LECTURE 2:

MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

LECTURE NOTES

FROM CLASSICAL TO MEDIEVAL

The transition from Greek to medieval philosophy was a rather rough one, and it exhibits a love-hate relationship that Christian culture had with Greek civilization. On the one hand, the new breed of philosophers was greatly influenced by Greek thought, particularly the views of Aristotle and Plotinus. While Plato remained a towering figure, it was largely in name only since for many centuries copies of his writings virtually vanished. In the absence of actual books by Plato, medieval philosophers looked to Plotinus for a summary of Plato's views, unaware of how original Plotinus's views were. Thus, many of the most important views that they attributed to Plato were those of Plotinus. On the other hand, however, Christianity brought with it a cultural and intellectual tradition from the land of Israel that was very much at odds with Greek ways of thinking.

At the heart of the difference was the Bible and its central themes of a monotheistic God, life after death, and, perhaps most importantly, the idea of furthering the kingdom of God. As Christian emperors took the throne, they took decisive measures to curb the influence of cultural institutions that conflicted with the Christian message. Orders were given to destroy all pagan temples and shut down schools of philosophy that had been in operation since the days of Plato and Aristotle. What we find within medieval philosophy, then, is an interesting blend of Greek and Christian views to the degree that thinkers of this period were able to make them compatible.

Historians mark off medieval civilization as starting with the downfall of the Roman Empire and ending with the founding of the Renaissance-roughly from the years 400-1500. This range of time itself falls into three distinct periods, each of which impacted developments within medieval philosophy. The first period is the early middle ages, from around 400-1000. Often called the "Dark Ages", it is characterized by tough times in the aftermath of the Roman Empire's fall, including localized rule, decreased trade, mass migration, and feudalism. While this timeframe witnessed the Christianization of Europe, Islam was also rapidly enveloping the surrounding regions, and, as with Christianity, Muslims developed their own philosophical tradition that mixed Greek philosophy with their own faith tradition.

The next period is the high middle ages, from 1,000 to 1300, which experienced much better times. Population increased, countries and regions regained political cohesion, and intellectual thought was revitalized. Most important for philosophy, though, was the emergence of medieval universities which became centers of learning and gave birth to a distinct philosophical method called scholasticism, which systematically blended philosophy and theology. The final period is the late middle ages, lasting from 1300-1500. Times were again tough with economic stagnation, wars, and the Black Plague that killed around half of Europe's population. The unity of the Catholic Church also came under fire, which helped bring the middle ages as a whole to a close.

Four Issues for Medieval Philosophers

1: The relation between faith and reason

Throughout the middle ages, four specific issues attracted the attention of its greatest philosophers from the Christian, Muslim and Jewish faith traditions. First is the relation between faith and reason, which involves whether important philosophical and religious beliefs are grounded in the authority of faith, or in reason, or in some combination of the two. One of the most extreme proponents of the faith-only position is the early Church theologian Tertullian (155-230 CE), whose views are encapsulated in two vivid statements that he makes.

First, he asks the rhetorical question "What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?" Athens here symbolizes reason and the tradition of Greek thinking; Jerusalem represents faith, and the doctrines of Christianity that are held by faith. So, what, then does reason have to do with faith? His implied answer is "nothing at all!" His second famous statement is "I believe because it is absurd," which he wrote when discussing a Christian doctrine about the nature of Christ that went contrary to logic. His point is that reason obstructs our discovery of truth so much that we should expect truths of faith to run contrary to it. Thus, reason is not just a dead end in the pursuit of truth, but it is dangerously misleading. While Tertullian may have been content with the faith-only position, other philosophers held that reason could be an important asset in demonstrating some religious truths that we also know through faith.

2: Proving the Existence of God

A second issue of interest for medieval philosophers was proving the existence of God. Many medieval philosophers argued that, while we can certainly believe in God on the grounds of faith alone, there are rational proofs that we can also give to show God's existence. Chief among these is a causal argument: motion and change on earth trace back to a first cause, which is God. Several versions of this argument were put forward, some with a particularly high level of sophistication. Other proofs for God's existence where also forthcoming, which used entirely different strategies.

3. Religious Language – What Can We Say meaningfully Can We Say About God?

Third was the problem of religious language. Even if we know that God exists, can we say anything meaningful about him with human language? We commonly describe God using words like "powerful" and "good", but all of these seem tainted by our limited human experience. Should we give up describing God altogether? Should we reinterpret our descriptions of God in special ways? The solutions that philosophers offered to this problem were both varied and original.

4. The Problem of Universals

The fourth issue is the problem of universals, namely whether concepts such as "greenness" and "largeness" exist independently of human thought. The particular tree in front of me is green and large. But there are lots of other particular things that are also green or large, and thus in some sense share the more universal attribute of greenness or largeness. The question, then, is whether universals such as greenness and largeness exist independently of human thought in some external reality, or whether they are just products of the human mind.

Medieval philosophers held every possible view on the subject, and in many ways the problem of universals represents medieval philosophy at its best.

AUGUSTINE

Beauty and the Baptists: the significance for recovering a theology of beauty

But this was a long time coming. It was not commonly believed that beauty was a matter of “taste.”

(Any more that truth and goodness were merely matters of “taste.”)

St. Augustine
On Christian Doctrine

Begun in about 396 and completed in 426.

Reflect not only the early direction of the Christian Church, but the phenomenal influence of Plato and Neo-Platonists

Considered to have straddled the Ancient and Medieval Epocs

Book One

Two things necessary to the treatment of the Scriptures

1. A way of discovering those things which are to be understood.

2. A way of teaching what we have learned.

Discovery:

· great and arduous work

· difficult to sustain

· such a work lies in Him (God)

Note all things of value issue from the source of values –not the Form of the Good in this case, but rather “God.”

II

Makes the distinction between signs and things.

III

Distinguishes among:

things to be enjoyed (make us blessed)

things to be used (sustain us as we move toward blessedness)

things to be enjoyed and used.

III

If we enjoy (and cling to) those things which should be used, our course (to blessedness) will be impeded and sometimes deflected.

“shackled by an inferior love”

IV

To enjoy something is to cling to it with love for its own sake.

To use something, however, is to employ it in obtaining that which you love, provided that it is worthy of love.

An illicit use should be called rather a waste or an abuse.

IV

“But if the amenities of the journey and the motion of the vehicles itself delighted us, and we were led to enjoy those things which we should use, we should not wish to end our journey quickly, and, entangled in a perverse sweetness, we should be alienated from our country, whose sweetness would make us, blessed

‘IV

Mortal life must not become “wandering from God”

V

The (only) things which are to be (genuinely) enjoyed are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, a single Trinity, (a certain supreme thing common to all who enjoy it)

VI

“I feel that I have done nothing but wish to speak”

This is the ineffable nature of the Divine.

But even calling God ineffable is problematic, as Augustine points out, because your “effing.”

“This contradiction is to be passed over in silence rather than re solved verbally.”

XXXV

The end of the Law and of all the sacred Scriptures is the love of a Being which is to be enjoyed.

One might add, this is true of all things to be used- Art. (Beauty?)

These next three I put in just because I thought they show a more ecumenical side to Augustine.

XXVI

“Whoever, therefore, thinks that he understands the divine Scriptures or any part of them so that it does not build the double love of God and of our neighbor does not understand it at all.”

“Whoever finds a lesson there useful to the building of charity, even though he has not said what the author may be shown to have intended in that place, has not been deceived, nor is he lying in any way.”

XXXVI

“However, as I began to explain, if he is deceived in an interpretation which builds up charity, which is the end of the commandments, he is deceived in the same way as a man who leaves a road by mistake but passes through a field to the same place toward which the road itself leads. But he is to be corrected and shown that it is more useful not to leave the road, lest the habit of deviating force him to take a crossroad or a perverse way.”

XXX

“Indeed, if faith staggers, charity itself languishes. And if anyone should fall from faith, it follows that he falls also from charity, for a man cannot love that which he does not believe to exist. On the other hand, a man who both believes and loves, by doing well and by obeying the rules of good customs, may bring it about that he may hope to arrive at that which he loves. Thus there are these three things for which all knowledge and prophecy struggle: faith, hope, and charity.”

XXXVIII

“Between temporal and eternal things there is this difference: a temporal thing is loved more before we have it, and it begins to grow worthless when we gain it, for it does not satisfy the soul, whose true and certain rest is eternity; but the eternal is more ardently loved when it is acquired than when it is merely desired.”

The first major medieval philosopher was Augustine (354-430), who emphasized attaining knowledge through divine illumination and achieving moral goodness by loving God. The details of his life are openly laid out in his autobiography, titled Confessions, which even today is considered a classic of world literature. He was born in the North African region of Tagaste to a devout Christian mother and pagan father. For much of his youth, his middle-class parents' greatest concern was affording a university education for him. Once having attained this difficult goal, learning rhetoric at Carthage, Augustine's zeal for studying theology became his driving force. But first came a period of trying out life's alternatives. To his mother's great displeasure, he became entrenched in a new Persian religion called Manichaeism and then joined a group of Neoplatonists. In both cases he sought to understand how evil could exist in a world that was created by a good God. The Manichaean explanation was that the material world is inherently evil, but through special knowledge from God we can rise above it. Neoplatonists argued that evil results from the physical world being so far removed from God, and thus absent from his goodness.

