phil203 final

If Heather is goodness, then being Heather and being good are the same thing and vice versa.

If Heather has goodness, then:

-Being good is distinct from being Heather.

-Heather is good due to her relationship with something else

-Being that thing is the same as being good.

It's goodness changes

There are other good things:
-Suppose being Heather is the same thing as being good.
-Therefore, everything that is good will also be Heather
-But there are good things that aren't Heather

If it lacks some goodness:
-Suppose being Heather is the same thing as being good
-Then there will be no goodness that Heather lacks
-But there are lots of good things that Heather doesn't have

-Differentiating between what has goodness rather than is goodness helps to differentiate Being vs Having

Heather is goodness

Heather has goodness

Also, Heather is cat-ness

Heather has cat-ness.

1. Actual
note that per se just means intrinsically
-if x is not actual per se but has actuality, then God must bestow and sustain x's actuality

2. Existent
-if x does not exist per se but has existence, then God must bestow and sustain x's acuality

3. Necessary
-if x is not necesary per se but has necessity, then God must bestow and sustain x's necessity

4. Perfect
-if x is not perfect per se but has perfection, then God must bestow and sustain x's perfection

5. Intelligent
-if x is not directed towards its end per se but is so directed, then God must bestow and sustain x's direction towards its end

1. x changes with respect to y

2. x is not the only thing that is y

3. x is not imperfectly y

4. x is caused to be y

No, He is not a body according to the firstpoint of the 5 ways (which refers to actuality). God is the prime mover who gives actuality to everything else. The first being of necessicty must be in act and in no way potentiality. In contrast, every body has some potency.

Also, no body is in motion unless it be put in motion. Since God is the first mover and is himself unmoved, it follows that God is not a body.

If God were a body, He would share in our potential states, which precedre our actual states. However, God is pure actuality, so he possesses no potentiality. Instead, God bestows actuality out of potentiality.

Motion is the reduction of potency to actuality

Whatever is in potentiality can be reduced into actuality only by some being in actuality

Everything moves another because of God (the Prime Mover)

Therefore, being God is the same thing as being actual

Birth is a motion because something possible has happened in actuality.

Sun-tanning is a motion because tanning is a possible thing to happen, but then it actually happened.

You can say that things act only to the extent that things are actual. To be a mover, something has to be actual rather than potential.

God moves and makes everything else move, so being God is the same thing as being actual. Everything that moves has a certain participation in divinity, because their actuality comes from God.

1. Actual

2. Existent

3. Necessary

4. Perfect

5. Intelligent

-perfection of composite is form, composites have perefection give to them by their form

-God is perfection. So, if God is composed of matter and form we have a contradiction since matter is what can be everything but is actually nothing. Form is what perfects matter.

-God is pure form

-if God is a composite of form and matter, then God is identical with neither his form nor his matter

- If God is a composite of form and matter, then God is identical with neither His form nor His matter
- This establishes the complete difference between God and everything else in the world
- Everything is not identical with it’s form, nor it’s matter. Rather, everything is identical with the composite of form and matter
- Important going forward to show that God is not a composite of form and matter

No, God is not a composite of form and matter:

Reason 1: (there is an example in Oct. 19th notes if needing clarification)
- Everything composed of matter and form has its perfection because of the perfection that form gives to the matter
- Therefore, everything composed of form and matter has perfection
- Therefore, nothing composed of matter and form is perfection
- But being God is the same thing as being perfect
- matter is what can be everything but actually is nothing

Reason 2:
- Everything is composed of matter and form has its actuality because of the actuality that the form gives to the matter
- Everything composed of matter and form has its agency because of the agency that the form gives to the matter
- Therefore, everything composed of form and matter has agency
- Therefore, nothing composed of matter and form is agency
- But being God is the same thing as having agency
- form by bestowing actuality is going to bestow agency

-we can get divine omnipotence from these reasons right away because God's agency is unlimited -- he is agency

-God is going to be the thing that has agency per se (through himself) and gives agency to everything is

-we can get divine omnipotence from these reasons right away because God's agency is unlimited -- he is agency

- If Heather is a cat, then either
1. Being Heather is the same thing as being a cat (relationship of identity between Heather and her essence)
2. Being Heather is not the same thing as being a cat AND:
- Heather is the subject of the essence of cat-ness (subject possessing their essence)
- Heather possesses cat-ness

- another example: what is my relationship with my humanity? am I identical with my humanity or do I possess the essence of my humanity?
- you don’t meet people who say they are humanity, rather, you possess your humanity

- remember there are 4 ways we can tell that x has y
1. x changes with respect to y
- Heather can’t stop being a cat and still be Heather. Since there is a possibility of imperfect, she can’t completely stop being a cat but she can more or less fully realize her cat (she can more or less become a more perfect cat)
- this is the usually the most obvious, but it is not a very reliable, definitive test

2. x is not the only thing that is y
- There are lots of cats that aren’t Heather. So, essence is not the same as the subject
- more of a reliable, definitive test

3. x is not imperfectly y
- No cat is going to be a perfect cat, even if they were, they were kittens once so they could fall short of what they ought to be. However, nothing can fall short of itself
- more of a reliable definitive test

4. x is caused to be y
- Heather is caused to be a cat because she is a composite of form and matter. Her form causes her to be cat.

-what a thing is

-the essence of Heather the cat is being a cat

-most things are a composite of essence and subject (most things are individual subjects that have an essence)

-form is first principle of essence

-matter is the principle of individuality

- Form gives essence, since God is pure form, God is identical with his essence. Also, since God does not have matter, God does not have the principle of individuality

- Matter is what allows there to be many cats that have the same essence (they’re all cats), but for God, he is pure form. From simplicity, you get uniqueness

Everything that has rather than is existence is composed of two different principles.

Essence= nature, quiddity, what something is.

Existence = the act of being.

