Can a Philosopher Deny God? Humility, Wisdom and Likeness to God

Orientation #

He refers back to “that part about wonder that I gave you before” from the Theaetetus and to the critique of Plato on matter and form “in natural philosophy” (earlier classes, not resolved by the context block). He announces that today they will look at the first of the two arguments from motion in Summa Contra Gentiles I, ch. 13, “at least the first one”, and that the study of the soul (De Koninck’s introduction) will come “when we start to study the soul”. The next class works through chapter thirteen itself.

The class, in order #

1. Do I have a right to use my mind any way I want? (“mental contraception, right?”) #

Point: the mind, like the sexual organs, is ordered to a common good, and any use not compatible with that good is a perversion.

1. The sexual organs are ordered not merely to the individual’s pleasure but to reproduction, and beyond that to preserving the species, generating new members of the city, the nation, the church: a common good.
2. Private good is always subordinated to the common good; so any use of them as if ordered to one’s private good is perversion.
3. The same holds of the mind. Albert the Great (a passage his old teacher used to cite; ASR gives “Kierkegaard”, almost certainly De Koninck): unless forced by necessity (“you got a farm today”), to use your mind for anything other than knowing God, or in the service of knowing God, is a perverse attitude toward the mind.
4. Knowing God is the end, “the common good of reason”; more broadly, wisdom is the common good of reason, and wisdom is ultimately knowledge of God.

• Example: using the mind to deceive, to be mistaken, “to abort the truth” is “mental contraception” — the parallel he draws to sexual misuse.

2. Who may judge philosophy? (“no one should be allowed to judge philosophy”) #

Point: a student paper critiquing Heidegger from Catholic theology is legitimate, and prompts a further, purely philosophical question.

• Marx’s preface to his doctoral thesis quotes Hume with approval: no one should judge philosophy; philosophy is supreme. This contradicts the Greeks, for whom human wisdom is not the highest court, and it belongs to the theologian to judge the philosopher.
• His question: can there be an argument within philosophy that one cannot be a philosopher without thinking there is a God?

3. The fool has said in his heart there is no God (“as sure that she’s innocent as that I have a soul”) #

Point: denying God is stupidity of the same kind as doubting that one has a soul.

• Two psalms (he guesses 32 or 52 in the old numbering, and 13) say the fool has said in his heart there is no God.
• Thomas in SCG III, treating man’s ultimate end (knowledge of God), runs through the ways of knowing God: the awareness even the multitude has, the philosophers’ demonstration, faith — asking whether any satisfies the mind, and eventually arguing we must see God face to face. Commenting there, he says the atheist is very dense, because there are so many signs, even to the ordinary person, that there is a God — just as if someone thought he had no soul: [unclear in recording] is an obvious sign that you have a soul, that you are alive.
• Aristotle, On the Soul I: all his predecessors disagree about what the soul is (one of the hardest things to know), but none doubts that man and animals have a soul — “animal” is named from the Latin word for soul, animate matter. Our mental climate finds it strange that he never discusses whether we have a soul.
• Much Ado About Nothing: Hero falsely denounced at her wedding through Don John’s villainy; the friar reads her innocence from her modest reaction; Beatrice, pressing Benedict to challenge the groom, says she is as sure of her cousin’s innocence “as that I have a soul.” Like “as sure as two plus two is four”: a hyperbole that only works because the comparison term is altogether certain. So as late as Shakespeare, having a soul is beyond doubt.
• Why the modern stupidity: the classic explanation is Charles De Koninck’s introduction to the study of the soul — deferred to when they study the soul.

4. Can a fool be a philosopher? (“Don’t call me wise. God alone is wise”) #

Point: a philosopher must already think there is a God, before any demonstration.

1. Mail-order introductions to philosophy treat “whether God exists” as one problem among others, as if the philosopher must have an open mind on it.
2. But philosopher means lover of wisdom; one need not be wise to be one, but one must love wisdom. A fool does not love wisdom (he would not be a fool if he did). The atheist is a fool (Scripture). So a man cannot be a philosopher if he does not think there is a God — this “might not be necessary a Christian” argument.
3. The coining of the word: Pythagoras refused “wise” — God alone is wise; call me a lover of wisdom. So the very origin of the word implies a wisdom higher than man’s, i.e. a God wise in a fuller sense, and a humility: man’s wisdom, if any, is subject to God’s.
4. Heraclitus: as child to man, so man to God, in wisdom, beauty, everything; as ape to man, so man to God — man is “the wise ape”; “the divine nature has understanding, the human doesn’t”; human law fed by one divine law. Empedocles: “creatures of the day” who, having seen part of life, boast of having seen the whole — and boasting is the first species of pride. Socrates: the Delphic oracle’s “no one is wiser” explained by his knowing he does not know, so not wise as God is. Aristotle: either God alone should be called wise, or God most of all.
5. The Greeks saw pride as a main cause of deception; Aristotle on those who possess rhetoric and think they possess political wisdom, partly “through boastfulness”. Proverbs: ubi humilitas, ibi sapientia. Without humility no pursuit of wisdom; humility is primarily toward God, placing one’s mind under God. If, with Marx, the human mind is the highest divinity, the philosopher’s humility is impossible.

