Matt Fradd's Blog, page 54

The 8 Attributes of God

Depiction of God the Father offering the right hand throne to Christ, Pieter de Grebber, 1654.

St Thomas Aquinas, in the first part of his Summa Theologica, after having enumerated five proofs for the existence of God, proceeds to outline and explicate his attributes, of which Thomas says He has eight:

1) Simplicity, 2) perfection, 3) goodness, 4) infinity, 5) ubiquity, 6) immutability, 7) eternity, and 8) unity.

This is the order in which he deals with them and I thought I would provide a quick summary of each in the same order for those that are interested.

To read what Thomas himself says, start here in the Summa.

1. The Simplicity of God.

The Simplicity of God means that God has no parts, that He is not composed in any way. He is not, as we are, the composition of body and soul, nor is He the composition of essence and existence. One of Thomas’ arguments for why God is not a composition of body and soul is the following: 1. Bodies, by necessity, move. 2. God is the unmoved mover. 3. Therefore God does not have a body (this may be the quickest refutation of Mormonism ever!). Nor is God a composition of essence (what a thing is) and existence (that a thing is). Rather, in God, essence and existence are the same thing. We see Biblical evidence of this in the book of Exodus where God responds to Moses’ request for a name, “I am who I am” (3:14). If essence and existence were not the same in God, if what he was was not the same thing as that he was, then there would exist outside of God the reason for his existence, which is absurd.

2. The Perfection of God

 

The perfection of God means that God lacks nothing. He is the the fullness of being. As St. Thomas says, “to be the first principle for others it is necessary to be maximally in act, and as such the most perfect being.” The more a being is like God, the more perfect it is. The fact that we can even say that one being is more perfect than another implies a most perfect being, and this, of course, is the crux of Thomas’ fourth proof for the existence of God.

3. The Goodness of God

God, who is the greatest conceivable being, is also goodness itself, since being and goodness are really convertible. A being, in so far as it is like God, is good, and a being, in so far as it is unlike God, is not. Given that all creation is ordered to this good, one might reasonably ask, “If all creation is ordered toward the supreme good, who is God, to what good may we say that God is ordered? To none other than the supreme good who is himself. The only appropriate finality for an infinite being is infinite being.”

4. The Infinity of God

The infinity of God refers to the fact that God is in no way limited. He is Subsistent being itself. “God is,” in the words of D.Q. McInerny, “without limits because He is Himself the inexhaustible source of all the riches of being. 

5. The Ubiquity of God

The ubiquity of God means that God is everywhere. Not that God has a body and is “in” each and every place—God is not inside of my glass of milk in the sense that he has extension in space. Rather, what we mean when we say God is everywhere—including my glass of milk—is this: “wherever something is operating, there it is.” Since God is operating everywhere, he is everywhere. The sentiment “God is closer to you than you are to yourself,” is not just a feel-good sentiment, it’s true.

6. The Immutability of God

The sixth attribute put forward by Aquinas is His immutability, that is, his unchangeableness. If a thing changes it changes for better or for worse. If God was mutable, therefore, his changing would make him better or worse. If it made him better then he wasn’t perfect to begin with. If it made him worse, then he isn’t perfect now.

7. The Eternity of God

The philosopher Boethius, in The Consolation of Philosophy defines eternity thusly: “Eternity is the everlasting, totally simultaneous and perfect possession of life.” And this is the definition St. Thomas adopts when speaking of God’s eternity. God is eternal because he immutable. “If we are right in describing time as the measure of motion,” writes, McInerny, “we are equally right in describing eternity as the measure of permanence.”

8. The Unity of God

Unity, like goodness, and beauty, is a transcendental of being. It is because God is being that he is simple that he is perfect unity. St. Thomas writes, “that which is simple, is undivided both with respect to act and potency.” And since it is not possible to divide God in any way (matter/form; essence/existence, etc.), then it follows that God is perfect in unity.

———-

Quotes from D. Q McInerny were taken from his book, Natural Theology (2005). 

Thomas Aquinas’ Argument From Finality of Being: A Socratic Dialogue

St. Thomas Aquinas

In this conversation, Brad and Sarah discuss St. Thomas Aquinas’ fifth proof for the existence of God, the argument from finality. You can read their conversation about Aquinas’ first two proofs here, their conversation about his third way here, and their conversation about his fourth way here.

Brad: Okay, I’ve actually read the fifth way. Looked it up online last night. I have it here. He writes:

“The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world.

We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result.

Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. 

Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.”

Sarah: How would you summarize that?

Brad: Okay, I’d say that everything we see acts as if it has an end. Seeds grow into flowers, not chickens; puppies become dogs, not Beethoven. Thomas wants to say that the only explanation for this is that there is a God directing it all.

 

Doesn’t The Theory of Evolution Destroy This Argument?

 

Brad: But surely evolution has done away with this argument which may have sounded plausible in the 13th century when Aquinas lived.

Sarah: Actually it’s only strengthened it. Aquinas isn’t saying that really complex beings need an explanation for why they are so complex (evolution explains that). He wants to know why unintelligent causes move towards intelligible ends. Even a simple electron orbiting an atom would prompt the question, why does it do this when there is an infinite number of ways it could act unintelligibly?

Brad: What do you mean by unintelligent causes? Causes that are unguided?

Sarah: Causes that do not have a principle within them to achieve their goal. When an arrow hits a target it does so through an intelligent agent guiding it. The same is true for other regular natural processes. Saying that “laws of nature” answer this only pushes the problem back one step.

Brad: Are you saying that if God didn’t exist a seed might become a box of cheerios? and another a candle?

Sarah: Im asking what would we expect the world to be like if there was no God. If something could exist without God—which I don’t believe is possible but will grant for the sake of argument—is it more likely to be disordered or ordered? There’s a great line from Anna Karinina, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The same for universes, ordered universes are rare and all alike, disordered ones are infinitely more common.

 

Is Order An Illusion

 

Brad: Our minds create order, we impose it upon the universe. I think that’s what I’d like to say. In a similar way to how we might hear a tune or beat out of the random tumblings of a clothes drier.

Sarah: I think by “impose” you mean “recognize”. If by chance a dryer makes a repetitive pattern we recognize it. But if it pumps out Lady gaga we might suspect an intelligent agent is at work. Do you think that our minds are what cause the planets to unfailingly orbit the sun?

Brad: No, obviously not. But I think we are wired to detect order and meaning even when those things aren’t there. For example, kids typically think that mountains exist so that creatures can have a place to live. As they grow older they’ll hopefully recognize that mountains are the result of a great amount of melted rock pushing its way up under the earth . . . in other words, hopefully they’ll grow out such simplistic explanations. Saying, “planets keep going around the sun, WOW! God must exist!” seems to me just as naive.

Sarah: I agree that the explanation children give for mountains is backwards, people make mountains a place to live rather than discover the mountain was made for them but that won’t work for all explanations. Don’t you ever wonder why natural processes always and unfailingly lead to intelligent ends. Unintelligent gravitons lead to planets that always orbit, unintelligent pieces of rock and pressure lead to mountain ranges that always form. If the universe is an accident, why is this accident so regular?

