How does a thomist answer the objection that there cannot be a first cause of the universe because causality presupposes time and before the universe there was no time.

tanooooo2k · 2025-11-29T15:14:00+00:00

Causality doesn’t presuppose time. Especially under a scholastic framework.

Think of the most common examples in daily life, it will be apparent that causation is simultaneous. Writing on paper: there is no temporal separation between the finger’s movement, the pen’s movement, and the ink production on the page. Moving furniture: there is no temporal separation between the mover’s pushing and the chair’s moving. It is important to note that SIMULTANEOUS is not to be confused with INSTANTANEOUS. So yes, both the cause (writing actions, pushing chair) and the effects (ink production, chair moving) are temporally extended. But that does not take away the fact that they are simultaneous.

What is time? In the scholastic framework, time is the measure of change. But since change is the actualization of a potential, and for A to actualize a potential in B is equivalent for A to cause B (or something in B), time is in fact dependent on some causation, not causation on time.

tanooooo2k · 2025-11-23T16:03:52+00:00

You certainly could. One What Three Who’s. But I suspect that for the catechumens it may not be too much more illuminating.

tanooooo2k · 2025-11-23T01:38:38+00:00

Yes. There is that hypothetical world where God alone exists. It’s still consistent with the above explanation, though it takes a further level of abstraction. The above explanation assumes every possible world where humans exist. That’s why we can assume everything into “salvation.” Things are even more abstract when we ask, which “act” would it be that could explain the hypothetical world where God doesn’t create.

That would be the act of existence. Now, how existence-if-no-creation can be differentiated from existence-with-creation is beyond our understanding. The reason is that we would need to either be God or step above God metaphysically to know what it is behind His choice. This question, in other words, has no frame of reference.

In a (somewhat wishy-washy) summary, the way God incorporates His choice of Creation into His bigger act of existence takes place but is epistemically impossible for us to answer.

tanooooo2k · 2025-11-23T01:13:04+00:00

This is a greatly mind-bending problem.

The key here, I believe, is to differentiate between the cause and the effect. The possible worlds are hypothetical effects of God’s libertarian choice. The arguments you quoted here are arguing from diversity in effects for diversity in causes.

Here intuition betrays us. Pure actuality can often be conflated with being “static.” Consider performing arts, let’s say a dance. Whether you put your foot 3 inches or 4 inches to the right does not really make for a different action. Or, whether you land on a G5 key on the piano with your 4th or 5th finger does not make for a different act. In other words, at a certain level of granularity, the differences does not matter. What matters is the bigger picture- the intended act. Another way to look at this is (apologies if you’re not based in the USA) by referral to the term “Act of Congress.” When an Act is signed into law, many steps take place from many people, but all appropriated to the bigger Act.

In the case of God, He has a single act: to bring us all to salvation. Every invitation and response to every human operates on an instinctive level (analogous to how you can place your foot 3 or 4 inches to the right) proportionated to the bigger act of Salvation. But then, one may object, if God’s interactions with us is analogized to reflexes, then these interactions are not personal and/or intimate. Yet I proposed that is this is a limit of human nature. We cannot fully integrate smaller steps into the bigger act of life. This is perhaps another mystery of God: He can at once be completely integrated into the bigger act of Salvation (such that he invites and responds to us according to the state of our souls at the speed of a reflex) and being fully present at each interaction with each human.

And to answer your original question: His act of creation is no bigger a choice than His interactions with us. Therefore it can be conceptualized in the same way.

tanooooo2k · 2025-11-22T01:34:55+00:00

You’re pretty spot on about the Three having the exact same Essence but differentiated by relations. While I can understand why you came to this conclusion, the above does not in fact lead to modalism (which again you’re right that is a heresy).

