Reddit reviews Aquinas (A Beginner's Guide)
We found 62 Reddit comments about Aquinas (A Beginner's Guide). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide
Reddit reviews Aquinas (A Beginner's Guide)We found 62 Reddit comments about Aquinas (A Beginner's Guide). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Some are probably less good than others, but that's what I'd throw out there. A direct assault is not always the best way.
Former fedora atheist here. For a long time, I felt like I belonged to the "skeptical, rational, atheist" tribe. But at one point I became disillusioned with the crowd, and realized that I no longer want to be part of it. I started looking for alternatives, groups I'd want to be a part of, and I settled upon Catholicism. I first approached it from a purely secular perspective, as a serious and reliable institution. But I ended up accepting the faith and God as well.
Here's my progression, what drew me in more and more:
I. The intellectual life. I was always fascinated by science. It was interactions with promoters of dishonest creationism (usually evangelicals) that originally pushed me towards rejecting religion and to become a militant atheist.
Then I read a book that changed how I view the relation between Church and science: God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science. I now follow @catholiclab and similar profiles on Twitter, which post interesting facts about Catholic scientists. It's simply astounding how this information is completely absent from contemporary popular culture.
II. Just on an emotional level, feeling "closer" to Catholics. It helped that my family is Catholic. On YouTube, I've watched many videos by Bishop Robert Barron, Fr. Mike. They are very lucid and reasonable in addressing contemporary issues. I'm sure there are many others.
I'm also reading biographies of martyrs who died persecuted in modernity by revolutionary ideologies. My TODO reading list includes books by Thomas Merton, Joseph Ratzinger, and the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola.
III. The aesthetics. I'm subscribed on Twitter to profiles like @Christian8Pics which post a lot of inspiring imagery. Familiarity breeds liking. I also listen to music on YouTube: liturgy, Medieval chants, Mozart's Requiem, Byzantine chants (usually Eastern Orthodox).
All these sideways might seem very strange to a Catholic convert or someone raised Catholic who stayed Catholic. But if someone is immersed in a materialistic, mechanistic and atheistic worldview, there's no available grammar or impulse to even take God or the life of the Church into consideration.
IV. Actually knowing what theism is all about. The "god" dismissed by popular atheist debaters is a caricature of God as understood by classical theism and the actual tradition of the Church. So is the "god" argued for by Intelligent Design proponents, biblical literalists, fundamentalists.
I read 2 books by Edward Feser (Catholic) and David Bentley Hart (Eastern Orthodox) to finally become comfortable with this very simple point. The books I read are, in order:
By Edward Feser:
By David Bentley Hart:
Each author has his own biases, which might trip the reader up at times (Hart is biased against evolutionary psychology for some reason). But these books produced in me a fresh view of where to begin seeking for God. They gave me the confidence to proceed.
Atheism always addresses "god" as if it's simply one entity among others, part of the natural world, for which one ought to find physical traces and then one simply "believes in the existence of god" (much like you'd believe there's a car parked outside your house, once you look out the window and observe it's there -- meaning it could just as well NOT be there).
Creationists just muddy the waters with "god of the gaps" and "Paley's watch" style theories, which simply postulate "god" as an explanation for why this or that aspect of the natural world is a certain way, a tinkerer god which molds the physical world into shape, or which created it at some point in the past.
This has nothing to do with how God is presented by the authors I quoted, and they go to great lengths to make this point.
I started by understanding that there needs to be an ultimate answer to certain metaphysical questions which, by definition, can't have a physical answer (e.g. "why does there exist a physical world in the first place?"). There's a qualitative difference between physical questions and metaphysical ones, and the gap simply can't be breached by adding more layers of physicality. Hart makes this point very well (he differentiates between the Demiurge that deists, atheists and creationists discuss, and God as the "necessary being" of classical theism).
The ultimate metaphysical cause is "necessary" because it's simply a necessity for the physical world to have a non-physical cause which keeps it in existence. If the only thing that existed was a quantum field that didn't produce any particles, or a single proton that always existed and will always exist, the "necessity" would be exactly the same. Nothing would change even if it turned out our Universe is part of a Multiverse.
Then, through reasoning, one can deduce certain characteristics of this ultimate answer, which ends up forming the classical theistic picture of God as a "necessary being" which continuously creates every aspect of the physical universe. Feser is very good at explaining this part and especially at underlining how tentative and feeble our understanding of the unfathomable is. He also explains why it has to be a "being" rather than an unknown impersonal cause. It's a humbling experience.
But as Bishop Robert Barron stated in his interview on the Rubin Report, philosophy only takes you halfway there. Looking back, the existence of God simply makes sense and is a no-brainer. Faith doesn't have to do with "accepting that God exists with no evidence". Faith is about what you do once you realize that the existence of God is an inescapable conclusion of rational thought. What do you do once you realize that He exists and is conscious of us? You have to go beyond the impersonal, and engage, interact. Here's where prayer, the liturgical life and spiritual exercises come into play.
Unlike conversion, faith isn't a one-time historical event, it's a daily effort on one's part to drive one's thoughts towards the infinite and the ultimate cause of everything. This requires individual effort, but it is not an individual venture. One has the entire tradition and life of the Church to guide you: selfless persons who dedicated their lives to help people like you and me.
Here's how Feser, in his "Last Superstition" book, describes the various ways of conceiving of God:
>To understand what serious religious thinkers do believe, we might usefully distinguish five gradations in one’s conception of God:
>1. God is literally an old man with a white beard, a kind if stern wizard-like being with very human thoughts and motivations who lives in a place called Heaven, which is like the places we know except for being very far away and impossible to get to except through magical means.
>2. God doesn’t really have a bodily form, and his thoughts and motivations are in many respects very different from ours. He is an immaterial object or substance which has existed forever, and (perhaps) pervades all space. Still, he is, somehow, a person like we are, only vastly more intelligent, powerful, and virtuous, and in particular without our physical and moral limitations. He made the world the way a carpenter builds a house, as an independent object that would carry on even if he were to “go away” from it, but he nevertheless may decide to intervene in its operations from time to time.
>3. God is not an object or substance alongside other objects or substances in the world; rather, He is pure being or existence itself, utterly distinct from the world of time, space, and things, underlying and maintaining them in being at every moment, and apart from whose ongoing conserving action they would be instantly annihilated. The world is not an independent object in the sense of something that might carry on if God were to “go away”; it is more like the music produced by a musician, which exists only when he plays and vanishes the moment he stops. None of the concepts we apply to things in the world, including to ourselves, apply to God in anything but an analogous sense. Hence, for example, we may say that God is “personal” insofar as He is not less than a person, the way an animal is less than a person. But God is not literally “a person” in the sense of being one individual thing among others who reasons, chooses, has moral obligations, etc. Such concepts make no sense when literally applied to God.
>4. God as understood by someone who has had a mystical experience of the sort Aquinas had.
>5. God as Aquinas knows Him now, i.e. as known in the beatific vision attained by the blessed after death.
What I've been talking about is at #3. Atheists and creationists are debating #1 and #2. #4 is a gift to be accorded by grace, and is what people strive for in their spiritual life. #5 is the ultimate goal of the Christian life.
Christianity has a long intellectual tradition that sees a complementary relationship between faith and reason, and the prevailing view among Catholics is that rational arguments alone, without reference to revelation, can prove certain theological facts such as the existence of God; the divine attributes, e.g., God's simplicity, eternity, omnipresence, immutability, impassibility, justice, goodness, etc.; and the natural immortality of the human soul. Faith builds upon this rational foundation not by adding something extra that is accepted without proof, but by accepting teachings beyond our natural grasp on the authority of someone that reason tells us is infallible: if one Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, that is an unmistakeable sign from God that what he taught is correct.
If you want to dig in to that intellectual tradition and examine the arguments in detail, one good place to start would be Aquinas by Edward Feser. Aquinas' thought has become the mainstream of Catholic philosophy, but personally I consider his main work, the Summa Theologiae, to be too long and inaccessible to recommend as a starting point. Feser's book offers an approach better suited to modern readers, including a detailed analysis of Aquinas' famous "Five Ways" to prove the existence of God.