Brad: I don’t know. But if I were to conclude from my not knowing, “God must exist” that would be a textbook example of the god-of-the-gaps fallacy, where you fill in what you don’t understand about the universe with, “it must be God.”

Sarah: That’s not how Aquinas argues. He uses other examples of intelligent ends involving unintelligent causes and then demonstrates how all ends we observe must have an intelligent cause at some point in their development. But to understand that you have to understand the metaphysics that underlies the argument. Let me give you an example, I assume you believe in evolution, right?

Brad: I think it is a fact, yes.

Sarah: Alright, well suppose someone said that evolution doesn’t make sense because they just can’t see how a pool chemicals can give rise to humans through chance and time. They say that we wouldn’t say an airliner came about through chance + time, so why think life did the same thing. You’d probably say they don’t understand how evolution works and that it’s not a simplistic chance + time scenario. You might even recommend some writers on the subject like Richard Dawkins or Jerry Coyne that breakdown the complex parts of the theory in order to explain the whole thing. Right?

Brad: Indeed! I’m relieved to hear that you’re not going to try a similar analogy.

 

Further Reading

 

Sarah: Well, I’d like to offer you something similar. First, Aquinas’s Five Ways aren’t full fledged proofs for God. If they were, it would be strange that Thomas only spends two pages out of the 3500 in the Summa defending it. The reason for this is that they are intended to be summary for novices. However, other philosophers have explained the metaphysical claims of the argument and defended them from common objections. They help us understand what Thomas means by terms like “act”, “potency” and “cause” the latter of which is crucial for understanding the fifth way. Perhaps you’d like to read them? One I recommend is Edward Feser’s Aquinas a A Beginner’s Guide. If you’re hesitant, just remember that attitude you’d like a creationist to have if they read something Dawkins wrote on why evolution is true. Then perhaps we can have an in-depth discussion after that.

 

Is The Best You Got?

 

Brad: Here’s an honest question, and then I gotta get going. I’m disappointed that none of these arguments—even when taken together—aren’t very convincing. If I were you, I’d be bothered that here you are hanging so much importance on God existing and these are the arguments you use. Can you not see how people like myself remain unconvinced?

Sarah: The reason these arguments may seem unconvincing is because we as moderns have assumed a certain view of the universe that might not be true, that it’s just a blind, atomistic machine.

But these arguments encourage me to ask deep questions like “Why is there change?” “Why is there regularity?” “Why is there something rather than nothing?” And they encourage me to not stop until I get to a final explanation, and not just a God of the gaps one.

It seems to me that you just want a miracle and that’s all you’ll accept as proof that God exists. But just as we allow a painting itself to prove it was composed without expecting the artist to come to our door to tell us, shouldn’t we allow the universe to do the same? Of course you’ll say “paintings aren’t like universes!” and that’s true to some extent. But the more we explore the world, it’s causes and underlying metaphysical truths, we see they really aren’t that different.

That’s why I encourage you to read up more on these arguments and being open to the evidence, and not just shutting down ultimate questions of existence with “science will figure it out some day.”

Brad: It’s been good chatting with you, Sarah.

Thomas Aquinas’ Argument From Degrees of Being: A Socratic Dialogue

St. Thomas Aquinas

In today’s discussion Brad and Sarah discuss the fourth way of St. Thomas Aquinas to prove the existence of God. You can read their discussion of the first and second way here and their discussion of Thomas’ third way here.

Brad: I have to say, I’m enjoying these conversations. So far I’d say the best argument you’ve presented was the argument from contingency, but like I said last week, I’m not convinced.

Sarah: Well, since you were unable to sufficiently show what was wrong with Aquinas’ third way, it might just be that your stubborn. Have you considered that?

Brad: Yep. So I have a little time before I have to get back to work, do you think we could go through the fourth and fifth way today?

Sarah: Yeah, I don’t see why not. I’ll read it, okay?

Brad: Sure.

Thomas’ Argument From Degrees of Being

Sarah: “The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things.

Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But “more” and “less” are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii.

Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things.

Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.”

Sarah: It’s hard for moderns to grasp because it relies on the medieval idea—the time St. Thomas lived— that there is a great chain of being. Creatures become more perfect: rocks, then animals, then man, then angels, and so forth. But if this chain is to be meaningful there must be a perfect being, or what we call God. A modern understanding would be to ask if “goodness” is a real attribute or just a label we arbitrarily assign. If real, what’s the standard we use?

Brad: So the only way for this argument to get off of the ground is to admit that some things are more perfect than others? Perfect how? In what way?

 

Is There a Real Better?

 

Sarah: I think it’s clear some things really are better than others. The philosopher Peter Kreeft puts it this way: “Is there a real better? The very asking of this question answers it. For the questioner would not have asked it unless he or she thought it really better to do so than not, and really better to find the true answer than not. You can speak subjectivism but you cannot live it.”

Brad:  Hmm, I’ll have to give that some thought. Dawkins make a great point in The God Delusion, he says if you say there must be an all-perfect being to make sense of the varying degrees of perfection, then, and I quote, “you might as well say, people vary in smelliness but we can make the comparison only by reference to a perfect maximum of conceivable smelliness.” What do you think of that?

Sarah: Dawkins misunderstands perfection. It only relates to having more or less being. Imperfections or evils in the world come from a lack of being. We have gas, for example, because we lack the proper food that is perfectly digestible. The chain goes in the other direction. A better begin is one without gas, then one that needs no food, then one not encumbered by a body, then one not limited by space or time itself. Before you know it, you’re just at being itself, or what we call God.

Brad: So okay, you’re saying that because I think a human being is better than a rat I have to believe in God? Show me how.

Sarah: It’s not just you think they’re better, are they better? If so, what standard do you use to show one is better?

Brad: Okay, I see your point, I take back what I said. No, I don’t think that humans are better objectively, just subjectively. What I mean is, I value human beings—no doubt because it has been wired into me to prefer my species over another by evolution. At the end of the day, however, we’re all equal, men, rats, bacteria. That doesn’t mean I think rats should be treated as humans or vice versa.

 

A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Bot

 

Sarah: Hopefully you don’t agree with the former director of PETA Ingrid Newkirk, “A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy” But in any case, the fifth way could be more fruitful because we can more easily observe the feature of the universe that points to God.

Brad: Well hang on a minute, objectively I do think that. That is what follows if God does not exist. If God exists then maybe Ingrid and me are wrong, but this argument certainly doesn’t show that.  But as I said, though it may follow, it doesn’t follow that we should act in that way. I’m sure Ingrid treated her coworkers with more respect that cockroaches. At least, here’s hoping.

Sarah: I think the argument helps us ask, how could they be different? If 5 is objectively greater than 4, and the same is true for all numbers, then there must be a reality that is “perfection” of numbers, or a number without limit, infinity. The numbers, which objectively become greater, don’t stop at 1,000,000,000,678. In the same way, the gradations of being can’t just stop at a “half-perfect” or 99% perfect act of being, what makes is just the pure act of being, or God. But in any case, shall we move on?

Sarah: Hopefully, at least you’ll see the fourth way isn’t as asinine as Dawkins makes it.

Brad: Well I’m not sure about that, but should we move on to the fifth way?

