Defending and Explaining St. Thomas to some Orthodox

Or at least one or two of them are, Alex Coleman and probably Brandon Igler.

Alex Coleman

25.IX.2023

Tertullian held that the heart is the location of the human soul. Thus, he was a follower of Aristotle. The sage of Carthage was wrong to charge Plato with being the father of all heresies. That title rightly belongs to the tutor of Alexander.

Tertullian held that Christ is not eternally begotten from the Father. Whereas the Platonist, St. Justin Martyr, held to the eternal generation of the Son.

I

Brandon Igler

Alex Coleman I have known if several Baptist who deny the eternal generation of the Son, as well. Ironically the guy was a scripture scholar. I guess Sola Scriptura can’t answer the most basic principles of Trinitarian and Christological wonder.

John-Paul Beaumont

Alex Coleman where does he say that may I ask?

Alex Coleman

John-Paul Beaumont. In his Dialogue with Trypho, I think. I cannot recall with certitude. As regards Tertullian, I believe he states his view in Against Praxeas.

Alex Coleman

Brandon Igler. The 18th century English Protestant scholar, John Gill, wrote a work defending the Holy Trinity. I would like to see how the Trinity can be adequately defended without reference to the Holy Fathers. I would like to read that work at some point. Gill frequently quotes rabbinic sources in his biblical commentaries but rarely cites the Church Fathers.

Brandon Igler

Alex Coleman this is a mistake that most evangelical make today, they would rather quote rabbis than Christians. Catholics do this as well. I think I heard Jay Dyer do a breakdown where he said that Thomas Aquinas even denounced St John of Damask and sighted Moses Maimonides in his place in defense of strict monotheism. I may be wrong on the topic but I chuckled because that is so wild to denounce one of the most brilliant minds within the Church and really on earth, and side with Maimonides. I remember when I was taking my Judaic studies more serious, I was recommended to read the guide for the perplexed and it’s basically just Aristotle, I didn’t read much of it. Long story short, This fact just piggybacks your theory that you see Platonist and Aristotelian thought running parallel throughout history.

Alex Coleman

Brandon Igler. Thank you for that insight. We are picking up bread crumbs on a trail. On the trail of the assassins, eh Timothy Kevin Ready? More will be revealed........

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Brandon Igler "I heard Jay Dyer do a breakdown where he said that Thomas Aquinas even denounced St John of Damask and sighted Moses Maimonides in his place in defense of strict monotheism"

I'd very much like to know where Jay Dyer got that from.

Brandon Igler

Hans-Georg Lundahl it would have to be on one of Thomas’s apologetics for divine simplicity. I haven’t read the summa but I’m sure it’s in that. Possibly. Hope that helps

Alex Coleman

In Orthodoxy, St. Justin Martyr is referred to as St. Justin the Philosopher.

Brandon Igler

Alex Coleman for good reason

Alex Coleman when I first came across the idea of Logos Spermatikos and went back and read the Torah and the Gospels, from the I AM to the Incarnation of our Lord, I was in pieces. Everything made sense and now when I read anything it either lines up with Christ or it is indeed Foolishness. All of the Wisdom literature came alive again and especially his dialog with Pilate “Art thou a king then? Jesus answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice.”

Alex Coleman think of Israel, the wrestling with God, Wisdom, and the gentile tradition of Philosophy, the Brotherly love of wisdom. It’s beautiful

John-Paul Beaumont

Alex Coleman thanks I’ll have a look!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Brandon Igler "Question 3. The simplicity of God" in the Summa - I did an F search for "Dam" and found nothing. Damascene or of Damascus is not in that question.

Brandon Igler

Hans-Georg Lundahl yeah, I haven’t read the summa. Wouldn’t mind reading it some day just to understand their position or reasoning better. This quote may not even be in the summa, I’m just assuming it would be.

