility” in Johnson’s sense.

Now, in his reply to me, Johnson insinuates that his point was simply to argue that, whatever Aquinas’s actual intentions, he is unable to reconcile an affirmation that God has active causal power with his Aristotelian approach to arguing for God’s existence and spelling out the divine nature.  But there are two problems with this.  First, Johnson does not merely say that Aquinas’s views imply that God lacks active causal power (even if Aquinas does not intend this result).  Rather – and as we have just seen – Johnson claims that Aquinas himself actually holds that God lacks such power.  Again, not only is that not true, but in fact Aquinas explicitly says the opposite.  So, Johnson has badly misrepresented Aquinas’s position.  Aquinas simply does not believe what Johnson claims he does. 

Second, Johnson also does not establish that the Aristotelian premises Aquinas is working from actually entail divine “immobility.”  Why does Johnson suppose otherwise?  One reason appears to be that Aristotle himself conceived of God as moving the world as a final cause rather than as an efficient cause.  And Johnson seems to think that anyone working from Aristotle’s premises must conclude that it is only as a final cause that God can move the world, that God cannot act as an efficient cause. 

But that is certainly not Aquinas’s view, and Johnson does not show that it follows from anything Aquinas says.  Johnson thinks he shows that this follows because he thinks that Aquinas claims that there is no potency of any kind in God and that God is “immobile.”  But as we have just seen, not only does Aquinas not claim these things, in fact he holds the opposite.  Hence he is not committed to the premises from which it would follow that God cannot act as an efficient cause. 

Indeed, even Johnson allows that the “immobility” of the unmoved mover “is not a necessary conclusion” of Aquinas’s First Way (p. 116) and that it is “inconsistent” with the conception of God that results from the Second and Fifth Ways (pp. 118 and 130).  Johnson thinks this shows that Aquinas’s position is inconsistent, but that would only be true if Aquinas had, in other places, explicitly or implicitly committed himself to divine “immobility.”  And as we have seen, he does not do so.  In his response to my review, Johnson writes:

Feser, however, didn’t attempt to answer this dilemma that I raised over and over in my book.  I assume that he leapt over it because it can’t be answered.  Thomas wasn’t able to reconcile this contradiction, and I am not convinced that anyone is able to do so.

End quote.  But Johnson misses the point.  I didn’t attempt to “reconcile this contradiction” for the simple reason that there is no such contradiction in the first place.  Johnson supposes otherwise only because he is attacking a straw man rather than Aquinas’s actual views.

Into the bargain, by the way, Johnson misunderstands Aquinas’s First Way.  He writes that “Aquinas’s first proof... is based on God being the final cause of the universe” (p. 115).  Now, as the reader of the First Way can easily verify from ST I.2.3, there is no reference to final causality anywhere in it.  Nor does anything Aquinas says there entail that the unmoved mover must move things by way of final causality rather than by way of efficient causality.  In fact, the text of the argument implies precisely the opposite.  To illustrate the kind of motion he has in mind, Aquinas refers to fire making wood hot and a hand causing a staff to move.  And fire and hand function precisely as efficient causes.  I would guess that Johnson is assuming that because (A) Aristotle presented a version of the argument from motion, and (B) Aristotle thought the unmoved mover moved the world as a final cause, then (C) Aquinas’s version of the argument from motion must be based on final causality.  But (C) does not follow from (A) and (B).

2.

I noted in my review that Johnson claims that by allowing for the sake of argument that the universe may not have had a temporal beginning, Aquinas makes God and the universe equally absolute.  I also noted that this claim is false, since Aquinas’s view is that, even if the universe had had no beginning, it could not persist in being even for a moment without divine conserving causality.  Hence even an infinitely old universe would depend for its being on God, who would be the sole absolute reality.  In his response, Johnson claims that I have misrepresented him, writing: “Of course, Aquinas made this claim.  I state this over and over in my book… No doubt, Aquinas believed that without God, there is no universe.  I wonder how Feser could have missed me saying all of this in the book.”

Here is what Johnson actually said in his book.  Commenting on Aquinas’s view that philosophical arguments cannot establish that the world had a temporal beginning, he wrote: “This is where Aquinas’s natural theology breaks down… Aristotelian metaphysics on its own merit cannot establish a temporal universe.   And without a temporal universe, God ceases to be absolute” (pp. 124-25, emphasis added).  He also says that “according to Aquinas, a temporal and unnecessary universe is not the logical conclusion of natural theology but, like the doctrine of the Trinity, is an article of faith that can only be received by divine authority” (p. 134).

So, according to Johnson, Aquinas holds that philosophy alone cannot establish that the universe is unnecessary – that is to say, that its existence is contingent upon some cause outside it.  And only if that were indeed Aquinas’s view would his allowance for an infinitely old universe entail that the universe and God are equally absolute.

But of course, Aquinas does not think that philosophy is incapable of showing that the universe is unnecessary or contingent.  On the contrary, he argues, on purely philosophical grounds, that anything whose essence and existence are distinct requires a cause, and is therefore contingent.  And he argues, again on purely philosophical grounds, that this cause must be something whose essence is identical with its existence, and that such a cause would be unique.  It follows – again, on purely philosophical grounds – that everything other than this cause depends for its existence upon it (so that the entire universe depends for its existence upon it).  This holds true whether or not the universe had a beginning (which is why Aquinas thinks that establishing that the world depends for its existence on God does not require arguing for a temporal beginning).

This is, rather famously, one of the main themes of De Ente et Essentia, and it also appears in many other places in Aquinas’s works.  For example, in the Summa Theologiae, Aquinas writes:

It must be said that every being in any way existing is from God.  For whatever is found in anything by participation, must be caused in it by that to which it belongs essentially… [But] all beings apart from God are not their own being, but are beings by participation.  Therefore it must be that all things which are diversified by the diverse participation of being, so as to be more or less perfect, are caused by one First Being, Who possesses being most perfectly…

From the fact that a thing has being by participation, it follows that it is caused.  Hence such a being cannot be without being caused. (ST I.44.1)

Notice that the argument here appeals to philosophical premises, not to special divine revelation.  So, contrary to what Johnson says in his book, Aquinas does think that the contingency of the universe can be established via purely philosophical arguments, and thus he does think that it can be proved by such arguments that God alone is absolute, even though such arguments cannot in Aquinas’s view establish a temporal beginning of the universe.

Whether Johnson acknowledges elsewhere in his book that Aquinas takes the universe to depend on God is irrelevant.  For the point is that Aquinas holds (contrary to what Johnson says in the passages I quoted above) that philosophy by itself, apart from special divine revelation, can establish this dependence of the world on God.

3.

In my review of his book, I noted that Johnson claims that for Aquinas, we can only ever know a representation of God rather than God himself, and can only speak of God metaphorically or symbolically rather than literally.  And I cited specific passages in which Aquinas actually says precisely the opposite of these claims – for example, passages in which he says that the blessed in heaven know the very essence of God, and in which he says that some terms do apply to God literally.  As I pointed out, Johnson misses the latter point because he conflates metaphor and analogical language (which can be metaphorical but need not be).

In his response, Johnson does not deny that he is guilty of these errors – and they are very basic and serious errors of scholarship – even if he doesn’t quite admit it either.  Instead he tries to change the subject.  He notes, for example, that Aquinas holds that God’s attributes are identical, and suggests that this makes it difficult to understand what terms like “good” mean when applied to God.  But there are several problems with this sort of move.  First, it is completely irrelevant to the point I was making, viz. that Johnson misrepresented Aquinas’s views about theological language and what we can know about God.

Second, the reason Aquinas identifies the divine attributes is because he is committed to the doctrine of divine simplicity – to which Johnson is also committed.  So, if the identity of the divine attributes that divine simplicity entails is a problem for Aquinas, it is also a problem for Johnson.  To be sure, Johnson indicates at p. 164 of his book that he would not himself identify the divine attributes with one another.  But what he needs to explain is how he can avoid doing so while at the same time affirming divine simplicity.

Third, Johnson raises this issue as if it were not something that Thomists and others have addressed many times in the large literature on divine simplicity.  If Johnson doesn’t find what they have to say convincing, then fine, he is free to raise objections to it.  But he seems not even to be aware of it. 

Johnson also suggests that, even if Aquinas does affirm that some terms are applied to God literally, he was not “consistent with himself” insofar as he also denied that we can know God’s essence in this life, and instead have to represent God using terms we learn from their application to created things.  But there is no inconsistency here at all, because the latter claim does not entail that no language about God is literal.  Indeed, it doesn’t even imply that the inadequate ways we represent God using terms originally applied to created things are non-literal. 

Again, Johnson clearly just doesn’t understand what Thomists mean when they talk about the analogical use of terms.  That’s no sin – unless you’re going to make absurdly overconfident pronouncements about the “failure” of Aquinas’s philosophical theology, without first bothering to learn what Aquinas actually says. 

4.

In my review, I noted that Johnson took a remark of mine out of context (specifically, from my essay “Natural Theology Must Be Grounded in the Philosophy of Nature, Not in Natural Science,” which appears in my anthology Neo-Scholastic Essays).  His misuse of the quote, I pointed out, rested on a failure to distinguish between science as it is generally understood today and philosophy of nature.  In his response, Johnson suggests that he was not really saying anything different in substance from the point I was making in that essay.  Really?  Here is what he actually said in his book, in the context of commenting on Aquinas’s First Way:

[W]e cannot know for certain, based on Aquinas’s first proof, if God moves himself or not.  Herman Bavinck placed his finger on the problem when he stated, “We have no right… to apply the law of causality to such a first cause, and that we therefore cannot say anything specific about it.”  The cosmological argument collapses because it jumps from physics to metaphysics, from science to philosophy, without having any epistemological warrant for such a leap.  It may appear that God’s nature can be derived from sense experience, from natural science, but such a conclusion is only a philosophical assumption.  Even one of the leading Thomistic scholars of our day, Edward Feser, admits to this: “I do deny that arguments grounded in natural science alone can get you to classical theism.”

This is the breaking point.  This is where the natural theology of Thomas Aquinas fails.  (pp. 117-18)

I don’t think anyone who has read the essay of mine quoted from, or indeed who knows anything about my work on natural theology, could say with a straight face that I would agree that “the cosmological argument collapses,” or that we “cannot say anything specific” about the divine nature based on such an argument, or that such an argument cannot be grounded in “sense experience.”  What I actually believe, of course, is that Aquinas’s First Way is a successful proof of God’s existence, that it is grounded in sense experience, and that following out its implications tells us much about the divine nature.  True, I don’t think that natural science, as that is generally understood today, can provide the foundation of such an argument.  But Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy of nature (the main principles of which were included as part of “science” as Aristotle and Aquinas understood it) can provide such foundations.

(Johnson says, in his response: “I would like to know what these broader principles are.”  But if he really read the essay of mine he quoted from, and the other works of mine that he cites in his book, then he should already know the answer to that question.  The principles in question include ideas like the Aristotelian theory of act and potency.)

Johnson also now claims that he was merely noting, in the passage I quote from his book, that you can’t get to everything the Bible says about the divine nature from science alone.  But as you can see from the quote above, that is not what he said in that passage.  What he actually said is something much stronger than that – that if science doesn’t provide a basis for the First Way, then Aquinas’s argument “collapses,” that his natural theology therefore “fails” altogether, that you “cannot say anything specific” about the divine nature on the basis of Aquinas’s argument, and so on.  (And of course, no one ever claimed in the first place that the First Way gets you all the way to everything the Bible says about God.  That’s a straw man.)

5.

Revisiting the topic of the “immobility” that he says Aquinas attributes to God, Johnson writes:  Yes, Aquinas claimed God exerted willful power in creation.  I cite him saying such statements.  I never denied this about Aquinas.”  But as I showed above, by citing specific passages, Johnson does in fact deny this in his book.  (Johnson says: “I actually wonder if Feser read or merely skimmed my book.”  Well, I did read it, every word.  But I’m starting to wonder if Johnson read it!)

6.

In my review, I noted that some of the things Johnson doesn’t like about Aquinas’s account of the Trinity derive, not from the thesis of divine “immobility,” but rather from the doctrine of divine simplicity, which Johnson himself accepts.  In response, Johnson writes:I go to great lengths to explain the difference between the two forms of simplicity – a simplicity rooted in philosophy (which I reject,) and a simplicity rooted in Scripture (which I accept).”

But this is no answer at all.  For one thing, what matters in the present context is not the source of the idea of divine simplicity (whether philosophy or scripture) but rather the content of the idea.  For it is the content of the doctrine of divine simplicity that some claim to be incompatible with Trinitarianism.  For another thing, though Johnson would claim that the content he would give to the notion of divine simplicity is different from the content Aquinas would give to it, what we need to know is exactly how such a difference would make a difference to the specific issue at hand.  For example, exactly why is Trinitarianism compatible with Johnson’s conception of simplicity if it is not compatible with Aquinas’s?  (At least part of the answer, for Johnson, would be that Aquinas attaches the idea of “immobility,” in Johnson’s sense of the word, to divine simplicity.  But I have already shown that Aquinas is not in fact committed to “immobility” in that sense.)

7.

I noted in my review that Johnson merely asserts, without argument, that the Bible does not recognize the legitimacy of natural theology, but only of what he calls “natural revelation.”  In his response, he essentially just repeats this question-begging assertion.  He cites passages like the following:

The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. (Psalms 19:1) 

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.  So they are without excuse.  (Romans 1:19-20)

But there is (contrary to what Johnson alleges) nothing in such passages that entails that the knowledge of God we get from nature is entirely non-inferential and does not require argumentation.

8.

Johnson admits that his assertion that “Plotinus didn’t leave behind any writings” (p. 75) was an error. 

9.

Johnson also admits that he made a “copy/paste error” when purporting to quote the text of the Second Way from Summa Theologiae I.2.3, at p. 101 of his book.  Unfortunately, he also claims that “the substance of what was communicated by Aquinas was not compromised” by this error.  But that is not the case.  The passage Johnson wrongly presented as the text of the Second Way from the Summa contains the following lines:

If the series of efficient causes extends ad infinitum into the past, then there would be no things existing now.  That is plainly false (i.e., there are things existing now that came about through efficient causes).  Therefore efficient causes do not extend ad infinitum into the past.

End quote.  Not only is this not what the Second Way says, it directly contradicts Aquinas’s view that it cannot be proved through philosophical arguments that accidentally ordered series of efficient causes do not extend ad infinitum into the past.  (That is, after all, why, as we saw above, Aquinas thinks that philosophical arguments cannot prove that the universe had a beginning in time.)  This is a pretty egregious error of scholarship.

Johnson sums up his response by emphasizing once again his main theme that “divine immobility is incompatible with the God of the Bible.”  But as I have shown, Aquinas is not committed in the first place to “divine immobility” in Johnson’s sense.  His main objection, like his other criticisms, is directed at a straw man.

160 comments:

  1. This guy is incompetent in the extreme

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    1. Exactly. He is neither a trained philosopher nor a trained dogmatic theologian.

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  2. Are we sure is "Reformed"? Because I cannae imagine Paul Helm writing shite like this with a straight face? He reminds me of every Gnu Atheist I have ever argued with.

    Like them he insists his straw man's version of the position he criticizes is true and won't budge. He insists on criticizing the Deity he wishes we believed in and not in face the one we do believe in.

    What a useless tit!

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    1. You are right. In the previous blog, Michael pointed out that Johnson misunderstood and misrepresented the Reformed tradition as badly as he misrepresented Aquinas. I include the link to Michael's blog here:
      https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4321905160?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1

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    2. "I am flabbergasted at how extreme this misrepresentation is and do not know how to explain it."

      Yikes!

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  3. That was a bloodbath. The shoddy scholarship of Johnson is just incredible.

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    1. This is what happens when one believes a certain thing, then goes on a hunt to imaginary evidence to support one's position.
      That's how one arrives at calling the Epistle of James a book of straw.

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  4. Dr. Feser,
    Do you think there is any kind of non-inferential knowledge of God that does not rely on these philosophical arguments? After all, the average person probably isn't going to be familiar with many of them, and even quite intelligent people might not be able to respond to all objections raised against them. But Scripture seems to pretty clearly say that no one has an excuse for not knowing who God is.

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    1. Can you suggest what kinds of non-inferential knowledge of God would qualify? I mean, obviously we have non-inferential knowledge of colors, and other sense-objects. But they won't work for God, because God is not material. We have non-inferential knowledge of ourselves, because we have direct experience of ourselves - of both sensing and of thinking. But then, there is no division or distance between the self and the experiences we have that tell us of a self. Would we also have direct experience of God, (like we do of ourselves) and if so...WHAT KIND of experience is that? Because, well, we sort of all disagree on anything like that: unlike sense experience, which all agree exists, there is no common agreement on a direct experience of God.

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    2. We are directly aware of temptation; a supernatural phenomenon.

      Likewise, we are aware of Actual Grace: direct supernatural aid.

      One comes from above, one from below. We know who is sending each one.

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    3. I am not sure how we would characterize it exactly, but it seems that we must posit something like it in order for each person to be "without excuse" in worshipping God. It is simply not reasonable to assume that the Thomistic arguments for God's existence are so obviously correct or understandable that everyone who encounters them has "no excuse" at that point. So if Scripture's testimony is true, we must affirm some kind of knowledge of God that is not based on philosophical argument. Perhaps it is inferential in some other way.

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    4. We are all directly aware of feeling an inclination toward acts that are sins. We are not all directly aware of them as being "temptations" as from an outside source, and certainly not aware of them as coming from a non-natural source. Hence the status of such feelings being "supernatural temptations" is an inference, not directly experienced.

      I think actual grace being "experienced" AS a supernatural aid is at least as tenuous.

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    5. @Tony

      Perhaps the non-inferential knowledge could be a strong tendency to believe in God, just like we don't have innate ideas about the principle of non-contradiction but we have a clear tendency to believe implicity in it. Notice that this is would still alow for disagreement, just like today there are people who try to deny the PnC thanks to our relativistic culture or a wish to undermined some undesirable worldviews.

      We seems to have a natural tendency to agent-detection, if we assume than that tendency could eventually take one to presume that beyond the world there is a invisible creator that created everyting them we can account for the passage. Polytheism would not be thinked thanks to Occam Razor. Also, seeing how any group, let alone a primitive one, has to have a formed sense of morality that the members would be educated since kids to internalize there would be on the primitives a clear moral realism. We can imagine the first humans could combine the two beliefs to form the idea of a supreme being who is holy and demands good behavior, the work of Andrew Lang* on the origins of religion do suggests that it could be a plausible tendency on humans.

      In fact, Andrew work suggest that polytheism could start by some bad motives, like wanting to have certain material benefits obtained by worshiping inferior beings that could be bribed or threated. This would fit with his data of several monotheist small tribes.

      This hypothesis looks naturalistic, i know, but it is compatible with God creating humans with a tendency to know Him that can be defeated by bad culture or a life that take one away from God, so accepting it is okay, i think.

      *okay, old stuff, i know

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    6. Romans has it that his attributes are "clearly perceived in the things that are made" (RSV)
      So it seems that the issue is the meaning of "perceived in"

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  5. Professor Feser, I too wonder whether he's read his own book.

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  6. Ouch,

    It's bad enough to turn in a math test and get an "F" for not carrying a one somewhere, or putting a double negative in a sentence.

    Imagine having a Thomistic Doctor of Philosophy grade your whole world-view.

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  7. Please forgive the length of this historical piece. I had to break it into two parts.
    Historical context is important for understanding the rise of Van Til’s apologetic. In the 1920s the Presbyterian Church in the North was a largely conservative Calvinistic denomination. However, its Calvinistic orthodoxy was being eroded by influences from New England and the mid-West where theology was being adjusted to accommodate European philosophy. Princeton Seminary was the very prestigious bastion of conservative Calvinism. (It also affirmed and employed classical apologetics, both philosophical and evidential.) To make a long story short, J. Gresham Machen, a distinguished New Testament professor was denied a transfer to the chair in apologetics. Liberal clergy (see Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism for an excellent analysis of modernist theology.) seized on some discord among the faculty regarding Machen and got the General Assembly to investigate. The result was that a new governing Board was established that included modernist clergy. Machen had also run afoul of the modernists in regards to setting up the Independent Board of Foreign Missions. (Nothing like interfering with their money flow to get a liberal angry.) Machen was defrocked. Now the Presbyterian Church at that time had a modernist wing, a conservative wing and a great middle that was largely conservative, but also sought peace and unity.
    Machen left Princeton Seminary and started Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, but most of the “old lions” of the faculty, nearing retirement, stayed at Princeton. Machen also led the way to establishing a new denomination which eventually came to be called The Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Many of the hard-core conservatives went with Machen, but many did not, believing that they should stay and fight for orthodoxy within the larger denomination. The great majority of the middle group thought Machen precipitous in being willing to separate, so they stayed in the denomination.
    All of this is necessary to understand the sad state of conservative Presbyterians. In a generation they went from being one of, if not, the most influential religious bodies in America to being left out in the cold. They lost their beloved seminary, their church buildings and manses and prestige.

