Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.
This is weaker argument and one that feels unconvincing; in the times when an argument comes to a halt it feels as if God is just the automatic and convenient solution
Now it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold
I'm assuming then that there must be some objective criteria to consider something as "hot", as hot is relative and what could be considered hot in relation to one thing could be cold in relation to another
But nothing can be brought from potentiality to actuality, except by something in a state of actuality.
I want to say that Aquinas is introducing some very original ideas here that are definitely convincing
First, whatever a thing has besides its essence must be caused either by the constituent principles of that essence (like a property that necessarily accompanies the species — as the faculty of laughing is proper to a human — and is caused by the constituent principles of the species), or by some exterior agent — as heat is caused in water by fire
The way Aquinas chooses to structure and vocalize his arguments bespeak his classical influences; like Plato and Aristotle, Aquinas comes off as straightforward
Therefore its animation depends upon some other thing, as our body depends for its animation on the soul. Hence that by which a body becomes animated must be nobler than the body.
Can we say that God participates in the form of nobility?
it is impossible that matter should exist in God. First, because matter is in potentiality.
Right out of Aristotle
John of Damascus says (On the Orthodox Faith 1.4): “It is impossible to define the essence of God.”
What kind of works was Aquinas interested in? It seems that his thinking was influenced by a particular set of works
natural light of human reason, which can err
Aquinas doesn't address the fact that sacred teaching has to, in some respect, work in conjunction with human reason.
Hence, just as the musician accepts on authority the principles taught him by the mathematician, so sacred science is established on principles revealed by God.
I'm hesitating on accepting such an analogy considering the fact that such principles revealed by God are otherworldly and, as other philosophers purport, unable to be understood as opposed to music or math.
For the astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion: that the earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer by means of mathematics (i.e. abstracting from matter), but the physicist by means of matter itself.
It would be interesting to see the process by which Aquinas reached such a conclusion
Therefore any other knowledge besides philosophical science is superfluous.
Opposite of Maimonides that external knowledge is needed prior to understanding "philosophical science"
separate themselves from things perceived by the senses and had not attained intellectual perfection
Recurring trope that seems to occur in multiple discussions, including platonic philosophy
A fool believes everything.
mean
Now it is known to everyone capable of mental representation that it is in no way possible that forty-two letters should form one word
pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis has 45 letters
In consequence, blameworthy people started learning the name having twelve letters, and through this corrupted beliefs
played yourself
once a week to a worthy scholar
Why not to everyone? Are they okay with everyone just walking around improperly referring to God? I feel like it would do more justice to the faith to just teach those who believe in God the right way to say his name rather than making it an elitist thing
Do not think anything other than this and do not let occur to your mind the vain imaginings of the writers of charms 9 or what names you may hear from them or may find in their stupid books,
Maimonides seems to be establishing his credibility by denying the absolute veracity of his own statements
Furthermore, one who has an apprehension of a thing that is different from what that thing really is, must yet necessarily apprehend something of h as it really is.
What is the purpose of this entire text? It seems like an attempt at just convincing readers that it is virtually impossible to understand God.
Now the demonstration of the impossibility of composition in Him
As a whole this idea that we should put our faith in a God that we have no shot of knowing anything about (at least affirmatively) is pretty unconvincing in my opinion
Consequently you resort to negations. Accordingly you have not arrived at a knowledge of the true reality of an essential attribute, but you have arrived at multiplicity
Given that God's knowledge is transcendent and that we must resort to negations, it seems like we get caught in a loop of endless negating. Do we ever draw a line? If we are negating something then we assume its existence; if we are endlessly negating, then is the number of things that exist infinite?
For on every occasion on which it becomes clear to you by means of a demonstration that a thing whose existence is thought to pertain to Him, may He be exalted, should rather be negated with reference to Him, you undoubtedly come nearer to Hir.~ by one degree.
Even though I didn't entirely grasp this paragraph, is Maimonides saying here that any kind of demonstration (or knowledge), whether it be in the sciences or math or whatever, brings us closer to God by means of discovering the things that he is not? This seems really absolute in that everything is either divine or not divine and that their is no middle ground, as opposed to notions that consist of a hierarchy between rationality, imagination, and the senses, for example.
In the exercise of this, no sense, no part of the body, none of the extremities are used
This counters Avicenna's idea that rationality exists somewhere in the body
If anything in it, according to his way of thinking, appears to be in some way harmful, he should interpret it, even if in a far-fetched way, in order to pass a favorable judgment.
this seems like self-brainwashing
Their external meaning contains wisdom that is useful in many respects
Opposite of Augustine who abhors those who interpret what are supposed to be figurative meanings, literally.
even when one who truly possesses knowledge considers these parables and interprets them according to their external meaning, he too is overtaken by I great perplexity.
