... on Mystical Experience of Saint Thomas

... on Metaphysics of Saint Thomas Aquinas - an answer with my replies (quora) · ... on Bishop Tempier and the Late Brother Thomas · ... on Mystical Experience of Saint Thomas

Profile

Pete Ashly
https://www.quora.com/profile/Pete-Ashly

sees beautiful things

Peter's Quora persona expresses contrarian views, playfully seeking undiscovered answers. If you're here viewing his profile to learn about this perplexing behavior, please don't take him too seriously. The muses do all the writing anyway and he just types. Please forgive the bad smells, sheep tend to get poop on themselves.

Q

What are some flaws in Thomas Aquinas' thinking?
https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-flaws-in-Thomas-Aquinas-thinking/answer/Pete-Ashly

Pete Ashly

former software eng and mgmt at Secret Security Org

Answered 11h ago

He learned towards the end of life that he had no actual clue at all about the nature of “this”.

What could St Thomas Aquinas have seen in his mystical experience?
https://www.quora.com/What-could-St-Thomas-Aquinas-have-seen-in-his-mystical-experience

On the feast of St. Nicholas [in 1273, Aquinas] was celebrating Mass when he received a revelation that so affected him that he wrote and dictated no more, leaving his great work the Summa Theologiae unfinished. To Brother Reginald’s (his secretary and friend) expostulations he replied, "The end of my labors has come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me." When later asked by Reginald to return to writing, Aquinas said, "I can write no more. I have seen things that make my writings like straw."

He realized that all his prior works were of the ego, by the ego and for the ego. The ego by definition has no clue about the true nature of existence. “I think therefore I am” in Aquinas’ case as in so many others aligns with “I think it therefore it is”. But the nature of God is bottom up, not top down like the domineering ego wants. God thinks.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

3m ago

“He realized that all his prior works were of the ego, by the ego and for the ego.”

That is your interpretation of his vision, that is not his vision.

“The ego by definition has no clue about the true nature of existence.”

By definition?

“’I think therefore I am’ in Aquinas’ case as in so many others aligns with ‘I think it therefore it is’.”

Aquinas never said “I think, therefore I am”. He also never said “I think, therefore it is”. He said “we see, therefore it is”.

“But the nature of God is bottom up, not top down like the domineering ego wants. God thinks.”

You mean “God thinks, therefore it is”? Well, that is what Saint Thomas said too! In the Summa.

The procession of creatures from God, and of the first cause of all things (Prima Pars, Q. 44)
http://newadvent.com/summa/1044.htm

So, if you wanted a flaw in his, but not your own thinking, you have not found it.

Was it flawed in Saint Thomas? Then it is flawed in you as well. Is it right in your thinking? Then it was right in Saint Thomas’ thinking too.

Note

First version of this post had a post number beginning with three consecutive sixes. Is Pete Ashley Kantian? KANTIANAS is 666 in ascii, and Kantians are anti-Thomists.

Pete Ashley

has answered in two comments, so we get two threads of comments with my answers to his.

I

Pete Ashly

13m ago

I will admit to much ignorant blather here, but did aquinas ever say all is God and I don't exist, the church is all about bullshit, I am all the names in history?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

No, he did not.

Pete Ashly

51m ago

No, he was too smart for that, he knew he would be locked up like Nietzsche. Better to be silent from a tactical perspective versus tell the truth people and power doesnt want to know.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

Sorry, but that is purely your own speculation.

It is not backed up by his own acts after the experience, like his confessing just before he died.

And when he was dying he would hardly have feared being locked up.

Also, “locked up like Nietzsche” didn’t exist back then.

We speak of Middle Ages, that was before Modern Psychiatry.

Also, he had already been locked up. He had been locked up by his family when he wanted to become a Dominican.

So, where do you get this from, except from your own ideas?

No documents from St Thomas’ time, at least!

Pete Ashly

1m ago

He died quickly after a trauma I believe. Timeline: How Thomas Aquinas died of a Brain Injury on March 7

Yes, it is my speculation, but it follows naturally from the great realization common to all cultures, so it is a high probability guess. You’re right, in the middle ages you might be more likely to be burnt :-)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1m ago

You misread your link.

And what you call “ the great realization common to all cultures” is not such, St Thomas had actually combatted that one as an Arabic intrusion into Sorbonne in his previous writings.

See his De Unitate Intellectus contra Averroistas.

If he had “realised” the bs you just promoted, he would have said something more specific than what he did. Like a retractation of specifically that work. He did not.