Peter Gilbert

Hans-Georg Lundahl Thomas Aquinas cites Maimonides especially in his tractate on Creation; he agrees with Maimonides (following Aristotle) that reason does not rule out an eternal creation, but at the same time (not following Aristotle) reason does not necessitate an eternal creation; if we hold that there is a temporal beginning to creation, it is because that is something revealed to us.

As for disagreeing with St. John of Damascus, this probably refers to the Damascene's statement that "We do not say that the Spirit is 'from' the Son." On that point, Aquinas says, the Damascene was simply wrong.

Brandon Igler

Peter Gilbert thank you. I wasn’t familiar with all the citations, I just heard it discussed on one of Jay Dyers talks about Latin Theology.

Alex Coleman

Peter Gilbert. What exactly is meant by, eternal creation, such that Aristotle believed that reason requires it?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Peter Gilbert "On that point, Aquinas says, the Damascene was simply wrong."

On that point.

And on that point he follows Western Patristics, which reaches back well before St. John of Damascus.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Alex Coleman If you'll excuse me bumping in:

"eternal creation, such that Aristotle believed that reason requires it"

Eternal creation means that the universe has always existed, and that God has always provided its existence, ab aeterno, with no beginning.

Aristotle did not figure out why God would chose to create or chose anything, God being totally blissful, he considered God would be incapable (from that simple fact) of any kind of initiative. So, he considered the universe eternally comes into being by its matter adapting to God by a kind of love or longing for His inattainable perfection.

On this point, St. Thomas considered that we know from Revelation that Aristotle was wrong, while St. Bonaventure and Duns Scotus considered we can know even from reason that the universe had a beginning, when God made an actual initiative to create it or some other more putting it from non-being into being.

Alex Coleman

Hans-Georg Lundahl. If the universe is eternal, how then is God the Prime Mover? St. Bonaventure and Scotus were Platonists. Note that St. Gregory Palamas had the same essential system as Duns Scotus.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Alex Coleman God is prime mover, because He is the principal mover of the daily motion of the universe around Earth.

This is how Riccioli interpreted prima via.

To Aristotle this means, the beauty of God, without any decision on His part, makes the universe dance around Earth, and first of all the sphere of the fix stars.

To St. Thomas this means, God is consciously and by divine fiat moving the sphere of the fix stars around earth each day, which then drags the sphere of Saturn with it, which then drags Jupiter along, and then Mars, and then Sun, Mercury, Venus, Moon, and finally aptmospheres and seas.

St. Thomas could have explained the Foucault pendulum as some kind of participation in this daily motion. I do so. Not believing spheres are solid bodies, I still believe the heavenly bodies are within an aether, which is the kind of substance that space consists of, as well as being the kind of substance of which electromagnetic rays are ripples and so on. As opposite parts of this aether space remain opposite, and as parts of this aether space at a given height above earth remain that height (though the heavenly bodies may vary in height, apogee and perigee), this means the aether forming this space has a kind of solidity corresponding to the concept of stereoma.

Prime mover and creator in time are two different concepts.

Alex Coleman

Hans-Georg Lundahl. Yet if the universe is eternal, so must be it's motion. If the universe has always existed, then the motion within it must be perpetual. Where is there, thus, any place for a first cause?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

The question is not about earlier cause vs later effect, but about contemporary cause and contemporary effect.

Like when you hold a hammer and bang with it, your hand is cause of the hammer moving, and the hammer moving is cause of some metal being hammered, even if they happen at the same time.

First cause does not equal kalam.

II

Ernesto Raimondi

Beyond the objections to philosophizing Christianity that Mr. Ostrowski and Mr. Leonardi gave above, which I largely agree with, the very consideration of the soul being located in a particular organ, rather understanding the soul as the spiritual dimension of the body which animates it, and thus in/with the whole body, strikes me as quite bizarre. It doesn't seem to be compatible with anything I've learned from Christians about the relationship of the body and soul. Always the Christians I've known (aside from the neo-Gnostic types who see the eschaton as strictly spiritual) have indicated to me that they understood the soul to be in a natural union with the body, and the soul is localized because of this union, so that its location is the body, not one particular part of the body.