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  8. The Rest of the story... Machen had difficulty finding professors to fill the chairs in the new seminary. Most of the men whom he recruited were relatively young, among them Cornelius Van Til. Within a few years Machen died quite prematurely and Van Til rose to the leadership of the school. In trying to account for why the conservatives had lost, Van Til argued that their apologetic had been fundamentally flawed. It assumed with Methodists and Roman Catholics that the natural, unconverted person was capable of understanding spiritual truth by means of rigorous argument. Van Til put forward an apologetic that he proclaimed was truer to the Reformed faith. He focused on the impact of original sin on the human intellect. There were opponents of Van Til, such as the philosopher Gordon Clark (Carl F.H. Henry’s teacher), systematician Oliver Buswell of Covenant College and Seminary (a Calvinistic school), and James Daane of the Dutch Reformed churches. Van Til’s followers ceded him the victory in all these controversies and his authority was largely unchallenged. For most of the 20th century, Westminster Seminary was the most important conservative Calvinistic seminary in the country. Many of the leaders of the conservative movement came out of Westminster and Van Til’s apologetic was considered essential.
    When you combine the sheer difficulty of understanding Van Til, the broadening of the Reformed movement in this country, and the significant competition WTS has from the many newer Reformed seminaries, Van Til’s hegemony has gradually diminished. Mr. Johnson is trying to hold the line against this defection. Like so many defenders of Van Til, he repeats the shibboleths of the movement This is insider code that is repeated without, in many cases careful analysis. In the same way, WTS professor of apologetics and systematics, Scott Oliphint has recently authored a book highly critical of Aquinas which received quite rough treatment at the hands of Reformed theologian/historian Richard Muller. Many of the men who revere Van Til and his thought feel the ground rumbling beneath them, like it did in the 1920-30s. They believe that the Reformed faith is being undermined and they are trying to rally the troops. Whatever the merits of Van Til’s philosophical analysis, he was quite out of step with the Calvinistic tradition going back to Calvin. Until the end of the 119th century that tradition had been almost unanimous in its adoption and propagation of classical apologetics and had a significant appreciation of Thomas. For the 17th C. see Wallace Marshall’s excellent and lucid book, Puritanism and Natural Theology. Its excellence is witnessed by the virtual silence of Van Tillians regarding it. I personally know of one very prominent Calvinistic publisher who turned it down because he just couldn’t believe Marshall was right and Van Tillian historiography was so wrong.

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    1. Friends of mine went to Westminster. I even sat through a class taught by van Til and once went with some other students to his house for tea (served by Mrs. van Til).

      Wasn't van Til instrumental in hounding Gordon Clark out of the OP denomination? (OP as in Orthodox Presbyterian, not as in Ordo Praedicatorum, lol)

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    2. There's much good in Van Til and some of his students. Not all of Van Tillianism is steeped in fallacy like this book.

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  9. Well, the good Mr. Johnson seems to be blocking posts that are complimentary of Ed's rebuttals. To his credit, he allowed Ed's post with a link to this thread, but nobody else is apparently welcome.

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  10. Seeing how many times Johnson writed something that clearly sounded like x only to have to deny he believes x, it is cleat that the guy has some trouble picking his words. Look, when you gets misunderstood a lot them try to not sound polemical, it will help. I know that.

    Hope that the corrections and the "fame" created by this book do make Jeffrey study better the thomistic tradition, the guy clearly read only Aquinas. When you are dealing with a author with a worldview so diferent from yours, reading only the author directly is dangerous, as can clearly be seen.

    And since Aquinas supposed belief in divine immobility is cited several times and Jeffrey asked how could the saint view not be contradictory, why don't we discuss this?
    https://www.academia.edu/26922293/The_Flexibility_of_Divine_Simplicity_Aquinas_Scotus_Palamas_International_Philosophical_Quarterly_57_2_July_2017_123_139

    I founded the synthesis with Palamas kinda suspect*, but the defense of the formal distinction being implicity on St. Thomas view is interesting. What do you guys think?


    *it is not clear to me that one can get from "agents can change things while not having their beings changed" to "Agents can change things while not changing at all". Not that i believe that God changes or that divine simplicity is false, but i would attack objection 3 diferently

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  11. Talimd

    Agents cannot change things while not changing at all.
    While Johnson seems very clumsy in expressing his views, he has a point when he says that Aquinas's God is immobile.
    What Aquinas calls "active potency" contradicts divine simplicity and divine immutability, because, there is a possible world in which God does not exercise it at all. Hence we have possible world in which God is different.
    Active potency is an internal accident of God, but a simple being cannot have any accidents.
    Another interesting thing is that Aristotle, unlike Aquinas, did not see God as an efficient cause is because Aristotle, following a long tradition of pre-socratic philosophers firmly held that "ex nihilo nihil fit", and he also held that creatio ex nihilo is impossible, because an efficient cause has to work on something in order to bring about a change.
    Hence, God may be capable of moving prime matter, but he is not, according to Aristotle, capable of creating prime matter.

    Another thing to note is that, if aquinas's view is correct, the universe cannot possibly have a temporal beginning, because that would imply that an immutable God can begin to do something, which is an obvious contradiction.

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    Replies
    1. because, there is a possible world in which God does not exercise it at all. Hence we have possible world in which God is different.

      Walter, can you re-state your point without using "possible worlds" terminology? The whole notion and language surrounding a "possible world" is extremely fraught with difficulties, which (in my opinion, at least) cannot be settled without at least a book length list of parameters, qualifiers, etc.

      because that would imply that an immutable God can begin to do something,

      Well, no: without the creator acting in time (i.e. because there is no time before creation), the creation act is not an instance in which the creator "begins" to do something.

      Aristotle, following a long tradition of pre-socratic philosophers firmly held that "ex nihilo nihil fit", and he also held that creatio ex nihilo is impossible, because an efficient cause has to work on something in order to bring about a change.

      Happily, creation ex nihilo is NOT held to be a "change" properly speaking.

      Furthermore, (rather obviously), a creator is not an efficient cause in the same sense as an agent which acts on matter to move it around. The causal operation is really sui generis, and it should not be surprising that without revelation its possibility is not easily grasped.

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    2. @Walter

      I think that we did discuss modal collapse before. I remember it being brief, though. My view is not that formed yet, i need to settle a lot of things, but i think that my language is better than before. Lets see!

      Well, like St. Thomas would probably do, i would remember the thomistic view of free will: the will has a necessary tendency to Goodness but not to particular goods, so it is in a way not bound to choose this action or that action, it is free to pick what the intellect takes as better. When you say that on a possible world x a certain agent choose diferently that what he choose on reality all you are doing is noticing that his will is not bound to what it choose on our world. The possible worlds language does not imply the libertarian opinion, which i find just nonsensical, that if you could go back in time to the moment of the agent choice he could just choose something completely diferent than what he choose in reality. If you could use the distincion Aquinas would make: the agent choice is not necessary by itself but once it is made them it is necessary in a sense.

      A similar case with God: He by necessity wishes His own goodness, God can't not want to be awesome. But besides existing God can choose to create and so let creation reflect His goodness on a imperfect way, creation is wanted because of God goodness. Now, since creation is choosed as a means to divine goodness and by creating God does not makes His goodness better but only reflected, He can have His goal, His goodness, while not creating, so there is no necessary relation between the divine will and creating, He can not create and still be happy, so God is free to create or not. But, again, this does not imply that God has libertarian free will(indeed, i don't think anyone has that), so i would deny that God has any potency to create diferent.

      My explanation is probably still strange, my thinking still lacks organization, but here is St. Thomas take on this: https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1019.htm

      The first articles are essencial. As i, i guess, said to you on another discussion: the thomistic view is very diferent than what most sides of the free will debate take for granted.

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    3. Also regarding the philosophical point that "ex nihilo nihil fit": This thesis is wholly true as regards the material cause of a thing: nothingness itself cannot provide the material cause of something. Similarly, nothingness cannot provide the formal or final cause of something. Nor can nothingness provide the agent cause of something. So, "nothing" will never serve as one of the four causes of a thing's creation.

      Happily, God is not nothingness. In saying God created, we are not saying nothing created. In saying God was the cause, we are not saying nothing was the cause. That much is obvious.

      But to get down to the nitty gritty, the objection by anti-creation theories of "ex nihilo nihil fit" that this precludes divine creation simply fails to address the idea. The agent acting isn't "acting ON" nothing in order to change it and produce a thing. The operative act is utterly different from the kind of action that produces a change in matter. Being different, the fact that in order to produce a change in matter you first have to have matter that can be changed says nothing at all about a situation with a different kind of operation. Creation isn't substantial change nor accidental change, which covers the kinds of changes that "ex nihilo nihil fit" deals with.

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    4. Tony

      Possible world semantics is a handy tool to express ideas that would otherwise be very difficult to express.
      There is a possible world in which God doesn't exercise his active potency simply means that it would have been possible for God not to exercise it. So, God exercising it (or not exercising it) is an accident or an internal contingency. But a simple and immutable being cannot have internal contingencies.
      That's my point.

      And I must say that I have never heard or read a non question-begging argument for how creation isn't a substantial or an accidental change. It is based on the very narrow definition of change as the actualization of a potency, but obviously when something is X at one instant and Y at another, that is a change, whether or not it involves a potency.
      Likewise, the situation ( I am trying to avoid the word "world" here) in which God is alone is different from the situation in which there are created beings.
      So, this change cannot be accounted for, since it doesn't involve actualizing a potency. And that's the problem with creatio ex nihilo, and one of the reasons Aristotle rejected it.
      Finally "without the creator acting in time (i.e. because there is no time before creation), the creation act is not an instance in which the creator "begins" to do something" is also question-begging because of course a timeless being cannot begin to do something. that's the whole point. God's will is either always the sufficient condition for the universe or it never is. A universe that begins to exist implies that God's eternal and timeless will is at one time not sufficient for the universe to exist and at another time it is sufficient. That's a clear contradiction.

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    5. Talmid

      The "libertarian opinion", which I agree is nonsensical, is the very basis of of God's judgment. If going back in time to the moment the choice was made does not imply that a completely different choice could have been made, this means the agent cannot really choose. So, punishing someone for something he did not really choose is not just.

      I know we've been over this before, but is God's will can lead to various outcomes, that means God is not in control of things.
      As Joe Schmid argues, the only way out of modal collapse is indeterminism, which means that God wills X, but X can, independently of God's will, "evolve" into A, B, C ...

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    6. @Tony:

      So, "nothing" will never serve as one of the four causes of a thing's creation.

      In a dramatic turn of events, the materialist (a.k.a. "bag of chemicals"), a creature who is so proud of his "reasoning capabilities", reaches the conclusion that the Universe appeared "out of nothing". Because for this creature, "quantum vacuum" = "nothing".

      Which, if true, means that scientists are in the business of studying things that do not exist :) If a quantum vacuum is "nothing", then, when we learn about it, we are learning nothing :)

      The materialist, that fascinating creature who has severed himsself from contacting external reality and therefore, from being able to practice any science at all (no physics, no chemistry, no physiology, no evolution, no cosmology... Nothing!)

      Nothing could be weirder! And I have nothing more to say!

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    7. "Agents cannot change things while not changing at all."

      This is established as false in the conclusion of cosmological arguments from motion, such as the first way.

      If you're more committed to the idea that no agent can change something else without itself being changed, then you may reject the argument. But that comes at a cost - such as holding that change can occur without a cause, or that an infinite series of changers would be enough to explain change. A lot of people won't be fine with these costs.

      If Walter is fine with these costs, then that's on him. Personally I think the costs are unacceptable, so I accept that agents don't have to be changed in order to produce change.

      As a final point, I must say that personally I never saw any serious issue with the idea. It might be weird when compared to things from our experience, but when conceptually analyzing change, causation, etc., I just don't see the "cause being changed" as an essential feature. Just the effect being changed. It's about changing the patient, not the actor.

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    8. @Walter:

      ...but obviously when something is X at one instant and Y at another, that is a change, whether or not it involves a potency.

      Since nothing can never "be" anything at any instant whatsoever since it lacks existence, your purported attempt at being witty fails miserably.

      You're trying to characterize "nothing" as being locatable in time and therefore given it existence, which is an impossibility.

      My eyes hurt so bad for having read it.

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    9. A universe that begins to exist implies that God's eternal and timeless will is at one time not sufficient for the universe to exist and at another time it is sufficient. That's a clear contradiction.

      The creation event is not properly described as "God's eternal and timeless will is at one time not sufficient for the universe to exist and at another time it is sufficient." For multiple reasons, but this is the simplest: Before creation, there was no change or passage of time, so there was no period before the creation event. There WASN'T a "before creation." God willed to create. With that willing, created beings existed. There was no "before" that. In a sense, because eternity isn't extended, God always willed to create. There is no distinction of before and after about his willing to create. Creation not only was AT the beginning, it WAS the beginning (of time and temporal beings.) God is logically and causally prior to creation, not temporally.

      But by no means does this imply that time also is eternal. Nor does it imply that God's so willing to create is necessary.

      There is a possible world in which God doesn't exercise his active potency simply means that it would have been possible for God not to exercise it.

      Adding to "God was free not to create" that "there is a possible world" unfortunately involves us in a whole field of opportunities for equivocation, starting with the word "is" in "there is a..." In what sense does that world "exist" so that you can say it "is"? In addition that that, it becomes necessary to distinguish between such levels and kinds of possibility as the logical possibility, the metaphysical possibility, the physical possibility, etc. All of which take on controversial aspects - when talking of God NOT creating - in tension with the ACTUAL world that in fact exists: C.S. Lewis noted this difficulty in the Narnia books with his "nobody is ever told what would have happened had they done X [which is different from the Y that they actually did]." Because in a certain way, there is NO SAYING what "would have happened": in order to entertain it, one would ALSO have to posit that God had willed some other created order than this one, and ... who could say what "would" then come to be.

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    10. Tony

      I fully agree that it makes no Sense to say that God's Will is at one time not sufficient and at another time it is sufficient. But that's the Point. God's Will is eternally sufficient hence whatever thé object of His Will may be, it has to be eternal as Well.

      It is rather obvious that had God willed not to create, there would not have been any created reality. The kind of possibility is not relevant here.

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    11. UncommonDecent

      X is reality as a whole, and so is Y.
      So, no I do not try to give 'nothing' existence.


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    12. Unknown

      Change is a nessesary property of reality, so it doesn't need a cause.
      Thé conclusion of thé first way is absurd because it comes down to 'the initial state of reality was immutable'. If that is thé case, there can be no change whatsoever.

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    13. @Walter Van der Acker:

      X is reality as a whole, and so is Y

      Well, for the materialist, "reality" is just, well, a bunch of "atoms".

      And those "atoms" can neither be created, nor destroyed.

      And anything above them is "unreal", a "fiction" that our brains were forced to undergo thanks to "evolution/natural selection".

      So "reality" is in fact (for the materialist), changeless.

      X atoms at t1 and those same X atoms ALWAYS.

      How funny that you accuse the A-Thomist of having a "narrow definition of change based on the actualization of a potency" when, according to your materialist worldview, change CAN NOT happen.

      Fail again.

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    14. UncommonDecent

      I am not a materialist and what you are saying about reality being a bunch of
      atoms isn't true even if materialism were true.
      So, if you have anything substantial
      to add to this discussion,I'll be glad to discuss this with you, but please don't waste my time with another strawman.

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    15. Walter,

      I don't accept that change is a "necessary feature of reality", and, in any case, even modal necessity here would not stop me from insisting it must have a cause (even if the explanations of necessary facts are more complicated than explanations of contingent facts). That's me personally. As I said, you accept the cost of thinking that a potential can become actual without any cause - I cannot accept that. It's self-evidently absurd to me. So I roll with the conclusion of the first way.

      Again, you think that no agent can change something else without itself being changed. I do not accept that - I find it dubious since, as I said, what strikes me as essential in a cause-effect relationship is that the EFFECT is actualized, not that the cause itself undergoes any change in intrinsic properties. And since I accept the first way, I just have to accept the conclusion anyway.

      We'll just change each other's modus ponens into a modus tollens. Further discussion is therefore unfruitful. All I can do is suggest you to reflect more on the idea of a potential changing into actuality without a cause, and what implications it might have, to see that it is absurd and should be more objectionable to you than even the idea that an agent can change others without undergoing change in itself. (And you can suggest that I do the opposite).

      That's just to say that to say "agents cannot change other things without themselves being changed" to a Thomist (or A-T sympathizer) is dialectically quite useless, since every Thomist thinks there is an established counter-example to the idea - the denial of which they find to be far "weirder" than what you may think Pure Act might be

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    16. Unknown

      I don't believe in potentials changing into actualities because I don't believe the distinction between potentiality and actuality makes any Sense at all.

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    17. @Walter Van den Acker:

      I am not a materialist.

      What are you then?
      - an idealist?
      - a dualist?

      There are no more options, pal.

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    18. @Unknown. Good words. The common illustration is a book's ability to change a reader without being changed itself. It can make you laugh one day, cry the next, make you angry the next, and inspire you to change your life the following week. And if this admittedly imperfect illustration is easy to grasp (and it is), it isn't that difficult to imagine the same in an analogous way with respect to God and creation.

      God wasn't playing virtual chess with Himself and then thought, "Hey, I'll make a universe!" We cannot impose upon God our sequential, time-centered mode of thinking. Since God is eternal, His intention to create is eternal. And since He is infinitely perfect, His intention to create is thus infinitely perfect. That's why, to me, all this talk about "possible worlds" is incoherent. There is no possible world where a perfect God would do something less perfectly.

      And since God is eternal, the expanse of creation was always present in the perfect knowledge of Himself. Thus, no real change in Him could have occurred at creation except in a Cambridge sense. At least, that's how I see it. These critics appear to be attacking a position a Thomist doesn't defend. Yes, certain positions are indefensible in part because they're undefended.

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    19. @Walter writes:

      I don't believe in potentials changing into actualities because I don't believe the distinction between potentiality and actuality makes any Sense at all.

      Well, Walter, it's not really that hard. Let's say you're in Dallas. You're actually in Dallas but potentially in Detroit. You are thus in potency to Detroit but in act as to Dallas. Since you have the capacity to move from one point to another, you have two principles of being: act and potency. You must be referring to something else. Please elaborate.

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    20. I fully agree that it makes no Sense to say that God's Will is at one time not sufficient and at another time it is sufficient. But that's the Point. God's Will is eternally sufficient hence whatever thé object of His Will may be, it has to be eternal as Well.

      Walter, I am afraid that you seem to be begging the question here. We agree that God willed to create from all eternity. You infer from this - and the consequent lack of there being any possibility of there being a time precedent where God had not so decided - that such choice is therefore necessary. This begs the question because you have failed to account for whether God's (eternal) choice to create has the character of "necessary" or "contingent", and simply ASSUMED it cannot be contingent if it is an eternal choice. But this is not logically valid. We can agree that God necessarily acts to love himself, from all eternity. The fact that some act is ascribed to him as necessary does not mean ALL his acts are necessary: their character does not arise by reason of their being eternal, but from the manner in which God wills them. It is question begging to simply assume that they must be necessary because they were not made temporally. St. Thomas denies the thesis:

      "Therefore God does not will necessarily whatever He wills."