For fifteen years he lived with an woman and fathered a son; but when his mother eventually convinced him to marry properly, he left his mistress. While awaiting his bride-to-be's coming of age, he took up with yet another woman and prayed his famous prayer, "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet." But his marriage to either woman never transpired. While teaching rhetoric in the city of Milan, he attended sermons of the Bishop of that region, which gradually led to his Christian conversion. Returning to North Africa, he was drafted into the priesthood by the locals for his popular preaching, and later became their bishop, devoting the rest of his life to writing and preaching in that region. Augustine died at 75, even as invading barbarian armies were tearing down the city walls of Hippo. Augustine's literary output was enormous, and he may be the most prolific writer of the ancient world. His most famous writings are his Confessions and The City of God. While only a couple of his shorter works are devoted exclusively to philosophy, most notably On Free Choice, many of his compositions are interspersed with philosophical content, and from these a complex system emerges.

Faith, Certainty, and Divine Illumination

The starting point for Augustine's philosophy is his stance on the relation between faith and reason. We've seen that there are two ways of approaching the relation between faith and reason: first, Tertullian's faith-only position, and, second, the view that reason by itself can go a long way in establishing religious truths independently of faith. Augustine struck a middle ground between the two, advocating a position that he called "faith seeking understanding." His inspiration for this was a passage from the Isaiah "Unless you believe, you will not understand."[1] On this view, reason by itself is not good enough to give us proper religious knowledge; instead, we have to begin with faith to set us in the right direction and, once we believe in God through faith, we can seek to understand the foundations of our belief through reason.

A running theme throughout Augustine's writings is that knowledge is indeed attainable, and we should reject the efforts of philosophical skeptics. By the time Augustine came on the scene, different Greek schools of skepticism were well established, and for centuries had been producing arguments to show that we can know nothing at all for certain. Every belief I have can be brought into question; even my belief that the tree in front of me exists is uncertain since I might just be having a hallucination. In opposition to the skeptics, Augustine argues that there are four main areas in which we have genuine knowledge that even the skeptics cannot question. Right off, each of us has indisputable knowledge of our own existence. He writes,

On none of these points do I fear the arguments of the skeptics of the Academy who say: what if you are deceived? For if I am deceived, I am. For he who does not exist cannot be deceived. And if I am deceived, by this same token I am. [City of God, 11:26]

His point here is simple: no matter how deceived I am-such as through hallucinations or flawed sensory perception-I still have to exist in order to be deceived. This knowledge is so obvious and self-evident that it enables me to go one step further and say that/ know that I know. Knowledge is thus an indisputable fact.

In addition to knowledge of one's own existence, we also have certainty in three key areas: math, logic and immediate sense experience. Mathematical truths, such as "three times three is nine," are so compelling that it is impossible to doubt them. So too with logical truths:

I have learned through dialectic [logic] that many other things are true. Count, if you can, how many there are: If there are four elements in the world, there are not five; if there is one sun, there are not two; one and the same soul cannot die and still be immortal; man cannot at the same time be happy and unhappy; if the sun is shining here, it cannot be night; we are now either awake or asleep; either there is a body which I seem to see or there is not a body. [Against the Academics, 3:13]

While Augustine recognizes that sense perceptions themselves are not always trustworthy, he nonetheless maintains that reports of immediate experiences are indisputable, such as "the snow appears white to me." Even if in reality the snow happens to be a different color, what remains true is that I perceive it as white. He writes:

I do not know how the [skeptical] Academician can refute him who says "I know that this appears white to me, I know that my hearing is delighted with this, I know that this has an agreeable odor, I know that this tastes sweet to me, I know that this feels cold to me." [Ibid 3:11]

These areas of knowledge, then, seem to be completely indisputable because of the self evident nature of their specific truths. There are other areas of knowledge, though, that lack this self-evidence and may indeed be fallible, such as the truths themselves of what our senses report, and also the knowledge that we gain through the testimony of other people.

Nevertheless, he argues, in view of how much important information they provide us, we can have reasonable confidence in them as reliable sources of knowledge. Regarding our senses, he argues,

"Far be it from us to doubt the truth of what we have learned by the bodily senses, since by them we have learned to know the heaven and the earth, and those things in them which are known to us." So too with the knowledge that we gain through the testimony of other people. While the reports of some people cannot be trusted, testimony is nonetheless an indispensable source of knowledge.

He writes,

Far be it from us too to deny that we know what we have learned by the testimony of others: otherwise, we would not know that there is an ocean, or that the lands and cities exist which numerous report mention to us" (On the Trinity, 15).

Granted, then, according to Augustine we can know many things indisputably and other things with at least a high degree of certainty. While certainty in these areas seems to be a natural part of human thinking, knowledge of other types of truth require special help from God before we can grasp them. God illuminates our minds to enable us to see these truths, and Augustine succinctly describes this theory of divine illumination here:

"The mind needs to be enlightened by light from outside itself, so that it can participate in truth, because it is not itself the nature of truth. You will light my lamp, Lord" (Confessions, 4:15:25).

Human nature is limited, Augustine believes, and thus we're not in a position by ourselves to comprehend the most important ones. Truths regarding virtuous living and religious faithfulness are cases in point:

"Among the objects of the intellect, there are some that are seen in the soul itself, for example, virtues which will endure, such as piety, or virtues that are useful for this life and not destined to remain in the next, as faith" (Commentary on Genesis, 31:59).

For us to grasp these truths, God illuminates our soul, which triggers a special intellectual vision by which we can see them. While Augustine is quite clear that humans stand in need of divine illumination, he is less clear about how this process takes place. Does divine intuition unleash a flood of specific innate ideas in our minds? Is it more like a capacity that allows us to detect and zoom in on the truth? One recent interpretation is that we first develop beliefs on our own, and then God illuminates our minds so that we can see if they are true or false; God provides the justification for our beliefs.

Evil, Free Will, Foreknowledge

Medieval philosophers developed very precise notions of God and the attributes that he has, many of which are even now well-known among believers. For example, God is all-powerful (i.e., omnipotent), all-knowing (i.e., omniscient), and all-good (i.e., omni-benevolent). Other commonly discussed attributes of God are that he is eternal, that he is present everywhere (i.e., omnipresent) and that he has foreknowledge of future events. While these traditional attributes of God offer a clear picture of the kind of being that he is, many of them present special conceptual problems, particularly when we try to make them compatible them with potentially conflicting facts about the world.

One of these is the famous problem of evil: how are we to understand God's goodness in the face of all the suffering that we experience? It's clear that suffering is abundant throughout the world, and such suffering is a type of evil. It's also clear for religious philosophers that God is in control of things, which seems to imply that God is the source of that suffering and evil. But if God is good, then it seems that he can't be the source of evil. Thus, there is a conflict between God's power and goodness on the one hand, and the presence of suffering on the other. How can we resolve this conflict? The first step, for Augustine, is to recognize that God has only an indirect role in the cause of some suffering, as he explains here:

[You ask whether God is the cause of evil. In response,] if you know or believe that God is good (and it is not right to believe otherwise) then he does no evil. Further, if we recognize that God is just (and it is impious to deny it) then he rewards the good and punishes the wicked. Such punishments are indeed evils for those who suffer them. Therefore, if no one is punished unjustly (this we must believe since we believe that this universe is governed by divine providence) it follows that God is a cause of the suffering of some evil, but in no way causes the doing of evil. [On Free Choice: 1:1]

For Augustine, God's goodness means that he does no evil. Yet, God's justness means that he rewards good and punishes evil. Thus, God indeed causes some suffering through punishment, but he is not the cause of evil actions themselves.

The cause of evil itself, according to Augustine, is the human will, and thus all blame for it rests on our shoulders, not on God’s. We willfully turn our souls away from God when we perform evil deeds: "look for the source of this movement and be sure that it does not come from God" (On Free Choice, 2:20). Even the punishment that God imposes on us for our evil is something that we brought on ourselves, since "punishment is used in such a way that it places natures in their right order'' (On Free Choice, 3:9). Thus, a first solution that Augustine offers to the problem of evil is that human will is the cause of evil and reason for divine punishment. A second and related solution is that the evil we willfully create within our souls is only a deprivation of goodness. Think of God's goodness like a bright white light; the evil that we humans create is like an act of dimming that light, or shielding ourselves from it to create an area of darkness. It is not like we've created a competing light source of our own, such as a bright red light that we shine around to combat God's bright white light. Accordingly, the evil that we create through our wills is the absence of good, and not a substantive evil in itself.

Augustine writes, ''

That movement of the soul's turning away, which we admitted was sinful, is a defective movement, and every defect arises from non-being" (On Free Choice, 2:20)

Drawing from Plotinus, "non-being" is Augustine's term for the complete absence of God.

