Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: cornelis; betty boop

Not sure exactly what you mean, but I'll give it a quick effort.

I don't seem to be able to put my finger on McInterny's book at the moment, which is pretty hard to summarize anyway (that quotation above is from a review I once wrote of it), but he moves toward the view that analogy is the best way to understand the relation between God and the creation, or eternity and time, or the eternal forms and their phenomenal shadows (probably not a very accurate way of putting it).

To take an instance, can you say that "God is good," using the word "good" in any human sense? God is completely other, and therefore human goodness really is not properly descriptive of Him. But you can't say that "God is not good" either, nor does it make much sense to say that "God is super good." Perhaps it is better to say that God is real goodness, and that whatever goodness we see in this world is a pale shadow or analogy of that divine goodness. So God is not like our goodness, but our goodness is like God.

Similarly, one could ask, what is truth. The Thomistic answer, following Aristotle, is that truth is that which is most real, that which IS. But that which is most real is God. "I AM that I AM." So, if science is the pursuit of truth, of that which is, rather than something else, then how can science leave God out of the equation, if He is the most real of all? Maritain makes a good case that Thomas went a step further than Aristotle in defining the nature of reality as a kind of verb, to be.

The relation of the created world to God, Who is ultimate Truth or Reality, is analogical.

I'm afraid that's a very brief and rough account of some ideas that require a book full of philosophical development to tease out, and even that is only a start.


246 posted on 11/01/2006 2:59:05 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 244 | View Replies ]


To: Cicero

Thanks. I asked because you attributed something about a modern view to Hayek and I wanted to know what you recognized as different.


247 posted on 11/01/2006 3:30:17 PM PST by cornelis
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 246 | View Replies ]

To: Cicero; cornelis; Alamo-Girl
Perhaps it is better to say that God is real goodness, and that whatever goodness we see in this world is a pale shadow or analogy of that divine goodness. So God is not like our goodness, but our goodness is like God.

Sounds exactly right to me, Cicero!

Thank you for another beautiful essay/post!

256 posted on 11/01/2006 7:32:44 PM PST by betty boop (Beautiful are the things we see...Much the most beautiful those we do not comprehend. -- N. Steensen)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 246 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson