Tag Archives: An Elementary Christian Metaphysics

Introduction to Classical Christian Metaphysics – Part 5

Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 4 we introduced being and goodness. In part 5 we analyze ultimate being, or what Christians call God.

As metaphysics is the study of being, the question arises: what is ultimate being?  Aquinas reasoned that given any change in the world (a movement from potency to act), there must exist a being who is changeless, who is pure actuality with no potency.  Joseph Owens summarizes the argument:

Every sensible thing . . . has its being from something else. . . . Its nature, prior to the reception of being from an efficient cause, has no existence at all.  Its nature, accordingly, cannot produce its own being.  Its being is caused efficiently by an agent other than itself.  If that agent in turn exists through an act of being that is accidental and prior to its own nature, it will similarly depend upon another agent for its proper being.  It will be a caused cause, in the order of efficient causality.

The series of causes will have to continue.  Even an infinite regression of these caused causes, however, would not account for the least being in the world.  In every instance and in all the instances together there would be only nature that contained no being, nature that merely remained open to receive being from something else. There would be an infinite series of existential zeros. . . . This means that for any series of efficiently caused causes there is a first cause.  It is first in the sense that it does not have its being from anything else.

Thus Aquinas concludes that “it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.”

From God existing as pure actuality, reason leads us to several other attributes of God.  “Since being is the act of all acts and the perfection of all perfections, where it subsists it will be perfection in the highest degree. . . . It therefore contains within itself the perfections of all other things.”

From pure actuality and from the perfections deduced from observation of the world, we reason that God must be immutable, immaterial, eternal, intelligent, volitional, morally perfect, omniscient, omnipotent, simple, omnisapient, and so forth.  God is the greatest conceivable being.

With the conclusion of this 5-part series, we have introduced a handful of basic concepts from classical Christian metaphysics. Armed with act and potency, form and matter, the four causes, being and goodness, and, most importantly, God as ultimate being, we can now construct a foundation for Christian ethics. That is the task we take up in another blog post series.

Introduction to Classical Christian Metaphysics – Part 4

Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 3 we introduced the four causes which give a complete explanation of a thing. In part 4 we introduce the concepts of being and goodness.

Metaphysics is the study of being, as such.  Act, potency, form, and matter are all aspects of being.  Edward Feser comments that “being is the most comprehensive concept we have, applying as it does to everything that exists, so that there is no way to subsume it under something more general.”

Being is an analogical notion, so it cannot be applied univocally to all beings.  “[M]aterial things and angels can both be said to have being, but material things are composites of matter and form while angels are forms without matter; created things and God both have being, but in created things essence and existence are distinct and in God they are not; and so forth.”

The good is convertible from being (they are both transcendentals).  According to Feser, “Something is good to the extent that it exists as, or has being as, an instance of its kind.”

As Aquinas says, “everything is perfect so far as it is actual. Therefore it is clear that a thing is perfect so far as it exists; for it is existence that makes all things actual.”

There is more, however, to the essence of goodness than existence.  A thing is good because it is in some way desirable or appetible.  Joseph Owens relates, “Goodness, accordingly, is being when considered in relation to appetite.  It adds nothing real to being, for it is merely being itself, now conceived as appetible.”

Aquinas summarizes, “Hence it is clear that goodness and being are the same really. But goodness presents the aspect of desirableness, which being does not present.”

A chair is good insofar as it accomplishes its purpose (i.e., final cause) of providing a place to sit.  In a metaphysical sense, the chair “desires” to provide a place to sit; that is why it was created.

A heart is good insofar as it accomplishes its purpose (i.e., final cause) of pumping blood.  In a metaphysical sense, the heart “desires” to pump blood; that is why it was created.

Note that these are not examples of moral goodness, though.  The transcendental notion of goodness contains more than human morality.  Morality is a subset of transcendental goodness, having to do specifically with the desirableness of human behavior.  In other words, human behavior is good in so far as it accomplishes the final causes for which human beings were brought into existence.

In part 5, we look at ultimate being: God.

Introduction to Classical Christian Metaphysics – Part 1

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Most Christians don’t care anything about metaphysics, and truth be told, don’t even know what it is. I hope to entice you, the reader, with a reason to learn about it. One very important reason for learning Christian metaphysics is because any Christian ethical system must be grounded in metaphysics.

You can’t generate a robust ethics without a robust metaphysics lying underneath. Philosopher David Oderberg explains that it is “impossible to know how the world ought to go, more specifically how one ought to act (or what makes a state of affairs or action good, or worthwhile, praiseworthy, etc.) without prior knowledge of how the world is.”

A realist moral theory (one that claims that there are real, objective moral values) must define/identify the source of moral values before it can get off the ground.  Metaphysics is the discipline that does the work of identifying the source of moral values, because metaphysics is the study of being, of existence.  If moral values really exist, then metaphysics must identify them.