Essence limits the act of being and therefore allows there to be many different things that exist.

- being something is how its active existence has been limited and specified
- one way to visualize this is with shapes:
- drawing a triangle on a blank whiteboard limits the space to the triangle
- combination of the act of being and a lack of being
- also, part of what it is to be a cat is not to be a dog

- God is existence, so he cannot be lacking in anyway of existing

- we can say that God is infinite, there are no limits on God. He is existence, he is the fullness of the lack of being. There’s no way of being that isn’t in some part what it is to be God

here is helps to remind myself that:
-existence: the act of being
-essence (defined as nature/what something is) limits the act of being and therefore allows there to be many different things that exist.
-being something is how its active existence has been limited and specified
- combination of the act of being and a lack of being
- part of what it is to be a cat is not to be a dog

- Review of tests for having versus not having
- Other things possess them
- Can change
- Limitation
- Subjects and their accidents are different things. The subject has its actuality, and the accident has its actuality, so they are separate actualities.
- in other words, if heather were all by herself orange, then she would need the accident of orange to make her orange
- God **is** actuality, there is nothing he lacks in actuality
- An accident is something that the subject lacks in and of itself. But God doesn’t lack anything, so it doesn’t follow that God can have accidents
- there is nothing actual that can be added to God that is distinct from himself
- instead, things (e.g., wisdom, justice) are identical with his existence

*Argument for P2*
- If God created the world, then it would not contain any evil. BECAUSE
- If the effect of an agent can contain evil for only one of two reasons:
- impotence of the part of the agent
- malice on thee part of the agent
- God is omnipotent and perfectly good (infinitely powerful, benevolent, wise)
- Therefore, no effect of God can contain any evil

*Aquinas' Answer*
-God uses evil as a tool to bring about a greater good
-Only a perfectly good and omnipotent agent can do this
- two examples from the bible:
1. Story of Joseph in the book of Genesis
2. The crucification of Jesus

1. Series is simultaneous
- One of the hallmarks of the essentially ordered series
2. Series has a single cause for every member of the series

- Essentially: first mover that causes the causality of the other things in the series
- Accidentally: each agent can move on its own

In an essentially order causal series, the first cause causes the causal power of all the intermediate members

In an accidentally ordered causal series, every causes possesses its causal power through itself
Early members cause the subsequent causes

If the series is infinite, there is no beginning cause and no last effect
-So, the first cause caused the casual power, so no. It cannot be infinite because if we take away the first cause there cannot be subsequent causes
-An accidentally ordered cause can be infinite because every cause possesses its own causal power

Dialectical reasoning:
-Jump right to topic you're interested in talking about, then you consider the topic, each possible answer, and then you pursue both to get a contradiction from one of them
-Don't build up to it, you start with the question itself and then find a contradiction
-Allows you to jump ahead to a topic

Demonstrative reasoning:
-Building up from first principles
-Chain of deductive reasoning
-The way the question is investigated is the opposite of dialectical reasoning where you build up to the question rather than begin with the question

Averroes is going to be very hard on people who practice dialectical reasoning because they are able to speak about the metaphysics without actually studying it

If you are a Muslim with the requisite abilities, he argues you should read Aristotle

-legal document

-The consideration of existing things is commanded by the Quran, philosophy is the consideration of existing things, therefore, it is commanded
This is a classic argument from analogy

Only people with a certain amount of virtue are able to do philosophy
-Lacking virtue means you are not capable of doing philosophy
-It is rigorous and hard, if you are not a virtuous person, you will not be able to commit yourself to it
-Philosophy is going to reveal your wickedness if you are a wicked person and decide to pursue philosophy
-Would engage in sloppy reasoning
-Wouldn't know if they are pursuing the truth or self-justification of wickedness
-So, his first conclusion is that people who are not sufficiently intelligent or virtuous cannot pursue philosophy, but those who are ought to pursue philosophy

-First, we have to realize that there's a bunch of conclusions we're going to come to that the law is silent about
-Also, there is going to be agreement

When there is a conflict between a demonstration and what is written in the Quran or law, then we must assume that the Quran is using metaphorical language
-The words on the page, are they a metaphor or not?

-Due to people's variant dispositions and their abilities to ascent
-Some people are not capable of grasping the metaphorical meaning, if you were to explain the metaphorical meaning, they would not be able to ascent
and it would led to disbelief
Eg) someone who believes God lives in the sky on a throne, if you were to tell them he doesn't actually literally live in the sky on a throne, then you tell them he is actually an immaterial being, that would prompt their disbelief because they cannot grasp the concept of God being immaterial. Instead, they would just hear that God does not exist.

In order for there to be such a consensus, we need to limit an epoch, know all the learned men in that epoch as individuals and in their schools, the doctrine of each of them, and that doctrine has to come to us through an uninterrupted and reliable transmission, and certified to us that the men aren't doing a doing a double teaching
-If they're doing a double teaching, then we wouldn't know what their true opinion is
-They could be hiding the true metaphorical meaning for the sake of those who may be lead to disbelief upon learning the metaphorical meaning (those who do not have adequate intellect or virtue)

-Possible to agree because there is an established tradition
-If we have a text from a great scholar, we can trust that they mean what they say

-This is not the case with theoretical matters
-Rather, Averroes believes in the literal and metaphorical sense
-Literal sense is to be put forward as it were true to protect people

-Another way of saying it is who are those who are "well-grounded in science" (p. 9)
-Faith coming about from demonstration is the difference
-People who are qualified to interpret metaphorical sense are those who know Aristotle
-Full Aristotelean study

-Certain parts of Quran that only those who have done Aristotelean demonstrations can recognize metaphorical sense
-Inner sense: reveals themselves only to those adept in demonstration
-Outer sense: literal meaning
-Averroes is the one who can interpret Quran correctly because he has studied Aristotle

