Related Videos: Five Ways to Prove God Exists: th-cam.com/video/42Eg6UUBqqo/w-d-xo.html Yes, There is A Theory of Everything: th-cam.com/video/rnzqm09adgM/w-d-xo.html
Catholics believe God is "a unity of three [persons]," which is what the word "trinity" means. So, does the Bible prove that the trinity exists? Not a chance! The God of the Bible has a personal name, which is Yahweh. As he said to Moses: "You are to tell the Israelites, "Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you." This is my name for all time." (Ex. 3:15) Now, is the God of the Bible a trinity? Not according to Catholic theologian Edmund Fortman, who said in his book, "The Triune God": "[The Old Testamemt] tells us nothing explicitly or by necessary implication of a Triune God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If we take the New Testament writers together they tell us there is only one God, the creator and lord of the universe, who is the Father of Jesus." Clearly, the God of the Bible is Jesus' Father. As Jesus himself said to his apostles through Mary: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' (John 20:17) So, can Catholics prove from the Bible that a triune deity exists? Absolutely not!!
@@salomonkalou9002 You seem not to have read the Bible at all if you disagree with what I have already said. That explains why you would leave a short comment and then run away. Come back when you have something meaningful to say.
@@salomonkalou9002 As I said before, come back when you have something meaningful to say. I have already proved from the Bible that God is not a trinity. If you disagree, then, prove me wrong. Don't say something silly like, "You seem to have not read Ps. 110:1 and Matt. 28:19," neither of which says or even implies that God is "a unity of three [persons]," which is what the word "trinity" means.
@@salomonkalou9002 Where at Matt. 28:19 does it say or even imply that God is "a unity of three persons," which is what the word "trinity" means? Do you even know what the trinity doctrine says? Apparently not. BTW, you're a pretty ignorant person who makes claims he can't prove. I've asked you multiple times where Matt. 28:19 says or implies that God is a trinity. Instead of answering the question, all you say is, 'Read it again."
This is exactly why I love the Church. It is backed by highly sophisticated philosophical and logical grounds, which are rarely seen in some fundamentalist denominations. I am lucky enough to know this channel. Keep up the good work!
I really like the fact that theists say that their scripture is absolute but in reality the interpretation of their scripture changes in almost every generation. Like in the beginning of this video ( pun intended ) the father mentions the big bang Cosmology when in fact the big bang Cosmology is incompatible with the genesis account of creation allegedly written by the same god who created the universe that we live in Genesis:1 1 In the beginning, God[a] created the heavens and the earth 14 God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs to mark seasons, days, and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of sky to give light to the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.
@@celestialsatheist1535i think i saw this comment before Interpretation cannot change in Catholicism. It's irrevocable. That alone would disprove your post lol. But for what it's worth, the Church has made no infallible interpretation on it, except on the person of Adam being historical, and the narration referring to an actual event.
@@celestialsatheist1535 here you go. th-cam.com/video/d2Ik1ea8yUI/w-d-xo.html I am not sure if you have heard, but the bible was written in a time before the scientific method even came about. I'm sure no one told you that for that reason, it was not written with the intent to be a science text book. In other words how you believe the world was initially made is irrelevant to the salvation of our soul and the truth of God's existence. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't know that catholics don't read or interpret everything in the bible literally. The Truths and wisdoms expressed in the bible are told in ways that people of the times it written in would understand. They are read and interpreted within that context as much as we have available to know and universal human nature truths. Since our human nature doesn't really change (our tendencies) it can still teach some lessons today. The bigger context as a whole is read and viewed as salvation history. Hope you are willing to look into what that actually means. I would encourage you to maybe check out a bible study called From Genesis to Jesus made by Scott Hahn and St. paul center. It may help. Maybe not. Also, feel free to call in to Catholic Answers and ask questions and even debate them if you want they are much more well formed than most of us here. Best Wishes to you in your search for truth.
@@celestialsatheist1535except... It's not true. Even the Church Fathers such as Augustine - a long time before modern cosmology - knew that the Genesis week of Creation wasn't necessarily meant to be taken literally. If you want to go for a more literalistic approach where six days can be compatible with modern science, maybe you can try the writings of Jewish physicist Gerald L. Schroeder, where he applies General Relativity to the Six Days of Creation, saying that God created over six literal 24-hour days that count as 14 billion years in our timeframe. Just some food for thought.
Aquinas 101 production team, the video and lighting of Fr. Legge looks excellent!! Looks like you learned a couple of new tricks in the animation as well. Keep up the good work.
I groan when a profound topic, dealing with the nature of God, creation, time, and ontology receives the most superficial comment imaginable: father looks good, great lighting.
@@marbonifacde it’s important as well. No point in trying to educate people if they can’t hear you for poor audio quality or not understand you for bad illustrations.
I stumbled across this video about a month ago, and put it on my Watch Later list. I am so glad I finally did watch it. What an amazing explanation! Time to browse the channel for more videos on extremely important topics!
Many claim philosophy has no utility. But everything is based on it. Am glad TI countering the prevalent culture of relativism and liberalism thru this going back to basic videos. Bless you more TI….❤from the Phils
I prefer St. Augustine's famous formulation: "Everlasting God IN WHOM we live and breathe and have our being" [emphasis added] I believe the universe - Creation, us - exists in the mind of God. Personally, I think this resolves many theological, ethical, philosophical and even scientific dilemmas. God is both Creator and Sustainer. God will be Judge at the end of time.
This is TRULY one of the best explanation/formulation I have ever heard on this topic… thank you so much for sharing this… it is an eye-opener for me… really. A shame our religion teacher couldn’t explain it so well 40 years ago…😞 I need to dig deeper into this and think/meditate… or just be silent and listen for god. Good night everyone, wishing you a blessed new day tomorrow, and stay healthy! Best wishes❤️ Steven
I believe to avoid these misleading concepts we must use apophatic theology (negative theology) terms. Positive statements (cataphatic theology) can only be used as analogous, similar but never to be understood at the same level of analysis as that of the created things, due to our inadequacy to grasp divine things we must speak negatively. Positive terms makes us feel like we understand God in a way, but in the end if we lack the proper virtues we may fall into the trap of "caging" God in human concepts, making idols and false gods in the process.
Aprende, if we lack the proper virtues, however we speak of God, we will entrap ourselves. Put another way, properly speaking of God depends more on our growing in love than on our growing in knowledge which is certainly also required. Truth proceeds from love, truth being divine love. Thanks for your provocative insight.
@@PhilMatous This is true, but we can recognize that positively speaking of God leads to more misunderstandings, because we push our finite understanding of things to the unboundedness of God. We only concieve things as finite, terms like "infinite" for example, can never be fully grasp by us. So to speak about the Love of God, saying that "is not" finite helps us more than just saying he "does" loves you, since we may confuse our finite and bounded love with God's love. Positive theology needs a bunch of apophatic premises to work properly; that's why we often find Thomists say things like we are "not to" understand God's. (insert attribute) in order to make it palatable.
@@tryhardf844 Saint Thomas wasn't a Thomist he was a lover and a seeker of God, that's why he became a Saint, not because he wrote the Summa Theologie. If we want to seek God we won't be trapped into one line of seeing and describing him, we will be humble servants open to him in every single way possible.