      And he clarifies: For the divine will has a necessary relation to the divine goodness, since that is its proper object. Hence God wills His own goodness necessarily, even as we will our own happiness necessarily, and as any other faculty has necessary relation to its proper and principal object, for instance the sight to color, since it tends to it by its own nature. But God wills things apart from Himself in so far as they are ordered to His own goodness as their end. Now in willing an end we do not necessarily will things that conduce to it, unless they are such that the end cannot be attained without them; as, we will to take food to preserve life, or to take ship in order to cross the sea. But we do not necessarily will things without which the end is attainable, such as a horse for a journey which we can take on foot, for we can make the journey without one. The same applies to other means. Hence, since the goodness of God is perfect, and can exist without other things inasmuch as no perfection can accrue to Him from them, it follows that His willing things apart from Himself is not absolutely necessary. Yet it can be necessary by supposition, for supposing that He wills a thing, then He is unable not to will it, as His will cannot change. (I Q19 A3)

      Supposing that God has willed this particular world, he cannot will that it be some other world. But he was not determined to will this particular world merely by willing to create, nor was he forced to will to create at all. Past fact does (the world does indeed exist) does not retroactively cause the will to create to have been created necessarily (absolutely), but only suppositionally.

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    21. Walter,

      Then (if I were in your position) I would conclude that there is no change at all, not that it is a "necessary feature of reality". For if there is no distinction between potency and actuality, nothing really is potentially X and then becomes actually X. All there is is a succession of distinct states. And in that case, you shouldn't have a problem with a cause "changing" other things without "itself changing". It wouldn't change, as nothing else changes if there is no potentiality and actuality. The first cause would stand in no potentiality to anything, since you don't think potentiality exists (I take it you think actuality exists, however).

      If you reformulate things so as to maintain some kind of change while still avoiding the act/potency distinction, I think you'll just be reintroducing the act/potency distinction with a different name (the notion is, after all, supposed to be obvious), and my points would stand. If my hair were to turn blue in the next second, however we cash it out metaphysically, this is something that I'm convinced would need a cause. And not merely as a contingent matter, or as some nomological requirement, but a strict, metaphysically necessary requirement. My hair cannot turn blue without a cause which gives it/brings about the new properties. This would be sufficient for a first way type argument and then we can repeat what we'd said all over again.

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    22. Bill,

      I think the analogy is a nice one and I agree with the idea, but I disagree with the rejection of possible worlds.

      Walter is correct in saying that possible worlds are a handy tool to express modal propositions. It's a heuristic device. That's all it is for most philosophers.

      It's unfortunate that Ed seems to have popularized this strange aversion to possible world semantics when his worries can be easily assuaged without having to drop the use of the terms. Which is why a lot of contemporary Aristotelians and Thomists have no problem whatsoever with possible worlds. The problems Ed has talked about has more to do with some issues in modal epistemology than with possible worlds per se.

      To say there is a possible world in which God creates a different universe just is to say that God could have created a different universe, which is certainly accepted by almost every thomist.

      And while I agree with the book analogy, and that a cause need not change in order to produce change in other things, I think it's fair to say that God's actions are rather weird. God could have created another universe, or not created any universe at all, without this involving any change in intrinsic properties in him (only change in extrinsic properties, or Cambridge change). I accept this, and while I don't think it's contradictory, it does seem to me weird. But I think we just have to bite the bullet here. And (what is more interesting), this might in fact also be the case with human beings if libertarian free will is true: us being in the same exact state could cause two (or more) distinct events/actions. Check Alex Pruss's article "On three problems with divine simplicity" (it's available if you google it) for more details

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    23. @Walter

      It seems we agree that libertarian free will does not exist, be in God or in us. The disagreement seems to lie them in our diferent takes on what a free agent is.

      As i said before, i, like St. Thomas, take that a agent is free on the sense that there is not a necessary relation between his object of choice and his will. For instance, i'am free in relation to choosing to write this because my will is not by itself bound to choose it, had some conditions being a little diferent i would choose to do something else. In contrast, i'am not free to choose what i take to be good or not, for a will necessarily seeks what its intelect takes to be good. On the same sense, God is free to create because there is no necessary relation between He having His goodness and this world, but He is not free in choosing His goodness or not.
      (Hope than this language is acurate)

      You and the modal collapse objection seem to pressupose a diferent concept of free will, were a agent on the moment of his choice has not 100% probability to choosing what he does choose. This seems the concept of free will that we see on the nominalists, Duns Scotus, Luther and most modern philosophers, specially Kant. By contrast, i can see some of my reasoning, at least the basis, on thinkers like Plato, St. Augustine, St. Anselm and, you know, Aquinas.

      I admit that i don't think that we can solve this issue easily because it seems to pressupose large disagreements on metaphysics like nominalism vs realism on universals, the nature and object of the will etc. For instance, i take the will to be directed by nature to seek the good but i don't know how if you would see its object as mode indeterminate. No wonder that the modal collapse objection is common today. Since arguments aways pressuposes truths already accepted, we would need A LOT of time before making any progress here.

      But them again, one making the other think deeply on a diferent view is aways cool, so we are not wasting our time.

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    24. @Unknown

      Thank you for your kind words and for your additional thoughts. For the record, I do not reject possible worlds in their proper setting. I just think that when it comes to God, some fundamentals are overlooked which give rise to all kinds of errors, and that’s what I see with respect to creation, change, and the so-called “modal collapse.” I’m still learning the ropes, but once I understood (or thought I understood 😉) the basics of A-T metaphysics, this alleged modal collapse problem became just a, “Really??” with me.

      If God is infinitely perfect, then it follows that what He wills is infinitely perfect. And since God is timeless, His intentions are equally timeless. God never “comes to” think of anything. Thus, His will to create the universe must, by definition, be an infinitely perfect act. From our extremely finite perspective, we can conjure up all kinds of suggestions on what God could have done. But if God is God, He’s been aware of all of our recommendations from eternity, and the fact that He didn’t listen to us is evidence what He thinks of them. As the Bible says, His way is perfect. I am therefore unconvinced that possible world arguments bear any relevance to God’s willing the universe into existence. The route He eternally chose is the perfect way to fulfill His plan. Any other way is by definition less than perfect and cannot, therefore, apply to God.

      And, respectfully, I’m not certain what you mean by “weird.” The metaphysics lead us directly to Pure Act, which of course you accept, and that necessarily grounds contingent being. Perhaps you’re connecting that with free will and how all this talk of necessity makes room for freedom. But as others here have noticed, our conception of freedom doesn’t apply to God. I could write a lot on the topic, but Feser’s distinction between absolute necessity and necessity by supposition (echoed by Geocon here) succinctly answers the question for me. Nothing extrinsic to God determines Him, but the necessity of His essence means that He cannot do what contradicts His essence (nor to even “desire” to do so). He cannot will to be unnecessary and He cannot act imperfectly. We can make all kinds of imperfect decisions, including gross errors. We can also choose among what we think are equally good options but we of course cannot know that whatever we choose will perfectly fulfill our intentions. So, slapping onto God our imperfect “freedom” and thereby judging Him accordingly is to me a monumental error.

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    25. Tony

      I have never claimed that they must be necessary because they were not made temporally. Sure, I do hold that divine simplicity and immutability, together with God's necessary existence would lead to a modal collapse, but that needs additional arguments.
      What I do claim is that they must be eternal because they were not made temporally.

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    26. Talmid

      "At the moment of his choice" is a bit ambiguous, but if under the same circumstances an agent would always make the same choices, we have a modal collapse, because (logically) prior to creation, there can be no "different" circumstances.

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    27. Bill
      The book analogy fails because
      the change is the result of a reaction of the reader but, more importantly, in the case of creation ex nihilo there is nothing that can react.
      That's one of the reasons Aristotle, unlike Aquinas did not believe in creatio ex nihilo.

      And my being "actually in Dallas does not give us the whole picture because even when I do not move an inch, there is still a lot of motion going on inside me.
      I don't deny the reality of potentials, I deny the reality of actualities. Actualities would only exist in the absence of time.

      Unknown

      And that is why I don't say that there is no change at all. There is change and that's all there really is. So, I don't think the states are distinct. They are not.

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    28. @Walter:

      That's precisely what materialism is. An irrational doctrine that, due to its false nature, only leads to absurdities.

      If you are not a materialist, you can only be an idealist or a dualist of some kind. (You are not an A-Thomist for sure). Either way, your account of change as being "a necessary feature of reality" is incoherent. What IS that undergoes change? And why is it "necessary"? Can you offer a reason? (Well, I have read that you are a PSR skeptic, so maybe it's just a "brute fact"?) How can we know that change is not another "illusion" foisted upon us by evolution?

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    29. @Walter, you say that my analogy is false, but I'm merely replying to your insistence that a cause must change with its effect. Thus, the book analogy is a valid.

      With respect to creation, yes, there was nothing at the beginning to "react," but that bears no relevance to God because He knows all things perfectly in His eternal state. Thus, "prior" (there is no prior state in eternity, so this is a logical term) to anything's actualization, God knows and "experiences" it perfectly. It is thus impossible for actualization to have changed anything in God.

      And if you deny actualities, then nothing is real because that's really all that "act" means (what is actual---being). No "thing" can change if there is nothing actual to change. Talk about incoherence! Now, you of course may have your own definition of "act," but that bears no relevance to a Thomist. If you're going to take it upon yourself to rebut Thomism, you have to use their definition, not yours.

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    30. @Walter Van de Acker:

      Is there a "possible world" in which Charles Darwin could have chosen not to write "On The Orgin of Species"?

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    31. Bill,

      It's not about slapping our "imperfect freedom" unto God. It's about God possessing all actuality our freedom involves, without any of the limitation. This makes God's freedom distinct from ours, but not to the point where we shouldn't be able to make proper, non-metaphorical comparisons between our freedom and God's freedom - otherwise we would lose analogy and end up with nothing but equivocal language.

      Thomists (and I believe this might be Catholic dogma, for those who care about that) believe that God could have refrained from creating the world. As in, *really* refrained from creating the world. Which (in possible world semantics) we would say involves there being a possible world in which there is nothing but God, with no universe whatsoever.

      What is "weird" is that, according to the thomist, both in the actual world where God created everything, and in the possible world in which God did not create anything, there is no difference in God's intrinsic properties.

      (If you have a hard time with possible world semantics, just translate it into something like this: God really could have refrained from creating us at any moment, in which case we would have never existed, or ceased to exist. But if God were to have chosen to not create us, there wouldn't have been any difference in God. God creating the world is exactly the same as God NOT creating the world).

      I find this to be quite weird. It implies that you could get 2 distinct effects X Y from the same cause without there being *any* difference whatsoever in the cause when it came to causing either X or Y - sometimes called the "difference principle". I just don't think it's contradictory, and I think we have to just accept it, as in, biting the bullet. At least in my case, since I am more convinced of divine simplicity and of God-possibly-choosing-otherwise (to avoid denying the difference principle, you'd have to either reject God's immutability/simplicity, or reject the idea that God could have done otherwise than he did). So in my case I just find it to be a cost I have to accept (and if I were to become unable to accept it, I think I would just adopt a Leibnizian or Neoplatonic view that God couldn't do otherwise and had to make the world as a result from his goodness)

      Delete
    32. Bill

      If a book were immutable, you wouldn't
      even be aware of its existence, let alone be moved by it in any way. So they book analogy doesn't work.
      It's very simple really, if the initial state of existence is immutable, any change is logically impossible.

      Delete
    33. Talmid,

      If you think God doesn't have libertarian free will, then God couldn't have refrained from creating the world. Libertarian freedom involves the capacity to do otherwise. So that if you choose to do something at any moment, your action was libertarian-free if you really could have chosen to not do it, or to have chosen to do otherwise. The action not being "forced" on you by external conditions is not sufficient for libertarian freedom.

      So if you reject libertarian freedom in God, you either accept that:

      1) The universe, at least in its most basic states, is modally necessary. God could not have refrained from creating. There is no possible world in which God exists alone without any created reality.
      (This is what Leibniz and the Neoplatonists might have thought. But if you're Catholic, I think it contradicts dogma - I think there's something about God having been really capable of not creating, in a libertarian-free sense);

      2) God could have created otherwise only in the sense that there might be an indeterministic, non-volitional act (i.e. something "random"). In which case, God doesn't have libertarian freedom, but he doesn't deterministically cause the universe either - he just randomly creates (or doesn't create) in the way some indeterministic quantum states might occur.
      This is not a popular view and needless to say it is incompatible with Christianity and probably with any sort of theistic providence. It seems God's creation of the world should be something like the result of an intelligent choice, not a coin toss.

      Walter,

      "Change" without act and potency or even distinct states is unintelligible nonsense to me.

      Delete
    34. @Walter, and as others, including Feser, have stated, you misunderstand "immutable." There is no impossibility whatsoever.

      Delete
    35. @Walter Van den Acker:

      If a book were immutable, you wouldn't
      even be aware of its existence


      Well, Walter boy. If everything that existed were "just change" (according to your incoherent worldview), you would not be stable enough to make a judgement about anything, because you would be constantly changing and it would not be possible for you to even write a blog post or follow a chain of reasoning.

      BECAUSE YOU WOULD HAVE UNDERGO SO MANY CHANGES AS TO HAVE DISAPPEARED.

      Look who is talking about "incoherence". Haha.

      Delete
    36. @Unknown,

      You write:

      It's about God possessing all actuality our freedom involves, without any of the limitation.

      Fair enough, but that’s not the definition I’m working with. As I stated, our actuality allows us to make choices that are bad for us and choices that have less than optimal outcomes (due to our finite perspective). For example, let’s say that you’d like to take a vacation with your wife to London and you leave your children with some good friends while you’re away. While in London, you get a call and are informed that your children were killed by a mudslide which destroyed your friends’ home while they were inside. Now, had you known about the mudslide, you wouldn’t have gone to London and your children would not have been killed. Though you are free, you’re capable of making dreadful errors. With God, He sees all of this from eternity and will thus not follow anything that will frustrate His eternal purpose. If we grant arguendo that God is infinitely good and perfect, then as I stated above, it follows that all His acts are infinitely good and perfect. So, even though we can without reservation affirm that God is “free,” we also realize that God’s perfection prevents Him from being less than perfect. I just don’t see any argument from you that undermines that so this will be the last time I raise it unless you directly challenge it.

      Thomists (and I believe this might be Catholic dogma, for those who care about that) believe that God could have refrained from creating the world. As in, *really* refrained from creating the world.

      And though I am not a Catholic, I can say the same thing. If refraining from creating were the most perfect thing to do, then God would most certainly have refrained from creating. And if creating unicorns were the most perfect thing to do, God would have populated the universe with unicorns. So, I can unreservedly grant that without it affecting my argument.

      Thanks for explaining what you mean by “weird,” and I concur that it sounds paradoxical. And though I abjure appeals to mystery as irrational escapism, there is such a thing a principled mysterianism. We have to go where the argument leads us, and if the argument gets us to Pure Act, we don’t have to understand the mechanics of creation. The fact that we may not be able to explain how God creates does not in itself undermine the Five Ways. Thus, an appeal to mystery in that context is not irrational.

      Delete
    37. Bill

      "Immutable" means "impossible to change or be changed".
      I am not misunderstanding anything.
      And the fact that you are unable to even in principle give any sort of account as to how a completely immutable being can affect things or even create completely separate but not really separate realities from absolutely nothing does undermine Aquinas' five ways.
      If the conclusion of an argument is an obvious absurdity, then you should at least be prepared to question the soundness of the argument, instead of calling it a mystery.

      Delete
    38. Anonymous

      Creating from nothing while it is true that ex nihilo nihil fit is unintelligible nonsense to me. And I believe Aristotle would fully agree with me.

      Delete
    39. @Walter writes,

      "Immutable" means "impossible to change or be changed".

      Not quite in the Thomistic sense, and please recall that you’re obligated to work here with the Thomistic definition (to avoid the scarecrow). Immutable is the inability to undergo intrinsic change. The acquiring of accidental Cambridge properties has no bearing on anything in God. Moreover, it does nothing to impeach the conclusion that God is Pure Act. He is purely and intrinsically active (not inactive). Thus, His pure actuality is the very opposite of being immobile in the sense that you appear want to impose upon the argument. And being purely active, God can most certainly effect change without changing Himself.

      And you are most incorrect to assert that the conclusion of a sound argument may be rejected because you’re incapable of understanding the implications of said conclusion. If you question its soundness, fine. We can discuss that. But if the argument is sound, the conclusion follows whether we like it or not. There is no logical contradiction in a purely active cause for contingent being. Thus, the only way that you can validly question the conclusion is to attack the argument. If I say that some pigs have wings, all winged creatures sing, a pig is a creature, therefore, some pigs sing, your attack on the conclusion is misdirected because it deductively follows the premises.

      Finally, there is nothing objectionable with principled mysterianism. It is unprincipled to appeal to mystery when a claim is not demonstrated, but when an argument leads you unavoidably to a conclusion, how the dots are connected thereafter does not affect the argument. Please recall that God is infinite whereas we, including our thoughts and words about God, are almost completely inadequate because we are finite. We can only in a very marginal manner speak accurately of Him—and that via analogy. It is thus to be expected that finite terminology can only get you so far. And given our demonstrable limitations, it is also to be expected that there will be a level of dissatisfaction when it comes to said terminology. That does no violence to its soundness.

      Delete
    40. @Walter Van den Acker:

      "Immutable" means "impossible to change or be changed".

      And where did you get the idea that there is such a thing as "immutability" since, according to your absurd position, all of reality is comprised of "just change"? Mutability-immutability are contrastive positions. You would have had to experience both to make the distinction, but according to you, one of them does not even exist in this world, so claiming knowledge about "immutability" is patently absurd.
        
      The only option available for you would be to have intellectually abstracted the idea of something outside our sense-experienced reality that, by logical necessity, has to exist and be "immutable". But that would be big-G (or "God").

      And first you would have to explain why if everything is "change" (although you can not even offer a coherent definition of what that "change" thingy is), there's an entity (namely you) that has persisted enough time to write several blog posts, spanning several days, using the same persisting keyboard and who is trying to convince his (also) persisting philosophical adversaries, who visit a persisting blog of a persisting philosophy Profesor named Edwar Feser (all of which shows that your starting point has been falsified and refuted by no other than yourself).

      Nice own-goal, Walter.

      If the conclusion of an argument is an obvious absurdity, then you should at least be prepared to question the soundness of the argument.

      You would benefit so much from your own advice, pal. In fact, you do not even have an argument, just a crappy assertion about "there being change and that is all there is".

      Delete
    41. @Walter Van den Acker:

      Look, Walter. If you think that you can come to Profesor Feser's blog, a well-trained Thomist, the inheritor of a philosophical/theological tradition that has been discussed and refined by some of the best minds that have walked this Earth with your half-baked, lame attempts at arguments, you are severely deluded.

      We treat you with the same condescension as a father treats his 3-year-old child wen he tells daddy that he can build a skyrocket and send it to the moon.

      You have not left kindergarten yet. Please, keep playing with your toys and leave the grown-ups alone.

      Delete
    42. @Walter
      @Unknown

      By libertarian freedom i understand a denial of what some call the diference principle when we are dealing with free agents, i don't think that tou can have two situations with the exact same conditions but diferent results. The whole idea is frankly uninteligible to me.

      As i explained on the thread before, i agree with St. Thomas view that a free agent is the one whose will has no necessary relation with his object. Since a rational will is only "locked-up" into goodness them both our and God will have no necessary relation with any created thing, so we are all free in relation to most choices. God is only not free in relation with His goodness and we with the beautific vision. Notice that since these are the proper objects of the wills they are not less but MORE free when in contact with their objects,they are flourishing as what they are and so are more perfect.

      The modal collapse objection pressuposes than a free will has no necessary relation with anything and so could aways choose another thing. Since i deny that the will has no necessary relation with goodness, i deny that God aways choosing the actual world means it is necessary. Since God will do not have this world as his proper object them He ia not bound to create it even if it ia true that if you could have He choose again He would choose the same.

      I know that this of modality is hardly accepted today,but as the normal one seems to lead to a wrong view of free will i don't really care, i guess.

      Delete
    43. Talmid,

      So you accept alternative 1? You think there is no possible world in which there is only God and no universe? You are literally making the universe - at least its basic states - modally necessary.

