General Apologetics

Before You Throw Out a Tradition, Know Why It Was There in the First Place

51 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

We’ve been talking recently about how conservatives tend to stand more firmly on tradition, whereas progressives and libertarians tend to be more willing to toss aside tradition. It is obvious that not all traditions should be maintained because the original circumstance for which the tradition was established no longer exists.

For example, if there was a tradition established that all roads should be at least 8 horse widths wide to accommodate horse-driven wagons moving in opposite directions, then we could safely drop this tradition when the time came that very few horse driven wagons were on the roads any more.

For those of us who think that a particular tradition should be undone, G. K. Chesterton has some very sound advice from his book The Thing:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

Before you advocate the undoing of a long-held tradition, you had better be sure that you understand why the tradition exists. Don’t tear a fence down when you don’t even know why it’s there. I don’t think this is too much to ask. If you can clearly articulate why the tradition is in place, you can make your case for why circumstances have changed and why the tradition is no longer needed.

Gay Marriage

Are Christians Against Gay People?

33 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

It seems that Christians are against gay people, based mostly on our responses to same-sex marriage proponents. Since many Christians are fighting same-sex marriage, then it is understandable that it seems that we are anti-gay. The truth, however, is that no Bible-believing Christian can be against gay people.

I myself have written several blog posts against same-sex marriage, but I thought it was time I step back and affirm some things about gay people outside the same-sex marriage issue. Here are my thoughts.

First and most important, Jesus died for gay people, which means their sins, just like mine, were atoned for on the cross. They, like me, only have to accept God’s unconditional gift of salvation.

Second, we should welcome gay people into our churches without demanding that they “stop being gay” before joining. The church is a hospital, so we should expect all kinds of patients, not just the kinds of patients we’re most comfortable treating.

Third, although gay sexual acts are sinful, they should not be singled out as being worse than all other sexual sins. Heterosexual sexual sins, being an order of magnitude more prevalent, have caused far more damage. Given that homosexuals constitute only 2-3% of the population, we have to say that heterosexuals are the dominant cause of the breakdown of the traditional family.

Fourth, we should support any legislation that addresses illegitimate discrimination against gay people.

Fifth, regardless of sexual orientation, monogamous relationships should always be promoted over promiscuity. Promiscuity is a powerful sin amplifier because it involves many people, whereas monogamy limits the damage of sexual sin to fewer people.

Sixth, there is a continuum of same-sex attraction among homosexuals. Some people feel the attraction very strongly and some feel it weakly. This is no different from heterosexuals, who also experience sexual attraction more or less strongly. Don’t think you know how all homosexuals feel because you happen to know one, or worse yet, because you’ve seen gay characters on TV shows.

In summary, although I will continue fighting against the legalization of same-sex marriage, I want gay people to understand that my views about homosexuals extend well beyond this one issue. I don’t hate gay people. I don’t want them to be treated unfairly. I recognize that their sins do not deserve to be singled out above all other sins. I want them to feel welcome in my church. I want them to come to faith in Christ.

General Apologetics, Human Nature

Can a Fetus Gestate In a Box?

9 Comments

Post Author: Bill Pratt 

As someone who greatly respects the traditions and wisdom handed down from antiquity, I find myself constantly amazed at the way modern man wants to deny inconvenient bits of reality.  Bits such as:

  • Boys and girls are biologically different in significant ways.
  • Children can only be produced when a man and a woman unite in sexual reproduction.
  • When a small group of people is given a tremendous amount of power over a larger group of people, the small group will inevitably oppress the larger group.
  • No amount of education will ever eradicate human sin.
  • If you tell men that they don’t have to commit to women in order to have sex with them, marriages will decrease and divorces will increase.
  • As the traditional nuclear family goes, so goes civilization.
  • Human institutions that rely on centralized command and control inevitably fail as they grow larger.
  • The wisdom given us by our ancestors has been repeatedly tested and proved to work, so we ignore it at great peril.

I’m sure my conservative friends could add numerous bits of reality to this list, but I think you get the point. Those of us who find any of these bits of reality to be inconvenient are struggling in vain. This is the way the world is and has always been, and we have to adapt ourselves to it.

Obviously there are other parts of reality that we can change and should change, but oddly enough, we usually only know that our current reality needs to change because the wisdom of our ancestors tells us what is wrong with our current reality.

For example, I know that abortion on demand is wrong because life is sacred and an innocent life should never be taken without proper justification. I know these things from the highest traditions that have been passed down to us.