What do you mean? 🙂 Let me ask then and try to correct me according to your way. As I've understood there are two (2) things here, 1] God is holding the universe in place or keeping it on it's intended course. 2] God is holding the universe against NOTHINGNESS, because if not, NOTHINGNESS would swallow everything. - as we also know about motion, things at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by force and things in motion will remain motion if acted upon, as well. So what's keeping things in motion is not any invisble hand but because it has always been that way it's just that no force has acted upon it that would change it's course. So, I don't understand what it means by holding them in place. What's holding them in place is the presence of equal opposing forces, or absence of forces. All these natural way to keep things moving or to keep them in their trajectory need no God. - As he said, absolute nothing can't be thought about, it cannot exist. So when it's said god is holding the universe from NOTHINGNESS tha's a self-reflecting act. When you think of nothing since it does not exist it relfects back to the universe itself. There's no Nothing that would SWALLOW the universe. The Universe is all there is.
*_Brilliant!_* And I'm only halfway through the video. God's act of creation is NOT in the past, but perpendicular to the timeline; just as His cause is from the side instead of behind the past. The Buddhists also have a good handle on the separation of "creaturely" vs. the "divine." The Bible was written in the language of spirit; not human languages. Yet, too many people read only the *_ink_* and miss the *_spirit._* (2 Cor. 3:3-8)
Everything exists here and now. Everything really is the same moment. There is only one moment in creation. And what you call diferent moments, is really the same moment from diferent points of view.
My brother once told me he thought God must be something like a 17th dimension or something. (I still don’t know if he was just trying to rile me up or if he really believed that). I knew he was wrong, obviously, but didn’t know how to respond. But now I can see an answer to his idea….His God is too small. Each dimension: length, height, width and time are elements of creation. If there are some higher dimensions that we are unaware of then even those would simply be additional “creatures”, not the Creator. Now if only I had thought of that thirty years ago when he said that comment…
Wonderful. God is present in all things at all times and His power holds all together. His power is out of this world and incomprehensible, He permeates all things.
This is next level... throughout the video, I had to stop it seven to eight times, bcz I had that much ahhaaaa moments.. May God bless Fr Legge n his team... ❤❤❤ Apart from that I loved the new animation tricks which helped to convey the meaning better 😍
This presentation sounds very similar to how John Owen describes and given his training and knowledge he likely read Aquinas thoroughly. Though carefully reading Scripture will clue one in pretty quickly too. I like to point to God’s answer to Job that Creation is an ongoing activity.
I was just reading Philo of Alexandria's writing about Creation. He is a pretty interesting Jewish writer I am learning about, from the same time of the life of Jesus, and was influential on early Christians and maybe even the New Testament. For instance I was really interested to read today the same thing I have said many times about how we are "in the image of God" as primarily having to do with the soul's powers of intellect and will, that I probably learned from St John of the Cross, is present already in Philo's writing, he says the important way we are in the image of God is not our body (God is spirit) but the higher aspect of the soul, the mind.
God cannot "windup the universe and let it be" because this would remove his love from the universe. God is love. God created ... loved ... the universe into being. By removing his love, God would deny himself. And God cannot deny himself.
One might start to question a tradition because of how much it leans on one man from the middle ages. I personally prefer the theology of many early church fathers Would Abraham be able to recognize this God of first causes?
It is a bit more complicated than that. St. Thomas pulled together the work of earlier theologians in his Summa. In that sense, his achievement was like Euclid's in geometry, creating a synthesis of prior works. Most of these books had been written against prevailing heresies at the writer's time. The result was by the 13th century, a student of theology would not know where to begin. The Summa Theologia solved that. In the process, Aquinas introduced some new language and concepts, drawing on Aristotle and others available in his time.
In the book "The Book: The Realm of Time," Dr Zolb explains that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" can be translated "God chose the universe to order," which He does by the introduction of time more specifically the realm of time which is still being unrolled throughout the cosmos and this is why the universe is still expanding as it slowly succumbs to the realm of time; the prison of us all. Time does not create it is the created as St Augustine points out or as Confucius tells it, "'Time is created, to say you don't have the time to do something is the same as saying you won't do it,' homework procrastinators!"
This is one of the reasons I can't believe any religion. All these people claiming to understand an invisible, intangible, unproveable entity who cannot be proven to have ever interacted with the universe. Hogwash.
Similarly to how we come to know aspects of each other by voluntarily divulging personal information to one another. It is better explained by the Apostle Paul: "When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. "Among the mature, however, we speak a message of wisdom-but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God, which He destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it. For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Rather, as it is written: 'No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.' But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit. "The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. "The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is not subject to anyone’s judgment. 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ."--1 Corinthians 2
@@thomasdykstra100 these are all claims you make. I have reason to believe that you exist, because I see what you have written. If godcis speaking to me, it is not nearly as evident.
I appreciate this video although I’m not a believer in the supernatural. The assertion made at 5:48 that God exists necessarily is one that requires support, it does not stand firmly absent some support. It is no different than suggesting that the universe itself is uncaused. We have evidence of neither, therefore unfortunately the best we can say is “I don’t know” and leave it there.
Aquinas was a genius IMO. Created causality is nothing but another property of creation, it's not the cause of creation. Even if Darwinian evolution were true, it would still be just a descriptive mechanism of how creation looks from left to right, not from inside out. It took quantum physics for us to learn that not only space but time also is quantized and that every moment in time is created from here to the next one. Time doesn't just exist. It is being summoned into existence. If spacetime is a grid, then pure nothingness is the transition from one sector in the grid to its neighbour. Every object that moves through this grid necessarily goes through multiple nothingness-es only to reemerge existing within the neighboring sector. This process requires recreation every time it happens and it happens all the time, as nothing stays still.
So Creation is an ongoing process that continues even to this day. I never thought of it like that before. Thank you for opening my mind to different views :)
@@wms72 Didn't he discarded that creation part? his new 'creation' only meant hold in existence, not created in the sense that has a beginning. So everything was already there, he is just holding it in place so they wouldn't go astray from how they themselves inherently intended to move, or did he just contradicted himself there? 🙂
@@wms72 Why use the word creation if god is doing something else? 🙂 Holding against what? I think it's better to say the universe is a self-contained entity that has it's own internal rules than positing a non-existent to which the universe has a tendency to recede, if nothing is holding it. No god needed there. 🙂
This is where Science and Theology will always break up. There are several theories in Science to account for time creation itself (from prior steady state universe) and also energy (as long as there is vacuum there can be potential energy at the Planck Scale)
Sort of. Yes, there is science relating to nothingness only being an average of nothing and not pure nothingness, ( an absolutely amazing scientific discovery! ), but all that means in this context is that there is always matter in existence within space-time. Theories surrounding the dimension of time always involve some prior state, and so just offset the ultimate question by one degree. Where Science and Theology definitely will always break up is where there is no proof or substantial, measurable evidence, because then it is no longer science by definition but is, again by definition, mysticism. In my own view, Theology is highly over rated and pretty much futile as it attempts to describe the ineffable. Science, on the other hand, can only know the knowable and can only describe what is measurable, and so is just as inept as theology when it comes to speaking of God. Philosophy and mysticism seem a better approach, in that they speak generally in metaphor and are constantly flexible in that they remain always in the business of pondering mystery and what ultimately cannot be fully understood.
I struggled with the relationship between primary (God) and secondary (natural) causes. I believe the underlying assumption is that effects have logically concommittant efficient causes: primary (one) and secondary (several). This would disspell any contradiction between science and God: when He makes a miracle, it is His cause acting. Including that would have helped.
The material would stand equal to God. He is saying in effect, the universe is identical to god not existing outside of it. 🙂 If god didn't create the world in the sense we use creation, ergo, he didn't created it. 🙂
The difficulty of imagining a supreme spiritual Being creating matter; which is radically different from it made me think recently about Berkeley solution of this problem.
