9 ms·

Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

37 points by pedroth 1y ago

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
galaxyLogic 1y ago
> A large part of our civilisation rests on the shoulders of one medieval monk: Thomas Aquinas. The article starts with that but then provides no evidence for that claim as far as I can see. How does our civilization in large part rest on his ideas? What about other civilizations? The claim about the validity of Aquinas' ideas seem to only make sense if we accept his initial assumption which is the existence of God. But, making claims like this seems almost as if designed to HIDE the existence of such initial assumptions. Call them axioms if you will. They are not "proven". > Something is good if it fulfills its function The confusion here is that there is no such thing as "universal good". It is always "good for something" and "good for somebody". Bad for something else, and bad for somebody else. So the claim seems to be that because something is good for somebody and bad for somebody else, there is perfection? Yes there is often an "equilibrium". It is better to be in equilibrium than to be on the losing side of it. But that is not "perfection" (whatever that means). Maybe Aquinas was not aware that some species go extinct. How is that "perfect"? I can't resist but quote from one of the great philosophers of our time, Mel Brooks: It's good to be King! :-)
- Frummy 1y ago
  His theological writings had profound effects on the church, the historically dominant power structure in the west and their behaviour for hundreds of years. Yeah defining what's good is difficult, even using information theoretical arguments like preserving or creating order gets messy. But regardless of metaphysical truth there is tons of other stuff to analyse like tracing historical cause and effects of how stuff looks like in the world today back to, theological writers.
  - cmdli 1y ago
    A large part of the development of Europe, especially after the Renaissance, was resistance to the church and its historical teachings. The Reformation, Renaissance, rise of deism, scientific revolution, etc were all in response to and in many cases disagreeing with historical understanding. Saying "our current civilization is based on the teachings of the church" ignores the many aspects of our civilization that came about in spite of said church.
    - Frummy 1y ago
      Yeah there's many influences. Pagan gods, greek philosophy, trade with asia, egypt, middle eastern religious inspiration and so on. And cultural geniuses maybe put their trust mostly in their lived experience and craft and so on like the sheer product and infrastructure of civilisation is mostly made by nonbelievers just doing their thing
    - lmpdev 1y ago
      > Reformation I’d argue the Catholic Jesuits probably had a more profound impact on science than any counter-catholic Christian denomination - purely from their intellectual output They were formed around the same time as the reformation, but obviously had vastly more money and power (not that this should discount their contributions) Examples: - Christopher Clavius (created our modern Gregorian calendar) - Anathasius Kircher (somewhat helped pull geology and medicine from vague Natural Philosophy into actual disciplines) - Rodger Boscovich (atomic theory and a lot of basic everyday lab work was first used by him) - A lot of contributions to astronomy and mathematics by many priests - Probably their biggest contribution was the communication to the west and preservation of Chinese and Indian cultural artefacts/traditions. Without their work later anthropologists would have lost entire fields of study Protestants had, what? Max Weber? That’s more cultural than intellectual or scientific I agree with you though the later scientific revolution and age of enlightenment were in spite of the Catholic church, but I’d also probably broaden that as in spite of Christian belief altogether
      - IncreasePosts 1y ago
- tasty_freeze 1y ago
  Agreeing with you: "Good" pretty much means "an outcome I desire".
  - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
    Not at all. People can have bad and harmful desires. The good is determined objectively by the nature of the thing; desire should be aligned with that objective good, but may not be because of some defect.
    - cmdli 1y ago