Averroes:
1. Putting forward a legal opinion (differing formats)
2. Philosophy is in the Aristotelean tradition
3. Know supra-rational theological knowledge
-Nothing in Quran you can't figure out using Aristotle
4. Real (metaphorical) versus dumbed down sense (literal)
-Much closer to the debate that's more common to us now
5. Consensus and definitive interpretation is not possible
-Unlike Aquinas, Averroes doesn't have a higher authoritative power like a Pope to appeal to if there is dispute in the interpretation of the literal meaning

Aquinas:
-More philosophical format -- disputed question
-Philosophy is in the Aristotelean tradition
-Lots of supra-rational knowledge
1. Lots of things we aren't capable of knowing
1 literal sense (signification, could be through metaphors) and then there is 3 metaphorical (signification of the signification of the words)
2. Metaphorical is only accessible to you if you get the literal sense
3. Literal sense seems to be much more important
-Images and likenesses are for everyone
1. Not just for the uneducated and simple
2. Rather, all of us only have access to certain divine truths through images
3. All of our knowledge comes from reflecting upon sensible things
4. Sense in which everything we say about God has to be metaphorical
-Can't speak about/think about God without referring to images that we know

-Human reason properly employed will reveal to us the existence of God

1. Demonstrable
-Give an argument, conclusion of which is the existence of God

2. Self evident
-Something like the law of non contradiction
-Self evident to human reason, cannot give a direct proof for its truth
-Only way to verify the truth of a self evident proposition of through a reductio
-If you deny the self evident proposition, then some absurdity will come from that denial

-imagine that God exists and that he communicated a set of truths about Himself, about humans, and about the correct relationship between Himself and humans.

-a set of truths that are revealed by God

-revealed by Jesus Christ, through the apostles

-preserved in both scripture and tradition

-interpreted and defined by the Magisterium (teaching office) of the Catholic Church

-man's final end is friendship with God

-truths about God and man revealed to man by God which are necessary or useful for man to achieve his final end

-truths of sacred doctrine include i) truths that can be known only by revelation (eg., The Trinity); ii) truths that can be known by human reason but only with difficulty (eg., The existence of God & Immortality of the Soul)

eg)
i) The Trinity
ii) The immortality of the soul
iii) The Evangelical Precepts -- poverty, chastity, and obedience

-sets of interconnected deductive arguments can be grouped into a science

-all sciences are a series of deductive arguments that demonstrate (prove with absolute certainty) truths about their subject matter

-subject matter

-first principles

-methodology

-truths you don't need to be taught; things you instinctively know

-all sciences are a series of deductive arguments that demonstrate (prove with absolute certainty) truths about their subject matter

-these series cannot be infinite

-instead, they must start with premise that are accepted as true (first principles)

-Euclidean geometry:
1. A straight line segment can be drawn joining any two points.
2. Any straight line segment can be extended indefinitely in a straight line.
3. Given any straight lines segment, a circle can be drawn having the segment as radius and one endpoint as center.
4. All Right Angles are congruent.
5. Two parallel lines will never meet.

-self evident (their denial would violate the law of non-contradiction)

-conclusions of a deductive argument in another science

-sense experience

i) all different ways of answering the question 'why does this exist'

-material: what it's made of

-formal: what it is

-efficient: what made it

-final: what it's for


ii) why does this table exist?

-formal: it has four legs and a flat top

-material: it is made of wood (so can hold a shape)

-efficient: I assembled it from the parts provided

-final: I can sit and eat dinner at it

-explains the other three

-the material, formal, and efficient causes are what they are BECAUSE they realize the final cause

-this cause dictates acceptable variation in the other three

-the end towards which something is direct by its own nature (eg., a cat using a litter box)

-the end towards which something is direct by another (eg., training a dog to herd sheep)

-divided into:

i) act: that which exists now

ii) potency: that which does not exist now but can exist later

-divided into:

i) the essential existence or the substantial existence of a thing
eg., a cat exists, and this is existence simpliciter (absolutely)

ii) the accidental existence of a thing
eg., a cat is white, and this is existence secundum quid (in a respect)

-causes existence in act/actual existence/existence in actuality

-divided into:

i) substantial form: causes substantial existence in act
eg., being human

ii) accidental form: causes accidental existence in act
eg., being blonde

-causes existence in potency:

-if the potency is for substantial existence, then the matter is called the matter from which and prime matter
--> the substantial form gives existence to this matter

-if the potency is for accidental existence, then the matter is called the matter in which and the subject
--> the accidental form does not give existence to the subject rather the subject gives existence to the accidental form.

-some 'matter' is really a composition of matter and form
eg., bronze is the matter of a statue but is composed of matter and form

-some matter no form at all; this is prime matter

-form is the principle of actual existence and, therefore, knowability

-therefore, prime matter by itself does not exist and cannot be known

-a change from non-existence to existence

two kinds:
i) substantial: by which something begins or cease to exist simpliciter (absolutely)

ii) accidental: by which something begins or cease to exist secundum quid (in a respect)

-a change from existence to non-existence

-two kinds:

i) substantial: by which something begins or cease to exist simpliciter (absolutely)

ii) accidental: by which something begins or cease to exist secundum quid (in a respect)

-being in potency which is matter

-non-existence in act which is privation

-that through which something comes to be in act which is form

-privation not negation is the principle

-said only of a determined subject/matter in which the form can come to be

-negation is not

eg) stones possess the negation of seeing but newborn puppies possess the privation

-the agent

-matter, form, and privation are necessary but insufficient for generation

-because potency cannot reduce itself to act
eg) the bronze which is in potency to being a statue cannot cause itself to become a statue,

-instead, there must be an agent that makes the form pass from potency to act

-every agent acts only if it acts for some determinate effect

eg)
i) Fire burns rather than freezes
ii) Fish swim rather than fly and in one direction rather than another
iii) Eyes see rather than hear