I also know that we should be constantly fighting against poverty, disease, and any form of human enslavement, as all of these bits of reality degrade sacred human life, life that is made in the image of God.

Do conservatives fight against the status quo? Absolutely. The difference is that conservatives fight against those things which actually can be changed about reality, while non-conservatives often fight against those bits of reality which cannot be changed. What’s even worse about this second approach is that these folks will force the rest of us, through legislative or judicial fiat, into hopeless social experiments that inevitably backfire and do far more damage than any good they might have achieved.

I was watching the Monty Python comedy, The Life of Brian, recently, and was reminded in a humorous way how silly those people are who want to change unchangeable realities. To set the scene, there are 3 men (Reg, Rogers, and Stan) and a woman (Judith), who are part of a radical Jewish political group, discussing and debating their political demands. During their discussion, one of the men, Stan, announces that he wants to become a woman. We pick it up there:

Reg: Why don’t you shut up about women, Stan? You’re putting us off.

Stan: Women have a perfect right to play a part in our movement, Reg.

Rogers: Why are you always on about women, Stan?

Stan: I want to be one.

Reg: What?

Stan: I want to be a woman. From now on, I want you all to call me Loretta.

Reg: What?

Loretta (Stan): It’s my right as a man.

Judith: Well, why do you want to be Loretta, Stan?

Loretta (Stan): I want to have babies.

Reg: You want to have babies?!

Loretta (Stan): It’s every man’s right to have babies if he wants them.

Reg: But…you can’t have babies!

Loretta (Stan): Don’t you oppress me!

Reg: I’m not oppressing you, Stan. You haven’t got a womb. Where is the fetus going to gestate? You’re going to keep it in a box?

Loretta (Stan): Sniff.

Judith: Here, I’ve got an idea. Suppose you agree that he can’t actually have babies, not having a womb, which is nobody’s fault, not even the Romans, but that he can have the right to have babies.

Rogers: Good idea, Judith. We shall fight the oppressors for your right to have babies, brother. Sister! Sorry.

Reg: What’s the point?

Rogers: What?

Reg: What’s the point of fighting for his right to have babies, when he can’t have babies?

Rogers: It is symbolic of our struggle against oppression.

Reg: Symbolic of his struggle against reality.


	

	
	




	
	

				

			Religion
		

			
Is the World Becoming More Religious?

		

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 




Reports like this must cause Dawkins foot soldiers massive indigestion. The standard atheist dogma is that religious belief is on the decline and will eventually die out altogether. According to the study titled “Christianity In Its Global Context, 1970-2010,” conducted by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, religion is on the rise. The study is summarized at the Christian Post, but here are some highlights:


In 1970, nearly 80 percent of the world’s population was religious, and by 2010 this had grown to around 88 percent, with a projected increase to almost 90 percent by 2020, the report states. The growth of religious adherence can largely be attributed to the continuing resurgence of religion in China, it notes.


In 1970, agnostic and atheist populations together claimed 19.2 percent of the world’s total population, largely due to communism in Eastern Europe and China. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, large numbers of the nonreligious returned to religion. . . .


“If this trend continues, agnostics and atheists will be a smaller portion of the world’s population in 2020 than they were in 2010,” says the report. “Although the number of atheists and agnostics continues to rise in the Western world, the current growth of a variety of religions in China in particular (where the vast majority of the nonreligious live today) suggests continued future demographic growth of religion.” . . .


Between 1970 and 2020, all major Christian traditions are likely to grow more rapidly than the general population in the global South, according to the report. However, at the same time, Christianity is declining as a percentage of the population in the global North “at a dramatic rate.” This can be attributed to birth rates in many European countries in particular being below replacement level, and aging populations.

	

	
	




	
	

				

			Morality, Philosophy
		

			
How Does Christian Metaphysics Ground the Good? Part 3

		

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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.”



	

	
	




	
	

				

			Gay Marriage, Polls
		

			
Are You Progressive, Conservative, or Libertarian?

		

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Post Author: Bill Pratt


Arnold Kling, in his book The Three Languages of Politics, argues that there are three dominant political viewpoints: progressive, conservative, and libertarian. Each of these three view the world along completely different axes. Kling explained these three axes in an interview with economist Russ Roberts:


So what I claim is that Progressives organize the good and the bad in terms of oppression and the oppressed, and they think in terms of groups. So, certain groups of people are oppressed, and certain groups of people are oppressors. And so the good is to align yourself against oppression, and the historical figures that have improved the world have fought against oppression and overcome oppression.


