/lit/ - Literature

You have to have faith to study the Summa Theologica properly, read the Summa against the Gentiles instead if you want to stick to Saint Thomas.
Otherwise you can read the History of a Soul of Saint Therese of Lisieux or the Confessions of Saint Augustine to have a deep testimony on the experience of the tenderness of God.

>>18936241

I had the exact same reaction once I actually started paging through the thing OP. "This? This is the great and mighty Aquinas? A standard, rote rhetorical treatment of each piece with appeal to authority in most cases? This is the great intellectual work that I was supposed to cower before?" LARP, all LARP.

theology is the enemy of religion, Aquinas was one of the stupidest and most godless men to ever live

>>18936262
Why should I trust people's experience? There are other people who had similar divine revelations with Islam, or Yoga or what have you. When I take cannabis one stupid idea can look like a deep insight, and I've read in a book by William James that some drugs make everything appear like the absolute truth to the subject. So what do I care that someone has experienced God? For that matter, even if I was to experience it, I wouldn't take it as proof of anything. In fact, I'm wondering whether there even is a way that God could convince me of its existence (while leaving my reason and free will intact).

>>18936241
You should understand that people who follow religion are epistemologically compromised and will never be able to philosophise for a single second in their lives unless they let go of all faith

>>18937183
reading all that stuff by other people isn't what you need. experience God for yourself. Enjoy God.

>>18937220
>unless they let go of all faith
why would i want to do that?

>>18936262
muh think the right way and you'll get it brah

>>18936241
Retard?
Summa Theologica isn't for people like you. It's for people studying theology. For heretics, atheists etc exists Summa Contra Gentiles.

>>18937220
Faith is a prerequisite of all philosophical reasoning.

>>18937253
Then why do larpers talk about the summa theo all the time as the end all be all proof of christianity?

>>18936241
Learn Latin, pleb. Stop reading translations.

>>18937183
Maybe try it yourself? that isn't to say that you can't try the rest. But understand what each worldview implies philosophically, and how they practice meditation in order to connect to transcendence. If it's Christianity you're currently interested in, then dive into it. It's more than the intellectual route (or set of propositions), as can be said for the other worldviews you mentioned. It's a way of seeing; a call to move your mind beyond the rationalist/materialist view.

As for your last sentence, why would that be the case? My intuition is that He surely could "convince" you, while leaving your reason and free will intact. Reason should be clear enough, as it was the point of Aquinas' program. And I'm afraid I don't see how it is that your free will would be tampered with. At the end of the day, it is still your decision what worldview you choose to take on. God does not force you to know him. He is simply there and has made Himself known, the reciprocation of this relationship is in your hands. Do you choose to accept the Christian doctrines of Love and embrace the mindset that comes with it? To open up your heart to Him? Your faith is an act of the will. You must choose to believe or not to. Only you yourself can speak for the results of taking on this perspective. 4chan is not the place to be discerning your faith. Take it seriously and reflect on it yourself, and if you need to, with others in real life.

I think it was C.S. Lewis that described it as a man trying to understand "love" from a scientific perspective. You can make all the observations, hypotheses, and draw up all the conclusions you want. But you cannot and will not truly know it the same way a man who is in love knows it.

>>18937345
For example, even if God appeared to me I would think 'maybe it's the devil, or maybe it's an hallucination, or maybe it's God but he's evil and is lying to me', and so on.

If I had one of those mystic experience I would think 'Well that is simply something the human mind is capable of generating, and that doesn't mean that it is the truth'.

The only thing that would convince me is a good philosophical argument, but Christians seem incapable of creating such a thing. In the end they always go 'And it is common sense that...' or 'Every sane man can see that...' and then add something that is not obvious in the least to me. Like 'it's pretty clear even to a baby that if the universe exists there must be a creator'.

>>18937220
>unless they let go of all faith
This is how you actually give yourself schizophrenia. None of us can function in this world without taking an enormous amount of things on faith. The paranoiac's frantic attempt to figure out the hidden meaning of everything around him is what purposefully chipping away at your ability to have faith leads to. It's not some noble sacrifice for the sake of being a true philosopher, it ends philosophy because it will lead you to a mental crisis that culminates in catatonia. There are many arguments against religion but "faith bad" is a particularly dumb modern one

>>18936241
You're expected to already acknowledge that God exists and that Jesus Christ is the messiah before reading the Summa. A lot of Aquina's arguments are literally "One the contrary scripture says..." and you're obviously not going to accept that if you don't think sacred scripture is true revelation from God.

>>18937548
>The only thing that would convince me is a good philosophical argument, but Christians seem incapable of creating such a thing
A Certain Faith by Angelus Press. There you go.