-this determinate effect is called the end or that for the sake of which the agent acts

-every agent, both natural and voluntary, intends an end

-voluntary agent must know and deliberate about their end because they may act for opposed ends

-natural agent's actions are determined and they cannot act for opposed ends

-therefore, they do not need to know their end or deliberate about it

-many other classes, it is impossible to take them all
-so, you have to decide on what class to take

-automatic process, you don't have to try to see it so long as your eyes are open and facing the right direction

-literal: the signification of the word on the page, the claim that the words on the page are making, might make that claim through a metaphor, have to understand the genre and other things to determine literal meaning

-spiritual (has 3 senses):

i) allegorical: having hidden spiritual meaning that transcends the literal sense of a sacred text; by which we understand the events recorded in the Bible by recognizing how they point to Christ
eg) the parting of the Red Sea is a metaphor for passing from life to death

ii) moral: teaches us how Christ desires his disciples to act
eg) Jesus washing of the feet is a symbol for doing things that are lowly, gross, socially low status but we should do these to help one another

iii) anagogical: most important one, in that it is how all the things signified by the words in the bible reveal things about God himself; necessarily metaphorical because we are making claims about what God is like based on other claims that we have made about things we can see

anagogical from a different website: reveals the eternal significance of events and realities recorded in the Bible; that is, it relates the events to death, the final judgment, hell, and heaven. This sense is very apparent in the parables of Jesus that involve the judgment at the end of time, like the separation of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46)

1) the things that give you actuality is your i) form, and the thing that gives you your form is the ii) efficient cause, and the thing that tells you what actuality you're suppose to have is the iii) final cause

2) this relates to being because being is a combination of potency and actuality, where potency's principle of matter/material cause, and the things that give actuality are the interrelated causes of form, efficient cause, and final cause

3) fish are for living their fish way of life, and form tells you all the things the fish is going to have to have their fish life.

4) This setup gives us a means to define how something is perfect. Something is perfect when it has all the actuality that it needs to complete its final cause. A fish that’s missing some of its fins is an imperfect fish because it lacks the means to live its fish way of life.

So, we can talk about grades of perfection with respect to an individual, but also with respect to comparing individuals of different species.

This helps with individuals, but we can look at this from the great scale of being as a whole.

At the bottom is prime matter, and prime matter doesn’t really have anything. At the top, we have God, because God has everything. As such, we can put other things in the scale, like rocks, plants, animals, and humans. (This is from less actual to more actual). We build up our scale of perfection because Aquinas understands that plants do everything that rocks do, and more. They have mass and take up space, but plants take nutrients and reproduce. Animals do the same thing that plants do, but they do more; they move around and sense. Same things with humans, and so on. So, plants are related to rocks in the sense of the perfect/imperfect, the more complete vs. the less complete. In the span of things that you can do and be, plants have more of that than rocks.

Being a plant is a more complete/perfect way of being than being a rock.

Of course, within the range has an even bigger range. There could be sick plants and healthy plants just as we can have sick humans and healthy humans. Also with morality, as well as maturity. You will have more or less perfect humans based on more or less actualizing what it means to be a human being.

God has this characteristic of being most perfect from his status as first principle.

1) God has this characteristic of being most perfect from his status as first principle.

For God to be the first cause, He has to be the most perfect. He is the first principle not as the material cause rather, He is the first efficient cause of necessary existence. The efficient cause needs actuality to bring something from potency to actuality. Efficient causes have to be either greater than or equal to in actuality to the form they put in the matter. Efficient causes give existence to things via actuality. So, since God is the first existent, God is pure actuality out of necessity. If God is pure actuality, and things are perfect to the extent that they are actual, it follows that God is pure perfection. Moreover, if an agent is actuality insofar as it gives actuality to matter, and God as pure actuality bestows and sustains actuality onto form, then God must be the fullness of perfection.

2) Just as matter only has so much potentiality, an agent is actuality insofar as it gives actuality to matter. God can do anything, but He can become nothing. All of the things on the scale can become something and do something, but not others, because they are a mixture of matter and form.

So the reason why plants can do and don’t do others, it’s because they are a combination of matter and potency. God has to be unlimited actuality therefore unlimited perfection. Whatever is most actual is most agent, and is most perfect. As such, God has unlimited agency through himself, therefore unlimited actuality, therefore unlimited perfection.

Because my matter is different from my existence. But God is different in that His matter and existence is the same.

Existence is the most common and basic thing (prime matter) and we start adding stuff (perfection) to existence. So to say “God is existence” means that it’s kind of like Prime Matter. Hence, we need to clarify what we mean by existence, because Pythagoras might have a point lol.

Aquinas’ response is linking existence with actuality. Yes, you either exist or you don’t, but you start adding actuality on top of existence. God would be the means in which everything realizes their actuality. Aquinas wants to show that existence is much fuller than saying “you exist or you don’t.”

Nothing has actuality except insofar as it exists (40), so forms cannot give actuality unless they exist. Forms are related to actuality as potency is related to actuality. As form to matter, so is existence to form, so is existence to essence. Forms are things that can exist, and essences are things that can exist. So when a form exists, a potency has been actualized; a possibility has been realized. The thing that caused the realization was existence.

Existence is nothing like prime matter; it’s not that which receives everything. Potency receives, but actuality is what is received via potency. When we talk about something like humans or horses, that is just something that has received actuality, instead of something that belongs to existence. You basically understand something actual. When we say that God is pure existence, we say that God is the fullness of being; the fullness of actuality. To be the fullness of being is to be completely actual, being all the things.