Yet a third solution to the problem of evil is Augustine's suggestion that the apparent imperfection of any part of creation disappears in light of the perfection of the whole. To explain, Augustine considers a common objection that God seems to be the source of suffering when our young children die with no clear purpose. His response is this:

In view of the encompassing network of the universe and the whole creation (a network that is perfectly ordered in time and place, where not even one leaf of a tree is superfluous) it is not possible to create a superfluous person. Moreover, who knows what faith is practiced or what pity is tested when these children's sufferings break down the hardness of parents? We do not know what reward God reserves in the secret places of his judgment for these children [On Free Choice, 3.27]

Augustine is saying here that troubling events such as the suffering of children are part of a larger system of things in the world, and even these events have a place in contributing to the good of the whole. If we were capable of grasping the entirety of the creation, we would then see the role that each thing plays in the greater scheme of things, contributing to its total perfection.

The tension between God and evil is just one of the problems surrounding God's attributes. Another that Augustine considers is the possible conflict between God's foreknowledge and human free will. If God knows ahead of time what I will do at midnight tonight, then when the time comes I must do that, and thus have no free choice. The problem can be laid out more precisely as follows:

If God foreknows all events, then all events happen according to a fixed, causal order.

If all events happen according to a fixed, causal order, then nothing depends on us and there is no such thing as free will.

God foreknows all events, hence there is no such thing as free will.

Augustine's solution is to distinguish between two distinct things about my future decisions that God might focus on. On the one hand, God might focus on and foresee my actions, in which case it looks as though my actions are already causally fixed on the timeline. On the other hand, however, God might focus on and foresee what my choice will be, what mental decision I make. By foreseeing my choice, God is focusing on a free will decision that will be left to me in the future. Thus, God's foreknowledge of my actions is dependent upon what my choice will be, and not on my action itself. He explains this here:

Since God foreknows our will, the very will that he foreknows will be what comes about. Therefore, it will be a will, since it is a will that he foreknows. And it could not be a will unless it were in our power. Therefore, he also foreknows this power. It follows, then, that his foreknowledge does not take away my power; in fact, it is all the more certain that I will have that power, since he whose foreknowledge never errs foreknows that I will have it. [On Free Choice, 3:3)

For Augustine, the issue comes down to this. Suppose that I somehow foreknew what choice you would make tomorrow at noontime. Would that necessitate you doing it? Clearly not. Thus, God's foreknowledge of your choice does not interfere with your freedom any more than my foreknowledge of your choice would.

Morality, Proper Desire, Two Cities

Augustine's moral philosophy rests on a single theme: desiring all things in their appropriate manner, and reserving our most supreme desire for God. Humans have the capacity to desire things with a wide range of intensity, from very low to very high. According to Augustine, our human psyches are designed in such a way that the highest intensity of desire should be our ultimate love for God. The intensity of our desires for other things-wealth, fame, material goods-should be far less. Our principal moral task is to make sure that all of our desires are properly ordered, that we desire things in the right way. When we fail to do this, our desires become disordered; that is, we desire a lowly thing such as a coat with the intensity that we should otherwise devote to something much higher, even God himself. It is this disordered desire that motivates us to do evil: He writes,

When the miser prefers his gold to justice, it is through no fault of the gold, but of the man; and so with every created thing. For though it is good, it may be loved with an evil as well as with a good love: it is loved rightly when it is loved with proper order; evilly, when disordered. [City of God, 15:22]

Not only is properly ordered desire central to morality and virtuous conduct, but it is also the cornerstone to a good and just society. Augustine's political views are mapped out in his book The City of God, which he initially wrote against Roman pagans who blamed the 410 fall of Rome on the domination of Christianity within society and their abolition of polytheistic worship. According to Augustine, we need to see society as consisting of two "cities" or cultures: an earthly one and a heavenly one. The defining difference between the two is that citizens of the earthly city are motivated by disordered desire, while those of the heavenly city have properly ordered desires. He writes,

Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, "You are my glory, and you lift up my head." In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, "I will love you, Lord, my strength." [City of God, 14:28]

The Roman Empire itself, he argues, is a perfect example of an earthly city that overindulged in disordered desires. This led to immorality, vice, crime, and its ultimate downfall. Citizens of the heavenly city, who have properly ordered desires, realize that the only eternal good is found in God. They live by faith and "look for those eternal blessings which are promised" (City of God, 19:17)

People of the heavenly city are obviously forced to live here on earth among rival members of the earthly city. However, they consider themselves as resident aliens and follow the laws and customs of the society they in which they dwell, but do not settle down to enjoy them. He writes,

"So long as the heavenly city lives like a captive and a stranger in the earthly city ... it does not hesitate to obey the laws of the earthly city, whereby the things necessary for the maintenance of this mortal life are governed" (ibid).

The earthly city at its best seeks peace in this life, a necessary condition for happiness. Accordingly,

"the earthly city, which does not live by faith, seeks an earthly peace, and the end it proposes... is the combination of men's wills to attain the things which are helpful to this life" (ibid).

The heavenly city makes use of this peace only because it must.

BOETHIUS

While Augustine was the dominant philosopher of the early middle ages, one other was influential on some specific philosophical issues, namely, Boethius.

Boethius. St. Benedit and the Preservation of Ancient Learning During the Early Middle Ages

Following Augustine, original intellectual activity pretty much ceases in Western Europe. Thus, the early Middle Ages we can label a culturally bleak period. The political situation that came about after the fall of the imperial government in the four hundreds, virtually destroyed the social institutions that allowed for the transmission and preservation of Greek and Roman culture in the Mediterranean. The cities in Western Europe decline both in number and in population. They were the primary targets of barbarian attacks because most of the wealth was concentrated in them. Once Germanic kingdoms were established, civil war and banditry disrupted trade and cut off cities and communication from each other within Western Europe. The threat of attack and the decline in trade forced city dwellers to leave the city and relocate to the countryside to become farmers, herdsmen or monks. Roman schools of rhetoric and law were also lake located in the cities and supported by city government. With the fall of the cities, formal higher education disappeared as well. Educated men needed to go to rural estates or relocate to monasteries. They were able there to pass on some knowledge to the next generation, but it was difficult because of their isolation. Limited intellectual activity continued throughout the five hundreds and six hundreds and became even more restricted over time. One sign of the decline of intellectual learning was the disappearance of the knowledge of Greek. In the late empire, virtually all educated Romans were bilingual speaking both Latin and Greek. You had to know both Greek and Latin. But by the three hundred, knowledge of Greek became much more rare. Augustine, for instance, who was a very educated man of his day, knew very little Greek. The fall of the western empire, cuts off ties with the West to the Greek empire and what remained a Greek speaking world. This further contributed to the decline of Greek literacy in what had formerly been the western empire. Between 400 and 1400 we know of very few western intellectuals who are fluent in Greek. This means that the Greek learning in philosophy, science, culture, etcetera were inaccessible to intellectuals in the western world and to the extent they were accessible, they were accessible only through Latin translations. These translations were not numerous. By the end of the late Middle Ages, only one of the major works of Plato was accessible in Latin to western intellectuals. The educated men of this, perceived that the great leaning of Greece and Rome was slipping away. Thus, the main effort of intellectuals of this period, after the four hundreds, was to preserve as much as possible. A representative figure who did this, was a man named Boethius. He was a Roman, but he served as a minister for one of the Ostrogothic kings of Italy. He was finally executed for political reasons. But he knew Greek, and he set out to translate Aristotle and Plato into Latin. His death, however, prevented him from completing this project. He was only able to translate 2 basic works from Aristotle on logic. It wasn't very much, but it was the only thing that Western Europe knew about Aristotle until about the year 1200. Another man who had great influence on the preservation of learning was Saint Benedict of Nursia. He came from a wealthy Roman family. But he eventually turned to religion. After a time, he came to live as a hermit monk. He therefore decided to build a monastery in central Italy. For his monastery he writes, rules to govern the organizations and the everyday activities of the monks. These rules were so popular and influential that they were adopted by other Western monasteries. One of the key rules was that the monks needed to keep busy all of the time to keep them from falling into sin. One such activity was to copy manuscripts. It was through the efforts of Benedictine monks that any of the great books from ancient times were preserved at all. In this work of preservation generally, so much had to be done that only the slimmest intellectual ties were maintained. To save time, men passed on books that covered the widest possible range of intellectual learning. Much of what was kept were only sort of textbooks. As such, they were very general and very elementary. They did not delve deeply into most subjects. Since these medieval scholars occupied most of their time in preservation, they had little chance for original research and original thought. They placed an unduly high value on the limited learning of texts. Despite their efforts to preserve ancient culture, the early Middle Ages became an increasingly dark age intellectually. So, what we can call the decline and fall of Rome, represented far more than just a change in government in Western Europe. It marked a significant break in the line of development of civilization in two different ways. To take the most obvious way first, adverse conditions determined that a great portion of the Greco Roman intellectual world was gone. Men in the Middle Ages generally knew less about ancient life and ancient thought than we know today. And even our knowledge is much more limited than what we would like. Just as important however, is the fact that that many of the basic assumptions of the Greeks and the Romans had been discarded or radically altered well before the Roman Empire ceased to exist.

