It is compelling how Aquinas mutually uses strict forms of logic to find his conclusion about necessity and contingency in relation to God's knowledge. I find it concerning to say that God cannot have knowledge about contingencies. This can be seen as a problematic piece of Aquinas's theology because it can be seen as limiting God in a way that is lesser. Unless he wants to argue that contingencies do not exist surely if they can and do exist to say God cannot know them would not make him omniscient.
It is interesting how Aquinas seeks to save the idea of God's omniscience given his earlier statement about contingency. He seeks to fix this issue by giving us a different understanding of what contingency can mean. I can't help but think that the way he redefining contingency would imply that contingencies cannot exist.
I thought it was very interesting how Aquinas thinks that God doesn't have knowledge on contingencies, or the fact that he only knows them in their own being. But, he goes to talk about how God knows about future contingents and the virtues are in these contingencies will come up in later time. Also those virtues he claims are divine knowledge but aren't necessarily needed. I feel as if this is a problem because those virtues of knowledge is something that could be used in the future which would be necessary.
I liked Ghent's take on will saying that it's one of the highest powers and it carries an act of true love. But, I feel like there may be a problem saying that will is an overpower of intellect. I say this because to act off of true love there needs to be some kind of knowledge, and wisdom on how to carry out those acts. Without the knowledge or wisdom how would one know how to show pure love?
1. Aquinas' discussion seemed like an interesting combination of views that we have seen previously. At first I was slightly taken aback by his proclamation that God's knowledge does not extend to future events. However, as he furthered his reasoning it seemed to fall in line with what we had read previously of him and the scholastic rationalist view.
2. This connection with Aquinas was evident when he stated "God knows contingents as they are in their own being not successively, as we do, but all at once. This is because his knowledge is measured by eternity, just as also his being is, and eternity as a whole that exists all at once surrounds the whole of time, as was said above." From this view then it seems like God set things in motion and then let it run while watching it all unfold in one present eternity.
based on all the past readings and philosophers, it was sort of shocking to see that Aquinas believes that God does not have knowledge on the future or contingency because thus far God has been regarded as an all-knowing, omnipotent being that has the ability to foresee all things.
The only part that confused men this rating was how later he also seems to be retaining Gods Omnipotence by discussing contingency and what exactly is to be meant by it in this sense. I can't tell if Aquinas is redefining omnipotence or contingency for this matter.
It seems that Aquinas is trying to further nail down contingency as a solution to the problem of evil and free will, predestination, and God’s omniscience. For me, his inclusion of what he calls “proximate causes” really clears the air as a means of distinguishing God’s perspective in which something is contingent in itself, and the human perspective where only successive causes can be known (or conjectured) and the connection to the first cause is assumed but impossible to trace. This appears to get one step closer to solving the problem with contingency that is whether God’s knowledge of a future event makes it necessary rather than contingent. Although God’s knowledge could be argued to be the primary cause, the many layers of contingencies between God and the event may permit indeterminacy despite God’s knowledge.
Henry of Ghent returns to the conflict between will and intellect, and builds up the defense on the primacy of the will. I’m not sure I read anything particularly controversial or surprising, as he tends to lean a great deal on Augustine’s writing. But I do wonder what this means for the works of the ancients. It seems like this is a turn from Aristotelian ideas toward more orthodox Christian ones. By this I mean Aristotle called human intellect the highest function of the human soul, and if it is the will that is primary, then surely less significance would be placed on the intellect in the next generation of philosophical works.
1. The most interesting line from the first reading in my mind was the idea that the being of a thing in itself is something other than the being of the soul. It seems to be a pretty clear and concise duelist maxim. I’m lost as to how he actually resolves the tension between gods knowledge and freedom of will. 2. For as confusing as Aquinas was, Siger was even harder for me to understand. It seems that interesting distinctions were made in his piece and that of Aquinas that are useful linguistic/ semantic knowledge. Forinctance the Providence/ for knowledge distinction was interesting, but I have a hard time taking the metaphysical logic seriously. In my mind linguistic distinctions and developments are the most interesting components of medieval philosophy so far.
1. I think that Aquinas' dissection of the language involving the discussion of necessity and contingency is the correct route to the heart of the matter. The illumination of two different interpretations of the same statement shows the possibility of misinterpretation that is liable in using casual language. That being said, I wonder if contingency is not an illusion of the human mind that results from our imperfect knowledge of the world.
1. I also like the composite approach taken by both Aquinas and Siger, for it seems that although contingency and necessity may not necessarily be what we think they are, it seems that they are both real in some sense and there seems to be room for both of them.