1. you desire your own perfection

2. what is perfective to you (the thing that causes your perfection)

the perfect = the actual = the existent --> so, if the perfect is the actual, then the actual is the existent

-there is a relationship built into the concept: we can say something is being, but when we talk about something being *my* good then we are talking about the being I ought to have because of the thing I have

- the thing doing a lot of work here is the sense of the desirable being the perfect
- the thing we want is the actuality we want to have
- Aquinas is using desirable in this very, very broad sense —> we tend to think of desire just in terms of animals and humans
- for them, it can mean anything towards which you are inclined
- there is a sense in which everything is inclined towards its own perfection

1) everything action is the actualization of the potency --> that's what we do when we act, we go from potency to act
eg) we start walking; or when the lights turn on and we start seeing

action = the actualization of a potency
-everything action seeks a perfection --> this can either be in yourself or anoter (in this case of perfecting another, you are perfecting it)

2) the good is whatever a perfection is that an action produces

-everything that can action is trying to produce is an existent, but when we talk about the good it is baked in there that there is an agent in there seeking the good (either yourself or another) --> there is this relativeness baked in there

-every action seeks a good --> some actions will seek better good than others

something can exist without being good
eg) there are people that can exist that don't seem to be very good

being = the actual not potential

so, when I say something exists, I say it exists in actuality NOT in potentiality

-baseline reason why something is not potential

-by being, I can say what is actual, by which I mean what is not potential, by which I mean has substantial form/substantial existence

eg) a human exists in this --> an actual human exists in this room, but not a potential one --> a human has substantial form

so, the primary baseline of being is substantial existence

the substantial form, not the accidental form is the reason why something is a being
-rather, accidental forms explain why something exists in a certain way
-without the substantial form, there can be no accidents

eg) without a human being (subtantial form), there can be no accidents (like a tan)

-being good in an unqualified sense equals ultimately perfect (in diagram form: good = ultimately perfect, completely actual)

-ultimately perfect means to be completely actual as the thing that you are
eg) a completely actual human is going to know everything because they have a completely actual intellect, there is no potential left to actaulize

because final casue will tell you the perfections you ought to have
-final cause will tell you how good or not you are, as the thing you are
eg) human ought to have hair; fish ought to not have hair

it is one thing to be good (refers to accidental existence), it is another thing to be (refers to substantial existence)

no, it is impossible for humans to be unqualifiedly good, rather, humans can be qualifiedly good

they are really identical and conceptually distinct
- eg) the evening star and the morning star are the conceptually distinct but really identical because they are both Venus

the good = what is desired = perfection = actuality = existence
- relational concept built in, when we say something is good, we also say it is a being and it is desired
- another way of saying desire is seeking or is directed towards
- being is something to which good is directed towards as its final cause
- from this, it follows that being is the one that is conceptually prior
- to understand what goodness is, you must first understand what being is since being is what goodness desires

existence is not the only thing that we want, so the good is a more universal concept than existence so the two are not really identical

1) being —> actual —> perfection —> desirable —> good
- being therefore actual, everything desires perfection, so perfection is desired, desirable equals the good
- in other words, every kind of being is perfecting something, they are making something exist as the thing that it is, therefore it is good

2) - being / actuality
- being is split into substantial (makes something exist as it is) and accidental (removes potency and makes something exist) form
- anything that exists is going to be perfecting something
- eg) your hair color doesn’t matter, but your hair has potency to be color when it exists
- all humans beings are innately good insofar as we have a substantial form
- but, when we say good in an unqualified way we mean having all the accidental forms we ought to have
- no human is innately good if we mean good in this unqualified sense because no human is born having all the accidental forms we ought to have (one of the accidental forms we do not have when we are born is knowledge)

Basically, something good means that it is desirable. The good is what all things desire. And what all good things desire is perfection. What makes something perfect is if it is actual, and what makes something actual is actual insofar as it has being. So:

Good → Desirable → Perfection → Actual → Being

Aquinas thinks we can go the other way too; Everything insofar as it has being has an actuality. Everything that is actual is a perfection. Everything that exists does so as a perfection of something. Something perfects its actuality insofar as it removes a potency from something. Everything that is actual is a perfection, and everything that is a perfection is desirable, and everything that is desirable is a good. So:

Being → Actual → Perfection → Desirable → Good

This means that everything that exists is loved, is good, and is desired by something and is valuable to something. There is nothing that exists that doesn’t perfect, and therefore isn’t loved by the thing that it perfects.

This is tied between the being and having in an essentially ordered series. What makes something essentially ordered instead of accidentally is that, in an essentially ordered series, things have their power from the first cause. The first cause bestows the causal power. The standard example is the hand, rope, bucket, and water (centrifugal force). The hand bestows the causal power to the rope, then to the bucket, then to the water. So there is a sense in which all the motion in the system is really participating in the motion of the hand. The rope and the bucket don’t have their own motion; rather, they’re getting a share of the motion of the hand, which is what we mean by “participation.”

When a parent has a child, this is not contingent on the grandparents - therefore no participation. Remember, each member of that series has the capability to produce offspring, making it accidental. That’s why participation can only exist in an essentially ordered series. ***We’re just giving vocabulary for a concept we already covered in class basically.***

1) allows a) subject and accident and b) essence and existence

2) According to Ghazali, we can't call God the highest good because it's a violation of divine simplicity. He argues:

Is God the Highest Good?

This is trivially true, but let’s see the objections.

- Being the highest good adds something to being good; if it did not, then every good being would also be the highest good.

If every good was better, then we wouldn’t have a scale of who’s better. If you say there is a highest good, you give more information than saying “this thing is good.”

But everything that is related to something else by addition is thereby composed.

The highest good is a composition of two different things; good, and highest.

Therefore the highest good is composed. But God is utterly simple, as shown above (see lecture notes, Nov. 14 'how this applies)

So basically, they’re trying to attack God being a composed. This is Al-Ghazali. We can’t call God the highest good because it’s a violation of divine simplicity.

