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A Brief Reply to
St. Thomas Aquinas’
Summa Theologiae
7 Jan 2020 T2
It has been a long time since I have contributed
anything to this page.
I have some plans to replace this website with a
much simpler page and have a comment
section. If you are reading this now, consider that
done!
In the meantime, I may write another piece to
share here if I can think of something interesting
and make the time.
And now, I would like to share some writings I
completed as part of a Religious Studies course
at UPEI. There is a professor who conducts
some truly terrible online courses for Religious
Studies and I decided to take two of them for
some easier marks.
As part of the most recent course, I wrote
several reflections on key pieces of Catholic
theology. I would like to share my two reflections
on St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae.
For reference, these are the copies of the text
that the professor assigned to the class:
Reflection 1:
http://www.newadvent.com/summa/1001.ht
m
Reflection 2:
http://www.newadvent.com/summa/1002.ht
m
Reflection 1
In the ten articles taken from Summa Theologiae
on New Advent, I found Aquinas to be
somewhat contradictory in his argument for the
existence of Theology. Aquinas acknowledges
that there does exist knowledge that is beyond
human reasoning, comprehension, and perhaps
grasp. This knowledge is to be made known to
man through ‘divine revelation.’ He labels the
knowledge from philosophical sciences as
products of human reasoning and differentiates
these truths from those that are revealed by
God.
Is theology not itself an attempt at revealing
diving truths through the process of human
reasoning? Why is it that theologians seem to be
given the exception when it comes to
disseminating and investigating divine truths
when Aquinas himself states that “the truth
about God such as reason could discover, would
only be known by a few, and that after a long
time, and with the admixture of many errors.”
Aquinas makes a case for why a theological
study has a purpose and may be fruitful, but no
claim as to why he and other theologians are fit
to execute such study.
Perhaps it is assumed because he is an
educated man of intellect and faith, one near the
top of society, that he is capable of performing
such study, but that also carries the assumption
that any man could be fit to produce divine
knowledge other than the acknowledgement
that divine knowledge from God exists.
Presently, I believe that a sort of theological
study is necessary to rebirth Christian thinking
and religious thinking in the West at large. I think
this is excusable as the knowledge that was
meant to be divine, in the hands of imperfect
humans, has degenerated over time into the
form it is today.
I am not opposed to a revisionist approach to
theology with the ultimate aim being truly
Christian and for the betterment of all of
mankind. This is because I must acknowledge
that even theologians and clergy members,
tasked with preserving and teaching divine
truths, are capable of failure, and indeed have.
Reflection 2
There certainly is a compelling argument for the
existence of God made by Aquinas here. There
may very well be an unmoved mover. And there
may also be an intelligent design at play in our
universe.
I must say first that I disagree with any
perspective that argues that the theory of
evolution is false, or that the earth is fewer than
billions of years old. I fully believe in the
evidence humanity has collected on the
universe, and that the ‘Big Bang Theory’ is the
best approximation there is out there. But
beyond that, there is a point before the Big Bang
where things are not clear.
Looking at the periodic table, for example: with
whole number increments of the number of
protons, different chemicals form and can be
placed into groups that share similar properties
at regular intervals. Even lower, the fundamental
laws of physics, the nature of gravity, the speed
of light. And even lower still, the nature of
mathematics and what is philosophically
possible to imagine and discretely label.
There are definite limits and facts all around us,
and many of them do not seem to be able to be
broken down any further as to why they are the
way they are. They are a sort of atomic level
truths.
Where do the definitions of these atomic truths
come from? Where could they come from?
It seems correct to assume God is at the source
of these very fundamental definitions of our
universe. And I agree that it is certainly possible
that on the other side of that phenomena, there
may be an intelligent creator.
This is actually in agreement with the Simulation
Hypothesis whereby the simulation creators are
indeed the intelligent movers that set our world
in motion. However, I seldom hear people make
this connection, and I also don’t hear
scientifically minded people give this hypothesis
as much criticism as they do Creationism.
All I can argue in this matter is that we cannot be
sure. It is at the absolute limit of not just human
understanding, but what is observable inside
this universe. We merely cannot observe outside
of our own existence, and it may remain
unanswered for eternity.
On the existence of God, I argue that God, as He
is described in the Bible, is a symbolic
representation that humanity often needs to
keep themselves morally obligated. Obeying an
eternal judgemental father that will provide for
you based on your sacrifice is pragmatically
similar to a mindful person who acts and
sacrifices correctly so that you can best provide
for yourself, your family, and your greater
community. I have no issue acknowledging this
form of God and someone using these ideas to
guide them.
Comments
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Ben · July 14, 2020
Thankfully, it looks like I'm not alone in
wanting to revive Christianity and absolve it
of its history.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhGEGIBGLu8
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