Oh, they are far more tricky than that. At least the Edward Feser type Scholastics. They just define love as whatever god does.
Basically, the logic is that to love someone is not to wish that they get what they want to get, but to wish that they get what is actually good for them. What is actually good for them is what is in accordance with their natural goal, telos, and this does not even contradict common sense much, to the Scholastic the natural goal of horses is to run fast, eat grass, mate etc. and yes, indeed if we wanted to build a horse heaven it would be huge grassland for long runs. So so far it even checks out for the common-sense observer.
Then they just say natural goals are determined by god and QED.
Scholastics say a true god cannot be unloving by definition, in any logically conceivable universe, because it would imply he does not want what he wants (helping beings to reach natural goals he himself determined) In other words, they think the map / language logic is something superior to reality.
You know of Edward Feser! God, I hate that guy (pun intended). If I didn’t respect books so much, I would have torn many pages out of The Last Superstition. His expression of Scholasticism is absurdly simplistic. But you lay out what Feser would say very well. I don’t find him an accurate expositor of Aquinas at all; he’s ridiculously uncomfortable with ambiguity and so makes his arguments by fudging definitions and appealing to intuition. He’s the opposite of a decent scholastic.
I would venture to say that the majority of medieval scholars don’t do what Feser does with definitions. But Feser is afraid of secularism in a way I don’t think medieval intellectuals were. Does that jive with your understanding of this stuff? I think the argument you made would be made today but would not have been accepted in the 13th C. on the grounds that although God is the source of the natural goals for different species, it does not follow that he personally loves particulars (Avicenna didn’t even think God could know particulars).
I’m sorry we’re talking about Scholasticism on LW…
I am not sorry, they were smart guys, although AFAIK misusing it (justifying what they believed anyway), nevertheless if I would see the Summa Theologiae as a fantasy novel and ignore for a second that it is meant to be true, then it would be the most largest, most consistent, most logical fantasy universe ever created, really Tolkien having nothing it. Strictly as tour de force, as a showing off of sheer brilliance, it is respectable. Aquinas was a rare genius.
Unfortunately he was sitting deep in a world, culture, and organization and role, where the only possible outcome was justifying the Bible.
That is way of looking at the Summa made me chuckle. Aquinas was a theologian and did his duty toward the Church, I suppose. I tend to be very sympathetic towards certain medieval philosophers whom I believe didn’t use their intelligence disingenuously. Peter Abelard wrote his entire ethics and metaphysics without any reference to religion as did certain other Jewish and Muslim philosophers who were in the business of showing how flimsy the arguments of others philosophers were, even if those arguments came to similar conclusions about the existence of God or the eternity of the universe. In Medieval Paris theological issues were left to theologians and philosophical issues to the Arts faculty. The Church and University exhorted people to stay within their respective fields and failure to do so would put one in danger of censure. Its an interesting tidbit.
Oh, they are far more tricky than that. At least the Edward Feser type Scholastics. They just define love as whatever god does.
Basically, the logic is that to love someone is not to wish that they get what they want to get, but to wish that they get what is actually good for them. What is actually good for them is what is in accordance with their natural goal, telos, and this does not even contradict common sense much, to the Scholastic the natural goal of horses is to run fast, eat grass, mate etc. and yes, indeed if we wanted to build a horse heaven it would be huge grassland for long runs. So so far it even checks out for the common-sense observer.
Then they just say natural goals are determined by god and QED.
Scholastics say a true god cannot be unloving by definition, in any logically conceivable universe, because it would imply he does not want what he wants (helping beings to reach natural goals he himself determined) In other words, they think the map / language logic is something superior to reality.
You know of Edward Feser! God, I hate that guy (pun intended). If I didn’t respect books so much, I would have torn many pages out of The Last Superstition. His expression of Scholasticism is absurdly simplistic. But you lay out what Feser would say very well. I don’t find him an accurate expositor of Aquinas at all; he’s ridiculously uncomfortable with ambiguity and so makes his arguments by fudging definitions and appealing to intuition. He’s the opposite of a decent scholastic.
I would venture to say that the majority of medieval scholars don’t do what Feser does with definitions. But Feser is afraid of secularism in a way I don’t think medieval intellectuals were. Does that jive with your understanding of this stuff? I think the argument you made would be made today but would not have been accepted in the 13th C. on the grounds that although God is the source of the natural goals for different species, it does not follow that he personally loves particulars (Avicenna didn’t even think God could know particulars).
I’m sorry we’re talking about Scholasticism on LW…
I am not sorry, they were smart guys, although AFAIK misusing it (justifying what they believed anyway), nevertheless if I would see the Summa Theologiae as a fantasy novel and ignore for a second that it is meant to be true, then it would be the most largest, most consistent, most logical fantasy universe ever created, really Tolkien having nothing it. Strictly as tour de force, as a showing off of sheer brilliance, it is respectable. Aquinas was a rare genius.
Unfortunately he was sitting deep in a world, culture, and organization and role, where the only possible outcome was justifying the Bible.
That is way of looking at the Summa made me chuckle. Aquinas was a theologian and did his duty toward the Church, I suppose. I tend to be very sympathetic towards certain medieval philosophers whom I believe didn’t use their intelligence disingenuously. Peter Abelard wrote his entire ethics and metaphysics without any reference to religion as did certain other Jewish and Muslim philosophers who were in the business of showing how flimsy the arguments of others philosophers were, even if those arguments came to similar conclusions about the existence of God or the eternity of the universe. In Medieval Paris theological issues were left to theologians and philosophical issues to the Arts faculty. The Church and University exhorted people to stay within their respective fields and failure to do so would put one in danger of censure. Its an interesting tidbit.