Pat offers a brief introduction to Aquinas's philosophical approach to God. Check out Pat's new book The Best Argument for God sophiainstitute.com/product/t...
Two questions for ya'll. Let me know if: 1) You'd like to see more content about this length (in addition to our longer form interviews and deep-dives) and, 2) What topics you'd like discussed. Thanks for watching! - Pat PS - If you want to go deeper on this topic, see my conversations with Dr. Gaven Kerr, of which there are many on this channel. PPS - Article under discussion: alcuininstitute.org/writings/essays/the-argument-from-existence-aquinass-philosophical-approach-to-god
This format is great! Some suggested topics might include reasons to believe real essentialism, schools of thomism, modal logic in philosophy of religion
@@PhilosophyforthePeople Hey Pat, I think at some point it would be really cool to see something like a "Why this guy?" series in which you - and Jim perhaps - approach philosophers who come before and after Aquinas, explaining to us how various people impacted the theist/atheist debate through time. For example, you could picture an entry or a series on the major ideas contributed by Hume (what did Hume do to epistemology that everybody had to respond to?; how did this impact philosophical theology?). In other words, a kind of history of philosophy with an emphasis on how philosophical theology was especially impacted, i.e., the things theologians were forced to adapt to, to respond to, to find a way to integrate into their thinking and apologetics, etc. (I realize you and Jim have done series on various philosophers, but I think something a bit systematic, with a vision to showing people how we get to modern philosophical theology, would be awesome.) I might also quibble with the fact that the length of the videos is going to make or break the bank, so to speak. There are successful channels that do short-form and some that do long-form. I don't think your audience is scared of the weeds. Instead, most of your long-form content tends to take the interview (conversation) format. This is often very good for rounding out things you've learned, but I think it rarely constitutes the bones (instead, the interviews and commentary add meat to the bone). I think adding content where you're teaching things, like you did in this video, would be excellent. I also think you could go into the weeds a bit more, or consider doing two-tiers: ELI5 and PhilGrad versions or something clever. Anyway, I'm just shouting from the peanut gallery.
@@anthonyspencer766 I appreciate hearing from the peanut gallery! Of course, no matter how long the content I produce is, my primary concern will always be quality. Naturally, the longer form content isn't going anywhere. I just want to provide material that's a bit easier for people to access (simplified, not diluted!), which hopefully entices them to check out the more in-depth conversations, at some point or other. Again, thanks for the suggestions. I will be keeping these in mind!
Comment for traction. As far as vid ideas go, you basically covered it here quickly, but perhaps consider really explaining how existence can be considered a predicate. Once I saw that, it kind of gave me back the world and helped me think ontology first and then epistemology. Modern analytic philosophy (perhaps thanks to Descartes Hume & Kant) seems to prioritize epistemology over ontology and therefore struggles to breakout into the world. Peter kreft said something like ancient & medieval philosophy is curious about the world like a young child, full of wonder about the nature of things, while modern philosophy is like a self obsessed teenager locked inside their own mind. For me, the bridge back to the broader world was crossed in large part thanks to Gavin’s interpretation of Kant as a realist with the world containing conceptual content (as you covered in the show) and the phenomenonlogical understanding (backed by science) that interior mind is a product of/exists within a broader world & not some isolated analytical space. I’m not trying to dismiss analysis & logical reasoning as immensely useful tools, but I think they need to be framed as just that-tools within the broader philosophical landscape. I don’t know really if this makes sense, but there seems like there’s a story there that would be engaging.
I want you to do videos on whatever makes you happy! Videos on any one of the topics in this video that you said we would need more time for would be great (20 min each). A whole Aquinas series on this argument would be fascinating. On visuals, a PowerPoint with your cam in the corner is fine!
Intermediate is better than short, but Long form is better than intermediate ! Good video my friend. Would love a video on overlap between psi research (william james, Hodgson, Cardena, Braude, Akin) and phil of mind and religion Typing on a new phone. I have hatred for technology
I’d really love to hear a strong defence of Auquinas’ theory of existence. Not many people actually speak about it in popular manner. So, would be great if you tell more of it!
I would highly commend Barry Miller's work on this front, particularly The Fullness of Being. Bill Vallicella also has a defense of what I consider a broadly Thomistic theory of existence in his book A Paradigm Theory of Existence. Gaven Kerr, too, in his book Aquinas's Way to God. Finally, there are plenty of articles, but of particular note would be Turner Nevitt's article How to Be An Existential Thomist, published in the Thomist several years back.
Sorry, that doesn't help with your problem of people not speaking about it on the popular level. You're probably right there. I don't see that happening much either.