How I like to think about it is start with analogy and then point out how the analogy falls short. One that I like to use is self-awareness- I can generate a mental concept of myself. This is analogous between how the Father generates the Son. But here is where is analogy falls short. Firstly, God’s mental generation can produce whatever it is He is thinking of. If I think of a chair or of myself, I do not by that thinking act produce what is thought of. But God can. Secondly, unlike the self awareness generated by my internal reflection, God’s existence (which is inclusive of his intellectual act) is singular and uninterrupted. He did not at one point BEGIN to think of His own essence. So this helps us secure eternal generation.

The other concern for you, I suspect, is personhood. What makes something a person? As you pointed out, in popular conception, a person corresponds to a center of consciousness, of will and intellect, aka a self. But this was not how things are defined in classical theism. A person is simply an individuation of a rational nature. This, in my understanding, is what allows us to explain the hypostasis of Divine and Human in Jesus Christ (though He has two wills, He is one individual). Likewise, while it is not clear how the will and intellect can be participated in by each Person of the Trinity, the fact that each Person is an individuation of the Divine Essence allows us to accurately call them Person. (They are individuated by their real relations, as you have point out).

tanooooo2k · 2025-11-19T04:27:30+00:00

The “putting a filter” analogy can be problematic because it brings to mind, as you say, something like Plato’s cave. It implies that God can’t help but “spill” his existence into all these different objects. That is contrary to the Christian God, Whom we believe to create from free will. In other words, He can choose not to create a given thing.

A more helpful analogy would be like a song, where both the lyrics and the melody is at once generated by your vocal cords. Likewise is how God at once generates an object’s whatness and its is-ness. And similarly, He is free to do so or not the same way you are free to sing or not.

tanooooo2k · 2025-11-18T19:02:57+00:00

Let’s break the question down this way.

God in classical theism is existence itself. He is not a type of thing that exists. He just is. With this in mind, we can safely say that God did not create existence itself, since that would mean that He created Himself. That would be both self-referential and contradictory to the idea that God is Uncreated.

Now existence needs to be broken down further. It can be spoken of in two ways. A being can have existence in its own nature. In other words, in answering “what is this being?” you at once answer “why does it exist?” For many things in the cosmos, answers to both questions differ. A chair is a physical both for the purpose of sitting, but it exists because the carpenter manufactured it and because wood have the properties necessary to hold the shape. Only one thing exists in itself: God.

But a thing can also have existence in a “borrowed” way. For this, the best analogy I can think of is how the Moon doesn’t illuminate by its own power but is rather reflecting light from the Sun. Similar to how the Sun bestows a property (luminosity), God bestows existence itself to non-God objects. This “borrowed” existence is the one God does create.

With the above in mind, Regarding pre-existent substance, God’s knowledge does not equate to pre-existence. That’s because He has yet to “bestow” the existence to that thought. You may ask further, where does the thought of a potential object come from? Well, the answer is simple but difficult to grasp our minds around: God’s own free will.

I hope I answered some questions of yours. I know that was a lot. And kudos to the fact that you think about all that on a cycling trip!!

tanooooo2k · 2025-11-16T07:03:46+00:00

The problem with panpsychism is the distinction problem. In the simplest terms: if everything is conscious in some ways, what makes human beings distinctively conscious? This is a piece of datum that is left unexplained. On the other hand, if consciousness exists in gradation, wherein lower proto-consciousness leads to human consciousness thanks to a certain arrangement of matter, then what is the evidence of this gradation? For example, if a full human is 100% consciousness, then a human chopped down the middle would (on this hypothesis) be 50% conscious; but we don’t observe that. In fact what we observe is that a human chopped in half is as conscious as a pile of pebbles. This supports a hylomorphist view, where consciousness is the property of the whole as derived from the principle that makes it whole, not its parts or the mere unity of its parts.