Obviously there are other reasons for learning Christian metaphysics, but I will approach this introduction with the goal of providing a foundation to Christian ethics. What follows is largely taken from three books which I cannot recommend enough for anyone who wants to understand these issues. They are The Last Superstition and Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide, both by Edward Feser, and An Elementary Christian Metaphysics by Joseph Owens.

Let’s begin with the metaphysical principles of act and potency. In order to explain the way change of any kind is possible, Aristotle introduced the metaphysical principles of act and potency.  Edward Feser illustrates:

Take any object of our experience: a red rubber ball, for example. Among its features are the ways it actually is: solid, round, red, and bouncy. These are different aspects of its ‘being.’ There are also the ways it is not; for example, it is not a dog, or a car, or a computer. The ball’s ‘dogginess’ and so on, since they don’t exist, are different kinds of ‘non-being.’ But in addition to these features, we can distinguish the various ways the ball potentially is: blue (if you paint it), soft and gooey (if you melt it), and so forth.

Thus the red rubber ball is in act by way of actually being solid, red, round, and bouncy.  It actually is those things.  The ball is in potency by way of potentially being blue, soft, and gooey.  It could potentially become those things.  Change occurs when a potency is brought into act, or when a potentiality for being is made actual.  There is a potential for blueness in the ball, but this potential will not become actual unless an external influence acts upon the ball.  Thus the classical Aristotelian principle emerges: whatever is changed is changed by another.

All finite beings are composites of actuality and potentiality.  However, Edward Feser notes that “while actuality and potentiality are fully intelligible only in relation to each other, there is an asymmetry between them, with actuality having metaphysical priority,” for potentiality cannot exist without actuality.  “It is incoherent to speak of something both existing and being purely potential, with no actuality whatsoever.” However, it is perfectly coherent for pure actuality to exist without any potentiality.

In part 2 we will look at the metaphysical principles of form and matter. Remember that we are building a metaphysical base for Christian ethics, but you won’t be able to see how all of these metaphysical principles work together until we get to the end, so stick with me!

Why Do Science and Reason Transcend the Material World?

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

We live in an era where science and reason are highly valued, but at the same time many intellectuals doubt the existence of anything but matter and energy. Philosophers, such as Thomas Nagel, have pointed out the  built-in contradiction of the worldview that says only physical matter exists, and that reason and science tell us that.

Thomist Joseph Owens provides a useful explanation, from metaphysics, of why science and reason require more than the existence of matter. Owens first recalls the amazing progress of human science and reason:

The freedom from limitations to a particular space and a particular time makes possible the astounding progress of human knowledge through the arts and sciences. Knowledge gained in one piece of research or one experiment is communicated to thousands of other minds and is handed down to succeeding generations. The scientific reasoning of one man becomes the common property of all who pursue the science from one generation to the other. The enormous body of knowledge is not lost with the death of the individuals who so far have been bringing it into being. It is not limited to the conditions of individuation and change, conditions inevitably imposed by matter.

What Owens is saying is that matter is necessarily characterized by individuation and change. If this is the case, then how are the universal and fixed truths of science and reason discovered or communicated?

Scientific progress, accordingly, requires that the intellects through which it takes place function in a way that is independent of the strictly material principle in the knowing subjects. Even the very process of reasoning itself could not take place without this independence from material limitation.

In deductive reasoning, the argument features a major term, minor term, and middle term. How does this process work if everything is material?

The universality that allows the major notion to include the middle one, and the middle to include the minor, would be impossible for any operation that was determined to individual conditions. The inclusion of one term in the other, moreover, is an inclusion in being; for instance “A man is an animal.” If the object “animal” were individuated, it could not share the one being any more than Khrushchev could be Kennedy.

Likewise, in passing from one judgment to another in the process of reasoning, the notions have to remain the same. If they were liable to change, demonstration would be impossible. What was established in the predicate of one judgment could be changed when carried over to function as subject in the next combination.

But it’s not just deductive reasoning that requires the transcendence of the material. Owens claims something much more basic is at stake: communication itself.

Communication in speech, further, is based upon this same immunity to change and transcendence of individuating dimensions in the intelligible objects. Culture and civilization, accordingly, provide ample evidence of the human intellects functioning in ways that break through the limitations of matter.

If you are a materialist, someone who believes that all that exists is matter, then your worldview completely undercuts science, reason, and even communication. You need to add some beef to your ontologically thin soup.

Does Everyone Exercise Faith?

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

If you claim to know anything that you haven’t personally experienced or seen with your own eyes, then you exercise faith. Faith, a concept badly misunderstood by so many people, is the primary way that we know most things about the world. If you were to say, “I will stop claiming to know anything by faith,” then you would, in effect, know very little.

Thomistic philosopher Joseph Owens, in his book An Elementary Christian Metaphysics, explains how faith actually works:

If the mechanic who services your car tells you the valves need grinding, you assent to that judgment even though you yourself know nothing about the needs of valves. In this case there is nothing in the object to move you to assent, even to the probable assent of opinion. The assent is all the more caused by your will.

When you agree with the mechanic that your valves need grinding, what is going on? Why would you assent to something that you personally have not observed?