You're welcome! Another piece of advice I have is that while I firmly believe conversion is a result of grace, breaking down intellectual barriers to belief is absolutely critical for many atheists. I found I had a lot of baggage and bad history/bad philosophy in my overall worldview previously. I didn't know what I didn't know or believe in. To me, God was a silly, antiquated idea used for control and comfort. Things like classical theism, divine simplicity, act/potency, essentialism, forms, four causes...were either completely foreign to me or unintelligible.
The first part of getting past that was classical philosophy, as I previously mentioned. I don't just mean Catholic thinkers like Aquinas either (though he's the mastermind!). It was studying the metaphysics of Aristotle, the forms of Plato, Ockam's pre-nominalistic, how enlightenment philosophers shifted the thinking towards epistemology and metaphysics; that I think really broke those barriers for me. It turned out that the materialism, reductionism, naturalism, and empiricism that I took for granted...were not on the strong ground I thought they were. Indeed, philosophers like Ed Feser, David Oderberg, Peter Kreeft, GEM Anscombe, Roger Scruton, Bernard Lonergan, James Ross, and even Thomas Nagel (himself an atheist!) have been articulating strong arguments against those things for years. I never knew the power of logic, deductive reasoning, and philosophy. I took the view of scientism as the default truth without ever challenging it. But just knowing how strong the intellectual arguments are against atheism/materialism are, and for theism; has helped immensely in growing in God's grace. And that is to say nothing for my moral realism, courtesy of Alasdair MacIntyre and C.S. Lewis, that was the initial crack in my previous worldview.
For those of us who are more head than heart, like I suspect you and your wife are, this kind of deep dive into philosophy is a crucial aspect of conversion. If you can articulate the strength of theism and weaknesses of atheism from just a purely intellectual standpoint, you may at least get her to be more understanding of your shift in thinking. I think reading this book is a good start and that this one is slightly more thorough. Feser isn't the world's greatest philosopher but he is very articulate. This book of his helped me greatly in beginning to solidify and defend my own epistemology and metaphysics.
Aquinas (A Beginner's Guide), by Edward Feser is supposed to be a good introduction to his ideas. I bought this book a couple weeks ago and am planning to read it when I finish two other books I'm working on.
St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox, by G.K. Chesterton is an excellent biography of St. Thomas Aquinas. I have read this one, it's great.
Investigation of classical cosmological arguments, exemplified by Plato and Aristotle, and the attendant realization that the popular understanding of them is very poor, and accordingly that the popular objections to them carry no weight whatsoever. Objections like "what caused God" and "maybe the universe is infinitely old."
A quick example. The term "cosmological argument" immediately conjures up the notion that the universe must have had a beginning, something must have triggered it, we don't know what it was, so...Godidit! Except that this is only a very crude version of the kalam cosmological argument, which represents a very small portion of such arguments, and in a way is an anomaly since most cosmological arguments do not try to say that the universe had a beginning at all.
Rather, most cosmological arguments, especially those inspired by Plato and Aristotle, argue not for a beginning to the universe (both thought the universe is infinitely old), but rather for an uncaused cause at the "root" of reality at the present moment. Similar to how we might reason that a machine has a motor inside it based on the fact that we can observe its external parts moving. Read a book like Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide and, while it might not convert you to a theist, it may well make you see theism as a viable position.
When you really understand the metaphysics behind them, Aquinas' proofs become airtight. Edward Feser does a fantastic job explaining this in his book: Aquinas.
God bless you! :) I love how you have shared your testimony.
I'm a young Christian guy and, unfortunately, struggle with porn and masturbation as well. So I do relate to your troubles there.
As someone who is new to the Christian faith, you might find this book REALLY helpful:
https://www.amazon.com/Mere-Christianity-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652926/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473987989&sr=8-1&keywords=mere+christianity
It is called "Mere Christianity" by C.S Lewis, who, fun fact, is also the auther of the "Chronicals of Narnia" fiction series.
C.S Lewis was a devout Christian and has wrote many great books on the Christian faith. I would also reccomend his book "the Screwtape Letters" which is a book about demons. And it might help you with temptation, as you shall realise the spiritual reality of what happens whan you go through that tempation.
You also mentioned that your parents are Catholic, so they might appreciate that you learn Theology from the renowned Theologian,
Thomas Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Aquinas-Selected-Writings-Classics/dp/0140436324/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473988742&sr=1-1&keywords=thomas+aquinas
https://www.amazon.com/Aquinass-Shorter-Summa-Thomass-Theologica/dp/1928832431/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473989822&sr=1-7&keywords=thomas+aquinas
https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Aquinas-50-Pages-Laymans/dp/0988442515/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473989867&sr=1-3&keywords=thomism
https://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473989924&sr=1-6&keywords=thomism
Thomos Aquinas is not only one of the greatest philosophers of Christianity, but one of the greatest philosophers PERIOD.
Just by reading, you can really learn a lot about the nature of God, what it means to
pray, how to properly interpret Scripture, understanding your
sexuality, the proper use of meditation etc.
Just reading one book can inform you a LOT.
I say this because, a lot of times, new Christians ask how or where
they can learn more about Christianity. Which is funny because the
answer is right in front of them. :) You learn more about religion
just as you learn more about everything else iln life. Through books.
:)
Anyways. God bless you in your newfound relationship with Him.
May you grow in faith and find righteous abstinence from sin.
Pray for me as I shall pray for you.
Deo Gratias! +++
Aquinas by Edward Feser.
In it, he also handles/discusses the Five Proofs for God by Aquinas. Should also be somewhat useful to fight off that drifting.
It gives a pretty good intro. It's also pretty deep, but, yknow, still really good.
Edit to add link to Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908
Also, here's a post from Feser's blog, a review on his book:
>Dominicans Interactive is a new online initiative of the Irish Dominicans. (Check out their Facebook page and website.) Today the website reviews my book Aquinas. From the review:
>>The chapter on natural theology deals with all five of Aquinas’s proofs for the existence of God… as well as containing a short treatment of the divine attributes (God’s simplicity, perfection, goodness, immutablity, and so on). The reader will encounter in this chapter one of the most robust defences of the validity of every one of the arguments for the existence of God (Five Ways) available in the English language… This chapter is a tour de force and bears witness to Feser’s deserved reputation as a master of natural theology. Both students and established scholars ought to acquire a copy of the book for the sake of this chapter alone.
>Very kind! The review also warns: “[A] note of caution: Feser’s book, while it ought to be required reading for any introductory course on Aquinas’s philosophy, is nonetheless very challenging for the neophyte.” That’s worth emphasizing. The book’s subtitle “A Beginner’s Guide” is a bit misleading. It was not part of the original title when the book was contracted, and writing a “beginner’s guide” was not something I had in mind when working on it. What happened is that after the book was finished the publisher decided to fold it into their “Beginner’s Guides” series. In fact most readers will find it more challenging than The Last Superstition, though not as challenging as Scholastic Metaphysics.
Of course.
Aquinas
The Last Superstition
His blog (check out his latest blog post, actually, and read (or listen to) his speech)
Philosophy of Mind - not directly related to religious belief, but gives background to understand some of the inconsistencies in an atheistic worldview
I'm glad to see there were a few respectful responses to your question, including /u/vnk. I think the biggest challenge for modern thinkers is that we tend to downplay any way of seeing things that doesn't involve the methods of science, e.g. physical observation, measuring, etc. And then when someone like you asks the obvious question of why it still looks, smells, and tastes like bread and wine (observations) people get all kinds of upset. I remember long ago someone angrily responding to a similar question from me that "there's no bread and wine there anymore!", as if that were a helpful response. The "accidents" of physical form are indeed still there, and if you ran the body and blood through any scientific apparatus they'd indeed tell you, "yep, bread and wine".
It took me a while to come to grips with this, and it required me to acknowledge there are other ways of thinking.