Here's a question though, if God created the universe out of nothing, is He STILL creating things in our universe in the same way? Are black holes literally God's boom-tube/colider or a path for molecules from Him to us in an act of creation?
Causality imposes a time arrow in the subject of the timelessness of God's relationship to "creation". Creation itself implicates God of existing with time. I would argue, God is time, for time is what predicates all other things. This is why we have a hard time defining both time and God. Time is not a simple part of God's creation, it is God acting.
Excellent explanation. A being within time and space trying to conceive of the reality of a being outside of time and space is like the 2 dimensional beings of Flatland thinking they "see" a 3-D object, when in actuality they are only grasping the smallest fragment of it that can enter their sensory perception. When you reflect on Biblical excerpts like "how high are my ways above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts", "tell them that I AM has sent you" or the magnum opus which is the beginning of the Gospel of John, you get a sense how the authors, while inspired by the Holy Spirit and trying to put the truth in intelligible human words, still worked with the restrictions of human comprehension while at the same time illustrated how the manifest reality of God must be what it is for anything else to be. You end up talking in circles if you try too hard to put it into words, because what you're talking about is what is allowing you to talk about it.
Thus, we continually bump up against the limitations of our mental and spiritual autonomy (10-12% brain usage) that God himself bestowed upon us. I wonder whether our next Tower of Babel will be Elon Musk's NeuralLink. What happens when you unlock the power of the other 90% of your brain? Do we all become gods, or even Gods? The prospect both frightens and fascinates me.
This is exactly why I ended up as a Catholic and not a Protestant (although I knew that after 2 weeks when I came to faith in Christ), I was also fascinated by Orthodoxy, but I did not find the clarity and unity I found in Catholicism (not the Novus Ordo Church) with Sola Scriptura you simply discard all the philosophical treasures of Historical Christianity. The faith goes beyond scripture, The Logos is also logic and philosophy, it's the full incarnated wisdom of God.
You would do best to set all else beneath the instruction of the Holy Spirit: "When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. "Among the mature, however, we speak a message of wisdom-but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God, which He destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it. For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Rather, as it is written: 'No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.' But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit. "The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. "The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is not subject to anyone’s judgment. 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct Him?' But we have the mind of Christ."
Not really the topic of the video, and quite a nitpick, but the pool ball analogy doesn’t work to explain a chaotic view of the universe as an altercation to the deterministic view as in the watch example. The cue ball’s force, angle, and shape will determine the force and angle of the first ball it hits in the break, and that ball will determine the same for all it hits afterward etc. So it’s still a deterministic view, just one that allows the limited perspective of humans to be considered “random”
So, is it accurate to say that, when we procreate, we are participating in the goodness of God by creating life? (Sex, between a man and woman married, for the purpose of creating life is "good")
Ok, this way to explain things by analogy makes everything more incomprehensible to me. If every explanation that leads to the conclusion that God exists and how God acts or do things are given as analogies, how not to conclude that God himself is an analogy of something else?
In the light of science, philosophy, and critical Biblical exegesis I have found that the fundamentalist/literalist take on creation to be possible only if one does one of the following 1. Simply refuse to think about it at all. 2. Try to explain it away by distorting or cherry picking your facts. 3. Put it all down to some kind of conspiracy.
Nothing is created without knowledge wisdom and understanding..... Father and son are one, the same as one. No father, no son. No son can create without a father to create it as one. This world we live was created by the son, whom the father acknowledged as one... this is physical reality created by the son who was like the father as one, yet the father is not physical nor needed to be.
"Creation is not an event in time. Rather, time itself is part of creation i.e. time is (always) being created by God." (Paraphrasing). As someone who got sucked into the New Atheist trend (Dawkins, Hitchens, etc.) for a while as an adolescent, it always amazes me to see something like this and reflect on how shallow the New Atheists’ understanding of Christianity really was. I heard a thousand times that "even if God created the universe, it’s still necessary to explain what created God, and thus the existence of God has little explanatory power in relation to the existence of the universe" and even thought this was a good argument. But it’s a total strawman. Christians don’t believe that God CREATED the world (past-tense), rather that He is the ontological ground of Creation itself. But seeing as scientistic currents of thought like New Atheism have basically no concept of ontology, it’s not surprising that such errors were made.
@@brunonascimentolima5971 th-cam.com/video/KYXPIy3MzoM/w-d-xo.html this video of Bishop Robert Barron critiquing Stephen Hawking's own critique of religion comes to mind. Interestingly enough, my own readings of the atheist philosophers Schopenhauer and Nietzsche each greatly contributed to my disillusionment with new atheism. This is because both of them, though atheist, actually take Christianity seriously and understand something of the Christian worldview. Much of Nietzsche's work in particular is focused on understanding the implications of the "Death of God" which is his metaphor for the decreasing relevance of Christian theology to the modern Western understanding of the world. He understood that Christianity had been the theoretical-ideological foundation of Western society's understanding of itself, the wider world and the human condition for over a millennium and explained how the progressive secularization of Western society was leaving a gaping hole in this understanding that would need to be filled by something else. Once you are exposed to ideas like this it's really hard to be satisfied with new atheism, which pretends like Christianity had merely been 50% childish superstition and 50% precursor to modern secular science. Science has not filled the void Christianity left, and New Atheism thinks otherwise only because it fails to grasp what Christianity actually was/is.
What, then, is to be made of physics, especially the theory of relativity, which models times a being another spatial dimension similar to a graph in which the past, present, and future all exist at the same time? And what about Newtonian physics which is just a little further behind say that everything that happens has a predictable cause and a predictable effect in the future? The only possible rebuttal today might be through quantum mechanics.
We should not assume the theory of relativity's conceptualization of the four-dimensional "block universe" implies the simultaneity of past, present and future in reality. Time remains the measure of prior and posterity in motion according to before and after. That Einsteinian spacetime amalgamates time and space into a geometrical whole does not disrupt this. And as for Newtonian mechanics, its account of deterministic causality aligns well with secondary causality at the level of physical interaction, without excluding the primacy of God's universal causality. However, quantum indeterminacy, if truly intrinsic rather than epistemic, may demand a revised understanding of how divine and secondary causes relate at the subatomic scale.
This is why the concept of simulation fits perfectly with the existence of God and the creation of our universe. Obviously a simulation outside our knowledge and control. In this way, it removes the point that people make: if God created us, then who created God. Who created God doesn't matter since we are a simulation/creation of his outside our universe. Let our Creator to describe his own theology. God needs to be outside the universe to create it. God is not bound by the physics and time of our universe. The space he used to create it might have been empty or not, but from our point of view, inside, we can't tell what is outside our space. In that sense, acting through the physics of this universe he creates things. He knows the finality of His creation at all times. He knows its finality already and he told us how this ends to make sure that His greatest creation, us, is not lost when it is turned off. Obviously He doesn't want to carry own the bugs in the program to the next creation.
The universe is created out of nothing by God? But by God, if nothing was there, then is God nothing? And if God necessarily exists, it isn't nothing-unless, you might say, that God is everything and therefore nothing, but then what's the point of calling it God? And if God were absolute, then how could he distinguish Good from Bad but by definition, because he's the cause of both and so they are completely his inventions.
