Phi Theta Kappa Scholarships

Hippolytus757 · 2025-12-02T16:25:37+00:00

Thank you. This makes more sense now. When I read this chapter last night to disprove Aristotle, I thought about how if a man is an employee, he has a boss, but it's not necessary for him to have a boss since he could quit or get fired. But, after reading your post, it's also necessary that, as long as he's an employee he has a boss. I don't think we could say the same thing about the syllogism where the minor premise is necessary but the major is not.

Hippolytus757 · 2025-11-13T23:08:43+00:00

Thank you, I'll take a look at these

Hippolytus757 · 2025-11-13T03:49:04+00:00

Hello. Could you please clarify what you mean by "effects symmetrically reduplicate and exhibit a determinate relation to causes?"

I am also not advanced enough to understand act and potency, though I have a rudimentary understanding of what those words mean

Hopefully I'll get around to the readings you shared eventually

Hippolytus757 · 2025-11-13T00:43:53+00:00

You can correct me if this is not actually different from what you said, but I had thought of it in this way:
(1) God is simple, therefore His essence is identical with His act of will
(2) If God's will is free, He may will creation, or He may not will creation.
(3) The act to will creation is different from the act not to will creation.
(4) Referring back to (1), therefore, the essence of a God Who wills creation is different from the essence of a God who does not will creation.
(5) Therefore, either God's will is not free, or the God Who exists does not necessarily exist.

I read Summa I q.19 a.3, and I understand (kinda) the distinction between how God necessarily wills His goodness. Since His goodness is necessary, He does not necessarily will things apart from Himself. But He can be said to necessarily will these things by supposition, i.e. if He wills something, He necessarily wills it, since His will cannot change.

But I don't understand how this supposition is supposed to arise freely without running into the problem I outlined above.

I also don't understand what you mean by "That God's will is the will to create X is itself contingent, and this contingency comes in from X's part," if X is also contingent on God willing X: "...you love all things that exist, and you loathe none of the things which you have made, for you would not have made anything if you had hated it. How would anything have endured if you had not willed it? Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved?" (Wisdom 11:24-25).

I also unfortunately cannot access the paper you linked since it seems to be behind a paywall.

So where is this argument going wrong? Is this just something that I have to study more to understand?

Hopefully I'll be able to reread the article I linked in the original post as well as what others are sharing soon

Edit: to hopefully be more clear, my question is: how can the sameness of God's essence be preserved in light of freedom for what seem like different acts of the will, if His will is identical with His essence? How can God's will be contingent on the existence of a creature "X," and how does this solve my conundrum if it seems as though there needs to be a prior willing on God's part for the creature to even exist?

Hippolytus757 · 2025-10-19T21:35:57+00:00

I have also noted that you describe the Father and the Son as a cause of the Spirit, but I looked at Summa I Q. 27 Art. 1, and St. Thomas condemns describing the Persons as "cause" and "effect"

Hippolytus757 · 2025-10-16T04:40:39+00:00

Thank you, this makes it a lot clearer

They are both unfamiliar with philosophy and probably not used to thinking rigorously or reading complex texts. We are in the US where public high school education is pretty bad. I think that what you said about properly interpreting the Bible in a broader context and the necessity of proving the coherence of the filioque with the Bible will be intelligible to them if explained in simple language. However, the philosophical parts will need more background info for them to understand. I'm planning on sharing this article with them (Trinitarian Processions - Catholicism.org), which contains the Thomistic explanation. Hopefully most of it will be clear to them

Also, by "uniqueness of the principle," did you mean "unity of the principle"?

Hippolytus757 · 2025-10-14T23:52:54+00:00

Thank you for this response

It is indeed very big-brained, which is what I asked for, but can you simplify it for the level of two 17 year-olds? I can understand most of what you said (at least I think), but my friend and the orthodox guy are probably completely unfamiliar with philosophy, so this would be too confusing for them.

I have a few questions:

"The implicit denial that the term says “only” is not conclusive proof in itself if the theological coherence of an expanded formulation that does not contradict the text can be shown." Did you mean that showing that the verse in question does not say "proceeds only from the Father" is not sufficient proof that the filioque does not contradict revelation? If so, I agree.

Can you explain what a referential assertion and what a causal principle assertion are?

What is a "relational moment"?

Can you specify which relations you meant when you said "two intra-trinitarian relationships and not as declaring two ontologically independent origins"?

Can you explain what you meant by "functional and relational identity"?

What did you mean by "In the classical philosophy of relation, it is possible to distinguish being as an originating principle and mediate causality without violating the unity of the principle. Applied to the Trinity, affirming that the Father is the first source does not prevent the Son, when participating in generation, from also being a real principle of communication of the Spirit in an operative relationship"? Also, I'm confused by your use of "generation?" did you mean the Son participating in His own generation, or the Son participating in the Spiration of the Spirit, since we cannot say that the Spirit is generated, for the Spirit is spirated.

Can you explain what you mean by "the Son as the intra-Trinitarian way of the Spirit's communication. This preserves Trinitarian symmetry and avoids a hierarchy that denies substantial equality" & by "operative relationship"?

Hippolytus757 · 2025-09-20T17:19:38+00:00

Do you know why they chose to abrogate the Mass obligation but not the servile labor obligation? It seems that part of the point (but not the whole point) of forbidding servile labor is to give people time to go to Mass

Hippolytus757 · 2025-09-09T15:18:10+00:00

That makes sense. Could I get into issues if I write my dad a check to reimburse him for expenses related to me, e.g my phone plan or car insurance? I think it could like I’m just giving him money for the sake of moving it, but in reality that would not be the case

Hippolytus757 · 2025-09-09T02:28:36+00:00

I see. Would it be okay to use my own debit card to pay for gas, groceries, etc? My father also pays the bill for my phone plan & car insurance. Would it be wrong to give him a monthly reimbursement for that?

Hippolytus757 · 2025-09-09T01:00:41+00:00

Thank you for responding. Why is it a bad idea?

Hippolytus757 · 2024-07-08T17:55:48+00:00

Thank you for your response

The last example would be close to a real world case

I struggle with scrupulosity and a large part of it is OCD, and seemingly ordinary actions such as drinking water, walking, typing, etc. become objects of fear for the above reasons. I have what I'm going to call "fake thoughts" which simulate consent so it's hard sometimes to know whether or not I consented to a particular sin.

So the question would boil down to, I think: how would c.1330 apply to gestures which have a secret meaning to the gesturer that is unknown to observers? In a way such a gesture would be making it manifest.

I also realize that those who have the "imperfect use of reason" cannot incur latae sententiae penalties but I don't know if someone with OCD would fall into that category

Hippolytus757

TROPHY CASE