Boethius: Universals and Divine Foreknowledge

Boethius (480-524) is best remembered for his theory of universals which set the conceptual framework for discussion on that topic throughout the middle ages. He was born in Rome to a wealthy Christian family, but soon after orphaned, he was raised by his adopting family with a great appreciation for Greek and Roman culture, at a time when Rome was ruled by barbarian kings. He was well acquainted with classical philosophy, particularly Plato, Aristotle and Neoplatonism, and his extensive knowledge made him a valuable asset to the royal government. Quickly moving up the ranks in administrative posts, his career came to an abrupt end when he was accused of treason and executed. While in prison he wrote his most influential work, The Consolation of Philosophy.

Boethius has the honor of being the first medieval philosopher to systematically explore the problem of universals, that is, the question of whether abstract notions such as "greenness" exist somewhere in reality or only in our minds. He got his inspiration from a brief comment about universals made by the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry:

I shall avoid investigating (a) whether genera and species [i.e., universals] are real or are situated in bare thoughts alone, (b) whether as real they are bodies or incorporeals, and (c) whether they are separated or in sensibles and have their reality in connection with them. Such business is profound, and requires another, greater investigation. [Introduction to Aristotle's Categories]

In the above passage Porphyry lists possible ways of understanding how universals might exist, and Boethius refined these into three positions. The first position is that universals such as "greenness" exist outside of our minds and even separately from bodies physical bodies such as a green tree. This is the classic position taken by Plato who held that abstract notions such as "greenness" exist in the non-physical realm of the Forms. The term for this option is "universals ante rem", Latin for "before the thing." Position two is that universals are intrinsic-or built into-physical things. For example, the universal "greenness" is found in all green individual objects, such as trees and grass. This is the view taken by Aristotle, and the term for this position is "universals in re", Latin for "in the thing." The third position is that universals exist only as concepts in the human mind, and not in any real way in the external world. We abstract them from particular things, such as when after viewing several green trees I form the mental abstraction of "greenness". The official term for this is "universals post rem", Latin for "following the thing." These three positions on universals, as laid out by Boethius, became the definitive options of further discussion on the subject by later medieval philosophers as they defended one of these positions against the others. So, which of these three views did Boethius think is right? It's not clear. He criticizes them all on various grounds, but in one of his writings he seems to go along with Aristotle and in another with Plato.

Boethius was particularly influential on one other philosophical issue that of the conflict between divine foreknowledge and free will. Again, the problem here is that if God knows what I will do before hand, then that event must happen, and I have no free will to do otherwise.

Boethius has an ingenious solution to this problem: God stands outside of time and thus knows what I will do by viewing the whole timeline at once; this does not constrain our free choices. This solution rests on a unique conception of God's attribute of eternality. Consider these two conceptions of what it means to be eternal: (1) endless existence on the timeline, and (2) existence completely outside of time. To say that God is eternal in the first sense means simply that at any point that you pick in the time line, God existed or will exist at that point. God moves through time along with me and everything else in the world. The second notion of eternality places God completely outside of the timeline and suggests that the phenomenon of time does not even apply to God. Boethius goes with this second notion of God's eternality:

"eternity is the possession of endless life, whole and perfect at a single moment" (Consolation of Philosophy, 5:6).

Once we adopt this second view of God's eternality, according to Boethius, the conflict between foreknowledge and free will disappears. God does not foresee my future actions by peeking down the timeline with a special telescope. Rather, he inspects the entire timeline at once, which includes the free will choices that I make at the moments that I make them.

Since God stands forever in an eternal present, his knowledge, also transcending all movement of time, dwells in the simplicity of its own changeless present. It embraces the whole infinite sweep of the past and of the future, contemplates all that falls within its simple cognition as if it were now taking place. And therefore, if you will carefully consider that immediate presentment whereby it discriminates all things, you will more rightly conclude that it is not foreknowledge as of something future, but knowledge of a moment that never passes....

Thus, the divine anticipation does not change the natures and properties of things, and it beholds things present before it, just as they will hereafter come to pass in time. [Ibid]

For Boethius, then, it is misleading to even call this divine "foreknowledge" since this wrongly implies that God is looking into the future. Instead, it is an "outlook" that "embraces all things as from some lofty height" (ibid).

Boethius

The Consolation of Philosophy

Consolatio Philosophiae

· Written around the year 524

· Written during his imprisonment before his trial and execution for the crime of treason.

· Victim of treachery while at the height of his career

· Reflects on evil and God (the problem of theodicy) and how happiness can be attained

References to God, but philosophical and not religious

No reference made to Jesus Christ or Christianity, etc.

God is represented as an eternal, all-knowing being and the source of all Good.

Boethius writes the book as a conversation between himself and Lady Philosophy.

She consoles Boethius by discussing the transitory nature of fame and wealth

She contends that happiness comes from within by attaining virtue. No one can take away a person’s virtue.

“When she saw that the Muses of poetry were present by my couch giving words to my lamenting, she was stirred a while; her eyes flashed fiercely as she said: “Who has suffered these seducing mummers to approach this sick man?”

“Never have they nursed his sorrowings with any remedies, but rather fostered them with poisonous sweets. These are they who stifle the fruit-bearing harvest of reason with the barren briars of the passions; they do not free the minds of men from disease but accustom them thereto.

“I would think it less grievous if your allurements drew away from me some common man like those of the vulgar herd, seeing that in such a one my labors would be harmed not at all. But this man has been nurtured in the lore of Eleatics and Academics.

“Away with you, sirens, seductive even to perdition, and leave him to my Muses to be cared for and healed!”

We see what will become an institutional censoring, very similar to what Plato prescribed in the Republic, of Art and all things “beautiful” should the fall short of the “test” of true beauty.

Boethius seems also to have inherited Plato suspicion of Theatre as deliberate deception.

ANSELM

Anselm (1033-1109) made his mark in the history of philosophy for developing what is now called the ontological argument for God's existence. He was born to a noble family, owners of considerable property in the city of Aosta in the Italian Alps. His virtuous mother faithfully provided young Anselm with religious training and inspired in him a love of learning. In contrast, his father was a harsh man with a violent temper. At 14 years of age Anselm sought admission to a monastery, but the abbot, fearing trouble from his father, refused him without paternal permission. The boy was so desperate, he prayed for an illness, hoping the monks would pity him and change their minds. He got half his wish. He became ill, but was still not accepted. This, and the death of his mother, resulted in Anselm leaving his studies for a more carefree life. By age 23, he could take his father's abuse no longer and left, wandering for three years through the region. He then entered the Benedictine abbey at Bee, Normandy, as a novice, and in a few short years became its Prior. He was later enthroned as archbishop of Canterbury. However, when the King refused to free the church from royal control, Anselm went into exile in protest. When the King died, the subsequent ruler called Anselm back, but the terms were no different, and so Anselm remained in exile. Throughout this time he wrote many short works. At the time these did not receive their deserved appreciation, but are now considered great achievements. Anselm's writings are in the form of dialogues and meditations, the most important of which are his Monologium and Proslogium.

Anselm followed Augustine's view of the relation between faith and reason: faith seeking understanding. Thus, Anselm writes "I hold it to be a failure in duty if after we have become steadfast in our faith we do not strive to understand what we believe." In his effort to understand his faith, he was consumed with the idea of proving God's existence, and, in his first effort to do so, he offers a proof from absolute goodness. He presents the basic intuition behind this argument here:

Since there are goods so innumerable, whose great diversity we experience by the bodily senses, and discern by our mental faculties, must we not believe that there is some one thing, through which all goods whatever are good? [Monologium 1]

More formally, his argument is this:

Goodness exists in a variety of ways and degrees.

This would be impossible without an absolute standard of good, in which all goods participate.

Therefore, an absolute standard of good exists, which is God.

The argument takes its inspiration from Plato's view of the Form of the Good. According to Plato, all good things that we see around us-a good person, a good photograph, a good meal-obtain their goodness by participating in perfect form of Goodness that exists in a nonphysical realm. Anselm agrees, and he draws attention to the fact that the same kind of things often differ in their degree of goodness. Some people are very good, others not so much. Some meals are good, others not so much. The standard of goodness, then, must come from some outside source which is always perfectly good, and that perfectly good source is God.

Ontological Argument

Although Anselm believed that this argument successfully proved God's existence, he also felt that it was a little too cluttered. It first requires us to experience various good things in the world, then assess their differing levels of goodness, then finally draw the conclusion. Perhaps, Anslem thought, he could do better and construct a more self-contained argument: "I began to ask myself whether there might be found a single argument which would require no other for its proof than itself alone" (Proslogium, Preface). This indeed is what he accomplished in his Ontological Argument for God's existence, which even today stands as one of the greatest arguments in the history of philosophy. It doesn't require us to experience anything through our senses. Rather, it simply begins with a definition of God, and draws its conclusion directly from that definition. Although the argument is quite self-contained, it is a bit challenging to grasp its central point as he presents it here:

Even the fool [who says in his heart there is no God] is convinced that something exists in the understanding, at least, than which nothing greater can be conceived. For, when he hears of this, he understands it. And whatever is understood, exists in the understanding. And assuredly that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, cannot exist in the understanding alone. For, suppose it exists in the understanding alone: then it can be conceived to exist in reality; which is greater.

