Foundations of Christian Thought: Recent Episodes
Josef Freundorfer
With the modern mind confused and unhinged, finding a foundation solid enough to support ones intellect, deep enough to keep it grounded, and flexible enough to bend and mold to its needs, is a rare thing.
Traditional Christian thought is the ground out of which western science, thought, literature, music and art grew.
The book 'Christian Philosophy' by Joseph M. de Torre covers the basics of this old and often ignored system of thought. For those seeking to understand the tumultuous times and participate within it from firm ground this book provides just that.
This final episode describes the schools of thought that are prevalent during the 20th century and their influence on the times today. Emphasis is placed on the thinking of Hegel as well as the thinking of the schools of materialism and existentialism.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 48 Contemporary Philosophy
a. Overall view
b. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
c. Marxism
d. Other kinds of Materialism
e. Existentialism
This episode describes how the modernist philosophic movement began as a sequence of metaphysical errors and divisions which has deviated it from a Christian form of philosophical inquiry. Emphasis is laid on the immanentistic thinking of the humanists and the thinkers Rene Descartes and Immanuel Kant.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 47 The history of modern philosophy
a. The modernity movement
b. Humanism
c. Modern philosophy and the church
d. Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
e. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
This section describes the history of Christian philosophy and what makes it unique and Christian as a form of philosophical inquiry as well as what it has done for philosophy in the world. Emphasis is placed on the contribution of the great Christian thinkers Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 46 This history of Christian philosophy
a. There is a Christian philosophy
b. The formation of Christian philosophy
c. The contents of Christian Philosophy.
d. St. Augustine (354-430)
e. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
f. Decadence after St. Thomas
This section begins with a discussion of the historical setting for which Christianity started forming from. It emphasizes the schools of thought from Greece, more specifically that of Plato and Aristotle.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 45 The History of Ancient Philosophy
a. The historical setting of Christianity
b. Plato (427-348 B.C.)
c. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
d. Neo-Platonism
This episode introduces the importance of philosophy on theological questioning and how this relation has changed through time.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 44 Introduction to the history of philosophy
a. Philosophy as instrument of theology
b. Overview of the history of philosophy
This episode discusses the nature of the enforcement of laws for the sake of the ordering of society and the attainment of the common good. It also discusses the nature of rights and duties for the individual.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 43 Rights and justice
a. Nature of the juridical order: the juridical mind
b. Rights and duties
c. Private property
This episode discusses the achieving of the good of society in terms of authority and obedience. It describes the importance of government in the ordering of society as well as its limitations when it deviates from following the natural ordering of things
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 42 Government, authority and laws
a. Government and politics
b. Authority and obedience
c. Positive law
This episode describes the nature of family in light of the metaphysical understanding of man. It describes the importance of marriage and the family to society and the properties of marriage.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 41 The Family
a. The nature of marriage
b. The common good of the family
c. Fundamental properties of the family
d. Marriage and celibacy
By making use of the metaphysical understanding of the common good for man this episode discusses the implications of this on society, the man who is a part of it. It talks of the structuring and ordering of society and the balance required for a society to flourish and the failings that arise when disorder or imbalance starts dividing society.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 40 Society and the common good
a. Interrelations among men
b. Friendship and the love of God
c. What is society?
d. History and culture
e. Ordering of intermediate societies to civil society
f. Ordering of the person to the common good of society
g. Peace and war
This episode discusses mans willfull freedom to act as he wishes and the relation of morality to those actions. Therefore it raises the topic of sin, its effects and also virtue and their attainment.
Part 6. Ethics
Chapter 39 Moral acts
a. Will and Freedom
b. Goodness and malice of human acts
c. Moral evil or sin
d. Types of sins
e. Effects of sin
f. Virtues
g. Types of virtues
This section discusses the relation of moral law and man. It discusses the natural and eternal laws and how they are observed and practiced and where the conscience of man relates to it.
Part 6. Ethics
Chapter 38. Moral law and conscience
a. Eternal law and moral law
b. Characteristics of the natural law
c. Knowledge of the natural law
d. Content of the natural law
e. Moral sanction
f. Conscience
g. Principles guiding conscience
Using the basis of ethics as laid out in the previous episodes this section begins by differentiating between the proper good and the common good and how they relate to mankind as well as individual persons as well as the obligation of men to look out for each other and the rest of reality.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 37 The common good
a. Proper good and common good
b. The common good of mankind
c. Love and order
d. The false philosophies
e. Ordination of beings to the common good
f. The common good shared in the order of the universe
g. Ordination of each single substance to the common good
h. Direct ordination of spiritual beings to the common good
This episode describes happiness as a beings attainment and possession of its last end, and the ways of understanding last end, both natural and supernatural.
P6 Ethics
Chapter 35 The last end
a. Existence of a last end
b. Identification of the last end
c. Natural last end and supernatural last end
d. Possession of the last end: happiness
This section describes goodness in practical metaphysical terms relating being to its end. It than discusses this good that each being ought to seek and the many aspects of evil which is a willful movement against the good.
Part 6
Chapter 35 Good and Evil
a. The good
b. Participated beings have a good end or purpose
c. The final good moves beings
d. Evil as privation
e. Evil as deordination
f. Evil and freedom
g. Evil as such can neither move nor motivate
h. Physical evil
i. It is impossible for God to be the cause of evil
This episode discusses the basis of ethics through the metaphysical understanding of man in relation to his end. It also introduces the manner in which ethics will be described as well as good and evil, ethical science vs moral uprightness.
Part6 Ethics
Chapter 34 Introduction
a. Metaphysics
b. Free Actions
c. Ethics as part of metaphysics
d. Ethical science and moral uprightness
e. Order of this study
This episode discusses the implications of the metaphysical nature of man on all aspects of his life and interactions with himself, humanity, nature and God. It is followed by an appendix on Catholic doctrine about man
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 33
a. The social nature of man
b. Natural sciences
c. Man and history
d. Human work
e. The sanctification of work
f. Participation in divine action
Appendix: Catholic Doctrine About Man
This section describes man as an individual person with personality within the universe and the nature of man as universal and their relationship to eachother.
Part 5 Metaphysics of man
Chapter 32 The person and human nature
a. Nature as individuated
b. Person and personality
c. The place of the person in the universe
This section discusses spirituality and the human soul from the foundations of metaphysics and the many implications for man and society.
Part 5 Metaphysics of man
Chapter 31 The human soul
a. Spirituality of the human soul
b. The soul as substantial form of the body: no reincarnation
c. The spiritual perfection of man
d. Origin of the human soul
e. Immortality of the human soul
This episode discusses the metaphysical nature of Freedom and the different types of freedom and that which touches itself on man as either good or evil.
Part 5 Metaphysics of man
Chapter 30 Freedom
a. What is Freedom
b. Inner freedom and exterior freedom
c. Freedom of choice: determinism
d. The root of the freedom of man
e. Freedom and necessity
f. Freedom and the good
g. Free volition of evil
This section discusses the nature and object of the human will, emotions and goodness. It than relates all of these to human freedom and God as the last ends.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 29 The will
a. Nature and object of the will. The emotions
b. The good of man
c. the will and the last end
d. Natural inclination of the will as distinct
e. Will and intelligence
f. Causality of the act of the will
g. The will and human behavior
This episode discusses how the human intelligence judges the information which the senses provide it. This naturally follows into how things such as truth and certainty are related to this as well as nature of knowledge in relation to man.
Part 5 Metaphysics of man
Chapter 28 Judgement
a. The operation of judging
b. Judgement and truth
c. Certainty and belief
d. Discursive process of reasoning
e. Self-knowledge, consciousness and reflection
f. Conclusion: knowledge as enrichment of being
This section begins with a discussion of how the mind and intelligence interacts with reality through the senses and the relation and implications that arise. It than discusses the means by which reality is transferred to the intelligence and its different uses.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 27 Simple Apprehension
a. Understanding begins in the senses
b. Abstraction: from the sensible to the intellect
c. Impression of the intelligible form on the intellect
d. The act of understanding
e. Characteristics of human concepts
f. Knowledge of the singular
This episode discusses the nature of the intelligence in man as well as its object and a brief summary of its function.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 26 Intelligence
a. Overview
b. Nature and object of the intelligence
c. Process of understanding
This episode introduces the metaphysics of man by discussing the nature of man through the lens of metaphysics on both an individual and a social level and the many different implications. It summarizes the methods with which this will be broken down and analyzed over the next episodes in order to better understand man.
Part 5 Metaphysics of man
Chapter 25 Introduction
a. Recapitulation: Metaphysics as comprehensive knowledge
b. Object of the metaphysics of man
c. Spirit and matter: social sciences and physical sciences
d. Order and method of study
e. Man as spiritual and corporeal creature
f. Human acivity
This episode discusses the implication of the metaphysical understanding of God on the Christian and how we can relate and are related to Him on a metaphysical and therefore relational level.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 24 Divine operation
a. God is personal
b. Divine is knowledge
c. Divine will: God is love
e. God as creator
f. God's presence everywhere
g. Divine freedom and providence.
This episode elaborates upon the metaphysical definition of God and the many attributes that we can therefore know of him from such a strictly natural understanding of him.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 23 God is Ipsum Esse Subsistens
a. The essence of God
b. The simplicity of God
c. The transcendence of God
d. The supreme goodness of God
e. How God should be loved
f. Immensity, immutability, eternity
This episode discusses the many classical intellectual proofs of the existence of a God. These obviously do not prove the personhood, mercy or love of a God in the Christian sense, but the existence of a God through the use of metaphysics, and many corollaries associated with that metaphysical knowledge of God.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 22 Ways of demonstrating the existence of God
a. Elucidation of terms
b. The first way: motion
c. The second way: activity
d. The third way: generation and corruption
e. The fourth way: perfection (a summary of metaphysics)
f. The fifth way: order and intelligency
This episode discusses a variety of the implications that come from the study of metaphysics and God including discussions of the criticisms therewith.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 21 God Is
a. Man can know God: natural and supernatural knowledge
b. Natural theology as highest achievement of metaphysics
c. Philosophy cannot ignore God
d. Reason is led to God
e. Reason is not the only factor in our knowledge of God
f. Agnosticism is unreasonable
g. Importance of the rational demonstration of God's existence
h. Limits of the human knowledge of God
i. The problem of atheism
j. The principle of immanence
This episode discusses the importance of the study of metaphysics for the good and proper study of theology and understanding of God.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 20 Concluding Review of Metaphysics
a. The analogy of being and our knowledge of God
b. Natural and supernatural wisdom
This chapter discusses the transcendental properties of being and the implications of them both to the particular individual and on a social level as a byproduct of the metaphysical analysis of God, man and reality. Beauty is the harmonious summation of these properties made visible.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 19 Transcendental properties of being
a. Predicamental classification of essences and transcendental vision of being
b. Metaphysical discover of the transcendentals
c. The unity of being
d. The truth of being
e. The goodness of being
f. The common good: law and justice
g. Evil as the absence of good
h. The beauty of being
This chapter discusses what cause is, and elaborates on the different types of cause in the context of metaphysics, touching upon God and reality.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 18 Being and Causality
a. Elucidation of terms
b. Origin of the concept of cause: the four causes
c. Material cause and formal cause: Theological relevance
d. The efficient cause: creation and causality
e. The instrumental cause
f. The final cause: cause of all causes
g. Direction to end; freedom and love: the order of the universe
h. Importance of the principle of causality
This section discusses the implications of being a human person in relation to reality and God, which underly the Christian way of life and religion.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 17 The activity of created being
a. Esse and nature as principles of activity
b. Application to value of human life
c. Beings act according to their nature
d. Activity as the perfection of being: idleness and work
e. Transient and immanent actions
This episode, making use of the understanding built up from the previous chapters, discusses being and its relation to people and God through time.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 16 The act of being and the essence
a. Ultimate structure of the finite subsistent
b. Predicamental and transcendental
c. The participation of being as basis of the analogy of being
d. Subsistent subject and person: activity follows being
e. Individual and person
This episode introduces and differentiates the terms essence, nature, concept and form and describes them in terms of reality and metaphysics.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 15 The Essence
a. Elucidation of terms: essence, nature, concept, definition
b. Essence and form
c. The principles of individuation
This episode discusses potency and act and how they interrelate in a perfect and imperfect way reflecting the growth of substance and accidents in the metaphysical reality.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 14 Potency and Act
a. Simplicity of these concepts, gathered from experience of change
b. Motion as passage from potency to act
c. Other metaphysical insights of potency and act
This episode discusses in detail the technical metaphysical definitions of substance and accidents and the many implications that arise.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 13 Substance and Accidents
a. The evidence of change and the truth about being
b. The notion of being applies primarily to substance
c. Accident: secondary manners of being
d. Substance and accidents related in three ways
e. The "inesse" of the accidents
f. Particular importance of relation
This episode starts concisely defining the terms used in metaphysics as well as conveying their relevance to observing and understanding reality
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 12 The starting point of the metaphysical road
a. Being, to be, essence, existence
b. The starting point of metaphysics
c. Metaphysical progress
This episode discusses Metaphysics and its most basic insights and how they relate to understanding reality and how a denial of them leads to confusion.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 11 General introduction to metaphysics
a. Metaphysics: the science of being as being
b. The object of Metaphysics
c. Being is analogical
d. The principle of non-contradiction
e. importance of metaphysics for theology
This section discusses what is meant by 'history of philosophy' through the relation of time and truth.
