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Aquinas and the Knowledge of God Casey Edler Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Cedler1@Lsu.Edu Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Master's Theses Graduate School 2005 Aquinas and the knowledge of God Casey Edler Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Edler, Casey, "Aquinas and the knowledge of God" (2005). LSU Master's Theses. 2648. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/2648 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Master's Theses by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. AQUINAS AND THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in The Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies by Casey Edler B.A., Saint Joseph Seminary College, 2003 August 2005 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………………………………………...………………………………iii INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………..…….1 HOW KNOWLEDGE HAPPENS……………………………………………………….….…7 KNOWING GOD ON EARTH………………………………………………………….……16 RAPTURE………………………………………………………………………………….…23 THE PROBLEM WITH PROPHECY………………………………………………………..36 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………………….42 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………….48 VITA………………………………………………………………………………………….50 ii ABSTRACT This thesis concerns the introduction of mystical knowledge into a debate about God that relies on scientific evidence. The thesis focuses in particular on the relevance of Thomas Aquinas' view of mystical experience. After first presenting Aquinas' theory of rapture as an anticipation of the beatific vision and distinguishing it from other ways of knowing God, I argue that such a theory convincingly renders mystical knowledge inadmissible into a debate about God that relies on scientific evidence, owing to one's inability to either remember or communicate such an experience. As a result, introducing mystical knowledge into the debate causes the religious participants in the debate to appear intellectually inept. iii INTRODUCTION The headline ticker for the Fox News Channel recently reported something of interest to philosophers. In one line, the news bite stated that a "prominent atheist" had changed his mind about God's existence. It gave no details about the reason for the change or how suddenly it may have arisen. One thing was certain: after being a devoted defender of atheism for fifty years, Flew now believed in God. To understand exactly how Flew defines his fresh position, we have to go beyond the headlines.1 First of all, he has certainly not become a card-carrying member of any organized religion. In fact, Flew is quoted as saying that he retains his hostility to the concepts of God that are to be found in the world's largest religions: I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and far and away from the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Husseins (Associated Press). Rather than speculate about how exactly God is related to us in the present, whether as despot, king, or father, Flew focuses on God's role in the primordial moment of the genesis of life. As he states: My one and only piece of relevant evidence [for an Aristotelian God] is the apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species…[In fact] the only reason which I have for beginning to think of believing in a First Cause god is the impossibility of providing a naturalistic account of the origin of the first reproducing organisms (Carrier 4). It should not be surprising that the accumulation of scientific knowledge is what brought Flew to a turning point. Even when defending the atheistic position, he admitted that an argument from design would not be to produce if design itself could be clearly seen in nature. 1 There is a difficulty in determining what exactly Flew's position is, due to its very recent publicizing. Since Flew himself has not yet clarified his views in print, though he plans to do so in 2005, I have collected a sketch of his thoughts comments posted on the internet, mostly in the form of news updates on that focus on topics related to atheism. The article by Richard Carrier which I cite is reliable because Carrier has recently been in personal contact with Flew regarding his shift in view. 1 If [order and design] were indeed so there would, of course, be no at all about developing a demonstrative proof of the existence of one or more Designers. But it appears that, while design is thus undeniable, it is also not (God:A Critical Inquiry 160). It seems, then, that Flew has in fact changed very little; what is new is simply what he judges to be scientific evidence for design, evidence which until recently science had not been able to furnish.2 Flew had always maintained that the discovery of such evidence would necessitate God's existence. And in this vein Flew recently defended his decision when he said My whole life has been guided by the principle of Socrates: Follow the evidence, wherever it leads (AP). The argument from design, though, only demands that God be an intelligent being. It says little else about what characteristics God has possesses. That God exists can be deduced from a body of evidence, but that same body does not open the door to a flood of about what God is like in Himself. Strictly making current scientific evidence the only thing which valid conclusions about God can be drawn severely limits the number of statements one can make in describing a divine being. This does not bother Flew, who does not seem interested in developing any positive theory that would describe what God is like. He arrives at God as a necessary piece that can fill in the gap in science's account for the origin of life, but he is also willing to postpone or simply disregard any conversation about what God is like or the possibility of His being accessible to prying human eyes. Given that this is a newfound position for him, Flew may yet decide that such a venture would be worthwhile. After all, he is a brand new theist, having undergone a groundbreaking shift in his lifelong worldview. We should not expect him or anyone else in such a situation to 2 By no means has the intelligent design movement won over the majority of the scientific community. Most scientists agree with a naturalistic explanation for life's origin. Indeed, it is characteristic of the proponents of the design movement to describe themselves as working against an entrenched majority. 2 have developed a positive theory of how exactly God operates or what his characteristics are. Adjusting from a world without divinity to a world where the divine is responsible for life itself: this is no easy task, not only in the sense that the world may seem a different place, but also because, for Flew, there is the messy problem of undergoing a drastic break with the bulk of one's own career and the public perception of one as a longtime standard bearer for a movement. But when the controversy quiets down, it is possible that Flew will begin to develop his new stance so that it accommodates the inevitable stream of questions he will face about what exactly he means when he says "God." In fact, it would be quite natural for him to address such issues not only in order to respond to inquiries put to him, but to clarify the questions that are likely to arise in his own mind concerning the nature of the deity. Flew has judged God to be real. The next step is to attempt to come to grips with God's nature. This leads to the theme of this paper: how it is that the human mind can possibly come to what God is like, with an emphasis on how Thomas Aquinas addresses this problem and on his tacitly contradictory that one can have direct access to God's nature in an extreme experience of prayer called rapture. Such a study might seem antiquated or irrelevant at first glance -were it not for contemporary examples such as that of Antony Flew. This recent turn of events helps to underscore several salient points. First, there is a difference between knowing that God exists and knowing what God is. Aquinas is in strong agreement with this position, as he makes clear: God's effects can serve to demonstrate that God exists, even though they cannot help us to know him comprehensively for what he is (ST la 2.2 ad2).3 3 I have adopted Robert method of citing Aquinas' Summa Theologiae. All quotations of the Summa come from the Blackfriars edition. 3 While science provides a body of evidence that can be used in affirming or denying God's existence, the fact that an immaterial being would likely fall outside of the limits of scientific inquiry makes it dubious that science could ever produce a picture of God. Second, there is something intuitively wrong with the position that affirms that God exists but that does not show interest in what He is like. There are some cases in which affirming without interest makes sense. I can believe in Jacques Chirac, acknowledging that he is a real person and strongly adhering to that belief. In other words, it would be hard to convince me that the French president does not exist. However, at the same time, I am perfectly capable of taking no interest whatsoever in the man's characteristics and activities, especially because of the gulf between us leads to an absence of actions of his that might have a detectable influence on me.
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