      Frankly it seems to me like you're confused about modal logic (also, libertarian free will doesn't require a rejection of classical models of "rational freedom" in which there is a determination towards the Good. I have no idea where you got that from, but all that LFW involves is that an agent can choose otherwise in some cases. God's act of creating the world in Catholic theology is, I think, taken to be an act of libertarian free will. And likewise Aquinas seems to think that God's creation of the world came about by libertarian free will. Of course he didn't use the term, but in his view there would be possible worlds in which God exists alone without the universe. This can only be true under LFW, alternative possibilities).

      I just wanna be clear on this. Are you saying that the universe (or creation) is *modally* necessary? It might not have be necessary a se, only ab alio, since it is created by God. But still it would be modally necessary. Is this your view? If God has no LFW, then absolutely this is what it would be - creation could not possibly have failed to exist, and God could never refrain from creating it just as God could never commit an atrocity. (The only way to avoid this without LFW would be option 2, creation as a chancy non-volitional event).

      I don't think this entails modal collapse because further events in the world might still be contingent if you accept indeterministic non-volitional events (such as in quantum mechanics). Or if we or God had LFW with respect to other things (but you don't believe in LFW anyway).
      But if you reject non-volitional indeterminism, then modal collapse does follow through, as the actual world would be the only possible one.

      And again, if you're a Catholic, you might wanna revise the idea of creation being modally necessary. I think it might be dogma that God could (as in, REALLY could) have refrained from creating if so he willed.

      (But if someone thinks Catholic dogma admits of creation being modally necessary, maybe they can elucidate this topic for us)

      Delete
    44. Walter,

      Ex nihilo nihil fit typically refers to the need for proportionate efficient causes, not material causes (and there might be other events with no material cause, not just Creation).

      And if you don't think change has a cause, then you're already rejecting ENNF. If the lack of a material cause is absurd to you, then the lack of both material and efficient causes should be doubly absurd.

      I didn't mean "unintelligible nonsense" as an insult, it's that I really cannot make any sense of "change" without either distinct states or act and potency. If there is something that changes, then there are different states occurring, and the occurrence of different states constitutes change. It also involves act and potency because the different states either effectively (in the actual world) or modally (in other possible worlds) vary from potential-F to actual-F.

      If there are no distinct states then we just have one static state, which is the opposite of change. And this static state would itself be an actual state, and with other potentials mapped across possible worlds.

      Change without act/potency or distinct states really strikes me as unintelligible nonsense.

      Delete
    45. @Unknown

      Reread my posts, dude. What i'am saying is that we should understand God choice of creating this particular world as not necessary because His will is by itself only "forced" to want His goodness and He can have His goodness while not creating this world or any. God goodness is His end and creating this world is a means but a means that is not necessary to get the end, so He could not have choose it. What i'am trying to do is to defend what i take to be St. Thomas implicit view of modal necessity that you see when He deals with God free will and human free will on the ST.

      By contrast, the view of modal necessity that seems to be implicity on the modal collapse objection seems to defend that when the agent chooses he needs to have a certain probability of choosing diferently, if we could make him choose again and again he either would sometimes choose diferently or not have free will. I don't see how that would work at all. Pardon if my view of this idea is wrong.

      So when you ask me if God could have not created i answer: "no if we use your criteria but yes if we use the criteria i'am defending". It can look like a trick to escape a objection, but i would respond that i do think that Aquinas criteria is better.

      Also, check out this comic by a atheist, hardly a defender of classical theism, that seems to understand what i'am trying to say: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/278

      Delete
    46. Walter, your heraclitean non-sense was non-sense 2500 years ago and keeps being non-sense today.

      You are stuck in the past no doubt.

      Delete
    47. Unknown

      I didn't take "unintelligible nonsense" as an insult, it's that I really cannot make any sense of creatio ex nihilo, and the problem is not that I can't make sense of it, the problem is that neither you, nor Feser, not anyone else can actually make sense of it.
      There is no explanation, even in principle, how the prime mover can be a proportionate efficient cause because there is no logical connection whatsoever between the "cause" and the effect. Any attempt to argue for such a connection results in a denial of immutability.

      And, no, denying that change has a cause does not entail rejecting ENNF because I have never claimed change comes from nothing.
      Change may be necessary or it may be an eternal brute fact.
      Whether the "states" vary from potential-F to actual-F or not, depends on whether time is discrete or continuous. If time is continuous, which would mean there is no "smallest" unit of time, there is no real "state", but even if we could say that at time X, the state of the universe is A, it does not mean that it cannot be B at time Y. It would just mean we take a snapshot of a "slice" of time, but since time does not stop at X, this does not correspond to a rteal distinction.

      Also remember that if I tell you your car has a flat tyre and you reply that my car has four flat tyres, that, even if true, does not mean your car has no flat tyre.

      Now, unless you come up with something brand new, I don't think I have anything more to add to the discussion. Thank you for the civic discussion.

      Delete
    48. Bill

      "Immutable is the inability to undergo intrinsic change. The acquiring of accidental Cambridge properties has no bearing on anything in God."
      Cambridge changes are relational changes that are the result of something external changing, e.g. if my son has a child, i will be a grandfather even though I am still the very same person.
      But this cannot apply to creation, since sans creation there is absolutely nothing external to God that He is related to in any way.
      I am well aware that Thomists maintain that God's immutability does not entail immobility, but why would i be "obligated" to accept this?
      If they held that a circle is square, would i also be obligated to accept this. I know how Thomists define things, and in this case, their definition does not make sense.
      I don't question the validity of the argument, I question its soundness, due to the absurdity of its conclusion.
      So, what I am doing is offering a reductio ex absurdum.
      The problem I have with Thomistic mysterianism is precisely that the claim is not demonstrated and leads to absurdities, but that these absurdities are covered under the veil of mysterianism.

      Delete
    49. @Walter Van den Acker:

      I didn't take "unintelligible nonsense" as an insult, it's that I really cannot make any sense of creatio ex nihilo, and the problem is not that I can't make sense of it, the problem is that neither you, nor Feser, not anyone else can actually make sense of it.

      Really? Argument by incredulity? That's all you have got? "I can't make sense of quantum mechanics, therefore quantum mechanics is not real?" Haha.

      Truth is no one can make sense of your unintelligible "account" of "change". Because it amounts to nothing.

      And Profesor Feser (and lots of us) can really make sense of creatio ex nihilo, independently of your bare, ungrounded assertions. Western civilization was built upon it, Walter. Christendom and all that.

      Delete
    50. @Walter:

      The problem I have with Thomistic mysterianism is precisely that the claim is not demonstrated and leads to absurdities, but that these absurdities are covered under the veil of mysterianism.

      That's rich coming from a PSR skeptic. Why are you asking the Thomist for a "reason" to explain "mysterianism"? It's just a "brute fact" of reality and that's all there is to it.

      Delete
    51. @Walter, you write:

      Cambridge changes are relational changes that are the result of something external changing, e.g. if my son has a child, i will be a grandfather even though I am still the very same person. But this cannot apply to creation, since sans creation there is absolutely nothing external to God that He is related to in any way.

      But there is a real relationship from creature to Creator (not, of course, the other way around). What you’re doing is insisting that God must have a real relationship with creatures for a Cambridge property to hold, and that is simply not the case. Some lurker may derisively refer to you as “Billy Bob” which gives you the Cambridge property of “Billy Bob” even though you have no relationship whatsoever with the lurker.

      I am well aware that Thomists maintain that God's immutability does not entail immobility, but why would i be "obligated" to accept this?

      I explained why, so if you want to continue a discussion with me, it would help if you actually paid attention to my words. To repeat, if you want to take it upon yourself to refute Thomism, then you must utilize their terminology in a manner that they would accept (in order to avoid refuting a straw man). If you refute a position they do not hold, then you’re only refuting a scarecrow. If I say that the Thomist position is unintelligible because Time is a magazine, while it is of course true that Time is a magazine, that’s not how a Thomist is defining the term (time) in his argument, so I’m in effect refuting nothing.

      Now, since you earlier stated that Johnson has a point about Thomism affirming a sort of immobility in God and that if a book were immutable, we wouldn’t know about it, you don’t appear to be as aware as you’re making out, especially when you claim that we cannot “even in principle” account how an immutable being can cause an effect. It seems you’re confusing potency with act. Pure potency cannot, “in principle,” effect change because it doesn’t exist. A potency cannot raise itself to act (for it would have to be in act to do so). It thus cannot account for an effect; only something in act has causal efficacy. Thus, anything in act, including Pure Act, is the sufficient ground for creation and/or change. That’s the clear “principle” from the causal argument.

      I don't question the validity of the argument, I question its soundness, due to the absurdity of its conclusion.

      If the argument is valid and the conclusion is truly absurd (like pigs singing), then there is something wrong with the premises. If the conclusion does not follow, then the argument is invalid, so your not questioning its validity means that the conclusion follows in your book. Thus, you’re attacking the wrong part of the argument.

      So, if the argument gets us to Pure Act, the fact that our vantage does not permit access to the mechanics of creation cannot in itself undermine the argument. We can only say that if the ground of contingent being is immutable, then creation cannot mutate the creator, even “in principle.”

      The problem I have with Thomistic mysterianism is precisely that the claim is not demonstrated and leads to absurdities, but that these absurdities are covered under the veil of mysterianism.

      No, that’s not what you’ve been doing here. You are attacking the conclusion while claiming that you’re not attacking the validity of the argument. If you are now pivoting and claim that that the conclusion is not demonstrated, then you need to attack the premises. Good hunting with that since you claim that there is nothing in act to change and that change may be a “brute fact” about reality (whatever that is).

      Delete
    52. Talmid,

      "i'am saying is that we should understand God choice of creating this particular world as not necessary"

      So creation of the world is contingent and not determined. Sounds like libertarian free will.

      "because His will is by itself only "forced" to want His goodness and He can have His goodness while not creating this world or any."

      This is perfectly compatible with libertarian freedom. My own preferred model is one of "rational freedom" in which the will is superdetermined towards the Good (capital G), but given a choice between *finite* or non-determining goods, the will is not necessarily led to them in an irresistible manner, and thus we are then left with a libertarian choice.

      And again what you have described would count as libertarian free will, if God could have done otherwise with respect to creating the world.


      "God goodness is His end and creating this world is a means but a means that is not necessary to get the end, so He could not have choose it."

      In other words: libertarian free will.

      "What i'am trying to do is to defend what i take to be St. Thomas implicit view of modal necessity that you see when He deals with God free will and human free will on the ST."

      I don't know what modal necessity you mean now. It seems clear that Aquinas thinks creation is *not* modally necessary, and is rather an act of libertarian freedom on God's choice. Aquinas does think God necessarily wills and loves himself, but (afaik) also that God doesn't necessarily choose to create the world.

      "By contrast, the view of modal necessity that seems to be implicity on the modal collapse objection seems to defend that when the agent chooses he needs to have a certain probability of choosing diferently, if we could make him choose again and again he either would sometimes choose diferently or not have free will. I don't see how that would work at all. Pardon if my view of this idea is wrong."

      LFW wouldn't require that; what it requires is that the agent can do otherwise. So that if God chose to create W, but there is a possible world in which God chose not to create W, and the choice involves some kind of mental intentionality (as opposed to, say, a coin toss), this choice was libertarian-free.
      Since your position is that God doesn't necessarily create the world, your model IS a model of libertarian free will.
      And what you're referring to is an objection by Van Inwagen. Personally I've never found it persuasive since it seems to beg the question in concluding that a certain proportion of choices is chancy. Why couldn't it have been that one freely chose X n% of times? Indeterministic predictions of our actions don't mean we are just coin tosses either. There are also other problems, see: http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-replay-argument-against-agential.html?m=1

      "So when you ask me if God could have not created i answer: "no if we use your criteria but yes if we use the criteria i'am defending"."

      Now I don't know. There is only one sense of modal necessity here. Which is why I have been using "MODAL necessity" and not "necessity" (a broader category) to avoid confusion.
      All I asked was whether in your view creation was modally necessary. Whether there is a possible world in which God exists alone, no universe, or with another universe. It seems that your answer was that "it is not modally necessary", which would mean that in your view God has libertarian free will (by definition).

      Except if you adopted the option (2) I talked about, but that doesn't seem to be your view.

      You are a libertarian.

      Delete
    53. @Bill:

      If the argument is valid and the conclusion is truly absurd (like pigs singing), then there is something wrong with the premises. If the conclusion does not follow, then the argument is invalid, so your not questioning its validity means that the conclusion follows in your book. Thus, you’re attacking the wrong part of the argument.

      Atheists need a good course in logic. When they abhor God, they abhor reason.

      Delete
    54. Bill

      "But there is a real relationship from creature to Creator".
      That could be true (logically) posterior to creation, but it can't be true (logically) prior to creation because at the "stage" there are no creatures. That's my point. There are no "lurkers".

      "If you want to take it upon yourself to refute Thomism, then you must utilize their terminology in a manner that they would accept"

      But my whole point is that the terminology they accept leads to absurd conclusions.
      That, to me, means the terminology has some serious flaws. I agree "pure potency" cannot account for change, but my point is that "pure act" cannot either. That's why I argue that there is no real distinction between potency and act and that reality is necessarily mutable.
      So, of course I argue that there is something wrong with the premises. What I notice, is that the argument leads to an absurd (even impossible) conclusion and then I look at the premises to see if there is something wrong with those. I don't say, "Well there must be something mysterious so that I can stop my investigation and accept the conclusion because I like it."

      I do not attack the validity of the argument, I attack its soundness.

      Delete
    55. @Walter Van den Acker:

      I don't say, "Well there must be something mysterious so that I can stop my investigation and accept the conclusion because I like it."

      What's the reason for us not to accept absurd conclusions? Maybe it's just a "brute fact" that our cognitive faculties deliver absurd conclusions to us, for no reason whatsoever.

      (Remember that you said that you are a PSR skeptic).

      Delete
    56. @UncommonDescent, you write:

      Atheists need a good course in logic. When they abhor God, they abhor reason.

      Yes, Walter is as confused as ever. At this point, I think he's just digging in his heels because he's not making any sense at all. The principled thing for him to do is acknowledge that he zigged when he should have zagged and either leave it at that or restructure his argument. This is getting tedious.

      Delete
    57. @Walter writes,

      That could be true (logically) posterior to creation, but it can't be true (logically) prior to creation because at the "stage" there are no creatures. That's my point. There are no "lurkers".

      And that is irrelevant because God is eternal. Everything is one eternal now to Him, so He never comes to know anything.

      But my whole point is that the terminology they accept leads to absurd conclusions.

      No, that wasn’t your “whole” point. You asked why you should accept Thomistic terms when I explained myself prior to your asking. You are clearly not reading my posts as carefully as you’d like me to read yours. That’s no unpardonable sin, but the principled thing to do is to simply acknowledge that you were skimming too quickly and misunderstood my point.

      I agree "pure potency" cannot account for change, but my point is that "pure act" cannot either. That's why I argue that there is no real distinction between potency and act and that reality is necessarily mutable.

      Yes, you think that nothing accounts for change (that it is somehow a brute fact), but you’ll dismiss anybody else’s brute facts as unintelligible. To deny that something must be before it can change is confusion twice confounded. By the way, “brute fact” doesn’t account for change either. “Well, it’s just so,” is just so much foot-stomping.

      So, of course I argue that there is something wrong with the premises. What I notice, is that the argument leads to an absurd (even impossible) conclusion and then I look at the premises to see if there is something wrong with those. I don't say, "Well there must be something mysterious so that I can stop my investigation and accept the conclusion because I like it."

      I do not attack the validity of the argument, I attack its soundness.


      And this is nothing but confusion. And at this point, I have to conclude that you’re just digging in your heels because you’re incapable of admitting a simple error. A valid argument is a series of premises which, if true leads us to accept the conclusion as true. If you’re really not questioning the validity of the argument, then you CANNOT question the validity of the conclusion, regardless how “weird” or incomprehensible it is. Thus, you have to locate an inferential mistake in the premises. And for you to mischaracterize what I’ve said about mysterianism as something that I accept because I prefer to is beneath contempt. I clearly stated the difference between principled mysterianism and an unreasonable appeal to mystery.

      And I couldn’t care less what you personally find incomprehensible. As Aquinas stated, there is nothing “in the intellect that was not first in the senses” (De veritate, q. 2 a. 3 arg. 19). Most cosmologists affirm the Big Bang theory. Indeed, as Frank Tipler said, “At this singularity, space and time came into existence; literally nothing existed before the singularity, so, if the Universe originated at such a singularity, we would truly have a creation ex nihilo.” Granted, not every cosmologist subscribes to that, but the idea of creatio ex nihilo is no longer within the domain of Judeo/Christian theology. Moreover, since science depends upon observation (hence, the Aquinas quote), we are without the tools to investigate beyond our space-time dimension. And since The supernatural is beyond our powers of observation, it thus follows that it is also beyond the power of science to explain. We simply do not know what mechanism produced matter if it had a beginning. You thus have no basis to deny what you cannot observe. And the fact that we cannot understand the mechanics of creation does not itself undermine the argument. You are again back to challenging the premises, not the conclusion.

      Delete
    58. @Unknown

      By "libertarian free will" i understand that if you could do the universe replay thing that Peter proposed you either would have option 1 or option 3, Pruss itself says that option 2 being the case would be evidence against LFW,even if he leaves open on the comments the possibility that it would not be a refutation of the view.

      Now, i think that if you could do the replay them you would get option 2 with any agent, be he a creature or God, so it seems that by Pruss classification i'am not a libertarian. Even our boy Walter argues there as he does here that there is only LFW if option 2 is out by using possible worlds language.

      As i explained here, i agree with Walter that LFW is not compatible with option 2, it is just that i prefer St. Thomas view of what a free wil his, so option 2 being the case does not bother me at all. I'am a libertarian in the sense that i do say that God could do something else, but i won't use the name myself because what i mean by the "could choose another thing" is diferent that what the libertarian means.

      Delete
    59. Bill

      I have explained this for than once, but you still don't seem to understand.
      if there is an argument with an impossible conclusion, there has to be something wrong with the argument. That means, the argument is either invalid or unsound or both.
      Now, we both agree that the argument is valid, so, it follows that if the conclusion is truly impossible, one of the premises must be false.
      So, first, I argue for why the conclusion does not make sense, and while you remain unconvinced, you haven't been able to counter my arguments.
      The "Cambridge change" reply fails and I have explained why. That God does not come to know anything is not relevant, what is relevant is that, in order for X to have real relation with Y, both X and Y must exist. A non-existing X cannot have real relations.
      There is much more that can be said about this, e.g. that, in order for a being to create something from nothing, this being must apply a force that it doesn't apply if nothing is created. moreover, this force must become "external" to the creator in some way. All this implies change. The objection that this is not a change because it is somehow an active potency is simply special pleading. It comes down to "God can do something without doing anything" and even if it were acceptable, it would contradict divine simplicity and divine necessity, but I don't know it you believe in those.
      Anyway, it is not about what I personally find incomprehensible, it is about what is nobody can even in principle comprehend, and it is most certainly not about the mechanics of creation because there cannot be any mechanics whatsoever.
      Your claim about Frank Tipler clearly shows your own confusion, because what Frank Tipler does is rejecting ex nihilo nihil fit. If you reject ENNF, you can get creatio ex nihilo, but in that case, the whole argument from motion goes down the drain.

      One last word about mysterianism. You seem to feel insulted by what I said, but all I said was that I don't say, "Well there must be something mysterious so that I can stop my investigation and accept the conclusion because I like it." This does not imply that you accept the conclusion just because you like it. It does imply, however that lots of people do accapet conclusions because they like them.
      If you regard this as a personal insult or a show of contempt toward you, then I sincerely apologize

      Delete
    60. @Walter writes:

      I have explained this for than once, but you still don't seem to understand.

      Then it’s a problem with your explanation, not my ability to understand. You clearly on more than one occasion stated that you’re not questioning the validity of the argument, and that of course means that the conclusion follows the premises. Given that, checking for an argument’s soundness (once the validity test has passed) means that you verify whether the premises are true. Thus, the proper task is to focus on the premises. If that’s what your position has been from the start, then you didn’t need to dig in your heels and keep arguing the point. Don’t tell me you’re not questioning the validity of an argument when you question the conclusion.

      So, first, I argue for why the conclusion does not make sense, and while you remain unconvinced, you haven't been able to counter my arguments.