- formal resemblance between agent and effect
- eg) you and your parents have a formal resemblance, you are both human beings. your parents are both related to you as a univocal agent
- these agents tend to form accidentally ordered series

- Equivocal agent
- analogous resemblance between agent and effect
- no formal resemblance, so will not be of the same species
- these agents tend to form essentially ordered series
- eg)
- i) hand, rope, bucket, water —> the centripetal form is the equivocal agent, it is not the same as the circular motion but there is a relationship there. The amount of centripetal force depends on the amount of circular motion
- ii) if we take white light and split it into a bunch of different colors —> initial agent is the white light and there is still a resemblance between the white light and the many colors but they do not have a formal resemblance since white light is not the same of red/ blue/etc. light. But, since these colors come from white light being spread out, white light is still the agent (white light) of the effect (coloured light)
- most things that happen are going to happen because of interactions between both kinds of agents (univocal and equivocal) and series (essentially and accidently)

--> Aquinas is saying these are the main ones though

- God is absolutely the highest good because everything good comes from God
- God is the cause of everything good

-God is the source of all being. Being and goodness are convertible, everything that is good is a being and everything that is a being is good. Since God is the source of all being, he is the source of all good.

-God is an equivocal agent. As such, He possesses what He causes but in a more excellent way. The agents of equivocal causes surpass their effects because the agent has what the effect has but in a more excellent way. God is an equivocal cause not a univocal cause because He bears no formal resemblence to His causes. Also, equivocal causes form essentially ordered series.

So, since God is the first equivocal cause, and the agent of equivocal causes surpasses their effects, it follows that God must be the highest good/most excellent

what makes something good is perfection.

nov 16:
- i) existence (another way of talking about substantial form)
- eg) you are more perfect than Santa Clause, insofar as you exist and he does not
- ii) accidents
- accidents that allow us to achieve our final cause is what is important
- eg) the accident of hair color is not the focus. rather, the focus is the ability to achieve knowledge for humans
- iii) attains final cause
- eg) we can think of this in terms of a baker, you need certain knowledge to be a baker, there are certain accidents you can have to be a better baker (these don’t make you a baker, but they do help), and then the most perfect baker is the one who can make the most perfect cake and has made the most perfect

in other words (from dif. notes; nov 18):
1. Perfect in existence

You are more perfect than Santa Claus, insofar that you exist and he doesn’t. This is the substantial

2. There are additional accidents that are necessary for its perfect operation

Existence is another way of talking about substantial form. This is referring to stuff like knowledge and sight that are necessary for us to be actual.

These are special accidents. Yes, every accident infers a kind of perfection, but what we really care about are those accidents that allow us to achieve their final cause.

3. Realizing or achieving your final cause (that’s what Aquinas means by “end”)

AKA, the attaining of its end.

This threefold perfection belongs to no creature through its essence. None of us, because we are what we are, have our perfection. Our perfection is always something that is added to us. We’ve already seen why as well: In the case of existence, we’ve seen that God is the only one who’s essence is His existence. We aren’t identical with our existence, but rather we have our existence, which means we have our existence through participating in something else. This is something that has to be given to us from another. So, this first source - the substantial - of perfection is something given to us. In God alone is essence the same as existence, hence why it must be given to us humans.

Also, nothing has its accidental forms through its essence, otherwise they would not be accidental forms. Like, hair color. God is the only being who has no accidents. That means included in God’s existence is everything capable of making Him do His job perfectly.

God is self-sufficient to attain His end. He needs nothing other than Himself in order to attain it, and God Himself is the end of all things.

There are some things you can buy at Michael’s that says “Happiness is here.” This is metaphysically false; you are not good by your essence, and you are radically dependent on everything else for accidents and the attainment of your end. This is also why being human is stressful: You need things other than yourself to be happy, and there is nothing you can do to make sure you are provided with those things.

Happiness isn’t possible without dependence on other things. Because of what we are, we are not self-sufficient with our happiness. As such, attempting to be self-sufficient is a guaranteed way to make you unhappy.

As such, God is happy in a way we can never be happy because He is self-sufficient, while we are entirely dependent on others.

-definitions are to correspond to reality.

composed of two different parts:
1) Genus
Genus is the general kind of thing that something is. If you went all the way back, the fundamental building block of your definition is one of the ten categories.

ecg. animal

In “rational animal,” the genus is “animal” and the difference is “rational.”

2) Difference
Differences add things to the genus. It’s like adding something to a substance too.

Differences need to be in a different category to the thing that they’re defining.

In “rational animal,” the difference helps define the animal.

Definitions are composed of two parts:

Genus – e.g., animal

Difference –e.g., rational

The definition of the genus cannot be contained in the definition of the differentia

Therefore, God cannot have a definition.



From Nov. 23 notes:
The definition of the genus cannot be contained in the definition of the differentia. So it follows that God cannot have a definition. Most of these are a consequence of God’s simplicity and the status of the full of that of which is being rather than has being.

Every definition implies a limitation of being. Because God has no limitations of being, he has no definition. God cannot be any member of the categories

We also can’t really say that God is a substance, because a substance implies a limitation. You exist as a substance rather than something else. We can think of God as transcendental; God surpasses these categories (that was the original meaning of the term lol).

Some terms are predicated equivocally.

The words sound the same but mean completely different things.

BECAUSE, the two things they name have nothing in common

eg) a bat (animal) versus a bat (for baseball)


in comparison:


Some terms are predicated univocally.

They sound the same and mean the same thing.

BECAUSE the two have something in common.

eg) swans and snow are white. The swan and the snowball are the same insofar that they have an accident of the same species. In layman terms, they have whiteness. Two humans are even more similar than a snowball and a swan because their substance (substantial form rather than accidental form) is of the same species.

-Only possible between two things that are similar.

Two things can be similar if they at least belong to"
1. Same species
2. Same genus
3. Same category

The swan and the snowball are the same insofar that they have an accident of the same species. In layman terms, they have whiteness. Two humans are even more similar than a snowball and a swan because their substance (substantial form rather than accidental form) is of the same species.