Therefore, if that, than which nothing greater can be conceived, exists in the understanding alone, the very being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, is one, than which a greater can be conceived. But obviously this is impossible. Hence, there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality. [Proslogium, 2)

Worded more simply, his argument is this:

God is defined as "The Greatest Possible Being."

The Greatest Possible Being must have every quality that would make it greater (or more superior) than it would be otherwise.

Having the quality of real existence is greater than having the quality of imaginary existence

Therefore, the Greatest Possible Being must have the quality of real existence.

Premise one gives a definition of God. Anselm's actual wording is that God is "that than which nothing greater can be conceived," which more concisely means simply that God is the greatest possible being. Premise two rests on the notion of a quality that makes something great: to possess it makes you greater than to lack it. Having the quality of strength makes a bridge greater than it would be if it lacked it. Having the quality of healthiness makes be greater than I would be if I lacked it. By definition, the "Greatest Possible Being" must have every quality that would make it great. Premise three states that "existence" is a quality that makes something great. Having a real gold coin in my pocket is greater than just imagining to have one. By existing in reality, I am greater than I would otherwise be if I only existed in someone's imagination. The conclusion that follows is that the Greatest Possible Being must have the quality of real existence: if it lacked it, it could have been greater. That is, it would be the "Greatest Possible Being that could have been greater," which is a contradiction.

Anselm recognizes that "existence" is just one quality that makes something greater than it would be otherwise. Another such quality is ultimate power, and, thus, we can reword premise 3 with this quality:

Having the quality of ultimate power is greater than having limited power.

Thus, the Greatest Possible Being must also have the quality of ultimate power. So too with ultimate wisdom, and ultimate goodness. Anselm writes that the Greatest Possible Being is "just, truthful, blessed, and whatever it is better to be than not to be. For it is better to be just than not just; better to be blessed than not blessed" (ibid, 3). Anselm uses this strategy to show that, not only does the Greatest Possible Being exist, but it exists necessarily; that is, it would be impossible for him to not exist-or, as he words it, "it cannot be conceived not to exist" (ibid).

Thus, again, we can reword premise 3 with this quality:

Having the quality of necessary existence is greater than having contingent existence.

The term "contingent existence," as used above, refers to things that just happen to exist, but don't need to exist, such as me, the chair I'm sitting on, and every other physical thing in the world. That is, we can conceive of a universe where none of these things existed. By contrast, necessary existence has to do with things whose non-existence is impossible. Mathematical concepts such as 2+2=4 might be examples of these, since it is impossible for hese notions to be false. Anselm's point above is that necessary existence is superior to mere contingent existence, and thus the Greatest Possible Being must have the quality of necessary existence.

Guanilo's Criticism

As Anselm's writings circulated, a monk named Guanilo had trouble accepting Anselm's argument. While Guanilo certainly believed that God existed, he felt that Anselm's argument was flawed, and thus tried to expose the problem. Guanilo suggests that we should imagine a mythological "lost island" that we might define as "The Greatest Possible Island". By plugging this definition into Anselm's ontological argument, we could then prove the existence of that island. Guanilo writes,

You can no longer doubt that this island which is more excellent than all lands exists somewhere, since you have no doubt that it is in your understanding. And since it is more excellent not to be in the understanding alone, but to exist both in the understanding and in reality, for this reason it must exist. For if it does not exist, any land which really exists will be more excellent than it; and so the island already understood by you to be more excellent will not be more excellent. [Ibid, Guanilo]

Following the argument structure above, the parallel argument that Guanilo offers is this:

The Lost Island is defined as "The Greatest Possible Island."

The Greatest Possible Island must have every quality that would make it greater (or more superior) than it would be otherwise.

Having the quality of real existence is greater than having the quality of imaginary existence.

Therefore, the Greatest Possible Island must have the quality of real existence.

The larger point of Guanilo's criticism is that Anselm's type of argument is so flawed that it would show the existence of the greatest possible anything-the Greatest Possible Shoe, the Greatest Possible Unicorn, the Greatest Possible Eyebrow.

Anselm gave an extensive reply to Guanilo, attempting to show that the argument format only works with "The Greatest Possible Being" and not with things like islands.

That being alone, on the other hand, cannot be conceived not to exist, in which any conception discovers neither beginning nor end nor composition of parts, and which any conception finds always and everywhere as a whole....So, then, of God alone it can be said that it is impossible to conceive of his nonexistence; and yet many objects, so long as they exist, in one sense cannot be conceived not to exist. But in what sense God is to be conceived not to exist, I think has been shown clearly enough in my book. [Ibid, Reply]

Anselm's reply seems to be this. The argument structure only works with "the Greatest Possible Being," since only "being" is capable of having ultimately great qualities, such as necessary existence. An island, by contrast, is a finite and limited thing that is composed of parts, and is thus incapable of having ultimately great qualities. The very notion of "The Greatest Possible Island" is self-contradictory since it attempts to impose the greatest possible qualities on a finite thing. Again, only the notion of "being" is capable of having ultimately great qualities piled onto it. Thus, only one version of the argument works-the one that focuses on the greatest possible being-and this is an argument that proves specifically proves the existence of God.

AQUINAS

Perhaps the leading philosopher of the middle ages was Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), who maintained that reason, unaided by faith, can give us knowledge of God's existence and an understanding of morality as it is grounded in natural law. At his family's castle in Naples, Italy, Thomas Aquinas was born to nobility on both sides, being a son of Count and a relative of a dynasty of Holy Roman emperors. His education began at age five at a monastery where his uncle was abbot, and expectations were high that Aquinas would one day fill that position. He was later transferred to the University of Naples, where he became acquainted with the Dominicans and, to his family's horror, resolved to join them. At 18, he set off for Rome, but was seized by his brothers, returned to the family castle, and held captive while the family prayed, threatened, and even tempted him with a prostitute, hoping to change his mind. They could not. A year later the family yielded under pressure from the Pope, and Aquinas was sent to Cologne to study under some of the great philosophers of the time.

While Aquinas was described as refined, affable and lovable, he was physically big, solemn and slow to speak, earning him the nickname of the Dumb Ox. A story relates that Aquinas's colleagues teased him saying that there was a flying cow outside, and when he looked out the window they laughed. Aquinas responded that he would rather believe that a cow could fly than that his brothers would deceive him. During his subsequent education, apprenticeship, and public business in the church, he became famous for religious devotion and excellent memory, having memorized much of the Bible. The church offered to make him an archbishop and an abbot, but he refused both, preferring his studies. He composed book after book until he had a mystical experience that compelled him to cease writing altogether. Traveling to attend a Church Council, he became ill and died. Fifty years later he was canonized as a saint despite the lack of traditional saintly manifestations-stigmata, miracles, mortifications-which were waived in lieu of his outstanding contribution to the Church. His philosophical writings commentaries on Aristotle and his most important work, the multi-volume Summa Theologica (Latin for "theological synopsis").

Aquinas wrote in a formal and technical style that was common during this period of medieval philosophy. From the time of Augustine, medieval philosophy had a mystical and intuitional component to it. We've seen this specifically with Augustine's motto "faith seeking understanding" and Pseudo-Dionysius' view that through denying our notions of God we ascend higher in our experience towards him. The larger message of this earlier period was one of warning: reason is all well and good in its proper context, but it should not replace the more religiously intimate element of faith. Around 1100, though, this gave way to a more rationalistic approach that emerged within medieval universities called scholasticism, meaning the method of the "schools". The goal of scholasticism was to systematically bring philosophy into dialogue with theology through a very specific methodology. Philosophical texts would no longer be written as prayers to God or meditations, but rather in a much more scientific-like manner.

Precise questions would be posed, followed by a critical analysis of previous philosophers' views of the subject. Subtle distinctions would be made to help clarify problems. Through this critical analysis, rationally-informed answers to the questions would emerge. Some medieval philosophers, such as Anselm, were transitional figures with their feet in both genres. Aquinas's writings, though, fully embody the scholastic approach.

Twofold Truth and Proofs for God

Like other medieval philosophers, Aquinas' philosophy starts with a view of the relation between faith and reason. For a religious believer, faith in God and scripture is of course fundamental. However, he argues, many basic religious truths such as God's existence can be proven without faith and through reason alone. Accordingly, he proposes a view of faith and reason which he calls the twofold truth: while reason can give us some truth, other truths can only be attained through faith. He writes,

The truths that we confess concerning God fall into two categories. Some things that are true of God are beyond all the competence of human reason, such as that God is three and one. There are other things to which even human reason can attain, such as the existence and unity of God, which philosophers have proved to a demonstration under the guidance of the light of natural reason. [Summa Contra Gentiles, 1.3]

The first class of truths that are accessible through reason alone he calls presuppositions of faith, which include the truths that God exists and God is one. The second class of truths, called mysteries of faith, are accessible only through faith and involve doctrines like the Trinity, which we learn about in scripture and are central to the Christian faith in particular. Human reason alone cannot access these truths, he argues, since, in our present life "knowledge and understanding begins with the senses" (ibid). While this prevents us from knowing God's inner nature, our senses can still give us information about creation which allows us to infer that there is a powerful and designing creator to all that we see.