      Oh, I’ve countered them alright. You keep insisting that being in act cannot account for change or that creatio ex nihilo is impossible. Our reply is that being (to exist) has to account for change for there is no other ground upon which change can occur. Something must “be” in order to change else you’re forced to say that “nothing” is changing. You then appeal to “brute fact” as an account but of course that’s no ground at all. Appealing to a brute fact reduces to foot-stomping, and if that’s a legitimate maneuver, then you have no basis to complain when others stomp as loudly as you. And as to the impossibility of creatio ex nihilo, I’ve already countered that the Big Bang is accepted by most cosmologists and that creation from nothing is no longer the exclusive domain of theism. Moreover, since science is in the position of observation, it is in principle without the means to determine the mechanics of creation if indeed matter was created. The fact that we don’t know how something occurred does not translate into it being impossible to occur.

      The "Cambridge change" reply fails and I have explained why. That God does not come to know anything is not relevant, what is relevant is that, in order for X to have real relation with Y, both X and Y must exist. A non-existing X cannot have real relations.

      First, Thomists do not allege that God has a “real relation” with creation. The real relation is uni-directional from creation to God. Thus, “Creator” is relative to the act of creation which bears no relevance to any change in His essence. Second, since God is eternal, everything is “now” with Him. That’s why God could know Jeremiah before he was formed in conception (Jer. 1:5), and that’s why the lamb was slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). Since God’s decrees are eternal and infallible, there never was a time when creation wasn’t known to God. In that sense, the “experience” of creation is always “now” to God and thus never new.

      You seem to believe that Thomists have God coming up with the idea of creation under an eternal time clock which actualized a potency in God. That’s not at all how I understand it, nor has that been what I’ve argued here. God is always in act and as stated, it is always “now” with Him. It is therefore impossible for there to be a coming to be with Him. As Pure Act, He is always actual, and since He is eternal, His decrees are eternal. We experience time because we are in motion. There is simply no time in God.

      Delete
    61. Talmid,

      If you think there is a possible world in which God exists alone, not creating the universe; or there is a possible world in which God creates a different universe, then YOU EITHER

      1) Are a libertarian;

      2) Think that God causes the world in a random way, the way a coin toss might be thought to work.

      (There is a further option which is to hold that the universe is a brute fact, but that's beside the point).

      It is not that hard. You really can only pick one.

      A libertarian *by definition* is the one that would hold to alternate possibilities such that God could have NOT created the world.

      You could be a non-libertarian and hold that God, of his own internal will, non-libertarian chose to create this universe. As an expression of his own Providential intelligent intention, his own non-libertarian will, and so on.

      But this entails that there is NO possible world in which God exists alone with no universe, or with a different universe. This entails that God could NOT really have refrained from creating. Even if your account were different, your modal space would be roughly the same as Leibniz's, for example.

      So, what is it? There is no ifs or buts here. This is a matter of definitions.

      From what you said about the replay argument, should we then conclude that you think that (at least) the basic states of creation are *modally* necessary? Is that what you're ready to accept, then? Because that is the only possible conclusion if you think God has no libertarian freedom. (Provided you reject that God creates things in a stochastic manner, or that things come about as brute facts. We can rule those out, right? So I don't have to keep repeating them).

      If so, then fine, you're not a libertarian, and you can have your own position. But thinking that creation's basic states are modally necessary involve costs. In particular, since you're a Catholic, I think that position would not be very safe dogmatically speaking - but I could be wrong on that.

      What doesn't make sense is for you to suggest that creation really might not have existed, that it's not modally necessary, AND that God has no libertarian freedom.

      Delete
    62. Bill

      I am afraid we'll have to agree to disagree because nothing you say hete has any relevance to my argument.
      So, thank you for the discussion.

      Delete
    63. @Walter, you write:

      I am afraid we'll have to agree to disagree because nothing you say hete has any relevance to my argument. So, thank you for the discussion.

      Do whatever you wish, but please don’t mischaracterize my statements. You most certainly stated that neither act nor potency is the ground for change and that said ground is a feature of reality as a brute fact (whatever “reality” is).

      You have made unwarranted assertions about Thomism and appear to be either clearly confused over what is being argued or are careless in your reading of my posts.

      For down the road, if you want to rebut a position you oppose, do your dead-level best to adopt it as your own. Learn its arguments to the best of your ability and play devil’s advocate in defending it against all objections. That way, you wont be making assumptions about what others believe and will avoid talking past them.

      And one final thing: Quit trying to save face when you’ve made a clear error. Just own up to it and move on. You’ll get a lot more respect.

      Delete
    64. Bill

      I have never said that "said ground is a feature of reality as a brute fact." So, talking about mischaracterizing a statement.
      So, I haven't made a clear error, you, on the other hand have made several.

      Delete
    65. @Bill:

      And one final thing: Quit trying to save face when you’ve made a clear error. Just own up to it and move on. You’ll get a lot more respect.

      It's pretty clear that Walter does not understand the A-T position regarding change (act/potency division).

      He says it "does not make sense", although he can no point as to why (he offers an argument by incredulity: "I find it absurd, therefore it's not true". He even says some non-sense about "Profesor Feser not being able to grasp it either" (sic). When asked to offer a coherent view of change, he says it's a "necessary" feature of reality. As to why is it "necessary", we receive no explanation. He says that it may also be a "brute fact". And he never explains WHAT is that undergoes change. If it's not a substance, which is a composite of matter and form, and therefore, a mixture of act-potency, then what? We don't get an explanation either.

      And as to this paragraph of him:
      I don't deny the reality of potentials, I deny the reality of actualities.

      Does not that mean that according to him, reality does not exist? Because if it's constituted only by potentials that are never actualized (because he denies the existence of acts), then all of reality is comprised of things that never came to be.

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    66. @UncommonDescent

      Precisely. He just commented that he never said what I attributed to him, but he clearly did (as you quoted). I guess that leaving yourself some wiggle room in his mind justifies a flat denial.

      He clearly thinks that something is real because he affirms “reality,” but he bizarrely denies actualities without realizing that anything real is actual. And if actualities don’t change, then what does—non-actualities??

      And I agree with you that his knowledge of A-T is fundamentally flawed, else he wouldn’t argue the way he does. He continually attempts to impose time into creation in order to demonstrate change in God (which he thinks undermines simplicity). It just doesn’t register with him that it is always “now” with God which renders his objection grossly irrelevant. Of course, he thinks that being eternal is irrelevant because creation must actualize a potential which occasions a new relationship—without feeling the hole he just shot into his foot. And no matter how many times it’s explained to him, he either cannot or will not see it. So, in a sense he’s correct: there’s no point continuing the dialog because he continues to attack a position his opponents do not occupy.

      Delete
    67. Bill

      I would think that if you read UD's comment it would be clear to you that I did not say what you attributed to me.
      You have been attacking straw men, perhaps without realisering it, but anyway, I al leaving this dipscussion, because we are not Hettinga anywhere.

      Delete
    68. @Walter writes,

      I would think that if you read UD's comment it would be clear to you that I did not say what you attributed to me. You have been attacking straw men, perhaps without realisering it, but anyway, I al leaving this dipscussion, because we are not Hettinga anywhere.

      My comment above states:

      You most certainly stated that neither act nor potency is the ground for change and that said ground is a feature of reality as a brute fact (whatever “reality” is).

      And “UD” states,

      It's pretty clear that Walter does not understand the A-T position regarding change (act/potency division).

      He says it "does not make sense", although he can no point as to why (he offers an argument by incredulity: "I find it absurd, therefore it's not true"…When asked to offer a coherent view of change, he says it's a "necessary" feature of reality. As to why is it "necessary", we receive no explanation. He says that it may also be a "brute fact". And he never explains WHAT is that undergoes change.


      If I recall correctly, English is not your mother tongue, so that perhaps explains why you’re imagining a difference between my comment and UD’s. When you’re asked for your view of change and you reply that it is a necessary feature of reality, you are most certainly stating that the ground for change rests in reality’s “necessary feature.” And when you add that it may be a “brute fact,” you are sidestepping an explanation by resting on something that may not be questioned. That’s precisely what I was saying without the wiggle room you left yourself. When you keep insisting that you didn’t say what you clearly said, you make yourself look foolish.

      Reality “IS” which means that it is actual (not non-existent or imaginary) and if change is a feature of reality, then reality has the capacity (potential) to change. There are thus two principles of being for every contingent existence: act and potency. It’s really not hard to see and it’s certainly nowhere close to be being “absurd” as you allege. And if reality isn’t actual (real), then what in the world is it? Indeed, the definition of “actual” is “real.” Thus, your denial of “the reality of any actualities” and your affirmation that there is such a thing as “reality” is a logical contradiction on par with square circles. Talk about absurd!

      Delete
    69. Bill
      I am not going to start this discussion all over again, but you claim that I "most certainly stated that neither act nor potency is the ground for change and that said ground is a feature of reality as a brute fact", while, as you can read in UD's quote that I say it is a either a necessary feature of reality or a brute fact.
      So, I'll give you a free lesson in reading comprehension. When someone says "The ball is either red or blue" has isn't saying that the ball is red.
      And that is not the only straw man you have erected, as I told you, in your last "substantial" reply, there is literally nothing whatsoever that has to do with the points I was actually making, so, there is no point in discussing this with you.

      Delete
    70. @Walter,

      What is this, the third time now that you’ve backed out of the dialog only to keep coming back? You write:

      So, I'll give you a free lesson in reading comprehension. When someone says "The ball is either red or blue" has isn't saying that the ball is red.

      Suggestion: Before you take it upon yourself to offer free lessons on reading comprehension, you should have an adequate grasp of the language you’re referring to first. As I advised you earlier, it’s always best to own up to your mistakes right away. Your continual digging in of your heels makes you look far more foolish than you initially looked when you made the error. And your continual coming back when you’ve twice previously stated that you were finished with the dialog demonstrates an ego that won’t quit.

      Now, you DID NOT say, pursuant to UD’s post, that change is “either a necessary feature of reality or a brute fact.” In the post I quoted, he said, “When asked to offer a coherent view of change, he says it's a ‘necessary’ feature of reality. As to why is it ‘necessary’, we receive no explanation. He says that it may also be a ‘brute fact’.” In other words, change IS a necessary feature of reality (thus, its ground) and when asked why it is necessary, you said it “may” be a brute fact (the necessary feature). If you don’t mean what you say, then perhaps you should say something else.

      Given your last name, I assume that Dutch is your native tongue. If so, then feel free to offer lessons on Dutch. Please stay away from teaching English. You have a very long way to go.

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    71. @Walter:

      How can change be "necessary" if according to you reality does not exist? (It's only potentials that never got actualized!). How can something non-existent change?

      With all due respect, but if you think that you are going to "destroy" Thomism while your arguments lead to such absurdities, then you should re-think your position (you should take your own advice).

      Delete
    72. Bill

      I didn't come back to discuss things, I came hack to educate you, but I realize now I have been wasting my time Top bad for you. If you feel een like throwing in some more insults or erecting more straw men, don't hesitate.

      So long.

      Delete
    73. @Walter:

      Thank God you were "leaving" the discussion. And yet you keep peeking the thread and you keep replying to Bill :)

      As I have mentioned earlier, you have not yet left kindergarten.

      Delete
    74. @Walter, you’ve been wasting your time precisely because you’re trying to deny a clear mistake. You somehow seem to tie acknowledging a simple error with the destruction of your whole system. How else can one explain this madness of denying what your words plainly say? And even if you were successful in showing a distinction, it doesn’t amount to a dime’s worth of difference at the end of the road. A brute fact (unexplainable on a more fundamental level) for change would be a “necessary feature” (unexplained despite being asked) of reality. And since you flatly stated that change is a necessary feature, your additional “could be a brute fact” is one way of explaining why it’s a necessary feature. Perhaps your ESL status causes you to miss simple word definitions. And you’re most welcome for the free English lesson.

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    75. @UncommonDescent, you write:

      With all due respect, but if you think that you are going to "destroy" Thomism while your arguments lead to such absurdities, then you should re-think your position (you should take your own advice).

      Precisely. For some reason, he’s fixated on refuting A-T metaphysics. As you’re probably aware, I don’t often comment on this site, but I regularly visit it to read Ed’s columns and to follow some of the back-and-forth in the comments section. Walter has been here for some time spewing just awful arguments against Thomism, but I’ve ignored him for the most part because it’s clear that he doesn’t understand what he thinks he’s refuting. You know, “let the blind lead the blind” and all that.

      Anybody with half a brain, regardless their disagreement with Aquinas, should know that A-T is a very complex edifice. Given that, a wanna-be critic who has a modicum of integrity would first absorb the system and thoroughly understand it before popping off his mouth. I gave Walter that good advice above, but he appears bent on ignoring it.

      By the way, I like your comments on the other thread about sexual morality, including the links you provided in one post. That was some excellent reading. Thanks much!

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    76. @Bill:

      I think we are agreed in that, if Thomism is going to receive attacks like those of Walter, then Thomism is in no danger at all. He is trying to demolish a cathedral with a humble, blunt fork :)

      This thread has been very pleasant and I am glad that you found useful my comments and links on the "Sex and Metaphysics" one.

      Take care!

      Delete
  12. Johnson has been placed in the intellectual stocks on the public square that is the Internet. Not a pretty place to be.
    One gets the feeling that he may work in an environment that is pretty much an echo chamber, where he rarely hears an adversarial opinion.

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  13. Johnson's criticisms of active potency with respect to God are not as weak as some may think; and there is a bit of equivocation in Aquinas' application of this term to God. For the term is, strictly speaking, applied to creatures and signifies a potentiality for action, as opposed to the same action in act. What's more, this potentiality is perfected by the action itself. In other words, active potency has a passive potency with respect to action in act. Therefore, active potency signifies imperfection requiring something extrinsic to itself to reduce it to perfection. This does not seem to be a fitting attribute of God.

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  14. Hi Ed,

    Until now, I have remained silent in this debate, because I thought Johnson's criticisms of Aquinas seemed to miss the mark somewhat. Nevertheless, he is not as wrong as you make him out to be. I have two specific questions.

    1. You fault Johnson for claiming that Aquinas denies that God has any active potencies. So now I'd like to ask you: does God have any unactualized active potencies? Since you maintain (along with Aquinas) that God is Pure Act, it seems that the only answer you can give is "No." But if all of God's active potencies are actualized, then I think it's a fair paraphrase of Aquinas' position (in laypeople's language) to say that God has no potencies. I think you're being too harsh on Johnson here.

    2. And that brings me to my second point. Do you maintain that God made the universe without having to make any extra decision (e.g. "Let there be light") that He wouldn't have made, had He not created the universe? Putting it another way, do you hold, as Dr. Gavin Kerr does, that God would have had exactly the same intentions in His Mind, regardless of whether He decided to create a universe or not? (I discuss Dr. Kerr's position in a blog article, here: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/window-dressing-or-is-the-god-of-thomistic-classical-theism-as-dumb-as-a-rock/#h )

    I think this is what Johnson is probably getting at when he writes that Aquinas denies that there is any “willful exertion of power” in God. Even though Aquinas declares that “in God there is active power in the highest degree,” He does not maintain that God, in making this world, exerts His will in a new way: according to Aquinas, God doesn't have to think, will or do anything extra at all.

    Now, to say that God the Creator could create us, maintain us in existence and love us, without having to think any extra thoughts or form any extra intentions is, to say the least, a bizarre doctrine. Ed, you're fond of likening God to the author of a story. I ask you: does it even make sense for the author of a story to say, “I could have written a totally different story, or even no story at all, without there being any difference in my intentions”? I put it to you that the answer is a clear and emphatic "No."

    To say that God could still have exactly the same set of intentions in relation to the cosmos and yet not create us is to defy the witness of Scripture itself. For Scripture clearly teaches that God explicitly intended the coming-into-existence of at least some human individuals: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart” (Jeremiah 1:5).

    Thoughts?

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    Replies
    1. "Thoughts?"

      That you cannot make sense of Aquinas does not mean that you have something important to say.

      Same goes for a lot of other "geniuses" posting here, tripping over what they think is philosophy and evading Truth in order to attack the True Church, partially accounted for Truth though you may be.

      Tom Cohoe

      Tom Cohoe

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    2. Tom

      Obviously, you can make sense of Aquinas,so it should be quite e


      Delete
    3. My previous reply was accidently posted before I had completed it.
      What I wanted to say was it should be easy for you to counter all our objections.




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    4. Vincent,

      1. An active potency is not a potency but a form of act. It might sound confusing, sure. I had to be corrected on this myself. But Johnson is guilty of far worse errors (he not only misrepresented Aquinas but some of the Reformed authors he cited against Aquinas).

      2. I don't see how you can say that the answer is "a clear and empathic no." If I intend to do good in a general sense, my intentions do not change even if a change in circumstances causes my actions to change. In an analogous way, when God loves, He wills things into being that are contingent and changing, so even if it might seem like his intentions change with circumstances, He still has the same plan in mind.

      Furthermore, as Edward Feser has pointed out before, Divine Necessity is not incompatible with Divine Freedom. Within Scholasticism, there is a distinction between absolute necessity and necessity by supposition (something that appears in Aquinas's Third Way, for example). For example, it was not absolutely necessary that I write this response to you in the comment section. I could have chosen to write something different or have spent my evening doing something else. However, on the supposition that I am in fact writing it, it is necessary that I am. Similarly, it is not absolutely necessary that God wills to create just the world He has in fact created, but on the supposition that He has willed to create it, it is necessary that He does.

      Vincent, might I add that you repeatedly strawman the Thomistic view of God or at the very least beg the question against it. You've done it before on moral questions, when you claimed that Thomas Aquinas' God was evil and that his moral theory was a form of divine command theory. It's a consistent pattern with you. It's a mistake of a similar nature to Johnson's mistakes.

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    5. I can't counter evasion.

      Tom Cohoe

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    6. Also, I didn't claim to make sense of all of Aquinas.

      Tom Cohoe

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    7. This seems to be going down a path of defending the book Johnson didn't write. There is surely an interesting book to be written critiquing Aquinas, but that doesn't mean it's this book.

      Delete
    8. Tom

      So, your comment just comes down to, "whoever doesn't agree with Aquinas must misunderstand him". A tiny bit of critical thinking may be in place here.

      Delete
    9. ' So, your comment just comes down to, "whoever doesn't agree with Aquinas must misunderstand him" '

      No, it doesn't come down to that.

      Tom Cohoe

      Delete
    10. Hi Mister Geocon,

      Thank you for your reply. I'll confine myself to three points.

      1. You write: "An active potency is not a potency but a form of act." However, Ed writes in his OP: "Hence it is not correct to say that for Aquinas, God “does not have any potencies.” Aquinas insists that God does have active potency. It is only passive potency that he lacks." I respectfully put it to you that your position is at odds with Ed's.

      2. You also write: "If I intend to do good in a general sense, my intentions do not change even if a change in circumstances causes my actions to change." Referring to God, you suggest that "even if it might seem like his intentions change with circumstances, He still has the same plan in mind." A distinction needs to be made here between intention of the means and intention of the end. Only the latter does not change with the circumstances. The ruler of a country may always intend to work for the public good, but when a war, plague or famine breaks out, the ruler's specific intentions regarding the most appropriate means of achieving this good will change. I also put it to you that if God intends nothing more than "to do good in a general sense," then we have no explanation of why He created this world in particular.

      3. You fault me for claiming that Aquinas' moral theory was a form of divine command theory. Judge for yourself. Here's what Aquinas says in S.T. I-II q. 94, art. 5:

      "...[B]y the command of God, death can be inflicted on any man, guilty or innocent, without any injustice whatever. In like manner adultery is intercourse with another’s wife; who is allotted to him by the law emanating from God. Consequently intercourse with any woman, by the command of God, is neither adultery nor fornication. The same applies to theft, which is the taking of another’s property. For whatever is taken by the command of God, to Whom all things belong, is not taken against the will of its owner, whereas it is in this that theft consists. Nor is it only in human things, that whatever is commanded by God is right; but also in natural things, whatever is done by God, is, in some way, natural, as stated in the I:105:6 ad 1," which reads: "Therefore since the order of nature is given to things by God; if He does anything outside this order, it is not against nature."

      Additionally, God can even command a person to take his own life (S.T. II-II, q. 64, art. 5, ad. 4).

