Tag Archives: Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide

How Does Christian Metaphysics Ground the Good? Part 3

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In parts 1 and 2, we spelled out how classical Christian metaphysics is able to identify the good for human beings, and thus provide a sturdy foundation for Christian moral realism. Moral values and duties really exist and they transcend time and place.

In a previous series of blog posts, we looked at why Sam Harris’s metaphysical naturalism utterly fails to identify the good with anything transcendent. It will be instructive to compare Harris’s identification of the good with the Christian identification of the good.

Recall the difficulties with Harris’ identification of the good.  First, he falls prey to the naturalistic fallacy.  Harris identifies the brain states that constitute human well-being with the good, but G. E. Moore has persuasively argued that natural facts about the world (e.g., brain states) cannot deliver values, on metaphysical naturalism.

For a Christian theist in the Aristotelian–Thomistic tradition , the naturalistic fallacy is simply not a problem.  On his metaphysics, values are built into the world, and the good is located in formal and final causes.  Edward Feser elaborates in his book Aquinas:

A gap between ‘fact’ and ‘value’ could exist only given a mechanistic-cum-nominalistic understanding of nature of the sort commonly taken for granted by modern philosophers, on which the world is devoid of any objective essences or natural ends.  No such gap, and thus no ‘fallacy’ of inferring normative conclusions from ‘purely factual’ premises, can exist given an Aristotelian–Thomistic essentialist and teleological conception of the world.

Harris’ next difficulty is his assertion that moral values can conceivably reverse in the future.  Cruelty and cheating could possibly become good if neuroscience can deliver feelings of well-being to individuals who are cruel and who cheat. Even worse, Harris concedes that rapists, liars, and thieves could occupy peaks on the moral landscape that are equivalent to peaks occupied by saints.

Although he believes that these scenarios are highly unlikely, his metaphysics allows for the possibility.  For Aquinas, no such scenarios are possible because the good is located proximately in a fixed human nature and, ultimately, in the unchanging nature of God.  Moral values, therefore, can never be reversed in the future, and the goodness of rapists, liars, and thieves can never be equivalent to the goodness of a saint.

Harris’ final difficulty is his belief that it would be morally good for human beings to be sacrificed for the well-being of a vastly superior alien race.  Here again, Aquinas would disagree.  The good of human beings is located in the human nature given us by God, and there is nothing in human nature that would lead us to believe we are designed as sacrifices for an alien race.

Instead, we are designed by God, in his image, as living, free creatures with intellect, will, and passions.  To be used as sacrifices for super-aliens runs counter to the purposes for which God created us, and is, therefore, clearly not good.  Natural law theory affirms our deepest moral intuition, that to be abused by superior conscious beings would be morally wrong, contrary to Harris’ bizarre reasoning.

So what can we conclude from this analysis? It should be abundantly clear that Harris’ naturalistic metaphysics leads him to a completely inadequate account of the source of moral values.  The well-being of conscious creatures fails to provide an unchanging, transcendent ground for the good.  The good is apt to be different for each person, depending on what gives him feelings of well-being.  Although Harris emphasizes that human evolution and the common laws of nature should produce moral values that are more or less constant, the fact of the matter is that nothing in Harris’ metaphysics guarantees what seems completely obvious to all of us: moral values are transcendent.

Christian metaphysics, as expounded by the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, does provide a grounding for moral values that supports our most deeply held moral convictions.  Moral values are based upon human nature and the ends toward which it points.  The finite goods of human beings – health, virtue, pleasure – are the same for Sam Harris and Thomas Aquinas.  However, Aquinas can affirm these as eternally fixed by God, whereas Harris can only affirm them as transient byproducts of purposeless physical processes.  The gaping metaphysical hole in Harris’s moral landscape, then, is the Being of pure actuality from which every good thing comes.  Without God, man is truly a conscious creature of no consequence.  To quote Aquinas, “God alone constitutes man’s happiness.”

How Does Christian Metaphysics Ground the Good? Part 1

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

In a 5-part series of posts, we looked at several metaphysical principles which all inevitably lead to the existence of God. Given these principles, and the existence of God, how do we go about constructing a Christian ethical theory? Or, more to the point, how does metaphysics help us identify the good for human beings?

A thing is good insofar as it instantiates its essence, and, particularly with living things, essence (formal causality) is tied to the thing’s purpose (final causality). To know what is the good for a human being, we must first look to the essence of being human, or human nature, and we must look to the purposes toward which human nature is pointed.

Notice that metaphysical naturalism is already in trouble. Metaphysical naturalists cannot appeal to “human nature” or “essences” or “final causes” within their ontology, as those aspects of reality simply do not exist for them.