Thank you for the beautiful video- explaining Thomas at his best. I will certainly be subscribing, as I find his work to be a rich and stimulating synthesis of Aristotle, all of the thinkers inspired by him (as in Avicenna’s contribution to the Quinque Viae as expounded here), as well as a deep spiritual insight. However, seeing your continuing responses to other commenters I cannot help but pick the bone I have with him here, perhaps in the hope that you will take it away. Simply, I do not think that one can see Telos from the outside of the object. I believe in Telos. I even believe that we can see it. I believe that we are all capable of becoming one another’s gardener- that we can, carefully, and with piety, bring one another closer to the flourishing that is the resting point of all our clockwork hearts. But this seeing as much as its enaction has only ever been accomplished by the agape that Thomas himself advocates. The deep empathy of seeing virtue past the creaturely surface. Why does the Catholic establishment persist with its complementarity, as if we finite imbeciles discovering artefacts of infinite hands could know through geometry alone? Why with creaturely biology treat this half holy beast? Moreover, with a method of biology that has since been abandoned by a science that has learned its limits? I am, for the record, neither gay nor a first communioned Catholic. I am only offended by the persistence of a blind spot in an otherwise great thinker that has caused so much cruelty since. Apologies if I come across over forthright. I thank you again sincerely for the video, and in advance for your reply.
Hallo, Mr. Almighty... I'm giving you two geometric points - "Point A" and "Point B" Now, please create any "Distance A - B" which not an outcome of CHANCE. Good luck with that little number - your very existence depends upon it.
Yeah man! What so needed are our churches of the beauty of our teachings. There is great reluctance to the Bible studies and reasonings like this. But thanks all of you americans. 🇲🇽
God and creation need not occur at the begining but could be at the end of time since 'all times' are present along with all possibilities ultimately. For example the Bootstrap principle/theory says that a future event or creation can travel back through to the beginning of time before the creation and thus you have the virgin birth of creation or in the future an A.I whom is self aware and hugely powerful in quantum state can exist througout all times even before it is created, negating the need for creation of it.
Reading Genesis gives the feeling that there was something other than God; call it “not God.” There was no order to it for anything that is “not God” would be opposite of God; dead, chaotic, etc.
good deep explanation! quite surprising because it comes from a Catholic religion that created so much heresy over the centuries and still sticks to some of that
The best theory currently available in physics for explaining the origin of the universe is the Big Bang theory. This theory explains the origin of the universe as emerging suddenly from no material thing. There was nothing, then there was something. This does not say anything about if there was a spiritual substance or not, but it certainly challenges the mind to be open to such a possibility. Of course when you consider other possibilities this is where the argument starts to get interesting.
What created God? If all existence is created, then either God doesn't exist, or something created god. I'm sure neither of these choices pleases the faith community, but current cosmology does not say the Universe was created, only that time and space are requirements for creation in the first place. The monotheistic traditions all hold that God created,. Bad thinking IMHO, as God needs time and space to create within (even if it is maintainance). Frankly Legge assumes creation where we don't need it. If we treat the Universe as existing as long as time and space exist (evidence supports this hypothesis currently), then creation isn't necessary. The Universe exists, end of explanation. No God, No supernatural realm. No need for salvation.
This makes no sense to my puny little brain. Where is the requirement written that says we must prove beings came into existence in the first place? We observe matter transitioning (on average) from a low to high entropy state - OK... But if there is no 'bottom' to lower entropy (outside of hypothetical 0 Kevlin), why MUST there be a 'top' for higher entropy?
I really like the fact that theists say that their scripture is absolute but in reality the interpretation of their scripture changes in almost every generation. Like in the beginning of this video ( pun intended ) the father mentions the big bang Cosmology when in fact the big bang Cosmology is incompatible with the genesis account of creation allegedly written by the same god who created the universe that we live in Genesis:1 1 In the beginning, God[a] created the heavens and the earth 14 God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs to mark seasons, days, and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of sky to give light to the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.
No it doesn't change "every generation". They've been saying this stuff for like 1000 years. Why not watch their video on Genesis? It was a Catholic priest who first proposed and supported mathematically the Big Bang Theory (Georges Lemaitre) who Einstein and almost all other physicists at the time derided as a "stupid" hypothesis. Good try, I guess...
@@godfreydebouillon8807 oh what a horrible response. Lemaitre was indeed a priest but he didn't made his model by reading the Bible. What the hell kind of logic is this. And no Einstein never said that the big bang is a stupid hypothesis. In fact the big bang fixed a bug in Einstein's equations. Stop blabbering about things that you have no idea about
@@celestialsatheist1535 No, literally he got his hypothesis from reading the Bible, and it's clear you do not understand the Thomists view of the first half of Genesis. The Catholic Church promoted the hypothesis before Lemaitre, because of the overarching view of Genesis that the universe was created "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth", and had a beginning. Pope John XXIII literally thought that this would prove to the world that God exists, but Lemaitre warned him that it would not, and atheist naturalists weren't going to give up being atheist naturalists just because they proved the universe wasn't static and eternal (as every physicist at the time thought). Einstein absolutely thought the hypothesis was stupid, and he didn't stop there. He opposed Lemaitres hypothesis for YEARS, wrote about it openly and developed a competing hypothesis that was known as "The Einstein Universe", and claimed that Lemaitre knew how to do math, but his physics was "abominable" (exact quote from Einstein). You can look up every word I'm saying. Go look up"Einstein Universe", and in his mind there was no singularity and no beginning. The universe "just was" and had always pretty much been the same, but just superficial changes. You literally have no idea what you're talking about and yet you're trying to hold these opinions, and it's very strange to say the least.
@@celestialsatheist1535 I mean seriously, just Google "Thomistic Institute Big Bang Theory" instead of just arguing against your delusional charicature.
@@godfreydebouillon8807 First the Big bang theory absolutely destroys the genesis account. Pretending that this someone enrages ' naturalistic atheist ' is beyond stupid. No. Einstein died in 1955, well before any mention of a Big Bang. Correction: Before the evidence of cosmic inflation had become compelling; before the Big Bang was generally taken seriously. His early draft of general relativity predicted cosmic inflation. At that time no evidence had been discovered for cosmic inflation, so in 1917 he added a constant to his equation to fit a stable universe. There is no evidence or reason to suppose that a bias against religion had anything to do with that decision. He was simply trying to build a model that matched all that was known at the time. When inflation was discovered in 1931, Einstein called the constant his greatest mistake, and removed it. That is the exact opposite of "rejecting the Big Bang". (The constant has since been restored, but with a new value to fit the later, more precise data.) There is nothing to suggest that Einstein was blinded by a bias against religion. Given his position and credentials,
I would like to know if there are videos in this channel about emergentism, vertical causation, mental and physical causation on the free will and overdeterminism of human action. If not, it would be helpful if you explained these problems. Also, if free will is true, does it implies that the soul (immaterial) causes effects on our physical body, but the contrary is false?
Great questions. Free will is true, Aquinas can speak to the details. Our will suffers because of sin, but God’s first action provides grace, which we can either accept or reject.
Fr Dominic, thank you for your lessons. I've often wondered why in the Nicene Creed, we call Almighty God the "Maker of all things", instead of calling him the "Creator of all things" .... It causes me difficulty when I try to explain what you have been explaining here, in terms of the difference between 'making' and 'creating'.