      Finally, by the command of God, children could be punished for the sins of their parents, “because they are a possession of their parents, so that their parents are punished also in their person, and because this is for their good lest, should they be spared, they might imitate the sins of their parents" (S.T. II-II, q. 108, art. 4, ad. 3).

      If this is not divine command theory, then I don't know what is. Cheers.

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    11. VJ

      Yer BS has become tiresome. Let me pick one error.

      >Additionally, God can even command a person to take his own life (S.T. II-II, q. 64, art. 5, ad. 4).

      Murder is the unlawful taking of human life. If God orders the taking of a human life by definition it is not unlawful. Murder is unlawful but God cannot in principle command murder because that would be incoherent. It would be like charging Her Majesty with Treason for wearing the Crown and impersonating the Queen Regina. Um HELLO!

      God may give or take life at will and command such. God cannot command what is intrinsically evil. So God could command you kill the Canaanite Children but He could not command you sodomize them to death.

      The burden of proof is on you to show us all killing is intrinsically evil in itself(yeh good luck with that chief) and is being done as a final cause in and of itself.

      Divine Command Theory as understood by post enlightenment heretics is the idea something is intrinsically right or wrong in essence because God commands it. God could under this scheme Command us to hate Him or save the willfully impenitent and damn the truly perfectly penitent. Or God could command us to sodomize Canaanite children to death. Ah NO!

      I'll leave Geocon to correct the rest of yer errors.

      >If this is not divine command theory, then I don't know what is.

      It is likely you committing fallacies of equivocation AGAIN.

      You proof text Aquinas like a Fundie Baptist does the wee KJV. It is so tiresome. Ye did it as an ID wannabe now yer doing it as a skeptic wannabe.

      When are ye gonna straight yerself oot laddie?

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    12. "Finally, by the command of God, children could be punished for the sins of their parents, 'because they are a possession of their parents, so that their parents are punished also in their person, and because this is for their good lest, should they be spared, they might imitate the sins of their parents' (S.T. II-II, q. 108, art. 4, ad. 3)."

      ad 3 is not Aquinas' answer except relative to obj. 3 which is a standard "demonstration" from scripture that God takes vengence on those who do not deserve it. One wonders why you brought Aquinas into it at all, if attacking Aquinas were not an ulterior motive. Kill two birds - God and Aquinas - with one stone?

      Aquinas response to objection 3 answers it in its own terms, and in ad 3 the contradictory basis of objection 3 is already apparent in the contradiction in ad 3 taking objection 3, as I said, in its own terms.

      A punishment of a parent through loss of a child (which others can see as a demonstration), does not entail that the child deserves punishment at all, but ad 3 irrationally justifies the temporal consequences upon the child, of the parent's sin as if as a deserved punishment of the child. This shuts up the idiots, who say "see, even you agree", and who haven't bothered to read the whole article, where Aquinas gives his refined refutation of the horror in objection 3 - ad 3 that satisfies the anti - God folk (and today, the anti -Aquinas folk).

      The actual issue raised in article 4 is "in quos sit vindicta exercenda" and the clear answer given by Aquinas is "in those only who deserve it".

      Now why would anyone actually want to debate with someone with such an obvious ulterior motive?

      So this is not a salvo in a debate. You can say whatever you want.

      Tom Cohoe

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    13. @Tom

      I note the section VJ is kevetching about is titled "Article 4. Whether vengeance should be taken on those who have sinned involuntarily?"

      The whole article wither or not vengeance is ever lawful for us to undertake and under what circumstances. For example not having public authority and acting out of malice toward a wrong doer is unlawful. But the public authority can take vengeance on evil doers as can God Almighty who is the source of all authority. But we don't have God's liberty to take vengeance like he does. There are limits upon us.

      Divine Command Theory tells us something is right or wrong in essence based solely on some volunteerist Command of God not in essence.

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    14. Vincent,

      1- Ed agrees that an active potency is in fact a type of act. It just has this name because we might think of it as something which has "the potential" to do things. But this doesn't mean that when it does something, it undergoes a change in intrinsic properties. This is the heart of the matter: changes in intrinsic properties vs changes in extrinsic properties. Aquinas does not think that a cause (certainly not God) needs to undergo a change in intrinsic properties in order to produce an effect. While one might think this view is strange, to suggest Aquinas has to conclude that God cannot perform actions just because he thinks God undergoes no change in intrinsic properties simply begs the question against Aquinas and gets things confused;

      2- Yeah, the resulting view is indeed a little weird. But not absurd, methinks. It involves a denial of the "difference principle": that a difference in the effects presupposes a difference in the total cause. If you (or someone else) is committed to that principle, then you should probably just conclude either that divine simplicity is false, or that God couldn't have done otherwise (Leibnizian optimism or Neoplatonic emanationism, perhaps? There are some interesting views there). B

      But I thinm Aquinas would have thought that rejecting DS, or rejecting the idea that God could've refrained from creating this world, were both more costly than rejecting the difference principle. And that would be my view as well. So, while a rejection of the difference principle might seem a little weird (to me, at least), it's not something I think is too bad. I think we just gotta deal with it.

      The difference principle doesn't seem to be entailed by either PSR or the principle of proportionate causality. Except if you think there must always be contrastive explanations for different events and that these contrastive explanations themselves involve a difference in the cause - but that in itself is what the difference principle involves, so it would beg the question. And personally I don't buy that view of explanations. I think it's sufficient for a cause to actualize the effect and to pre-contain its perfection/actuality, regardless of whether the explanans/cause necessitates the explanandum or not, or could have accounted for another explanandum without any difference in the cause.

      One interesting thing to point out is that Libertarian Free Will (which I accept) might already be incompatible with the difference principle, and might already be an example of what you're complaining about. So this might not even be limited just to God's actions. LFW proponents would also defend something similar.

      See: http://alexanderpruss.com/papers/On3ProblemsOfDivineSimplicity.html

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    15. @Vicent Torley

      You are right that on St. Thomas view God commands do play a important role on morality, but be more careful. On divine comand theory morality is defined either by God arbitrary commandments or by commandments that are theoretically arbitrary but have their basis on His divine nature. Since St. Thomas takes the good conduct of a person as having his basis on a objective human nature, it is more of a virtue ethics view.

      DCT takes morality as a imposition on us that is right because God says so. On contrast, Aquinas see morality as reflecting our nature and guiding us on fullfiling it. The third quote you used, for instance is from a text were the saint defended that temporal goods can be lost IF this is a means to eternal goods, that better fullfil or nature. This is diferent than saying "God could make having shoes a better goof than loving Him"!

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    16. Hi everyone,

      Several people have objected to my claim that Aquinas espoused a version of Divine Command Theory. I'd like to respond.

      1. There are various versions of Divine Command Theory. Duns Scotus, for instance, held that God could command us to violate commandments 4 to 7 (duties to our neighbor), but not commandments 1 to 3 (duties to God), except for the timing of the Sabbath. (See https://wmpeople.wm.edu/asset/index/cvance/DCT for more details.)

      Ockham took a stronger position, holding that God can command anything which does not involve a contradiction. But as the article I cited above notes, "Ockham says that there is one act that, whenever performed, is ALWAYS
      virtuous and NEVER a sin: Namely, loving God above all things." Thus not even Ockham held that "God could make having shoes a better good than loving Him" (to use Talmid's example).

      2. Aquinas writes (S.T. I q.105, art. 6 ad 1): "Therefore since the order of nature is given to things by God; if He does anything outside this order, it is not against nature." While Aquinas' position on divine commands is less extreme than Ockham's, it's pretty similar to that of Scotus. Readers who think there's a significant difference between them should cite textual evidence.

      3. The passage from Aquinas which I cited in 2. above logically entails that he thinks God could command us to perform unnatural acts such as sodomy, even though Aquinas never says so explicitly.

      4. Son of Ya'Kov writes: "God could command you kill the Canaanite Children but He could not command you sodomize them to death." I'd like a straight answer, please. Imagine an Israelite soldier in Canaan, who encounters a visibly pregnant Canaanite woman. Two questions. First, could God command the soldier to drive a sword through her belly, thereby causing an abortion? (After all, it was you who pointed out that He is the giver and taker of life.) Second, could God order the soldier to take her daughter as his wife, by force if necessary? (Recall Aquinas' statement that "intercourse with any woman, by the command of God, is neither adultery nor fornication" (S.T. I-II q. 94, art. 5). Nothing there about consent.)"

      Are you seriously going to maintain that God could command abortion and rape, but not sodomy?

      5. Tom Cohoe writes that "A punishment of a parent through loss of a child ... does not entail that the child deserves punishment at all." I agree; but nowhere did I maintain that it did. What's objectionable is that Aquinas regards children as "a possession of their parents" (S.T. I-II q. 108, art. 4, ad. 3).

      6. Unknown, I'll reply to your philosophical points later. Cheers.

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    17. @ Son of Ya'Kov

      Thanks for the reply.

      I am not a trained theologian and have been told that I am too nasty to be a philosopher. Therefore my thinking is idiosyncratic and it probably is not even very good. It did, however, lead me from hopeless Protestant agnosticism into the Catholic Church after reading the Summa, so it can't be completely bad. Right?

      Now you are definitely correct in that the article in question is about vengeance, but is the article heading, "Whether vengeance should be taken on those who have sinned involuntarily?", a heading written by Aquinas? I don't think so because in my side by side Latin - English Summa the heading appears in English only. Would the translator be so arrogant as to substitute his translation at this spot and leave out Aquinas' original Latin? I doubt it and so conclude that it is probable that Aquinas did not write a heading here.

      To find Aquinas actual name for the article, we have to look to the beginning of Question 108. Here, his words directed to the article are, "Quarto, in quos sit vindicta exercenda." I translate this as "Fourth, on whom should vengeance be taken?", which is the same as the translator (Fr. Laurence Shapcote, O. P. of the English Dominican Province). Now would the translator back translate all these organizational notes, which appear throughout the Summa, into Latin? Doesn't seem likely to me. It would be a little dishonest or pretentious of him to have made this all up, so I take these organizational notes to be authentic.

      Note that "On whom should vengeance be taken?" is differently nuanced from "Whether vengeance should be taken on those who have sinned involuntarily?". I take Aquinas' answer to be that vengeance should only be taken upon those who deserve it, contra Vincent Torley's assertion that God commands vengeance be taken upon the innocent, which misreads ad 3.

      It is complex to completely justify my reasoning here, but I take it that in ad 3, Aquinas was being wry. It is very clear that vengeance is not to be taken upon the innocent, not by us as virtuous behavior, nor has it been done by God in the past, nor will it in future. Those who hold that deaths of the innocent of the form we today call "acts of God" are God's vengeance will not agree, of course. This type of person has always been with us, and I think that in ad 3 Aquinas has teased them.

      You may not agree. I actually can say a lot more to justify my reading here, but am out of time. Just ask if you want more.

      Thanks again for your greatly appreciated reply.

      Tom Cohoe

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    18. VJ

      Again with yer fallacies of equivocation. You asked for it mate. I AM GOING THE FULL SCOTTISH!!!! Using my extensive knowledge of Judaism to boot. You have been hanging oot with the Gnus to long VJ. Yer picking up their bad habits and more stunted lolcow arguments.

      Murder is the unlawful taking of human life. Abortion is a term we use for murdering a wee one in his mother's womb. Suicide is self murder. All unlawful taking of human life is murder. God ordering the taking of any human life or doing it directly is nor murder.

      According to Jewish Tradition Moses & Joshua sent heralds to the cities that where under the Haraam ban and any who did not flee where subject to being killed. There is no practical way for God to order an abortion in the 11th to 15th century BC. So a soldier would simply kill the Canaanite woman and her death would sort oot the wee babe. There is no such thing as a woman who is carrying a Canaanite Baby and is nor a Canaanite.
      Anyway assuming this hypothetical woman was dumb enough to stay in the city and nor leave and be spared. That is how she will be done. After all the Canaanites where not wiped out so one can assume they fled for the most part.

      > Second, could God order the soldier to take her daughter as his wife, by force if necessary?

      Jewish Tradition says "A woman of age is acquired in marriage by her consent and not without-Kiddushin 2a-b. Only her Father can give her in marriage while underage without taking her choice into consideration but Rabbi Judah the Prince said marrying yer under age children to satisfy someone's evil lust merits yer name being blotted oot of the Book of Life. Also marriage to a Gentile is forbidden unless she converts. Having public sexual intercourse with a gentile woman in the OT Israelite Commonwealth merits summery execution. So God cannot command rape.

      >(Recall Aquinas' statement that "intercourse with any woman, by the command of God, is neither adultery nor fornication" (S.T. I-II q. 94, art. 5). Nothing there about consent.)"

      Which would apply to a Man sleeping with his brother widow to give her male children who would be counted his brother's son without the living brother formally marrying her. Note she can refuse to bed him and he can refuse to bed her after a ceremony where she rips off his shoes and spits on him saying "This is how one ought to be treated who does not let his brother's name live in Israel".

      Rape is intrinsically evil and can never be commanded.

      >Are you seriously going to maintain that God could command abortion and rape, but not sodomy?

      Well Mr. Equivocates all over the place (clean that up young man!) God cannot in principle command murder. Since any life He takes it is lawful for him to do so. Abortion is not forbidden you silly sod. Murdering little persons in the womb is forbidden!
      No God cannot command rape. Marrying an underage woman threw intercourse may make a valid legal Jewish marriage but Jewish Tradition says the girl's father will go to Hell for giving her to a man in marriage under those circumstances. Like if I convince mad Bishop Vigano to consecrate my 17 year old boi a bishop. He would validly be a Bishop but both Vigano and I could go to Hell for sacrilege.


      Adult women must give their consent and God's command is not understood to be absolute here.

      So yer full of shite. I'll leave others to correct yer other mistakes.

      My original argument stands and yer neo-Gnu nonsense gets booted to the ground Scottish style.

      ALBA GU BRAH!!! BARUCH HASHEM!

      That just happened! Yeh!

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    19. @Tom

      >You may not agree.

      I would not disagree. Yer reading seems plausible too. If not more plausible then mine. Cheers.

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    20. Hi Tom Cohoe,

      For the record, Aquinas declares in S.T. I-II q. 108 art. 4 ("I answer that..."): "punishment may be considered as a medicine, not only healing the past sin, but also preserving from future sin, or conducing to some good, and in this way a person is sometimes punished without any fault of his own, yet not without cause." Considered in this way, it seems Aquinas thought infants could be justly punished by God, even though they were blameless. Such a punishment might include pain or death. Hence it seems that according to Aquinas, God could command someone to cause an infant to suffer or die. Naturally, I disagree. And don't forget, Aquinas holds that all human life belongs to God. He is therefore free to dispose of it as He wills.

      Anyway, I'm going to do you a little favor, even though I personally find your interpretation of Aquinas somewhat idiosyncratic. Here's a link to all of Aquinas' works in Latin and English, which I think you'll enjoy:

      https://web.archive.org/web/20190417065821/https://dhspriory.org/thomas/

      Use it well. Cheers.

      Son of Ya'Kov,

      You did not answer my question squarely. You defined abortion as murder in the womb, and murder as the unlawful taking of human life. Since Aquinas regarded anything commanded by God as lawful, then it is trivially true that on this definition, God could not command abortion.

      However, abortion is normally defined as the intentional taking of human life in the womb. According to this definition, God could indeed command an abortion, according to Aquinas, since all human life (on Aquinas' view) belongs to God.

      Regarding rape: you argue that according to Jewish law, only a girl's father can give her in marriage while she is underage, without taking her choice into consideration. But surely God (according to Aquinas) is not bound by the father's consent. Hence if God commands a man to take a girl as his wife without her father's consent, then by Aquinas' logic, the man is not bound to seek that consent, either.

      It seems that you have don't have a leg to stand on. Aquinas' ethical views are deficient and need supplementation. Cheers.

      Hi Unknown,

      Thanks for your link to Pruss's article at http://alexanderpruss.com/papers/On3ProblemsOfDivineSimplicity.html

      Pruss's first problem doesn't bother me, but the other two do. Pruss attempts to argue that God's willing one thing rather than another is not an intrinsic property of His, because at the moment when a libertarian free agent decides between two options (A or B), its intrinsic properties are the same, regardless of whether it chooses A or B. I'm afraid I have to respectfully disagree with Pruss on this point. A decision (A or B) is itself an intrinsic state, and at the moment of the agent's decision, its state must be either A or B.

      Re God's beliefs, Pruss attempts to externalize them by locating them in God's acts of causation. I find this unsatisfactory, because an omniscient Being should also be able to correctly answer any question we pose about the world, and open-ended, non-deterministic causation doesn't give God a means to do so, just as my giving someone some money doesn't enable me to answer questions about how they spent it. Cheers.

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    21. @ Son of Ya'Kov,

      Vincent Torley says, based on ad 3, that he "maintains" blah - blah - blah. He thinks that what he maintains is important, even though he does not understand that ad 3 is mockery. How could his thought be important if it is based on what he doesn't understand?

      Mockery often takes the form of saying an extreme form of what is being mocked, even though it is extremely the opposite of what the mocker actually thinks. Aquinas mockery is subtle and humorous.

      First , does Aquinas ever say the opposite of what he thinks? In Part 1, Question 46, Article 1, in his I ANSWER THAT [IAT], where he proves what the article is about, his first line is "Nothing except God [i.e. - not creation] can be eternal" and the reasoning that follows is not based on scripture ("eternal" here means without a first or last moment in time). This seems to contradict his famous position that it cannot be proven by natural theology that creation is not eternal. In fact, the very first line of the IAT in the very next article is, "By faith alone do we hold, and by no demonstration can it be proved, that the world did not always exist [...]".

      So is Aquinas so dumb that he cannot even avoid contradicting himself in adjacent articles, or must a little sublety be applied to make sense of his words? I say that some subtlety is needed. Subtlety that the Victor Torley's of the world do not use when they "maintain" that "Aquinas says, therefore blah - blah - blah".

      In the same Question 46, Article 1, IAT, Aquinas gives an example of how Aristotle responded _relatively_ to assertions of Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and Plato, not by saying what he (Aristotle) thought, but by assuming their premises and showing from them that what they thought was "quite impossible". This is what Aquinas is doing in the ad 3 under discussion, and in Question 46, Article 1, he shows that Aristotle has done the same thing. In modern terms we would call it _reduction to absurdity_. The Victor Torleys of the world miss this and assert crudely drawn conclusions instead.

      It is as if Bogart of antiquity said "4=3" and I said in response, "Sure, and subtracting 3 from each side we get "1=0". Therefore 1 man is 0 men" and then a Vincent Torley said, "Do you see that? Tom thinks one man is the same as no men! How ridiculous, therefore Tom blah - blah - blah". Well he would be right that "one man is the same as no men" is ridiculous, but he would be wrong that it is what Tom thinks, because he has failed to grasp that he has read a reduction to absurdity, and at that point he is utterly at sea about what Tom thinks.

      The apparent contradiction in what Aquinas holds about whether or not the finite duration of creation can be proven by reasoning not based on faith similarly requires subtlety beyond what the Victor Torleys of the world are willing to bring to bear. Pride leads them to attempt a take down of Aquinas, who is not here to defend himself, which crude thinking allows them to seem to do.

      I guess that's probably too much, so I will end here.

      Tom Cohoe

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    22. VJ yer BS is nor convincing and reads like Gnu nonsense.

      >You did not answer my question squarely.

      No I answered it correctly by disregarding yer strawman bs and base sophistry.

      >You defined abortion as murder in the womb, and murder as the unlawful taking of human life. Since Aquinas regarded anything commanded by God as lawful, then it is trivially true that on this definition, God could not command abortion.

      Yes, it is not hard. God could not likely order an Abortion anymore than He could command a mutilation IMHO. I know some Traditional Thomists who might not agree with me on that point? It is moot since God could only order a Haraam command by public divine revelation and since all public revelation ends with the Death of the Last Apostle John such a command is not coming anytime soon. Private Revelations cannot make such commands as they cannot add to doctrine. Oh well! Too bad so sad!

      >However, abortion is normally defined as the intentional taking of human life in the womb.

      That is its only true definition. Read a book.

      >According to this definition, God could indeed command an abortion, according to Aquinas, since all human life (on Aquinas' view) belongs to God.

      A Traditional Thomist Philosopher I know(not Feser) might agree but I don't because even when it was theorized a fetus didn't get it's soul until later in time Abortion was forbidden because it expressed a homicidal will and it does mutilate a woman which is forbidden.