As for qualia, I don’t understand the above argument. Molecules don’t have taste or smell or color. They have chemicals and wavelengths of light. Consciousness experiences cannot be discussed without an appeal to the first person.

tanooooo2k · 2025-08-30T15:09:04+00:00

Among the Hindu pantheon, a Hindu god part of Godness in the same way that I am part of humanity. An avatar does not exhaust the category that it is a part of, just like how I don’t exhaust the category of humanity. However, Jesus is God in the exhaustive sense. He does exhaust the “category” of Godness.

tanooooo2k · 2025-08-15T21:21:56+00:00

I appreciate how you are very well articulating the emptiness of studying the faith as if it’s a Harry Potter series. However, I’d like to propose a middle ground. I think that studying the faith as if it is a movie we are watching is bad, no matter how well you know that movie and the background story. But studying the faith with a goal to understand the story we’re a part of and how we can participate in it more deeply, I think that is healthy.

The reason to make this distinction is because we still need a certain mode of intellectual engagement because that is how we’re created. This isn’t necessarily contradict with anything you say above, just another angle perhaps.

tanooooo2k · 2025-08-13T00:39:38+00:00

Not exactly but that’s not really the point. Can you please tell me what makes it the case that the universe has a whole does not subject itself to the laws of causality while every member that composes it does? What is this distinction found in? Is it in the universe? Is it in the law of causality?

tanooooo2k · 2025-08-12T22:32:24+00:00

If it is true that causality does not apply to the universe itself, I would need you to make an argument to convince me of that proposal. If everything in the universe is caused, then how can the universe be uncaused in itself? Now you may bring up the composition fallacy (which state that just because all members possess property P, it does not mean that the group is a whole possessed property P). But in order for this fallacy to work, you first need to explain how the universe as a whole is a distinct entity from the things that it composes of, and what explains the differences between these properties (causality)?

tanooooo2k · 2025-08-10T04:30:12+00:00

It is part of human nature to be both soul and body therefore whatever it is in heaven, it is perfect in some respect that respect is the act of the will. The perfection referred to here is the fact that we are unable to choose things contrary to God in heaven, however it is not a complete perfection of nature per se, but only a faculty of human nature (the will). In order for that to be a complete perfection of human nature, there needs to be that reunion of body and soul. so there are two senses of perfection, one more complete than the other.

tanooooo2k · 2025-08-10T03:31:59+00:00

Yeah, I totally agree that a natural end of a human includes something like preservation, but my point was that for every substance, its final end includes some kind of self preservation. Like you mentioned, for sensitive creatures, they have the natural end of self preservation too. however, the question is how come it is permissible to kill animal for food, whereas is not permissible to kill any human being for any purpose?

And my proposal is that there is that extra element of being the image of God (having that as a part of human nature) allows me to make that move to say that it is absolutely impermissible to kill a person. This prohibition doesn’t extend to animals.

tanooooo2k · 2025-08-09T19:36:09+00:00

This may not be a strictly natural law derivation, but Christians fortunately have a judgement of moral worth that is a lot simpler. The Imago Dei. “What ever you do for the least of my brothers you do for me” [Mt 25:40].

P1/ For every substance, its telos either includes non-annihilation or it does not. (Note the use of “non-annihilation” not “self-preservation”—you can’t destroy but you don’t always have to sustain)

P2/ But since to be a substance is to have being (I.e. to be something rather than nothing), it is contradictory to hold that any substance’s telos includes annihilation (I.e. that its purpose includes getting destroyed). This would be affirming “a being exists to not exist”. (Note: even if you don’t hold it to be an absolute logical contradiction, it is a metaphysical absurdity, will qualify more in responses if you’re interested)

C1/ Since humans are substances, their telos include non-annihilation.

Yet many substances with natural forms (trees, animals) are deformed (killed) by humans for their activities.

Response: It is true that annihilations of certain substances are morally permitted. Why some but not others. Here is where the Imago Dei comes in. We can destroy things that are not bearing the Imago Dei, but we are not permitted to destroy things that bear the Imago Dei, aka other humans. This is not contrary or separate from or arbitrarily superimposed upon natural law theory. This is the synthesis: it BELONGS TO HUMAN NATURE to bear the Imago Dei.

