Aquinas's Scientia Divina
Journal Title: Przegląd Tomistyczny - Year 2017, Vol 0, Issue
Abstract
The present article was my attempt to present the natural theology (scientia divina) of St Thomas Aquinas in a more analytical and metaphilosophical way. The collected material allows us to distinguish Aquinas’s two approaches, the categorical and beyond-categorical, both in the demonstration of God’s existence and the procedure for establishing His attributes. This distinction becomes apparent in the five ways. I interpreted the first, second and fifth as simple modifications of Aristotle, whereas the third and the fourth represented, to me, original conceptual speculation. The speculation takes us to an interesting concept of God as ipsum esse. This concept, which constitutes an exceptionally mature synthesis of perfect-being theology and creation theology, is greater than the concepts of his predecessors and can be used as a tool for expressing essential elements of the Christian doctrine. The most interesting component of this concept is the idea of God’s simplicity, which requires us to get rid of any categorical-anthropomorphic habit in our way of thinking. According to it, we can state that God is a person, but not in the sense of being such-or-such a person (as some being among other beings), but in the sense of being a mysterious source and principle of existence and perfection of persons.
Authors and Affiliations
Jacek Wojtysiak
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP255687
- DOI -
- Views 84
- Downloads 0
Marsilia Ficina Pięć kwestii o umyśle — przesłanie filozofa in nuce .
Marsilio Ficino, a Florentine philosopher of the fifteenth century, was the first in the Latin West to translate the whole Corpus Platonicum as well as many Neoplatonic works. He is known as the Renaissance propagator of P...
Language as Representation of the Reality in Cracow Grammatical Texts from the 15th Century. The Modist Inheritance
“Propter hoc enim datus est nobis sermo, ut praesto nobis faciunt mutuae voluntatis indicia”: this quotation from Calcidus’ translation of Plato’s Timaeus was a motto of the 13t century Modist grammarians in their attem...
Wilhelm Schmidtbonn, Albertus Magnus — Pilger des Herzens, Freiburg im Breisgau: Verlag Josef Knecht, 2008 (1948 als Romanbiographie unter dem Titel „Albertuslegende” erschienen), 384 s.
Wilhelm Schmidtbonn, Albertus Magnus — Pilger des Herzens, Freiburg im Breisgau: Verlag Josef Knecht, 2008 (1948 als Romanbiographie unter dem Titel „Albertuslegende” erschienen), 384 s. Neu herausgegeben von Pia Heckes...
Donum Intellectus według Bonawentury i Tomasza z Akwinu - podporządkowywanie rozumienia czy wnikanie w głębię?
When Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas considered the the problem of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, they applied philosophical explanation to the theological issues taken by them. According to Bonaventure, subordination of u...
Die Verwendbarkeit der Dinge: Die Diskussion um das uti im 13. und frühen 14. Jahrhundert .
Plusieurs théologiens du XIIIe et du XIVe siècle discutent la question de savoir si toutes les choses créées peuvent être utilisées (c.-à-d. reliées à la fin ultime de la vie humaine). L’article analyse les positions d’A...