      "Objective good" can only be determined through subjective opinion and belief. What is "good" is judged by us based on our own values, which can differ amongst people. While we may all trend towards similar values, there still can be significant differences amongst people. For example, some may value to live in a freer society while others may value a more restrictive yet more secure society.
      - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
        And where do these "values" come from? Value is objective, as good is a matter of being the kind of thing a thing is. That a subject is making the determination doesn't mean it has no objective reality. The subjective is not a cause of value anymore than a telescope is the cause of the image of the moon. The telescope can distort the image, but it would be nonsensical to call it the cause. To consign value to mere subjectivity only makes value more mysterious, not less, as all this does is assert it as a brute fact with no relation to reality. On the other hand, an objective basis grounds it in human nature.
    - tasty_freeze 1y ago
      How is what I said different than "good for somebody". A Russian bridge gets blown up. It is good for Ukrainians; it is bad for Russians. There is no intrinsic goodness to the event in this case. Let's take another case that has people arguing on both sides in the US: universal health care. Some think not having it is an atrocity, and others see it is a threat to civilization. Who is to judge its objective goodness? You make the call, and then will you just say the people who disagree with you have bad and harmful desires and that is why they don't see the truth as you can?
- tho23i432o4324 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - tomhow 1y ago
    Please don't post comments like this that make generalizations based on nationalities, regions or cultures. It breaks several guidelines. Please read them and make an effort to observe them in future: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- throwoutway 1y ago
  I just did a little AI-based research without mentioning him and sure enough, Thomas Aquinas is one of the roots/pillars that others stand on.
- lo_zamoyski 1y ago
  I don't recommend using this article as a serious source of knowledge about Aquinas. Some of the wording is a little iffy as well. For beginners, I would recommend "Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide" [0]. After that, if you want to dig deeper into Scholastic metaphysics in general, consider [1]. There are also books devoted to Aquinas's metaphysics exclusively, such as [2] and [3]. > The claim about the validity of Aquinas' ideas seem to only make sense if we accept his initial assumption which is the existence of God. Not at all. Aquinas does not begin with the existence of God. Rather, he shows how the existence of God can be inferred from basic metaphysical principles. So you have things exactly backwards. It is a common misconception that the existence of God must be assumed or that it is a matter of faith. > The confusion here is that there is no such thing as "universal good". It is always "good for something" and "good for somebody". Bad for something else, and bad for somebody else. So the claim seems to be that because something is good for somebody and bad for somebody else, there is perfection? No. What determines the good is the nature of a thing and its telos. To be a good human being is to more fully actualize human nature and its end. What it means to be a good turkey is to more fully actualize turkey nature and its end. Perfection is the case when a thing fully actualizes all its potential as the kind of thing it is; there is nothing left to actualize. (Accidentally, turkeys can exist for the sake of the good of others animals, but this is secondary to what is intrinsically good w.r.t. a kind of thing.) In the case of God, the nature of God is to exist, and God is goodness itself (a transcendental). -- I encourage you not to be flippant about metaphysics. It deserves and requires no less attention and seriousness than any other science, and indeed more, as metaphysical principles by definition underpin all of reality. Get them wrong, and things go wrong. [0] https://a.co/d/cTumDmM https://a.co/d/cTumDmM [1] https://a.co/d/24ssFeX https://a.co/d/24ssFeX [2] https://a.co/d/8F93mme https://a.co/d/8F93mme [3] https://a.co/d/25v7XMf https://a.co/d/25v7XMf
