On another blog I see that the following question has been raised: "Do you know what William James thought of Catholicism?"
The blogger gives his own reply, which you can read via this link if you like.
Personally, I think I do have a handle on what James thought of Catholicism, so I'll offer my own answer.
The short answer is this: he thought of it as too “legalistic and moralistic” to satisfy the deepest of spiritual needs. But he did admire the aesthetic creativity with which it has always been associated, and he regretted the anti-aesthetic, stained-windows-smashing, aspects of the Reformation.
(See? as always with James, even the short answer can’t be very short, because there is always on the one hand and on the other hand. It is what makes him adorable.)
As for the theology of it, James had little patience for the sort of doctrinal structure that generally comes with the RC faith. Here is a pertinent passage from Varieties:
“Take God’s aseity, for example; or his necessariness; his immateriality; his ‘simplicity’ or superiority to the kind of inner variety and succession which we find in finite beings, his indivisibility, and lack of the inner distinctions of being and activity, substance and accident, potentiality and actuality, and the rest … candidly speaking, how do such qualities as these make any definite connection with our life? … what vital difference can it possibly make to any man’s religion whether they be true or false?”
He is aiming directly at the Thomistic doctrinal baggage of the Church there.
Showing posts with label Thomas Aquinas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thomas Aquinas. Show all posts
11 March 2012
18 December 2010
The Nature of Evil
In Yahoo!Answers, a college student called Tolly117 asked about Thomas Aquinas and the nature of evil. Homework is kind of fun for those of us for whom it is voluntary, so I gave her a hand with the following.
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In the Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas begins by asking whether God exists. He starts by proving that the existence of God is not self-evident: proving that we need a proof. Next step? He advances the arguments an atheist might use for the contrary conclusion, in order to rebut them. One of those arguments is this: "It seems that God does not exist; because if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But the name God means that He is infinite goodness. If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist."
So: how does Thomas answer that argument? "This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good."
That's an important contention. It suggests that the nature of evil is that of a challenge, and God's goodness is demonstrated through His ability to master such challenges. If there were no such challenges, then, the world would not be as good as it can be -- and is.
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I just include that here because I'm too lazy to think of something more fresh just now.
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In the Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas begins by asking whether God exists. He starts by proving that the existence of God is not self-evident: proving that we need a proof. Next step? He advances the arguments an atheist might use for the contrary conclusion, in order to rebut them. One of those arguments is this: "It seems that God does not exist; because if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But the name God means that He is infinite goodness. If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist."
So: how does Thomas answer that argument? "This is part of the infinite goodness of God, that He should allow evil to exist, and out of it produce good."
That's an important contention. It suggests that the nature of evil is that of a challenge, and God's goodness is demonstrated through His ability to master such challenges. If there were no such challenges, then, the world would not be as good as it can be -- and is.
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I just include that here because I'm too lazy to think of something more fresh just now.
06 June 2010
Chesterton on the egg (which is an egg).
More on Chesterton. One passage often cited by his admirers comes from his book on Thomas Aquinas:
"Against all this the philosophy of St. Thomas stands founded on the universal common conviction that eggs are eggs. The Hegelian may say that an egg is really a hen, because it is a part of an endless process of Becoming; the Berkeleian may hold that poached eggs only exist as a dream exists; since it is quite as easy to call the dream the cause of the eggs as the eggs the cause of the dream; the Pragmatist may believe that we get the best out of scrambled eggs by forgetting that they ever were eggs, and only remembering the scramble. But no pupil of St. Thomas needs to addle his brains in order adequately to addle his eggs; to put his head at any peculiar angle in looking at eggs, or squinting at eggs, or winking the other
eye in order to see a new simplification of eggs. The Thomist stands in the broad daylight of the brotherhood of men, in their common consciousness that eggs are not hens or dreams or mere practical assumptions; but things attested by the Authority of the Senses, which is from God."
As usual, when someone intones a tautology, some form of "A is A," as if it is of tremendous significance, he or she is trying to sneak in a presumption. Here, Chesterton is being less sneaky than are some who use this ploy. For he's been quite open with us, earlier, about the presumption. By "egg" he means a common-sense egg, the egg that an untutored individual who isn't too much concerned about the "particular go of it" will understand to be an egg. When Chesterton says "eggs are eggs" he means that we can't or shouldn't try to get further in than that in our understanding of them. Addling one's brains in an effort to get behind the obviousness of egghood is a bad thing. That's the message here.
IMHO, that message is exactly wrong, and wisdom consists precisely of trying to go further than "an egg is an egg." To consider any more sustained inquiry a matter of "addling one's brains" is to ask that one's brains be perpetually chained by this "authority of the sense." Although we do need the sense to get started, we also need as humans to remember that the reports of the senses are seldom the end.
"Against all this the philosophy of St. Thomas stands founded on the universal common conviction that eggs are eggs. The Hegelian may say that an egg is really a hen, because it is a part of an endless process of Becoming; the Berkeleian may hold that poached eggs only exist as a dream exists; since it is quite as easy to call the dream the cause of the eggs as the eggs the cause of the dream; the Pragmatist may believe that we get the best out of scrambled eggs by forgetting that they ever were eggs, and only remembering the scramble. But no pupil of St. Thomas needs to addle his brains in order adequately to addle his eggs; to put his head at any peculiar angle in looking at eggs, or squinting at eggs, or winking the other
eye in order to see a new simplification of eggs. The Thomist stands in the broad daylight of the brotherhood of men, in their common consciousness that eggs are not hens or dreams or mere practical assumptions; but things attested by the Authority of the Senses, which is from God."