      >Regarding rape: you argue that according to Jewish law, only a girl's father can give her in marriage while she is underage, without taking her choice into consideration.

      That would make it a valid marriage just as if I took my newborn and newly baptized Son to a loony toon Rogue Bishop I could make the bairn a valid wee Priest or Bishop. It would be sacrilege to do so and the Talmud says "those who play with Children"(i.e. pedos and people who marry kids) delay the coming of the Messiah and merit death at God hand during a flood.

      But acknowledging a valid sacrament is taking place doesn't mean God approves? Moses was told by God to strike a rock to give water to the Israel. So he did it. Later God told him to ask the rock for water. Moses struck it instead. Water still came out except God told Moses he could not enter the Holy Land for disobeying him. Valid sacraments vs illicit use. Look it up.

      > But surely God (according to Aquinas) is not bound by the father's consent.

      All the Father's consent does is make it a valid Jewish marriage. It doesn't make it a good thing. Just as my consent to let my wee babe boi recieve ordination as a babe allows for this. Moses consent to hit the rock when he should have been running his mouth like God told him to do is another example.

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    23. Part II
      VJ are you oblivious to the fact both Judaism and Catholicism believe in the concepts of valid but irregular or illicit givings of sacraments and or mizvot? Obviously you are anyway nowhere does Aquinas ever say God could command Rape. God can authorize sex which negates the sins of adultery or fornication but Rape is a different thing. I can commit Fornication or Adultery without raping my hypothetical lady lover.

      Or do ye not get that? What is wrong with you?

      > Hence if God commands a man to take a girl as his wife without her father's consent, then by Aquinas' logic, the man is not bound to seek that consent, either.

      Meaningless hypothetical. God cannot command rape anymore than He can command Sodomy. God can under the OT allow you to bonk yer brother's widow (wither yer married or nor) to give her male heirs (she can refuse you and you her) and it is not Adultery or Fornication but the citation you gave from Aquinas nowhere says God can command you to force sex on a woman against her will.

      >It seems that you have don't have a leg to stand on. Aquinas' ethical views are deficient and need supplementation. Cheers.

      Yer taking about yerself son. Aquinas nowhere in any of his writings says God can command what is intrinsically evil. Fornication is the unlawful having of sex with someone yer nor married too.
      It is a sin that requires consent of both parties otherwise it is rape. Same with adultery.

      I am afraid it is yer novelty here that has no leg to stand on. Not even the third one.;-) (Not that I expect ye to be standing on yer third leg. Yer only an Australian nor a Scotsmen. Just saying laddie).

      Cheers.

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    24. Vincent,

      The problem with your response to the libertarian free will issue is that it seems to lead to a regress. If the "decision" for A is already an intrinsic property in the subject, how did this intrinsic property come about? If it came about by means of libertarian freedom, we'll eventually need a state in which the very same intrinsic properties can bring about either A or B. Is this clear? I think it's hard to avoid this, which is why I think that libertarian freedom (which many accept - at least I do) furnishes a neat counter-example here.

      Moreover, keep in mind that even if this didn't work, it wouldn't establish the difference principle. As I said, while I do think the Difference Principle being false might seem a little weird, it doesn't strike me as absurd. And it cannot be shown to be entailed by PSR except if one begs the question by assuming contrastive explanations that must work in accordance with the difference principle. I'm just not convinced of that. I think the costs of denying Divine Simplicity and God's possibility of choosing otherwise outweigh the costs of denying the Difference Principle. This is enough for us to make a "Moorean shift" to avoid the argument.

      Re: God's knowledge, that's a different issue, but I'm not sure I understand your objection. Does it involve God being able to predict the future result of indeterministic events? If this were impossible, then it wouldn't be a limitation on God's knowledge, since there would be nothing to know (and thus we'd have to accept Open Theism). God should be able to answer *meaningful questions* about the world, not questions which admit of no answer.

      But without taking the Open Theism route, I think this problem doesn't affect externalism specifically. It might still be there even if knowledge were to involve change in intrinsic properties in God - and if you think there's no problem there, then neither should you think anything changes if God's knowledge is externalist.
      (I am not sure myself of what to make of foreknowledge of future contingents. Without Open Theism, but one might adopt Moving Spotlight - for A theory - or Eternalist - for B theory -theories of time to solve it. Or perhaps something in the vicinity of Molinism, if coherent)

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    25. unknown

      "If it came about by means of libertarian freedom, we'll eventually need a state in which the very same intrinsic properties can bring about either A or B."
      This is exactly why libertarian freedom is a problem because this illustrates how a libertarian "choice" is not the result of a decision.
      There may be an initial state in which our initial properties can bring about a or B, but then, in order for free will to make any sense, we'll still have to decide on A if we want A.
      otherwise, we are not in any way responsible for our choice.

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    26. @ Vincent Torley,

      Thanks for the interesting link.

      You are reading Aquinas with hostile prejudice towards him. In your quotation, actually, punishment=medicine, i.e., something that is usually considered to be for the good of the person so "punished". That you choose to read it as an evil act is why I don't want to debate you about it, just the way I wouldn't want to debate a conspiracy theorist.

      So, thanks again, but what I will do is pray for you, and I say that as someone who may well be more sinful than you.

      Tom Cohoe

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    27. @Tom

      VJ has been for as long as I have seen him post here a bit of a sophist.

      VJ writes:
      "Aquinas' statement that "intercourse with any woman, by the command of God, is neither adultery nor fornication" (S.T. I-II q. 94, art. 5). Nothing there about consent.)"

      Yeh Fornication and Adultery are sins by which one unlawfully has sex with a woman outside of what is lawfully permitted by marriage(BTW Jewish Tradition and natural reason prohibit marital rape..ie.forcing yer wife against her will to have sex).

      There is nothing in this text regarding the sin of rape. In theory like I said any one of us can commit these sins without forcing a woman against her will and being guilty of the sin of rape.

      The point Aquinas is making is if the sex is lawful because God authorized it then the conditions for the act to be a sin is removed. In the cases of the OT where God authorizes unconventional sex all involve marriage and reproduction.

      A man sleeps with his brother's widow at God's authorization to give him sons in his brother's name (the boi would count their late biological uncle as their father). Or God tells a Prophet to marry a whore(which is normally forbidden to a pious Jewish Male or Priest) etc...

      But in all those cases consent is implied. Nowhere does Aquinas say a man may force a woman he is allowed to have sex with. Such an act would at minimum be unreasonable ergo sinful and should be forbidden in civil law.

      Jewish Law already forbids it long before Christian countries did in the late 70's.

      Some things in natural law can be by passed by the Command of God because of nature. God owns everything so God can tell you to take yer neighbor's stuff since the matter that makes it up belongs to God and God sustains it in existence. All things are owned by Him.

      God can authorize acts of consensual natural sex. But God cannot command what is intrinsically evil. God cannot make evil a final cause because of His Divine Goodness. So God has no obligations to us not being a moral agent like us but as Fr. Brian Davies said that does not mean God can do what He wants to us.

      VJ doesn't get that. Aquinas' moral theory needs no revision. BTW God telling you to "steal" or "Kill Canaanites even the innocent women and children" or marry whores or bonk yer Brother's widow etc can only be authorized by public divine revelation.

      Since the death of St John there will be no such revelations till the Second Coming.

      Cheers.

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    28. @ Son of Ya'Kov,

      Absolutely, and I don't think we are in contradiction, we just start from different points. You begin with God's law and I begin with Victor's specific readings of Aquinas where Victor takes out of it what he chooses aforethought rather than what Aquinas is actually intending to say.

      It is enough to make a Cameron (my Grandad) weep.

      Tom Cohoe

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    29. Hi Son of Ya'Kov,

      My argument that Aquinas would have held that God could authorize rape and abortion follows from premises he accepts:

      1. All human beings belong to God, as His property (S.T. I q. 94, art. 5).

      2. God has no duties towards any human being. He owes us nothing.

      3. Since the order of nature is given to things by God, if God does anything outside this order, it is not against nature. (S.T. I, q. 105, art 6, ad. 1). Whatever God does is natural.

      4. A human being who is obeying a command of God has no duties towards his fellow human beings which could nullify that command. Our obligation to obey God's commands takes precedence over all other obligations.

      From these four premises, all of which Aquinas would accept, it follows that: (a) on his view, God could conceivably command a man to have sex with a woman, with or without her consent, and that if He did so, He would not be violating any obligations towards her (since He has none); and (b) the man would then be obligated to obey God's command, and in so doing, He would not be doing anything wrong.

      For the same reason, it seems that on Aquinas' view, God could command a woman to have an abortion.

      Now do you see why I maintain that there's a giant hole in Aquinas' ethical system? The point is that if you accept premises 1, 2, 3 and 4, then you get ethically unpalatable results. I don't accept those premises. No true natural law theorist would accept them either. Cheers.

      Anonymous,

      You maintain that my account of free choice generates a regress:

      "If the 'decision' for A is already an intrinsic property in the subject, how did this intrinsic property come about? If it came about by means of libertarian freedom, we'll eventually need a state in which the very same intrinsic properties can bring about either A or B."

      You're making an assumption here. You're assuming that our free decisions have efficient causes. That's precisely what I deny. They have final causes, but no efficient causes. Nothing brings them about - not even an indeterminate cause. That does not make our decisions "brute facts"; rather, it simply means that we can't meaningfully ask what produced them, but only what they are for.

      Also, your view of God's simplicity redefines the proposition "God is omniscient" to mean that "God causes (but does not determine) every state of affairs." Such an account of omniscience makes God as dumb as a rock. Merely causing a state of affairs doesn't yield knowledge of that state of affairs - especially when the causal nexus is a non-deterministic one. Knowledge is something that requires justification.

      Let's say that I'm the captain of a high-tech boat, which is continuously supplying light, heat and oxygen to a diver named Mike who is exploring the sea bed. Moment to moment, Mike depends on me for his survival. Nevertheless, he is perfectly free to go where he pleases. Moreover, during his dive, he doesn't send any signals back to me about where he has gone.

      Now suppose that Mike is diving, and I claim to know he has gone north-west. The crew members ask me, "How do you know that?", and I answer, "I'm keeping Mike alive, moment to moment." The crew members could fairly retort that such an open-ended relationship yields no information about Mike's choices, so I cannot claim to know where Mike is. I think God's causal relationship to us no more gives Him any warrant to know our choices from causing us to be than the captain's relationship to Mike does, as his life-support provider. That's why I think God can only know what we're up to by getting feedback from us. We can make an impression on His thoughts (not His essence).

      Finally, the Church's dogmatic pronouncements do not rule out the possibility of God having accidents, such as thoughts about us. All the Church says is that God's essence is simple. Cheers.

      Delete
    30. VJ

      More Sophistry boarding on gibberish. I actually feel personally disrespected.

      >My argument that Aquinas would have held that God could authorize rape and abortion follows from premises he accepts:

      >1. All human beings belong to God, as His property (S.T. I q. 94, art. 5).

      So what? God still cannot make what is intrinsically evil a final cause. Rape is intrinsically evil as is the sin of mutilation. For yer argument to succeed you need to show Rape and mutilation are merely extrinsically evil and not intrinsically evil. Unauthorized sex is intrinsically evil which is what constitutes Fornication and Adultery. Too bad so sad. Rape is violence in which one takes pleasure in forcing sex upon their victim for purposes of control & or humiliation. How can God directly command that? He can't anymore than He can command we torture babies for fun as Davies says.


      >2. God has no duties towards any human being. He owes us nothing.

      Which means God can passively allow a wicked rational being to commit the sin of rape against a victim and God is not required to intervene to stop it but God's Justice would still hold the rapists actions against 'em as sin. God could never command it. Only allow it.

      Yer dishonest sophistry does not move me VJ. I assume you are trying to channel Davies? Well what sir do you do with both Davies and Aquinas' assertion God cannot make evil a final cause? How is rape not intrinsically evil? How is rape merely extrinsically evil like killing in general or war in general? Well?

      https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1049.htm#article2

      >3. Since the order of nature is given to things by God, if God does anything outside this order, it is not against nature. (S.T. I, q. 105, art 6, ad. 1). Whatever God does is natural.

      Yer dishonest proof texting is tedious sir. Did you read yer own citation? I did. QUOTE" "God acts against the wonted course of nature, but by no means does He act against the supreme law; because He does not act against Himself." Which is what God would do if He willed evil as a final cause and or command creatures do what is intrinsically evil. Nice try but EPIC FAIL!

      I am sorry VJ but S.T. I, q. 105, art 6, ad. 1 etc is talking about how God can perform supernatural acts and cause things to act outside their natural powers. Like God causing a Bush to burn in front of Moses without the fire consuming it. It nowhere is telling us God can make Evil a final cause or command what is intrinsically evil.

      Delete
    31. Part II
      >4. A human being who is obeying a command of God has no duties towards his fellow human beings which could nullify that command. Our obligation to obey God's commands takes precedence over all other obligations.

      Except God cannot command what is evil in itself anymore than God can command me to make 2+2 really equal 5. Again yer sophistry is tedious as is yer incoherence. This is no better than a "Do you still beat yer wife" fallacy except I expected better from a man of your education.

      >From these four premises, all of which Aquinas would accept,

      Sorry but he would point out God cannot command what is intrinsically evil and nowhere has he argued rape is not intrinsically evil. Also he would point out premise 3 is not justified by yer citation as the subject matter is God causing the effects of natural phenomena to act outside of nature. Not command rational beings act contrary to their moral nature.

      > it follows that: (a) on his view, God could conceivably command a man to have sex with a woman,.....without her consent,

      You haven't even come close and it is clear you didn't read (S.T. I, q. 105, art 6, ad. 1) you are proof texting it and a text without a context is a pretext. Yer no better than the wee Jehovah Witness who comes to me door citing "The Father is greater than I" to "disprove" the Deity of Christ to me.

      Do better than this shite argument. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU! Geez no better than a Gnu. VJ if ye gonna fall from the faith into skepticism at least don't embrace the moron wing of the Gnu Atheist movement.

      Yer better than that. At least I thought you where...
      .

      >For the same reason, it seems that on Aquinas' view, God could command a woman to have an abortion.

      No he cannot command she mutilate herself.

      >Now do you see why I maintain that there's a giant hole in Aquinas' ethical system?

      No I see you using sophistry not only to beat this dead horse but the wrong dead horse. Which is not the first time for you buddy. We need only read yer arguments on ID with Feser where he gave you a booting to the ground. Ye haven't learned laddie.

      Delete
    32. @Vicent Torley

      "Finally, the Church's dogmatic pronouncements do not rule out the possibility of God having accidents, such as thoughts about us. All the Church says is that God's essence is simple. Cheers."

      Do you have some good resource on that? That is a interesting position that i heard before but admit that i don't know the answer.

      Delete
    33. Vincent,

      "You're assuming that our free decisions have efficient causes. That's precisely what I deny. They have final causes, but no efficient causes."

      Indeed, I am making this assumption. I thought you did, too.
      Basically, I just find it utterly insane and unacceptable to suggest that our free actions, or our free choices, have no efficient causes. You might say this isn't a brute fact, but on the face of it it absolutely is a brute fact, and is the case of a potential becoming actual without anything to properly actualize it. In fact, if we're not ultimately the efficient causes of our chosen actions, then I cannot see how we could even possibly be free, how we could truly be responsible for what we're doing. On top of the metaphysical absurdity of contingent actions without efficient explanations (there must be a "how did they come about?" and not just a "for what purpose?")

      You're free (pun intended) to hold your view, but it's one I find unacceptable. In your position, I would rather embrace determinism, etc.
      I am satisfied with the final assessment being that someone who accepts Libertarian Freedom & that our free acts have efficient choices, already has to accept that there are cases in which a cause can bring about different effects without any corresponding difference in intrinsic properties in the cause. This rebuts the objection for me and many people.

      Re: God's knowledge, that is a different topic. But it seems to me that you are just failing to take into account how God's attributes may be very different from our attributes, under simplicity. Plus the fact that there are some arguments for holding that knowledge can follow from causation.

      God has perfect knowledge of himself. God is also the cause of all contingent substances at every moment. So God has perfect knowledge of the cause of all contingent substances. But if one has perfect knowledge of a cause, one has perfect knowledge of the effects. Even if you try to challenge this, I think it's very plausible. If you perfectly understood all the underlying causes that make up substances and events, you would know these substances and events. Even if some of these events are indeterministic - for they are still actually being produced by the cause (it's not just a matter of "prediction", but of perfectly knowing a cause and hence what it is in fact doing). So through being the cause of things, God knows things.

      Or if you just go directly with God causing things, consider that under divine simplicity, God's power is only one, and it includes the perfection of all possible powers. This makes God's causal power to be simultaneously intellective in some way. So God's causing us also makes God knowing us, etc.

      Of course your analogy fails because the whole point is that while in US the powers are distinct, in God there is a single power that doesn't correspond to anything we have (but nevertheless includes the perfections of our powers sans our limitations). Then your objection would amount to "it's hard to imagine or make sense of God knowing things by causing them!", to which one could just reply "yes, but it's supposed to be unimaginable by us. But is it contradictory?". It doesn't seem absurd to me.

      I'll admit it can feel weird, but that's about it for me. If God's power is so distinct from mine, I don't really have any strong hopes to show that it *cannot* do such and such just because things are different from us. But I can still hold that it *can* do all we can do, minus our limitations (by PPC; by God being perfect; et al). The reverse of apophaticism here, if you will.

      "Finally, the Church's dogmatic pronouncements do not rule out the possibility of God having accidents, such as thoughts about us."

      That may be fine, but I don't care about what the Church says. I don't care much for religion. I'm just convinced classical theism with-no-accidents is true.

      Delete
    34. Yakov, what determines whether something is *intrinsically evil* or not? Why is it that in your view makes fornicating, stealing (ordinary sense), adultery, and (apparently) killing civilians in wars and even killing babies non-intrinsic evils (such that God may command these acts to be carried out by humans), while rape is intrinsically evil (such that God cannot command it, despite him "owning" human beings)?

      Ofc the answer cannot appeal to arbitrary divine commands, if one seeks to avoid these kinds of divine command theories.

      Delete
    35. VJ's posts are intrinsically incoherent. If ye have no physical distinctions or metaphysical ones then by definition you have no accidents. At least none that can be rationally deduced to exist. This applies to the Almighty in spades. If ye wish to postulate the existence of mysterious "accidents" in God that are neither physical or metaphysical ye cannae know such a thing exists in God apart from divine revelation informing you.

      There is nothing in Scripture or Apostolic Tradition that can even remotely indicate such a thing exists in the Godhead.

      So VJ's attempt to create a hybrid Classic Theist/Theistic Personalist "deity" is meaningless.

      All "theistic personalist" concepts of divinity are no better than idolatry. At least for Catholics. They are unworthy of belief. One might as well postulate the Magic white bearded Cosmic Gandalf in the Sky the Gnus waste their time strawmaning against and be done with it.

      Cheers

      Delete
    36. @Unknown

      >Yakov, what determines whether something is *intrinsically evil* or not?

      Reasoning from Natural Law Theory coupled with Divine Revelation and the Commands of God. Of course don't expect me to explain it all in a combox. That is outside my skill set. I cannot fully explain Quantum
      Physics in 50 words or less either.

      Maybe these links will help?

      Intrinsic Evil and the Moral Object
      >http://catechism.cc/articles/moral-object.htm

      You may also want to check out

      The Catechism of Catholic Ethics
      A work of Roman Catholic moral theology
      by Ronald L. Conte Jr.

      https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/intrinsic-evil-some-things-are-just-plain-wrong

      Maybe not? I dinny care. I dinny fash.

      OTOH where I to attempt to answer the Question based on my own simple knowledge God cannot make evil a final cause so I would deduce from this any intentional act which has evil as the final cause is intrinsically evil. Or if the thing is evil in essence rather than in it accidents.


      > Why is it that in your view makes fornicating, stealing (ordinary sense), adultery, and (apparently) killing civilians in wars and even killing babies non-intrinsic evils (such that God may command these acts to be carried out by humans),

      Fornication and Adultery are unauthorized sex & if God authorizes the Sex then said act of sex is none of these things. God owns everything so He may give it to whom He chooses. God is the author of all life and may take it at will. If I give you the keys to my car and instuct you to take it too the Junker to have it crushed one could hardly accuse you or I of automotive vandalism now can we?