Part 2 Introduction to Philosophy
Chapter 10 The History of Philosophy
a. Metaphysics and Truth
b. Cultural Relativism
This episode discusses how metaphysics leads underpins ones ability to know reality. It briefly summarizes the processes with which somebody makes use of it and how these lead one to know reality in its varying ways of being know.
Part 2 Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 9 The Method of metaphysics
a. Philosophy begins with wonder
b. Science as the search for the universal and necessary
c. Intelligence and the senses
d. Intellectual and sensible certainty
e. Intelligence and imagination
This episode discusses how a proper understanding of metaphysics puts all other areas of learning in their right position and orientation towards God. That a corrupting of metaphysical understanding skews how to both teach and learn all other subjects.
Part 2 Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 8 Other aspects of Christian Philosophy and their theological relevance
a. Metaphysics of man and sciences of man
b. Particular sciences are in need of metaphysics
c. Theological relevance of the metaphysics of nature
d. Metaphysics and logic
This chapter introduces the most fundamental terms and concepts of metaphysics as well as how they relate to ones understanding of God and man within the context of reality.
Part 2 Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 7 Metaphysics of first philosophy
a. The science of being as being
b. Substance and accidents, potentiality and actuality
c. Matter and form
d. God as the universal cause of being: essence and the act of being
e The properties of being
f. Metaphysics and theology
This chapter begins with a lengthy discussion of what is philosophy and its many implications. It further elaborates on the general areas of study within philosophy and their distinctions.
Part 2 Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 6 The Nature of Philosophy
a. History and etymology of the term
b. Wisdom as knowledge of the ultimate causes
c. A wise man order everything in relation to God
d. Wisdom as science
e. Philosophy and the other sciences
This chapter discusses some differences in how different cultures view philosophy and important distinctions between them, and how the Christian form of Philosophy is a common foundation for western culture, thought, art and society. It ends with a brief introduction to the relation between faith and reason.
Part 2 Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 5 Disposition of the Christian toward philosophy
a. God and the natural truths of religion
b. Philosophy and the truths of the natural order
c. Christian Philosophy as a common cultural heritage
d. The help of faith not against the use of the intelligence
This chapter discusses the historical nature of the development and augmentation of a uniquely Christian form of Philosophy, including many areas of error or common deviance that tend to occur.
Part 2 Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 4 Development of philosophy in Christianity
a. Beginning of theology in Christianity
b. The original synthesis of St. Thomas Aquinas
c. Continuity of Christian Philosophy
This chapter discusses the different ways of knowing and how they relate to the natural and supernatural reality, including a brief summary of the history of philosophy entering the modern world.
Part 1 An Introduction to Theology
Chapter 3 The philosophical exercise of reason as instrument of theology
a. Spontaneous knowledge and philosophical knowledge
b. Continuity of all knowledge
c. Historical origin of theology: Christian philosophy
This episode describes the purpose of theology as well as our ability to understand it. It discusses the relationship of man's use of reason and divine and natural revelation within this context.
Part 1 An Introduction to Theology
Chapter 2 Theology as a Science
a. The object of Theology
b. Source of theological knowledge: divine revelation
c. The believer uses reason in theology
This episode summarizes the motivations and reasons for this work as well as a brief summary of the organization and ordering of the book.
Part 1 An Introduction to Theology
Chapter 1. Theological Training
a. The need for doctrinal formation: a consequence of our divine vocation
b. Reasons for this study
c. A special reason
d. Content of Theological Study
Preface to the third Edition of the book Christian Philosophy as written by the author in Manilla in 1994 on the memorial of St Thomas Aquinas, 28th of January.
Written by Joseph M. De Torre and read by Josef Freundorfer with permission from Sinag Tala Publishers
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 48 Contemporary Philosophy
Section e. Existentialism
This section looks at the breadth of existentialist thinkers and their immanent subjectivism.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 48 Contemporary Philosophy
Section d. Other Kinds of Materialism
This section describes other kinds of materialism and their relation to marxism.
i) Positivism
ii) Pragmatism
iii) Evolutionism
These three can be called forms of vitalism as they focus on life, or brute life as the basic reality.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 48 Contemporary Philosophy
Section c. Marxism
Marxism as a political, economic and philosophical view, a result of historical and dialectical materialism, is discussed in this section.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 48 Contemporary Philosophy
Section b. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
This section describes the influence Hegel has had on contemporary philosophers, through his dialectical idealism. His notions of becoming, contradiction and freedom from authority are all very romantic and laid the groundwork for Marxism.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 48 Contemporary Philosophy
Section a. Overall View
This section describes contemporary philosophy as having begun in the 19th century with the romantic movement.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 47 The History of Modern Philosophy
Section e. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
Descartes foundations of modern thought produced to irreconciled schools, that of the rationalists of the intellect and the other a rationalism of the sensible. One tending to idealism the other to materialism, both stemming from the same cartesian principle of immanence, which is foundational to modern thinkers. Immanuel Kant sought to do was to synthesize both of these, of which this section discusses this attempt. This resulted in three major divergences in modern thinkers:
i) it is not possible to prove God as the cause of all with 'pure' reason as God is beyond sense experience
ii) morality is not rooted in metaphysics but in the structure of the human mind
iii) the importance of freedom over necessity
Kant, himself, claimed to have accomplished two revolutions in thought:
1) it is not the mind that rotates around reality, but the other way around
2) it is not action (practical reason) that follows knowledge (pure reason), but the other way around
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 47 The History of Modern Philosophy
Section d. René Descartes (1596-1650)
Descartes is the first important modern philosopher as he lays out the foundational characteristics which is found in most modern thinkers. This discussion culminates in the realization from the modernist immanentistic thinking comes either materialism or idealism each of which makes a rejection of a particular fundamental side of reality.
The cartesian ethics which came from it can be summarized in the following principles:
i) reason can know God and all that is in man (rationalism)
ii) the only virtue we should practice is firmness in following our own reason (voluntarism)
iii) we should not wish what is impossible, and should not repent from our errors (humanism)
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 47 The History of Modern Philosophy
Section c. Modern Philosophy and the Church
As what was mentioned in the past sections is the basis for modern thought, to relate it to Church teaching and theology is full of dangers for the Christian and the Church. This section discusses this in the context of Christianity and the role that it has taken in trying to reconcile itself with modernity.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 47 The History of Modern Philosophy
Section b. Humanism
This section discusses the result of the aforementioned modernist movement which has taken philosophy and constrained it within immanentistic thinking. A manner of thinking which inherently begins and ends within man, which is the basis for fundamental humanistic tendencies, those which never pass beyond being about man himself, whether individualistic or collectivistic.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 47 The History of Modern Philosophy
Section a. The Modernity Movement
This section discusses the origins of the self proclaimed modernists. It looks at the relation between modernity and Christianity and the fundamental differences in approach through the renaissance, resulting in a rejection of:
i) the past
ii) the faith
iii) reality itself
Modernity is a philosophical movement seeking to provide power for man to master the world and use it for his own happiness rather then the contemplation of reality.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 46 The History of Christian Philosophy
Section f. Decadence after St. Thomas
This section covers the latter period of Christian thought.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 46 The History of Christian Philosophy
Section e. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
This section discusses St. Thomas's copious contributions to philosophy. These can be generally summarized as:
i) the concept of being (ens) as 'holder of the actuality of being' (esse)
ii) the creative causality of God Ipsum Esse
iii) the world of creatures as participated beings, freely created because of God's intelligence and will
iv) man as the top creature of the material universe because of his intelligence and free will
v) metaphysical foundation of morals as the ordination of the human will to man's Last End
vi) the Common Good as End of man and society.
This follows a lengthy discussion of the spirit of this summary.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 46 The History of Christian Philosophy
Section d. St. Augustine (354-430)
This section discusses the philosophical contributions St. Augustine made to our understanding of reality. His explanations of faith and reason, mans quest for happiness, proofs of the existence of God are some of his notable achievements.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 46 The History of Christian Philosophy
Section c. The Contents of Christian Philosophy
This section describes the relation of Christian philosophy as related to Greek philosophy which Christian doctrine adapted to, and then the other preceding philosophies to which it helped and used.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 46 The History of Christian Philosophy
Section b. The Formation of Christian Philosophy
This section describes the formation of this philosophy in light of Gods revelation and therefore its unique benefit of being free from human failings influencing its insights as is commonly found in other philosophies.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 46 The History of Christian Philosophy
Section a. There is a Christian Philosophy
This section discusses Christian philosophy, and its interpretations through time, and its difference from Christianity as a religion.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 45 The History of Ancient Philosophy
Section d. Neo-Platonism
This section discusses how the Neo-Platonists reached its peak with Plotinus in the 3rd century A.D. and extends much beyond that even though Christianity was already present at times and covers Greek, Jewish, Roman and Arab Philosophers.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 45 The History of Ancient Philosophy
Section c. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
This section discusses Aristotle's tutelage under Plato, and their areas of disagreement, especially that of where reality is, which for Aristotle can be found in the material world rather than the idea. The main points of Aristotle are:
i) Physics
ii) Metaphysics
iii) God
iv) Man
v) Ethics
These 5 headings are elaborated on and discussed in terms of the Christian way of thinking.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 45 The History of Ancient Philosophy
Section b. Plato (427-348 B.C.)
This section discusses Plato's thinking and that of his contemporaries. His main points are:
i) ideas are principles of all things
ii) the sensible world participates in the ideas
iii) human souls fulfill themselves by contemplation
This section discusses these, and how the Christian philosophers made use of and added to them.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 45 The History of Ancient Philosophy
Section a. The Historical Setting of Christianity
This section looks at what the philosophical outlook was prior to the coming of Christ. It discusses the three main sources as:
i) Plato
ii) Aristotle
iii) Neo-Platonists
Christian thinkers followed this way of thinking and improved many areas of error by making use of their faith to pierce deeper into concepts and ideas.
