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Sorry for the delay. I think what you've said is generally correct in that: yes, Aquinas thinks that making a thing better is possible insofar as its accidents

Sorry for the delay. I think what you've said is generally correct in that: yes, Aquinas thinks that making a thing better is possible insofar as its accidents can be made better, but not its essence since changing its essence would make that thing cease to be that thing. Your sentence analogy is apt. Aquinas does indeed think creation is contingent (though someone like Leibniz does too---it's just that Leibniz thinks God is obligated to actualize the best possible worlds as opposed to other possible worlds, but such worlds are still possible, and thus contingent.) The idea that creation is necessary is somewhat fringe (among theists and atheists alike). The idea that all things that are possible are necessary, modal collapse, is generally seen to be so untenable that if a consequence of an argument is modal collapse, it's almost seen as a reductio ad absurdum. This is the case for, for example, Gödel's ontological proof of God. Maybe one relevant item here is that Aquinas thinks God is the most perfect, and that God cannot make creation to be as good as him---so while it might be true that God can make something that is better than a particular thing (by making something with a different essence), he cannot make something infinitely perfect (the only such thing is himself).

082349872349872 3y ago
Delay is no problem; I've hit the point where I probably won't come up with anything new for another week at least. Thanks for coming back! Aquinas' point is highly relevant: if both God and his creation were infinitely perfect, they'd be indistinguishable and we'd be back at pantheism.
- knightoffaith 3y ago
  To be sure - God and creation being indistinguishable isn't something that Spinoza would agree with either. Two relevant items here. One is that God has an infinite number of attributes, only two of which are extension and thought (the only ones we can know). All physical things are modes of the attribute of extension, and all "mental" things are modes of the attribute of thought. So if creation just means the set of all physical things (or even "mental" things), these are just the set of all modes of extension, an attribute of God, (along with the set of all modes of thought, another attribute of God, if you include mental things). But these are but extension and thought are but two of the infinitely many attributes of God. Two is that Spinoza draws a distinction between the set of all of the modes of the attributes of God (Natura naturata) and God himself (Natura naturans). (See the Note of Proposition 29 of Part 1 of Ethics.) So if by pantheism we mean that God is nothing but the set of all things, Spinoza does not seem to be a pantheist. That isn't to say that Spinoza is just a perfectly orthodox theologian, of course, but just that reducing the radical nature of his theology to the word "pantheism" (construed as creation and God being the same) appears to be an oversimplification. (Also, minor note, in the last comment I said Leibniz thinks God actualizes the best possible worlds, that's a typo, I meant the best possible world, singular.)
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    thanks for the relevant items. I've started in on https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm so it may be a while before I make it back to this thread... pedantry: 1P29 runs seriously afoul of Quantum Mechanics
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    Rough going so far, as Spinoza is both precise and uses words in the senses they had in Scholastic times. I think I understand how Spinoza is not a pantheist, though: God determines Creation, in that the Creation is the maximal object that could be created from God, and the Creation determines God, in that God is the minimal object that could create the Creation, so they're two very distinct things, but in a 1:1 relationship. (examples: intension/extension in logic, cones/gamut in vision, grammar/language in informatics) I'm not sure how easy the distinction between his viewpoint and pantheism would have been to explain to someone with a XVII background, but Aquinas defo would've been unhappy with the "the deity can create any universe he wants, as long as it's black" part. (hmm. if our universe only uses up two attributes, 'thought' for all the abstracts and 'extent' for all the concretes, are there any other universes lurking in the remaining infinity of attributes? this also opens the question of whether we're dealing with a countable infinity of attributes, or a higher cardinal...)
    - 082349872349872 3y ago
      this looks useful; a modern formalisation: https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/1537/1/MoL-2017-02.text.pdf https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/1537/1/MoL-2017-02.tex...
      - 082349872349872 3y ago
        starting to get a little clearer; was Gödel's proof inspired by Spinoza's? They both use many of the same mathematical tools...
        2y ago

082349872349872 3y ago

Delay is no problem; I've hit the point where I probably won't come up with anything new for another week at least. Thanks for coming back! Aquinas' point is highly relevant: if both God and his creation were infinitely perfect, they'd be indistinguishable and we'd be back at pantheism.

knightoffaith 3y ago
To be sure - God and creation being indistinguishable isn't something that Spinoza would agree with either. Two relevant items here. One is that God has an infinite number of attributes, only two of which are extension and thought (the only ones we can know). All physical things are modes of the attribute of extension, and all "mental" things are modes of the attribute of thought. So if creation just means the set of all physical things (or even "mental" things), these are just the set of all modes of extension, an attribute of God, (along with the set of all modes of thought, another attribute of God, if you include mental things). But these are but extension and thought are but two of the infinitely many attributes of God. Two is that Spinoza draws a distinction between the set of all of the modes of the attributes of God (Natura naturata) and God himself (Natura naturans). (See the Note of Proposition 29 of Part 1 of Ethics.) So if by pantheism we mean that God is nothing but the set of all things, Spinoza does not seem to be a pantheist. That isn't to say that Spinoza is just a perfectly orthodox theologian, of course, but just that reducing the radical nature of his theology to the word "pantheism" (construed as creation and God being the same) appears to be an oversimplification. (Also, minor note, in the last comment I said Leibniz thinks God actualizes the best possible worlds, that's a typo, I meant the best possible world, singular.)
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  thanks for the relevant items. I've started in on https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3800/3800-h/3800-h.htm so it may be a while before I make it back to this thread... pedantry: 1P29 runs seriously afoul of Quantum Mechanics
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  Rough going so far, as Spinoza is both precise and uses words in the senses they had in Scholastic times. I think I understand how Spinoza is not a pantheist, though: God determines Creation, in that the Creation is the maximal object that could be created from God, and the Creation determines God, in that God is the minimal object that could create the Creation, so they're two very distinct things, but in a 1:1 relationship. (examples: intension/extension in logic, cones/gamut in vision, grammar/language in informatics) I'm not sure how easy the distinction between his viewpoint and pantheism would have been to explain to someone with a XVII background, but Aquinas defo would've been unhappy with the "the deity can create any universe he wants, as long as it's black" part. (hmm. if our universe only uses up two attributes, 'thought' for all the abstracts and 'extent' for all the concretes, are there any other universes lurking in the remaining infinity of attributes? this also opens the question of whether we're dealing with a countable infinity of attributes, or a higher cardinal...)
  - 082349872349872 3y ago
    this looks useful; a modern formalisation: https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/1537/1/MoL-2017-02.text.pdf https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/1537/1/MoL-2017-02.tex...
    - 082349872349872 3y ago
      starting to get a little clearer; was Gödel's proof inspired by Spinoza's? They both use many of the same mathematical tools...
      - 2y ago