@@PhilosophyforthePeople Thank you so much! I will definitely check them. I want to study Thomism from the scratch, like myself etc and now I read Feser, listen to Koons as well, but I suppose it’s not enough. It’s such a pity that not many people nowadays simply don’t know about Thomism and Neo-Aristotelianism :c Because they are amazing and can be united with modern science
@@rosenzollern Feser and Koons are great. You can’t go wrong with An Introduction to Scholastic Metaphysics. Check out The One and the Many by Norris Clarke, as well. Happy reading!
Hi Pat; I don't want to be greedy with commenting here, but I have an issue with Aquinas's argument, and I would really appreciate your insight/comment/critique. I understand the distinction underlying the contingency premise, i.e., that when we are considering the individual supposit ( the ens), we do ask something meaningfully different about X when we ask "what is X?" and "why this particular X?". However, I struggle with Aquinas's move, when it comes to God, of, first, maintaining the distinction between existence and essence, and second, of identifying them. To me, this looks incoherent. Essence is the principle of limitation of pure act. It always pertains to a limited "what". So, Aquinas's move looks like it entails we conceive of God as an *existent*, whose essence is subsequently "to exist". However, pure act is unlimited. It is not an existent, but is rather existence per se. For that reason, I think it is incoherent to talk about pure act as having an essence at all. This is just using the word essence incorrectly. It would be like answering the question, "If essence is a principle of individual differentiation, then what is God's essence?", by saying, "The unique-making principle that differentiates God is the absence of differentiation." Thus, we're using the term "essence" with respect to essence in God in a way that the term is never used anywhere else in the theory. In fact, it seems like it is doing no work at all with respect to God. That is, we could just say: "God is undifferentiated existence," or, "God is existence without the principle of limitation." This is not to have an essence, but rather to lack an essence. This leads me to think that God is more coherently conceived as existence itself. That is, we should be using the term "existence" univocally; your existence is God's existence, with determinate limitation imposed on it. We don't require asking about the distinct "act" of existence, as if it were something conferred distinctly by pure act to X (a gift, as it were); the question is really only about the essence. To me, individuality is going to have a different explanation, a more proximal cause for the existence of *this* individual X, albeit still having a sustaining cause in The One. Furthermore, existence per se is going to turn out to be necessary, but only in its undifferentiated mode. Limitation by essence is the contingent fact. But existence, as it is being limited by essence, is not to add any new sort of thing to existence per se; the only change is the limitation itself. The act, then, is not to confer existence, but to confer limitation upon existence - so, we lose the Real distinction it would seem. At least, we are doing something other than telling the *same* causal story for (i) the individual and (ii) the essence. Ignoring the fact that all things have a sustaining cause in God, the fact of the essence and the fact of the individual will each relate causally differently to God. Aquinas's system looks like it wants to make the causal relationship the same (God is the cause of both the individual act of existence and the essence, *in the same respect*). I would want to take away that "in the same respect" part.
A lot of good stuff here. I can only offer a brief comment for now; perhaps I'll expand later on my Substack, time-permitting. For clarification: Aquinas would definitely NOT want to say that our existence is God's existence, only limited (I understand that you are not saying this is Aquinas's view). Really, on the Thomistic view, our existence amounts to something like *our being caused to exist* or bearing a certain relation to EXISTS! (God). This is where language about God can be misleading, as you've indicated. In fact, it really doesn't even make sense, on the Thomistic view, to say that God exists, since that statement would itself seem to imply some THING that exists, and that is exactly what Thomists say is not the case with God. Barry Miller (as you know, one of my favorites) has a lot of work that speaks to your concerns. I would check him out, if you haven't already.
Another quick thing to keep in mind. It is right that Aquinas would say that God doesn’t have an essence *in the usual sense*. The same, of course, would be said about God being an individual. God is not an individual *in the usual sense*, precisely because God is pure act and inherently unbounded (whereas all individuals for Aquinas are bounded). Nevertheless, it should still be maintained that God is an individual in an analogous sense. As Barry Miller likes to put it, God is the limit-case instance of individual. For more develop along these lines (which speak the concerns you've raised), see his Fullness of Being.
@@PhilosophyforthePeople Thanks for these comments, Pat. If you get the time and energy to write up a Substack on these particular issues, that would be terrific, but we both know how things get busy. I will look into Miller for sure. I have my issues with the doctrine of analogy also: I'm the guy who teeters between thinking Thomas is right on Monday, and the Advaitans are right on Tuesday.
@@anthonyspencer766 Ah yes, time is always tight. Still, I'm happy to point to where I think you might find a solution to your concerns. From what I'm hearing, Miller is definitely your guy, because he's one of the best on analogy as well (right up there with James Ross). Cheers, brother!