There are no sameness with things in different categories. Time and posture have nothing in common, therefore there is nothing that can be predicated univocally of time and posture. There is no relative sameness, therefore there is no univocal predication. If all language and sameness is about things that are in the same category, and God is outside every category, how does one talk about Him? Furthermore, how are we going to know Him?

Humans and God being good is like saying a baseball bat and a squeaky toy bat are the same thing.

No, because any kind of relation presupposes some kind of similarity or proportion between two things related, such that they can stand in relationship with each other. --> for example, God's perfection is different from the perfection of His creations. (I made this example up so I dunno if it really works).

The essential feature of correlation is the mutality through equality to the two related terms.

So, basically these need to be the same in two relative things

1. Substance (Human)
2. Quantity
3. Quality
4. Place
5. Time
6. Posture
7. Relation
8. Condition
9. Action - Stuff done to you (I paint the wall)
10. Passion - Things you do (The wall is being painted)

This all goes back to Aristotle in all the things we’re looking at. This reflects our way of speaking and the world’s way of existing.

For every passion, there is a corresponding action. For everything done to something, there is a doer for it too.

-rejects Aquinas' 5 ways to get to negative theology

-negative theology involves predicating stuff of God through either i) description of actions or ii) negation

i) description of actions
from nov. 25 notes:
- When we talk about predicating actions of God, what we’re doing is describing the action and then saying “God did that”

eg) parting of the Red Sea, which is something we can perceive through 5 senses, therefore, it is something we can describe and talk about. Then, we would say that God did that (parted the Red Sea).

- Not giving a description of God, but giving a description of a visible event and say that God did that (attribute it to God)

eg) When I say God became angry, I’m not saying anything about God, rather what I’m saying is the wicked got what they deserve and God did that thing
- an example Maimonides likes to use

-actions or shorthands that were done by God
- different actions that have different names, but they’re all coming from the same source — God and His simplicity
- God did those actions without getting into a description of why he did those actions
- trying to reason through God’s action to figure out His essence is foolish to Maimonides (this is what Aquinas does though — he uses God’s actions to figure out essence to see why He did something). However, for Maimonides, reasoning stops when we describe the action


ii) negation (other main way of talking about God is through negation, which is negative theology)
from nov. 25 notes:
- here we are really talking about God, but its negative in the sense that we’re denying something about Him
- Maimonides wants to say that these negative attributes are special b/c they allow us to specify without implying a positive term

eg from text) for instance, if you see a man, from a distance and ask: what is that which is visible? the reply may be some living being.

- positive predicate of being alive (self moving, so not plants)
- excludes being a part of mineral because it is self moving
- with negative terms however, you can say ‘its not rock’ and exclude its being a rock without placing a positive predicate and having to infer
- divine simplicity is Aquinas’ negative theology
- brought together the negative theology: “When we say He is not distracted or disinterested, we mean that all those existing things run along an ordered and planned course, not without supervision…” (pg. 368 of Maimonides reading on meskanas)

(reminder that Aquinas' negative theology is divine simplicity, he uses the 5 ways to prove God's simplicity)

while human reason is powerful, it's limited, and the actual nature of God is far more complex than our human minds can comprehend. So we can only understand him allegorically

this supports his conception of negative theology: we cannot know what God is, so we can only describe Him by what He's not

-whenever something has an attribute, we say it is so-and-so, that attribute must fall under 1 of 5 headings:

1. thing may be described by definition: --> in other words, what the thing is
eg) man can be described as a reasoning animal

- this attribute indicates what the thing is (reasoning animal) --> this is really an explanation of the name
-God cannot be defined because no preexisting cause can define His existence (eg., His perfection is different from the perfection of humans)



2. thing may be described by part of its defintion: --> in other words, part of what the thing is
eg) man described as 'animal' or 'reasoning'

-attributing things in this way contains an inherent mutual connection that cannot be applied to God, since God is not a compound of genus and difference (or, in other words, not a compound of form and matter)




3. describing a quality of what it is: --> in other words, the category or accident of the thing
-quality in other words is category
- so, something may be described by its category, which is an accident (of the 10 categories, the first is substantial, but the rest can be thought of as accidental: quantity, quality, place, time, posture, relation, condition, action, and passion)

-as we have seen, God cannot have accidents.



*note: the first 3 ways cannot be used to describe God because they all imply composites**


4. describing a thing in relation to something else: ---> in other words, in relation to
eg) describing someone as the father of A, or partner of B --> this does not imply plurity, bc the same person is the father and partner

-God cannot have these relations, bc the things you need to have for these to exist is a problem
-any kind of relation presupposes some kind of similarity or proportion between two things related, such that they can stand in relationship with each other
-essential feature of correlation is mutality, through equality of the two related terms so there is no relation between God and His creations

-also, relation requires same species, genus, or category. God is none of these compared to His creations




5. describe a thing by its action
-action of the thing carried out

-only positive predicate that is possible to apply to God
-different actions of God are from His essence, not from anything added to it

When we talk about predicating actions of God, what we’re doing is describing the action and then saying “God did that”


Maimonides concludes: God is not a composite. He is without plurality in everyway. There are no additions to His essences. Instead, attributes used to describe God describe His actions. These different actions have different names, but they all come from the same source. That is, they all come from God and His simplicity.

1. Analogy of Relation
-the named concept exists in one thing but many things have differnt relationships to that one thing
-there are three different ways to consider the analogy of relation. These relationships are often causal relationships to that one thing, and in virtue of their relationship they all get to also have the name applied to them. The standard example of this is health

eg) "healthy" is predicated of an animal's body, blood tests, and food, but it does not signify the same thing in all three:
-it is said of a blood test as a sign of health,
-of body as of a subject ,
-and of food as of a cause.

