Philosophy and Religion: Six Lectures Delivered at CambridgeRashdall, Hastings
Religion
Philosophy and Religion: Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge
Rashdall, Hastings
Christianity; Philosophy and religion
With regard to the difficulty of distinguishing Power from Will, I was
perhaps to blame for not giving St. Thomas' own word 'Principium.' The
word 'Principium' means the _pege theoteos_, the ultimate Cause or
Source of Being: by 'Voluntas' St. Thomas means that actual putting
forth of Power (in knowing and in loving the Word or Thought eternally
begotten by God the Father) which is the Holy Ghost. I am far from
saying that the details of St. Thomas' doctrine are not open to much
criticism: a rough correspondence between his teaching and any view of
God's Nature which can commend itself to a modern Philosopher is all
that I endeavoured to point out. The modern thinker would no doubt
with Dr. Sanday prefer the triad 'Power, Wisdom, Love,' or (I would
suggest) 'Feeling, including Love as the highest form of Feeling.' The
reason why St. Thomas will not accept such an interpretation is that
his Aristotelianism (here not very consonant with the Jewish and
Christian view of God) excludes all feeling or emotion from the divine
nature; 'Love' has therefore to be identified with 'Will' and not with
'Feeling.' I cannot but think that the Professor might have taken a
little more trouble to understand both St. Thomas and myself before
accusing either of us of 'looseness of reasoning.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account