The second axis is one I think Conservatives use, which is civilization and barbarism. The good is civilized values that have accumulated over time and have stood the test of time; and the bad is barbarians who try to strike out against those values and destroy civilization.


And the third axis is one I associate with Libertarians, which is freedom versus coercion, so that good is individuals making their own choices, contracting freely with each other; and the bad is coercion at gunpoint, particularly on the part of governments.


When I heard Kling say these things, it really resonated with me. The first thing that popped into my mind was the debate over gay marriage. Progressives see the entire debate in terms of gay people being oppressed. Conservatives see the debate in terms of millennia-old traditions being overturned. Libertarians see the debate in terms of gay people’s freedom to do what they wish.


The problem, says Kling, is that since each of these three groups are speaking a completely different language, they just talk past each other and fail to substantively engage. Coming from a conservative viewpoint, I can definitely see how progressives only want to talk about the oppression of gays, and libertarians only want to talk about the fact that gays should be able to freely do whatever they like, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.


What’s interesting about the gay marriage debate in France is that a group of Progressives have stood up to denounce gay marriage. Why? Because they claim it will oppress children of gay couples, children who will be denied either a mother or father.


Do these three political languages resonate with you? How do you think the gay marriage debate is playing out among Americans? Vote in the poll and leave a comment.








 

	

	
	




	
	

				

			Morality, Philosophy
		

			
How Does Christian Metaphysics Ground the Good? Part 2

		

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 


In part 1 we left off with the question, “What is man’s ultimate purpose?” We cannot identify the good for man without knowing what his ultimate purpose is.


Many answers have been offered throughout the millennia to this question. The most common answers are the following: wealth, honor, fame, power, pleasure, health, wisdom, and virtue. All of these are, no doubt, goods, but are they the ultimate good?


It would seem not because a man, once acquiring any of these goods, is still not satisfied. These goods only satisfy for a short time and then leave a man desiring something more. The ultimate good should satisfy forever and completely, otherwise it wouldn’t be ultimate.


Thomas Aquinas, having considered the finite goods of man, concludes,


It is impossible for any created good to constitute man’s happiness.  For happiness is the perfect good, which lulls the appetite altogether; else it would not be the last end, if something yet remained to be desired.  Now the object of the will, i.e., of man’s appetite, is the universal good; just as the object of the intellect is the universal true.  Hence it is evident that naught can lull man’s will, save the universal good.  This is to be found, not in any creature, but in God alone . . . . God alone constitutes man’s happiness.


Any moral theory which cannot locate the good in God is, therefore, fundamentally and profoundly deficient.  If God is the ultimate purpose, the final cause of all final causes, for human beings, then God must be front and center for any moral theory.


Finite goods certainly exist for man, and Christians can even agree with non-theists that human well-being is a good.  Health, pleasure, wisdom, and virtue are all goods, or ends, for which human nature was designed, but it is a grave error to think these are the ultimate purposes for man.


We can now see how metaphysics is foundational for the Christian identification of the good.  The very existence of finite beings composed of act and potency leads inexorably to a being of pure actuality, God.  The principles of form and matter inform us that humans, along with all other form/matter composite beings, possess a real nature that is eternally fixed in the mind of God.


Humans are mind (form)/body (matter) unities.  The four causes enable us to explain the existence of human beings.  Humans are characterized by formal causality, material causality, efficient causality, and final causality.  It is only through the knowledge of formal and final causes that we can know the good for human beings.  Without these principles in place, the metaphysical locus of moral values is adrift on a sea of instability and change.


In part 3, we will compare atheist Sam Harris’s identification of the good with the Christian identification of the good to contrast the abilities of metaphysical naturalism and Christian theism to undergird moral realism (the view that there are real, objective moral values).

	

	
	




	
	

				

			Morality, Philosophy
		

			
How Does Christian Metaphysics Ground the Good? Part 1

		

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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.

	

	
	




	
	

				

			Church History, Creeds, Eastern Orthodox, Jesus as God, Jesus Christ, Trinity
		

			
Were the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Dual Nature of Christ invented in the 4th and 5th Centuries?

		

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Post Author: Darrell


(This post originally appeared on Darrell’s Thoughts and Reflections and is being reposted here for the benefit of TQA readers.)