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 44 Introduction to the History of Philosophy
Section b. Overview of the History of Philosophy
1) Pre-Christian philosophy - 7th century into Christian era
2) Christian philosophy - up to the 15th century
3) Modern philosophy:
i) Renaissance (15th century)
ii) Protestant (16th century)
iii) Rationalism (17-18th century)
iv) Romanticism (19th century - present)
Part 7 History of Philosophy
Chapter 44 Introduction to the History of Philosophy
Section a. Philosophy as Instrument of Theology
This section discusses the relation between faith and reason and how this relates to theology and philosophy. It then describes the Christian manner to view ways of philosophical thinking which begins a discussion of the different eras of philosophizing in the west.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 43 Rights and Justice
Section c. Private Property
The capacity to own something is due to the innate freedom within persons, and this right is a reflection of that freedom as directed to the good to which that possessed can be ordered towards. As such, the person has no rights of ownership before God, but only before other people.
There is also the notion of collective property, like that owned within a family, which is not something that can be imposed by force, or said to be required by nature.
There is to the notion of public property, those possessions owned by the entire society vested on the state, to the extent that it is for the common good. When this ordering of public property and power ceases to be directed towards the common good, but towards the state itself or elsewhere is where society starts to manifest signs of totalitarianisms which runs contrary to the freedom of man and the family.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 43 Rights and Justice
Section b. Rights and Duties
The subject of justice is the person to whom it is due, which produces the obligation or duty between people in the name of justice. Every right is the right to something good, and all rights must be exercised with order and due regard to the common good. Everybody has the duty to respect the rights of others.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 43 Rights and Justice
Section a. Nature of the Juridical Order: The Juridical Mind
This section begins with the notion of justice as: what is due to another as its good, which is either by natural law, or positive law which the later can be through either public law or private right. General justice can be called social justice if directed to society as a whole as an expression of love of neighbour.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 42 Government, Authority and Laws
Section c. Positive Law
This section begins by defining positive law as the laws made by men in authority for the government of society, it elaborates on the nature of positive law as most basic instrument of government, how it ought to be stable, and its dependence on reflecting the natural law.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 42 Government, Authority and Laws
Section b. Authority and Obedience
Starting from the notion that government implies authority over other persons who are essentially free and equal it is elaborated on by the many consequences of this:
i) politically authority is received from God
ii) no ruler can enslave those ruled
iii) authority is not fundamentally from the people, but from God
iv) whoever governs, does it by sharing in God's providence, and thus cannot have absolute power
v) obedience is strictly due to political authority to the extent that they are just
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 42 Government, Authority and Laws
Section a. Government and Politics
This chapter begins with a discussion of 'social order' as society with government, the need for which arises from the need to coordinate all towards the common good. This naturally brings the discussion to the relation of the good, and therefore the relation between church and state. It is the states job to:
i) protect and facilitate public morals
ii) favour and facilitate the worship of God in accordance with the common good.
Other aspects of the activity of the state are as follows:
i) direct politics for the sake of the good
ii) uphold justice through the laws
iii) correct what is out of order in society
iv) assist in the supplementary and subsidiary functions of society
There are many different systems of government that can do this, and they are good to the extent that they lead men to their last end and recognize the dignity of the human person.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 41 The Family
Section d. Marriage and Celibacy
This section discusses the nature of marriage and celibacy in the context of perfection unto God, and the benefits and detractions therewith.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 41 The Family
Section c. Fundamental Properties of Marriage
The aforementioned indissolubility and unity of marriage flow as properties of marriage:
i) INDISSOLUBILITY
a) good of offspring
b) justice
c) friendship
d) increase of faith, effort and willingness
ii) UNITY
a) good of the children
b) runs contrary to the equality of the sexes
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 41 The Family
Section b. The Common Good of Family
This section looks at the begetting and raising of children as the primary purpose of marriage and the secondary ends as the mutual help and companionship of husband and wife.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 41 The Family
Section a. The Nature of Marriage
This section begins with discussing how the gamily is the most basic society, which is done through a metaphysical discussion. The properties of family are:
i) unity
ii) indissolubility
These spiritual differences are very important, and to the extent that people treat each other as mere material objects is to the extent that people will act with more of their animal nature.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 40 Society and the Common Good
Section g. Peace and War
Observable goods of a well ordered society are the twin goods of peace and unity. This section begins with a discussion of both personal peace as well as how that relates to peace within society. It then discusses strife and war as both intrinsically evil, though on rare occasions necessary evils. The moral conditions for this is:
i) if there is a just cause against something that would be fatal to the attainment of the common good
ii) if it is motivated by right intention in search of true peace.
iii) if it is promoted by public authority and not by individuals.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 40 Society and the Common Good
Section f. Ordering of the Person to the Common Good of Society
This section discusses how one ought to order oneself within society so as to best attain God, the good of neighbours and thus the good of oneself. It touches upon the disorder of the interior life of the individual and how that causes problems in society, the disorder of authority in society and how it tends to produce moral conflicts within members of society. The need for resistance against disorderly society which goes against the natural law is discussed in detail.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 40 Society and the Common Good
Section e. Ordering of Intermediate Societies to Civil Society
Intermediate societies that pursue particular goods are subordinate to the civil society which seeks to order all towards the common good.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 40 Society and the Common Good
Section d. History and Culture
History is the chronicles of mankind, as lived by individual persons, history itself has no being, nor does society, as such there are no laws that define how history goes. Man is spiritual and free and chooses for himself where he goes. When man is good, there is progress, when they are less good their is decadence and decline. This is the true standard to gauge progress in history.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 40 Society and the Common Good
Section c. What is Society?
This section discusses the causes and motivations of the formation of society, as well as how the internal order of such societies ought to be protected and kept. The constitution of a society is held together by a unity of order, which consists in:
i) an interdependence of all its members
ii) a subordination of ranks according to authority, for the sake of coordinating the activities of each towards the common good
A discussion on the nature of authority follows.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 40 Society and the Common Good
Section b. Friendship and the Love of God
It is through the union of wills that friendship grows. It is through self will of the persons of society that societies tend towards corruption. This section then discusses the two elements of friendship:
i) wishing good to other
ii) doing good to the other
By doing so by ones own love for God, one is able to love others in a true, strong and free way.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 40 Society and the Common Good
Section a. Interrelations among Men
This chapter looks at trying to understand the ordering of men towards the good in relation to one another, it encompasses, political philosophy, political science, social science and social ethics as an extension of the metaphysics of the good to society.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 39 Moral Acts
Section g. Types of Virtues
The highest moral virtue is religion, the cardinal virtues follow, and all other virtues hinge upon them. These contrast with the capital sins: pride, greed, envy, anger, lust, gluttony and sloth.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 39 Moral Acts
Section f. Virtues
Stable qualities of the will which lead it to perfection are called virtues. All virtues are related to one another as they are rooted in the will, which means that their is an order to the virtues.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 39 Moral Acts
Section e. Effects of Sin
The principle effects of sin are:
i) a certain corruption of the natural good
ii) a sort of stain in the soul
iii) penalty
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 39 Moral Acts
Section a. Types of Sins
Starting with a threefold classification of sin as:
i) sins of omission or commission
ii) sins of thought, word or deed
iii) mortal and venial sins
It then describes the conditions for a sin to be mortal, a breaking from the last end:
i) serious matter
ii) sufficient knowledge and consciousness
iii) sufficient consent of the will
Venial sin is a disorder in relation to the last end rather then a breaking from the last end.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 39 Moral Acts
Section a. Moral Evil or Sin
This section describes sin as the only real evil as it is the free deordination away from God, the result of which is a disorder in the totality of reality.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 39 Moral Acts
Section b. Goodness and Malice of the Human Acts
This section discusses how to know how good an act is by describing the three sources of morality:
i) object
ii) the circumstances
iii) the intention of the agent
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 39 Moral Acts
Section a. Will and Freedom
According to Saint Thomas moral acts are: human acts of which man is the master. Freedom is the subjective foundation of morality, and as such the two types of acts of the human will are:
i) elicited acts (decisions of the will)
ii) commanded acts (performed by other functions but at the command of the will)
The relation of these types of acts to the will, and that which influence them are then discussed.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 38 Moral Law and Conscience
Section g. Principles guiding Conscience
In describing the previous sections relationship between the universal to the particular the following principles can be stated:
i) only the true and certain conscience is the right proximate rule of morality
ii) man has the obligation, therefore to make sure that his conscience is sufficiently formed and informed.
iii) man has the obligation to follow not only his true conscience but also his erroneous conscience if it is practically impossible for him to avoid the erroneous judgement
iv) it is not right to follow a culpably erroneous conscience or a doubtful conscience if the doubt is based on serious reasons
v) doubts can be resolved by means of sincerity, upright intention, the desire to seek the will of God in everything
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 38 Moral Law and Conscience
Section f. Conscience
This section looks at the manner by which man participates in the eternal law. It first looks at the five intellectual habits:
i) habit of five principles
ii) science
iii) wisdom
iv) prudence
v) art
Based off of explanations of these five intellectual habits it is possible to describe conscience as: a judgment by the intelligence bearing on an individual human act and in light of the principles and precepts of the moral law. It is a descent of the mind from a universal law to the particular case. See the three comparisons:
Moral law--->Verdict of conscience--->Human act
Human positive law--->Verdict of judge--->Legal case
Medicine--->Doctor--->Patient
This is the means by which the particular person acts in relation to a universal and the conscience is the proximate and subjective rule of morality.
Conscience is not therefore autonomous.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 38 Moral Law and Conscience
Section e. Moral Sanction
This section discusses heaven, hell and the difficulty in always understanding them due to mans temporality and materiality.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 38 Moral Law and Conscience
Section d. Content of the Natural Law
This section goes through the natural law from a metaphysical standpoint and relates the aspects of it to the ten commandments.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 38 Moral Law and Conscience
Section c. Knowledge of the Natural Law
Beginning with the first principle of practical reason, which is: that good should be done and evil avoided, the moral law can be naturally know by all men.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 38 Moral Law and Conscience
Section b. Characteristics of the Natural Law
This section begins with a discussion of the laws both natural and divine and how beings of different natures relate to them. Man, being a spiritual creature participates in Gods providence through knowledge, and direct themselves freely towards it, which therefore inclines man towards good, and therefore towards greater freedom.
Thus the root of the natural law is being ordered towards God and no quantity of social or personal analysis will provide one a greater knowledge of the natural law, because there is very little direction of order within these facts.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 38 Moral Law and Conscience
Section a. Eternal Law and Moral Law
This section begins with defining law as direction to end, or being bound to an end, thus the law which directs human acts is called moral law, and eternal law is the divine design which tends everything towards God. Now the moral law flows from the wisdom and will of God as provident because:
i) it is in accordance with reason
ii) God governs each being in accordance with its own nature
iii) it is ordained to the common good.
Saint Thomas defines law as:
A rational ordering to the common good made by him who has the care of the community and promulgated.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 37 The Common Good
Section h. Direct Ordination of Spiritual Beings to the Common Good
This section begins with an observation that there are degrees of ordination to the common good parallel to the degrees of participation in being. For spiritual beings the failure to be ordered in towards God is also a failure of participation in being and is called sin, which is not just a sin against God, but also a sin against reality and society. As such sin is not just personal but is also social in nature and its effects always have a wide impact though not always noticeable.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 37 The Common Good
Section g. Ordination of Each Single Substance to the Common Good
This section discusses the relation between the common and the proper good.
i) The common good is more universal. The proper good is the peculiar manner by which each unique person reaches the common good (God).
ii) The common good is communicable. The proper good is non-transferrable, non-communicable as it is unique to the substance of each thing.
iii) The common good is the good of the entire order. The proper good is the good of each part, as ordained towards God, thus the proper good is part of the common good through its ordering towards God and therefore the proper good is not limited to its individuality.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 37 The Common Good
Section f. The Common Good shared in the Order of the Universe
The order of the universe (immanent common good) is the ultimate internal common good of creatures, and is caused by the universes relation to God (transcendent common good). The importance of spiritual beings is their relation to both the immanent and the transcendent and therefore their added responsibility in freely choosing and ordering everything towards God.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 37 The Common Good
Section e. Ordination of Beings to the Common Good.