• Aside: “daddy knows everything” to the child; compared to God, daddy knows nothing.

5. Plato: philosophy is becoming like God (“becoming like God so far as possible for a man”) #

Point: the Neoplatonic introductions’ definition of philosophy, taken from the Theaetetus, presupposes God.

• The Theaetetus gives both the beginning of philosophy (wonder) and its end (becoming like God so far as possible for a man) — “the key dialogue”.
• If philosophy is becoming like God, an atheist “doesn’t know the end”, “doesn’t know what he’s trying to be” (student answers).
• Student asks where in the Theaetetus: he cannot give the number; it is where they discuss what philosophy is, apart from the main discussion of episteme; better to find it oneself.

6. Aristotle: both kinds of philosophy aim at the godlike (“more godlike to achieve happiness for a whole city”) #

Point: in Aristotle too the desirability of practical and of looking philosophy is measured by likeness to God.

• Practical philosophy culminates in politics. NE I: the end of human life, and which art treats it. Arts commanding arts aim at nobler ends: doctor commands pharmacist because medicine is subordinate to health. The political art commands all the others (driving licence, medical licence, Assumption College degrees granted “in virtue of authority invested me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts”, the state could conscript him), so it aims at the chief end, happiness. Aristotle’s distinction: lovable to secure one man’s happiness (a friend, a son), more godlike for a whole city — as God moves toward the good of the whole universe, which we cannot.
• Looking philosophy culminates in wisdom. The proem to wisdom [ed.: Metaphysics I] shows it aims at first causes, is looking knowledge, liberal, not a human possession, most honourable because most divine: the knowledge God most of all would have, and about God. Knowing God, who knows himself and all else, one becomes most like God.
• All nature strives to be like God: form is godlike, since God is pure act and form is act — even making a chair. Plato in the Symposium and Aristotle in On the Soul II: reproduction in animals and plants seeks immortality for the kind, likeness to the immortal so far as possible.
• NE end: practical wisdom (foresight) is the supreme virtue of practical reason, wisdom of looking reason; wisdom is better because practical wisdom is human and wisdom divine, and God is better than man. So making wisdom your goal — what “love of wisdom” means — is unintelligible without God.
• Goethe (Faust): “we are shaped and fashioned by what we love”; love disgusting things and you are already disgusting, love wise things and you are already somewhat wise. A lover of wisdom cannot be a fool; the atheist is a fool.

7. Iris, daughter of Thaumas (“Iris is the offspring of wonder”) #

Point: wonder unites man with God, as the rainbow and the messenger do.

• Theaetetus: wonder is the only beginning of philosophy; Hesiod’s genealogy “not a bad one” — Iris (rainbow personified, messenger of the gods, as in Homer; “hail, many-coloured messenger” in the Tempest, Shakespeare’s farewell) is the offspring of Thaumas (wonder personified).
• Why both rainbow and messenger? Class: the rainbow joins earth to heaven, man’s place to God’s — a natural sign, used by God after the flood; the messenger likewise unites man with God. So wonder unites man with God on the side of reason: it seeks the cause, the cause of the cause, ultimately the first cause, which is God.
• For the Greeks, without Christian theology or the Old Testament, philosophy without supposing God is inconceivable; the “open mind” requirement is “a modern hangup”. Student: a closed mind about there being a God.

8. You look for a proof only of what you already guess (“guess that those three angles will also be equal”) #

Point: without thinking there is a God one would not make the effort to know him or seek demonstrations.

• Euclid’s fifth theorem: with two sides equal you guess the base angles equal before you have a syllogism; and you would naturally guess the equilateral triangle’s angles equal before proving it from I.5. If you didn’t think it, you wouldn’t look for the proof. Likewise the detective searches your quarters only because he already thinks you did it.
• A fortiori for God, whose demonstration needs a much greater effort; the atheist will instead seek reasons for no God, prejudiced against every argument.

9. The five ways and their difficulty (“more convinced that God existed from what his mother told him”) #

Point: the proofs are hard, and today’s aim is modest.

• Both Summas give five arguments, not the same. De Koninck’s seminar on the five ways: each student took one author’s presentation; Berquist took Descartes (his thesis compared Aristotle and Descartes). Descartes misunderstood both major and minor premise; so had every author read. De Koninck was more convinced by his mother than by the proofs — much common sense in that; we depend largely on the common knowledge of God or on faith.
• The older Catholic-college practice of arming beginners with proofs they don’t understand was naïve about their difficulty; see something of the argument, be slow to claim you comprehend it, return many times.
• His purpose today: not to exhaust the argument but to tie up things already studied and see how they are used.