One of the charges I often hear leveled against Christianity today is that both the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Dual Nature of Christ were “invented” by the Church in the fourth and fifth centuries, during the Ecumenical Councils.  Proponents of these charges claim that the Church prior to the Ecumenical Councils believed neither in the Trinity, nor in the Dual Nature of Christ.  I freely admit that the language by which the Church codified these doctrines was fortified in the Ecumenical Councils.  However, I believe those who charge that the Church invented the doctrines themselves in the Councils and that the Church prior to the Councils did not hold to them are gravely mistaken.


One of the earliest Church Fathers to articulate a basic understanding of the Trinity and the Dual Nature of Christ is Saint Ignatius.  Saint Ignatius was the third Bishop of Antioch, serving from 70 AD to 107 AD.  He was a disciple of the Apostle John, and Church Tradition teaches that he was the child Christ held in His arms when He said, in Matthew 18:3, “. . . unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Shortly after the turn of the second century, Saint Ignatius wrote several Epistles while in captivity on the road traveling to his martyrdom.  Seven of these epistles have survived to our day.  In the seventh chapter of his Epistle to the Ephesians, he says:


But our Physician is the only true God, the Father and Begetter of the only-begotten Son.  We have also as a Physician the Lord our God, Jesus the Christ, the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin. For “the Word was made flesh.”  Being incorporeal, He was in a body; being impassible, He was in a passible body; being immortal, He was in a mortal body; being life, He became subject to corruption, that He might free our souls from death and corruption, and heal them, and might restore them to health, when they were diseased with ungodliness and wicked lusts.


There are several aspects of this passage which demonstrate that Saint Ignatius held beliefs consistent with the Doctrines of the Trinity and the Dual Nature of Christ.  First, he refers to two separate Persons, God the Father and Jesus Christ, yet he calls both of them God.  This is completely consistent with Nicene Theology, which teaches that both the Father and the Son are God by nature/essence.  The Nicene Creed calls Christ “true God of true God”, saying He is “of one essence with the Father” as God.  Had Ignatius been an Arian or had he held to a non-Trinitarian Doctrine that teaches Christ to be something less than or other than God, He would not have referred to Him as God.


Second, Ignatius refers to Jesus Christ as begotten “before time began”.  This is almost word for word identical to the Nicene Creed, which says, “I believe in. . . one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten, begotten of the Father before all ages. . .”  Some today claim that the Early Church believed Christ’s being ”begotten” of the Father was in relation to His birth from Mary (specifically, this is an LDS claim).  However, Ignatius’ comment here demonstrates that the Early Church’s understanding of Christ’s nature as “only-begotten” was a relationship with the Father that was “before time began” and has nothing to do with His earthly incarnation.  It is interesting to note that the Greek word translated as “only-begotten” both here and in the New Testament is ”monogenes”.  Monogenes literally means “one of a kind,” and to the Church Fathers it connoted Christ being of the same nature as the Father. . . something that was entirely unique to Him.


In addition to calling Christ God and claiming Him to be the “only-begotten” of the Father “before time began”, Ignatius tells us that “afterwards” Christ “became man”.  Ignatius then goes on to point out some aspects that Christ’s becoming man added to His nature.  He says that although Christ was incorporeal, He was in a body; although He was impassible, He was in a passible body; although He was immortal, He was in a mortal body;  although He was life, He became subject to corruption.  These differing aspects of Christ’s nature, aspects that are polar opposites to one another, speak to Christ having two natures, one as God and one as man, and demonstrate that Saint Ignatius understood Christ in this manner.  As God, Christ was incorporeal, impassible, immortal, and life itself.   However, as man He was corporeal, passible, mortal, and subject to corruption.


Last, Ignatius explains that Christ took on our nature in order to free our souls from death and corruption, heal us, and restore us to health.  This speaks to the true reason for the Doctrines of the Trinity and Dual Nature of Christ.  Rather than being doctrines for doctrine’s sake, created as purely intellectual pieces of information to be discussed by dry theologians over coffee and tea, they are doctrines directly tied to our understanding of how Christ redeemed us.  He was the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, true God of true God.  Yet He chose to take upon Himself our nature, becoming man for our sakes, so that He could unite our nature to the Divine Nature in His Person, giving us a rebirth in Him.  Had He not been God and had He not taken on our nature, He would have been unable to redeem us.  The Church understood this from the earliest times, and as the writings of Saint Ignatius show us, it is not an understanding created in the fourth and fifth centuries.  It is Apostolic Doctrine that has been handed down to us and is a product of the Holy Spirit guiding the Church.





	

	
	




	
	

				

			Philosophy
		

			
Introduction to Classical Christian Metaphysics – Part 5

		

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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.



	

	
	

		
			
		

	

	





		
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