In addition to it seeming to be an aberrant belief, I think this notion of the "location of the soul" is in danger of running into the sorts of conceptual problems that Descartes ran into with his mind-body dualism, and the pineal gland theory of the communication of the two. If the soul is not embodied, is not what gives the body form by being its animative principle, then how do we explain the communication between the body and the soul? Descartes had to come up with very odd ideas about animal spirits in order to give an explanation, and generally it's understood to not even have been a good one.

Alex Coleman

Ernesto Raimondi. I believe that Tertullian is not speaking of a physical location but rather as to what constitutes the essence of the human being. Given that he is arguing in the treatise for the corporeality of the soul as a general principle and that he states elsewhere in the treatise that the soul fills the whole body, this stands as evidence for my assertion.

Ernesto Raimondi

Alex Coleman The idea of a part being the essence of a composite doesn't sound right to me. Essence is supposed to give the "what-it-is", so to speak. If we say "central muscular organ that pumps blood throughout a fleshy body", then we have one account of what a heart is. One conventional account of the essence of human being is "rational animal". How a heart or a head could give us this for the human being, I can't begin to imagine.

The only way I could see this approach making sense would be if Tertullian were speaking of the heart and the head in a symbolic/spiritual sense. If that's the case, then of course the critique I gave above is not relevant. On the other hand, if we're talking about the heart and the head in figurative senses, I also don't see why either one could not be plausible candidates for giving the essence of human being. Is this what you were objecting to in the first place, the figurative heart being the essence of the human being? If so, what is your problem with this view?

Alex Coleman

Ernesto Raimondi. Yes, I believe he was speaking in a symbolic fashion. My objection is that by affirming that the essence of man is heart, Tertullian is implicitly denying that man is made in the image of God. The problem is that Tertullian was a materialist and argued elsewhere in the treatise that being made in the image of God means nothing more than that we are representative of His physical shape. Being a rational animal is not to be in the image of God. It is merely to be a beast with the added attribute of instrumental reason. Aristotle sees no qualitative distinction between man and animal only a quantitative one.

Ernesto Raimondi

Alex Coleman I know that Tertullian was a heretic, but the issue isn't just with his views. What you've effectively said is that Aristotelianism is the font of all heresies. In this particular matter (the essence of human being), you seem to be setting up a dichotomy of Platonist and Aristotelian views of the human essence, the former being linked to head symbology, and the latter to heart symbology. Further, you've now elaborated that the latter view implicitly denies Man being made in the image of God. Can you explain how the heart account implicitly denies Man being made in the image of God, while the head account does not?

Alex Coleman

Ernesto Raimondi. For Plato, man is defined by his capacity to grasp the Forms. In Christian Platonism, the Forms are ideas in the mind of God. Thus, man is uniquely connected to the mind of God, in Platonism. "Man is the creature who desires to know. Thus, the delight that he takes in the senses." Thus Aristotle locates the capacity of man to obtain knowledge within the confines of sense-perception. We share sensation with the beasts. Thus, God commands that we care for them and protect them. For Plato, the Forms are the ultimate reality and form is always separate from matter but linked through participation. For Aristotle, form is always united to matter. His idea of concept formation is identical to that of Hume.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

For Christian Aristotelics, forms have three realities.

Before the thing, in God's mind, in the thing, and after the thing in man's mind.

Alex Coleman

Hans-Georg Lundahl. Yes, but Aristotle himself did not hold to such a view. Aquinas's attempt to baptize Aristotle, was ultimately, an exercise in futility.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

No, because he made a valid philosophy better than Aristotle's.

Alex Coleman

Hans-Georg Lundahl. Perhaps, in his zeal to baptize Aristotle, Aquinas misunderstood him........