  - btilly 1y ago
    I encourage you to not be flippant about dismissing people who think that your metaphysical arguments don't hold water. Thomas Aquinas' actual first cause argument is trivially refuted by the possibility of infinite regress. Your musings about the nature of a thing and its telos, is an attempt to impose a human conceit about how we understand reality, on reality itself. The "human nature" that you're talking about "fully actualizing" is a concept that exists in human minds, not reality. While you might appeal to some sort of Platonic ideal, there is no evidence that any Platonic ideal actually exists. Any musings about "the nature of God" establishes nothing more than a concept in someone's mind. That concept has no existence, other than that granted by the thinking of people who have that concept. In particular, a concept created relatively recently by humans, did not create those humans. Let alone the world that those humans live in. These arguments are all sophistry. They do not, and cannot, establish any meaningful existence to the kind of God that is described in your favorite selection of religious texts. And they are only persuasive to people who are easily persuaded due to the conclusion fitting their preexisting religious beliefs.
- jhanschoo 1y ago
  > > A large part of our civilisation rests on the shoulders of one medieval monk: Thomas Aquinas. For such a grandiose claim, I was honestly thinking of another churchman, though not a medieval monk: Augustine of Hippo Free will as a mental phenomenon (rather than political freedom), Christian original sin, Western prudence and chastity are some notions that I think were extremely heavily influenced by him, or originated from him.
- gtest 1y ago
  > The article starts with that but then provides no evidence for that claim You people are sure allergic to anything religious. The author's main point isn't that so he or she didn't support it. I don't think it's true, though he is an important figure in philosophy and theology still. Should the author also first attempt to prove the existence of Aquinas? And that he was a monk? Before writing about him? Does he need to prove that Aquinas wrote the work the work usually attribute to him? Does he need to prove there is a god? Just to talk about Aquinas' view? But I agree his intro is a bit overestimating.
  - AStonesThrow 1y ago
    [dead]
- Akasazh 1y ago
  We tend to be suckers for the 'big men' way of writing history. As we are hard wired to appreciate causality: X triggers y which revolutionized how we do z and changed the world to our 'current understanding'. In this case the writer is trying to push a theological, conservative narrative, and Aquinas fits perfectly! Wow! Otoh one could argue that Aquinas biggest achievement is showing the natural world cannot be explained solely from the bible, thus necessitating less convoluted explanations (Occam's razor) this paving the way for science through falsification.
ujkiolp 1y ago
this article is shiny and polished looking but the central premise needs work. I’d start with simple words before adding fancy gifs
exac 1y ago
This is the type of religious propaganda that would appear in a worksheet for children in a Catholic school. It doesn't belong here. There are no arguments here, just the presupposition of some deity.
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  This isn't "propaganda", it's attempting to give a casual look at Aquinas' philosophy (which, as the author points out, does not presuppose a deity). Moreover, if you read the rest of the site, you will see that this author tries to give this sort of casual look at many diverse philosophical ideas (not just religious philosophy or Western philosophy). You are having a knee jerk reaction to a strawman, not responding to the actual substance of the article.
  - exac 1y ago
    This is no knee jerk reaction my friend, the author is capitalizing "he" when referring to the Christian god.
- glimshe 1y ago
  The arguments are simplified, but they are there. There's a lot to it beyond "God exists because I say so", especially if you dig deeper. I think they are valuable even if you dont believe in the existince of a Christian God.
jhanschoo 1y ago
Up to the part about faith, what the post presented seems very close to Neoplatonic ideas.