      >while rape is intrinsically evil (such that God cannot command it, despite him "owning" human beings)?

      I thought I explained this in my response to VJ? Rape is forcing sex against one's will for the purposes of control and humiliation. Such is the final cause for Rape which makes it evil.

      >Ofc the answer cannot appeal to arbitrary divine commands, if one seeks to avoid these kinds of divine command theories.

      Why should we assume there are any arbitrary commands? It seems to me all the commands are based on natural law.

      Delete
    37. Unknown

      BTW to quote Brian Davies "As philosophers know well, in debates about God's goodness it is often asked whether God wills something because it is good or whether something is good because God wills it. Aquinas, who never directly tackles this question (so far as I know), can, I think, be said to hold that the answer must be: (a) God wills us to do what is good because it is good, and (b) what is good for us to do depends on the way in which God has made creatures to be. In terms of this account,
      Aquinas would say that God could never command us to torture children because, in effect, that would involve him in contradicting himself, or going against his nature as the source of creaturely goodness. And this, of course, is not to suggest that God's goodness consists in him acting in accordance with moral norms to which he
      responds in any sense.


      Quote"If God is the creative cause of everything other than himself, then does it not follow that he is the cause of evil? Does it also not follow that God wills evil as an end? If the right answer to these questions is 'Yes', then it would seem that theists have no business calling God good. For even if we are willing to agree that God's goodness cannot be that of a good moral agent acting dutifully or virtuously, it seems hard to see how the word 'good' could intelligibly be applied to an agent who directly wills evil as a goal in its own right. I shall be turning to the question 'What can we mean when calling God "good"?'
      in the next chapter. For now, though, I take it for granted (am simply prepared to accept) that God cannot be thought of as good if he deliberately causes evil as an end in itself - if, so to speak, he chooses to bring about evil for its own sake. The question, therefore, is: does he? In this chapter I shall be arguing that he does not." ibid page 173

      BTW I note "Unknown" was a poster from August of Last Year who claimed to have read Brian Davies and falsely claimed "Davies and Yakov simply think our ethical statements are entirely equivocal when applied to God."

      Unknown also claimed Davies says God allows evil for no reason. He clearly DIDN'T read any Davies.

      Are you here too troll me sir? Because that would be boring.

      Delete
    38. Yakov,

      Yes, I am the one who said that "Davies and Yakov simply think our ethical statements are entirely equivocal when applied to God.", and I stand by that. I know that you (and Davies) "affirm" analogy, my point was just that Davies's position on the problem of evil makes him committed to equivocity instead. I agree with him on God not being able to order us to torture babies, and on the goodness also being at least partly determined by our nature. I have no big issues with what he said there (although I would disagree on God not being a moral agent in some sense - this relates also to an issue of analogy, but nevermind). My problem is with Davies's approach to the problem of evil, which, I insist, is utter garbage. We cannot avoid theodicy no matter how "hip" it might seem. And given what you and Davies had said on the problem of evil, I do maintain that your position ultimately collapse into equivocity.

      And no, I'm not here to troll you. I'm just asking some questions, because I do think Vincent has a point re: what Aquinas said there. But if you're right, I have no problem with that, I just want a clarification.

      Back on topic:

      "God owns everything so He may give it to whom He chooses."

      But God cannot choose to give someone's body to someone else. God cannot give someone rights to have sex with someone else without the consent of both parties. That's where the "God owns everything so he can give rights to others over the things he owns" gets really tricky.

      You wanna maintain that, despite God owning human beings and their bodies, he cannot give anyone the right to have sex with someone else without consent from that other person - as that would be rape.

      I also do not think it would be okay for God to give you my house, or the other way around. I do not think it would be okay for God to "give the right" to an army to displace people and take over their property, under the idea that "God owns this property", because I think God also in some way must respect the natural right of property that human beings have. Said right might not be absolute (Feser himself has a nice article on that), but barring cases in which (e.g.) someone is starving to death and you insist on not sharing your food which you have in abundance and do not need, it seems to me that God would respect private ownership and surely would not allow an army to rob another people of their homes and property. God "owning" things doesn't mean that he will make use of them in an unjust way, of course, and that's something you should also agree with. Yet it seems to me that messing with people's property like that, taking and giving it to others, would be an unjust way of handling said things, and hence something that God could not do.

      "Such is the final cause for Rape which makes it evil."

      2) But again, I'll ask you to give me a clear definition of intrinsic evil. Are you saying that rape is always evil because the final cause of the act is always evil?

      But why wouldn't the killing of civilians qualify? Murder is an intrinsic evil. The killing of non-combatants in war, for instance, is always to be opposed (as David Oderberg himself argues w.r.t. just war). But you think that God can order people to kill themselves; to kill civilians in war; and even to kill babies (!!), but that God cannot order people to commit rape. Again, what's the difference? I think killing babies is intrinsically evil. So there's no way God could order us to do it.

      Why can God order us to kill babies, but he cannot order us to rape anyone?

      (Continues)

      Delete
    39. The final cause of the act of killing babies is also always evil. Mind you, it isn't even just the case of annihilating someone - driving a sword into a child's head or belly is something much more painful, and even when it results in a quick death, it still involves considerable suffering and is still the act of killing an innocent child. Not to mention the psychological damage that is caused to the killer, too.

      Double effect cannot justify such cases either, otherwise we could also break down rape cases into acts of copulation etc. that through some divinely-known ends might be justified.

      "Why should we assume there are any arbitrary commands?"

      I don't think you should, I'm against that too. But it seems to me arbitrary to classify the killing of babies, civilians, etc. as not-intrinsically-evil, possibly-commandable-by-God, but not rape. Both seem to me intrinsic evils under either natural law reasoning or intuition.


      Delete
    40. Unknown Gnu,

      >Yes, I am the one who said that "Davies and Yakov simply think our ethical statements are entirely equivocal when applied to God.", and I stand by that.

      Which are views I don't hold and Davies never advocates & explicitly denies and in fact argues against. At the time I noted it is clear you have not read a single word Davies wrote. So why should I give a flying fart aboot yer idiot straw man nonsense? I note Tom was there. He agreed.

      Indeed you falsely attributed several views to Davies which he explicitly denies. So I don't believe you are here to argue in good faith. I will not discuss a straw man with you as that is a waste of my time. It is not questioning it is question begging. It is unforgivable.

      >And no, I'm not here to troll you. I'm just asking some questions, because I do think Vincent has a point re: what Aquinas said there. But if you're right, I have no problem with that, I just want a clarification.

      I don't believe you at all. It is clear you know NOTHING about Natural Law Theory, or Thomistic Philosophy or Catholic Theology nor have you read a single word of Brian Davies based on the phony claims you made about his views.

      I am here to argue Philosophy. Yer stream of conscience nonsense bores me to tears.


      >My problem is with Davies's approach to the problem of evil, which, I insist, is utter garbage.

      How would you know? You have NEVER read a single word he wrote? You made half a dozen or less claims about his views all of which contradicted his own words.

      You may leave me Unknown. I don't argue with liars and trolls.

      BTW I may have been hard on VJ but as far as I remember he NEVER attributed to Brian Davies views he did not in fact hold.

      So good day to you sir.

      I said good day.

      >We cannot avoid theodicy no matter how "hip" it might seem.

      In other words "Oh please argue with me about the "god" I wished you believed in vs the one you actually believe in."

      Hard Pass!

      Now get lost troll.

      Delete
    41. Yep didn't read a word of Davies argument. God can create a water world with fish and five minutes after creating it allow a near by supernova to vaporize all the water and kill all the fish.

      Making evil a final cause would entail God creating fish and putting them on a world with no water in the first place so they could choke to death as the goal.

      I love how Gnus don't get final causality or evil as a final cause. They just recycle whatever gibberish refutations of various theodicies and pretend everybody is a theistic personalist.

      So tedious......

      Delete
    42. Yakov,

      If you're just gonna ignore my questions and reply like that, then fair enough.

      It's quite weird to suggest I'm just a troll and know nothing about natural law etc. when I was a traditional Catholic for many years; was heavily into thomistic philosophy (my metaphysic is still broadly thomistic to this day, too); in NL I favored the classical view against NNL and so on - have read Garrigou-Lagrange, Maritain, Herbert McCabe, Feser, Oderberg, John Haldane, Philippa Foot, etc. I've also read Brian Davies and I do maintain that his work on the problem of evil is garbage.

      But you can draw whatever conclusions you want. You don't *have* to reply to me, anyway. I doubt someone who doesn't even understand what possible worlds are would have much to contribute, anyway.

      Delete
    43. "For even if we are willing to agree that God's goodness cannot be that of a good moral agent acting dutifully or virtuously, it seems hard to see how the word 'good' could intelligibly be applied to an agent who directly wills evil as a goal in its own right."

      Davies basically agrees that if God were to will evil as a goal could not be called "good" except in an equivocal way.

      The issue, which he ignores (and which makes his treatment of PoE garbage) is that it is also the case that - paraphrasing - "it seems hard to see how the word 'good' could intelligibly be applied to an agent who can easily prevent a child from being raped and murdered, but doesn't do anything to stop that".

      It doesn't matter that God isn't a moral agent in the way human beings are. Having evil as a final cause doesn't exhaust the category of evil actions or of imperfections. The analogical attribution of "morally good" to a God who allows children to be raped and murdered for no reason whatsoever, when he could stop it, is also absurd. "Good" becomes an equivocal term in this case.

      What is needed is a justification/explanation for Providence's inaction in cases of grotesque evil. Which then leads us to theodicy.

      Saying that "God is not a moral agent!" (also false from the point of view of analogy - Davies was just too fond of McCabes's view of things, McCabe himself famously leaned more towards equivocity many times in his career, only begrudgingly affirming analogy of proper proportionality in ways that almost seemed like lip service. Yes, McCabe was pretty bad too, and not just in his political views) doesn't change the issue that prima facie if S allows children to be raped and murdered for no reason, then S is not good. Saying S is "good" here would be an equivocal use. Thus theodicy is needed.

      (Except if you're like Yakov who thinks God can just allow human beings to burn and suffer horribly in supernova, or have children be raped and tortured, and still be considered "GOOD" - and not equivocally, somehow! - so long as God doesn't will such things as goals. He just allows these horrors, not moving a finger to prevent them, and yet it somehow truly "good" and "loving", not equivocally so. Quite amusing)

      Delete
    44. Unknown you are a fraud and everybody here can see that.

      >when I was a traditional Catholic for many years; was heavily into thomistic philosophy (my metaphysic is still broadly thomistic to this day, too)have read Garrigou-Lagrange, Maritain, Herbert McCabe, Feser, Oderberg, John Haldane, Philippa Foot, etc. I've also read Brian Davies and I do maintain that his work on the problem of evil is garbage.

      Fess up. You haven't read a single one of these people. Yer ignorant posts show it. You make ZERO Thomistic Arguments and show ZERO familiarity with the philosophy and the broad tradition.

      Yer posts are nothing but mere emotional appeals without any philosophy or logical argument. I can and do get that from Gnus.

      >Davies basically agrees that if God were to will evil as a goal could not be called "good" except in an equivocal way.

      He literally said " God cannot be thought of as good if he deliberately causes evil as an end in itself - if, so to speak, he chooses to bring about evil for its own sake.". Yep still making up yer own crap in spite of the words being right in front of ye. Shameless.

      You only know this bit now because back in August I told you that when you where claiming Davies said God could will evil for no reason at all.
      Davies said God could not will evil for no reason and be good. It is right there in Black and White. Page 173 REALITY OF GOD AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL.

      I quoted him to you because you dinny read him.

      > The analogical attribution of "morally good" to a God who allows children to be raped and murdered for no reason

      See what I mean? Ye just contradicted yerself.

      Warning to my fellows here Unknown whose blog profile is
      https://www.blogger.com/profile/01087138435392371312

      is a fraud. You have been caught sir.

      So off ye pop.

      Delete
    45. God can create a material world where some things compete for their own perfection at the expense of other things. Because God is not obligated to create any sort of world. No world is so good God is obligated to make it and none so bad that as long as it partakes of being God should refrain from creating it. There is no such thing as the BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLD. Davies teaches this and everyone who has read him knows this.

      God could not create a world or reality with fish in it and no water. That would make evil a final cause.

      This is Thomism 101 and anybody who read Garrigou-Lagrange, Maritain, Herbert McCabe, Feser, Oderberg, John Haldane, Philippa Foot, etc & Brian Davies would know that.

      Delete
    46. Davies said "I take a word to be used univocally when used to talk about different
      things if it means exactly the same in each occurrence. So I take 'horse' to be used univocally in 'Arkle is a horse' and 'Dobbin is a horse'. I take a word to be used equivocally about different things if its meaning in each occurrence is entirely different. So I take 'bank' to be used equivocally in 'We ran our boat into the bank of the river' and 'I keep my money
      in an offshore bank'."

      Yeh unknown is faking it....badly.

      God is morally good in that God always fulfills His Duty to Himself and His own nature. It is against the Divine Goodness for him to will evil as a final cause(i.e. the goal in and of itself). Evil can be an accident but not a final cause fur God.

      Yeh I don't know how you get the idea Davies view of the divine goodness is equivocal? Being is convertible with goodness and God is being itself. God always fulfills His Obligations to Himself and His Holyness will not allow him to make evil a final cause. That is the goal of His actions. Doing it fur its own sake?

      Then their is the divine charity in that God is not obligated to make anything etc..

      Ya faking it wee badly unknown.

      Delete
    47. The Unknown Troll say God cannot allow evil for no reason and be considered good.

      This is correct as far as it goes but he lies and claims this is not also Davies view.

      Indeed he has a whole chapter in his book THE REALITY OF GOD AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL specifically Chapter 8 titled Goodness, Love and Reasons where he explains how God is understood to be Good.

      BTW now that I referenced it maybe Unknown will either read it for the first time or pretend to have read it.

      We shall see.

      Delete
    48. Some more Davies quotes which Unknown has not read.

      this one from THOMAS AQUINAS ON GOD AND EVIL
      page 177

      Quote"(11) Evil ( malum ) can be thought of as of two kinds: evil suffered ( malum poenae ) and evil done ( malum culpae ). But God cannot be thought of as creatively producing evil in either of these senses. Evil suffered occurs as God makes something to be good while bringing about badness or deficiency in
      something else. Its explanation lies not in God’s willing evil for its own sake but in his willing the goodness of something the goodness of which (as time goes on) involves a lack of being (goodness) in something else. With evil suffered there is always a lack of being and a concomitant good accounting for this (check with the scientists). Not so, however, with evil done. There is no concomitant good here. There is nothing but a failure to choose what is good. But a failure such as this cannot be thought of as created by God. It is, so we might say, brought about by God insofar as he brings about a world in which freely choosing individuals freely choose badly."

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    49. An intrinsic evil is an action that is always a sin & is evil in its final cause and under no circumstances can it ever be morally done.

      Murder is the unlawful taking of human life. God can take any life He chooses at will since as the Supreme Law Giver by nature He may do so. He may also formally authorize the taking of any human life via a Command to his creatures.

      But He could not command torture of the innocent. Nor sodomy nor anything at all even thought He is not a moral agent who has obligations to us. His Holiness would prevent Him from making Evil a final cause in itself.

      So there are limits. Denial of these limits is irrational and critics have to equivocate on terms to make their arguments. Which is why I have no respect for their views.

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    50. This is pure Gold. From Aquinas from the Summa Theologica.

      Article 9. Whether God wills evils?

      https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1019.htm#article9

      Then there is this cut/pasted from the Summa Contra Gentiles.

      Chapter 95.

      THAT GOD CANNOT WILL EVIL

      [1] From what has been said it can be shown that God cannot will evil.

      [2] For the virtue of a being is that by which he operates well. Now every operation of God is an operation of virtue,since His virtue is His essence, as was shown above.1 Therefore, God cannot will evil.

      [3] Again, the will never aims at evil without some error existing in the reason, at least with respect to a particular object of choice. For, since the object of the will is the apprehended good, the will cannot aim at evil unless in some way it is proposed to it as a good; and this cannot take place without error. But in the divine knowledge there cannot be error, as was shown above.2 God’s will cannot, therefore, tend towards evil.

      [4] Moreover, God is the highest good, as has been shown.3 But the highest good cannot bear any mingling with evil, as neither can the highest hot thing bear any mingling with the cold. The divine will, therefore, cannot be turned to evil.

      [5] Furthermore, since the good has the nature of an end, evil cannot enter the will except by turning away from the end. But the divine will cannot be turned from the end, since it can will nothing except by willing itself.4 Therefore, it cannot will evil.

      [6] And thus it appears that free choice in God naturally stands abiding in the good.

      [7] This is what is said in Deuteronomy (32:4): “God is faithful and without any iniquity”; and Habacuc (1:13): “Thy eyes are too pure to behold evil, and Thou canst not look on iniquity.”

      [8] By this is refuted the error of the Jews, who say in the Talmud that at times God sins and is cleansed from sin; and of the Luciferians, who say that God sinned in ejecting Lucifer.

      Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, trans., by Anton C. Pegis (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), 290-291; 1.95.1-8.


      If ye don't believe in the Philosophy that is fine. If yer dinny believe in Catholicism or Classic Theism that is fine. But BY GOD ye will argue against the God we believe in around here AND NOT THE BLOODY GOD YE WISHED WE BELIEVED IN....if ye cannae follow this rule then FUU....Go away.

      That is it. I am done with me rants. It is obvious God CANNOT make evil a final cause or command creatures to do what is intrinsically evil or will evil for no reason at all.

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    51. @ Son of Ya'Kov,

      "This is pure Gold"

      Indeed.

      One can almost (not quite) open the Summa at random and find out how God does neither wills nor commands evil as an end. For example, I was just reading Part One, Question 48, "The Distinction of Things in Particular" (translator's title). Article 6, "Whether Pain Has the Nature of Evil More Than Fault Has?" is especially interesting on this topic, but the rest of the articles are also of interest.

      Yep, that Gold is all through the Summa. Open it almost anywhere.

      Tom Cohoe

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  15. Mr. Geocon writes:
    An active potency is not a potency but a form of act.

    An active potency is in act with respect to the power but is in potency with respect to that toward which the power is directed. So, in a bird that can fly, the power to fly is in act, but this power is in potency with respect to actual flying. And only when this potency is reduced to act will it actually fly. And, since nothing can reduce itself from potency to act, the principle that effects this must be extrinsic to the bird’s power to fly. However, it does not seem fitting that the power of God must be reduced from potency to act by an extrinsic principle. Therefore, God does not possess active potency, or so might the argument go.

    Now, of course, Thomas is right. God does have an active potency of some kind. But it’s the kind of potency that might be possessed, as it were, by a Being that can have no potency at all, if that make any sense. Analogously, it’s sort of like when we say that the sins of Christians make the Blessed Virgin Mary sad. Obviously the BVM enjoying eternal beatitude cannot actually experience sorrow, but she does experience something that we can only grasp as sorrow.

    But the reason I raised the objection in the first place is that people seeing that Aquinas and Ed Feser assign actual potency to God might come to the conclusion that active potencies in creatures are in fact not potencies at all (as you, Geocon, have evidently concluded) and, therefore, do not require an extrinsic principle to reduce them from potency to act. This is an error that would tend to lead to deism, imo.

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  16. Are you planning on responding to Joe Schmid and Gunther Laird's critiques of you anytime soon?

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    1. Feser addressed some of Schmid's criticisms before. Go to July 2021 in the blog archives and there should be 2 posts that are about Joe Schmid.
      They're called "Schmid on the Aristotelian Proof", and "Schmid on Existential Inertia".

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    2. @Anonymous,

      I've watched a few of Schmid's videos on YouTube and can say that I'm not impressed. His critique of a per se causal series and Pure Act is particularly poor.

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  17. Thank you for Part II of Contra Johnson, which was highly entertaining, and can be summarized (if I may take liberties since this is social media and I'm having fun) as: Johnson misinterprets Aquinas, Johnson misapprehends Feser on Aquinas and Johnson, and Johnson misrepresents Johnson on Aquinas, Feser and Johnson. And the copy/paste error. Next installment I intend to open a nice red wine for. (slightly edited for fairness)

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