“You’re right, in the middle ages you might be more likely to be burnt :-)”

In fact, burning of heretics was a pretty recent thing, which he had defended.

It was also not a realistic threat against Sorbonne Averroism, perhaps, since mainly targetting Albigensianism.

Pete Ashly

2m ago

re: “St Thomas had actually combatted that” - You make my point, of the ego, for the ego and by the ego.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

I gave you fuel for your assessment of his previous writings, but none for your assessment of his supposed retreat from that.

II

Pete Ashly

9m ago

The ego program is the thing that creates the identity of you from your viewpoint as a mind body. Ego isn't being good/bad person, but basis for being a person. Pete Ashly's answer to What is the concept of Maya in Hinduism?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

Well, sorry, but “basis for being a person” is certainly not the basis for bad theology.

It is one of the aspects of God’s creating us.

Pete Ashly

53m ago

What does it mean to be a human without free will? What is that person?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

• 1) Freewill is created by God.
• 2) Freewill is NOT the basis for bad theology, but bad use of it is.

Pete Ashly

7m ago

Freewill is a delusion, like a soul.

These guys present both logic and evidence:

Shan Kothari's answer to What arguments are there for or against the existence of free will? [not linking, but quoting in below answer]

Yuan Gao's answer to Do you believe in free will, and if so/not, then why? [dito]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

Shan Kothari comes with this false pseudoargument:

“Determinism and randomness exhaust the possibilities.”

False.

Yuan Gao says:

“We didn't survive as a species by reacting randomly to events”

But human acts are more than just reactions.

In other words, both argue lamely.

The soul cannot be a delusion, since, without it, there would be no subject to be deluded about sth. Computers are neither deluded nor knowing. They are mechanically processing things that to themselves do not contain information, even if one result is symbols on a screen containing information to us - who have souls.

Pete Ashly

1m ago

Well, we’re going to have quite the void to cross here.

Can you tell me how a cosmos that behaves mathematically, a sea of molecules, is in essence any different from a mathematical simulation? And what in essence separates a simulated character, such as an agent in a game that provides a combatant, from a human in the mathematical cosmos?

This is the realization, we are literally God’s image.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

You are forgetting one thing.

In the computer simulation, a character is not having free will, but only showing us - who have it - exterior signs of such, arranged by people like us, also having it.

It is like a character in a novel. Susan Pevensie as printed words on paper does not exercise free will. The reader does, and gets an impression of Susan Pevensie doing so because he does, and because the author C. S. Lewis also did so.

So, the “cosmos that behaves mathematically, a sea of molecules” is NOT all there is.

Pete Ashly

1m ago

What exactly gives molecules free will? How does it work? Can you test that versus an alternative?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

The molecules as such do not have free will. Therefore something else than molecules does.

The alternative would be a world of molecules only and the consequence of that would be neither me nor you here discussing it or even imagining us discussing it.

Pete Ashly

3m ago

We are here. Molecules are all we can find. Where is the magic other ingredient?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

Molecules are all you find by ONE method of research.

That one presupposes but does not explain this OTHER fact that we are here doing research. If you look at this fact, you have found at least one thing which is not obviously molecules.

And which, if analysed, as at first glance, is obviously NOT just molecules.

Pete Ashly

1m ago

Molecules assume complex configurations such as people. Does the configuration give them free will?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

No, we have free will from sth else than the configuration, so our souls are something else than the configuration.

If we were only the configuration of molecules, as mentioned, we would not be able to ask these questions.

Also, you are very far from having proven molecules by themselves assume the complex configurations found in bodies of human people.

Also, that is a very recent ideologeme, which Saint Thomas Aquinas obviously did NOT share.

It is a very sham history to impute to him your conclusions from that one.

Pete Ashly

Just now

Well, I think we’ve identified our gap. Until we find your magic substance, my contention it doesn’t exist versus your contention it does will be unresolved. Nobody can disprove what doesn’t exist.

Perhaps we shall leave that out there for the future, after having had an interesting conversation. Holiday weekends approach.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

“Until we find your magic substance”

We already have, you are just not looking the right way when searching.

Enjoy your weekend.

Pete Ashly

48m ago

What is it then? I missed that.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Just now

Yes, you missed because you insist on looking in the wrong direction.

In a lab there is exactly one place you can find a soul - a living person in the lab, not the things studied by the lab (including living persons AS studied by the lab).

III

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1h ago

1 upvote from Pete Ashly

You might want to know, this is going on to my blog:

... on Mystical Experience of Saint Thomas [link to this one on quora]