Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and Metaphysics

[genkaus]

Gen, would you say this tension (or irreconcilability) of the two systems is a problem for Christian philosophy in general? Rather, do you know of any instances in Christian philosophywhere this conflict surfaces (other than this instance :p)? It was influenced by them after all (Neoplatonism, Thomism), so I would expect it to.

I think Christian "Philosophy" has much bigger problems than borrowing from two contradictory metaphysical positions. However, I'm not intimately familiar with many of them - only to the extent that they reflect other schools of thought. I see it as an extraordinary mental gymnastic exercises just to achieve putting your head in your ass.

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Started reading other sources about Aristotle's Universals, and it definitely is a big difference. And if God is this "ultimate form" or "form of good" or whatever, that definitely contradicts with Christian theological ideas about God, namely his omnipresence, for example.

The contradiction is greater than that. Regarding god as an "ultimate form" is based on Platonic idea of Forms. Here the assumption is that god is a Form - existing ontologically in a separate plane and independently from all physical matter. Within Aristotelian metaphysics, god existing would imply that he is a substance - that he has both matter and form - and any existence as pure form would mean that he exists only in intellect.

Aquinas moves on to God being a being of Pure Actuality, and in his Unmoved mover argument, since everything that is actualized is actualized by something outside of itself to reach it's potentiality, this leads to an infinite regress. So, there would have to be a being that causes that first actualization in every actualization that occurs at every moment of reality. Every movement of these keystrokes would have to be "sustained by God".

Ironically, the type of "mover" that Arstotles argues exists is very different from the Christian god.

Different from this was the First Cause argument. Basically, just because we have an "essence" or "form", doesn't entail that we actually exist. Our essence or nature can't be what accounts for our "continuing to exist".

Putting aside the fact that he is once again confusing the words "essence" and "form" - I was under the impression that "essence" was the property of existing things.

In Feser's words, the rest of the argument:

Now, relative to matter, the form or essence is "actuality" - it actualizes the potential in the matter, in this case making it [a human being] a living human body rather than a cat or an apple. But as we've just seen, there's nothing about a form or essence per se that guarantees that it exists or informs anything. Like George Bush, Socrates, and Bruce Wayne, being human beings, are composites of form and matter, but unlike Bush they aren't real, since Socrates is dead and Bruce Wayne is fictional. So, though "actual" relative to matter, a form or essence is only "potential" relative to existence or being. Existence or being is what "actualizes" a form or essence.

Now if the essence of a thing and the existence of the thing are distinct in this way - there is nothing int he former that entails the latter - then something needs to put them together if the thing is to be real. That "something" obviously can't be the thing itself, for to give itself existence, a thing would have to exist already, and the whole point is that since existence still needs to be added to its essence it doesn't exist already. So, nothing can cause itself; whatever comes into existence, or more generally whatever must have existence added to its essence in order for it to be real, must be caused by another. This is the "principle of causality" (also sometimes known as a version of the "principle of sufficient reason"). Notice that it does not say that "Everything has a cause" - something which, as I have said, Aquinas never asserted or would have asserted. The principle says only that what does not have existence on its own must have a cause.

The conclusion is drawn that there has to be a "being to whom the essence/existence distinction doesn't apply at all, who is pure existence, pure being, full stop: not a being, strictly speaking, but Being itself."

Its funny how all the arguments for god can be reduced to the same bunch of sentences. Cutting through the philosophical jargon and the essence/existence distinction, here is his argument in a nutshell:

1. Everything that begins to exist (has existence added to essence) has a cause.
2. God is the first cause of everything.
3. God never began to exist (never had existence added to essence or no essence/existence distinction).

We've seen this argument many times and refuted it many times.

And lastly, the argument of Supreme Intelligence:

Now go back to the vast system of causes that constitutes the physical universe. Every one of them is directed toward a certain end or final cause. Yet almost none of them is associated with any consciousness, thought, or intellect at all; and even animals and human beings, who are conscious, are themselves comprised in whole or in part of unconscious and unintelligent material components which themselves manifest final causality. Yet it is impossible for anything to be directed toward an end unless that end exists in an intellect which directs the thing in question toward it. And it follows, therefore, that the system of ends or final causes that make up the physical universe can only exist at all because there is a Supreme Intelligence or intellect outside that universe which directs things toward their ends.

And here is the problem with this argument. Without the unjustified bolded assumption the whole argument falls apart.