Related Videos:
Five Ways to Prove God Exists: th-cam.com/video/42Eg6UUBqqo/w-d-xo.html
Yes, There is A Theory of Everything: th-cam.com/video/rnzqm09adgM/w-d-xo.html
Catholics believe God is "a unity of three [persons]," which is what the word "trinity" means. So, does the Bible prove that the trinity exists? Not a chance! The God of the Bible has a personal name, which is Yahweh. As he said to Moses: "You are to tell the Israelites, "Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you." This is my name for all time." (Ex. 3:15)
Now, is the God of the Bible a trinity? Not according to Catholic theologian Edmund Fortman, who said in his book, "The Triune God": "[The Old Testamemt] tells us nothing explicitly or by necessary implication of a Triune God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If we take the New Testament writers together they tell us there is only one God, the creator and lord of the universe, who is the Father of Jesus."
Clearly, the God of the Bible is Jesus' Father. As Jesus himself said to his apostles through Mary: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' (John 20:17)
So, can Catholics prove from the Bible that a triune deity exists? Absolutely not!!
@@salomonkalou9002 You seem not to have read the Bible at all if you disagree with what I have already said. That explains why you would leave a short comment and then run away. Come back when you have something meaningful to say.
@@salomonkalou9002 As I said before, come back when you have something meaningful to say. I have already proved from the Bible that God is not a trinity. If you disagree, then, prove me wrong. Don't say something silly like, "You seem to have not read Ps. 110:1 and Matt. 28:19," neither of which says or even implies that God is "a unity of three [persons]," which is what the word "trinity" means.
@@salomonkalou9002 Where at Matt. 28:19 does it say or even imply that God is "a unity of three persons," which is what the word "trinity" means? Do you even know what the trinity doctrine says? Apparently not.
BTW, you're a pretty ignorant person who makes claims he can't prove. I've asked you multiple times where Matt. 28:19 says or implies that God is a trinity. Instead of answering the question, all you say is, 'Read it again."
@@salomonkalou9002 What do Matt. 28:19 and Ps. 110:1 say about God's being tri-personal?
This is exactly why I love the Church. It is backed by highly sophisticated philosophical and logical grounds, which are rarely seen in some fundamentalist denominations. I am lucky enough to know this channel. Keep up the good work!
I really like the fact that theists say that their scripture is absolute but in reality the interpretation of their scripture changes in almost every generation. Like in the beginning of this video ( pun intended ) the father mentions the big bang Cosmology when in fact the big bang Cosmology is incompatible with the genesis account of creation allegedly written by the same god who created the universe that we live in
Genesis:1
1 In the beginning, God[a] created the heavens and the earth
14 God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs to mark seasons, days, and years;
15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth”; and it was so.
16 God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars.
17 God set them in the expanse of sky to give light to the earth,
18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.
@@celestialsatheist1535i think i saw this comment before
Interpretation cannot change in Catholicism. It's irrevocable. That alone would disprove your post lol.
But for what it's worth, the Church has made no infallible interpretation on it, except on the person of Adam being historical, and the narration referring to an actual event.
@@celestialsatheist1535 here you go. th-cam.com/video/d2Ik1ea8yUI/w-d-xo.html
I am not sure if you have heard, but the bible was written in a time before the scientific method even came about. I'm sure no one told you that for that reason, it was not written with the intent to be a science text book. In other words how you believe the world was initially made is irrelevant to the salvation of our soul and the truth of God's existence. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you don't know that catholics don't read or interpret everything in the bible literally. The Truths and wisdoms expressed in the bible are told in ways that people of the times it written in would understand. They are read and interpreted within that context as much as we have available to know and universal human nature truths. Since our human nature doesn't really change (our tendencies) it can still teach some lessons today. The bigger context as a whole is read and viewed as salvation history. Hope you are willing to look into what that actually means. I would encourage you to maybe check out a bible study called From Genesis to Jesus made by Scott Hahn and St. paul center. It may help. Maybe not. Also, feel free to call in to Catholic Answers and ask questions and even debate them if you want they are much more well formed than most of us here. Best Wishes to you in your search for truth.
Studying theology for a few thousand years has its benefits ... :-)
@@celestialsatheist1535except... It's not true. Even the Church Fathers such as Augustine - a long time before modern cosmology - knew that the Genesis week of Creation wasn't necessarily meant to be taken literally.
If you want to go for a more literalistic approach where six days can be compatible with modern science, maybe you can try the writings of Jewish physicist Gerald L. Schroeder, where he applies General Relativity to the Six Days of Creation, saying that God created over six literal 24-hour days that count as 14 billion years in our timeframe. Just some food for thought.
God bless you, father. I don't get tired of listening to this video about creation.
Aquinas 101 production team, the video and lighting of Fr. Legge looks excellent!! Looks like you learned a couple of new tricks in the animation as well. Keep up the good work.
Thanks so much! God bless you!
@@ThomisticInstitute
Are you VEGAN? 🌱
I groan when a profound topic, dealing with the nature of God, creation, time, and ontology receives the most superficial comment imaginable: father looks good, great lighting.
@@marbonifacde it’s important as well. No point in trying to educate people if they can’t hear you for poor audio quality or not understand you for bad illustrations.
he is cute asf
I stumbled across this video about a month ago, and put it on my Watch Later list. I am so glad I finally did watch it. What an amazing explanation! Time to browse the channel for more videos on extremely important topics!
Many claim philosophy has no utility. But everything is based on it. Am glad TI countering the prevalent culture of relativism and liberalism thru this going back to basic videos. Bless you more TI….❤from the Phils
Thank you, Thomistic Institute and thank you Saint Thomas Aquinas!
Thanks for watching! God bless you!
I prefer St. Augustine's famous formulation: "Everlasting God IN WHOM we live and breathe and have our being" [emphasis added]
I believe the universe - Creation, us - exists in the mind of God. Personally, I think this resolves many theological, ethical, philosophical and even scientific dilemmas. God is both Creator and Sustainer. God will be Judge at the end of time.
This is TRULY one of the best explanation/formulation I have ever heard on this topic… thank you so much for sharing this… it is an eye-opener for me… really.
A shame our religion teacher couldn’t explain it so well 40 years ago…😞
I need to dig deeper into this and think/meditate… or just be silent and listen for god.
Good night everyone, wishing you a blessed new day tomorrow, and stay healthy!
Best wishes❤️
Steven
@ Steven Rud: Good night to you,too,Steven! And goodday tomorow.Stay healthy as well.God bless!🙏⚘🦋🌿
Your videos are so well made, God bless you, I am sure your channel will grow even more
Thanks so much! We're happy you find them helpful. God bless you!
I believe to avoid these misleading concepts we must use apophatic theology (negative theology) terms. Positive statements (cataphatic theology) can only be used as analogous, similar but never to be understood at the same level of analysis as that of the created things, due to our inadequacy to grasp divine things we must speak negatively. Positive terms makes us feel like we understand God in a way, but in the end if we lack the proper virtues we may fall into the trap of "caging" God in human concepts, making idols and false gods in the process.
Aprende, if we lack the proper virtues, however we speak of God, we will entrap ourselves. Put another way, properly speaking of God depends more on our growing in love than on our growing in knowledge which is certainly also required. Truth proceeds from love, truth being divine love. Thanks for your provocative insight.
@@PhilMatous This is true, but we can recognize that positively speaking of God leads to more misunderstandings, because we push our finite understanding of things to the unboundedness of God. We only concieve things as finite, terms like "infinite" for example, can never be fully grasp by us. So to speak about the Love of God, saying that "is not" finite helps us more than just saying he "does" loves you, since we may confuse our finite and bounded love with God's love. Positive theology needs a bunch of apophatic premises to work properly; that's why we often find Thomists say things like we are "not to" understand God's. (insert attribute) in order to make it palatable.