37 points by pedroth 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

> A large part of our civilisation rests on the shoulders of one medieval monk: Thomas Aquinas. The article starts with that but then provides no evidence for that claim as far as I can see. How does our civilization in large part rest on his ideas? What about other civilizations? The claim about the validity of Aquinas' ideas seem to only make sense if we accept his initial assumption which is the existence of God. But, making claims like this seems almost as if designed to HIDE the existence of such initial assumptions. Call them axioms if you will. They are not "proven". > Something is good if it fulfills its function The confusion here is that there is no such thing as "universal good". It is always "good for something" and "good for somebody". Bad for something else, and bad for somebody else. So the claim seems to be that because something is good for somebody and bad for somebody else, there is perfection? Yes there is often an "equilibrium". It is better to be in equilibrium than to be on the losing side of it. But that is not "perfection" (whatever that means). Maybe Aquinas was not aware that some species go extinct. How is that "perfect"? I can't resist but quote from one of the great philosophers of our time, Mel Brooks: It's good to be King! :-)

Frummy 1y ago
His theological writings had profound effects on the church, the historically dominant power structure in the west and their behaviour for hundreds of years. Yeah defining what's good is difficult, even using information theoretical arguments like preserving or creating order gets messy. But regardless of metaphysical truth there is tons of other stuff to analyse like tracing historical cause and effects of how stuff looks like in the world today back to, theological writers.
- cmdli 1y ago
  A large part of the development of Europe, especially after the Renaissance, was resistance to the church and its historical teachings. The Reformation, Renaissance, rise of deism, scientific revolution, etc were all in response to and in many cases disagreeing with historical understanding. Saying "our current civilization is based on the teachings of the church" ignores the many aspects of our civilization that came about in spite of said church.
  - Frummy 1y ago
    Yeah there's many influences. Pagan gods, greek philosophy, trade with asia, egypt, middle eastern religious inspiration and so on. And cultural geniuses maybe put their trust mostly in their lived experience and craft and so on like the sheer product and infrastructure of civilisation is mostly made by nonbelievers just doing their thing
  - lmpdev 1y ago
    > Reformation I’d argue the Catholic Jesuits probably had a more profound impact on science than any counter-catholic Christian denomination - purely from their intellectual output They were formed around the same time as the reformation, but obviously had vastly more money and power (not that this should discount their contributions) Examples: - Christopher Clavius (created our modern Gregorian calendar) - Anathasius Kircher (somewhat helped pull geology and medicine from vague Natural Philosophy into actual disciplines) - Rodger Boscovich (atomic theory and a lot of basic everyday lab work was first used by him) - A lot of contributions to astronomy and mathematics by many priests - Probably their biggest contribution was the communication to the west and preservation of Chinese and Indian cultural artefacts/traditions. Without their work later anthropologists would have lost entire fields of study Protestants had, what? Max Weber? That’s more cultural than intellectual or scientific I agree with you though the later scientific revolution and age of enlightenment were in spite of the Catholic church, but I’d also probably broaden that as in spite of Christian belief altogether
    - IncreasePosts 1y ago
tasty_freeze 1y ago
Agreeing with you: "Good" pretty much means "an outcome I desire".
- lo_zamoyski 1y ago
  Not at all. People can have bad and harmful desires. The good is determined objectively by the nature of the thing; desire should be aligned with that objective good, but may not be because of some defect.
  - cmdli 1y ago
    "Objective good" can only be determined through subjective opinion and belief. What is "good" is judged by us based on our own values, which can differ amongst people. While we may all trend towards similar values, there still can be significant differences amongst people. For example, some may value to live in a freer society while others may value a more restrictive yet more secure society.
    - lo_zamoyski 1y ago
      And where do these "values" come from? Value is objective, as good is a matter of being the kind of thing a thing is. That a subject is making the determination doesn't mean it has no objective reality. The subjective is not a cause of value anymore than a telescope is the cause of the image of the moon. The telescope can distort the image, but it would be nonsensical to call it the cause. To consign value to mere subjectivity only makes value more mysterious, not less, as all this does is assert it as a brute fact with no relation to reality. On the other hand, an objective basis grounds it in human nature.
  - tasty_freeze 1y ago
    How is what I said different than "good for somebody". A Russian bridge gets blown up. It is good for Ukrainians; it is bad for Russians. There is no intrinsic goodness to the event in this case. Let's take another case that has people arguing on both sides in the US: universal health care. Some think not having it is an atrocity, and others see it is a threat to civilization. Who is to judge its objective goodness? You make the call, and then will you just say the people who disagree with you have bad and harmful desires and that is why they don't see the truth as you can?
tho23i432o4324 1y ago
[flagged]
- tomhow 1y ago
  Please don't post comments like this that make generalizations based on nationalities, regions or cultures. It breaks several guidelines. Please read them and make an effort to observe them in future: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
throwoutway 1y ago
I just did a little AI-based research without mentioning him and sure enough, Thomas Aquinas is one of the roots/pillars that others stand on.