Here's a fairly readable book on the Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas that might help you learn how to think of things from a different perspective. You don't need to abandon the scientific way of thinking. In fact, you shouldn't, as it has led to tremendous improvements in the human condition and so it would be a terrible thing to abandon. It's just that life, and God, are too big and too important to see from just one limited perspective. You may have a hard time accepting this for a while. Try your best to be open to it.
I'll add that, yes, I believe in transubstantiation.
Feser does cover some natural theology if I recall correctly, but Torrell's book definitely deals a lot more with theology. Reading both Torrell's Saint Thomas Aquinas, Vol. 2: Spiritual Master and Feser's Aquinas wouldn't hurt though
So I only saw one other guy give you apologetics material, and another person made the point that life is pointless if there is no God (which I agree is true).
But you're asking for intellectual material.
I would start with Dr. Edward Feser's Aquinas (A Beginner's Guide). It's $12 paperback on Amazon, $5 on kindle if you have a kindle-enabled device.
After this, if you find yourself convinced, I would go with The Last Superstition by the same man, for $15 paperback on Amazon or $12 on kindle.
Next, you can read excepts from the Summa Theologiae at your leisure for free on http://www.newadvent.org/summa/.
If you're very intellectual, Ed Feser's book Scholastic Metaphysics can really get you into Thomism after you've done the above, or you can pick up some MacIntyre.
I have different suggestions for different things:
(1) First, if you are struggling with belief in God, I recommend Ed Feser's [Aquinas] (https://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908) and Trent Horn's [Answering Atheism] (http://shop.catholic.com/answering-atheism-set.html). Additionally, I definitely recommend [Catholic Answers] (http://www.catholic.com), a website and radio show that has helped me (a lapsed Catholic turned agnostic turned Protestant turned practicing Catholic) build my faith with confidence.
(2) Additionally, the Catholic Church has been very pro-science throughout the ages, with the jesuits, Vatican science divisions, and various individual [priests] (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître), [monks] (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel) and laypersons who have greatly contributed to science. Don't confuse southern baptist/evangelicals (no evolution, etc) with Catholicism (in full support of the sciences). It's an unfortunate stereotype that we have yet to shake.
(3) Religiously, don't worry about your relationship with God in the past. He loves us all infinitely and unconditionally. I recommend prayer (as /u/AllanTheCowboy always says, "Moar Rosary!") first and foremost. When you are ready, go to confession, and after that go to mass. Once you truly understand the Sacraments, and in particular the Eucharist, you will never leave.
Never be afraid to ask questions, and never, never, never be afraid to approach God. He loves you; always has and always will.
If you are coming from an atheist background I think you should start with some more foundational material before checking out the Bible. The Catholic Church is the sole keeper of the complete truth that has been revealed by God to humanity.
However, like other truths, new conclusions can build upon previous knowledge. Just like modern mathematics has built upon Gauss and Newton and Pythagoras etc. If you did not understand geometry it would be difficult to understand calculus. If you just started reading about calculus but had no concept of finding the area of a rectangle you might not understand calculus or assume you are being expected to just accept calculus as true using "blind faith". In the same way, God has revealed to us that we should not murder people (10 commandments), and the Church was able to build upon that foundation the conclusion that abortion is a sin since it is ultimately the killing of an innocent human (murder). If however, you just read somewhere that the Church opposes abortion but had no knowledge of the 10 commandments you might not understand why that conclusion was made and instead assume it is just some arbitrary religious teaching.
The foundation you need to first establish is that God exists, and this can be known (in the same way you can know 1+1=2) through reason. Even Aristotle was able to know this. The most famous proofs of this are St Thomas Aquinas' "5 ways". There are many resources including books and good YouTube videos exploring this topic, I would recommend Answering Atheism as a good start, or if you want to try a college level, more rigorous book, check out Aquinas for Beginners. Check out this quick 17 minute video for a great start.
So that is where I think you should start, and after you convince yourself that atheism is false you should come back here to learn why the Catholic church is God's true church.
To address a few other things. First, the Bible is not a book in the commonly used sense of that word today. The Bible is actually a collection of books written across a wide time range in different genres. So a more accurate question would be: "do I have to take the library 100% literally? The answer is of course no. That does not mean the Bible is not 100% true, it just means that the truth is not 100% conveyed directly via literal interpretation. Some evidence would be this quote from Jesus "If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother...he cannot be My disciple" which seems to be in direct contradiction with the 4th Commandment "Honor thy father and mother". So if the Bible is 100% true, and things that are true cannot lead to contradictions, then at least one of the quotes must have some other meaning than the literal text. So how do we know what is the case here? That is what we have the Catholic Church for, so again when after you convince yourself God exists you should come back here to understand why you should trust the Catholic Church to interpret these questions and more.
If you are specifically concerned that becoming Catholic means you have to literally believe the universe was created in 6 days I can assure you the short answer is no, you do not need to believe this.
1 more thing Ill add it about the word "faith". A common atheist position is that religions are based on blind faith with no evidence. This is not the Catholic definition of the word. Faith is not about making true/false claims. Evidence is REQUIRED for True/False claims. Now not ALL evidence is in the form of scientific experimentation, but that does not mean the Church requires you to just hold certain things as true on "faith alone" with no evidence. Instead, think of the word confidence. The latin roots are "con" "fide" which means "with faith". So faith has more to do with confidence or trust than true/false certainty. An example might be that we use reason and logic as evidence to know God exists, or historical testimony as evidence Jesus rose from the dead. Then, knowing these things as true, we have faith that the teaching God has revealed are true and in our best interest in things we should do. There is no way to proof scientifically whether or not we should steal something, and if we are even in a situation where we are tempted into doing that we may think that we should do it because we really want to or don't think we will get caught or whatever. Faith means trusting in God's recommendation to not steal things even if we think it would be a good idea or seemingly justify it to ourselves.
Possibly longer than you're looking for but here's Edward Feser's overview of Aquinas. (He's also one of the few modern people who would defend much of Aquinas's metaphysics)
https://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908
​
There's also the Plato Stanford article on Aquinas here:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aquinas/
​
and a summary of On Being and Essense here:
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/aquinas-esse.asp
​
Note that much of the jargon: essense, matter, form, final cause, formal cause, etc. are pulled from Aristotle's metaphysics. So if you haven't already, read up on that.
The book "Aquinas" by Edward Feser:
Note: they are based on Aristotle's thinking, so are not biblical or based on revelation. Purely logic. (And no, neither Hume nor Dawkins, refuted them.) A series of blog posts that summarize the book, but if you are intellectually serious in (re-)investigating the topic, but book is best (and only ~200 pages):
It has (the potential) to get to a logical reason for an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God. You'll have to look into the historicity of Jesus for Christianity specifically: perhaps try "The Resurrection of the Son of God" by N. T. Wright (anything by him really).
For why Catholicism specifically in Christianity, try "The Fathers Know Best" by Jimmy Akin, who does a lot of Q&A on Catholic.com Radio:
As to why not other religions: science. Most other world views deny one (or more) of the following tenants which precent knowing the natural world better:
For why (modern) science could have only developed in Europe, and not the Middle East / Muslim world or China, see "The Rise of Early Modern Science" by Toby E. Huff. For why India was handicapped, "Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution" by Huff.
I think these books have the potential to explain why one should go from atheism to deism, to Christianity, to Catholicism.
Have you looked into (theistic) philosophy at all? That's where you will find the real intellectual firepower in terms of making the case for God's existence. A book like this for example.
Ah! I think I can help! The trick is that intellectuals who think about God tend to dismiss the possibility of Him fitting into a scientific theory. But they don't dismiss the idea as false on these grounds - they believe the world to contain things that science cannot or has not discovered.
You might be interested in learning about natural theology (the study of God through secular means).
Some theologians for God argue for his existence on the basis of metaphysical models. For example, Thomas Aquinas in his Quinquae Via argues for God in this way. If you accept his very technical, specific, and interesting ways of thinking about the universe, then he can be very convincing.