Thomas Aquinas’ Argument From Contingency: A Socratic Dialogue

St. Thomas Aquinas

In today’s dialogue Brad and Sarah discuss the third of Thomas Aquinas’ proofs for the existence of God, the argument from contingency. You can read their first dialogue in which they discus the first two proofs of Aquinas here.

Brad: Hey Sarah. Coffee?

Sarah: Good to see you. I’m okay, just got one.

Brad: K, give me one sec.

. . .

Brad: How are you?

Sarah: I’m good, I’m good, thanks. Did you get a chance to read Answering Atheism?

Brad: I read the first few chapters. It was okay. You’ll be proud of me, I looked up Aquinas’ third way for our discussion today.

Sarah: I hope you don’t mean that you “looked it up” in The God Delusion.

Brad: No, no, online. Are you ready?

Sarah: Sure, I actually have what St. Thomas wrote in the Summa here. Do you mind if I read it first?

Brad: Sounds like a good idea.

 

Thomas’ Third Way

 

Sarah: “The third way is taken from possibility and necessity, and runs thus.We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, since they are found to be generated, and to corrupt, and consequently, they are possible to be and not to be.

But it is impossible for these always to exist, for that which is possible not to be at some time is not.Therefore, if everything is possible not to be, then at one time there could have been nothing in existence.

Now if this were true, even now there would be nothing in existence, because that which does not exist only begins to exist by something already existing.

Therefore, if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist; and thus even now nothing would be in existence—which is absurd.

Therefore, not all beings are merely possible, but there must exist something the existence of which is necessary. But every necessary thing either has its necessity caused by another, or not. Now it is impossible to go on to infinity in necessary things which have their

necessity caused by another, as has been already proved in regard to efficient causes.

Therefore we cannot but postulate the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity.

This all men speak of as God.”

Sarah: Alright. Can we agree there are things that don’t have to exist, like rocks or planets, or people—contingent things. And could we agree, in theory, there could be things which have to exist or can’t not exist—necessary things.

Has to and doesn’t have to exist seem pretty exhaustive, don’t you think?

Brad: Yeah, okay. You’re saying when we consider a particular thing, that it either does not have to exist or that it does, and that these are the only options for any given thing. Yes, I grant that.

Sarah: Okay. Is there anything we observe that has to exist? Or could what we observe have been different, even at the molecular level; strings instead of quarks, or six basic quarks instead of nine basic quarks?

Brad: As a theist I know you’re committed to saying that at least God has to exist, right? I on the other hand, I don’t know. Either everything that exist doesn’t have to exist or else there might be something that has to—which I don’t think we have any reason to call “God” by the way. I just don’t know.

Sarah: Okay. Let’s go back to the universe. If the past is infinite then an infinite number of things will happen. Or every possibility will be actualized. Isn’t it possible then for everything to not exist?

Brad: I suppose so.

Sarah: Okay, and if the past is infinite, then it seems to me that it must have happened at least once. But if there was ever a state of nothing in the past then why isn’t there a state of nothing now? Thomas says that the only resolution to this dilemma is to posit a begin that is necessary, or must exist, and this is the classical description of God, the necessary being.

 

Define “Nothing”

 

Brad: First of all, nothing is a tricky concept. We actually know—Laurence Krauss talks about it in his book A Universe From Nothing—that things can come into existence out of nothing. So even if it’s true that there was once a state of nothingness, if my only options are: 1. God made it, or 2. it came out of nothing—and since we’ve got good reasons from modern physics to think this can happen—I’d choose option two.

Sarah: Krauss does a bait and switch with nothing. By nothing I mean the complete absence of anything while Krauss means a vacuum that has not matter in it but only unstable quantum energy. That’s not nothing. My point is it’s possible for there to be pure nothing and if there was pure nothing, then why is there something now. If you just say “something can come from nothing because I can imagine it, then we’re back to unfalsifiable atheism. Booming voices or angels proclaiming God could just be something from nothing too.

Brad: Maybe everything in the universe could and has failed to exist at one point but the universe itself necessary.

Sarah: I don’t understand what you mean. What is the difference between “everything in the universe” and “the universe.” The term “universe” just means all spatio-temporal realities, or “everything.” You basically said, “Maybe everything in the everything failed to exist but everything is necessary! That seems incoherent.

Brad: What if nothing, in the way you’re using the word, can’t exist? What if the only “nothing” there is is what Krauss refers to? Why think your “nothing” has to exist.

Sarah: What if we live in the Matrix? What if we never landed on the moon? We can do “what if” all day. When we reason about the world we have to use our intuitions to see what’s possible and what isn’t. If we can imagine a world without one kind of thing (say couches) or many kinds of things (animals) or even more kinds of things (no complex molecules) then why couldn’t there be a world without anything? It’s not logically impossible and indeed, the question “Why is there something rather than nothing?” has been debate by philosophers for centuries which shows that absolute nothing is an intellectually worthy possibility.

Also, I could ask you the question, what makes something that doesn’t exist right now possible or impossible in the logical sense of the world? How do you know a universe with only Krauss’ nothing is possible (since that universe doesn’t currently exist) but a universe with pure nothingness is not, or we can’t know it’s possible?

Brad: Yes, we can ask “what if” all day, and honestly, I think this is one of the major differences between you and me. I’m okay not knowing. I’m okay with mystery. You—and try not to take this too offensively—need a Bible and a God to make your world neat, ordered, and, well, unmysterious.

For the sake of argument, however, I’ll grant your point. Let’s say Krauss is doing a bait and switch like you say and things can’t come into existence out of nothing and that nothing is, as you say, the complete absence of anything. Okay. So things can possibly fail to exist or not possibly fail to exist. And I’ll even admit that you’ve stumped me on what I said about the universe, you’re right, the universe simply is all of spatio-temporal reality. Now what.

Sarah: Well I’m in danger of repeating myself. Contingent things can go out of and come into existence. Since it’s possible that every contingent thing could not exist simultaneously, given an infinite amount of time that possibility would eventually be realized. But if it were realized there would be nothing that existed now, since, “out of nothing, nothing comes.”  We can debate whether that cause is God, but right off the bat I can tell you that contingent things like aliens or physical forces won’t work so the window of candidates is extremely small.

 

Why Only One Efficient Cause?

 

Brad: Even if you’re right and there is a necessary being, how do you know this necessary being is one? You talk about him being the first mover, or the first efficient cause, or the necessary being. Why can’t there be multiple first movers, first causes, and necessary beings? Why does it all have to trace back to one God?

Sarah: The biggest reason is that this God is pure act, something that has no potential since it activates the potential of all other things. If there were two gods, one would lack what the other had. After all, how could we distinguish between them unless there was something different about them. Therefore, that which is pure act cannot be divided, which is why Christians believe God is one.

Brad: Why can’t there be two things that are pure act? I’m not trying to be argumentative, I’m just trying to understand.

Sarah: If there were two, what would these beings be like? How could you tell there were two of them?

Brad: I don’t know, you think God is just an immaterial mind right? So maybe there’s two immaterial minds with two different agendas.

