AQUINAS'S ARGUMENT AGAINST SELF-HATRED

Aquinas's argument against the possibility of genuine self‐hatred runs counter to modern intuitions about self‐hatred as an explanatorily central notion in psychology, and as an effect of alienation. Aquinas's argument does not deny that persons experience hatred for themselves. It can be read either as the claim that the self‐hater mistakes what she feels toward herself as hatred, or that, though she hates what she believes is her “self,” she actually hates only traits of herself. I argue that the argument fails on both readings. The first reading entails that all passions are really self‐love, and so is incompatible with Aquinas's own “cognitivist” view of what it is that distinguishes specific passions in experience. The second reading entails that persons have no phenomenal access to “self,” rendering self‐reference—how it is that the self can be an intentional object of conscious mental states—a mystery. Augustine's claim, which Aquinas accepts on authority, that all sin originates in inordinate self‐love seems to entail the impossibility of genuine self‐hatred because both thinkers fail to distinguish between two distinct forms of self‐love: amor concupiscentiae and amor benevolentiae.     

THE PROBLEM OF “GOD” IN PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION: LONERGAN'S “COMMON SENSE” (RELIGION) VERSUS “THEORY” (THEOLOGY)

The emphasis on God in American psychology of religion generates the problem of explaining divine‐versus‐natural causality in “spiritual experiences.” Especially “theistic psychology” champions divine involvement. However, its argument exposes a methodological error: to pit popular religious opinions against technical scientific conclusions. Countering such homogenizing “postmodern agnosticism,” Bernard Lonergan explained these two as different modes of thinking: “common sense” and “theory”—which resolves the problem: When theoretical science is matched with theoretical theology, “the God‐hypothesis” explains the existence of things whereas science explains their natures; and, barring miracles, God is irrelevant to natural science. A review of the field shows that the problem is pervasive; attention to “miracles”—popularly so‐named versus technically—focuses the claims of divine‐versus‐natural causality; and specifications of the meaning of spiritual, spirituality, science, worldview, and meaning itself (suffering that same ambiguity: personal import versus cognitive content) offer further clarity. The problem is not naturalism versus theism, but commonsensical versus theoretical thinking. This solution demands “hard” social science.     

Aquinas' Quinque Viae: Fools,Evil, and the Hiddenness of God

At present a broad consensus may be discerned on Aquinas' ‘five ways' for proving the existence of God: either he is responding to atheism per se by means of five rational arguments, or he is not responding to any formal denial of God's existence. Both of these approaches ignore the two specific objections Aquinas raises prior to the five ways: evil is incompatible with the existence of an infinite goodness (the first objection), and the world does not require an external explanation (the second objection). While some have speculated on the structural significance of the second objection, the first has been universally regarded as irrelevant. This, I argue, is an oversight; Aquinas' first objection (from evil) is central to the quinque viae. Seen in this light, while Aquinas' five ways are not responses to atheism per se, they do address, and ultimately subvert, a specific form of disbelief.     

Virtue or Art?: Political Friendship Reconsidered

In Talking to Strangers (2004), Danielle Allen argues that democratic citizens will need to acquire new habits for contending with distrust in order to prolong the democratic experiment. Though Allen's solution recalls her reading of the Republic, it is to Aristotle, not Plato, that she turns for help theorizing those habits. Drawing upon the Nicomachean Ethics, she proposes arts or techniques that might substitute for and outpace justice by enabling democratic strangers to treat one another like friends. While I endorse Allen's analysis of the problems posed by rising levels of distrust, I propose a different solution. First, I argue that the habits Allen describes would have to be virtues and not merely techniques in order to effect real political change. Then, second, I identify those habits as “piety” and “gratitude”—virtues which, I contend, are not so much substitutes for as supplements to justice. My argument thus elaborates Thomas Aquinas's account of justice and its “potential parts” in the Summa Theologiae.     

