Arguments Against Thomistic philosophy

[Neo-Scholastic]

I'm not trying to compare Cartesian concepts to scholastic ones here, I'm just trying to get at why "purely actual" indicates an unchanging nature. It may be that this is due to scholastic conceits, or maybe there is another piece of logic backing this up. Spinoza is obviously describing a God who is "purely actual" but his God is subject to change/modification. Otherwise his God is similar to the scholastic's god in that he is causa sui. IDK, maybe I'm confusing things by bringing Spinoza in, but I was just trying to give a reference point. What am I missing that logically demonstrates that purely actual entails unchanging?

In Scholasticism, act and potency are mutually exclusive attributes. It’s like virginity. A maiden is a potential lover. However, following coitus the potential has been actualized. Now the woman, formally a maiden, is an actual lover. For God there are no potentials that are not already actualized. Therefore, He can neither gain nor lose any attributes to become other than what He already is.

My second question is less convoluted. In your opinion/assessment how valid is the scholastic principle "a thing cannot give what it does not have"? I am unfamiliar with the concept, but it sounds like leftover Aristotle that made its way into Aquinas' stew. Wouldn't you say that such a concept is counter to naturalistic observation (ie. a cute cuddly bird can descend from a ferocious dinosaur) or am I missing the essence of the statement?

One of the reasons I enjoy the Scholastics so much is their careful attention to nuanced and precise distinctions. It’s taken me a lot of time and study to understand and recognize many of those distinctions, such as act/potency, accidental/essential, kind/degree, etc. That is why I find it so often futile replying to many posts objecting to the 5W and my frustration with Christian apologists ignorant of the concepts that inform the 5W.

That’s why I don’t have the patience to deal with post’s like Polymath’s. Polymath is too far gone in his or her denial of intelligibility. Polymath is committed to the idea of a world without any ‘whatness’, one in which there are no things (just accidental collections) and descriptive language just floats free without any correspondence to real objects. Likewise, people who cannot understand the notion of privation (because they do not recognize the necessary conditions for intelligibility) will never realize that ‘maximally evil’ is an oxymoron. That’s one reason why my posts are getting fewer and fewer. Even when conversing with the most astute AF members, we seem to be talking past one another for lack of a common nomenclature.

(rant over)

Anyways, the phrase mostly has to do with final cause. For example, potter has the intention of creating a vessel that will hold water, flowers etc. and makes a vase that manifests that intention. Or something like authority. The authority of the cop is derived from the civilian authorities whose authority derives from the electorate. If the electorate has no authority it cannot give it to the civilian leaders who cannot give it to the cop. The specific purpose of any given organ is derived from the purpose of the organism which is to thrive which is derived from the purpose assigned to it by Providence. A purposeless universe cannot give purpose to an organism that gives purpose to the organs. Personally, I think the purpose of the heart is to pump blood. But even a simple and seemingly obvious fact like that doesn't even makes sense if your worldview excludes final cause. And yet without final cause there can be no quiddity or whatness. In effect, a world without whatness is basically absurd and unintelligible. There’s no sense wondering if Theseus has the same boat as before because without final cause there can’t even be such a thing as a boat.