Sarah: God isn’t just an immaterial mind, those are angels. Instead God is being or existence itself. He just IS and exists without limit. If there was another God like him, both would limit each other (hence different agendas) and so they could not be pure act, which is what God is.

Brad: We’ll have to continue this discussion next week, Sarah. My friends and I are going out tonight and I have to run home to get ready.

Sarah: Sounds good, Brad. Nice seeing you again.

Thomas Aquinas’ Arguments From Motion and Efficient Causality: A Socratic Dialogue

St. Thomas Aquinas

Over the coming weeks I’d like to explore each of St. Thomas’ five proofs for the existence of God by way of socratic dialogues (read my other dialogues here).

In today’s dialogue Brad asks Sarah for arguments for God’s existence. Sarah responds by summing up the first two ways of Aquinas, both of which are based upon the idea that an infinite regress is impossible. If you’re unfamiliar with Aquinas’ five proofs for the existence of God, read his summaries of them here from the Summa Thealogica.

Brad: Sarah the last few times we’ve met you’ve tried to show why my reasons for being an atheist aren’t good, but do you have any positive reasons for thinking God exists? You do believe God can be proven, right?

 

Proof

 

Sarah: It depends what you mean by prove, Brad. I don’t think proving God’s existence is like proving 2+2=4, only in mathematics can you get 100% proof about anything. But I do think that we can logically move from what we observe to a conclusion that God exists.

Brad: So you admit that you can’t be certain.

Sarah: Can you be certain about something without having 100% of it proved? Look, I’m just saying that if we believe most thing in life, like the reality of the world, and that we’re not just bodies in the matrix, that our parents love us and aren’t just pretending to because of some sinister plan, that Yemen exists even though we’ve never been there. You’ve haven’t been to Yemen, right?

Brad: No.

Sarah: Almost everything we believe cannot be proven with mathematical certainty, and why should we expect them to? We believe most things based on good reasons, and if we have good reasons to believe in God, then we should believe in God just like we believe in those other things.

Brad: Okay, well, lay them on me; these reasons of yours. I’m an open-minded guy, what I’m after is the truth.

Sarah: Okay, there are lots of different reasons to believe in God but I think the most powerful reason is that only God can explain fundamental features of reality. I’m not saying that God explains things science hasn’t figured out.

Brad: Glad to hear it, that would be God-of-the-gaps.

 

Thomas’ Five Ways

 

Sarah: Right. I’m saying that certain features can in principle only be explained by God. Have you ever heard of the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas?

Brad: Funny you should mention them, yes. I’ve just been reading about them. Surely you can do better than them!

Sarah: What makes you think these aren’t good arguments?

Brad: I thought you told a while back that you’d read The God Delusion. Dawkins completely demolishes Aquinas’ arguments. I actually have a copy of it here. Here, listen to this. He writes, “The five ‘proofs’ asserted by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century don’t prove anything, and are easily – though I hesitate to say so, given his eminence – exposed as vacuous.” And then he goes through them one by one, knocking them down.

 

Argument From Motion

 

Sarah: Yes, I have read The God delusion. I think Dawkins “misunderstands” rather than “demolishes” Aquinas’ arguments. Dawkins commits the straw man fallacy, that is, he refutes a weaker version of his opponents argument. I don’t think he did this intentionally, but as a biologist, and not a philosopher, I think he just misunderstood Aquinas as many atheists are prone to do. Let’s start with the first way Thomas proposes, or the argument from motion. What do you take that argument to mean?

Brad: Why don’t you refresh my memory.

Sarah: Alright. Everything we observe is a combination of the potential and the actual. Water is actually wet and potentially solid. Wood is actually hard and potentially flammable. Whenever something goes from potential to actual it must be activated by something else.

Brad: Sorry to interrupt. When you use the words potential and actual—I want to make sure I’m understanding you correctly—you mean by potential, the ability of something to be different than it is, right? And by actual you mean the state something is in?

Sarah: Yes, potency refers to what something can be while actuality refers to what it currently is.

Brad: K, great, keep going.

Sarah: Oh that’s fine, thanks for clarifying. So when something goes from potential to actual it must be activated by something else. Water doesn’t freeze itself, wood doesn’t light itself on fire. But this chain can’t regress forever. If we keep saying that what actualized the potential in one thing was something else then we keep shifting the explanation backwards without explaining anything.

Brad: Okay. Give me an analogy.

Sarah: Alright, consider a train with an infinite number of boxcars, is it moving or standing still. Boxcars can’t move themselves so it must be still. A moving train, however, requires a car that moves itself and all others. Likewise, our universe, being one of change and motion, requires something that is pure actuality and has no potential whatsoever. This is God.

Brad: Okay, I have two responses. First, even if you’re right and an infinite regress is impossible, claiming that whatever stops the regress is “God” is unhelpful at best. You’ve proven very little about the God you believe exists.

Sarah: We can call the solution to our infinite regress “The First Cause” or “Pure Actuality” and then see later if these terms refer to the classical definition of “God” so you don’t have an objection against the argument so much as an application of its conclusion.

Brad: What do you mean by “pure actuality?”

Sarah: Pure act refers to something that doesn’t lack anything, something that doesn’t wait for another to give it something it already does not possess.

 

An Infinite Regress

 

Brad: Okay, well my second point is that I have no problem with an infinite regress. What’s the issue? Mathematicians in the 21st century don’t fully comprehend infinity, why assume a medieval monk got it right?

Sarah: it’s not enough to say we don’t fully comprehend infinity, one could say we are always learning about many concepts. What mistake does Thomas make in his argument? Isn’t it possible that the more we’ve learned about infinity since Thomas has confirmed rather than refuted his position?

Brad: look, I’m not a mathematician any more than you are. I just don’t see the problem in having causes that stretch back forever. You ask what mistake does Thomas make? He too quickly rules out the possibility of an infinite regress of “movers.” If you want to hang your hat on Thomas’ medieval views on reality, fine, I’m not convinced.

Sarah: let’s try a simple thought experiment. Imagine a chandelier that’s one link short of reaching the ceiling. If you let it go it falls, right?

Brad: Um, sure, yes, it would fall to the ground.

Sarah: Okay. Supposse the ceiling is thousands of feet high. So you add ten thousand more links to the chain. But it’s still one chain short so, and this is important, the chain is only being held up by other links, with ten thousand links it still falls.

Brad: I’m following.

Sarah: Let’s think of a higher ceiling. How about a million more links or a billion, if it doesn’t reach the ceiling it still falls. Now, suppose there are an infinite number of links in the chain, after every link there is another, but the ceiling is always one link away.

Brad: You’d have an infinitely high A/C bill for this ridiculously big home? Is that your point?

Sarah: Let’s be serious.

Brad: Sorry, continue.

Sarah: Even with an infinite number of links, those are the only things holding up the chandelier. If we agreed that billions or trillions of links in this chain can’t by themselves hold up the chandelier, then how could an infinite number of them do that? We’ve already seen that adding chains doesn’t help solve the problem. To keep the chandelier up we need something that doesn’t depden on anything else to stay up. Chains by they nature can’t do that, but a ceiling can.

Brad: Okay.