AQUINAS ON ATTACHMENT, ENVY, AND HATRED IN THE SUMMA THEOLOGICA

This essay examines Aquinas's discussions of hatred in Summa Theologica I‐II, Q. 29 and II‐II, Q. 34, in order to retrieve an account of what contemporary theorists of the emotions call its cognitive contents. In Aquinas's view, hatred is constituted as a passion by a narrative pattern that includes its intentional object, beliefs, perceptions of changes in bodily states, and motivated desires. This essay endorses Aquinas's broadly “cognitivist” account of passional hatred, in line with his way of treating passions in general. I suggest that Aquinas's account of hatred's arising out of attachment is compelling. However, I also argue that if Aquinas's treatment of hatred is to help us understand the phenomenon of hate, where classes of people are abominated for an identity they bear, and to avoid equating an oppressor's hatred with that of the oppressed for the oppressor, the cognitive pathway to hatred must be broader than through envy.     

Thomas Aquinas’ Divine Simplicity as Biblical Hermeneutic

Long draws from the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann's commentary on Jeremiah some strong reasons for rejecting the traditional teaching on divine simplicity. Above all, for Brueggemann the book of Jeremiah simply will not work if God is simple: God explicitly tells Jeremiah that God suffers and also that God changes in response to Israel. According to Long, however, Thomas Aquinas's doctrine of divine simplicity actually upholds the points that Brueggemann draws from Jeremiah. Long argues that theological accounts of divine simplicity should especially have two purposes: to serve as a way of manifesting in speech the mystery of the Triune God, and to affirm God's transcendent sovereignty over creation. In light of Brueggemann's approach, Long examines four early Reformed theologians: Peter Vermigli (1499‐1562), Girolamo Zanchi (1516‐1590), John Biddle (1615‐1662) and John Owen (1616‐1683). While Biddle rejects divine simplicity, the others uphold it. Long shows that their teaching on divine simplicity focuses on God's transcendent sovereignty over creation. By contrast, Long finds Aquinas's doctrine of divine simplicity to be more helpful in upholding Brueggemann's insights, insofar as Aquinas uses the doctrine to defend the simplicity of the Triune God. Rather than focusing on God's sovereign power, Aquinas's doctrine of divine simplicity focuses on getting the Trinitarian processions right.     

GOD OF THE GAPS OR THE GOD OF “DESIGN AND DOMINION”? RE-VISITING NEWTON'S THEOLOGY

Starting with Gottfried Leibniz, Isaac Newton's theology has often been caricatured as putting forward a “God of the gaps” argument for God's existence and continued involvement in the world. Peter Harrison has pointed out that this characterization of Newton's theology is “not entirely clear.” A closer look at Newton's letters and the drafts to the Opticks reveals that, rather than arguing God's providential ordering and care over the world, he takes these for granted and is reluctant to specify instances of this order and care based on his physical research. He certainly believes in gaps in mechanical causes but is more eager to fill those gaps with nonmechanical natural causes than with God. Further, his system does not exhibit the two most prevalent weaknesses attributed to “God of the gaps” theologies: (1) that by describing God as intervening in natural causes his skill as a designer is maligned and (2) that by describing the physical details of God's involvement in the world one puts too much weight on theories likely to be replaced as science advances. Newton avoids the former weakness because it is only God's masterfulness as designer that he ties in any way to his theories of the physical world. He avoids the latter because he never points to God as the direct cause of any specific physical processes. Newton hoped that his system would cause his readers to marvel not only at God's providence but also at humankind's inability to sufficiently understand it.     

Architectonics Matter: Some Advantages of Treating the Unicity of God in Advance of the Trinity of Persons,in Dialogue with Thomas Aquinas

Aquinas's distinction between what is essential and personal in God has been widely criticized in Protestant and Catholic modernity because of its supposed isolation of God from the economy of salvation. Based upon consideration of the divine goodness, I defend Aquinas's arrangement in Summa Theologiae I, qq. 1–49, advancing metaphysical inquiry along four lines. I discuss, first, the fittingness of ascribing conceptual priority to the common in advance of the particular; second, how Aquinas's ‘double perspective’ illuminates the New Testament language of ‘participation’ in the divine nature; third, the manner in which God's attributes structure God's works, illustrating the concordance of nature and works; fourth, and last, how Aquinas’s architectonic clarifies the relationship between God's essential names and transcendentality.     

Kant's Quasi‐Transcendental Argument for a Necessary and Universal Evil Propensity in Human Nature

In Part One of Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason, Kant repeatedly refers to a “proof” that human nature has a necessary and universal “evil propensity,” but he provides only obscure hints at its location. Interpreters have failed to identify such an argument in Part One. After examining relevant passages, summarizing recent attempts to reconstruct the argument, and explaining why these do not meet Kant's stated needs, I argue that the elusive proof must have a transcendental form (called quasi‐transcendental because Kant never uses “transcendental” in Religion). With deceptive simplicity, the section titles of Part One, viewed as components in an architechtonic system of religion, constitute steps in just such a proof.     