You give the assent, because you have concluded that the mechanic understands valves and wants you to know the truth about the ones in your car and that it is to your own advantage to accept his information. Assenting to a judgment on the word of another is called faith or belief. It requires acquaintance with the reliability of your informant, that is, that he has the requisite knowledge and that he is not intending to deceive you. Both these points are conclusions of your own. In accepting his capacity to give the information reliably, you accept his authority.

Is it crazy to trust the authority of another person?

In human authority there is always the possibility that your informant is mistaken or that he is deceiving you. Faith in human authority, therefore, can never be absolute. There is always the possibility that a judgment accepted solely on human authority may be wrong. In events immediately perceived by the informants, the reliability can be very high. It is on such testimony of witnesses that the gravest issues are decided in the lawcourts.

Again we ask, “Can we live without faith?” No. Living without faith would make life unlivable. We rely on other people’s authority all the time. It is the truly naive and foolish person who claims that everything they know they have experienced themselves or reasoned to themselves. Owens reminds us:

In everyday life, however, much of one’s information comes from authority. The news that you get from the daily telecast and daily paper, your knowledge of countries and cities that you have not visited, your knowledge of history, all that you know from reading of books, constitute a sizable portion of your cognition. Yet it is all accepted on faith. Faith, accordingly, is an important means of widening human cognition.

What Happens to Us When We Gain New Knowledge?

Post Author: Bill Pratt

OK, I admit we’re in deep waters with this question, but I’ve been studying epistemology, the investigation of human knowledge, for the last few months and I have run across a short section in a book I’m reading that struck me as particularly profound.

Before I discuss that section, I want to share a common question that people ask me.  The question is this: “Why do you read and study so much?  What’s the point of it all?  Is there no end to your search for knowledge?”  Generally these are people who don’t know what to think of all the books I read, of the blog posts I write, of the seminary courses I take.  To them, it might all be a colossal waste of time.

The only way I can answer this question is that once I started studying the teachings of Christianity, my mind literally awakened to an immense world that I never knew existed.  Since that time, I have felt an incredible drive, almost a primal need, to learn as much as I can about God, humans, and the world we live in – in that order of importance.  I can’t get enough of it and I don’t think I ever will.

Is something wrong with me and people like me?  Sometimes I wonder, but then I ran across a passage in a book that explains why I do what I do – why I want to know things.  The book is An Elementary Christian Metaphysics by Joseph Owens and is one of the most difficult books I’ve ever read.  It is as abstract as you can possibly get, because the book is mostly about the concept of existence, of what it means for something to exist.  There is no more basic subject than that, and thus it makes for abstract reading.

So what does the book have to say?

Through sense cognition a man is able to become [in his mind] one by one the . . . things he encounters in his daily life.  He enriches himself with their forms as he perceives each of them [as they really are], and conserves the forms in his imagination.

Think about this.  We actually become the things we perceive as we bring them into our mind.  We are enriched by the things we come to know and we are able to preserve these things in our mind even after we stop seeing them.

Through intellection [man] is able to transcend the confines of the here and now, and become objects whose extent is unlimited.

How does this work?  We are able to identify common natures in things, and once we identify a common nature, we are able to know all things that possess that common nature.  For example, when we understand the concept of humanity as a nature, we now understand what all humans are like in their common humanity.  We can know what humans were like in the past, in the present, and in the future without ever seeing all instances of human beings.  That’s amazing when you think about it.

Though remaining an individual he is brought into a life that bursts away from the ghetto of his immediate surroundings and extends as far as do the natures of the things with which he comes in contact. . . . Through science he can enrich himself with myriad forms that could never impinge themselves on his immediate cognition.

The intellect and the ability to know things expands the universe far beyond what a man can directly see or hear.  How far can man go?

In grasping the [existence] of sensible things . . . he has the starting point from which he can reach [God].  By intellective reflection [man] becomes himself . . . and is himself in a way that enables him to dominate his own activity.  Knowing his own actions through reflection he has starting points for the investigation of spiritual nature.

Thus we are the only animals that can reach God by reflecting on ourselves.  We see that we have a spiritual nature, that we have a mind, that we think, feel, and will.  As Owens reminds us, this reflection provides the starting point for us to know that God exists.

Owens concludes:

The kinds of things that a man can know through his intellect are consequently unlimited. . . . Intellection, therefore, is able to enrich the knower cognitionally with the form of anything whatsoever.  Those forms remain with the knower permanently as [intellectual likenesses] in which the thing may again be actually known at any time.  There need be little wonder, then, that Aristotle saw in intellection the supreme happiness and destiny of man, and that according to the Christian the Beatific Vision is the ultimate goal of human living.

I believe that God has placed the desire to know in all humans, and that He has given some of us extra doses of that desire.  That is why I want to know.  Why has God given man the desire to know?  Because the pursuit of knowledge, for the Christian, eventually culminates in the ultimate human experience, seeing God in the Beatific Vision.  It doesn’t get any better than that.