Again, one of the things that we can know through reason alone is that God exists, and to that end Aquinas offers five ways of proving God. Briefly, they are these:

There must be a first mover of things that are in the process of change and motion.

There must be a first efficient cause of the events that we see around us.

There must be a necessary being to explain the contingent beings in the world around us.

There must be an ultimately good thing to explain the good that we see in lesser things.

There must be an intelligent being who guides natural objects to their ends or purposes.

The first three of his proofs share a similar strategy, which was inspired by Aristotle's notion of the unmoved mover: there is a first cause of all the motion that takes place throughout the cosmos. In more recent times this argument strategy has been dubbed the cosmological argument. We'll look specifically at Aquinas's second argument from efficient cause as he presents it here:

The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. In the world of sense we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God. [ST 1, Q. 2, Art. 3]

According to Aquinas, we experience various kinds of effects in the world around us, and in every case we assign an efficient cause to each effect. The efficient cause of the statue is the work of the sculptor. If we took away the activity of the sculptor, we would not have the effect, namely, the statue. But there is an order of efficient causes: the hammer strikes the chisel which in turn strikes the marble. But it is impossible to have an infinitely long sequence of efficient causes, and so we arrive at a first efficient cause.

Aquinas's argument from efficient cause is deceptively brief, and he appears to be offering the same argument that early Muslim philosophers did in the so-called Kalam argument for God's existence. That is, it seems as though he is saying that it is impossible to trace such causal connections back through time and, ultimately, we must arrive at a first cause, namely, God.

However, other writings by Aquinas make it clear that he is doing something different. Why, at least in theory, couldn't this causal sequence trace back through time, to infinity past, and never have a starting point? Although this may be a strange contention, there is nothing logically contradictory about it. He writes that

"It is by faith alone that we hold, and by no demonstration can it be proved, that the world did not always exist" (ST 1, Q. 46, Art. 2).

Aquinas suggests that we view the causal sequence somewhat differently. Some causal sequences do indeed take place over time, such as when Abraham produces his son Isaac, who later produces his own son Jacob. But in addition to these time-based sequences, there are also simultaneous causal sequences, which do not trace back through time. Imagine, for example, if I hold a stick in my hand and use it to move a stone. According to Aquinas, my hand, the stick, and the stone all move at the same time. He makes this point here using the terminology of "essential" causes that are simultaneous and "accidental" causes that are time-based:

In efficient causes it is impossible to proceed to infinity essentially [i.e., simultaneously]. Thus, there cannot be an infinite number of [simultaneous] causes that are essentially required for a certain effect-for instance, that a stone be moved by a stick, the stick by the hand, and so on to infinity. But it is not impossible to proceed to infinity accidentally [i.e., over time] as regards efficient causes. [Ibid]

Aquinas's causal proof, then, proceeds like this:

Some things exist and their existence is caused.

Whatever is caused to exist is caused to exist by something else.

An infinite series of simultaneous causes resulting in the existence of a particular thing is impossible.

Therefore, there is a first cause of whatever exists.

Aquinas did not give us an example of the sort of simultaneous causes in the natural world that traces immediately back to God, but here is a likely instance of what he is talking about. Consider the motion of the winds. At the very moment that the winds are moving, there are larger physical forces at work that create this motion. In medieval science, the motion of the moon is responsible for the motion of the winds. But the moon itself moves because it too is being simultaneously moved by other celestial motions, such as the planets, the sun, and the stars. According to Aquinas, simultaneous causal sequences of motion cannot go on forever, and we must eventually find a first cause of this motion, which "everyone understands to be God."

So much for Aquinas's second way to prove God's existence. As noted, the first and third ways follow similar strategies, insofar as they claim that causal sequences of change and contingency cannot go on forever. The fourth way is like Anselm's argument from absolute goodness: there must be an absolute standard of goodness which is the cause of the good that we see in lesser things. His fifth way, though, is unique and is a version of what in later times is called the design argument. He writes,

The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God. [ST 1, Q. 2, Art. 3]

More formally, his argument is this:

Objects without intelligence act towards some end (for example, a tree grows and reproduces its own kind).

Moving towards an end exhibits a natural design that requires intelligence.

If a thing is unintelligent, yet acts for some end, then it must be guided to this end by something which is intelligent.

Therefore, an intelligent being exists that moves natural things toward their ends, which is God.

The central notion behind this argument is that natural objects such as plants and animals have built-in purposes. Here Aquinas draws directly on Aristotle's concept of a "natural object" which has an innate impulse towards change in specific ways. According to Aquinas, when natural objects move towards their end, this reveals a natural design that could not have come about through chance, but requires intelligence. Since plants and animals lack intelligence to do this, some other intelligence is responsible for this, namely God.

Divine Simplicity and Religious Language

Not only can we prove the existence of God through reason unaided by faith, but there are some features of God's existence that reason by itself can also reveal to us. Religious philosophers often describe God as having a cluster of attributes, such as being all-powerful, all knowing, all-good; Aquinas certainly agrees that God is these things. However, he maintains that God in fact has a single attribute: divine simplicity. Several philosophers prior to Aquinas, including Parmenides and Plotinus, held that God is best described as "the One", namely, a simple, indivisible entity. Aquinas agrees as we see here:

There is neither composition of quantitative parts in God, since He is not a body; nor composition of matter and form; nor does His nature differ from His person; nor His essence from His existence; neither is there in Him composition of genus and difference, nor of subject and accident. Therefore, it is clear that God is nowise composite, but is altogether simple. [ST 1, Q 3, Art. 7]

According to Aquinas, God has no parts whatsoever, no physical parts, and, more importantly, no conceptual parts, such as specific properties or predicates. His basic proof for God's simplicity is this:

If something is composed of parts then it must be potentially divisible (e.g., an actual book is potentially a pile of torn out sheets of paper).

God is not potentially divisible.

Therefore God is not composed of parts (i.e., God is simple).

While God in is true nature is simple, Aquinas concedes that to finite human minds he appears to have distinct parts. The reason for this seems to be that our minds are designed to understand things in the world around us, virtually all of which have parts--parts of trees, parts of chairs, parts of languages. When we then attempt to understand God in his simplicity, we then very naturally view him as a thing that is composed of parts, and attempt to understand him one element at a time. He writes,

We can speak of simple things only as though they were like the composite things from which we derive our knowledge. Therefore in speaking of God, we use concrete nouns to signify His subsistence, because with us only those things subsist which are composite; and we use abstract nouns to signify His simplicity. In saying therefore that Godhead, or life, or the like are in God, we indicate the composite way in which our intellect understands, but not that there is any composition in God. [ST 1, Q 3, Art. 3]

To satisfy our tendency to view God as a composite thing, we can deduce some sub-attributes of God from his main attribute of simplicity. For example, we can say that God is eternal since if a thing is simple, then it has no "before" or "after'' and thus is eternal. Similarly, we can say that God is perfect since if a thing is simple then it is completely actualized, with no remaining potentiality, and complete actualization is perfection. The whole issue of God's attributes raises an even more fundamental question of the adequacy of religious language: can any of our descriptions of God satisfactorily represent him? For example, if we say that "God loves us," what sort of "love" are we talking about, and is the notion of divine love something that can even be put into words? We've already seen a variety of answers to this question of religious language: Many said we can only describe God negatively; Maimonides said that we can only describe God allegorically. Aquinas approaches the issue by noting three ways that our words might, at least in theory, apply to God. The first is univocal: the religious and non-religious uses of a word like "love" are completely the same, whether we're talking about human love or divine love. Aquinas rejects this approach:

Univocal predication is impossible between God and creatures... [The] term "wise" is not applied in the same way to God and to man. The same rule applies to other terms. Hence no name is predicated univocally of God and of creatures. [ST 1, Q. 13, Art. S]

The problem with the univocal approach is that the gulf between God's nature and human nature is so vast that the term "love" cannot possibly mean the exact same thing when we're talking about divine love vs. human love. The next way is equivocal: the religious and non religious uses of a word like "love" are completely different. Aquinas rejects this approach as well:

Neither, on the other hand, are names applied to God and creatures in a purely equivocal sense, as some have said. Because if that were so, it follows that from creatures nothing could be known or demonstrated about God at all. [Ibid]

The problem here is that if religious language and human language have nothing in common, then we can say nothing at all about God. Rejecting both the univocal and equivocal approach, Aquinas recommends a middle ground between the two: an analogical approach whereby the religious use of a word bears some analogy to the non-religious use. For example, we can say that divine love is to God just as parental love is to a parent. He writes,

In analogies the idea is not, as it is in univocals, one and the same, yet it is not totally diverse as in equivocals. Rather a term which is thus used in a multiple sense signifies various proportions to some one thing. Thus "healthy" applied to urine signifies the sign of animal health, and applied to medicine signifies the cause of the same health. [Ibid]

The point is that there is something in common to both religious language and human language, but it can only be understood as a comparison of two relations. For example, to grasp the notion of divine love, we must first examine the relation between human parents and parental love: we have a special attachment to our offspring that overrides every other human interest. In some parallel way, this is what God's love towards humans involves.