10. The shape of Summa Contra Gentiles I, ch. 13, and the two Summas (“a summary of the whole of the eight books of the natural hearing”) #

Point: the SCG proof from motion is far fuller than the Summa Theologiae’s first way.

• SCG: first two arguments from motion, third from the maker (efficient cause). ST: only the first from motion, second from efficient cause.
• Chief argument concludes to an unmoved mover from two premises each needing proof; three proofs of each — backup or secondary syllogisms (technical term: pro-syllogism). ST gives one of the three for each premise.
• Marietti text: footnotes to parallel places (ST, SCG, Quaestiones Disputatae, Scripture commentaries, Sentences); sometimes one place says what another omits.
• Thinking goes from confused to distinct, but a later writing need not spell out more than an earlier one: an author who worked something out earlier may only refer back. His own experience; and Thomas: the brief De potentia almost misled him on order and distinction until he read the earlier, more explicit commentary on the Sentences.
• SCG is earlier and fuller on motion; ST contracted. The five attributes of the divine substance: ST order simple, perfect, infinite, unchanging, then one after the operations; SCG puts unchanging first, almost taken for granted, and moves at once to eternity — reflecting the thoroughness of ch. 13. In ST, unchangeability is reasoned from perfection, infinity, simplicity; something to learn from both (his paper on the subject).
• Conversely ST is more developed on the soul and its powers (SCG II), and on the angels in particular questions, though SCG has some more developed fundamental arguments (e.g. that there are angels). On the Trinity, ST raises more questions but SCG goes into the scriptural texts and refutes the heretics; he would begin the Trinity from SCG, since one should start from Scripture.
• SCG 13 is almost a summary of the whole eight books of the Natural Hearing [ed.: Physics]. He begins translating the Latin of chapter thirteen.
• Aside: the Leonine edition of SCG (bigger print than the Marietti) which he keeps at home; he prints from his computer to avoid water damage in the rain.

His words #

• common good of reason — knowing God, or wisdom, to which the use of the mind is ordered
• mental contraception — using the mind to deceive, err, “abort the truth”
• the fool has said in his heart there is no God — Psalm text; the atheist is “very dense”
• philosopher — lover of wisdom; coined by Pythagoras in humility, God alone being wise
• humility — placing one’s own mind under God; ubi humilitas, ibi sapientia
• becoming like God so far as possible for a man — Plato’s definition of philosophy (Theaetetus)
• looking philosophy / doing or practical philosophy [ed.: theoretical / practical]
• premium to wisdom — the proem [ed.: Metaphysics I] showing wisdom the most divine knowledge
• practical wisdom, foresight [ed.: prudence] — supreme virtue of practical reason
• Iris / Thaumas — rainbow and messenger / wonder personified
• pro syllogism, backup or secondary syllogism — syllogism proving a premise of the main syllogism
• maker — efficient cause
• Natural Hearing [ed.: Physics]

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles I, ch. 13 (reading begins at the end; verified source: DHB Vol III, p. 1215) Mentioned
• Psalm 13 and Psalm 52 (old numbering, his guess); Proverbs (ubi humilitas ibi sapientia); Genesis, the rainbow after the flood
• Thomas, SCG III (man’s ultimate end); SCG II (soul); SCG IV (Trinity, inferred); Summa Theologiae I, five ways and divine attributes; De potentia; commentary on the Sentences
• Aristotle, On the Soul I and II; Nicomachean Ethics I and X; Metaphysics I (inferred); On rhetoric and political wisdom (locus not stated)
• Plato, Theaetetus; Symposium
• Hesiod; Homer; Heraclitus; Empedocles; Pythagoras (attribution of “philosopher”)
• Euclid, Elements I.5 (inferred)
• Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing; The Tempest
• Goethe, Faust; Marx, preface to doctoral thesis (quoting Hume); Albert the Great (passage on using the mind); De Koninck, introduction to the study of the soul; Descartes

His questions #

• Do I have a right to use my mind any way I want to use it? No: like the sexual organs, the mind is ordered to a common good, ultimately knowing God.
• Can you be a philosopher if you think there is no God? No; such a man is a fool, and a fool cannot love wisdom.
• What is the culmination of practical philosophy? Politics.
• What does the rainbow have in common with the messenger of the gods? Both unite earth and heaven, man and God — as wonder does.
• Is a later writing of the same author always more explicit than an earlier one? No; he may be briefer later and refer back to the earlier, fuller treatment.
• How do the two Summas differ on the argument from motion? SCG has two arguments from motion with three proofs of each premise; ST has one argument, one proof per premise.
• Where in the Theaetetus is “becoming like God”? Left open — where they discuss what philosophy is; find it yourself.