/lit/ - Literature

Does anybody have a clue how transcendentals (e.g., Plato's Form of the Good, Plato's Limit and the Unlimited, Aquinas's unity/truth/good/otherness, etc.) are supposed to interact with substance, forms (especially in the Aristotelian sense), etc.? I have never seen anything but a vague hand-waving regarding how transcendentals are present and absent in the forms.

The standard argument for God as pure act lies in the fact that God must be fully actualized in order to be:
>1) God in all its glorious properties (omnipotence, omnibenevolence, etc.)
>2) The originator of the universe (a potential would need something else to actualize it).
However, doesn't God as pure act undermine these two claims?

Aristotelian philosophy holds that change, motion, etc., occurs when a potential is actualized. Actualization requires an "end" to be reached. This end can be external (e.g. a means to an end) or internal (e.g. an action taken for itself, like a state of being) The difference can be easily summarized by comparing a walk (from point A to point B) to a stroll (with no destination). It's worth noting that thing whose motion fails to reach its end is not yet actual, like Aristotle's example of the eternally rotating spheres (though I wonder why he never considers this to be the end-in-itself).

Returning to God as pure act, the problem is that God couldn't be omnipotent if He is pure act, since otherwise He would be "omni-actual." This would mean He has reached His end in all senses, and thus no new changes can be made. And for the kicker: if He is finished before He creates the universe, then no creation could have occurred, as creation would be a kind of motion or change performed by God, but God as pure act would prohibit any further action.

In other words, God either needs to be both potential and actual in some way, which seems to be a paradox or perhaps result in some eternally-dynamic God, or God could not have become fully actualized as God (in either the external or the internal sense) without creating us. The former case is fascinating, and I won't pretend to know what it implies except perhaps chaos. With the latter case, God must need us as much as we need God, which means Aquinas is wrong in stating that God could have chosen otherwise.

Furthermore, the difference between an "externally-actualized" and an "internally-actualized" God can be seen as the difference between a deist and a "living" (for the lack of a better word) God: God either created the universe and left it running, or he is constantly intervening in its development in some way.

Don't get me started on the "stuff" that must have been the potential creation prior to God's creative act. I have no idea what it is or where it came from. If God created "ex nihilo", and the "stuff" wasn't literally created "ex nihilo", then the "stuff" must have come from Him. If He didn't create "ex nihilo", then there was a primordial chaos, a "soup of potentiality" that existed side-by-side with God that he then actualized.

What exactly was his problem with Averroes's monopsychism? I have a hard time understanding how believing that the potential intellect is unified leads to the erasure of the individual, immortal soul.

>like the ideas of classical theology
>follow various discussions, youtubers, read biography on Aquinas and Confessions of Saint Augistine and enjoy everything immensly.
>think I'm finally prepared to read the bible
>God in the old testament is absolutely nothing like any theologists describes him and basically all the atheists were right with their objections.

What can I read, how do I cope and how do I recover from this?

>>18042636
Aquinas builds on this very well. Summa Theologica 1a question 92.
>>18042644
They were just telling the truth.
If you want to be mean to women, tell them they can do anything a man can do. Tell them they don't need a man, but they can have as much fun with men as they like. Tell them having children isn't important, and they can delay or forego it. Tell them a 30 year old woman is just as desirable as a 20 year old one.
Then in 10 years from now come back and laugh at them.

>>18034569
>>18034579
Contrast this to the thoughtful face of an alcohol drinker. Look into his burning eyes as he ponders the human condition. Watch as he selflessly gives his life to prayer and service, so that others may benefit from his teachings.
https://youtu.be/apYRZJiqhkA

>“As the divine existence is necessary of itself, so is the divine will and divine knowledge; but the divine knowledge has a necessary relation to the thing known; not the divine will to the thing willed. The reason for this is that knowledge is of things as they exist in the knower; but the will is directed to things as they exist in themselves. Since then all other things have necessary existence inasmuch as they exist in God; but no absolute necessity so as to be necessary in themselves, in so far as they exist in themselves; it follows that God knows necessarily whatever He knows, but does not will necessarily what ever He wills.” (I, Q. 19, A. 3)

What the fuck is this absolute madman saying?