Another group, more heavily favored by modern analytical philosophy, are led by a thinker named Alvin Plantinga. These people construct extremely technical arguments for God (see the modal ontological argument for an example), and also explain how they think God's existence explains certain facts that we all agree on.
For the former group, I'd recommend this book. For the latter, this one. Let me know if I can expand any point of this unfortunately-broad response.
Here's a handy 90-day reading plan, which takes you through the narrative books of the Bible. It's a good place to start when reading scripture, giving you a good look at the story of Scripture.
Aquinas is the premier Catholic thinker. I wouldn't recommend you start reading Aquinas unless you have firm grounding in Aristotelian philosophy. But that's not to say you can't learn about Aquinas' thought. You might find books like A Summa of the Summa, Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide, or The Dumb Ox useful introductory texts to his works. After you're comfortable reading him, you can jump in to some primary texts.
You can absolutely study theology and/or canon law formally. Just be aware that there aren't to many jobs you'll be able to get with a theology degree under your belt. Your options would be pretty much just professor, priest, or religion teacher.
Edit: Also, if you haven't done so already, read the Catechism or the Compendium of the Catechism.
I would start with the Compendium on Catholic Social Doctrine for specifics to how the Church views government, the state, and the Church's relation to it.
I apologize for the Vatican link but that is all I have. Normally I wouldn't' be embarrassed but the Vatican's site is...well...horrid in design. But there are paperbacks if you are interested.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html
For philosophy in general I would recommend Edward Fesser's Aquinas: A beginner's Guide:
http://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908
Fesser is a bit polemic in his other works, but he does an excellent job of explaining the big differences between the thought of Aquinas and other medievalist and more modernist thinking that we take for granted.
Well, it depends on what you want to study. If you want to go for religious experience, phenomenology, and epistemology, Yandell's "The Epistemology of Religious Experience", Otto's "The Idea of the Holy", James' "Varieties ...", and Alston's "Perceiving God" would be good.
For Medieval philosophy you really can't beat Aquinas. Since the SCG and ST are pretty hefty, it'd be good to start with Aristotle's metaphysica and physica (late late late edit: not just that, but read his works on souls as well as his other works). McKeon's "The Basic works of Aristotle" is an okay translation. There's a better one, but the name eludes me. After that, Aquinas' "On Being and Essence" is a must-read for metaphysics. Then either flip through the SCG or ST, or even better, find a companion for the two works (Peter Kreeft, Feser, and Sir A. Kenny are all decent). Beyond Aquinas, and a bit earlier than him, are Augustine and the Church fathers. I can't really say much on them because I'm not too familiar-- I fell in love with the Medieval philosopher-theologians before I converted, I didn't really pay much mind to those earlier than them in the Christian tradition. However, Augustine is usually the man I've heard recommended.
Beyond the books, philosophy papers between, say, Bergmann, Pruss, Almeida, et al. are wonderful. Almeida's "On Vague Eschatology", "A New Cosmological Argument Undone" (in response to Pruss), Almeida's refutation of Rowe's new evidentialist argument from evil, and his reply to Alston's skeptical theist response to Rowe's new evidentialist argument. Usually these will be followed by a response, and counter-response, etc.
For Oderberg, and in general for the Neo-Aristotelians, Tahko's collection of essays by varying neo-Aristotelians in "Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics", Oderberg's "Whatever is Changing...", and Oderberg's "Real Essentialism" are not explicitly Christian or related to the philosophy of religion (except the second, that is explicitly about the First Way of St. Thomas Aquinas) but implicitly related via the essentialists (particularly the Aristotelians) in the Christian tradition.
edit: Question for you: Which works of Plantinga? Also, by Zacharias, you mean Ravi Zacharias? I've never read much on him but I've heard he's okay. What is your take on him?
Thomas Aquinas' cosmological argument. Here's a quite easily understandable graphic that explains the basics of it. If you're interested in reading more about it, I'd recommend checking out this subreddit or reading this book (or listening to this lecture by the author of that book) for more detailed summaries/"translations" of it, since Aquinas' original formulation is a bit hard to understand without proper context.
My brother bought me Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide. I told him I would love a book as a present and he knows my amazon password. He's an atheist but he said Aquinas was the only name he recognised going through my wish list so he picked this one!
Get "Aquinas" by Edward Feser.
https://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1517546844&sr=8-1&keywords=Aquinas+Feser
>Because there's no argument
Hmmm.
I discovered classical philosophy, which is to say the system of thought developed by the greatest of the pre-Christian, pagan thinkers of Greece (principally Plato and Aristotle), and refined and recruited into the service of theology by the greatest Christian theologians (principally St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas).
This system of thought was largely a given in the West in general until about the 17th century, and remains a given in much Catholic theology. It posits a basic metaphysics (i.e., a set of fundamental philosophical principles) without which it is exceedingly difficult to make much sense of anything at all. These principles are not simply asserted but rather are the result of a long tradition of careful reflection and refinement.
Among many other things, the classical philosophical tradition holds that three things quite pertinent to religion can be known with certainty by reasoned argument: (1) the existence of God, (2) some of God's attributes such as omnipotence, omniscience, and eternity, and (3) the immortality of the soul.
If you spend some time reading Edward Feser you can get a fantastic and easy-to-read layman's introduction to classical philosophy. In particular he has two books for beginners, one non-snarky and one quite snarky.
Seems to me you are already at step 1: desiring a relationship with God. Prayer is a great place to go next. Praying can be as simple as talking to God. Reading the Bible can also be a form of prayer! Want a place to start? Look up what today's readings are in a church calendar, and pray about them.
You may feel more comfortable following a more structured style of meditation, such as praying the Rosary to meditate on the life of Jesus.
Also, I don't know if it is Sunday where you are or if there is a church near you with a mass today, but I recommend making one if you can. There may be one in your area you can make weekdays in addition to Sundays, or you can try to go next Sunday and the following Sundays.
Read about the lives of the Saints! Some of them have gone through a great deal, you are not alone. Their lives are full of inspiration and demonstrate how the Holy Spirit works through us. I recommend the Laudate and IBreviary apps. (Former has many things including saint of the day and interactive Rosary, later has the Liturgy of the Hours.)
There is a wealth of Christian philosophy and in general philosophy is interesting and useful so I will also recommend a bunch of philosophy. I also recommend this introductory guide to Aquinas. Lastly, I will pray for you. I hope this was useful to you. God Bless!
These are best:
This commentary may help - if the first three ways seem the same, it's because the distinctions in the kind of causes isn't clear yet.
Not exactly an answer to your question, but you may be interested in Prof. Edward Feser's weblog:
He wrote the book/s on A-T for more contemporary audiences:
That's a great question! I believe in Christianity for reasons including personal experience, the lack of cogent arguments against it (an area I commend anyone to avail themselves of the resources here and here on), the historicity of the Biblical documents (archeologically, especially those of the New Testament and the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Nazareth),
the remarkable ability of theism to best explain a wide range of the data in human experience, such as
the possibility of our having reliable cognitive faculties and their deliverances,
the beginning of the universe,
the existence of moral truths,
the contingency of the universe,
the "fine tuning" of the initial conditions of the universe for the development of intelligent life and our exorbitant means of observing the world around us,
the fact of widespread religious experience,
the implausibility of the purported development of conscious agents from inorganic matter,
the irreducibly of certain instantiations of biological complexity to any naturalistic incremental evolutionary mechanism,
the existence of regularity and a bias in nature towards simplicity and aesthetic features (which I am happy to elaborate on),
the possibility of change (the actualization of potentials and the nature of hierarchical causal series), and a great deal more that space does not permit me to detail).
> Like, you mentioned the third one, but correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like he's saying because entropy hasn't destroyed the universe yet there must be God.
The third way relies on contingency of beings. See here.
It basically says that no contingent being can be the cause of the universe... so entropy really has nothing to do with it.