Morality and Natural Law

In the arena of moral philosophy, Aquinas developed a view called natural law theory, which for centuries was perhaps the dominant view regarding the source of moral principles. In a nutshell, natural law theory holds that God endorses specific moral standards and fixes them in human nature, which we discover through rational intuition. According to Aquinas, there are four kinds of law: eternal law, natural law, human law and divine law. Eternal law, the broadest type of law, is the unchanging divine governance over the universe. This includes both the general moral rules of conduct, such as "stealing is wrong," and particular rules such as "people should not intentionally write bad checks." Natural law is a subset of eternal law, which God implants in human nature and we discover through reflection. However, it includes only general rules of conduct, such as "stealing is wrong," not specific cases. Next, human law is a derivation of natural law that extends to particular cases, such as "people should not write bad checks." Finally, divine law, as contained in the Bible, is a specially revealed subset of the eternal law that is meant to safeguard against possible errors in our attempts to both obtain natural law through reflection, and derive more particular human laws. In this way we see that the Bible condemns stealing in general, as well as various forms of theft through fraud. All moral laws whether general ones discovered through reflection, or specific ones derived by legislators, or ones found in the scriptures- are ultimately grounded in an objective, universal, and unchanging eternal law.

What, specifically, are the principles of natural law that God has embedded into human nature? First, there is one highest principle: "Good is to be done and evil is to be avoided." Aquinas writes,

This is the first precept of law, that "good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided." All other precepts of the natural law are based upon this: so that whatever the practical reason naturally apprehends as man's good (or evil) belongs to the precepts of the natural law as something to be done or avoided. [ST la-2ae, Q. 94, Art. 2]

From this, we determine what is "good" for us by looking at our human inclinations; he notes six in particular that are connected with our human good: self-preservation, heterosexual activity, educating our offspring, rationality, gaining knowledge of God, and living in society. He writes,

Because in man there is first of all an inclination to good in accordance with the nature which he has in common with all substances: inasmuch as every substance seeks the preservation of its own being, according to its nature: and by reason of this inclination, whatever is a means of preserving human life, and of warding off its obstacles, belongs to the natural law. Secondly, there is in man an inclination to things that pertain to him more specially, according to that nature which he has in common with other animals: and in virtue of this inclination, those things are said to belong to the natural law, "which nature has taught to all animals," such as sexual intercourse, education of offspring and so forth. Thirdly, there is in man an inclination to good, according to the nature of his reason, which nature is proper to him: thus man has a natural inclination to know the truth about God, and to live in society: and in this respect, whatever pertains to this inclination belongs to the natural law; for instance, to shun ignorance, to avoid harming or offending those among whom one has to live, and other such things regarding the above inclination. [Ibid]

For Aquinas, these six inclinations comprise what is most proper for humans, and provide the basis for the primary precepts of morality. This gives us six primary principles of natural law: (1) preserve human life, (2) have heterosexual intercourse, (3) educate your children, (4) shun ignorance, (5) worship God, and (6) avoid harming others.

Each of these primary principles encompasses more specific or secondary principles. For example, the primary principle "avoid harming others" implies the secondary principles "don't steal" and "don't assault." These, in turn, imply even more specific or tertiary principles, such as "don't write bad checks." As the principles become more specific, they leave the domain of natural law and enter that of human law. When considering whether natural law is the same in all people, he argues that the primary principles are common to everyone, such as "do not harm others." However, more particular tertiary derivations of human law are not necessarily common to all societies. Still, he argues, human law will carry the force of natural law if the tertiary principles are derived correctly. But, "if in any point it deflects from the law of nature, it is no longer a law but a perversion of law" (ibid, 95)

Notes on Aquinas:

Remember that philosopher since Thales were puzzled about the notion of "Change." Positions varied from one extreme (that there can be no real change and all apparent change is an illusion) to the other (there is only change and there is nothing permanent, lasting or true -except change).

Aristotle's answer is to say that a thing can "be" in more than one way. It can "be" actually and it can "be" potentially. The hard rubber ball is actually hard, but is potentially gooey. To realize its potential, (to actualize its potential) some actual thing must act on it. (Heat). Only actual heat (not "potential heat") can move the potentially gooey rubber ball to actuality. So any change/ motion requires a actuality to more so potentiality to actuality. Potentiality itself cannot actualize anything; it is impotent and has no power to actualize.

Consider a hand moving a stone with a stick (a favorite example for those speaking on this topic). The stone moves only insofar as the stick moves and thus moves the stone, and the stick itself moves only insofar as the hand moves. Aristotle/ Aquinas would say that the stone's potentiality for motion is actualized by the stick, but only because, simultaneously, the stick's potentiality for motion is actualized by the hand. The stick HAS NO ABILITY to move the stone on its own, but derives all of its actualizing ability from the hand.

But so too the hand. The hand is not really the first member of the series. It moves only because the arm moves it.

"The motion of the stone depends on the motion of the hand, which depends on the motion of the stick, which depends on the firing of the neurons, which depends on the firing of other neurons, all of which depends on the state of the nervous system, which depends on its current molecular structure, which depends on the atomic basis of that molecular structure, which depends on electromagnetism, gravitation, the weak and strong forces, and so on an so forth, all simultaneously, all here and now. The actualization of one potential depends on the simultaneous actualization of another, which depends on the simultaneous actualization of another, which depends on the simultaneous actualization of another, which depends on ...

How far can it go? Not that far, actually; certainly not to infinity. For what we have here is an essentially ordered causal series, existing here and now... And an essentially ordered series, of its nature, must have a first member. All the later members of such a series exist at all (and have sufficient actuality to actualize the next member in the series) only insofar as the earlier ones do, and those earlier ones only insofar as yet earlier ones do; but were there finally no first member of the series, there'd be no series at all in the first place, because it is only the first member which is in the strictest sense really doing or actualizing anything. The later members are mere instruments, with no independent, actualizing power of their own.

Think of my bicycle chain example. Since each link is move the next link, but NO link has the power to move unless it is given the power to move from something else, no link can be the ultimate source of motion. There must be an ultimate source of motion (prime mover) for there to be any intermediate movers. There can be no series of intermediary movers without a prime mover. Otherwise we would have an impossible regress of movers/ causes/ beings.

The first mover in such a series must be itself not only be unmoved (or uncaused or necessary) because if it were moving is would be moving from potential to actual. But as we have noted, for something to move from potential to actual requires an actuality outside the changed thing. In which case it wouldn't be the first mover. And we're back where we started. Thus the prime mover is pure actuality (pure "act). (God has no potential :-) He/It is not only unmoved, He/it is unmovable. The only way to stop this regress of actualizers who receive their power to actualize from outside themselves is to arrive at a first member of the series is with a being whose existence does not need to be actualized by anything else.

The series can only stop, that is to say, with a being that is pure actuality (or "Pure Act," to use the Scholastic phrase), with no admixture of potentiality whatsoever. And having no potentiality to realize or actualize, such a being could not possibly move or change. That a stone is moved by a hand via a stick, then -and more generally, that things change at all suffices to show that there is and must be a first Unmovable Mover or Unchangeable Changer.

Now, how you get from this to "God" Aquinas actually takes great pains to demonstrate, but not in the Via Quique Those who criticize him for making an unwarranted leap from "Unmoved mover" to "... and that all men call God." simply haven't read him. But that's what happens when you only read the Spark Notes.

Related to the Summa Bonum: {A slight departure)

I think there is an important similarity to this line of argument and Aristotle/ Aquinas's argument for a "summa bonum" or "final good."

Aristotle arrives at his conception of the "good life" for a human (as a rational being) by asking, "What is the natural good for man?" that is, what all humans desire "for its own sake" and not "for the sake of anything else."

Here it is helpful to distinguish two kinds of "value”[2]

1) Intrinsic Value: Something has intrinsic value if it is valuable for itself and not merely for some other reason.

2) Instrumental Value: Something has instrumental value if it is valuable to means of some other end (ex. money).

Aristotle points out that some things we value because they are means to other ends. But it cannot be that everything is valued (or have value) for some other reason for that would lead to an infinite regress. If I value "1" because it is an efficient means to "2," and I value "2" because it's a means to "3" and so on, this "regress" must stop somewhere; It cannot be infinite. As above,, the "intermediary" values have no value of their own, but derive all their value from some other source (something outside themselves). But that means that if I value anything at all right now instrumentally (derivatively), then there must be something I value intrinsically, right now. The thing of intrinsic value must exist simultaneously with the thing(s) of instrumental value to bestow them with their instrumental value. There must be some card holding the house of cards up. There must come a point where I value "N" simply because it is what it is and it has the properties it has, and not merely as a means to some other end.