“You knit me together in my mother’s womb”: a theology of creation and divine action in light of intersex

ABSTRACT

Some Christian theologians and intersex Christians maintain that intersex is part of God’s good and intended creation, in contrast to those who view intersex as a pathological result of fallen nature. The former claim that intersex bodies “are how God made them” and that “God does not make mistakes;” however, these statements risk implying a belief in special creation or divine intervention, two theological positions which have been challenged by evolutionary theory and contemporary natural sciences. This paper provides a more nuanced theology of creation and divine action as a foundation for a positive theology of intersex. Drawing from the work of Thomas Aquinas on primary and secondary causality, the author argues that God, as primary cause, creates the intersex person through the free interplay of secondary causes, in the same way and to the same extent that God acts in the creation of every other person.     

Bocheński's Formalization of Summa Theologiae (Ia,75,6) Reconsidered

I investigate Bocheński's first-order logic formalization of the argument for the incorruptibility of the human soul given by Aquinas in Summa Theologiae (Ia,75,6). I suggest a slightly different axiomatization that reflect better Aquinas' informal argument. Along the way, I also fix a mistake in Bocheński's derivation that the human soul is not corruptible per se.     

Was Thomas Aquinas a Sociobiologist? Thomistic Natural Law,Rational Goods,and Sociobiology

Abstract. Traditional Darwinian theory presents two difficulties for Thomistic natural‐law morality: relativism and essentialism. The sociobiology of E. O. Wilson seems to refute the idea of evolutionary relativism. Larry Arnhart has argued that Wilson's views on sociobiology can provide a scientific framework for Thomistic natural‐law theory. However, in his attempt to reconcile Aquinas's views with Wilson's sociobiology, Arnhart fails to address a critical feature of Aquinas's ethics: the role of rational goods in natural law. Arnhart limits Aquinas's understanding of rationality to the Humean notion of economic rationality–that “reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions.” On Aquinas's view, rationality discovers goods that transcend the merely biological, viz., the pursuit of truth, virtue, and God. I believe that Aquinas's natural‐law morality is consistent with some accounts of sociobiology but not the more ontologically reductionist versions like the one presented by Wilson and defended by Arnhart. Moreover, Aquinas's normative account of rationality is successful in refuting the challenges of evolutionary relativism as well as the reductionism found in most sociobiological approaches to ethics.     

Francis Collins,the Skeptics,and Evidence for God

Skeptical Inquirer magazine has published an attempted refutation of Francis Collins' book, The Language of God. The refutation argues that Collins lacks scientific evidence for God and that Collins actually appeals not to evidence, but to personal belief. In refutation of this refutation, Ted Peters argues that Collins plays completely within the rules of scientific discourse while providing rational evidence—though not conclusive proof—for the existence of God as creator and moral lawgiver.     

‘We Pray by His Mouth’: Karl Barth,Erving Goffman,and a Theology of Invocation

Rereading the opening question of the Westminster Catechism, “What is the chief end of man?”, I contend in this essay that the act of invocation — giving God thanks, praise, and petitions — is the act in and through which human being itself is founded, constituted and achieved. I take important cues from Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics and The Christian Life, and from sociologist Erving Goffman's work on the shifting “footings” involved in everyday interactions. I argue for an account of the human being as a being‐with‐God, human acting as acting‐with‐God, and human salvation as a restoration to the genuine human partner's work — indeed, the true leitourgia— of thanks, praise and petition to God.     

THE LOST LEGACY OF ANSELM'S ARGUMENT: RE‐THINKING THE PURPOSE OF PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD

In his Proslogion, Anselm presents a proof for God's existence which has attracted a tremendous amount of scholarly attention. In spite of all that has been said about this proof and proofs for God's existence more generally, scholarly consensus seems to dissipate when it comes to determining whether theistic proofs are persuasive and sound. In this article, I will argue that there is a way to provide compelling proof for the existence of God. To substantiate this claim, I will not attempt to prove that God exists apart from His revelation in any of the ways that have been advocated by various philosophers of religion. Rather, I will endeavor to explain that Anselm's approach to offering evidence for God's existence is quite different from the approach that modern philosophers tend to attribute to him and to elaborate on what that approach involves by reading Anselm's argument in the context of Augustine's De Trinitate and the whole of the Proslogion.     