lo_zamoyski 1y ago
I don't recommend using this article as a serious source of knowledge about Aquinas. Some of the wording is a little iffy as well. For beginners, I would recommend "Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide" [0]. After that, if you want to dig deeper into Scholastic metaphysics in general, consider [1]. There are also books devoted to Aquinas's metaphysics exclusively, such as [2] and [3]. > The claim about the validity of Aquinas' ideas seem to only make sense if we accept his initial assumption which is the existence of God. Not at all. Aquinas does not begin with the existence of God. Rather, he shows how the existence of God can be inferred from basic metaphysical principles. So you have things exactly backwards. It is a common misconception that the existence of God must be assumed or that it is a matter of faith. > The confusion here is that there is no such thing as "universal good". It is always "good for something" and "good for somebody". Bad for something else, and bad for somebody else. So the claim seems to be that because something is good for somebody and bad for somebody else, there is perfection? No. What determines the good is the nature of a thing and its telos. To be a good human being is to more fully actualize human nature and its end. What it means to be a good turkey is to more fully actualize turkey nature and its end. Perfection is the case when a thing fully actualizes all its potential as the kind of thing it is; there is nothing left to actualize. (Accidentally, turkeys can exist for the sake of the good of others animals, but this is secondary to what is intrinsically good w.r.t. a kind of thing.) In the case of God, the nature of God is to exist, and God is goodness itself (a transcendental). -- I encourage you not to be flippant about metaphysics. It deserves and requires no less attention and seriousness than any other science, and indeed more, as metaphysical principles by definition underpin all of reality. Get them wrong, and things go wrong. [0] https://a.co/d/cTumDmM https://a.co/d/cTumDmM [1] https://a.co/d/24ssFeX https://a.co/d/24ssFeX [2] https://a.co/d/8F93mme https://a.co/d/8F93mme [3] https://a.co/d/25v7XMf https://a.co/d/25v7XMf
- btilly 1y ago
  I encourage you to not be flippant about dismissing people who think that your metaphysical arguments don't hold water. Thomas Aquinas' actual first cause argument is trivially refuted by the possibility of infinite regress. Your musings about the nature of a thing and its telos, is an attempt to impose a human conceit about how we understand reality, on reality itself. The "human nature" that you're talking about "fully actualizing" is a concept that exists in human minds, not reality. While you might appeal to some sort of Platonic ideal, there is no evidence that any Platonic ideal actually exists. Any musings about "the nature of God" establishes nothing more than a concept in someone's mind. That concept has no existence, other than that granted by the thinking of people who have that concept. In particular, a concept created relatively recently by humans, did not create those humans. Let alone the world that those humans live in. These arguments are all sophistry. They do not, and cannot, establish any meaningful existence to the kind of God that is described in your favorite selection of religious texts. And they are only persuasive to people who are easily persuaded due to the conclusion fitting their preexisting religious beliefs.
jhanschoo 1y ago
> > A large part of our civilisation rests on the shoulders of one medieval monk: Thomas Aquinas. For such a grandiose claim, I was honestly thinking of another churchman, though not a medieval monk: Augustine of Hippo Free will as a mental phenomenon (rather than political freedom), Christian original sin, Western prudence and chastity are some notions that I think were extremely heavily influenced by him, or originated from him.
gtest 1y ago
> The article starts with that but then provides no evidence for that claim You people are sure allergic to anything religious. The author's main point isn't that so he or she didn't support it. I don't think it's true, though he is an important figure in philosophy and theology still. Should the author also first attempt to prove the existence of Aquinas? And that he was a monk? Before writing about him? Does he need to prove that Aquinas wrote the work the work usually attribute to him? Does he need to prove there is a god? Just to talk about Aquinas' view? But I agree his intro is a bit overestimating.
- AStonesThrow 1y ago
  [dead]
Akasazh 1y ago
We tend to be suckers for the 'big men' way of writing history. As we are hard wired to appreciate causality: X triggers y which revolutionized how we do z and changed the world to our 'current understanding'. In this case the writer is trying to push a theological, conservative narrative, and Aquinas fits perfectly! Wow! Otoh one could argue that Aquinas biggest achievement is showing the natural world cannot be explained solely from the bible, thus necessitating less convoluted explanations (Occam's razor) this paving the way for science through falsification.

ujkiolp 1y ago

this article is shiny and polished looking but the central premise needs work. I’d start with simple words before adding fancy gifs

exac 1y ago

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

bigstrat2003 1y ago
This isn't "propaganda", it's attempting to give a casual look at Aquinas' philosophy (which, as the author points out, does not presuppose a deity). Moreover, if you read the rest of the site, you will see that this author tries to give this sort of casual look at many diverse philosophical ideas (not just religious philosophy or Western philosophy). You are having a knee jerk reaction to a strawman, not responding to the actual substance of the article.
- exac 1y ago
  This is no knee jerk reaction my friend, the author is capitalizing "he" when referring to the Christian god.
glimshe 1y ago
The arguments are simplified, but they are there. There's a lot to it beyond "God exists because I say so", especially if you dig deeper. I think they are valuable even if you dont believe in the existince of a Christian God.

jhanschoo 1y ago

Up to the part about faith, what the post presented seems very close to Neoplatonic ideas.