Another point I'd like to make is that the 5 ways in the SUMMA are just brief sketches, not arguments proper, so if you take them from there there are some premises that people might object to strongly. For example in the 3rd way Aquinas says "But it is impossible for these always to exist, for that which is possible not to be at some time is not." which people sometimes reads "If something exists only contingently, then there is some time at which it did not exist."... which is problematic if read in this way... (of course Aquinas mainly meant that it simply is possible that something that is contingent to go out of existence and thus it cannot be necessary as a being)
But Thomists have not been sitting on their hands and have reformulated and worked on the arguments proper. It's not like the "Five Ways" have been taken as unchanged as in the Summa for 800 years, Thomists and philosophers have been listening to critics and have worked (successfully I might add) to find solution to the criticism.
For example in the third way you can argue that contingent beings are not necessary even if they exist forever in a temporal sense
....
The claim "because entropy hasn't destroyed the universe yet there must be God." seems to me to be again William Paileys
>and besides the fact that everyone has trouble discerning what he's talking about in the first place, of the many different interpretations I've not heard one that even makes sense.
I think the idea "everyone has trouble discerning what he's talking about " comes from the fact that Thomists continuously have to correct bad readings of Aquinas from pop-atheists.
If you read someone's purely through his critics you are very well bound to get distorted views, because atheists start with the intention to "debunk" rather than to "understand".
In addition, o properly understand Aquinas one must understand Aristotelian philosophy, Scholasticism and also be familiar with Platonism. Many if Aquinas "critics" read him without being overtly familiar with this (even most pro-philosophers are not really too familiar with pre-moderns).
Point is: read the experts on Aquinas and Medieval philosophy. You do not go to an Intelligent Design supporter to understand the theory of evolution, you go to someone who works on evolutionary biology instead.
So if you want to understand Aquinas you want to read someone who is interested in Aquinas work itself and not just reads it to debunk it and has no other interest than that.
To note that Thomists do NOT assume that "Thomas Aquinas was always 100% right and defintive". Rather their work builds on Aquinas as a foundation and they think the foundation is solid even if here and there there is work to be done (like actually expanding and updating the arguments)
Now onto the books I reccomend:
I would say Edward Feser is probably the most accessible writer for laymen on Aquinas. Indeed his book "Aquinas (A Beginner's Guide)" is concise and is both meant for non-philosophers and philosophers alike.
Notably Feser was an atheist for a long time until he actually startedto read Aquinas properly (he recounts his story here where he explains that initially he also just read it to set up strawmen to be knocked down for philosophy classes, but slowly he realized there was much more meat to the arguments than thought.)
For more depth there are so many volumes, I will only mention a few that are general, like Etienne Gilson's "Thomism"; Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought; Eleonore Stump, Aquinas
If you want a good history of philosophy with responses to basically everybody, Fr. Frederick Copleston's A History of Philosophy is pretty good.
Here's the first volume: https://www.amazon.com/History-Philosophy-Vol-Pre-Socratics-Plotinus/dp/0385468431/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1543579301&sr=8-4&keywords=frederick+copleston
Edward Feser deals with both the New Atheists, Enlightenment thinkers, and Old Atheists in The Last Superstition, Aquinas, and Neo-Scholastic Essays. Fr. Garrigou Lagrange's Reality is also worth it.
The Last Superstition: https://www.amazon.com/Last-Superstition-Refutation-New-Atheism-ebook/dp/B00D40EGCQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543579343&sr=8-1&keywords=the+last+superstition
Aquinas: https://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1543579366&sr=8-6
Neo-Scholastic Essays: https://www.amazon.com/Neo-Scholastic-Essays-Edward-Feser/dp/1587315580/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1543579366&sr=8-5&keywords=edward+feser
Reality: https://www.amazon.com/Reality-Synthesis-Reginald-Garrigou-Lagrange-P/dp/1477582401/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543579439&sr=8-1&keywords=reality+garrigou-lagrange
Honestly, I tend to think Van Til's Presuppositionalism is a better system than a lot of Catholic philosophy. His book Christian Apologetics is probably his easiest to read, though I'll admit I've had more access to his ideas from his defenders than his actual writing: https://www.amazon.com/Christian-Apologetics-Cornelius-Van-Til/dp/0875525113/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543579550&sr=8-1&keywords=christian+apologetics+van+til
In a less theologically charged but similar category are Alvin Plantinga's Where the Conflict Really Lies and Warranted Christian Belief: https://www.amazon.com/Where-Conflict-Really-Lies-Naturalism-ebook/dp/B005X3SAHY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543579615&sr=8-1&keywords=where+the+conflict+really+lies+science%2C+religion%2C+and+naturalism
https://www.amazon.com/Warranted-Christian-Belief-Alvin-Plantinga-ebook/dp/B0059EQ4DY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1543579634&sr=8-1&keywords=warranted+christian+belief
I had a similar need for resources for science-minded atheists who had become interested in theology. Edward Feser's Aquinas (A Beginner's Guide) is the book you are looking for.
It is important to note that the first few chapters seek to educate the reader on terms Aquinas uses. But, after that, it does get to the meaty theological issues.
Edit: I second the Platonic dialogues suggestion, especially if these people are relativists.
Dr. Feser has an introductory work on Aquinas here.
I would also encourage you to read Aquinas (A Beginner's Guide), which is also by Dr. Edward Feser.
Other sources I can think of that speak to this topic:
Dr. Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy at Boston College (and a Thomist), is also a great resource. For example, here is the audio from a talk he gave on Moral Theology & Homosexuality (YouTube).
Also a great listen is Matt's Fradd's Pints with Aquinas podcast episode episode 72 with Daniel Mateson (who wrote "Why I Don't Call Myself Gay"). There are some other episodes with guests that cover this topic as well.
Fr. Mike Schmitz is also known for speaking on the topic of homosexuality.
It seems to me that the first place to start in understanding objections to Thomism would be to understand Thomism. I'm not sure where you're at there, but here are a couple of good places to start:
Five Proofs of the Existence of God - Feser
Aquinas - A Beginner's Guide - Feser
(Proving that the first term must be intellectual is going to take us too far adrift here. Aquinas gives several proofs for why this must be the case. If you want to debate something related to that please start your own post. For him in his own words, see Ch. 44 of Book 1 of the Summa Contra Gentiles. But you are going to need a background in scholastic philosophy to understand what he's saying. For a good introduction see Aquinas by Ed Feser.)
I'm saying his argument transcends the science on this. If something is changing, then either that thing explains its own motion (change) or something else does. If it explains its own motion, then that thing is the first term in the causal series. If it doesn't explain its own motion, then something else is causing it. And either that something else is the first term, or there is again some other thing. Eventually you must arrive at a first term. That's all he's saying and as you can see there is nothing here that depends on whether Aquinas understood Newton's First Law of Motion. The argument works whether or not Newton's laws are true. That's what I mean by Aquinas' arguments transcending the science on this.
Yeah there is certainly no good defense for what they believe.
I'd recommend you give it a go, or at least, give Ed Feser's Aquinas. It's a respectable, relatively easy entry into his philosophical thought, and it outlines his basic metaphysics and his 5 ways (his arguments for God) in their context, and corrects many misconceptions about him.
Edit: It's also only about 200 pages. You could read it in a few weeks if you dedicate maybe 1-2 hours a week to it. It does take a bit of digesting though. I had to reread the same paragraph multiple times as I found myself glossing over it and not understanding what was being said.
I had a comment in here giving a reason for he post, though that's not an explanation.
> Note: may not be the best place to post, but I needed to post somewhere in order to link it in Dr. Feser's open thread today, which he only does a couple of times each year. I've been working through his books since early this year, and developing this concept map as I progress.
By way of explanation, this is a work in progress to visualize the relationships between the concepts brought to bear in the philosophical advances of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. Beginning for the fundamental argument for the necessary reality of the distinction between actuality and potentiality, the concept map walks through the conceptual divisions of act and potency. Notably, the divisions of act arrive at a core conception of God as Pure Actuality, Being Itself, utterly devoid of any potentiality or passivity. This is not a proof of God, but rather simply serves to define God's role as the First and Unmoved Mover and Sustainer of all things.