>>18937736
The closest match I get on the Angelus Press site is 'My catholic faith', which seems very far from a philosophical argument.

My personal blight is that I believe in the Divine, but not in any religion's interpretation of what it is. It's not even a belief, more like knowledge beyond doubt. I know that the universe itself is an expression of a transcendental order, but that doesn't mean that I have to pick between any human religion. This is my major problem with all theist philosophers, they all argue in favour of the existence of a creator in a general sense, but somehow take that to mean that they're personal god is real, but not others' personal gods, it's so biased and dishonet.

>>18937909
>take that to mean that their*

>>18937264
It's a very good book to understand christianity and theology, but you won't find any book that will convert you into christianity, or any religion, with logical arguments. You either have faith or you do not, theology is a logical system for a religion, it's supposed to be discussed among religious scholars (of course theology as a discipline was about christianity only, but I think a more flexible approach is better), it's not to be the spark of faith you are looking for.

>>18937835
Sorry I meant Angelico Press

>>18937989
Not him, but why do /lit/ tell me then to read Aquinas' works all the time, when I just want to learn philosophy in general?
>start with the greeks
>but don't skip [insert medieval theologist here, e.g. aquinas, abelard, augustine, etc.]!

>>18937668
faith is fine in a very minimal amount, like you don't have to "prove" basic premises like that it's good for good things to happen and that you are reading this right now. Going beyond that is pushing into retardation unless you are open about the fact that you are just 'going all-in' on something you logically understand you can't really be sure of. Christianity requires so many absurd fucking assumptions that you'd have to be a moron to go for it, like "I have faith that this giant book from many contradictory and incoherent sources (which I haven't actually read, tee-hee!) is entirely true"

>>18936241
You're hardly gonna regain your faith by reading a philosophy book. You're retardo.

>>18938009
Because Aquinas was one of the most important philosophers in history and if you want to learn philosophy then he's directly on the road from Aristotle to Kant.

If you want to get a broad view of western philosophy then you go:

Plato
Aristotle
Plotinus
Augustine
Aquinas
Hume
Kant
Hegel
Husserl
Heidegger
Sam Harris

>>18936241
>reading Aquinas or any other meme theologian to get faith
Top kek. Maybe you should be praying and reading the Bible

>>18938039
>and if you want to learn philosophy then he's directly on the road from Aristotle to Kant
OK but why? Aristotle wasn't a theologist, and Kant was only a theologist in the sense that his philosophy was concerned with spirituality by itself, and necessarily tied to any religion. You said I should only read Christian theology if I'm Christian, and I'm not, so why should I read Aquinas? Not a rhetorical question by the way, I genuinely want to understand what medieval theologists like him could offer a non-religious person like me.

>>18938082
and not necessarily tied*

>>18938082
Ayn Rand loved Aquinas and she was a hardcore atheist. idk why you think you have to agree with a philosopher in order to get something out of reading them. Aquinas has been highly influential on the western philosophical tradition for the past 800 years.

>>18938082
>OK but why?
Because Aquinas appropriated Aristotles philosophy for use in Catholic theology and marked one of the major shifts in western philosophy. You can't understand philosophy after Aquinas without engaging with Aquinas because so much of philosophy after Aquinas was directly addressing or related to his specific brand of Scholastic Philosophy.

It's the same for Kant. You can't just dive straight into Hegel because Hegel was engaging with Kant so you need to understand Kant before you go into Hegel. And you need to understand Hume before you go into Kant because Kant's philosophy was a reaction to Humes positivist empiricism.

>>18938119
I see. Thanks, I'll give him a shot.

>>18937668
Stop projecting your weakness on others, religious cuck
>>18937256
Wrong. You’re a retard coping by trying to tarnish philosophy with the thing that that you know renders your beloved fiction false
>>18937241
>religicucks can’t read

>>18938362

>>18936241
Aquinas was a fatty. Therefore his ideas are invalid. Mens sana in corpore sano.

>>18937269
Christcuck, Quran in Arabic is the most beautiful and the only work of God. Read it and you'll be freed of lies uttered by Paul.

>>18938039
>Sam Harris
Opinion discarded

>>18938362
No epistomological move can ever be made if you don't have any faith

>>18938608
i dunno being a fatty monk sounds kinda based ngl

>>18937668
you are thinking of induction. a far cry from believing the entire christian gospel

maybe faith means to believe, not to know

>>18936241
You should think more about how this world makes actually a lot of sense for there to be no God. If you can't see the utter schizophrenia and retardation behind thinking everything came into existence as it is just randomly because gravity said so blindly, then you are too far gone. Name one thing in this world randomly created, or which doesn't contain information, and I will be an atheist in a second. And remember, when you're an atheist, you don't just think the universe came into being randomly, but rather every single thing containing it. So when a bird recognizes a threat and flies away, you are basically telling me that nature didn't know that it should make the bird fly away from threats or recognize food as being consumable, and yet it did. There are too many loop holes in atheism, the world is both inside and outside too complete, logical, symmetrical and dualistic for it to be created out of nothing/something random.