This section discusses the topics of unity of order, cooperation as the basis of society, and class struggle as inherently disordering to society and man.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 37 The Common Good
Section d. The False Philosophies
This section describes the great failings of losing this balance of correct ordering of love between: self, others and God. This comes up as the following two ideologies/philosophies which we see commonly in todays society:
Individualism: the improvement of self without the need for others. Making the life of virtue a private affair, and increasing ones indifference to others. The solution is love of neighbour.
Collectivism: the debasement of the self for the sake of the collective. This removes personal responsibility for virtue and integrity as the collective dictates what goes. The cure for this is the fostering of a free and rich interior life.
To sum up the correct philosophy:
i) Each person is ordained to God. Therefore by ordering oneself to God, one will naturally assist others by a free and personal choice of their own
ii) This helping others in flowing from ones own ordination to God must inherently help others to order themselves to God.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 37 The Common Good
Section c. Love with Order
The good of internal order is attained when one loves each created good as one ought, namely in accordance with justice, by bringing the intelligence into the feelings and emotions. This describes the relation between mercy and justice, truth and love, the mind and the heart.
Without this, love is always tended towards disorder, to sentimentality and imbalances of ordination caused by favouritism and arbitrary feelings.
According to Saint Thomas the relations would be as follows:
Love of God includes love of neighbour and love of oneself but surpasses them. The love of neighbour does not include the love of God, but without it it would always be disordered and not pure love. It does include the love of self but surpasses it. The love of self does not include the love of neighbour or the love of God, but without both it would always be an egotistical, prideful love, and therefore tending one away from both love and goodness.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 37 The Common Good
Section b. The Common Good of Mankind
The common good of mankind:
i) The very being of each man is made by, sustained by, and made for God and indirectly for other persons.
ii) because of i there is an internal order both in man and in society that is required for the harmony of either. First man must internally order himself towards God body and soul, then man ought to direct himself to the good of others for the sake of ordering everything towards God.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 37 The Common Good
Section a. Proper Good and Common Good
This section discusses man in the context of the universe, society and goodness. It distinguishes between common and proper good. The proper good corresponds to the good that is proper to each member or thing of the universe ordered towards God, the common good is that good which corresponds between the relations of all in relation to God. This unity of order implies two things:
i) that those parts are distinct from one another
ii) that they are nevertheless related to one another
This right ordering of the universe towards God is in direct proportion to the harmony between proper and common good.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 36 The Last End
Section d. Possession of the Last End: Happiness
Happiness is the attainment or enjoyment of the supreme good, of which the process of attainment is strictly spiritual in nature. This attainment of the last end and its manifold joy is what is called beatific vision, which is a grace of God, rather than an achievement of man.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 36 The Last End
Section c. Natural Last End and Supernatural Last End
This section discusses mans natural ordination to God and its positive consequences when followed, as well as then mans supernatural ordination to God, and God's capacity to look down and lift man up to himself, which elevates mans natural ordination to the supernatural order.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 36 The Last End
Section b. Identification of the Last End
This section discuss mans relation to God as last end and mans need to seek God to find fulfillment and happiness. It also discusses briefly other animals and things capacity to tend towards God.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 36 The Last End
Section a. Existence of a Last End
This section discusses the concept of an end by which everything tends towards and the uniqueness by which spiritual creatures are confronted with it.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 35 Good and Evil
Section i. It is Impossible for God to Be the Cause of Evil
Since God is the ultimate end and goodness itself, he does not cause evil, but evil is a deprivation of being ordered and tending to him. God permits evil so that more good may be drawn out from it.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 35 Good and Evil
Section h. Physical Evil
This section discusses the aforementioned evil in terms of the material world and how temporal material evil are not intrinsically evil in a strict sense, though some of it can be related to moral evil and even caused by it.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 35 Good and Evil
Section g. Evil as such can neither Move nor Motivate
Since an evil act, is a defective act, the act itself is good but not as it should be. Therefore evil can never be final cause and nobody can truly act in an evil way for the sake of evil.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 35 Good and Evil
Section f. Evil and Freedom
Only spiritual beings, and therefore free beings, have the power to deordinate themselves and that around them from their end.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 35 Good and Evil
Section e. Evil as Deordination
To the extent that a thing is ordered away from its good, is a limitation from attaining its end, and therefore evil.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 35 Good and Evil
Section d. Evil as Privation
A thing is good by what it is: if it has failed to be what it should be, to that extent is it bad. This privation of good is the form of evil, the material cause on the other hand is the bearer of the privation.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 35 Good and Evil
Section c. The Final Good moves Beings
This section discusses the end of a being in terms of how it motivates a being to be good, how the good is described by its effect and therefore the threefold explanation of the good which motivates as final cause:
i) honourable good: the good desired for its own sake
ii) useful good: the good desired for the sake of something else
iii) enjoyable good: the good desired for the enjoyment that it gives
The root of enjoyment is the possession of the good, and therefore the absence of good (evil) provides the opposite.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 35 Good and Evil
Section b. Participated Beings have a Good End or Purpose
This section discusses the goodness as something inherent to anything that is, and the need for things that are to be better through participation within being itself and seek perfection through acting appropriately.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 35 Good and Evil
Section a. The Good
"Things are good in so far as they are" Saint Thomas Aquinas.
This section discusses the statement and makes the link between goodness and being, and elaborates on it in terms of personal goodness and the search for the ultimate goodness which is God.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 34 Introduction
Section e. Order of this Study
This section outlines the order in which the following chapters will unfold the topic of ethics.
i) God as the total end of man, and thus the happiness of man consisting in attaining this last end
ii) the common good of both society and the universe
iii) the objective rule of morality as derived from the end of man, and how it is applied to the subjective rule of morality of each individual man
iv) the way man has to follow to reach his end or good, in relation to sin or vice which are the disorderly actions man can perform
v) the free activity of man as members of society and their responsibilities of participation in ordering to the common good
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 34 Introduction
Section d. Ethical Science and Moral Uprightness
This section discusses the importance of having an upright and healthy moral disposition and its influence on ones learning and teaching of ethics, as well the difference between ethical science from more practical sciences.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 34 Introduction
Section c. Ethics as Part of Metaphysics
This section this section discusses the relation between ethics and metaphysics and its implications.
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 34 Introduction
Section b. Free Actions
This section briefly discusses how man being free by nature influences his actions as free or otherwise, which briefly touches upon ethics and the two basic topics of it:
i) the end of man: objective aspect of morality
ii) the freedom of man: subjective aspect of morality
Part 6 Ethics
Chapter 34 Introduction
Section a. Metaphysics of the End and of the Moral Order
This section opens up the chapter with a brief discussion of the end of man and his actions in relation to that end, and thus how morality and ethics are interwoven into this metaphysical questioning.
Appendix for Part 5
Catholic Doctrine About Man
This section discusses the Churches teachings on the metaphysics of man
i) supernatural revelation confirms the most basic truths about man
ii) the human soul exists, is unique, personal and spiritual
iii) the human soul is the 'substantial form' of the body and is immortal
iv) man is free
v) man can know by his reason alone and with certainty that his soul is spiritual, immortal and that he is free
vi) the human soul is a direct creation of God
vii) the souls of those who die subsist from their death to the final resurrection of the bodies
viii) the human body is mortal by nature
ix) at the end of time all human souls will be rejoined to their bodies
x) all men descend from a single first man, namely the person of Adam and from a single first woman, namely the person of Eve, both of them directly formed by God (God created their soul, and made their bodies of pre-existing material)
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 33 Man in the World
Section f. Participation in Divine Action
This section discusses mans participation in the divine plan through his spiritualization of his work, done in harmony with creation and God's desire for creation. This is the freedom God has given to man, to freely participate in the sanctification of the universe, by permitting him mastery over it. The three reasons for this are:
i) that man may know in the material universe the truth that leads to the creator.
ii) that man may remain unified in body and soul by acting appropriately upon reality and thus nourish himself in his entirety.
iii) that man may partly govern this portion of creation by exercising his will and intelligence in accordance with God's will and thus be an instrument of God.
These three reasons highlight mans greatness and his dignity.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 33 Man in the World
Section e. The Sanctification of Work
This section discusses the importance of work and ones ability to perform it, and therefore ones ability to order it to the final good. This is done through purifing ones internal disposition to the work and performing it with technical proficiency. This is the manner by which man orders reality around him either towards the good (God), or towards something else.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 33 Man in the World
Section d. Human Work
This section discusses work as a natural phenomenon flowing from human nature. This section distinguishes between work, activity and leisure. There is an added emphasis placed on the distinction between:
i) facere: to make
ii) agere: to do
and their relevance to attaining perfection.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 33 Man in the World
Section c. Man and History
This section discusses history as a chronicle of human events and interactions, personal to either a person or a culture. It follows into the study of history in a more scientific manner in the 17th century and many errors caused by an overtly narrow minded scientific mindset to the study of history.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 33 Man in the World
Section b. Natural Societies
This section discusses the family and civil society as natural, spontaneous societies and therefore the most basic and necessary.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 33 Man in the World
Section a. The Social Nature of Man
The social nature of man is a property flowing from the essence of our nature. This section discusses this in the context of man and society.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 32 The Person and Human Nature
Section c. The Place of the Person in the Universe
This section discusses the role of the human person in the universe in light of his human nature and spiritual soul and in the context of the totality of God's creation through its natural ordering. Thus everything below man in nature is for man, and man is meant to be for God and thus ought to order himself and everything below him in light of his knowledge and love for God.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 32 The Person and Human Nature
Section b. Person and Personality
This section describes the relation between the universal human nature and the individuated human beings. It follows into a discussion of theology on the nature of Jesus Christ as God within the Trinity, followed by a discussion of moral responsibility in relation to mans personhood.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 32 The Person and Human Nature
Section a. Nature as individuated
Starting with the knowledge that nature is what is specific in a being this section discusses how this nature is universal but it exists multiplied amongst its many individual beings that partake in it, who are individuated due to the unique material composition of their beings.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 31 The Human Soul
Section e. Immortality of the Human Soul
As mans soul is not dependent on matter for its becoming, its being, its activity, due to its creation directly from God, when the matter dies the soul shall live on and therefore is immortal. This discussion follows into the nature of animals and plants as well as the yearning of the soul after death to be reunited with the body.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 31 The Human Soul
Section d. Origin of the Human Soul
This section discusses where the human soul comes from. Inevitably this can't be from the body as its spiritual nature is of a higher degree of perfection, nor can they come from their parents due to the nature of spiritual things as unique and simple, and thus the spirit must be personally made by God. Thus the nobility and dignity of each human being.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 31 The Human Soul
Section c. The Spiritual Perfection of Man
This section describes the uniqueness of man due to his substance comprising both a spiritual soul and a material body. While the human soul is the lowest of the spiritual forms, the human body is the most noble and perfect body of the material universe because of its spiritual principle. This defines his dignity before God, as he in his lowly spiritual composition can turn himself body and soul and all around him to know and love God.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 31 The Human Soul
Section b. The Soul as Substantial Form of the Body: No Reincarnation
This section discusses the intricate unity of human body with the human soul as one substance made by God. As such The two conditions required for union of form and matter to allow this unity to exist are:
i) that the form be the principle of the substantial being of the matter
ii) that the form and the matter have a common and single esse
The excess of actuality of the soul over the body does not prevent their substantial union but makes it more intense as the more spiritually noble or perfect the form, the more organizing capacity it has over the matter.