Sarah: The same is true in the universe. an infinite number of movers doesn’t explain why there is motion, only an unmoved mover, something that grants motion to all but receives it from none can explain that. So at the end of the day you either have to accept an infinite regress, which I think there are good reasons to think is not possible, things moving themselves for no reason, or an unmoved mover. I’m happy to take your thoughts on that and then maybe we can talk about the other ways.

Brad: Okay, I don’t mean to sound flippant, but I’m not buying it. First, using a mundane example like a chandelier is misleading—I’m not saying your intending to be misleading—but I think it is misleading. Yeah, we understand how everyday things like chain links, and chandeliers, and even gravity work, but to say that we therefore can conclude that the universe must be like a ceiling seems a little trite. We know so very little about this universe, I’m not going to be convinced by these sorts of examples, maybe there could be an infinite number movers, and if there is, whether or not that makes sense to you, you’ll have to learn to deal with it because that’s reality. You said you had five proofs? Why don’t move on?

 

Open-Minded?

 

Sarah: Before we do that, you said you were open-minded and willing to be proven wrong. Yet, when confronted with evidence for God you say there’s lots we don’t understand. So here’s a question: What would be something, in theory, that would show God exists that you couldn’t respond to with, “We don’t understand how everything works so maybe it’s not God”? It just seems to me like your atheism has something in common with certain religious beliefs, it can’t be falsified.

Brad: Oh that’s easy. God could appear in the sky right now, and with a big booming voice say, “Brad, I exist! You were wrong to be an atheist, Sarah is right, listen to her you doofus!” I’d also be convinced by one shred of evidence. Look, five thousand years ago there were no doubt people who had arguments for why the earth was flat, or, more recently, that the sun revolved around the earth. In both cases, though their arguments may have sounded compelling, they were wrong. Evidence is what should change our beliefs, not thought experiments and word games.

Sarah: Really? A Booming Voice? How do you know it’s God and not aliens, the government, or an eccentric billionaire? Saying “it’s God” doesn’t really tell us anything. Also, do you think we understand everything about sound or how the brain processes sound? Finally, shouldn’t God provide reasons that show he exists that all people can access, such as the natural world around us? But let’s say an infinite past universe of movers is possible, I still don’t think that disproves Thomas’s arguments because, while the second way relies on this principle, the third does not.

Brad: I think I’d just believe it were God because . . . Well, I was going to say that would be more plausible than aliens, but I don’t think that. Well, let’s say there were no signs of aliens and I had no signs of being mentally deranged. I think I’d just accept that it were true, whether or not you think I should, It think I just would. You say God should provide reasons that he exist that everyone can access, ah, yeah! That’s another great reason to think he doesn’t exist, since if he did, surely he’d know what would convince people and do that. But okay, what’s this third proof?

Sarah: I hate to be the one to flee the battle field, but I have to go. Think about what I said, okay?  And may I suggest a book?

Brad: Sure.

Sarah: You can borrow this one if you want. It’s called Answering Atheism. I think you’ll like it. I did. He’s very respectful and fair to atheists.

Brad: Dude, he’s another Catholic!

Sarah: What can I say, sometimes they get it right!

Thomas Aquinas’ First Two Ways: A Socratic Dialogue

St. Thomas Aquinas

Over the coming weeks I’d like to explore each of St. Thomas’ five proofs for the existence of God by way of socratic dialogues (read my other dialogues here).

In today’s dialogue Brad asks Sarah for arguments for God’s existence. Sarah responds by summing up the first two ways of Aquinas, both of which are based upon the idea that an infinite regress is impossible. If you’re unfamiliar with Aquinas’ five proofs for the existence of God, read his summaries of them here from the Summa Thealogica.

Brad: Sarah the last few times we’ve met you’ve tried to show why my reasons for being an atheist aren’t good, but do you have any positive reasons for thinking God exists? It’s not enough to refute arguments against God, what proof is there to think he even exists? You do think God’s existence can be proven, right?

 

Proof

 

Sarah: It depends what you mean by prove, Brad. I don’t think proving God’s existence is like proving 2+2=4, only in mathematics can you get 100% proof about anything. But I do think that we can logically move from what we observe to a conclusion that God exists.

Brad: So you admit that you can’t be certain.

Sarah: Can you be certain about something without having 100% of it proved?

Brad: No.

Sarah: And you’re 100% certain about that? Look, I’m just saying that if we believe most thing in life, like the reality of the world, and that we’re not just bodies in the matrix, that our parents love us and aren’t just pretending to because of some sinister plan, that Yemen exists even though we’ve never been there. You’ve haven’t been to Yemen, right?

Brad: No.

Sarah: Almost everything we believe cannot be proven with mathematical certainty, and why should we expect them to? We believe most things based on good reasons, and if we have good reasons to believe in God, then we should believe in God just like we believe in those other things.

Brad: Okay, well, lay them on me; these reasons of yours. I’m an open-minded guy, what I’m after is the truth.

Sarah: Okay, there are lots of different reasons to believe in God but I think the most powerful reason is that only God can explain fundamental features of reality. I’m not saying that God explains things science hasn’t figured out.

Brad: Glad to hear it, that would be God-of-the-gaps.

 

Thomas’ Five Ways

 

Sarah: Right. I’m saying that certain features can in principle only be explained by God. Have you ever heard of the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas?

Brad: I thought you were supposed to be a good protestant girl?

Sarah: I prefer to think of myself as just a Christian. But, yes you’re right, I’m not Catholic but I have been reading a lot from Catholics lately.

Brad: Oh dear, in a year from now we’re going to be debating whether or not women can be priests aren’t we?

Sarah: Anything’s possible, but for now let’s stay on topic. So you’ve heard of the Five Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas?

Brad: Funny you should mention them, yes. I’ve just been reading about them. Surely you can do better than them!

Sarah: What makes you think these aren’t good arguments?

Brad: You obviously haven’t read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins have you? I’ll lend you a copy. He completely demolishes the medieval priest. I actually have a copy of it here.

Sarah: Oh, Joy.

Brad: He writes, “The five ‘proofs’ asserted by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century don’t prove anything, and are easily – though I hesitate to say so, given his eminence – exposed as vacuous.” And then he goes through them one by one, knocking them down.

 

Argument From Motion

 

Sarah: Actually I have read The God Delusion, I’ve told you that before. Anyway, I think he “misunderstands” rather than “demolishes.” Dawkins commits the straw man fallacy, that is, he refutes a weaker version of his opponents argument. I don’t think he did this intentionally, but as a biologist and not a philosopher, I think he just misunderstood Aquinas as many atheists are prone to do. Let’s start with the first way Thomas proposes, or the argument from motion. What do you take that argument to mean?

Brad: Why don’t you refresh my memory. That’s the one about there needing to be a first “mover,” right? since an infinite regress is impossible there needs to be a first mover? I want to make sure I understand the argument, or your take on it first.

Sarah: Alright. Everything we observe is a combination of the potential and the actual. Water is actually wet and potentially solid. Wood is actually hard and potentially flammable. Whenever something goes from potential to actual it must be activated by something else.

Brad: Sorry to interrupt. When you use the words potential and actual—I want to make sure I’m understanding you correctly—you mean by potential, the ability of something to be different than it is, right? And by actual you mean the state something is in?