>>18938710
>And remember, when you're an atheist, you don't just think the universe came into being randomly, but rather every single thing containing it.
nice strawman bro. keep living in your own headcanon

>>18937345
I'm a different anon, but I did give Christianity a chance and tried to be as open minded as possible. I found that to do it I would really have to pit aside certain doubts that weren't answered, which felt like giving up on intellectual honesty. One apologetics book I read suggested temporarily adopting a Christian worldview as a thought experiment, to see if it made sense. I tried that and found that when coming across difficulties I'd essentially have to come up with excuses rather than letting evidence and reason lead me where they would.

I did earnestly pray to God for a sign, and attended services of some different churches. But Christianity just doesn't seem true to me on a factual level, I don't have a personal problem with the religion.

>>18938039
>sam harris
next we're gonna start putting vaush on reading lists jesus christ

>>18938710
you came into the world randomly, because there is no way anybody would sleep with your mother

>>18939238
Am I supposed to get upset at you calling my mother unfuckable? Like, what response were you expecting?
>nuh uh! my mom is a great fuck!
?

>>18938039
>sam harris
list was ok until you mentioned him

>>18938617
dont care didn't ask plus you're an infidel

>It's a fedora fags don't understand subtly episode
Aquinas was arguing that God is the most reasonable cause of things. Try not being such a fucking midwit.
Read William Lane Craig if you want arguments from evidence.

>>18939101
>Christianity doesn't seem true because God didn't specifically write me a check for my birthday.
Atheists always jerk themselves off for being "reasonable" but their arguments always come from anecdote or emotion. No wonder their so easy to manipulate.

I have no respect for atheists, agnostics or deists. They feign curiosity and open-mindedness, but really they've just settled into a pattern that allows them to live an indulgent life and put on airs of sophistication when really they are animated only by their own moral cowardice. There is more practical, concrete evidence for the truth of Christian revelation than there is for any other religion or philosophy. The Blood of the Miracle on Lanciano has remained frosh for centuries, the Shroud of Turin was created by a burst of High Intensity light from a human body. These aren't speculations, these are scientific facts proven through repeat forensic investigation, but atheists and apostates just fall back on the same fucking high school arguments. Euler was right: "The freethinkers have yet to produce any objections that have not long been refuted most thoroughly. But since they are not motivated by the love of truth, and since they have an entirely different point of view, we should not be surprised that the best refutations count for nothing and that the weakest and most ridiculous reasoning, which has so often been shown to be baseless, is continuously repeated. If these people maintained the slightest rigor, the slightest taste for the truth, it would be quite easy to steer them away from their errors; but their tendency towards stubbornness makes this completely impossible."
You faggots don't care about the truth, and you never did. You just don't want Christian morality to infringe on your personal vices.

>>18936241
Fundamentally, like nearly everything else concerning the divine, those who are not seeking truth are not going to be swayed by any logical argument. Philosophers entering a field in which theology is the game being played is as putting an American football team to play rugby.

>>18936277
You don't understand Aquinas if this was your reaction.

>>18936290
You're fucking retarded nigga

>>18938617
Mudslime fag "Umm achktually Jesus was swapped out with a dummy before He was crucified" goofy ass nigga

>>18938608
Aquinas is written as being able to row boats of men on his own, in addition to making various trips from Italy to France on foot so he was just bulking bro

>>18939101
what intellectual honesty did you really have to give up? Are you being intellectually honest when you say that? And why does prayer to God mean asking for favours? You are also meant to listen, devote attention and time. And what are these difficulties that you speak that haven't already been answered in some way by Christian thinkers throughout history?

>>18936290
The christcuck has no shame, next time he will go back to defending Aquinas again. Whatever to sway peopke towards Grist.

>>18939602
tl;dr
https://problemspredicamentsandtechnology.blogspot.com/2020/12/welcome-to-problems-predicaments-and.html

>>18936241
oh no no no no don't say it bro, don't say it! The christcucks might start crying!!!

>>18939602
i love how some people still think christianity is about christ

>>18939976

Objection 1:
>You don't understand Aquinas if this was your reaction.

I answer:
Not at all, you simply dislike the conclusion I've drawn.