Hans-Georg Lundahl

No, Aquinas certainly did understand Aristotle.

When he credits Aristotle with an error, he is usually showing how Aristotle could have avoided it by applying his own principles more consistently.

Alex Coleman

Hans-Georg Lundahl. Perhaps Aquinas interpreted Aristotle in a manner such the Stagyrite would be rendered acceptable to Christians, despite the essential heresy of his teachings.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

There is no "essential heresy of his teachings"

There are his teachings, and there are heresies that are in them and which St. Thomas upfront called out as lapses on the part of Aristotle ...

Alex Coleman

Hans-Georg Lundahl. Are the fundamental principles of Aristotle congruent with the teaching of the Church? Tatian, for example, clearly stated that Aristotle is a hedonist in his ethics. Is hedonism, the ethic of Christianity? Is Materialism, it's ontology? Is empiricism, it's epistemology? If Aristotle is a Materialist thinker with a hedonistic ethos, how can he possibly be baptized? St. Thomas was a genius but the principle of contradiction is a necessary truth. True in all possible worlds.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Let's break this down.

// Tatian, for example, clearly stated that Aristotle is a hedonist in his ethics. //

Two remarks.
a) Tatian is an expert on the Bible, not necessarily on Aristotle.
b) St. Thomas on occasion observed that Aristotle's view was only rational from an innerworldly perspective, which is not concerned with holiness.

// Is hedonism, the ethic of Christianity? //

Some degree, yes.
Charge the rich of this world not to be highminded, nor to trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God, (who giveth us abundantly all things to enjoy,)
[1 Timothy 6:17]

// Is Materialism, it's ontology? //

Materialism:

Democritus
Epicure
Lucrece

NOT Aristotle who was hylomorphist (i e held that the most usual substances are those composed by matter and form).

Aristotle was far closer to Plato than the real materialists were.

// Is empiricism, it's epistemology? //

Yes:
And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth: and no man receiveth his testimony.
[John 3:32]
For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.
[Acts of Apostles 4:20]
For thou shalt be his witness to all men, of those things which thou hast seen and heard.
[Acts of Apostles 22:15]
That which we have seen and have heard, we declare unto you, that you also may have fellowship with us, and our fellowship may be with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.
[1 John 1:3]

// If Aristotle is a Materialist thinker with a hedonistic ethos, how can he possibly be baptized? //

First, he's not a materialist.

Second, the hedonistic ethos is not always contrary to the Christian ethos.

III

Craig Ostrowski

This penchant to quasi-dogmatize philosophical systems is itself alien to the gospel and the fathers. Philosophical systems are man made tools which are indeed useful but being man made they will always remain faulty to one degree or another. Take whatever is good and useful in each system, modify that which needs modification, but forget about this nonsense of constantly narrowing of the gates for the sake of advancing a silly Eastern Napoleonic complex.

John Nikolov

Craig Ostrowski
I agree with you about philosophy. It can be useful, but that’s about it.

Craig Ostrowski

John Nikolov
Yes. It's very valuable, but the problem arises when people begin to confuse philosophy with divine revelation. Alex Coleman is pretty much doing that here, but not explicitly.

Alex Coleman

Craig Ostrowski. In Antiquity, Christianity was called, "The Divine Philosophy." Christian teaching is the revelation of the mind of God. Of all earthly philosophies, which most closely resembles Christianity? The answer is Platonism. Thus, St. Clement of Alexandria taught that Plato was to the Greeks what Moses was to the Jews. Namely, a Schoolmaster who leads to Christ. Thus, St. Athanasius called Plato, "that giant among the Greeks." Thus, Neitszche said that, "Christianity is Platonism for the masses." Thus and so........