In other words, in order to make sense of the whole "valuing" project, I must posit a thing of intrinsic value, and "final good" or what Aquinas would call.a "Summa Bonum." In the end, if I value anything at all, I can be certain that there is a Summa Bonum. The only question is: "What is it?" Thus, if we value anything at all there must be something we value intrinsically. And this thing (or things) of intrinsic value is what motivates all our actions. This is a teleological view of human action. The idea is that thoughtful, deliberate action is goal oriented. But this system of goals cannot be an infinite series (infinite regress). There must be a Summa Bonum, a Final End of human action(s).

A Topography of Cosmological Arguments

The following are notes drawn from William Lane Craig's Historical and Critical Analysis of the Family of Cosmological Arguments. You will recall I mentioned that this tradition begins with Plato, received full development for the first time with Aristotle, was subsumed by the Islamic philosophical/ theological tradition, imported back into Western Europe by way of Jewish and Christian philosophers and theologians. Leibniz's version marks an important continuation of and yet a break from this tradition. Despite the formidable challenges raised by David Hume and Immanuel Kant, not only to Cosmological Arguments, but to the very possibility of metaphysics in general, Cosmological Arguments have contemporary defenders, not the least of which is William Lane Craig.

PART II : CRITICAL CHAPTER IX

My Notes

A TYPOLOGY OF COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENTS

Attacks of Hume and Kant mark a watershed in the history of the cosmological argument. ushered in "modern era" of the cosmological argument

Arthur Schopenhauer: Kant had dealt a "death blow" to the cosmological argument² Proposes a common criterion "by which all or most of the arguments can be categorized."

2 Arthur Schopenhauer, "On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, " in Two Essays by Arthur

Schopenhauer (London: George Bell & Sons, 1889), pp. 42,146.

Three types:

1) Those that maintain the impossibility of an infinite temporal regress,

Kaalam proofs for the beginning of the world and the existence of a Creator.

2) Those that maintain the impossibility of an infinite essentially ordered regress,

Aquinas's three ways: proofs from motion, causality, and possible and necessary being

those that have no reference to an infinite regress at all.

3) Leibniz's version

No reference to infinite regress, but seeks a sufficient reason for all things.

Alternative sorting: the basic principle on which they operate and by which the existence of God is inferred.

Such a criterion produces three types:

· arguments based on the principle of determination,

· arguments based on the principle of causality,

· arguments based on the principle of sufficient reason.

The first type is again the Kalam arguments

The second the Thomist arguments

The third the Leibnizian argument.

"Failure to appreciate their demarcation not only leads to an incorrect understanding of the historical versions, but also conceals the crucial fact that one type may be impervious to a criticism that is fatal to another."

Beware of sloppy amalgamations of the different types of the argument. Quotes William L. Rowe as an unfortunate example:

"The proponents of the Cosmological Argument insist that the fundamental principles appealed to in the argument are necessary truths, known either directly or by deduction from other a priori principles that are known directly.... Such a principle... is the Principle of Sufficient Reason, the pivot on which the cosmological argument turns. There are a number of versions or forms of the Cosmological Argument. Apart from the versions in Plato or Aristotle, which represent the early beginnings of the argument, the most forceful and, historically, the most significant versions of the argument appeared in the writings of Aquinas and Duns Scotus in the thirteenth century and in the writings of Leibniz and Samuel Clarke in the eighteenth century "

Criticisms that may be definitive against one version of the argument may turn out to be utterly irrelevant to some other important version. On the other hand, all versions of the argument

rely on some form of the Principle of Sufficient Reason.³

William L. Rowe, The Cosmological Argument (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1975),

Craig cites lots of others who make similar mistakes.

Rowe's conclusion might nevertheless be true: the principle of causality is a specific form of the principle of sufficient reason.⁴

Nevertheless, misleading But:

Defenders of the Thomist argument maintain an essentially ordered infinite regress of causes simply cannot exist.

Leibnizian versions would suggest rather that such a series "would yield no ultimate explanation..."

For instance, Rowe and others suggest that Scotus and-Aquinas reject an infinite regress because it does not ultimately explain anything.

But this is a misread: Aquinas {et al.) is claiming that "an essentially ordered, infinite causal regress cannot exist, not just that it cannot explain anything."

"Joseph Owens is at pains to emphasize that Aristotle begins with sensible things, asks for causes, and proceeds to an ultimate cause of the world; he is not seeking abstract reasons, but physical causes."⁶

This is because in such an impossible series no actual motion would ever occur.

The point of each of Aquinas' s three ways is not

"that the effect would exist unexplained, but that it would not exist at all."

Craig and others have suggested that, ironically, Thomists themselves are partly to blame for this misinterpretation as they, over the years, "gradually assimilated the Leibnizian-Wolffian emphasis on sufficient reason so that the Thomist and Leibnizian*arguments became blended together."⁷

Problematic because it wrongly implies that by denying the principle of sufficient reason one has thereby undercut all versions of the cosmological argument.

⁴ For this view, see Bruce Reichenbach, The Cosmological Argument: A Reassessment (Springfield, II.: Charles C. Thomas, 1972), PP.

s Rowe, Argument, pp. 32-38,48-50.

⁶ Joseph Owens, The Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian "Metaphysics," 2d ed. (Toronto, Canada: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1963), pp. 172,174.

⁷ Edwin Gurr, The Principle of Sufficient Scholastic Systems., 1750-1900 {Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1959), pp. 15,48-49.

Even if one were to accept the possibility of an "explanatory ultimate" for which no reason can be given

"... it does not touch the Thomist proof for it concerns causes, not reasons, and it does not depend on everything's having a cause, but specifically aims at reaching an uncaused cause. Moreover, while one may toss off the principle of sufficient reason as false, it is not so easy to deny honestly the principle of causality."

Further, one must carefully distinguish between the two principles to see that Thomas is not suggesting a "self-caused being," a notion...

"caricatured by Schopenhauer as being like Baron Munchhausen pulling himself and his steed out of the water by his pigtails."⁸

Leibniz 's argument concludes to a being which is self-explained.

Thomas's argument concludes to being which is uncaused.

Neither is arguing for a being that is SELF-caused.

Must, therefore, keep the principle of causality distinct from the principle of sufficient reason and recognize that in the Thomist and Leibnizian proofs we 'have two distinct' types of cosmological argument.

It is also important to keep the Kalam proof distinct from the above two, although it suffers more from being ignored than being misconstrued.

One might regard the Kalam proof as based, along with the Thomist argument, on the principle of causality. But this is inadequate, for the cause of the world to which the Kalam argument concludes is

"not just a mechanically operating set of necessary and sufficient conditions, but a personal agent who chooses by an act of the will which of two alternative options --universe or no universe-- will be realized.

As A. J. Wensinck emphasizes,

"If the world was produced, that signifies therefore that it did not exist-*at some time and that it came to be afterwards. It is not permitted, therefore, to conceive of the production of the world by God as the production of the effect by, the cause: God is not cause, but Creator.⁹

Craig argues (that the Kalam argument demonstrates) that the creator of the world cannot be a "mechanistic force," but rather must be personal and create with freewill. This is because for mechanistic forces, the (total) cause is sufficient for the effect and thus, and thus would be contemporaneous with the effect. It could not exist without its effect. In that case, there could be no "beginning to the world" if the world is the contemporaneous effect of an eternal God's sufficient causal force. But a personal being who freely chooses to create the world might exist without the world (i.e. "before" he creates it). Thus, while the cause/creator/total sufficient cause of the world is eternal, the world/ effect is not.

⁸ Schopenhauer, "Fourfold Root," p. 17.

⁹ A.. J. Wensinck, "Les preuves de existence de Dieu dans la theologie musulmane," Mededeelingen der KoninkZijke van Weten-81 (1936): 47-48. sch

"The principle of determination is not, therefore, reducible to the principle of causality simpliciter. Such a reduction would rob the Kalam argument of its interesting distinctive features: the necessity of a personal agent who freely chooses between the equally possible and competing alternatives."

"The Kalam argument is thus, along with the Leibnizian and Thomist proofs, a distinct type of cosmological argument.

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[1] “Unless you believe, you will not understand.” Isaiah 7:9

[2] "The practice of every art and every kind of inquiry, and likewise every intentional act and every purpose, seems to aim at some good; and so we may say that 'The Good" is that at which everything aims. But a difference is observable among these aims or ends. What is aimed at is sometimes the exercise of a faculty, sometimes a certain result beyond that exercise. And where there is an end beyond that act, there the result is better than the exercise of the faculty. Now since there are many kinds of actions and many arts and sciences, it follows that there are many ends also; (e.g. health is the end of medicine, ships of shipbuilding, victory of the art of war, and wealth of economy.) But when several of these are subordinated to some one art or science. -as the making of bridles and other trappings are to the art of horsemanship, and this in tum, along with all else that the soldier

does, to the art of war, and so on, -then the end of the master art is always more desired then the end of the subordinate arts, since these are pursued for its sake. And this is equally true whether the end in view be the mere exercise of a faculty or something beyond that, as in the above instances.

...If then in what we do there be some end which we wish for on its own account, choosing all the others as a means to this (not every end without exception as a means to something else, for we should go on ad infinitum, and desire would be left void and objectless), -this evidently will be the good or the best of all things.