Thomist Thread

[Phaedo No.4185360]

I have been noticing an upsurge of Thomists on /lit/.
Post if you consider yourself a Thomist and list any decent (relatively modern) Thomistic works.
Also, what do you think about the so called marriage of Thomisim and Personalism spearheaded by Dr. Kreeft?

>Edward Feser, Dr. Kreeft, and étienne Gilson
>"Person and Being" by Fr. Norris Clark
>I think it could work

[Anonymous No.4185387]

>>4185360
Can you give me a tl;dr on what Thomism is?

[Phaedo No.4185392]

>>4185387
https://www.ashgate.com/pdf/SamplePages/Analytical_Thomism_Intro.pdf

[Anonymous No.4185931]

>>4185392
>Analytical thomism
That souund so good is sexy.

[Anonymous No.4186239]

What is the diference beatween Thomism and Scholasticism?

[Anonymous No.4186243]

Nihilistic Thomist sympathiser reporting in for bump and lurk duty.

[Anonymous No.4186244]

stuffy xtians

[Anonymous No.4186255]

Aquinas' arguments seemed to me invalid, at first. One has to presume the existence of God to accept them. Ultimately they stratify faith, rather than 'prove' anything to an agnostic or atheist who operates under the opposite assumption; that God does not exist.

Then I read George Berkeley's 'Treatise' and his 'Three Dialogues'. These texts provide a good philosophical foundation for thinking about the possible existence of a deity.

[Anonymous No.4186265]

>>4186255
but agnostics don't operate under either of those assumptions

[Anonymous No.4186276]

>>4186265
You inherently believe that God is probable or improbable based on evidence, interpretation of evidence, reason and irrational factors. An agnostic can tread the middle path with some difficulty, but is either going to lead one way or the other. There are plenty of agnostics who operate under the assumption that a deity is not likely to exist.

[Anonymous No.4186281]

>>4186276
Prrhotip: People don't need to lean one way or the other regarding such matters.

[Anonymous No.4186283]

>>4186276
Then they're not true agnostics, they're agnostic atheists

[Anonymous No.4186291]

>>4185360


im a fan of alasdair macintyre

[Anonymous No.4186296]

>>4186276
Proper agnosticism is basically operating under no assumptions as to God's existence or nonexistence. You can claim that an agnostic will assume nothing to be true until it's proven true, or that they'll assume things to be false until proven true, but you'd hardly be speaking for all agnostics in doing so.

>>4186291
I passed up this book in a used bookstore the other day. How much am I missing out on?

[Anonymous No.4186299]

>>4186283
If you prefer then I agree. Let's not get caught up in language games, though.

>>4186281
>dat evenness of mind
Apathetic as fuck.

[Anonymous No.4186341]

>>4186296
>>4186276

Agnosticism, at core, isn't even a belief as to the (likely) existence or non-existence of deities; it's a position on the means of deciding the question (and, to generalize, holds that human beings do not possess - or are inherently incapable of possessing - either evidence or argument sufficient to decide it).

For this reason, agnosticism, while certainly not uncommon as a position in itself, is also not incompatible with either theism or atheism: agnostic theists adopt the view that gods (or that or those of a specific tradition) exist, while acknowledging the impossibility of knowing or proving this; agnostic atheists, in the absence of persuasive evidence or argument, adopt the provisional or practical assumption that deities do not exist, though not asserting this as known, proven, or provable fact.

[Anonymous No.4186345]

>>4186341
>agnostic theists adopt the view that gods (or that or those of a specific tradition) exist, while acknowledging the impossibility of knowing or proving this
So, guys like Kierkegaard?

[Anonymous No.4186354]

Apatheism master race.

[Anonymous No.4186360]

>>4186354
>implying we care

[Anonymous No.4186364]

>>4186354
If you're so apatheistic then what are you doing here?

[Anonymous No.4186371]

>>4186341
Being agnostic in the truest scientific sense means that all theories that you can possibly consider are falsifiable. Obviously, one fluctuates in regard to what one sees as probable and improbable and to what degree. You're being needlessly verbose.

[Anonymous No.4186383]

>>4186364
I'm not apachanistic innit

[Anonymous No.4186512]

>>4186371
>Being agnostic in the truest scientific sense means that all theories that you can possibly consider are falsifiable.

I don't think so. There are of course various forms of agnosticism, but their common thread is skepticism (which differs in degree) as to the ability of the human mind rationally to justify religious or metaphysical beliefs. An agnostic can hold various kinds of theories and beliefs; their agnosticism rests not on the specifics of these, but on their acknowledgement of the limits of evidence or argument to validate particular ones.

[Anonymous No.4186518]

>>4186371

This sounds more like positivism.

[Anonymous No.4186532]

Drunk Thomist here. If you read French, just read de Konnick. Le cosmos is the best Thomist book published in the last century.

[Anonymous No.4186562]

>>4185360
Is there an actual retort to the cosmological argument or is it all just hand-waving?

[Anonymous No.4186580]

>>4186562
No.

[Anonymous No.4187553]

>>4186580
Suck it, atheist

[Anonymous No.4187580]

>>4186562

You mean how the term First Cause is a contradiction in terms? How this merely asserts what needs to be proven? How it asserts that causal loops are impossible without properly proving this? How it doesn't address the problem of identity? How it doesn't address the concept of infinite causal chains? How Aquinas stole it from Aristotle? How not only space, but also time didn't exist before the Big Bang, therefore making the word "beginning" really awkward, since there wasn't any time at this point?

[Anonymous No.4187643]

I'm a Thomist.

[Anonymous No.4187779]

>>4186239
pls respond