Craig Ostrowski

Alex Coleman
Read up about Clement of Alexandria. He had his problems. I'd I remember correctly, Photios even denounced him. Nevertheless, in no way am I condemning the use of philosophy. In fact, I've noted here how useful it is. If you read Pope Benedict XVI's famous Regensburg address you'll find that he nailed it about the use of philosophy. As the saying goes, it's the hand maiden of theology. It's not theology itself. When you lose sight of that fact, as you have, you've gone too far because you've confused human wisdom with all of its limitations with divine revelation. Then you end up making the further mistake of condemning those who don't make your mistake.

Alex Coleman

Craig Ostrowski. St. Photios reduced the veneration of St. Clement by abolishing his feast day. Although Clement is still referred to as a saint in Orthodoxy and there are icons of him. The Catholic Church also abolished his feast in the 16th century. What is the essential distinction between philosophy and theology in your view? Through God's revelation, which is a theology, we are given an accurate metaphysical picture of reality which is a philosophy. Thus, it would appear that philosophy and theology ought to be viewed as being synonymous.

Craig Ostrowski

Alex Coleman
Divine revelation is divinely revealed information about God and His relationship to man. Theology, properly speaking, is the study of God. Philosophy is comprised of various man made metaphysical systems, none of which were divinely revealed. Thus, again, your conflating divinely revealed truths with man made metaphysical systems utilized to systematize those truths. The two are not synonymous by any means. Again, this is one of the underlying reasons why and how EO's end up rejecting their own fathers.

There's a reason why Photios did with he did concerning Clement of Alexandria. As I previously said, he said some troubling things.

Alex Coleman

Craig Ostrowski. Thus, in your definition, theology is that which is revealed by God, whereas, philosophy comes from the mind of man. That is the essential distinction?

Craig Ostrowski

Alex Coleman
Yes.

Alex Coleman

Craig Ostrowski. Platonism is almost Christianity. Platonism is THE philosophy of man that comes closest to the revelation of God through Jesus Christ. Prior to St. Thomas, the Latins had placed the works of Aristotle on The Index.

Craig Ostrowski

Alex Coleman
Satan almost conveyed the word of God. Philosophical systems are not divine revelation, so don't treat them as such.

Alex Coleman

Craig Ostrowski. Why did the Latins adopt Aristotle as their chief philosopher? The Scholastics were followers of Aristotle, were they not? Did they not call him, The Philosopher?

Craig Ostrowski

Alex Coleman
That's mostly a misconception. The Dominicans favored Aristotle but they were the minority. The Franciscans, i.e. Ss. Bonaventure and Duns Scotus, far outnumbered the Dominicans. While those two schools had their share of battles, Rome wisely never dogmatized any philosophical system.

Alex Coleman

Craig Ostrowski. I would like to study the works of St. Bonaventure. Scotus accepted the ontological argument whereas St. Thomas rejected it. St. Thomas's argument against the ontological argument is one of brilliance. He is rightly called, "The Angelic Doctor." It was Descartes who revived the ontological argument, in the West.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

// Thus, it would appear that philosophy and theology ought to be viewed as being synonymous. //

Rather, natural theology is synonymous with philosophy, a friendliness towards wisdom, revealed theology is sophia, wisdom herself.

// Prior to St. Thomas, the Latins had placed the works of Aristotle on The Index. //

There was no Index.

// Why did the Latins adopt Aristotle as their chief philosopher? The Scholastics were followers of Aristotle, were they not? //

In calling Aristotle "the philosopher" they arguably followed Averroist usage. Please note, they equally referred to Averroes as "the commentator" - which makes sense in this perspective.

Averroism provided cultural imports, but Averroism as a whole was consistently rejected.

// I would like to study the works of St. Bonaventure. //

If you'd like to story non-Thomistic, Orthodox, Scholasticism, take a view on the condemnations of Stephen II Tempier, bishop of Paris.

Link:
EN LENGUA ROMANCE EN ANTIMODERNISM Y DE MIS CAMINACIONES : Index in stephani tempier condempnationes
http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2012/01/index-in-stephani-tempier.html