Thomsism is only a smidge of what god really is.Aquinas knew this.
@@tryhardf844 Saint Thomas wasn't a Thomist he was a lover and a seeker of God, that's why he became a Saint, not because he wrote the Summa Theologie. If we want to seek God we won't be trapped into one line of seeing and describing him, we will be humble servants open to him in every single way possible.
What do you mean? 🙂 Let me ask then and try to correct me according to your way. As I've understood there are two (2) things here,
1] God is holding the universe in place or keeping it on it's intended course.
2] God is holding the universe against NOTHINGNESS, because if not, NOTHINGNESS would swallow everything.
- as we also know about motion, things at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by force and things in motion will remain motion if acted upon, as well. So what's keeping things in motion is not any invisble hand but because it has always been that way it's just that no force has acted upon it that would change it's course. So, I don't understand what it means by holding them in place. What's holding them in place is the presence of equal opposing forces, or absence of forces. All these natural way to keep things moving or to keep them in their trajectory need no God.
- As he said, absolute nothing can't be thought about, it cannot exist. So when it's said god is holding the universe from NOTHINGNESS tha's a self-reflecting act. When you think of nothing since it does not exist it relfects back to the universe itself. There's no Nothing that would SWALLOW the universe. The Universe is all there is.
Thank you for this beautiful explanation!
I'm glad you exist!
*_Brilliant!_* And I'm only halfway through the video. God's act of creation is NOT in the past, but perpendicular to the timeline; just as His cause is from the side instead of behind the past. The Buddhists also have a good handle on the separation of "creaturely" vs. the "divine." The Bible was written in the language of spirit; not human languages. Yet, too many people read only the *_ink_* and miss the *_spirit._* (2 Cor. 3:3-8)
Arjuna and the Buddhists had this point beautifully nailed 3000 years ago ! All things are dependently arising and are empty of inherent existence.
Everything exists here and now. Everything really is the same moment. There is only one moment in creation. And what you call diferent moments, is really the same moment from diferent points of view.
I found your channel yesterday... I've probably watched 10 videos by now. Amazing!
That's great to hear! God bless you and welcome aboard!
Now this is a whole new view of god. God isn't a thinking person who created stuff and wants worship. It is rather existence itself.
This is a whole book read in few minutes.....thanks for your work
Cheers, thanks for watching! God bless you!
Then is it an interesting book?
Haha the summa theological with annotations is big. It can be very dull but there is also some incredibly fascinating things packed in.
My brother once told me he thought God must be something like a 17th dimension or something. (I still don’t know if he was just trying to rile me up or if he really believed that). I knew he was wrong, obviously, but didn’t know how to respond. But now I can see an answer to his idea….His God is too small. Each dimension: length, height, width and time are elements of creation. If there are some higher dimensions that we are unaware of then even those would simply be additional “creatures”, not the Creator.
Now if only I had thought of that thirty years ago when he said that comment…
Wonderful. God is present in all things at all times and His power holds all together. His power is out of this world and incomprehensible, He permeates all things.
He didn't create them in the sense in how we think about creation, ergo, he did not create the world. 🙂
@@terminusadquem6981 Now you're just playing with words.
@@aclark903
It has merit.
@@terminusadquem6981 Merry Christmas.
@@aclark903
Happy Holidays! 🙂
Excellent video. Thank you for taking on time.
Thank you Father for this precise and concise video. This clip proves that God is always active
This is next level... throughout the video, I had to stop it seven to eight times, bcz I had that much ahhaaaa moments.. May God bless Fr Legge n his team... ❤❤❤
Apart from that I loved the new animation tricks which helped to convey the meaning better 😍
I suggest you join the free course. You get extra readings and podcasts that expand each chapter. I'm following it and it is fantastic.
Glad to hear that the videos and supplemental materials are helping! God bless you both!
You should consider making a
pay pal account avaliable so international donnors can contribute a bit with your project
The best philosopher ever
This presentation sounds very similar to how John Owen describes and given his training and knowledge he likely read Aquinas thoroughly. Though carefully reading Scripture will clue one in pretty quickly too. I like to point to God’s answer to Job that Creation is an ongoing activity.
I need to watch this about five more times.
I was just reading Philo of Alexandria's writing about Creation. He is a pretty interesting Jewish writer I am learning about, from the same time of the life of Jesus, and was influential on early Christians and maybe even the New Testament. For instance I was really interested to read today the same thing I have said many times about how we are "in the image of God" as primarily having to do with the soul's powers of intellect and will, that I probably learned from St John of the Cross, is present already in Philo's writing, he says the important way we are in the image of God is not our body (God is spirit) but the higher aspect of the soul, the mind.
Read Sain Augustine commemts on the confessions or The Trinity.
The deeper image of God is: "Mens Notitia Sui and Amor Sui".
God cannot "windup the universe and let it be" because this would remove his love from the universe. God is love. God created ... loved ... the universe into being. By removing his love, God would deny himself. And God cannot deny himself.
Why would that remove his love from the Universe? I disagree.
Did the church sit around for 12 centuries saying "I wish Aquinas would show up early because we can't have classical theology without him"?
lol
You have a point!
Well, they're Dominicans. St Thomas is their main guy.
One might start to question a tradition because of how much it leans on one man from the middle ages. I personally prefer the theology of many early church fathers
Would Abraham be able to recognize this God of first causes?
It is a bit more complicated than that. St. Thomas pulled together the work of earlier theologians in his Summa. In that sense, his achievement was like Euclid's in geometry, creating a synthesis of prior works. Most of these books had been written against prevailing heresies at the writer's time. The result was by the 13th century, a student of theology would not know where to begin. The Summa Theologia solved that. In the process, Aquinas introduced some new language and concepts, drawing on Aristotle and others available in his time.
In the book "The Book: The Realm of Time," Dr Zolb explains that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" can be translated "God chose the universe to order," which He does by the introduction of time more specifically the realm of time which is still being unrolled throughout the cosmos and this is why the universe is still expanding as it slowly succumbs to the realm of time; the prison of us all. Time does not create it is the created as St Augustine points out or as Confucius tells it, "'Time is created, to say you don't have the time to do something is the same as saying you won't do it,' homework procrastinators!"
Bottom line: Creation is an everlasting, continuous act, from moment to moment?
A very nice video. I use many TI videos in CCD as they are relatively short, theologically correct, and are enjoyable to watch.
Can I ask what age group? I was thinking about using some but I was worried about it going over the kids head
@@paulceffalio4763 Paul. Seventh and Eight Grade. I also like the fact that it exposes them to religious.
This videos and others like it at Aquinas 101 is an amazing work. It brings the hard subject of theology to ordinary people.
Theology is attempting to explain the impossible in terms of the improbable.
One wonders how it is that humans could come to know all of these aspects of god.
This is one of the reasons I can't believe any religion. All these people claiming to understand an invisible, intangible, unproveable entity who cannot be proven to have ever interacted with the universe. Hogwash.
Similarly to how we come to know aspects of each other by voluntarily divulging personal information to one another. It is better explained by the Apostle Paul:
"When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
"Among the mature, however, we speak a message of wisdom-but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God, which He destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it. For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Rather, as it is written:
'No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no heart has imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love Him.'
But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit.
"The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.
"The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is not subject to anyone’s judgment. 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ."--1 Corinthians 2
@@matthewgordon3281 , you have God's own personal Witness in the presence of your conscience...
@@thomasdykstra100 these are all claims you make.