As usual, when someone intones a tautology, some form of "A is A," as if it is of tremendous significance, he or she is trying to sneak in a presumption. Here, Chesterton is being less sneaky than are some who use this ploy. For he's been quite open with us, earlier, about the presumption. By "egg" he means a common-sense egg, the egg that an untutored individual who isn't too much concerned about the "particular go of it" will understand to be an egg. When Chesterton says "eggs are eggs" he means that we can't or shouldn't try to get further in than that in our understanding of them. Addling one's brains in an effort to get behind the obviousness of egghood is a bad thing. That's the message here.
IMHO, that message is exactly wrong, and wisdom consists precisely of trying to go further than "an egg is an egg." To consider any more sustained inquiry a matter of "addling one's brains" is to ask that one's brains be perpetually chained by this "authority of the sense." Although we do need the sense to get started, we also need as humans to remember that the reports of the senses are seldom the end.
10 August 2008
More from Hume, Historian
Here's another passage, following up on last week's entry on David Hume's history of England. A little further on than the description of Luther I've already quoted, Hume discusses the fact that Henry VIII wrote a book defending Roman Catholic orthodoxy against Lutheran critiques.
"But Henry had been educated in strict attachment to the church of Rome, and he bore a particular prejudice against Luther, who in his writings spoke with contempt of Thomas Aquinas, the King's favorite author: He opposed himself, therefore, to the progress of the Lutheran tenets by all the influence which his extensive and almost absolute authority conferred upon him: he even undertook to combat them with weapons not usually employed by monarchs ... He wrote a book in Latin against the principles of Luther; a performance which, if allowance be made for the subject and age, does no discredit to his capacity."
Where do you think is the balance of sympathies here? My own take on it is that despite the enormous gulf that separates Hume from, say, Thomas Aquinas -- Hume thinks of Aquinas as a fellow philosopher, a man of learning, and thinks the less of Luther for having spoken of Aquinas with contempt. So Hume sympathizes with Henry VIII's original stance, as the defender of the Roman faith, and implicitly as the defender of his "favorite author," Aquinas.
Hume also seems to pat Henry on the back figuratively for using reason and the Latin language, rather than edicts and armies, as his chosen "weapons" in the fight against the Lutherans.
I think the freshness of that prose speaks to us across the centuries and retains the power to challenge.
"But Henry had been educated in strict attachment to the church of Rome, and he bore a particular prejudice against Luther, who in his writings spoke with contempt of Thomas Aquinas, the King's favorite author: He opposed himself, therefore, to the progress of the Lutheran tenets by all the influence which his extensive and almost absolute authority conferred upon him: he even undertook to combat them with weapons not usually employed by monarchs ... He wrote a book in Latin against the principles of Luther; a performance which, if allowance be made for the subject and age, does no discredit to his capacity."
Where do you think is the balance of sympathies here? My own take on it is that despite the enormous gulf that separates Hume from, say, Thomas Aquinas -- Hume thinks of Aquinas as a fellow philosopher, a man of learning, and thinks the less of Luther for having spoken of Aquinas with contempt. So Hume sympathizes with Henry VIII's original stance, as the defender of the Roman faith, and implicitly as the defender of his "favorite author," Aquinas.
Hume also seems to pat Henry on the back figuratively for using reason and the Latin language, rather than edicts and armies, as his chosen "weapons" in the fight against the Lutherans.
I think the freshness of that prose speaks to us across the centuries and retains the power to challenge.
27 March 2007
Thomism and the Problem of Evil
I was reading something just yesterday about how Thomistic philosopher/theologians address the problem of evil.
How is there so much evil in the world given the infinite goodness of the God who designed it?
As I understand it, they answer the question by saying that God's goodness isn't what we understand by goodness, given our limited human minds. For example, God can't be moved. God is an "unmoved mover." So God doesn't react to events as they happen, feel pangs of sympathy, or develop a character over time. Yet reactions, sympathetic pangs, and character development are integral to our notions of what is good. Insofar as those form our notions, we don't know what we mean by saying that God is good, and the puzzle is ill formed.
The evil in the world, then, is perfectly compatible with the goodness of God, and our inability to see this (though we know, at least well enough, what evil means) comes about because we don't know well enough what good means.
This sounds like an inadequate answer to me. After all, what is the real pragmatic difference between the following two propositions?
1) God is good in a way we can't understand and which is compatible with evil,
2) God isn't good.
The tendency of the Thomistic argument is toward the second proposition, but it is covered by being clothed in the somewhat nicer-sounding words of the first proposition.
How is there so much evil in the world given the infinite goodness of the God who designed it?
As I understand it, they answer the question by saying that God's goodness isn't what we understand by goodness, given our limited human minds. For example, God can't be moved. God is an "unmoved mover." So God doesn't react to events as they happen, feel pangs of sympathy, or develop a character over time. Yet reactions, sympathetic pangs, and character development are integral to our notions of what is good. Insofar as those form our notions, we don't know what we mean by saying that God is good, and the puzzle is ill formed.
The evil in the world, then, is perfectly compatible with the goodness of God, and our inability to see this (though we know, at least well enough, what evil means) comes about because we don't know well enough what good means.
This sounds like an inadequate answer to me. After all, what is the real pragmatic difference between the following two propositions?
1) God is good in a way we can't understand and which is compatible with evil,
2) God isn't good.
The tendency of the Thomistic argument is toward the second proposition, but it is covered by being clothed in the somewhat nicer-sounding words of the first proposition.
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