Sarah: Yes, potency refers to what something can be while actuality refers to what it currently is.

Brad: K, great, keep going.

Sarah: Oh that’s fine, thanks for clarifying. So when something goes from potential to actual it must be activated by something else. Water doesn’t freeze itself, wood doesn’t light itself on fire. But this chain can’t regress forever. If we keep saying that what actualized the potential in one thing was something else then we keep shifting the explanation backwards without explaining anything.

Brad: Okay. Give me an analogy.

Sarah: Alright, consider a train with an infinite number of boxcars, is it moving or standing still. Boxcars can’t move themselves so it must be still. A moving train, however, requires a car that moves itself and all others. Likewise, our universe, being one of change and motion, requires something that is pure actuality and has no potential whatsoever. This is God. Granted you probably don’t associate “God” with “pure actuality” but we can discuss that shortly.

Brad: Okay, I have two responses to this argument. First, even if you’re right and an infinite regress is impossible and it has to stop with something that got the ball moving, so to speak; calling it, she, he, whatever, “God” is at best, unhelpful. You’ve proven very little about the God you believe exists.

Sarah: We can call the solution to our infinite regress “The First Cause” or “Pure Actuality” and then see later if these terms refer to the classical definition of “God” so you don’t have an objection against the argument so much as an application of its conclusion.

Brad: What do you mean by “pure actuality?”

Sarah: Pure act refers to something that doesn’t lack anything, something that doesn’t wait for another to give it something it already does not possess.

 

An Infinite Regress

 

Brad: Okay, well my second point is that I have no problem with an infinite regress. What’s the issue? Mathematicians in the 21st century don’t fully comprehend infinity, why assume a medieval monk got it right?

Sarah: it’s not enough to say we don’t fully comprehend infinity, one could say we are always learning about many concepts. What mistake does Thomas make in his argument? Isn’t it possible that the more we’ve learned about infinity since Thomas has confirmed rather than refuted his position?

Brad: look, I’m not a mathematician any more than you are. I just don’t see the problem in having causes that stretch back forever. You ask what mistake does Thomas make? He too quickly rules out the possibility of an infinite regress of “movers.” If you want to hang your hat on Thomas’ medieval views on reality, fine, I’m not convinced.

Sarah: let’s try a simple thought experiment. Imagine a chandelier that’s one link short of reaching the ceiling. If you let it go it falls, right?

Brad: Um, sure, yes, it would fall to the ground.

Sarah: Okay. Supposse the ceiling is thousands of feet high. So you add ten thousand more links to the chain. But it’s still one chain short so, and this is important, the chain is only being held up by other links, with ten thousand links it still falls.

Brad: I’m following.

Sarah: Let’s think of a higher ceiling. How about a million more links or a billion, if it doesn’t reach the ceiling it still falls. Now, suppose there are an infinite number of links in the chain, after every link there is another, but the ceiling is always one link away.

Brad: You’d have an infinitely high A/C bill for this ridiculously big home? Is that your point?

Sarah: Let’s be serious.

Brad: Sorry, continue.

Sarah: Even with an infinite number of links, those are the only things holding up the chandelier. If we agreed that billions or trillions of links in this chain can’t by themselves hold up the chandelier, then how could an infinite number of them do that? We’ve already seen that adding chains doesn’t help solve the problem. To keep the chandelier up we need something that doesn’t depden on anything else to stay up. Chains by they nature can’t do that, but a ceiling can.

Brad: Okay.

Sarah: The same is true in the universe. an infinite number of movers doesn’t explain why there is motion, only an unmoved mover, something that grants motion to all but receives it from none can explain that. So at the end of the day you either have to accept an infinite regress, which I think there are good reasons to think is not possible, things moving themselves for no reason, or an unmoved mover. I’m happy to take your thoughts on that and then maybe we can talk about the other ways.

Brad: Okay, I don’t mean to sound flippant, but I’m not buying it. First, using a mundane example like a chandelier is misleading—I’m not accusing you of being meaning—but I think it is misleading. Yeah, we understand how everyday things like chain links, and chandeliers, and even gravity work, but to say that we therefore can conclude that the universe must be like a ceiling seems a little trite. We know so very little about this universe, I’m not going to be convinced by these sorts of examples, maybe there could be an infinite number movers, and if there is, whether or not that makes sense to you, you’ll have to learn to deal with it because that’s reality. You said you had five proofs? Why don’t move on?

 

Open-Minded?

 

Sarah: Before we do that, you said you were open-minded and willing to be proven wrong. Yet, when confronted with evidence for God you say there’s lots we don’t understand. So here’s a question: What would be something, in theory, that would show God exists that you couldn’t respond to with, “We don’t understand how everything works so maybe it’s not God”? It just seems to me like your atheism has something in common with certain religious beliefs, it can’t be falsified.

Brad: Oh that’s easy. God could appear in the sky right now, and with a big booming voice say, “Brad, I exist! You were wrong to be an atheist, Sarah is right, listen to her you doofus!” I’d also be convinced by one shred of evidence. Look, five thousand years ago there were no doubt people who had arguments for why the earth was flat, or, more recently, that the sun revolved around the earth. In both cases, though their arguments may have sounded compelling, they were wrong. Evidence is what should change our beliefs, not thought experiments and word games.

Sarah: Really? A Booming Voice? How do you know it’s God and not aliens, the government, or an eccentric billionaire? Saying “it’s God” doesn’t really tell us anything. Also, do you think we understand everything about sound or how the brain processes sound? Finally, shouldn’t God provide reasons that show he exists that all people can access, such as the natural world around us? But let’s say an infinite past universe of movers is possible, I still don’t think that disproves Thomas’s arguments because, while the second way relies on this principle, the third does not.

Brad: I think I’d just believe it were God because . . . Well, I was going to say that would be more plausible than aliens, but I don’t think that. Well, let’s say there were no signs of aliens and I had no signs of being mentally deranged. I think I’d just accept that it were true, whether or not you think I should, It think I just would. You say God should provide reasons that he exist that everyone can access, ah, yeah! That’s another great reason to think he doesn’t exist, since if he did, surely he’d know what would convince people and do that. But okay, what’s this third proof?

Sarah: I hate to be the one to flee the battle field, but I have to go. Think about what I said, okay?  And may I suggest a book?

Brad: Sure.

Sarah: You can borrow this one if you want. It’s called Answering Atheism. I think you’ll like it. I did. He’s very respectful and fair to atheists.

Brad: Dude, he’s another Catholic!

Sarah: What can I say, sometimes they get it right!

Why The Virgin Mary is Necessary for our Salvation: A Socratic Dialogue

These dialogues aren’t meant to cover every aspect of, or every objection to, each doctrine. There’s more that could be said, obviously.

They’re meant to be a fun and intellectually stimulating introduction to Catholic teachings that can sometimes be hard to understand.

Also, I’ve tried to make it a reasonably fair exchange between Sam (the Protestant) and Justin (the Catholic), but I haven’t tried that hard.

The goal here is to demonstrate the superiority of the Catholic position, something that couldn’t be done in the space I’ve done it in if I were to launch every Protestant objection to the doctrines discussed.

