vol 3: Development
2 Model:
page 1: God
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God
We set out here to construct a formal model of God. My ancestral God reached its highest theoretical expression in the Summa Theologiae of Thomas Aquinas, written 1265-1272. Aquinas. This god began its career in the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh. Miles, Jewish Publication Society.
As Miles explains, the Hebrews last heard from their God in the Book of Job. This book is an ancient literary masterpiece (circa 500 bce) that questions the authenticity of the Hebrew God. Job. Their hardships had shown the the Hebrews that it was an open question whether they were under the effective protection of a loving and omnipotent deity or not.
God was revived by Christianity. A new, humanized interpretation of the rather remote God of the Hebrews appeared. God became human in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. This good news is explained in the Christian part of the Bible, which is the definitive literary record of the Incarnation and its effects upon humanity. As well as becoming human, God also appears in the New Testament as a Trinity of persons each with a particular role in the support of Christian churches.
Aquinas created a synthesis of Christian ideas and the natural science and philosophy of his day that remains official in the Catholic Church. Holy See, 252:3. His mature writing on the existence and nature of God is contained in the part 1 of the Summa Theologiae qq 2-43.
Aquinas established the existence of God from the premiss that the world is not capable of explaining itself. Summa, I:2:3. This premiss was in turn justified by the metaphysical doctrine of potency and act that Aquinas had derived from Aristotle.
So, although the Christian God is, through the incarnation, much closer to us than the Hebrew God, it remains separate from the universe and invisible to us.
The natural next step is to make God and the Universe one. Whether this is formally feasible depends upon finding a suitable model of God. We can do it if a model can be found that fits both our ideas of God and our experience of the world. This would serve to heal the rift between God and the world documented in Job. Instead of learning about the nature of God from ancient records, we expand our channel of communication with God to the totality of human experience. Scientific theology becomes possible.
(revised 17 November 2007)
Further reading
Books
| Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica (translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province), Tabor Publishing 1981 'Brother Thomas raised new problems in his teaching, invented a new method, used new systems of proof. To hear him teach a new doctrine, with new arguments, one could not doubt that God, by the irradiation of this new light and by the novelty of this inspiration, gave him the power to teach, by the spoken and written word, new opinions and new knowledge.' (William of Tocco, T's first biographer) Amazon back |
| Holy See, Canon Law Society of America, Code of Canon Law: Latin-English Edition, Canon Law Society of America 1984 Pope John Paul XXXIII announced his decision to reform the existing corpus of canonical legislation on 25 January 1959. Pope John Paul II ordered the promulgation of the revised Code of Canon law on the same day in 1983. The latin text is definitive. This English translation has been approved by the Canonical Affairs Committee of the [US] National Conference of Catholic Bishops in October 1983. Amazon back |
| Jewish Publication Society, Hebrew-English Tanakh, Jewish Publication Society 2000 Amazon back |
| Job, The Book of Job in The Jerusalem Bible, Darton Longman and Todd 1966 Introduction: 'The Book of Job is the literary masterpiece of the [Biblical] Wisdom movement. ... The author of the Book of Job ... is without doubt an Israelite, brought up on the works of the prophets and the teachings of the sages. ... The writer puts the case of the good man who suffers. This is a paradox for the conservative view then prevalent that a man's actions are rewarded or punished here on earth.' (726, 727) Amazon back |
| Miles, Jack, God : A Biography, Vintage Books 1996 Jacket: 'Jack Miles's remarkable work examines the hero of the Old Testament ... from his first appearance as Creator to his last as Ancient of Days. ... We see God torn by conflicting urges. To his own sorrow, he is by turns destructive and creative, vain and modest, subtle and naive, ruthless and tender, lawful and lawless, powerful yet powerless, omniscient and blind.' Amazon back |
Links
| Aquinas11 Summa: I 2 1: Is the existence of god known of itself? 'Now because we do not know the essence of God, the proposition is not self-evident to us; but needs to be demonstrated by things that are more known to us, though less known in their nature--namely, by effects.' back |
| Aquinas13 Summa: I 2 3: Does god exist? I answer that, The existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. ... The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. ... The third way is taken from possibility and necessity ... The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. ...The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. back |
| Aquinas14 Summa: I 3 1: Is God a body? 'I answer that, It is absolutely true that God is not a body; and this can be shown in three ways. ' back |
| Aquinas160 Summa: I 27 1 Is there procession in God? 'Our Lord says, "From God I proceeded" (Jn. 8:42).' back |
| Aquinas35 Summa: I 7 1 Is God infinite? 'Since therefore the divine being is not a being received in anything, but He is His own subsistent being as was shown above back |
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