I found Aquinas' approach interesting - he addresses the possible counterarguments to his claims first and goes about proving his claim through contradiction. The fact that he started by claiming that God does not possess knowledge of contingent events took me by surprise as I began to think that that was his claim. In his reply, he goes on to show that if we took that antecedent to be true, it would result in an illogical result. Although I do not buy his proof, I find it clever and interesting how he adjusted his approach over the readings, constantly refining his proofing abilities to ensure more soundness.
I find Siger's argument to be quite interesting also. How he uses the case of time in his argument to deduce how contingency arises. He, like other philosophers read, analyzes necessity for causation; however, unlike previous philosophers he approaches it through the scope of time. He believed that without necessary causation there would be no contingency and therefore no future events in its entirety. This implies that time would cease to exist, for there would be no past, present, or future.
I find Aquinas need to preserve the idea of God’s omniscience to be quite interesting. How he describes contingency would lead someone to believe that he doubts that God is omniscient. However, he stills states that God is omniscient. It is also interesting that he mentions that god cannot have knowledge about contingencies. I find some of Aquinas’ points to be quite contradictory.
I found Aquinas’ point about God’s knowledge being absolutely necessary to be very interesting. He mentions that if an antecedent is absolutely true that the consequent must be absolutely true. He then says that God is the same way, but even more so because he is God. God is a perfect being so it is even more true for him. Making an analogy between God and absolutely true statements is something I did not expect to see.
Like with much of the metaphysics done by Medieval theologians and philosophers, I feel as though the practicality of it is useless if the Bible is not refuted as being inaccurate or at least misinterpreted. Aquinas discourse about contingent and necessary things certainly makes sense if you we were just constructing a metaphysics that has a God at the center, but problems arise from his reasoning when he has to justify not a God, but the Christian God. The absurdity of all these argument is if they don't at the end justify how these idea can be interpreted from the bible they have no chance of finding a foothold in the religious canon. The Bible is very clear about God’s nature as an omniscient being. That he has a kind of omniscience that even includes contingent things. I like Henry of Ghent's argument for will being a higher power then intellect, although I would probably drop the pretence of a higher or lower function. I think practically and within the world, intellect emerges from will. I don’t think that would necessary clash with Aristotle's philosophy. Plato on the other hand is different. You certainly could make the argument that intellect on its own separated from will could be a better or closer to the form of the good.
It is compelling how Aquinas mutually uses strict forms of logic to find his conclusion about necessity and contingency in relation to God's knowledge. I find it concerning to say that God cannot have knowledge about contingencies. This can be seen as a problematic piece of Aquinas's theology because it can be seen as limiting God in a way that is lesser. Unless he wants to argue that contingencies do not exist surely if they can and do exist to say God cannot know them would not make him omniscient.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting how Aquinas seeks to save the idea of God's omniscience given his earlier statement about contingency. He seeks to fix this issue by giving us a different understanding of what contingency can mean. I can't help but think that the way he redefining contingency would imply that contingencies cannot exist.
I thought it was very interesting how Aquinas thinks that God doesn't have knowledge on contingencies, or the fact that he only knows them in their own being. But, he goes to talk about how God knows about future contingents and the virtues are in these contingencies will come up in later time. Also those virtues he claims are divine knowledge but aren't necessarily needed. I feel as if this is a problem because those virtues of knowledge is something that could be used in the future which would be necessary.
ReplyDeleteI liked Ghent's take on will saying that it's one of the highest powers and it carries an act of true love. But, I feel like there may be a problem saying that will is an overpower of intellect. I say this because to act off of true love there needs to be some kind of knowledge, and wisdom on how to carry out those acts. Without the knowledge or wisdom how would one know how to show pure love?
1. Aquinas' discussion seemed like an interesting combination of views that we have seen previously. At first I was slightly taken aback by his proclamation that God's knowledge does not extend to future events. However, as he furthered his reasoning it seemed to fall in line with what we had read previously of him and the scholastic rationalist view.
ReplyDelete2. This connection with Aquinas was evident when he stated "God knows contingents as they are in their own being not successively, as we do, but all at once. This is because his knowledge is measured by eternity, just as also his being is, and eternity as a whole that exists all at once surrounds the whole of time, as was said above." From this view then it seems like God set things in motion and then let it run while watching it all unfold in one present eternity.
based on all the past readings and philosophers, it was sort of shocking to see that Aquinas believes that God does not have knowledge on the future or contingency because thus far God has been regarded as an all-knowing, omnipotent being that has the ability to foresee all things.
ReplyDeleteThe only part that confused men this rating was how later he also seems to be retaining Gods Omnipotence by discussing contingency and what exactly is to be meant by it in this sense. I can't tell if Aquinas is redefining omnipotence or contingency for this matter.