Since for each individual they have a unique soul which is the unique form of their unique body their soul must be their own and therefore personal to the substance that is them. Therefore reincarnation is not possible as to bring a soul back while leaving the old body or gaining a new body would violate this uniqueness, because the spiritual soul is the form of the body and would therefore be different and not the same in receiving a different body.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 31 The Human Soul
Section a. Spirituality of the Human Soul
This section begins with a discussion of the human soul in light of the intelligence and the will which lift man above of the animals. This uniqueness is quite special for man and in a metaphysical sense is even more so due to the subsistent nature of its substantial form.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 30 Freedom
Section g. Free Volition of Evil
This section discusses mans relation to evil in regard to his will and freedom, including the subversion of the intellect by the will, and the chooing of voluntary error, and lastly the relation of evil and God.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 30 Freedom
Section f. Freedom and the Good
This section briefly discusses using ones freedom in actual situations.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 30 Freedom
Section e. Freedom and Necessity
Beginning with a discussion of the dichotomy of material and spiritual freedom, it then follows into a discussion of the relation of the will to God and heaven.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 30 Freedom
Section d. The Root of the Freedom of Man
This section discusses the object of the will, namely the good in a universal sense as the root of mans freedom.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 30 Freedom
Section c. Freedom of Choice: Determinism
This section discusses the different types of determinism that are most prevalent:
i) physiological - the will is determined by the makeup of the material body
ii) sociological - man is determined by cultural values
iii) economic - man is determined by the economic infrastructure and his position within it
iv) fatalistic - man is determined by fate (luck)
v) theological - God determines the choice of man
vi) psycho-analytical - man is determined by a combination of libido and accumulated experience
All of which offer man an escape from his basic moral responsibility by appealing to two types of evidence:
i) that of self-conscience whereby man can verify within himself that when he chooses, he could have very well chosen otherwise
ii) the universal acceptance of a moral code and legal responsibility.
Both of which undergird the proper functioning of society which if ignored through determinism will result in the breakdown in society.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 30 Freedom
Section b. Inner Freedom and Exterior Freedom
Inner Freedom:
i) to want or not to want (freedom of exercise)
ii) to want this or that (freedom of specification)
Exterior Freedom:
Mans ability to perform operations externally, which can obviously be curtailed by external forces, unlike mans inner freedom which can be always free, a proof of the spiritually of man.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 30 Freedom
Section a. What is Freedom?
Starting with a discussion of what freedom is not, the freedom of choice is then elaborated on. Moving to the definition of freedom as: that property of the human will whereby man determines himself in his acts towards the end, which is then discussed in relation to the intelligence of man.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 29 The Will
Section g. The Will and Human Behavior
Human behavior is comprised of voluntary acts, which this section discusses.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 29 The Will
Section f. Causality of the Act of the Will
This section discusses the relation of the intelligence to the will. The will is influenced by the intelligence as final cause, but it moves itself as efficient cause.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 29 The Will
Section e. Will and Intelligence
A discussion of the will and intelligence as two separate potencies within the human soul of which the intelligence tends to being and presents it to the will as good, and the will tends to the good as real being.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 29 The Will
Section d. Natural Inclination of the Will as Distinct from Actual Choice
This section discusses the will as the inborn desire of man for the good. It discusses actual choice as the actualization of that inclination of which there are two possibilities:
i) the choice is in the right direction
ii) the choice is wrong because it is not done, or because it is done in the wrong way.
Of which the ultimate choice for man is the choice of making God his last end over all other things, and therefore subordinating all other ends as intermediate.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 29 The Will
Section c. The Will and the Last End
This section discusses the will tending to the good as real and full, and its impact on living as a human and making decisions.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 29 The Will
Section b. The Good of Man
Because the object of the will is the good, when the will attains the good the result is joy and happiness. As such it is a spiritual potency:
i) because its object is the good in a universal or absolute sense
ii) because it reflects upon itself
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 29 The Will
Section a. Nature and Object of the Will. The Emotions
This section begins with the distinction between knowledge and appetition, of which the following breakdown from the book is then further used to demonstrate the differences.
- APPETITION
a) Sensitive (emotion)
i) concupiscible ( to the good as enjoyable [like-dislike, desire-aversion, joy-sorrow])
ii) irascible ( to the good as difficult [hope-despair, courage-fear, anger])
b) Intellectual (the will)
- KNOWLEDGE
a) Sensitive
i) external senses (sight, hearing ...)
ii) internal senses (coordinating, memory, imagination, instinct)
ii) intellectual
These are then related to man as being and good as that which is to be pursued and evil.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 28 Judgment
Section f. Conclusion: Knowledge as Enrichment of Being
This chapter discusses how metaphysically knowing is the an enrichment of the being of man as a fulfillment of his potency of the intelligence.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 28 Judgment
Section e. Self-Knowledge, Consciousness and Reflection
This section discusses consciousness as the metaphysical act of intelligence, and that of self-consciousness which is the power of reflection. This self-knowledge can be either:
i) concomitant (I know that I know)
ii) explicit (I know myself as knowing)
This better helps understand the interior life of man over other animals.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 28 Judgment
Section d. Discursive Process of Reasoning
The human soul is united with the body and as such reality has to enter through the sensible into the intelligence. The intelligence is what helps us know the being of things and reality and it can know in these two ways:
i) intuitively (reaching truth directly)
ii) reasoning (reaching truth through the discursive process)
and thus a discussion of these with regards to judging takes place.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 28 Judgment
Section c. Certainty and Belief
Certainty is the firmness of the assent of the mind, the two causes of certainty are:
i) evidence (either direct or indirect)
ii) authority of a witness
following which is a discussion of the relation between the two.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 28 Judgment
Section b. Judgment and Truth
This section begins with the notion that the truth of a judgment is dependent on how closely it conforms to the reality for which it is passing judgment on, which is not the same thing as certainty.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 28 Judgment
Section a. The Operation of Judging
Now begins the chapter on the second step in the process of understanding, and begins by discussing indivisibility and composition.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 27 Simple Apprehension
Section f. Knowledge of the Singular
The intelligence first creates a concept from the experiences of a real thing. The concept is a grasp at the essence of its being. And thus the concept is universal though describing something particular and individual. By making use of its internal senses the intelligence then able to glean more information from reality, refining the concept and knowledge of reality.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 27 Simple Apprehension
Section e. Characteristics of Human Concepts
This section begins the discussion of what a concept is by starting with describing concepts as both:
i) universal (whereas that which it describes is particular)
ii) abstracted (reduced to the essence of the thing and thereby incidental, whereas the thing is real and individualized)
From this it further elaborates on concepts and the human mind
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 27 Simple Apprehension
Section d. The Act of Understanding
The act of understanding is the act of two potencies:
i) passive potency (the potency of the thing to be known by the intelligence)
ii) active potency (the potency of the intelligence to know the thing)
This elaborates on the limitations of knowing things, intelligible species, the creation of a concept, and the distinction between the latter two.
impressed species (intelligible species) ----> medium quo (through which) -------> like looking through glasses
expressed species (concept)-----> medium in quo (in which)---------> like looking into a mirror
Thus either provide but a sign of reality.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 27 Simple Apprehension
Section c. Impression of the Intelligible Form on the Internet
The intelligence is in a state of potential until the intelligible forms actuate it turning some of the potency into act, and therefore the intelligence is enriched by the senses conveying the being of reality to it.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 27 Simple Apprehension
Section b. Abstraction: From the Sensible to the Intelligible
Abstraction is the process whereby the intelligence grasps the essence and separates it from what is non-essential, and this discussion further enumerates on it.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 27 Simple Apprehension
Section a. Understanding Begins in the Senses
Starting with a discussion of the senses, distinguishing between internal, and external senses.
i) external senses: hearing, smelling, seeing, touching, tasting, which put us in direct contact with reality
ii) internal senses: coordinating, memory, imagination, instinct, which:
a) are not in direct contact with reality
b) depend on the external senses
c)elaborate on the data of reality and communicate it to the intelligence.
The conversation then touches upon the interrelation of all these qualities, and some of the different errors that come about by not seeing them correctly.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 26 Intelligence
Section c. Process of Understanding
The three operations of the process of understanding:
i) Simple apprehension
ii) judgement
iii) reasoning
This process is the method by which man knows the world and his senses take in reality and activate his intelligence.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 26 Intelligence
Section b. Nature and Object of the Intelligence
This section discusses the relation of intelligence to being and a number of different proofs for this higher spiritual operation of man.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 26 Intelligence
Section a. Overview
This section discusses the obviousness of mans higher intelligence over animals by observing his activities on the planet, and thereby discussing the distinction between man and animal.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 25 Introduction
Section f. Human Activity
This section discusses the uniqueness of human activity related to mans intelligence and his will and therefore his inherent dignity above all else in nature. Thus the importance of man achieving his last end in a metaphysically ordered manner, and that the disorder of which, is sin, and therefore real evil.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 25 Introduction
Section e. Man as Spiritual and Corporeal
What is unique in man above the animals is his spiritual activity, ie his understanding and willing of the good. This section discusses this and the relation of man to those beings above and below. It also talks about the spiritual ordination of man in the context of God:
i) the human soul is directly created by God
ii) the end of human life is God Himself
iii) God moves man in every one of his acts
iv) only God can penetrate into human conscience.
This outlines why man has the capacity to be elevated to the supernatural life
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 25 Introduction
Section d. Order and Method of this Study
A. Order
1.love and knowing in the context mans higher intelligence
-
habits of man, as related to his activity
-
the human soul in light of its operation
-
the human person
-
man in his social nature
-
man through history
-
man in his activity of perfecting
B. Method
To look at the traces of man in what he does
i) rational construction and organization
ii) complex articulate sounds and thoughts
iii) written signs
iv) permanent institutions
v) religion
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 25 Introduction
Section c. Spirit and Matter: Social Sciences and Physical Sciences
This section discusses the erroneous cartesian split of body and soul and its resulting problems in the contemporary world, of which Christian metaphysics corrects.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 25 Introduction
Section b. Object of the Metaphysics of Man
What is man? This is the questions which the metaphysics of man seeks to answer. A good answer to this question is:
A bodily person made to know and love God, which follows from the classical 'a rational animal' definition.