Objection 2:
>Herp derp le acorn develops its full potential like le tree therefore god

I answer:
Fine, be that way.

Objection 3:
>Herp derp you've clearly just proven my point with the above

I answer.
See the first answer.

>>18939602

We bugmen have deboonked the Shroud of Turin, you know. You seem to be aware of this since in your next sentence you double down on the "scientific evidence" as if to pre-empt the very carbon dating which rules out the above.

western philosophy suffered for close to a thousand years thanks to christianity
the majority of works shifted away from an inquiry into understanding the world to creating excuses for their religion

i don't care how "smart" these theologists were, we can never get back that lost time

>>18936241
Anon if you want to believe in God just believe in God, its that simple. If you want a logical reason to justify yourself you're shit out of luck because there's exactly 0 logical reason to hold literally any belief that isn't directly what you're senses are experiencing and even that you should hold in some suspicion because it can be compromised such as with optical illusions. If you want to be completely objective with reality you'd be reduced to seeing everything as utterly incomprehensible chaos, its not even nihilism as at least nihilism holds the presupposition that meaning doesn't exist, you'd be held in utter agnostic suspension if even this is true. Believing in God and not believing in God are completely equal from a rational perspective. If believing in one would make your existence happier then believing in the other then just believe in it unless you're some kind of masochist.

The only book that can BTFO lack of faith is the Bible

>>18942341
>we could've spent all that time writing more meaningless bullshit when the Catholic church had in the real world already created a harmonious civilization based upon Plato's republic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TbEFRKJZ8E

>>18942365

>t. Talking Snake, the Snake That Could Talk To People

>when the Catholic church had in the real world already created a harmonious civilization based upon Plato's republic
how the fuck can somebody be so wrong in so few words what the fuck holy shit
this has to be some kind of a record, i am actually surprised

>>18942385
Anon compare the medieval age with the 20th century. I'd take being a peasant anytime.

>>18942385
He's right though. Read pic related

>>18942401

The grass isn't even greener, this is a straight-up unwarranted romanticizing of the past. The technological benefits of living in the current era uniroincally outweigh the specific social pathologies that we endure.

>>18942411
i'm going to argue semantics here but the catholic church didn't "create civilisation"; they merely moved into what was already existing although it wouldn't be classified as a proper civilisation (in spenglerian terms) for another several hundred years, in the case of the book you posted
and what was so great about that place anyway? the fact that the common people farmed all day, every day while the government produced almost nothing of value? THAT'S your idea of a harmonious civilisation? a place that exists merely to exist?
that might be harmonious to you but some of us want to reach a higher level
>meaningless bullshit
modern technology which will take us to the stars in earnest would not exist without greek philosophy, even you said so yourself that the catholic church was built upon the system of a greek philosopher, further reinforcing my earlier point that they simply moved into what was already existing

>>18942401
you have the mindset of somebody who will be instantly forgotten upon death

Not an argument.

>>18942494

The ancient Greeks, being homosexuals, were also obsessed with fame, with "being remembered", a childish and histronic, feminine impulse. The masculine, adult mentality is that being forgotten is downright comfy, an existential blanket.

>>18942494
Why should I care? I'm dead, and in heavan because I was a devout medieval peasant.

>>18942473
> The technological benefits of living in the current era

>>18942753
Youd probably rather be shit posting on 4chan

>>18942764
You're right, dying of the plague is much better

>>18942773
Unironically yes. I'd much rather have died in the plague then lived through either world war, much less the desecration of all meaning within our civilization in the decades following. Thinking just because you have shinier toys means life is more worth living is beyond autistic.

>>18942771
No. I literally wish I was a feudal peasant in merry ol' England.

>>18942494
>modern technology which will take us to the stars in earnest
But why does that matter?

>>18937244
That's true enough, didn't you ever do math? To look at linear algebra as an algebraic system or to visualize it geometrically gives two quite functional approaches to the subject although one allows much better understanding of the discipline than the other. It is the same in all intellectual domains, changing perspective can give a wider field of vision or reveal facets that are still ignored. For my part, I have a great deal of regard for the testimonies of the saints because they give us a glimpse of the highest paradigm that religion gives us to know. It goes without saying that if only for the exposition of the lived experience of the spiritual life, these works can bring a lot of enlightenment, even to the non-believer, and generally it is flagrant in atheists that they simply do not understand the springs of spirituality and if, failing to convert them, such readings would allow them to understand what they are opposed to, they would gain a lot.

>>18942753
because what you do when you are in heaven does not matter
what you do while you are still alive does

>>18942679
last man

>>18942794
why does your breathing matter?