The divisions of act and potency expand to the right of the map, where you see how actuality and potentiality come together as Form and Matter to produce concrete, material things.
Branching off of from the soul (here defined as the substantial form of a living substance), there is a section which details the powers or capacities of the different levels of living substances, which are hierarchically related, with respect to the corporeal order.
For now, the section on the Four Causes is placed on its own, as I still haven't decided where best to tie it in, since many topics make use of this principle. Particularly, Final Causation (defined as the end, goal, purpose, directedness or teleology of a thing) is essential to understanding the concept of objective goodness, which carries into the section on ethics (which, in this view, amounts to an understanding of the directedness of the will).
Also included, but not yet connected as well as it could be, is a section on the divine attributes, along with a brief explanation of how we can know them.
There is much more that can be included. As mentioned elsewhere, this was posted here so that I could link to the WIP. I had hoped that I could catch Edward Feser's attention in the comments of his open thread, which he posted on his blog site yesterday, and which he does only a couple times per year. This concept map is the result of my learning from his books:
I am still working my way through this last one, and when done I intend also to read:
For a slightly challenging but enjoyable assessment of Thomist philosophy read "The Last Superstition" and/or "Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide." They're both by an extremely intelligent Thomist, Edward Feser.
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Superstition-Refutation-New-Atheism/dp/1587314525/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1469425497&sr=1-1&keywords=the+last+superstition
https://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908
I recommend you check out Ed Feser's Five proofs of the existence of God, his Aquinas, or his The last superstition. Additionally, Bishop Barron has some good videos on the subject.
> Why can't evil have substance of its own?
Because evil is an absence or lack of something, in this case, of good. If you want this detailed instead of eating breadcrumbs I recommend you Aquinas y Dr. Edward Feser.
I have Feser on my reading list, but I was going to go for Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide instead. Do you think The Last Superstition would be a better choice?
I have had very litte contact with Thomism until recently. The ideas of causation seem a bit screwy to me, but that should only be expected at this point I guess, before I've actually put in the time and effort to read and study the arguments. ;-)
It is worth nothing that Eric MacDonald who has recently read and begun commenting on Feser has the same concerns.
It also seems that Aquinas defines God and teleology into his concept of causality, and then pretends to act surprised when the God concept pops out the other side of his philosophic sausage grinder. But I guess I should really save those arguments until I better understand the other side. ;-)
As to Feser blog posts, 1-3 seem to be complaints that the book does only what it claims to do: If you accept atheism(and hence deny teleology), it talks about the rest of the implications. It doesn't argue against a teleological view of life, as that's what we rejected when we took up atheism in the first place. The book does not set out to defend this argument. It's written for me, not Feser. ;-) It does give a framework to explain apparent teleology given the lack of actual teleology though, as that is one of the goals of the book.
The criticism of what seems like a claim that the multiverse has been empirically tested is valid. The phrasing is hackneyed enough that I think it's possible from what follows that he means that big bang cosmology has been strongly empirically tested, and sometime in the writing the part about multiverse theory got introduced in the middle of the section on big bang cosmology without properly editing the text to make it clear. Or he could just be wrong, and overclaiming for the WMAP results, which are very preliminary and though they suggest possibility, certainly don't prove anything. Rosenberg also might be referring to the fact that all the conditions for the multiverse hypothesis are true: Recent discoveries confirm the universe is flat and of has zero sum energy, making the multiverse hypothesis possible. But possible and confirmed are two very different things. The last possibility is Rosenberg has access to the embargoed Plank data, and it does in fact confirm multiverse theory and the rest of us poor saps wil find out in 2012-2013, but that seems quite unlikely. ;-) In any case, Feser is right, this paragraph is a mess.
Then Feser goes off the rails, basically saying any non-essentialist explanation is not an explanation at all. According to him, the mere pointing out of how things work is not an explanation of any sort. Strangely enough, most residents of the planet find it to be. He dismisses scientific realism on the simple basis that it is not essentialism. It seems here we're back to that strange definition of causality, defined so as to require God, and Feser will accept nothing less than his circularly defined causality system. He's basically arguing the multiverse can't be all there is, because then the multiverse would be all there is. And somehow, he sees this as a knock down argument.
Part 4 is where Feser makes the true teleology vs teleonogy(or apparent teleology) argument explicit. This is what I think is behind the rest of his objections, and I agree is the foundational disagreement between theism and atheism. The teleological argument really seems to come down to, "Do future events have causal effects on the present or not?" It is hard for me to imagine a justifiable view of the universe in which this is true.
His complaint that Rosenberg explains chemistry, but not biology is quite silly. Once you explain the chemistry, you have explained biology. That's why taking chemicals like lithium alters both our our consciousness and personality. It is true that the details of our specific instance of abiogenesis are (perhaps irreconcilably) lost to time and was a highly improbable event, but that only explains why we don't see it happening in a jar of peanut butter. ;-)
It is a fair objection, as I do think abiogenesis and the cause of the initial low entropy state of the universe are the biggest open questions in the non-teleological view of the universe.
The rest of his rant on biology seems to imply a deep ignorance of and distrust of biochemistry.
Then at the end he states that life then must just be a more complex version of non-life, with no essential difference. Yes, very good Feser, you've figured out biochemistry a bit after all.
I understand there's nothing more terrifying to people than challenges to their teleological thinking about life. That's what terror management theory is all about, and it has a proven empirical track record. But he does not justify why this final conclusion of a reality void of teleology is absurd rather than just terrifying. But perhaps, like Rosenberg, that was out of scope of his writing, and should be found elsewhere.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1851686908/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Hey, sorry I never replied to this! Aquinas is who I read, primarily. And the philosophers in his tradition who come after him. I think he probably presents the strongest arguments, but to consider them for what they actually are, you have to have a basic understanding of Aristotelian metaphysics. You're probably not looking for this, but I would recommend these books, in this order:
The Last Superstition
Aquinas (A "Beginner's" [quotes mine; not all that beginner-ish imo] Guide)
Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction
The first one is a polemic, so beware. But it lays out a pretty decent modern cultural context for Scholastic metaphysics. That last one is especially good if you're interested in how science plays out in Thomism. The second one (and the bulk of the last one) though is kinda meaty technical stuff. But I think that series prepares you to understand the arguments of all different sorts of metaphysicians quite well.
It is a lot of work though. I won't deny that. It sort of pissed me off at first, but truth doesn't necessarily have to be easy to comprehend. Of course that's not to say that the difficulty of all this is meritorious or anything in itself.
>We're expected to believe in God when the only "proof" he exists is because the Bible said so
You fell for the Fideism meme. Here's a good place to start the process of curing your unfortunate affliction. Best of luck.
Read this, for starters: https://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908/ref=sr\_1\_1?crid=1WDDK4KD7QGRV&keywords=edward+feser+aquinas&qid=1573127664&sprefix=edward+feser%2Caps%2C252&sr=8-1
This?
What he wrote rang kind of true for me. I became convinced that there couldn't be a god at a young age after watching a lot of youtube videos. Lots of people are like that, they are lazy and develop opinions based on what the most intelligent people are saying, or at least the people who they believe to be the most intelligent. Most physics and other hard sciences are beyond the average person and so they take the results of these fields with good faith derived from the rigor of the scientific method. Once they begin accepting a group of people's ideas based on faith, they tend to agree with them until proven otherwise in my experience. It's ironic but I don't mean that people just take philosophical stances based on what Dawkins, or whoever, says but that they become more inclined to agree with that intellectual authority than to break a sweat and really study the metaphysics that that authority dismisses as dead.
Actually I've been thinking about this argument, and I hope I'm not taking too much of your time with this topic, but I have another point to make about the argument.
What if we can satisfy the conditions for a first mover before reaching a being that contains all actualities, which would actually be more convincing by virtue of Occam's razor? Ya the multiverse wouldn't be as actual as God since it's internally changing between potentiality and actuality, but in its entirety it does contain all actualities. It does meet the condition to explain the first mover. It exists by the same virtue as God would.