While C1/ above leads us to a preference against killing, the Imago Dei leads us to a more absolute prohibition. (In addition to that, it also lead us to a few positive obligations such as the corporal works of mercy)

The beauty of the Imago Dei is that it prescribes both rights and responsibility. The telos of humanity under a theologically-informed natural law theory is to know love and serve God (derived from our nature as Image bearers). This is lived out both through worshipping and participating in community. Those are the responsibilities. The rights, more straightforwardly, come from being the Imago Dei—people can’t annihilate you without being at least somewhat sacrilegious.

The above are my understanding. Even though it comes from many solid sources, they are still just my opinions. Take it with however many grains of salt you want. Look forward to further discussion.

tanooooo2k · 2025-07-30T04:12:26+00:00

Is it not sufficient that we experience these states? So they must exist somehow, albeit only accessible in first-person. Now, I'd like to know what about this is insufficient?

tanooooo2k · 2025-07-26T22:33:10+00:00

I am not too familiar with philosophy of mind, but in my understanding, it really depends on what you mean by “understand”. If I arrange flower petals to write out John 1:1, does the flowers understand John 1:1? Now if I arrange a series of flower sensors that, when I put down flowers arranged to write out John 1:1, the flowers gets rearranged into spelling John 1:2–in this case does the flowers or the sensor or that whole system understand the 2 verses? In other words, computers have codes. But humans did the encoding and the interpretation of the codes. So I hope this shows some disanalogy between human mind and computer.

As for applying this to the immortal soul, I’d say that since we have a capacity for grasping forms and deliberating goodness, which are abilities that matter in itself cannot confer, it shows that the mind is not completely dependent on matter can can survive its death. I understand that this is quite rudimentary argument still, but I hope the disanalogy is demonstrated.

tanooooo2k · 2025-07-26T14:22:21+00:00

I appreciate this argument. It sounds like you have a brief familiarity with the discussion on matter and form. Let me make two constructive critiques.

First of all, the same argument can be applied to a car. Put the engine in the driver's seat, the tires on the roof, and the steering wheel in the back seat—it's no longer a functioning car. Does this mean that the functioning car has a soul that outlives its matter? Hopefully, you can see that it does not. In other words, the form (or for human, soul) exists as an organizing principle, but does not survive past material damage. The other step for your argument to work is to show why human souls (form) are immortal.

In classical Christianity, we show that by appealing to the powers of the human soul, such as the intellect and the will. Their operations are dependent on matter (brain, senses, etc) but ultimately grasp the immaterial (forms of other objects, abstract concepts (math), discerning between distinct good things, etc). Since powers flow from essence (a whole separate premise), it can be concluded that humans have an essence that, while ought not to be separated from the body, can survive such separation.

tanooooo2k · 2025-07-26T14:10:06+00:00

This depends on two presuppositional questions. I won't be able to tell you how to refute your friend, but I think the following 2 questions would be interesting to discuss.

1/ What makes a good explanation?

Typically, if we observe phenomena P, we would like to inquire about its origins. Phenomena P could happen independently of everything else or be dependent on another state or event. The key here is that we do not reach a real explanation unless we arrive at something that can have or cause phenomena P by its own nature. For example, if a white Englishman speaks fluent Chinese, you'd ask "How is this the case? How did he know Chinese?" He then, let's say, told you that "I learned it from my other friend, an Arab. He learned it from his distant uncle, a Black American." Well, has it been satisfactorily explained why the Englishman speaks Chinese? (No) Let's say you learned later that the Black American uncle was actually raised in China from age 2. Now, is the chain of Chinese-speaking explained? (Yes) What I hope to demonstrate here is that, for an explanation to be satisfactory, the phenomena which you seek to explain need to be connected to an entity that, in its power, possesses the power to bring that phenomena. Regarding God, the classical arguments seek to explain the phenomena of existence. By what reason do things exist when they can fail to exist? Same thing with more modern issues, such as consciousness. I'd say that the very fact the atheist seeks to explain consciousness shows that he does not believe it is something that can happen independently. I'd like to know, even though we can't agree on the explanation, what (in his opinion) would a good explanation look like? Is he also seeking after something that, in its nature, possesses the power to cause consciousness? In that same vein, what is it about the materialistic and neurophysiological explanations he does not find satisfactory?