I have reason to believe that you exist, because I see what you have written. If godcis speaking to me, it is not nearly as evident.
@@thomasdykstra100 you can't prove your delusion.
I like so much thanks
Thanks for watching! May the Lord bless you!
Brillant, as always.
Cheers, and thanks for watching! God bless you!
Wonderful video! I hope you add Spanish subtitles soon!
Fantastic, thank you!
Thank you, Fr. Legge.
This is great!! Thank you for that! SUBSCRIBED!
Wonderful! So glad you've found this helpful. God bless you!
I appreciate this video although I’m not a believer in the supernatural. The assertion made at 5:48 that God exists necessarily is one that requires support, it does not stand firmly absent some support. It is no different than suggesting that the universe itself is uncaused. We have evidence of neither, therefore unfortunately the best we can say is “I don’t know” and leave it there.
Aquinas was a genius IMO. Created causality is nothing but another property of creation, it's not the cause of creation. Even if Darwinian evolution were true, it would still be just a descriptive mechanism of how creation looks from left to right, not from inside out.
It took quantum physics for us to learn that not only space but time also is quantized and that every moment in time is created from here to the next one. Time doesn't just exist. It is being summoned into existence. If spacetime is a grid, then pure nothingness is the transition from one sector in the grid to its neighbour. Every object that moves through this grid necessarily goes through multiple nothingness-es only to reemerge existing within the neighboring sector. This process requires recreation every time it happens and it happens all the time, as nothing stays still.
So Creation is an ongoing process that continues even to this day. I never thought of it like that before. Thank you for opening my mind to different views :)
No. The Universe is in a natural spiral of decay. It's just going to take an unfathomable amount of time for that to happen.
Father didn't say new Creation continues. Father said God continues to hold His creation in existence. The Bible says God rested on the 7th Day.
@@wms72 Yet there are new souls being created all the time, isn't it?
@@wms72
Didn't he discarded that creation part? his new 'creation' only meant hold in existence, not created in the sense that has a beginning. So everything was already there, he is just holding it in place so they wouldn't go astray from how they themselves inherently intended to move, or did he just contradicted himself there? 🙂
@@wms72
Why use the word creation if god is doing something else? 🙂 Holding against what? I think it's better to say the universe is a self-contained entity that has it's own internal rules than positing a non-existent to which the universe has a tendency to recede, if nothing is holding it. No god needed there. 🙂
This is where Science and Theology will always break up. There are several theories in Science to account for time creation itself (from prior steady state universe) and also energy (as long as there is vacuum there can be potential energy at the Planck Scale)
Sort of. Yes, there is science relating to nothingness only being an average of nothing and not pure nothingness, ( an absolutely amazing scientific discovery! ), but all that means in this context is that there is always matter in existence within space-time. Theories surrounding the dimension of time always involve some prior state, and so just offset the ultimate question by one degree.
Where Science and Theology definitely will always break up is where there is no proof or substantial, measurable evidence, because then it is no longer science by definition but is, again by definition, mysticism.
In my own view, Theology is highly over rated and pretty much futile as it attempts to describe the ineffable. Science, on the other hand, can only know the knowable and can only describe what is measurable, and so is just as inept as theology when it comes to speaking of God.
Philosophy and mysticism seem a better approach, in that they speak generally in metaphor and are constantly flexible in that they remain always in the business of pondering mystery and what ultimately cannot be fully understood.
All you need to do is explain how anything exists outside of space and time -- whatever THAT means -- and you're all set!
I struggled with the relationship between primary (God) and secondary (natural) causes. I believe the underlying assumption is that effects have logically concommittant efficient causes: primary (one) and secondary (several). This would disspell any contradiction between science and God: when He makes a miracle, it is His cause acting.
Including that would have helped.
The material would stand equal to God. He is saying in effect, the universe is identical to god not existing outside of it. 🙂 If god didn't create the world in the sense we use creation, ergo, he didn't created it. 🙂
@@terminusadquem6981 brilliant, thank you.
A differentiation between analogical being and univocal being would have made it clearer.
The difficulty of imagining a supreme spiritual Being creating matter; which is radically different from it made me think recently about Berkeley solution of this problem.
What's his solution?
Oh, okay. I remember.
Here's a question though, if God created the universe out of nothing, is He STILL creating things in our universe in the same way? Are black holes literally God's boom-tube/colider or a path for molecules from Him to us in an act of creation?
Causality imposes a time arrow in the subject of the timelessness of God's relationship to "creation". Creation itself implicates God of existing with time. I would argue, God is time, for time is what predicates all other things. This is why we have a hard time defining both time and God. Time is not a simple part of God's creation, it is God acting.
I prefer a debate instead of a monologue regarding the subjects.
God is outside and inside of all things. God is before the begining of all things we know. God is truely Holy and Great Always.
Excellent explanation. A being within time and space trying to conceive of the reality of a being outside of time and space is like the 2 dimensional beings of Flatland thinking they "see" a 3-D object, when in actuality they are only grasping the smallest fragment of it that can enter their sensory perception.
When you reflect on Biblical excerpts like "how high are my ways above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts", "tell them that I AM has sent you" or the magnum opus which is the beginning of the Gospel of John, you get a sense how the authors, while inspired by the Holy Spirit and trying to put the truth in intelligible human words, still worked with the restrictions of human comprehension while at the same time illustrated how the manifest reality of God must be what it is for anything else to be. You end up talking in circles if you try too hard to put it into words, because what you're talking about is what is allowing you to talk about it.
Thus, we continually bump up against the limitations of our mental and spiritual autonomy (10-12% brain usage) that God himself bestowed upon us. I wonder whether our next Tower of Babel will be Elon Musk's NeuralLink. What happens when you unlock the power of the other 90% of your brain? Do we all become gods, or even Gods? The prospect both frightens and fascinates me.
This is exactly why I ended up as a Catholic and not a Protestant (although I knew that after 2 weeks when I came to faith in Christ), I was also fascinated by Orthodoxy, but I did not find the clarity and unity I found in Catholicism (not the Novus Ordo Church) with Sola Scriptura you simply discard all the philosophical treasures of Historical Christianity. The faith goes beyond scripture, The Logos is also logic and philosophy, it's the full incarnated wisdom of God.
You would do best to set all else beneath the instruction of the Holy Spirit:
"When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith would not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
"Among the mature, however, we speak a message of wisdom-but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God, which He destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it. For if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Rather, as it is written:
'No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no heart has imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love Him.'
But God has revealed it to us by the Spirit.
"The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. And this is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.
"The natural man does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man judges all things, but he himself is not subject to anyone’s judgment. 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct Him?' But we have the mind of Christ."
Excellent thank you so much
Not really the topic of the video, and quite a nitpick, but the pool ball analogy doesn’t work to explain a chaotic view of the universe as an altercation to the deterministic view as in the watch example. The cue ball’s force, angle, and shape will determine the force and angle of the first ball it hits in the break, and that ball will determine the same for all it hits afterward etc. So it’s still a deterministic view, just one that allows the limited perspective of humans to be considered “random”
What is the next video that includes the Most Holy Trinity to reveal more about God and Creation?
So, is it accurate to say that, when we procreate, we are participating in the goodness of God by creating life? (Sex, between a man and woman married, for the purpose of creating life is "good")
Ok, this way to explain things by analogy makes everything more incomprehensible to me. If every explanation that leads to the conclusion that God exists and how God acts or do things are given as analogies, how not to conclude that God himself is an analogy of something else?