One way of understanding what I mean by this is to look at different kinds of infinities mathematically and see how, although they change at different rates, they can still turn an infinite series into a finite one. If I have a series, called A, that is 1 + 2 + 3 + 4... or the sum from 1 to ∞ of x, the series B that is the sum of x^2 from 1 to ∞ and a series C that is the sum of x^3 from 1 to ∞, although these are all infinite and diverging series, we can arrive at discreet sums by putting one over another. If I put series A over B, it will converge. If I put series A over C, it will converge even quicker. Series C and B can turn the infinite regression that is A into a finite thing. Likewise, God and the multiverse can turn the infinite regression of movers into a finite thing. God may be more actual, or of a higher degree, but which idea takes less assumptions? A god that is purely actual would seem to be more complex since it would be inconceivable compared to a multiverse that at least contains that which we conceive and understand.
> Okay so if you arrived at God's existence, how did you do it, and how can you repeat the experience so I can feel him too?
I already attempted that, but you called it "a list of meaningless words". Since that didn't work, you should probably go to the professionals and maybe it will sink in. Free Reading. Buy a book. Youtube. If you need help with words, you can consult a philosophical dictionary and look back between different writers to get a sense of what they are referring to. Reading Aristotle could help you out too.
It's not an "experience" you feel, it's a logical proof. It convinced Anthony Flew, one of the fathers of modern atheism.
It's a huge topic. I'm not even sure where you could start. Most stuff on the Internet is garbage. The best book on this view (Aristotelian) is probably this, but despite the title it's a bit heavy for beginners.
Yea, this is the book.
I've read sections of it before. It's a great intro (perhaps the best intro) to Thomistic philosophy. I'll lead a discussion on it this summer.
You claimed that the double-slit experiment shows reality without a cause and that the behavior of the universe is statistical in nature.
I replied that this only proves that Aristotle and Aquinas were right that matter is potentiality and that material processes are necessarily indeterminate.
If you don't understand what I am talking about, you need to start looking into introductory texts in metaphysics and learning what they mean, rather than making bold claims about subjects that you admit to not understanding at all.
You might start here.
A simpler book.
> (...) La tradition c’est la base de la société. // En parlant de Kierkegaard, je ne suis pas familier avec l’existentialisme chrétien mais ça me semble étrange comme position. Si je ne me trompe pas, l’existentialisme c’est le principe selon lequel il n’y a pas de vérité absolue et que chaque Homme doit trouver lui-même la raison de sa vie. Cela s’oppose en apparence avec la vérité unique de la religion chrétienne. Tu peux m’expliquer ?
Entièrement d'accord. Quant à Kierkegaard, même si je le sous-entendais en parlant de mon adhésion au thomisme, j'aurais dû précisé que j'avais fini peu après par rejeter sa philosophie. Sinon ta définition de l'existentialisme est tout à fait juste et ressemble à celle du père Jean-François Thonnard (dont, au passage, je recommande l'excellent "Précis d'histoire de la philosophie") : "La philosophie de l’existence personnelle de l’homme, synthétisée dans le choix libre de sa destinée.". C'est "l'existence précède l'essence" de Jean-Paul Sartre. Et en effet cela s'oppose avec la religion, la philosophie et la vision chrétiennes.
> Quand je ne suis pas satisfait par les arguments théistes de base et que je tombe sur des sources plus pointues (Edward Feser notamment) je suis vite largué philosophiquement. Tu proposes quoi comme lectures de bases ? Je pensais à Aristote notamment.
Oui je comprends ! Il faut y aller à petite dose. J'aime beaucoup Edward Feser, que je t'aurais justement recommandé. Tu as lu quels livres du coup ? Parce qu'à côté de "The Last Superstition", qui peut être parfois un peu difficile à suivre pour les non-initiés, je te recommanderais "Aquinas : A Beginner's Guide", qui traite des arguments du théisme classique de manière assez simple. Sinon je peux te recommander Louis Jugnet, qui traite de ces questions d'une manière remarquable et assez accessible dans "La Pensée de saint Thomas d'Aquin". Il y a encore le père Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P. (qui est pour moi l'un des meilleurs théologiens et penseurs récents) et son livre "La synthèse thomiste", qui est un excellent résumé théologique/philosophique thomiste mais qui est un peu plus ardu. Et enfin il y a le père Thonnard (déjà cité) ou Jean Daujat et son livre "Y a-t-il une vérité ?".
Puis sinon Aristote est très bien mais c'est un peu difficile (pour la terminologie notamment) quand la lecture n'est pas accompagné d'un commentaire. Il y a aussi Platon, dont les oeuvres sont souvent très vraies et belles. Il s'approche parfois d'une vraie preuve de l'existence de Dieu (surtout à travers le Beau et le Bon), mais on tombe malheureusement dans un réalisme qu'on appelle exagéré avec sa théorie des Idées (ou des Formes). Le père Garrigou-Lagrange en parle très bien dans "La synthèse thomiste" ou "Le sens commun".
> Dans le sens que ça t’apporte une satisfaction purement intellectuelle supérieure au plaisir de la séduction et du sexe, ou tu me parles d’une expérience mystique ? // Aussi, as-tu du mal à faire coller tes croyances avec la science et ses progrès ? (...)
C'est un peu des deux (bien que dans mon cas ce soit assez rare en ce qui concerne la mystique en tant que telle), mais c'est aussi encore autre chose. Le saint Curé d'Ars disait que prier, c'est être comme un "poisson dans l'eau". Dans cette intimité avec Dieu et dans ce dialogue amoureux et amical, on se retrouve en fait dans son élément naturel. Et donc pour répondre à ta question, dans la prière et les sacrements, en aimant Dieu et en reconnaissant son amour, en essayant de le servir et en aimant son prochain, notre coeur est vraiment touché par la grâce de Dieu, par quelque chose de beaucoup plus profond et satisfaisant que tous les plaisirs, même charnels.
Concernant la science et ses progrès, absolument pas ! Le catholicisme rejette à la fois le créationnisme, le fondamentalisme biblique et le fidéisme. Aussi, le progrès scientifique n'a jamais pu révéler des quelconques incohérences par rapport à la foi. Et c'est bien normal, finalement, puisque la raison et la foi s'entraident et par principe ne peuvent jamais se contredire. La preuve en est que d'innombrables savants ont été des moines ou des clercs catholiques.
Il faut cependant défendre ce qui nous est révélé par la foi. Dans le cas d'Adam et Eve, par exemple, on pourrait peut-être soutenir une thèse évolutionniste quant à la matière (thèse qui est de tout façon déjà assez compliquée à comprendre et avancer), mais on ne peut abandonner, sans aller contre la foi, le fait que l'âme d'une personne humaine soit toujours créé directement par Dieu ou que tous les êtres humains descendent réellement de deux parents originaux (cf. monogénisme). Quant aux animaux, la science ne pourrait tout simplement jamais contredire le fait qu'il y ait une distinction essentielle ou de nature entre les hommes et les autres animaux, puisqu'établir une telle chose ressort d'une démonstration (au moins implicite) philosophique. Ou alors, en confondant une science empirique comme la biologie avec la philosophie, on tomberait carrément dans l'illogisme et l'absurde. Donc non, pas de soucis sur le plan scientifique.
So have a philosophical one instead (part four, but links to the earlier posts in the series):
A fuller treatment (warning: short, but dense):
The problem (IMHO as a Catholic) with a lot of Christians, and Protestants specifically (esp. Evangenicals in the US), isthat they gave up on reason, which is not necessary:
I don't think anyone would doubt Thomas Aquinas' belief in God, but the guy was a machine when it came logic. You'd think he was a Vulcan for Star Trek given his writings.
Of course Reason / Truth isn't the only way to know God:
>I don't need to. The assertions is that a physical thing can't create another physical thing. That is demonstrably untrue. You're placing restricting characteristics, not me.
It's not that a physical thing can't create another physical thing (even though it would actually be a physical thing creating a physical thing out of nothing), it's that the werewolf, a physical thing, would have nowhere to be while creating the universe, and no time to do it in.
