Just Thomism

Errors That Are Agreed Upon by both the ID Movement and the Persons Who Oppose Them

1.) The word “science” only means one thing, or at least it only means one thing for the study of living things.

2.) All things that happen by chance are wholly undirected by intelligence. Said another way, both sides agree that if God exists, either the universe must be either wholly determined, or partially out of his control.

3.) One can only attain rational certainty of something, based on observation of the external world, from hypothetical-experimental methods.

4.) Love of God endangers one’s objectivity (notice how often ID’ers will insist that they are not interested in proving God’s existence at all- notice how fearful they are that they might be perceived as having theological motivations oooooohhhhhh!!!!)
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Modern physics begins with Newton’s first law of motion, sc. that an object will persevere in a state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force. There are a thousand different things to notice about the law; one of the most significant is that the law is founded upon the fact that modern physics will only concern itself with things inasmuch as they are measured. We can see this in Newton speaking indifferently about “the state of uniform motion” and “the state of rest”. The two are viewed indifferently because the two give equal measurements to one resting, or one moving in a uniform straight line. It is also true that the two feel the same, but this makes no difference, except inasmuch as it affects the reading on a measurement device (physics is not about how motion feels to us).

This is one aspect of modern physics that has stayed constant even after relativity theory; for example, if gravity and inertial motion admit if the same numerical measurements, they are viewed as the same, just as electricity and magnatism are regarded as the same, because they travel at the same speed.

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Rules of Definition

1.) Because definitions are clear articulations of what a word means, which relate to the word itself only as more distinct to less distinct;

a.) the definition cannot use the word being defined
b.) it cannot use words less known than the word defined
c.) definition cannot use metaphor.
d.) the definition must be brief.
e.) the definition must be convertable with the word defined

2.) Because a definition is a clear articulation of the “what” or essence of a thing;

a.) It must contain the genus and species of the thing, for these correspond to the what of a thing.
b.) It must not be negative if possible, for negations do not explain what a thing is.
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On Reading over What I’ve Written.

Whatever I’ve said that is philosophical, is either part of the tradition or vanity.
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Morality is self- control. When morality is lost, the sense of self-control will be lost too. For this reason, immoral and amoral ways of thought lead to a sense of powerlessness: we start teaching sex-ed because it is “inevitable” that they will do it; we insist that we need to do stem-cell research because scientists “are going to do it anyway”.
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Objections to Sertillanges

1.) All things are composed of matter and form
We know through the possession of only the form of another
We do not know the thing, but only a part of it.

We know the form separate without reference to matter or the composite, I deny
We know the form in necessary reference to the matter and composite in natural things, I concede

What is known differs from that by which the thing is known.

2.) Two things become one only by the formal destruction of both.
knowledge does not destroy either the thing nor the idea
Knowledge is not the possession of the form of another.

Two things that become one in substance destroy one another, I concede
Two things that become one in act, I deny

The union-knowledge- is a perfection of the knower, and so the union is not a union causing substantial change, but the accidental change of added perfection.

or again,

Two things that become one which both are the act of a material composite, I concede
Two things, one of which is not the act of some material composite, I deny.

Material union is not sufficient to account for the perfection of knowledge. Sensation is different from eating, and the object of the intellect is not able to become other- making it by definition immaterial.

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Sertillanges Gets it Perfectly

Outside God and ourselves an idea is a thing, while a thing, in us and in God, is an idea. At this stage, this will serve as a reasonably accurate resume ofThomism.

Foundations of Thomistic Philosophy,

p.25
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Dialectically, most most people admit that the alternative to the life of virtue is the life of pleasure. The account given of the life of pleasure is very protean, and what it means first- sheer carnal hedonism- bears little resemblence to later accounts of it- e.g. utilitarianism.

One dialectical point, though- the life of pleasure, in its root form, is a lifethat tends to be advocated primarily by unmarried young men. Women can have,at best, a jaundiced look at hedonism: one man’s pleasure tends to mean another woman’s use.
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Proverbs

Things are morally evil because they harm us, and if they did not, they would not be evil.

God hates moral evil because it is contrary to the good of man.

A stubborn child will believe his own lies, unshakeably and instantly.

Be silent before the irrational: let it only hear its own voice.

A Wise man knows nothing compared to God, but the fool knows nothing compared to a child.

The fool believes he is the first to be a man, but the wise man knows his life was lived before.

A violent wind might uproot many trees, but a steady wind will scatter many seeds.

The fool will live his life in future years, but the wise man will hold his life a sum of days.
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I.) Glory is given to another in two ways:

a.) by objectively manifesting the goodness of another (in a preeminent way),
b.) By actively manifesting the goodness of another by praising them (in a pre-eminent way).

The second kind is the more proper and perfect sense of giving glory.

II.) M.) Every nature that is ordered to another as a good manifests the goodness of that other.
m.) To be natural means to be ordered to God.

To be natural means to be ordered to glorifying God.

man, however, can glorify God in a more proper and perfect sense, he therefore is has a greater nature than other things that cannot so glorify.

III.) Both intellect and will manifest the goodness of God to the extent that they are one with the divinity himself.
By nature, man can only have a natural unity to the divine nature.

IV) By Nature, man can know that he has no perfection of his natural powers except in union with God, but he cannot know:

-Whether this union gets any better than the sort of union he can have now, by praising God with his mouth, and knowing him by his natural means of negation, causality, and analogy.

-Whether this union will get any better in the next life.

-Whether his union with God will ever be a union of friendship. After all, who can force anyone to be their friend? Who could blame God if he denied us his friendship?

Conclusion: Man by nature exists to glorify God through his powers. These powers can are therfore perfected to the extent that they have a union with God, and so manifest his goodness. But man cannot know by nature if this union will rise above the one he presently has by nature. Man, in other words, can naturally know that we are ordered to union with God as a final end, but not the union of the beatific vision, or the seeing of God in a way that exceeds the way we can presently see God by analogy, causality, and- and this way is primary- negation.

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