The Christian, using classical Christian metaphysics, can affirm the existence of objective, transcendent moral values because the good for human beings is based upon objective, transcendent metaphysical principles: the formal causes and final causes of humans.  How does the formal cause of humans, or human nature, determine the good for us?  Edward Feser remarks, in Aquinas,

Knowing what is truly good for us requires taking an external, objective, ‘third-person’ point of view on ourselves rather than a subjective ‘first-person’ view; it is a matter of determining what fulfills our nature, not our contingent desires. The good in question has moral significance for us because, unlike other animals, we are capable of intellectually grasping what is good and freely choosing whether or not to pursue it.

There are three different categories of goods inherent to human nature.  According to Feser, “First are those we share in common with all living things, such as the preservation of our existence.  Second are those common to animals specifically, such as sexual intercourse and the child-rearing activities that naturally follow upon it.  Third are those peculiar to us as rational animals . . . .”

The last category is the most important, as it is the highest aspect of human nature.  The purposes of human beings include such things as survival, sexual intercourse, and knowing truth.  These purposes are entailed by our human nature, which includes the fact that we are living, sexually reproducing, and rational beings; we are rational animals.  As rational animals, however, what is our ultimate purpose?  Put another way, what is the ultimate good for mankind?

We’ll look at the answer to that question in part 2.

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 3

Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 2 we introduced the metaphysical principles of form and matter. In part 3 we introduce the four causes.

Aristotle taught, and the Scholastics agreed, that there are four different causes, and that these four causes give a complete explanation of a thing. Modern English-speaking people tend to only use the word “cause” in a narrow sense, but the ancients thought of “cause” in at least four different ways: efficient, formal, material, and final.

If we take a wooden chair as an example, the material cause is the material – wood – out of which the chair is made; the formal cause, or the form, is the pattern or structure it exhibits – having legs and a seat; the efficient cause of the chair is that which actualizes a potency and brings the chair into existence – a carpenter; the final cause is the purpose for which the chair was made – to provide a place for a person to sit.

The material and formal causes of a thing are simply the form/matter composite (recall part 2) that constitute a substance.  Efficient and final causality give rise to other basic principles.  From efficient causality, or causing a thing to come into being, emerges the principle of causality. This principle states that whatever comes into existence must have a cause, and that cause cannot be the thing itself.  From final causality emerges the principle of finality, or the fact that every agent acts for an end.

According to Edward Feser, final causality exists “wherever some natural object or process has a tendency to produce some particular effect or range of effects.” In other words, wherever there is a regularity in nature, a pattern where a particular cause repeatedly produces a particular effect, final causality is present. Thus when the principle of finality refers to every agent acting toward an end, this includes “agents” that are both conscious and unconscious.

For example, if we think of the heart as an agent, the heart’s final cause is the pumping of blood, but we would not say that the heart is consciously pumping blood. Feser remarks that “the same directedness towards a certain specific effect or range of effects is evident in all causes operative in the natural world.”

In part 4 we will look at being and goodness.

Introduction to Classical Christian Metaphysics – Part 2

Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 1 we introduced the metaphysical principles of act and potency. In part 2 we introduce the metaphysical principles of form and matter.

Ordinary objects of our experience are composed of two metaphysical principles – form and matter.  Edward Feser explains these principles, again using a rubber ball:

The rubber ball of our example is composed of a certain kind of matter (namely rubber) and a certain kind of form (namely the form of a red, round, bouncy object). The matter by itself isn’t the ball, for the rubber could take on the form of a doorstop, an eraser, or any number of other things. The form by itself isn’t the ball either, for you can’t bounce redness, roundness, or even bounciness down the hallway, these being mere abstractions. It is only the form and matter together that constitute the ball.

The form thus determines what a thing is.  In this sense, the form of an object is sometimes called its essence or nature.  Feser explains that matter

will always have some substantial form or other, and thus count as a substance of some kind or other; . . . The notion of prime matter is just the notion of something in pure potentiality with respect to having any kind of form, and thus with respect to being any kind of thing at all. . . . [W]hat is purely potential has no actuality at all, and thus does not exist at all.

It should be noted that the Aristotelian-Thomistic notion of “form” is not the same as Plato’s notion.  Plato held that forms only exist in a realm wholly apart from the material world.  For Aquinas, the forms are instantiated in individual substances which exist in the world.  Apart from substances, forms are abstractions, but they are nonetheless real things, not mere human inventions.

Feser comments, “When we grasp [forms such as] ‘humanity,’ ‘triangularity,’ and the like, what we grasp are not mere inventions of the human mind, but are grounded in the natures of real human beings, triangles, or what have you.”

In part 3 we will look at the famous four causes.

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!