Cool? I don’t think Protestants are cotton-headed ninny muggins’s. Promise.

Enjoy, and please give me your feedback below.

Why Do you Wear That Medal?

Sam: I’ve been meaning to ask, why do you wear a medal of Mary around your neck?

Justin: Why do you wear a cross around yours?

Sam: To remind me of what Christ did for me. It reminds me of my salvation and that, despite my many sins, Christ died for them all.

Justin: That’s a good answer. So you’re saying that by the cross, Christ redeemed fallen humanity, yes?

Sam: Of course.

Justin: Good. I agree. Let me ask you this . . .

Sam: . . . Are you going to tell me why you wear this Mary medal? I wasn’t trying to be antagonistic, just curious.

Justin: Oh, I know you weren’t. Believe it or not, I’m trying to tell you. Do you think the cross was necessary for our salvation?

Sam: What do you mean?

Why The Cross Necessary

Justin: Just what I said; do you think that Jesus’ death on the cross was necessary for our salvation?

Sam: Yes, of course.

Justin: So you’re saying that if the Romans—or was it the Persians, I’m not sure—hadn’t invented this method of execution, God would have no way to redeem us?

Sam: No, I’m not saying that. . . . This is the first time I’ve thought of this and so I’m thinking on the spot here . . . I think God could have saved us by other means, perhaps God could have redeemed the world without Christ even dying, I don’t know, but since that is the way God chose to save us, it becomes necessary for us, doesn’t it?

Justin: I like the way you put that. Yes, I agree with you. I suppose we could distinguish between strict necessity and relative necessity, couldn’t we. It wasn’t strictly necessary, since he could have saved us without the cross; but since he’s chosen to save us in this way, it becomes necessary.

Sam: So why do you wear a medal of Mary instead of a cross? Is it because the cross wasn’t “strictly necessary”?

Justin: Oh, certainly not! I’ve worn a cross in the past and I’ll probably wear one again in the future. Let me tell you why I wear a medal—it’s called a miraculous medal, incidentally—depicting the Mother of God.

Sam: Great.

Why Mary is Necessary

Justin: Without the Virgin Mary, without her “yes” to the angel Gabriel, the second person of the Blessed Trinity would not have become man. The Mother of God is necessary for our salvation.

Sam: Wow. I’m sure you’ve got reasons for this stuff, but it sounds, well, slightly idolatrous.

Justin: Why?

Sam: Mary is necessary for our salvation?

Justin: That’s a question, not an argument. Why is what I’ve said idolatrous.

Sam: You’re saying that without her we’d all be damed?

Justin: Yes, that is what I’m saying. But look, just a moment ago you said that an inanimate object—the cross— was necessary for our salvation.

Sam: It wasn’t strictly necessary, it isn’t the source of our salvation.

Justin: Agreed, and I would say the same of the Mother of God. She wasn’t strictly necessary, and she isn’t the source of our salvation, God is.

Sam: Okay, that makes me feel better. What do you mean she wasn’t strictly necessary? You admit that God could have been born of some other woman if he chose to?

Justin: Of course, don’t you?

Sam: Yes!

Justin: But we’ve seen, haven’t we? That just because something isn’t strictly necessary, it doesn’t follow that it isn’t relatively necessary, that it isn’t necessary for us. And it doesn’t mean we remove those lines from our hymns like, “thank you for the cross where your love poured out.” Or that we insert into them, “Oh the wondrous cross . . . that wasn’t strictly necessary but is necessary for us since he chose to save us in this way”

Sam: Haha. Right.

Justin: So if you’re going to say—and I agree with you—that the cross was necessary for our salvation, shouldn’t you also say the same of Mary? Without her, his crucifixion would have been impossible.

Sam: Fine, I can see that.

Justin: So if you’re allowed to wear a cross to remind you of your salvation, why can’t I wear an image of the Virgin Mary to remind me of the same thing? Besides, the cross didn’t have a choice to participate in God’s plan for our salvation, Mary did.

Why Pray to Her? Why do You Make Images of Her?

Sam: But you also pray to her and wear images of her? Especially when we’ve been commanded not to make graven images?

Justin: I have to run, but I was recently interviewed about that very question here if you’re interested in listening. Perhaps we can speak about it next time. God Bless you.

Sam: You too, thanks.

Why I Don’t Lie to my Children About Santa Claus

And the winner of this year’s most controversial post goes to (drum roll . . . ) this one (or this one?)!

A few years back when our children got old enough to understand the story of Father Christmas (you may know him as Santa Claus), my wife and I had an argument. She thought (and still thinks) that it’s okay to tell your children that there exists such a person: A plump, white-bearded old man, dressed in fur, flying magical reindeer, delivering presents to good boys and girls throughout the world.

I disagree.

It’s one thing to allow your child to believe a myth, it’s another thing entirely, I think, to talk them into believing it.

Lying

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “[a] lie consists in speaking a falsehood with the intention of deceiving.”

Leaving to one side the issue of mental reservation and the, ‘if-a-Nazi-was-at-your-door’ dilemmas, it seems obvious to me that telling a child—who does not yet have the cognitive ability to discern the truth of the matter, and who trusts you to tell him the truth about the world, (and at the very least, not to deceive him about it)—that Santa exists; that he ‘knows if you’ve been bad or good,’ that he can be tracked on ReindeerCam, etc. etc. is a lie: a falsehood told with the intent of deceiving.

For this reason we don’t lie to our children about Santa Claus.

When people discover this they usually object in one of three ways:

1. “My parents told me about Santa Claus and I turned out okay. Once I found out the truth, I never doubted that God existed or anything like that.”

My argument isn’t that lying to children about Santa Claus will have negative effects (or even that it won’t have positive ones), it’s that I think it constitutes lying, that lying is wrong, and that we therefore should’t do it.

2. “Don’t you worry that you’re robbing your children of the magic of Christmas?”

To this I say, if celebrating the historical fact of the birth of the second person of the Blessed Trinity is not enough to arouse wonder, ‘magic,’ or awe, within you and your children . . . You may wanna reflect upon that.

3. “I think it’s good for their imagination!”

Don’t you think that there are other ways to encourage your child’s imagination that don’t involve lying to them? Like reading them good literature? The Chronicles of Narnia, for instance, or, The Lord the Rings. These books, to paraphrase Fr. Robert Barron, prepare the imagination for the reception of the gospel.

Will the real St. Nick stand up?

Perhaps you and I should learn more about the real St. Nicholas, and even find ways to creatively celebrate his feast with our children (his feast is on the 6th of December); they’ve got some great ideas at the St. Nicholas Center.

Did you know that St. Nicholas was a fourth century Bishop of Myra (part of modern-day Turkey)? And that he participated in the First Council of Nicaea—where he apparently punched the heretic Arius for denying Christ’s divinity? Bring it Nicko!

Disagree?

If you’d like to read a post that appears to argue the opposite of what I’m arguing here, you can read Catholic apologist Michelle Arnold’s post, The Truth About Santa Claus. You might also enjoy Matt Warner’s recent post (looks like we posted around the same time) Are you lying to your children about Santa.