Part 5 Metaphysics of Man
Chapter 25 Introduction
Section a. Recapitulation: Metaphysics as Comprehensive Knowledge
Starting with a brief summary of the formation of Christian Philosophy and the role metaphysics plays within it, we now look to the more specific topic of the metaphysics of man. An important distinction:
i) material object: subject matter, ie all that is real
ii) formal object: the light of the intelligence in which the material object is studied, ie the metaphysical outlook
Metaphysics as a science and its branches:
Formal Object Material Object
Metaphysics proper Being all reality
Metaphysics of God " God
Metaphysics of Man " man
Metaphysics of the Good " human acts
Metaphysics of the material world " material world
Metaphysics of Knowledge " human Knowledge
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 24 Divine Operation
Section b. Divine Freedom and Providence
This final discussion of the last metaphysical attributes of God covers freedom and providence, the great benevolence of God.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 24 Divine Operation
Section f. God's Presence Everywhere
This section discusses the implications of the previous conceptualizing of the essence of God on our lives through the acknowledgement of his presence in all things.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 24 Divine Operation
Section e. God as Creator
The efficient cause is that which makes the effect be or become, of which God is for the universe. All things participate with God through their being as he sustains being itself. A discussion on God as the creator
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 24 Divine Operation
Section d. Divine Omnipotence
Discussing the power of God as the: active potency of God, God must be almighty as there is no limit to his being, which this section elaborates on.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 24 Divine Operation
Section c. Divine Will: God is Love
The will is the power of tending towards good, the inclination to the good, which is what is called Love. As God is not just a tendency to the God and is the God itself we say that God is the infinitely loving possession of goodness itself, ie God is love. A very interesting conclusion based on the metaphysical definition of God which does corroborate the divine revelation of sacred scriptures which states that God is love.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 24 Divine Operation
Section b. Divine Knowledge
Starting with our human intelligence, how and what do we know, Being. As such for God to know, it must be to know being infinitely, and as such that God knows comprehensively.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 24 Divine Operation
Section a. God is Personal
This section discusses the the purification of human attributes that is necessary before we can relate them to God
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 23 God is Ipsum Esse Subsistens
Section f. Immensity, Immutability, Eternity
From the God being esse itself, it makes sense that he is immense, immutable and eternal, of which this section discuss
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 23 God is Ipsum Esse Subsistens
Section e. How God Should be Loved
The first qualities of the love of God are that it is absolute and that it is total, for have a relationship with such a being we ought to reflect his love back in a similar manner. This section discusses this and relates it to Christ for us Christians through through humanity of Christ being hypostatically joined to the Divine Person of God, and from this drawing a graded progression of degrees from God down to the most ordinary that of which we must love in a proportionate manner.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 23 God is Ipsum Esse Subsistens
Section d. The Supreme Goodness of God
This section discusses this metaphysical definition of God in terms of the good and to be.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 23 God is Ipsum Esse Subsistens
Section c. The Transcendence of God
Beginning with ipsum esse subsistens we move onto a discussion of transcendence and Gods place within reality.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 23 God is Ipsum Esse Subsistens
Section b. The Simplicity of God
From the previous sections basic definition of God, we can logically deduce the attributes of God, and the first is: God is absolutely simple which implies:
i) God is not a body
ii) God is spirit
iii) God is a substance without accidents
iv) In God there is no composition of essence and the act of being
v) because of iii and iv there is no distinction between the suppositum of God and the nature of God
vi) God is the supreme unity
vii) Divine simplicity is not a simplicity of emptiness but of infinite richness, fullness of reality possessed in perfect unity
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 23 God is Ipsum Esse Subsistens
Section a. The Essence of Go
By looking at the five ways of knowing God through natural reason one can get a glimpse of the essence of God through natural reason, and thus we can create an open ended metaphysical definition of God, which is God is ineffable, incomprehensible for he is the fullness of being, subsistent being itself, ipsum esse subsistens.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 22 Ways of Demonstrating the Existence of God
Section f. The Fifth Way: Order and Intelligence
This demonstration looks at reality and sees order in motion and as such there must be something that dictates an end by which it is ordered and directed to, and this end is dictated by the ultimate intelligence, and that is God.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 22 Ways of Demonstrating the Existence of God
Section e. The Fourth Way: Perfection (A Summary of Metaphysics)
This demonstration uses the aforementioned metaphysical principles to demonstrate God by looking at all beings and seeing both their deficiencies and their tendency to something perfect, and the cumulation of that perfection which must be found in something that transcends all those things, is God
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 22 Ways of Demonstrating the Existence of God
Section d. The Third Way: Generation and Corruption
This demonstration starts with the notion that things that generate and corrupt are not necessary, and as such there must be a thing that exists necessarily that maintains all the things that are not necessary, and this is God
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 22 Ways of Demonstrating the Existence of God
Section c. The Second Way: Activity
This demonstration uses act and becoming as the medium of demonstration in a similar manner as that of motion in the previous section.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 22 Ways of Demonstrating the Existence of God
Section b. The First Way: Motion
This first demonstration derives itself from the observation of motion in all things, of which something must have put them into motion from the beginning, and that thing is God.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 22 Ways of Demonstrating the Existence of God
Section a. Elucidation of Terms
For a proposition to be evident, both the subject and predicate must be known, if this is not the case, the proposition is not evident, but that does not mean it is not true. This is the case with knowing God through natural reason, it is not necessarily evident, but can be shown to be true nevertheless.
This chapter demonstrates the 5 most compelling demonstrations of the existence of God according to St Thomas Aquinas in his time.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 21 God Is
Section j. The Principle of Immanence
This sections discusses the roots of modern philosophy as the difference of thinking in terms of something greater, such as God (transcendent), and thinking only relative to ones self (immanent), and the great narrowing of perspective and potential caused by such a myopic starting point.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 21 God Is
Section i. The Problem of Atheism
This section discusses atheism and how it is a reasonable position to maintain, though a rather tenuous one based more on the desire of the will then the reasoning of the intellect.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 21 God Is
Section h. Limits of the Human Knowledge of God
Discussing the limitations of something limited and participating in God, which is infinite and being itself. Knowing God naturally by:
i) knowing God as the cause of things
ii) we can attribute to God all the perfections of the purified attributes of all things
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 21 God Is
Section g. Importance of the Natural Demonstration of God's Existence
The reason for why a person who believes in God ought to still know how to come to the conclusion of God's existence through natural reason alone.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 21 God Is
Section f. Agnosticism is Unreasonable
Starting with a differentiation between atheism and agnosticism and then delving into the murky motivations for agnosticism and its criticisms by metaphysics.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 21 God Is
Section e. Reason not the only Factor in our Knowledge of God
This discussion starts with the understanding that our knowledge of God is not just that of an intellectual type, nor of the result of just an intellectual process, and is inevitably related to life and morality.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 21 God Is
Section d. Reason is led to God
Beginning with the notion that its possible to spontaneously have a vague notion of God the discussion and that philosophy just permits this belief to become more precise and purposeful.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 21 God Is
Section c. Philosophy cannot Ignore God
This section briefly touches upon God as an essential influence on ones philosophical wonderings.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 21 God Is
Section b. Natural Theology as Highest Achievement of Metaphysics
Thus this section studies the extent of knowing God through natural reason alone.
Part 4 Natural Theology
Chapter 21 God Is
Section a. Man can Know God: Natural and Supernatural Knowledge
The object of metaphysics is the study of being, the cause of being, the principle of being, and ultimately the first cause and final end of being, and as such the study of God, natural theology. This knowledge of God can be originally differentiated as:
i) natural knowledge
ii) supernatural knowledge
And such the discussion continues.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 20 Concluding Review of Metaphysics
Section b. Natural and Supernatural Wisdom
This section discusses the distinction between natural and supernatural wisdom, of which metaphysics is the highest form in the natural order and as such all other sciences and branches of knowing are attached to it.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 20 Concluding Review of Metaphysics
Section a. The Analogy of Being and Our Knowledge of God
This section discusses the importance of the analogy of being, the predication of the being on the subject in multiple senses through participation, and its relevance to theology.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 19 Transcendental Properties of Being
Section h. The Beauty of Being
This section describes beauty and its relation to the senses and the three other transcendentals, but how its the qualities of the intelligence of man that truly perceive this and as such the proper formation of the intelligence of manner is very important for the perception and upholding of these. Beauty, especially when considering God, has three traits:
i) harmony of height of being
ii) completeness of being
iii) greatness of brightness of intelligibility of being.
Of course God is considered the most beautiful as the maximum of these three traits.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 19 Transcendental Properties of Being
Section g. Evil as the Absence of Good
This section describes the differences between, good, bad and evil and how metaphysically speaking evil gets defined as the absence of good. Which then permits a discussion of the roots of physical evil versus that of moral evil, and how in a strict sense it is the moral good that is evil whereas the physical evil found is this world is not.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 19 Transcendental Properties of Being
Section f. The Common Good: Law and Justice
This section starts with the distinction between absolute good and good of order which opens up the discussion on good as the participation in the ultimate good, and as such for mankind their is a good common to all men by nature of his being man. This further requires the distinction between:
i) the common good transcendent to the world
ii) the common good immanent to the world
Therefore Law is the basis of order of the society, and justice is the state of law whereby things are organized in a good order. This is the basis of social ethics.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 19 Transcendental Properties of Being
Section e. The Goodness of Being
To the extent that things tend towards their perfection we consider them good, and as such being is the foundation of goodness and ought to be the focal point of ones intention towards becoming better.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 19 Transcendental Properties of Being
Section d. The Truth of Being
This section discusses the relation of truth to being, and therefore of the relation of ourselves to reality and God, and the falsity that comes with not being ordered in participation correctly within reality.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 19 Transcendental Properties of Being
Section c. The Unity of Being
Unity of being is the negation of division, and thus beings of the most simple nature are most united. Within the unity of being there is the unity of composition as most beings are comprised of parts, and as such there are different degrees of unity.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 19 Transcendental Properties of Being
Section b. Metaphysical Discovery of the Transcendentals
This section briefly describes these categories in relation to being and how it is from these that we perceive them as the transcendentals known to all men as:
i) one
ii) true
iii) good
and in these three when perceived in harmony and balanced proportion that we see beauty, and thus the metaphysical roots of the understanding of beauty
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 19 Transcendental Properties of Being
Section a. Predicamental Classification of Essences and Transcendental Vision of Being
Starting with the distinction of transcendental and predicamental and that it is on the level of essence that form and matter are distinguished and therefore there are 10 categories or predicaments.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 18 Being and Causality
Section h. Importance of the Principle of Causality
This section explains the importance of the principle of causality to the reality and our capacity to understand it clearly and accurately, and as such metaphysical flaws in the thinking of various modern philosophies.
"Everything which exists by participation is caused by what exists by essence" St Thomas Aquinas
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 18 Being and Causality
Section g. Direction to End; Freedom and Love: The Order of the Universe
The difference between mankind and nature as defined by the intention towards a last end and therefore intelligence and will of the person. This naturally follows into the notion of order towards an end, and therefore the metaphysical definition of Love and Good, and their relationship.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 18 Being and Causality
Section f. The Final Cause: Cause of All Causes
A discussion of the final cause as the cause which motivates the efficient cause, and therefore its many implications in metaphysics on understanding the relation between concepts and matter, humans and nature.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 18 Being and Causality
Section e. The Instrumental Cause
The instrumental cause is that which does not act only by virtue of its form, but by the virtue of the fact that it is moved by the principal agent. This begins the discussion of instruments made use of by man, and the metaphysical possibility of God making use of people in a similarly instrumental manner.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 18 Being and Causality
Section d. Efficient Cause: Creation and Causality
This section discusses the efficient cause, including its historical problems and its relation to the doctrine of being. It discusses causality and the difference and relation of first cause and second cause and the differences between, creating, making transforming.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 18 Being and Causality
Section c. Material Cause and Formal Cause: Theological Relevance
This section starts by describing material cause and formal cause. Differentiating between the form intrinsic to the effect, and form extrinsic to the effect for the formal cause, and differentiating between the substantial and the accidental for the material cause. The relevance to theology pertains to understanding relations between things made and things that make and therefore relation between reality and God.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 18 Being and Causality
Section b. Origin of the Concept of Cause: The Four Causes
Starting with initial discussion of comprehending cause which results in the following three distinctions:
Cause: that which flows into effect
Condition: that which is required for the cause to take effect
Occasion: that situation which favours the actuation of the present cause.