>If a wearwolf doesn't exist, it can be whatever definition I'd like. Just like your god.
No this is idiotic. The word werewolf has a definition. You can't just change the definition however you'd like. If you can, then the conversation is meaningless because you'll just change it to be exactly like god, and then we're not talking about werewolves anymore.
> I would need to know why you think anything is likely in order to demonstrate why my wearwolf is likely. You would have to present your argument for why god is likely to have created the universe. I can then replace god with anything, and the argument will probably not change, if it's any of the popular ones. To be clear. Any argument I present would be a straw man of whatever you actually believe God is. I don't know how else to explain this.
Wrong. What I have to do is show why a werewolf is less likely to have created the universe than god, and I have. You don't seem to have anything to say in response.
>It is informed. Not sure that infants have developed morals, but I'm sure you have a well thought out argument on why slavery and genocide are cool.
I never said slavery and genocide are cool, I said you have an infantile understanding of religion.
>They're equally likely within the context of an argument for the likelihood of any being creating a universe. I personally don't think the likelihood of either is even measurable. If you say god is likely, because of reasons. I could replace god with a wearwolf, and the reasons wouldn't need to change.
Yeah you keep saying this and it's not true. You get that you're supposed to be making an argument, right? All you're doing is repeating that they're same over and over, and not explaining how. Prove to me that they're the same likelihood. Why are you saying anything else? All you should be doing is proving that, or taking back what you said.
>If a being needs to be capable of creating a universe to create a universe, then that is the only characteristic necessary for creating a universe. Adding additional requirements only makes it harder to prove. My wearwolf can be both a wearwolf and have the ability to create a universe. That ability wouldn't make it less of a wearwolf. It could possibly be more likely, because the characteristics of a wearwolf can be found in nature. Whereas the common characteristics given to a god are found NOWHERE. So what seems like a bigger stretch? But again, if you assert that additional characteristics are required to be capable of creating a universe, the onus is on you to argue that assertion.
The fact that there were men and wolves in nature absolutely does not make it more likely that a werewolf created the universe, because NOTHING about men or wolves would indicate that they can create universes. In fact, we know so much about them that it makes it way less likely. God, being defined as an all-powerful metaphysical being is much more likely to have created the universe, because nothing about the nature of god, as is traditionally defined, prevents it from doing so.
>A omniscient god would know. Otherwise, we could start with any that is measurable and predictable, and work our way towards a reasonable conclusion.
An omniscient god would know what?
>I don't have an argument to present unless you give me your reason for believing a universe creating being is likely at all. Then we can discuss why a wearwolf is as equally as likely as a that being. I have no idea why you think what you think, and I'm not going to guess from a wiki page.
You're very confused. I'm not proving to you that god exists, I'm proving to you that it's more likely that god created the universe than a werewolf. The fact that there is a long line of argumentation for god is itself evidence, because there is no corresponding argumentation for a werewolf creating the universe. If you have some, feel free to present it. Since you flippantly dismissed the fact that I gave you a wikipedia page to introduce you to apologetics, here are some books:
https://www.amazon.com/Mere-Christianity-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652926/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509549912&sr=1-1&keywords=mere+christianity
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Superstition-Refutation-New-Atheism/dp/1587314525/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=V2XKAWX4HD8JGV0KGHDZ
https://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=V2XKAWX4HD8JGV0KGHDZ
https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333
> Just to be clear, naturalistic pantheism would be the belief that...
This.
> Would you like to help me here?
It would be my pleasure. That was a very admirable statement btw. I started this fkr the same reason, though it was more motivated by finding the truth as early as I can so I can live the rest of my life properly. So the biggest areas of interest there are philosophy of religion and ethics.
I was first convinced by what is called the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument. Here's a great paper on it. You can do some research, but its one of the arguments from contingency that atheists can't write off as easily as other cosmological arguments like the Kalam, as the universe is contingent even if it existed for eternity. If the piano music is coming out of the saloon for eternity, there still needs to be a piano player.
There are a few other arguments that I accept. I'm sure you've heard of Thomas Aquinas' Four Ways and it looks like they don't conince you as of now. Some of them look a little silly and easy to dismiss, but that's because the popular formulationa that atheists have been shooting down are summaroes of Aquinas' full arguments that require knowlesge kf the rest of his metaphysics. I highly highly reccomend this book. I still think the Fourth Way is bunk (but I've heard I need to learn about Neoplatoniam to understand it), and as Feser is a Catholic he has some points where he argues for the immorality of abortion or libertarian free will that you and I would disagree with, but it is overall a definitive case for the Five Ways and the rest of our metaphysics. He weighs all the objections from philosophers like Hume.
So there's that. My favorite is the Argument from Motion. If you want to discuss any of this then you can PM me or Jaeil, who I still bug from time to time about theology. He's the authority around here on Leibniz and Aquinas. Hope that helped!
The links are mostly wikipedia pages. If you really want to look more into it, I have a few other suggestions:
For the argument of the first mover, I suggest looking at Dr. Edward Feser's work, which is really phenomenal. He's got a great lecture on Aquinas' first way here, and a book on Aquinas here.
As for the rest, I'm mostly just kinda going through questions 2 through 26 of the Summa Theologica, Part 1, obviously trying to condense it as much as possible. And you're right, that has left a few kinda unexplained things like something being good insofar as it exists. However, I think it should all be accurate at the very least.
Aquinas also expands a bit on that particular point in question 5:
>>Goodness and being are really the same, and differ only in idea; which is clear from the following argument. The essence of goodness consists in this, that it is in some way desirable. Hence the Philosopher says (Ethic. i): "Goodness is what all desire." Now it is clear that a thing is desirable only in so far as it is perfect; for all desire their own perfection. But everything is perfect so far as it is actual. Therefore it is clear that a thing is perfect so far as it exists; for it is existence that makes all things actual, as is clear from the foregoing (I:3:4; I:4:1). Hence it is clear that goodness and being are the same really. But goodness presents the aspect of desirableness, which being does not present.
Or to elaborate a bit more, the idea is that something is good according to how desirable it is, and things are desirable according to our different natures. This is not only a matter of the human will to achieve our ends, but also in a certain sense applied to nature (e.g. it is good for a squirrel to be healthy). A good thing is something that completes its nature, while evil is some kind of privation. This connects into the theory of transcendentals.
http://www.amazon.ca/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908
This is where I would start...
>We celebrate the birth on 25 Dec.
I guess you do know what else was celebrated on the 25th. Stolen from another religion.
>All false claims, except for the virgin birth (from my memory). Many of these are debunked, some even involving funny videos, if you are interested
So all the other religions, except your own are false claims? Can you prove they are false and yours is true?
I'd like to see your proof that Gilgamesh's story is a false claim, while the snake in the garden of eden is true, really.
Also, how old do you believe the Earth is?
>We don't know for sure that it will.
You seemed to be quite confident that it would in your previous post.
>...
That's in the bible. The god described in that book is far from the good guy preached in churches. He has a kill count of over 2 millions, not counting the flood and the destroyed cities. He is also the one sending his "beloved children" to eternal torture.
I didn't make it up. If that annoys you, be annoyed at the bible/your god.
>I am Roman Catholic. http://www.wordonfire.org/Written-Word/articles-commentaries/February-2011/The-Genesis-Problem.aspx
Ok, so genesis is a metaphor. How do you determine which myth is literal and which isn't?
>This has been a long held belief, from the dawn of Christendom. Reading suggestion: http://www.amazon.com/Aquinas-Beginners-Guide-Edward-Feser/dp/1851686908
So, to understand catholicism, you advise me to read a book supposed to help me understand the books of a philosopher that should in turn help me understand catholicism... Don't you have something more synthetic to describe your beliefs?
If I was a god, I'm quite sure I would have found a way more efficient way to convey my word.
But at the end of the day, you debate over details. My question was and still is: Why do you believe the roman catholic myths are true (and therefore all the others are wrong)?
I still wait for a convincing answer to that question.