Have Your Say

Now, what are your thoughts? This post would be awfully boring if y’all agreed with me.I’m sure you won’t. I should also say that I’m open to changing my mind if you can offer me a good argument as to why this doesn’t constitute lying, but, honestly, I doubt you’ll be able.

Who Is This Woman?

Who is this woman?

One of the reasons Catholics (as well as the entire world!) is so enamored with Mary, is that we are so enamored with beauty. Mary is beautiful. She is, said William Wordsworth, himself a protestant, “our tainted nature’s solitary boast.” 

But Mary’s beauty is not self-generated. She is not the spring, but the fountain. Just as the moon has no radiance of its own but reflects the light of the sun, so Mary, having no radiance of her own, yet being full of grace, reflects perfectly the “radiance,” of God. It was “[t]he Holy Spirit [who] prepared Mary by his grace. It was fitting that the mother of him in whom ‘the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily’ should herself be ‘full of grace’” (CCC 722).

A Mystery

But who is this woman? Mary is the most mysterious creature that ever has or will exist. For “what does it mean to be mother? What does it mean to be God? What does it mean to be Mother of God? To combine in a single phrase the most mysterious concept of the created order with the essential mystery of the uncreated (the one and triune God) is in a sense to confront oneself with the most startling mystery of “our theology” (page 108 from St. Maximilian M. Kolbe: Pneumatologist by Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner, FI)

Who is this woman?

Hic taceat omnis lingua : Here let every tongue be silent.

To believe that Jesus Christ is God, is to believe ipso facto that the creator of everything other than himself became a zygote; embryo; fetus (God the fetus . . . and you thought the infant of prague was weird), in the womb of a teenage Jewish girl.

It is to believe, to quote Augustine, that “Him whom the heavens cannot contain, the womb of one woman bore.” It is to believe that “She ruled our Ruler; she carried him in whom we are; she gave milk to our bread. “

Pause your reading of this article for five minutes and consider the fact that God nursed at Mary’s breast. . . .

Who is this woman?

Hic taceat omnis lingua: Here let every tongue be silent.

Unique Relationship With Trinity

Your deepest identity, dear reader, is not your profession, nor is it your nationality, nor is it what anyone thinks about you save God. You are what you are before him and nothing else. Who are you? You are a son or daughter of God.

One key difference between this woman and us is that she has a unique relationship with each person of the Blessed Trinity. Not only is she the daughter of God the Father, she is mother of God the son, and, in a profoundly mysterious way, the spouse of God the Holy Spirit.

Who is this woman?

Hic taceat omnis lingua : Here let every tongue be silent.

If you’re tongue won’t be silent . . . Then pray this prayer:

St. Louise De Montfort’s Prayer to Mary

Hail Mary, beloved Daughter of the Eternal Father! Hail Mary, admirable Mother of the Son! Hail Mary, faithful spouse of the Holy Ghost! Hail Mary, my dear Mother, my loving Mistress, my powerful sovereign! Hail my joy, my glory, my heart and my soul! Thou art all mine by mercy, and I am all thine by justice. But I am not yet sufficiently thine. I now give myself wholly to thee without keeping anything back for myself or others. If thou still seest in me anything which does not belong to thee, I beseech thee to take it and to make thyself the absolute Mistress of all that is mine. Destroy in me all that may he displeasing to God, root it up and bring it to nought; place and cultivate in me everything that is pleasing to thee.

May the light of thy faith dispel the darkness of my mind; may thy profound humility take the place of my pride; may thy sublime contemplation check the distractions of my wandering imagination; may thy continuous sight of God fill my memory with His presence; may the burning love of thy heart inflame the lukewarmness of mine; may thy virtues take the place of my sins; may thy merits be my only adornment in the sight of God and make up for all that is wanting in me. Finally, dearly beloved Mother, grant, if it be possible, that I may have no other spirit but thine to know Jesus and His divine will; that I may have no other soul but thine to praise and glorify the Lord; that I may have no other heart but thine to love Godwith a love as pure and ardent as thine I do not ask thee for visions, revelations, sensible devotion or spiritual pleasures. It is thy privilege to see God clearly; it is thy privilege to enjoy heavenly bliss; it is thyprivilege to triumph gloriously in Heaven at the right hand of thy Son and to hold absolute sway over angels, men and demons; it is thy privilege to dispose of all the gifts of God, just as thou willest.

Such is, O heavenly Mary, the “best part,” which the Lord has given thee and which shall never be taken away from thee–and this thought fills my heart with joy. As for my part here below, I wish for no other than that which was thine: to believe sincerely without spiritual pleasures; to suffer joyfully without human consolation; to die continually to myself without respite; and to work zealously and unselfishly for thee until death as the humblest of thy servants. The only grace I beg thee to obtain for me is that every day and every moment of my life I may say: Amen, So be it–to all that thou didst do while on earth; Amen, so be it–to all that thou art now doing in Heaven; Amen, so be it–to all that thou art doing in my soul, so that thou alone mayest fully glorify Jesus in me for time and eternity.

Amen.

Who or What Should be the Heart of Catechesis

“Catechesis” comes from the Greek word, katekhesis, meaning “instruction by word of mouth.” Broadly speaking, then, catechesis may refer to any number of disciplines that are taught orally. However, “catechesis” has come to denote, specifically, Christian instruction.

We could summarize catechesis, then, as follows: Catechesis is basic Christian education.

What Is Christianity

In order to see why Jesus Christ must be the center of catechesis we must begin by asking the question, “What is Christianity?” If it is simply a moral code, then that code ought to be at the heart of catechesis. If Christianity is false, then its falsity ought to be the heart of whatever is taught about it.

But whatever else Christianity may entail (Church services; moral teaching; bingo, etc.) to the Christian it is first and foremost a person. “Christianity,” said St. John Paul the great, “is not just a book of culture or an ideology, nor is it merely a system of values or principles, however lofty they may be. Christianity is a person, a presence, a face: Jesus, who gives meaning and fullness to human life.” [1] 

According to St. Paul, Everything – Jesus = Refuse, and Nothing + Jesus = Everything.

“I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ,” (Phil. 3:8)

It follows, therefore, that the person of Jesus of Nazareth must be the heart of Catechesis. It is Christ, says Ratzinger and Shonborn, “who is the overwhelming light that illuminates the whole exposition of faith.” [2] “The heart of the Deposit of Faith, its center, lies in the revelation of the Heart of God in the Person of Jesus Christ” [3] 

The Argument

My argument could be summarized thusly:

Premise 1: Catechesis is basic Christian education.

Premise 2: Christianity is, first and foremost, the person of Jesus of Jesus of Nazareth.

Conclusion: Therefore “[a]t the heart of catechesis we find, in essence, a Person, the Person of Jesus of Nazareth, the only Son from the Father. (CCC 426).

———-

1. “Switzerland John Paul II,” http://www.traces-cl.com/july04/arise... (10 October 2010).

2. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Christoph Schonborn. Introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. (San Francisco. Ignatius Press. 1994). 45

3. Petroc Willey, Pierre de Cointet, and Barbara Morgan, The Catechism of the Church and the Craft of Catechesis (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2008), xiv.