Which permits the us to say that the cause is a principle which really in-fluences the becoming or being of the effect. Which introduces the four metaphysical principles of :
i) maker
ii) material
iii) design
iv) purpose
As seen in Chapter 6, section c.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 18 Being and Causality
Section a. Elucidation of Terms
This section gives a brief overview of causality in relation to being and activity to introduce the chapter.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 17 The Activity of Created Being
Section e. Transient and Immanent Actions
This section discusses the two types of actions of beings:
i) actions go from the subject to perfect and object distinct from it (transient)
ii) actions acted upon the subject itself for its own perfection (immanent)
Followed by two actions of divine operation:
i) actions going out of God
ii) actions remaining within God
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 17 The Activity of Created Being
Section d. Activity as the Perfection of Being: Idleness and Work
A being is not what it is, because of what it does, but because of what it is, and therefore activity (of a rational nature) is the means by which human beings can improve into a better being, and thus a persons means to perfection. A person is thus perfect to the extent that he acts in accordance with his nature and Gods will, and lacks perfection to the extent that he acts disorderly or remains idle and thus stuck as potency.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 17 The Activity of Created Being
Section c. Beings Act According to Their Nature
Another corollary of the first section is that something can act in two ways:
i) in accordance with its nature
ii) below its nature
And thus begins a discussion of God and his relation to humans
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 17 The Activity of Created Being
Section b. Application to the Value of Human Life
From the previous section we learnt that the importance and greatness of a person comes primarily from his being and thus is sacred. To look at people in terms of their utility is therefore of a flawed metaphysical foundation and can only lead to error.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 17 The Activity of Created Being
Section a. "Esse" and Nature as Principles of Activity
Both the act of being and the nature of the being are the principles by which something acts, as such a thing cannot act unless it is, and thing acts only according to its nature. This opens up the subject on being, operation and subsistence. It explains the ranking of importance between being and acting, being being first, and act of secondary importance.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 16 The Act of Being and the Essence
Section e. Individual and Person
Starting with the classical definition of of person by the fifth century Roman philosopher Boethius: rationalis naturae individua substantia, or rational suppositum this leads to a discussion related to the person and individual as different things and the interplay between them, introducing personality and therefore responsibility to the metaphysical understanding of man, which ends with the mystery of Christ and his dual natures in one person.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 16 The Act of Being and the Essence
Section d. Subsistent Subject and Person: Activity follows Being
This section first discusses substance and accidents in the context of subsistence and deriving concepts and ideas as but accidents called qualities. This leads to the differentiation between the real concrete individual subsistent substance (suppositum) and that of the abstract substance (idea) which does not exist by itself and therefore cannot act. This leads to a further clarifying of the suppositum as:
i) to be the subject of accidents
ii) to exist by itself
The first cannot be without the second but the second can be without the first, and therefore this leads to further division of the act of being between:
i) making the substance subsist (first act)
ii) enabling the substance to act (second act)
And this leads into a discussion on the nature of activity
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 16 The Act of Being and the Essence
Section c. The Participation of Being as the Basis of the Analogy of Being
This discussion pertains to an understanding of participation between the different beings resulting in the clarification of the term similarity and difference and the result of this discussion is the analogy of being as discussed in chapter 11 section c. Therefore, participation can be considered in two ways:
i) dynamically, our causality
ii) statically, the composition of the creature.
A result of all this is the showing that metaphysically creation is a free action of God who brings things into existence to participate in his fullness of being
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 16 The Act of Being and the Essence
Section b. Predicamental and Transcendental Participation
This section begins with the two ways of participation:
i) as something belonging to the substance of the participant (predicamental)
ii) as something not entering into the essence of the participant: this is the participation in esse. (transcendental)
and moves to showing the real composition in the core argument:
i) that any creature is a being by participation: it only has being, it is not being
ii) Therefore every creature has a division in itself between what participates and what is participated in the order of esse.
This follows in a discussion of St Thomas's work synthesizing and building upon the Greek philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, to come to the aforementioned conclusions.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 16 The Act of Being and the Essence
Section a. Ultimate Structure of the Finite Subsistent
A discussion of some basic history of metaphysics including the issue of nominalism in the medieval ages and its error from the metaphysics of St. Thomas.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 15 The Essence
Section c. The Principle of Individuation
This section begins with understanding that individual means to be undivided implying:
i) undivided in itself
ii) divided from everything else
This implies that individual is opposite of universal, which is the abstract concept which follows in the discussion and results in three observations on the essence as such:
i) the specific essence is really multiplied by the individuals
ii) the specific essence is singularized by them
iii) the specific essence subsists substantially in them
This turns things into a discussion on essence, materiality and the metaphysical interrelation between them, unity, and multiplicity.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 15 The Essence
Section b. Essence and Form
This section starts by defining form as the determination of essence, which opens the discussion on determination and indetermination and its relation the the material and distinction with regard to simple and complex forms, which actually results in an understanding of spirituality in a metaphysical sense, and is the foundation for spirituality of humans as distinct from animals and things.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 15 The Essence
Section a. Elucidation of Terms: Essence, Nature, Concept, Definition
Starting with ens is composed of: esse (act of being) and essence (potency/manner of being) which can also be called nature meaning: the essence of anything considered as the principle of operations proper to that thing, with principle meaning the origin or source, of which follows a lengthy discussion on essence, including the comparison of essence in metaphysics to concept in logic. It also includes a bit on understanding and definitions.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 14 Potency and Act
Section c. Other Metaphysical Insights of Potency and Act
Starting from the the fact that metaphysics is not a process of deduction but rather of observation, and therefore reality, we start our discussion. The section covers act of being as act and essence as potency, along with the introduction of perfectibility, and actualization, all described in the context of God.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 14 Potency and Act
Section b. Motion as Passage from Potency to Act
Starting with the notion that motion cannot be demonstrated or proven as they are directly evident to the intelligence as described by Aristotle, in enters a discussion of motion from Act and Potency. Motion can be understood in two ways:
i) a change from one subject to another
ii) a change from a subject in a certain stage to same subject in another stage
From this comes potency and act, including the terms, cognition, immateriality, intentionality. Thus defining two levels of potency and act:
i) the passage from not knowing to knowing
ii)the passage of a knowledge possessed as a habit to an actual consideration.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 14 Potency and Act
Section a. Simplicity of these Concepts, gathered from the Experience of Change
A discussion of the simplicity of the concepts of potency, act, change and ones experience of them.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 13 Substance and Accidents
Section f. Particular Importance of Relation
This section discusses the additional importance of the manner of predication of Relation, and its relevance to relationships with others, things and God. Relations can be subdivided into two types:
i) Real Relations
ii)Logical Relations
Followed by a discussion of the two elements of relations:
a) to be in relation to
b) to be in
of which, a) is the primary and b) is secondary as it is common to all accidents.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 13 Substance and Accidents
Section e. The "Inesse" of the Accidents
Discussing the essence of the accidents which is "to be in".
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 13 Substance and Accidents
Section d. Substance and Accidents are related in Three Ways
This section discusses the threefold relationship of substance to accidents:
i) Substance is the subject of accidents
ii) Substance is to accident what potency is to act
iii) Substance is to accident what cause is to effect
Therefore the accident does not conceal the substance but reveals it
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 13 Substance and Accidents
Section c. Accidents: Secondary Manners of Being
This section discusses accidents as the secondary manners of being, described as:
i)determinations of a being
ii)changeable determinations
iii)derived or secondary determinations of a principle subject
The ways of knowing being can therefore be classified in 10 different participates:
1) Substance (John is a man)
2) Accident of Quantity (John weights 200lbs)
3) Accident of Quality (John is clever)
4) Accident of Relation (John is Peter's brother)
5) Accident of Action (John is speaking)
6) Accident of Passivity (John is loved)
7) Accident of Place (John is behind the bench)
8) Accident of Time (John came yesterday)
9) Accident of Posture (John is sitting down)
10) Accident of Possession (John is wearing black shoes)
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 13 Substance and Accidents
Section b. The Notion of Being applies primarily to Substance
This section discusses being as analogical. Strictly to substance and broadly to accidents. Defining Substance as:
i) a unity of being in multiplicity
ii) permanence in change
iii) a subsistent core in which all the accidents exist
It goes on to discuss the notion of person from a metaphysical stand-point as: an individual substance of a rational nature, and thus elaborating further on reality. There are 4 insights which show the intimate reality of substance.
1) the subject or holder of all accidents
2)that which subsists
3) what has the act of being in itself
4)what fully fulfils the notion of ens
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 13 Substance and Accidents
Section a. The Evidence of Change and the Truth about Being
This section discusses the basis for metaphysics, which is the sensible world, or Nature. This relationship is defined by knowability and therefore permanence in nature (substances), and constant change in nature (accidents).
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 12 The Starting Point of the Metaphysical Road
Section c. Metaphysical Progress
This discussion is on the process of discerning reality metaphysically, which is enriched all the time by the continuous experience of reality by man and its many limitations and change which force him to confront the metaphysical actuality of reality. This discussion includes: change, multiplicity, stability and how these interact with the person and many fundamental errors that can occur by using tools that are metaphysically erroneous though not always intelligibly obvious.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 12 The Starting Point of the Metaphysical Road
Section b. The Starting Point of Metaphysics
This section briefly introduces the notion of being, non-being, difference and division as per the notion of the act of being
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 12 The Starting Point of the Metaphysical Road
Section a. Being, To Be, Essence, Existence
This section elaborates and clarifies the term 'being' in English. Obviously not a very precise term in the English, with multiple meanings and considerable ambiguity, the author clarifies this terms meaning through the use of the more precise language of Latin. This discussion covers how our mind perceives reality in both the transient and the stable, a further elaboration of the term essence, existence and lastly the two fold terms for being in Latin: ens and esse, which in future will be used in their Latin to replace the term being or to be, in order to be more precise in our language in future discourse.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 11 General Introduction to Metaphysics
Section e. Importance of Metaphysics for Theology
This section deals with the relation between reason and faith and as such metaphysics being the highest grasp of natural reason and how it relates to understanding things of the supernatural.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 11 General Introduction to Metaphysics
Section d. The Principle of Non-contradiction
This section elaborates on the principle of non-contradiction which was introduced in chapter 7, section a, and its many implications on science, history and modern thought.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 11 General Introduction to Metaphysics
Section c. Being is Analogical
This discussion pertains to being and how it pertains to reality, especially discussing the usage of words through the distinction of the univocal and equivocal meanings. It ends with an introduction of the notion of change to that of being.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 11 General Introduction to Metaphysics
Section b. The Object of Metaphysics
This section discusses the distinction of the formal and material object of metaphysics and describes how when a child reaches the point of questioning reality metaphysically is the beginning of the age of reasoning for the child.
Part 3 Metaphysics
Chapter 11 General Introduction to Metaphysics
Section a. Metaphysics: The Science of Being as Being
This section discusses the roots of metaphysics as the study of being. As such it goes into the study of the cause of being and therefore the universal cause of being and therefore the totality and unity of all things.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 10 The History of Philosophy
Section b. Cultural Relativism
Metaphysics deals with universal truth and mans relation and dependence on it, and as such, with the moral consequences of it. This section discusses how this deterioration of thinking and study has resulted in a larger deterioration in caliber of theological thought.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 10 The History of Philosophy
Section a. Metaphysics and Truth
This section discusses the history of the study of Metaphysics, which ought not to be confused with the study of metaphysics itself.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 9 The Method of Metaphysics
Section e. Intelligence and Imagination
This section discusses the difficulty of studying metaphysics and theology as an effect of the lack of use of the imagination in the deduction of metaphysical knowledge, and thus a strict disciplining of the imagination is required.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 9 The Method of Metaphysics
Section d. Intellectual and Sensible Certainty
This section discusses how the intelligence and the sense know and the relation between them through a discussion of certainty. This discussion shows that the human being is formed for understanding things of a mixed nature.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 9 The Method of Metaphysics
Section c. Intelligence and Senses
It is through data that the intelligence grasps the being of things with the intelligence. Data enters the mind through the senses. The process (scientific method) is as follows:
i)sensations
ii) from the sensations a memory
iii)all the memories together for an experience
iv) from the experiences the intelligence forms a universal principle
v) from this universal principle conclusions are drawn
i-iv are induction and abstraction, v is deduction as mentioned in the previous section
This develops an understanding as to how the intelligence relates to the senses and why it is the intelligence that reaches the essence behind the data of the senses and makes them intelligible, this is elaborated further.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 9 The Method of Metaphysics
Section b. Science as the search for the Universal and Necessary
This section discusses universality and its implications along with how we get to it through induction which is a intuitive not deductive process as abstracted from what is particular and contingent. This includes the distinction between concept (first operation of the mind), and judgement (second operation of the mind).