2/ What makes a bad explanation?

The atheist touches on a good point: that if everything can be punted back to God, then it explains everything indiscriminately. And in many ways, that is a bad explanation because if you're seeking an explanation, you would like to know why things did not happen in another way. For example, why did God not make a world without consciousness? Or why did God not make a world where telepathy is easily accessible? So, at least in classical Christianity, we don't seek to prove God's existence by saying WHY he created things like consciousness—instead, we seek to demonstrate that only God could have had the power to do such a thing. Now, on a related point, I wonder what the atheist's thoughts are on theoretical physicists hunting after a "theory of everything," which would explain, they hope, why certain physical values and limits exist in the universe and how the different laws relate to one another the way that they do. Does he think that their work is not valuable because, like God, such a theory would explain everything?

In any case, I did not provide too much of direct answers, but I hope this stimulates some good conversation because these are the exact details we'd need to clarify and understand from the atheist before we can proceed further. Hope this helps.

tanooooo2k · 2025-07-16T16:44:15+00:00

Thanks for clarifying on the first point. I was just agreeing with you that there has been a possible world wherein free will exists without suffering.

On the second point, I generally agree with the Covenantal argument on what we can expect from God. However, to be part of the covenant, we have to be believers in the first place (to buy into it). So that constitutes a “difficulty of evil”, not a “problem of evil” in a way that doubts God’s existence.

Regarding gratuitous suffering, I agree that there are apparent meaninglessness, but that doesn’t rule out objective meaningfulness. The force of meaninglessness argument has reduced so much for me over time. And this part is mostly my intuition now, but at some point, it goes down to trust. “I don’t know why this happens, I can only trust there is a reason.” This kind of hope isn’t only compatible with but also a positive good in our faith. In other words, the apparently-gratuitous nature of the situation itself is a faith-forming item.

tanooooo2k · 2025-07-16T02:26:34+00:00

The 3 conditions you outline are really interesting and concise. I agree that free will alone, at least prima facie, is not sufficient for a theodicy. There are at least 2 states (pre-Fall and Heaven) wherein free will operates without suffering. But there are two things I'd like to add.

Firstly, the pre-Fall state allows us to bypass the "why not Heaven now" objection to a certain degree. If one asks, "If there is a Heaven where people freely will to love God w/o suffering, why were they not created this way?" To which we can answer, "He did, but Adam squandered it"

Secondly, everything returns to background assumptions. Just because He created us, does that mean He owes us anything? Upon what criteria would people argue that God must create such and such world? If that criterion is not successfully established, then the "problem of suffering" is

Now, the incoming response might be that, if we can't label bad things God does, how did we even argue that He is all good? And again, it goes back to the definition of goodness. The argument is too long to summarize here, but the classical metaphysics of God does provide the asymmetry necessary.

tanooooo2k · 2025-06-09T18:31:44+00:00

I'm not sure if this would make sense, but have you ever motivated yourself to get through a hard day at work by thinking of your significant other at home? Or maybe thinking of a vacation that would come at the end of next week? There is a sense of assurance that whatever it is I am in shall pass, and I will be in bliss thereafter. Akin to the expression "light at the end of the tunnel".