It seems that Aquinas is trying to further nail down contingency as a solution to the problem of evil and free will, predestination, and God’s omniscience. For me, his inclusion of what he calls “proximate causes” really clears the air as a means of distinguishing God’s perspective in which something is contingent in itself, and the human perspective where only successive causes can be known (or conjectured) and the connection to the first cause is assumed but impossible to trace. This appears to get one step closer to solving the problem with contingency that is whether God’s knowledge of a future event makes it necessary rather than contingent. Although God’s knowledge could be argued to be the primary cause, the many layers of contingencies between God and the event may permit indeterminacy despite God’s knowledge.
ReplyDeleteHenry of Ghent returns to the conflict between will and intellect, and builds up the defense on the primacy of the will. I’m not sure I read anything particularly controversial or surprising, as he tends to lean a great deal on Augustine’s writing. But I do wonder what this means for the works of the ancients. It seems like this is a turn from Aristotelian ideas toward more orthodox Christian ones. By this I mean Aristotle called human intellect the highest function of the human soul, and if it is the will that is primary, then surely less significance would be placed on the intellect in the next generation of philosophical works.
1. The most interesting line from the first reading in my mind was the idea that the being of a thing in itself is something other than the being of the soul. It seems to be a pretty clear and concise duelist maxim. I’m lost as to how he actually resolves the tension between gods knowledge and freedom of will.
ReplyDelete2. For as confusing as Aquinas was, Siger was even harder for me to understand. It seems that interesting distinctions were made in his piece and that of Aquinas that are useful linguistic/ semantic knowledge. Forinctance the Providence/ for knowledge distinction was interesting, but I have a hard time taking the metaphysical logic seriously. In my mind linguistic distinctions and developments are the most interesting components of medieval philosophy so far.
1. I think that Aquinas' dissection of the language involving the discussion of necessity and contingency is the correct route to the heart of the matter. The illumination of two different interpretations of the same statement shows the possibility of misinterpretation that is liable in using casual language. That being said, I wonder if contingency is not an illusion of the human mind that results from our imperfect knowledge of the world.
ReplyDelete1. I also like the composite approach taken by both Aquinas and Siger, for it seems that although contingency and necessity may not necessarily be what we think they are, it seems that they are both real in some sense and there seems to be room for both of them.
I found Aquinas' approach interesting - he addresses the possible counterarguments to his claims first and goes about proving his claim through contradiction. The fact that he started by claiming that God does not possess knowledge of contingent events took me by surprise as I began to think that that was his claim. In his reply, he goes on to show that if we took that antecedent to be true, it would result in an illogical result. Although I do not buy his proof, I find it clever and interesting how he adjusted his approach over the readings, constantly refining his proofing abilities to ensure more soundness.
ReplyDeleteI find Siger's argument to be quite interesting also. How he uses the case of time in his argument to deduce how contingency arises. He, like other philosophers read, analyzes necessity for causation; however, unlike previous philosophers he approaches it through the scope of time. He believed that without necessary causation there would be no contingency and therefore no future events in its entirety. This implies that time would cease to exist, for there would be no past, present, or future.
I find Aquinas need to preserve the idea of God’s omniscience to be quite interesting. How he describes contingency would lead someone to believe that he doubts that God is omniscient. However, he stills states that God is omniscient. It is also interesting that he mentions that god cannot have knowledge about contingencies. I find some of Aquinas’ points to be quite contradictory.
ReplyDeleteI found Aquinas’ point about God’s knowledge being absolutely necessary to be very interesting. He mentions that if an antecedent is absolutely true that the consequent must be absolutely true. He then says that God is the same way, but even more so because he is God. God is a perfect being so it is even more true for him. Making an analogy between God and absolutely true statements is something I did not expect to see.
Like with much of the metaphysics done by Medieval theologians and philosophers, I feel as though the practicality of it is useless if the Bible is not refuted as being inaccurate or at least misinterpreted. Aquinas discourse about contingent and necessary things certainly makes sense if you we were just constructing a metaphysics that has a God at the center, but problems arise from his reasoning when he has to justify not a God, but the Christian God. The absurdity of all these argument is if they don't at the end justify how these idea can be interpreted from the bible they have no chance of finding a foothold in the religious canon. The Bible is very clear about God’s nature as an omniscient being. That he has a kind of omniscience that even includes contingent things.
ReplyDeleteI like Henry of Ghent's argument for will being a higher power then intellect, although I would probably drop the pretence of a higher or lower function. I think practically and within the world, intellect emerges from will. I don’t think that would necessary clash with Aristotle's philosophy. Plato on the other hand is different. You certainly could make the argument that intellect on its own separated from will could be a better or closer to the form of the good.