“Shining in the Light of Your Glory”: Finding the Simple Reading of Scripture

This essay argues that without allowing for a legitimate extra‐biblical reasoning for the appropriateness of God's “simplicity,” Christians will be compelled biblically to affirm that God, as such, has a body — or at least Christians will have to accept this as a theologically possible reading of Scripture that cannot be ruled out. Barnes first cites ancient philosophical sources that argue that God has no parts but is utterly simple. In Barnes's quick sketch, the main role is given to Plotinus and especially to the summation found in Alcuinus's Didaskalon X.7 (Alcuinus is known also as Albinus). Barnes then examines readings of Israel's Scriptures that indicate the bodiliness of God (YHWH). Most importantly, divine bodiliness comports with the “plain sense” of Scripture. Here he draws upon such works as Benjamin Sommer's The Bodies of God, Stephen Moore's “Gigantic God,” and Tryggve Mettinger's The Dethronement of Sabaoth; and he also makes reference to the work of the Jewish kabbalist scholar Gershom Scholem. Barnes carefully investigates such passages as Exodus 33, in which God is clearly presented as having bodily parts, including a “face.” As Barnes notes, the Fathers’ arguments for why God does not have a body are tied completely to their arguments for why God exists simply.     

The problem of evil: skeptical theism leads to moral paralysis

Natural disasters would seem to constitute evidence against the existence of God, for, on the face of things, it is mysterious why a completely good and all-powerful God would allow the sort of suffering we see from earthquakes, diseases, and the like. The skeptical theist replies that we should not expect to be able to understand God’s ways, and thus we should not regard it as surprising or mysterious that God would allow natural evil. I argue that skeptical theism leads to moral paralysis: accepting skeptical theism would undermine our ability to make any moral judgments whatsoever. Second, and more briefly, I argue that skeptical theism would undercut our ability to accept any form of the argument from design, including recent approaches based on fine-tuning.     

Religion, Science, and Evolution: Paul Tillich's Fourth Way

Abstract. In his book God After Darwin John Haught provides a useful categorization of theological approaches to evolution: some theologians actively oppose Darwinian evolution, another group maintains that science and religion have nothing to say to one another, and a third seeks to engage evolution. Haught wishes to pursue the third way. But many theological attempts to talk about divine action in the world, including divine involvement in the process of evolution, run afoul of the scientific principle of the conservation of matter‐energy. Haught's reliance on the now‐familiar notion that information can have causal efficacy does not in fact escape this difficulty. I suggest a fourth approach, represented by a constructive reading of Paul Tillich's theology. The central argument is that Tillich offers a way of taking Darwinian evolution up into one's ultimate concern without claiming that God has any causal relation to evolution. God provides no historical telos for evolution, but rather a “depth teleology” that springs from the manner in which God, as the depth of the structure of finite being, is the object of Christian faith.     

Structural causality in Spinoza's Ethics

In this paper, I argue that Spinoza's claim at E1P15 that “Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God” remains exegetically troubling. Briefly noting some unresolved difficulties with the two dominant interpretations of Spinoza's account of the relationship between finite modes and God (these being the inherence and causal dependence readings), I move to claim that there is a third, neglected reading available which deserves consideration. I argue that, perhaps surprisingly, Althusser's notion of “structural causality,” putatively derived from Spinoza himself, can be used to construct this reading. Althusser's original notion of “structural causality” is explained and clarified further, its advantages outlined over competing readings of Spinoza, and exegetical evidence for its applicability to Spinoza is then produced.     

The Causality Distinction,Kenosis, and a Middle Way: Aquinas and Polkinghorne on Divine Action

This article evaluates and considers two important philosophical contributions to the discussion considering divine action in the work of Thomas Aquinas and John Polkinghorne. Aquinas argues that God employs both primary and secondary causality, in that God causes some events directly by divine power and others by means of secondary causes. Polkinghorne argues that this approach makes God the author of evil and opts instead for a “kenotic approach” to divine action, wherein God chooses to “empty” God's self of complete divine control. We think that these views can complement each other and need not represent mutually exclusive alternatives.