Little less radical than Augustine though who says literal interpretation in metaphorical situations are diabolical
I was between the senses and the intellect; I fell into the sea of know1-edge.
sleep>school
And gazing upon intelligibles is the task of the soul, not the work of thebody.
Avicenna doesn't pose any radical views against the senses as Plato does, who stresses that we separate ourselves from them as much as we can
center.
This center being intellect, right?
For the best interest of people, prophets are given permission to activateimagination and estimation.
Prophets do not give answers and they cannot give answers; they simply facilitate the comprehension of the intelligible.
His control over himself is nonexistent
Straight to the point that we have no free will, I would like to hear how Avicenna would approach the issue of fatalism
because the intellect restrains humans from excess and negligence[ifratwa-tafrzt]and encourages moderation[i'tidal]in all actions.2
Appetite then must be a more primitive force then
But if He only put the psychic(soul in humans), they would have nothing in common with other ani-mals. Hence He gave (humans) all three (souls), so that they share theanimal and natural (souls) with all[Sf.]but in regard to their psychic(souls) are nobler than all
The psychic also seems to be the most divine element of the soul, given its perfection, nobility, and immortality. It's the animal and natural souls that make us mundane.
He adorned the body with parts, such as thehand, foot, head, face, belly, frame, sensation, and other things, and gaveeach one, such as the heart, liver,
This description of God creating man is one devoid of emotion and paints God's character as so.
Only God grantssuccess.!
The introduction stresses the judgmental aspects of God as opposed to his, for example, his intellectual traits emphasized works such as The Consolation of Philosophy
something has conjoined [with] it, in terms of which it becomes "this" or in "this"
One unifying feature that unites these separate parts within this one entity
That which describes the nonexistent and is predicated of it either exists for the nonexistent and is realized for it or does not exist and is not realized for it.
So everything has the potential to exist?
The things that have the highest claim to be conceived in themselves arc those common to all matters-as, for example, "the existent," "the one thing," and others
This falls in complete contradiction to Socrates' Opposites argument.
If every conception were to require that [another] conception should precede it, then [such a] state of affairs would lead either to an infinite regress or to circularity.
In this excerpt it seems like Avicenna wants readers to take certain things as necessarily true without explanation. In these types of situations schools such as atomism seem very appealing.
It is absolute Life and working far beyond life it transcendently fashions all life, or however else one might humanly praise the ineffable Life.
life
Life itself is the source of everything alive. Similarity itself is the source of everything similar, Unity itself of everything unified, Order itself of everything orderly
Evil doesn't come from evil though, its supposed to be a derivation from good isn't it? So therefore EVIL IS GOOD
They are very much closer to the Good and participate much more in the Good
If we read this in a Platonic context then those who or that are closest to the forms are therefore the most divine
Beautiful and the Good
Again, another reference to Platonic forms
Evil in minds, in souls, and in bodies is a weakness and a defect in the condition of their natural virtues.
Are unnatural things then evil? If natural virtue is what considered good, then is, for example, plastic surgery or anything taken apart from its natural form evil?
So too with evil. It is neither in demons nor in us as evil. What it is actually is a deficiency and a lack of the perfection of the inherent virtues.
So what is evil? And do living beings not have the ability to be evil whatsoever?
It is a weakness
Same thing as Boethius that the evil are weak.
For the unnamed goodness is not just the cause of cohesion or life or perfection so that it is from this or that providential gesture that it earns a name, but it actually contains everything beforehand within itself — and this in an non-complex and boundless manner — and it is thus by virtue of the unlimited goodness of its single all-creative Providence.
I notice some similarities here with Boethius' idea that the higher powers of comprehension embraces the lower.
Truly he has dominion over all and all things revolve around him
Again, the question over free will is introduced and whether in submitting to God we relinquish self-control.
he who totally transcends the natural order of the world.
The idea that Jesus transcends the natural world has a strong homoousian connotation, and contradicts many of the humanized depictions of Jesus from this time period.
Indeed the inscrutable One is out of the reach of every rational process.
I think sentence is where we begin to deviate from the Consolation of Philosophy. Lady Philosophy states how the knowledge that is achieved only by God, namely foreknowledge can be attained by a single stroke of "reason's theoretical understanding, the imagination's shape, and the sense's materiality". This sentence implies the converse, in saying that this sort of knowledge is just completely unattainable.