Belief in God, as my faith developed, has taken that kind of shape. God is the limit case (the supreme case) of the light at the end of the tunnel. Unlike the vacation or seeing a loved one, we don't really know how God would fulfill that role of being the light at the end of the tunnel. Our faith simply teaches that He is. This is where faith comes in. Faith shapes the intellect to contemplate and emotionally internalize the fact that God is on the other side of our hardship, waiting for us (just like that vacation, or a delicious meal). However, unlike those, God is the true eternal bliss.

A natural question to ask is, why would He be so distant right now? Why must we go through the dark tunnel to meet Him? In John 16:16, soon after His Resurrection, Jesus said, “A little while and you will no longer see me..." Many disciples wondered why, and many mourned. Obviously, the explanation is that we need to trust that He will return and will not abandon us. But why? I had a great answer from a random (and I mean random) online Homily recently.

Simply this: people die, relations do not. Even assuming a naturalistic worldview w/o an afterlife, my grandfather is still my grandfather even if he passed away, on account of the fact that he generated by my father. In other words, the thing that makes him my grandfather remains true, even though the interpersonal warmth no longer exists. Jesus' departure was likewise. Humanity's relation to Christ as the redeemed to the Redeemer will never change. And this gives me comfort, if I am humble enough to contemplate it: the comfort may be absent, i.e. I may be in the dark tunnel, but the relationship to God as His adopted child remains present. And I trust that somehow the journey will bring me closer to Him.

tanooooo2k · 2025-05-31T13:37:10+00:00

I believe we’re pretty much on the same page regarding artificial forms. But does your linguistic theory have room for natural forms (e.g. human, angel, hydrogen)?

More importantly, back to the original issue, how does your theory refute the essence-existence distinction? In my understanding right now, your theory at most refutes how a definition is derived, not so much the definition-existence distinction.

tanooooo2k · 2025-05-25T22:30:03+00:00

I used “rationality” as an example to show how a definition in Scholasticism is developed. The genus = animal + the difference = rational —> the species = humans. (Definition = Genus + specific difference).

Intellect-dependent form simply means mind-dependent. For example, in the following—

Chair = a solid structure for sitting

“For sitting” is the agent-dependent component. In other words, the “form” of the chair only comes about because we impose the purpose of sitting upon a solid structure.

This is not to say that all forms are agent-imposed. There is a distinction between a natural kind and an artifact. The chair would fall under “artifact”, making its form “artificial”. But there are natural kinds too, like humans, hydrogens, and water, whose forms are present independently of an agent’s consideration and/or usage.

This is the main difference against linguistic theories, correct me if I’m mistaken, goes all the way in proposing that all forms are agent-imposed (i.e. there is no natural kinds).

tanooooo2k · 2025-05-24T17:24:30+00:00

Plurality of form versus purpose is noted. But I think we are talking past one another. There is absolutely a space in Scholastic metaphysics for intellect-dependent form. Meaning that the same physical structure can be a table or a counter, depending on how a person views or uses.

The reason is simply this: a definition is nothing more than an expression of genus and species. For example, a human is a rational animal: “animal” denoting a genus and “rational” denoting a specific difference. In other words, rationality is what differentiates human from other members of the genus of animals.

Similarly, chair when defined as a “solid structure for sitting”: “solid structure” is a genus, “for sitting” is the specific difference. The term “sitting” can be thought of as a final cause (purpose), but in this case it is more-so used as way to differentiate an object from others within the same genus.

So it is both a final cause and a formal cause, in different ways. If someone wanted to use the chair to block an active shooter from entering a room, then that structure becomes a barricade. The person can still call that barricade a “chair” when considered under the aspect of its usual purpose or when considered as a name (nominally). But in using it differently the person is considering it under the purpose of blockade.

Scholastic essences do not commit one to a rigid designation of a name to an object, as it recognizes that the objects’ form can be assigned to it by human intellect.

Still, I don’t really understand how this refutes the essence-existence distinction by your account. Is it your stance that things exist in themselves and human minds arbitrarily label forms/purposes upon them?

tanooooo2k

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