-to identify relation, identify where it actually exists



2. Analogy of metaphor
-The named concept exists formally in one thing and metaphorically in another

eg) bull in a china shop
-formally, it is the animal bull
- metaphorially, describing a person --> if you were to call someone a bull in a china shop, they would be clumsy, aggressive, or have a lack of self control. Also, could be someone who is loud and brash, they do not care about someone else’s feelings or respect for existing relationships
- delicate things like feelings and social norms are not respected, instead they are broken
- cannot appreciate similarity without appreciating the differences --> If I said the statement “bull in a china shop”, I’m explaining the person and not a literal bull in a china shop. That’s what makes it analogy.

- hall mark of analogous term — you cannot grasp the similarities without grasping the differences


3. Analogy of proportionality
-named concept exists in each individual but according to a proportional similarity

eg) goodness is predicated of humans and cat analogously
-what makes a good human is different from what makes a good cat
-but they are related to humans and cat in the same way
-description of healthy cat is related to the cat as its health (having glossy fur), the description of the healthy human is related to the human as its health (lack of glossy fur)

eg 2) beauty
- explain the analogy of proportionality in your own words
- beauty is conveyed differently through a painting versus through a song. The painting is beautiful because of the visual aspect, whereas the song is beautiful because of the way it sounds. Beautiful but in different modality.
- both composed, both harmoniously proportional but perceived in two completely different ways

Being is thought of via analogy of proportionality.

So what we need to imagine when we talk about God and ourselves is that it would be like “If you’ve only ever seen paintings and never heard a piece of music, but I told you that music is beautiful.” You would know what that is like from all the paintings you’ve seen, but you wouldn’t know what beautiful music is like.

The differences are packed in so tightly that you can’t pull them apart. So if you’ve never heard music and only seen paintings, and you’ve been told that music is beautiful, you have a dim grasp about what that would be like, but you wouldn’t really understand it.

God’s existence and our existence is similar, from looking at these things that exist and God exists too by analogy.

It’ll be more mysterious as we go on though. There is something right about calling God existing, one, true, and beautiful. But we cannot really grasp the fullness of what that means. When it comes to God, we’re in this very delicate place between knowledge and ignorance.

We cannot conceive of the similarities without conceiving of the differences. That which makes a body healthy is different from what makes food healthy and what makes a blood test healthy. Each case points to something different, and we can’t answer the question “Why are all these things healthy and similar without considering what makes all these things different?”

-we can say what cannot be true of God insofar as God must be transcendently different from every other being

negative theology (Maimonides), which is the route you can take when you cannot predicate God substantially

-we can say that perfection found in the world must preexist in a more excellent manner in the divine essence

-so, we can make true, nondefining claims about the divine essence

-we can only have defininig nowledge of essences that are embodied in material things

-terms that signify pure perfections (eg., love, wisdom, goodness, perfection, etc.) without any inherent reference to created limitations, apply to God

-according to Maimonides though, the application of positive names to God is really a form of disguised negative predication

-terms that signify pure perfections can be used to say something about the divine essence, but only in a limited and imperfect manner. Aquinas says that such terms cannot adequately explain God's essence due to the cause and effect relationship that places God above His creations in such a way that God is the fullness of these pure perfection whereas creatures only participation in God's fullness

so, based on the doctrine of creation, we can assert that what we understand through the concepts associated with perfection terms, such as good, wise, etc. must be true about God's essence as their source even if we do not have a concept adequate to that reality. Thus, even though we do not use such concepts and terms in a defining way with respect to God, we can nonetheless defend the claim that we can know and say something true about the substance of God

- our words signify things in the world through the mediation of our thoughts
- whatever restrictions there are on our thoughts, these restrictions will apply to our words, our language
- to the extent to something is nameable, it is also knowable
- thus, if something is unnameable, it also also unknowable

**********reminder: effects and causes can be resembled univocally or equivocally**********

- we can say the same thing about God, God is knowable to us insofar as He is the equivocal cause of things in the world
- God is nameable from creatures —> somehow, our knowledge of creatures will allow us to name God
- the name human being is going to express the totality of the human essence, but the name of God isn’t able to do this
- Instead, God is going to be nameable through the analogy of proportionality

because this would entail that we could have no knowledge of God at all

accoding to analogy, according to proportion: things commonly named are related to some one thing in some way. The relationship that grounds analogical naming is creation. So, creatures are called 'good' bc they participate in the goodness of God

names signify concepts and concepts signify things in the world

things signified:
-perfection signified by names such as goodness and wisdom primarily belongs to God, and secondarily belongs to creatures on the basis of being caused to be good and wise due to participation in God's goodness and wisdom

mode of signifiying:
-words are imposed by us on the basis of our knowledge of creatures

- complete and subsisting creatures are composites —> they are complex
- the abstract form they have is essence, which is not a subsisting thing
- anytime we want to talk about God as a complete subsisting thing, we have to use a name that signifies concretely and therefore signifies primarily a composite thing
- when we speak about God as a complete subsisting thing, there is a sense in which the concept/name being applied is connected to and is the concept of a composite thing
- he’s going to admit this, it is true
- when we want to talk about God’s simplicity, we want to use abstract words. But when we talk about God’s subsistence we use concrete words
- he says to use both kinds of words to get at different aspects of God
- objector wants to say we can’t use either kinds of terms, but Aquinas says we use both
- God is simple and abstract forms are simple, but the simplicity of forms consists in something different from the simplicity of God
- cats and humans are both healthy, but the health of humans consists of something different from the health of cats
- the way in which material things is different from the way God has existence
- they both have these things, but the way they have them is going to be different
- these names can be applied to God, as long as we remember that His simplicity is different from humanity’s simplicity, God’s subsistence is different from humanity’s subsistence
- this is minimal knowledge because the way He is these things is different from the way in which we know things
- basically, we only kind of know God
- God’s simplicity is like the white light, our existence is like coloured lights