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 9 The Method of Metaphysics
Section a. Philosophy begins with Wonder
Beginning with the etymological definition of the word method and moves into a discussion of the origins of philosophy as man wondering, or questioning reality change, and causality, which leads man to the metaphysical abstractions of God as first and ultimate cause.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 8 Other Aspects of Christian Philosophy and their Theological Relevance
Section d. Metaphysics and Logic
Using the three levels of metaphysics, moral philosophy and logic as a starting point this section describes how man relates to each in his search for the truth and their individual importance.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 8 Other Aspects of Christian Philosophy and their Theological Relevance
Section c. Theological Relevance of the Metaphysics of Nature
The relation of metaphysics to the natural world and its importance
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 8 Other Aspects of Christian Philosophy and their Theological Relevance
Section b. Particular Sciences are in need of Metaphysics
A discussion of the different fields of study in western society in relation to metaphysics and specialization.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 8 Other Aspects of Christian Philosophy and their Theological Relevance
Section a. Metaphysics of Man and Sciences of Man
A discussion of the breakdown of education and the relevance of metaphysics to each branch, and the forms of error that can arise when each branch is studied and applied without metaphysical considerations.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 7 Metaphysics of First Philosophy
Section f. Metaphysics and Theology
Metaphysics is the search for the ultimate, end and cause of man, and therefore God to the extent that the natural reason can, as discussed in this section
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 7 Metaphysics of First Philosophy
Section e. The Properties of Being
This section covers the properties of being:
i) in relation to itself, a being has a unity
ii)in relation to intelligence, every being is called true
iii) in relation to tendency in general, as far as they exist are called good.
Concluding therefore that Metaphysics is the education of the mind to be effective in all possible ways
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 7 Metaphysics of First Philosophy
Section d. God as the Universal Cause of Being: Essence and the Act of Being
This section discusses the implications of the last in the context of finite and infinite beings and therefore the participation of beings in reality and the limitations imposed. This results in the conclusions:
i) That being must exist in its fullness, without any participation
ii)that this fullness of being must be what has brought into being all the others
This results in a discussion of God as that which beings participate in.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 7 Metaphysics of First Philosophy
Section c. Matter and Form
This section elaborates on the change of substance and potentiality by introducing the two possible potentialities of Substance, the potential to change substance and the potential to receive and lose accidents. Which introduces the concepts of form and matter to the topic of metaphysics and with the four types of cause this section finishes with a discussion of how all these concepts interact in corporeal reality.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 7 Metaphysics of First Philosophy
Section b. Substance and Accidents, Potentiality and Actuality
Using the previous section as a foundation this section introduces and explains the concepts of substance and accidents in metaphysics and the relation of potentiality and actuality and therefore change.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 7 Metaphysics of First Philosophy
Section a. The Science of Being as Being
This section discusses the foundations of metaphysics by elaborating on being and non-being and in introduction to the principle of non-contradiction and the principle of identity and the role of the senses and intelligence in understanding these.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 6 The Nature of Philosophy
Section e. Philosophy and the other Sciences
The elaboration of the notion of degree and how it pertains to our use of the scientific means of reasoning through the term matter (sensible world) and the three separate elevations above it for which the sciences study it from.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 6 The Nature of Philosophy
Section d. Wisdom as Science
A discussion on the meaning of wisdom as a science and its metaphysical roots.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 6 The Nature of Philosophy
Section c. A wise Man orders everything in relation to God
A discussion of the term order and what it means 'order something towards something else'.
The revealing of the presence of intelligence in a person through these four questions:
i) What is this? (formal cause [essence or nature])
ii) What is it for? (final cause [purpose])
iii) What is it made of? (material cause [stuff])
iv) Who made it? (efficient cause [maker])
A breakdown of wisdom into 4 types or areas of study:
i) metaphysics and sciences
ii) moral philosophy
iii) logic
iv)arts
This breakdown reveals the two functions of the mind, that of reception and action.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 6 The Nature of Philosophy
Section b. Wisdom as Knowledge of Ultimate Causes
A discussion of wisdom including the distinction between natural and supernatural wisdom. Divine doctrine as part of supernatural wisdom includes:
i) What can be known about God through his creatures
ii) What God knows and communicates to creatures a) divine revelation and b) theology
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 6 The Nature of Philosophy
Section a. History and Etymology of the term
A discussion of the history and etymology of the term Philosophy in the context of the works of St Thomas Aquinas and the Greek philosophers and the distinction in meaning between pre-Christian philosophy and Christian philosophy
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 5 Disposition of the Christian toward Philosophy
Section d. The help of Faith not against the use of Intelligence
This section discusses the importance of philosophy even with regard to religion and that of all Christians. The church prescribes:
i) Subordinating reason to faith without suppressing reason
ii) The recommendation to study philosophy in the manner of St Thomas.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 5 Disposition of the Christian towards Philosophy
Section c. Christian Philosophy as a Common Cultural Heritage
The role of Christian philosophy also extends over culture as it is a common means of thinking about reality shared by all Christians which permit them to interact and grow in culture and faith. The body of words built up over the last couple millennia permit dialogue and discussion fostering unity within societies and clarity of truths.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 5 Disposition of the Christian Toward Philosophy
Section b. Philosophy and the Truths of the Natural Order
A discussion of the knowledge of natural truths as negative and positive norms and the importance of faith for a Christian in philosophizing, which is all founded on a disposition of humility.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 5 Disposition of the Christian Toward Philosophy
Section a. God and the Natural Truths of Religion
The importance of mans disposition towards truth as a means for knowing God, and some of the errors man can fall in when this is not the case.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 4 Development of Philosophy in Christianity
Section c. Continuity of Christian Philosophy
This section summarizes the history of Christian thought from the time of St Thomas to the present starting with the Lutheran revolt in the 16th century and its causes and the divorce of reason from faith with Descartes in the 17th century, and the long and arduous path philosophy has taken since then with some of the basic responses of the church to this chaos.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 4 Development of Philosophy in Christianity
Section b. The Original Synthesis of St. Thomas Aquinas
An overview of the history of the church with relation to Dogmas and their creation: the first three centuries after Christ was a time of many and great persecutions so very little dogma was defined and many heresies started. When Constantine ended the persecutions of the church many councils were formed starting with that of Nicea which started to define dogmas and dispel Heresies, those leading thinkers of the time are referred to as the Fathers of the faith. They can be divided into two groups corresponding to the geographic split in the empire of the time between the Greek, Latin side. The Greeks were more inclined to dogmatic theology, whereas the Latins were more inclined to moral theology, the greatest of which was St Augustine.
Following this period was the breakdown of the empire in the 5th century due to the barbarian invasions as well as the coming of Islam and their conquest of north Africa, Asia and Europe starting in the 7th century. This period was followed by a reactionary period in the corresponding counter conquest often referred to as the crusades and the other push which started the age of discovery. During this period the Christian thought of this time was consolidated along with that of much of the thinking from the rest of the known world and ancient antiquity culminating in the scholasticism of St Thomas Aquinas.
Part 2 An Introduction to Christian Philosophy
Chapter 4 Development of Philosophy in Christianity
Section a. Beginning of Theology in Christianity
This section starts the 2nd Part off by discussing the beginning of Christian Philosophy to assist in communicating the Theology that was developing amongst themselves and to the gentiles in an intelligible and articulate manner. What makes it distinctive to Christians is:
i) Its origin
ii) its purpose
though this does not imply that its content is exclusively Christian, and therefore Christian philosophy contains a wide body of natural truths that overlap many of the natural truths upheld by other philosophies and cultures
Part 1 An Introduction to Theology
Chapter 3 The Philosophical Exercise of Reason as Instrument of Theology
Section c. Historical origin of Theology: Christian Philosophy
Starting at the time of Christ, this section goes through the development of Theology through history: time of the apostles, early church fathers, ecumenical councils, doctors of the church, the Magisterial properties of the church to the churches present understanding of God.
Part 1 An Introduction to Theology
Chapter 3 The Philosophical Exercise of Reason as Instrument of Theology
Section b. Continuity of all Knowledge
This section covers the relationship between common sense, science and philosophy and the necessity of a proper moral disposition of the person in order to ensure their accurate understanding of reality. The error in one can through off the continuity and relationship between the three.
Part 1 An Introduction to Theology
Chapter 3 The Philosophical Exercise of Reason as Instrument of Theology
Section a. Spontaneous Knowledge and Philosophical Knowledge
Starting with the knowledge of Natural Truths, and Supernatural truths and the relationship between faith and reason the three levels of knowledge:
i) Common Sense
ii) Science
iii)Philosophy
are distinguished and expounded upon followed by a discussion of wisdom, God and mans participation with either.
Part 1 An Introduction to Theology
Chapter 2 Theology as a Science
Section c. The Believer uses Reason in Theology
With the means of knowing in theology being reason illumined by faith it is of the utmost importance to know ones faith through reason and by being adequately trained in the use of reason. There are two types of truths therefore that reason assists in knowing. The first is supernatural truths which which are not completely understandable by reason alone and natural truths which it is possible to reason to attain without the use of faith though faith may assist in this. This is further elaborated by discussing the limitations of reason and the relation it has to faith and the need for solid faith in the study of theology.
The purposes used for reason in studying theology are broken down into three, these are:
i) To demonstrate the preambles to faith.
ii)To deepen and widen our understanding of the supernatural truths already revealed.
iii) To reject and counter attacks on the faith.
All of which compelling reasons for a Christian to study philosophy.
Part 1 An Introduction to Theology
Chapter 1 Theology as a Science
Section b. The Source of Theological Knowledge: Divine Revelation
A discussion of divine revelation and its principles related to the church and man, the basics of faith, with the distinction between subjective and objective faith presented in relation to the will and intelligence. Finally relaying the proper disposition of the person in order to study theology and the mysteries that are therein contained.
Part 1 An Introduction to Theology
Chapter 2 Theology as a Science
Section a. The Object of Theology
A discussion of what the meaning of Theology and the proper relation between man, nature and the supernatural in relation to God.
Part 1 An Introduction to Theology
Chapter 1 Theological Training
Section d. Content of Theological Study
This section describes Theology as the science of faith and the distinction of 5 different parts to theology and their relation to the the church:
i) Dogma
ii) morals
iii) canon law
iv) liturgy
v) history with the church
Part 1 An Introduction to Theology
Chapter 1 Theological Training
Section c. A special Reason
A description of the current state of affairs within the world, society and Christianity and how it impacts the average individual. This briefly touches upon, atheism, religious ignorance, the three pillars of modern post secondary education (science, social science, humanities), and a rough outline of the history of modern thought.
Part 1 An Introduction to Theology
Chapter 1 Theological Training
Section b. Reasons for this Study
A discussion of the three main reasons for this work:
i) We are Human because we are beings endowed with intelligence and as such ought to make use of our reason to know and to love God.
ii) The professional role we play and the knowledge and understanding we use for it are rather too narrow and specialized to fulfil man in his entirety and as such theological and philosophical learning can compliment this professional training and offer a deeper and more compelling reason for mans being and his actions.
iii) Philosophical and theological language allows a person to live a unified and harmonious life with the capacity to articulate and communicate to others.
Part 1 An Introduction to Theology
Chapter 1 Theological Training
Section a. The need for doctrinal formation: a consequence of our divine vocation
A discussion of the need for learning theology, including descriptions of the 5 aspects of Christian formation:
i) Human formation
ii) Spiritual formation
iii) Professional formation
iv) Apostolic formation
v) Doctrinal-religious formation
Followed by a description of the contents and order of the rest of the book.
Foreword to the book Christian Philosophy written by the author in Manila on the Feast of Christ the King in 1979.
The foreword covers the motivation and scope for the book through a discussion of the state of things in the world and its impact on the modern educated individual and the many implications that flow from it.
Written by Joseph M. De Torre, read by Josef Freundorfer with permission from Sinag Tala Publishers
Epilogue
So ends this work covering the basics of Christian thought and its relation to both the ancient world and the ancient world we live in today.