In the light of science, philosophy, and critical Biblical exegesis I have found that the fundamentalist/literalist take on creation to be possible only if one does one of the following 1. Simply refuse to think about it at all. 2. Try to explain it away by distorting or cherry picking your facts. 3. Put it all down to some kind of conspiracy.
Speculation vs. Science: A Double-Edged Sword
1. Methodology of Metaphysics
From a linguistic perspective “speculation” and “science” are mere abstract nouns but did Aquinas see fundamental differences and difficulties among assumptions, speculations, hypothesising, verification, falsification, statistics, induction? (Reference A).
2. Methodology of Physics
A Physicist, for example, Julius Mayer, Hermann von Helmholtz, James Joule, William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), Clausius, Rankine, Maxwell and, later, Boltzmann (Reference B ), Einstein, Hawking, et al, would state: It is the case that the law of conservation of mass-energy and symmetries hold and in a given isolated and controlled system its total mass-energy is constant and if that total mass-energy is “something greater than zero,” then it neither can turn into “nothing” nor emerge from “nothing” into that “something.”
A Neothomist would claim: The mentioned by the Physicist isolated and controlled system with its greater than zero mass-energy content, i.e., its total mass-energy is sustained or upheld in existence by God.
A Physicist would likely ask the Neothomist then: How do you know that? And a series of nightmares and cold sweat would likely have burdened the Neothomist upon this question.
As a result the Neothomist would usually take his or her
“antique-medieval (language) toys” and retaliate with something like this: I do not play with you and your “scientific toys,” including your speculative mathematical models at extreme micro and macro scales. By this retaliation the Neothomist would effectively revert to an undercover of another metaphysical language game of their (e.g., Dominican Order) choosing.
The Neothomist question: How do you know that your mathematical speculations at the extreme micro or macro levels describe reality? would likely lead to a series of nightmares or at least cold sweats burdening the quality of Physicist’s life.
3. References
A. “Creation isn’t what you think it is! (Aquinas 101),” th-cam.com/video/4o8mGHN9t10/w-d-xo.html, accessed on 17 December 2021
B. IOP Institute of Physics, “The law of conservation of energy,” spark.iop.org/law-conservation-energy#gref, accessed on 17 December 2021
© 2021 Witold Piotr Nowak
Nothing is created without knowledge wisdom and understanding.....
Father and son are one, the same as one. No father, no son. No son can create without a father to create it as one.
This world we live was created by the son, whom the father acknowledged as one... this is physical reality created by the son who was like the father as one, yet the father is not physical nor needed to be.
"Creation is not an event in time. Rather, time itself is part of creation i.e. time is (always) being created by God." (Paraphrasing). As someone who got sucked into the New Atheist trend (Dawkins, Hitchens, etc.) for a while as an adolescent, it always amazes me to see something like this and reflect on how shallow the New Atheists’ understanding of Christianity really was. I heard a thousand times that "even if God created the universe, it’s still necessary to explain what created God, and thus the existence of God has little explanatory power in relation to the existence of the universe" and even thought this was a good argument. But it’s a total strawman. Christians don’t believe that God CREATED the world (past-tense), rather that He is the ontological ground of Creation itself. But seeing as scientistic currents of thought like New Atheism have basically no concept of ontology, it’s not surprising that such errors were made.
Could you please tell me some of the material that made you realize new age atheism's shallowness? It would be of great help
@@brunonascimentolima5971 th-cam.com/video/KYXPIy3MzoM/w-d-xo.html this video of Bishop Robert Barron critiquing Stephen Hawking's own critique of religion comes to mind. Interestingly enough, my own readings of the atheist philosophers Schopenhauer and Nietzsche each greatly contributed to my disillusionment with new atheism. This is because both of them, though atheist, actually take Christianity seriously and understand something of the Christian worldview. Much of Nietzsche's work in particular is focused on understanding the implications of the "Death of God" which is his metaphor for the decreasing relevance of Christian theology to the modern Western understanding of the world. He understood that Christianity had been the theoretical-ideological foundation of Western society's understanding of itself, the wider world and the human condition for over a millennium and explained how the progressive secularization of Western society was leaving a gaping hole in this understanding that would need to be filled by something else. Once you are exposed to ideas like this it's really hard to be satisfied with new atheism, which pretends like Christianity had merely been 50% childish superstition and 50% precursor to modern secular science. Science has not filled the void Christianity left, and New Atheism thinks otherwise only because it fails to grasp what Christianity actually was/is.
Absolutely brilliant. This friar is awesome intelligent.
Ipsum esse subsistens: Being itself which subsists, subsisting Being itself (no subject, no potency, pure actuality), el mismo Ser subsistente
Science says how it was created it or how it operates
Faith says who created it or who ordained its procedure of operation
I wish creation wasn't what I think it is. Certainly not the best of all possible worlds.
there is no other way of explaining our existence except for eternal creator. infinite number universe made from not eternal materials not possible.
What, then, is to be made of physics, especially the theory of relativity, which models times a being another spatial dimension similar to a graph in which the past, present, and future all exist at the same time? And what about Newtonian physics which is just a little further behind say that everything that happens has a predictable cause and a predictable effect in the future? The only possible rebuttal today might be through quantum mechanics.
We should not assume the theory of relativity's conceptualization of the four-dimensional "block universe" implies the simultaneity of past, present and future in reality. Time remains the measure of prior and posterity in motion according to before and after. That Einsteinian spacetime amalgamates time and space into a geometrical whole does not disrupt this. And as for Newtonian mechanics, its account of deterministic causality aligns well with secondary causality at the level of physical interaction, without excluding the primacy of God's universal causality. However, quantum indeterminacy, if truly intrinsic rather than epistemic, may demand a revised understanding of how divine and secondary causes relate at the subatomic scale.
Good day father
Empty of the empty is poure nothing
It's last point of the empty
I love Edward Feser's 2017 book!
Excellent explanation of God and creation! God is truly ALL that exists. God IS infinity.
Thank you.
Great assertions
This is why the concept of simulation fits perfectly with the existence of God and the creation of our universe. Obviously a simulation outside our knowledge and control. In this way, it removes the point that people make: if God created us, then who created God. Who created God doesn't matter since we are a simulation/creation of his outside our universe. Let our Creator to describe his own theology.
God needs to be outside the universe to create it. God is not bound by the physics and time of our universe. The space he used to create it might have been empty or not, but from our point of view, inside, we can't tell what is outside our space.
In that sense, acting through the physics of this universe he creates things. He knows the finality of His creation at all times. He knows its finality already and he told us how this ends to make sure that His greatest creation, us, is not lost when it is turned off. Obviously He doesn't want to carry own the bugs in the program to the next creation.
The universe is created out of nothing by God? But by God, if nothing was there, then is God nothing? And if God necessarily exists, it isn't nothing-unless, you might say, that God is everything and therefore nothing, but then what's the point of calling it God? And if God were absolute, then how could he distinguish Good from Bad but by definition, because he's the cause of both and so they are completely his inventions.
Thank you so much 🙏🏻
Thank you for the beautiful video- explaining Thomas at his best. I will certainly be subscribing, as I find his work to be a rich and stimulating synthesis of Aristotle, all of the thinkers inspired by him (as in Avicenna’s contribution to the Quinque Viae as expounded here), as well as a deep spiritual insight.
However, seeing your continuing responses to other commenters I cannot help but pick the bone I have with him here, perhaps in the hope that you will take it away.
Simply, I do not think that one can see Telos from the outside of the object.
I believe in Telos. I even believe that we can see it. I believe that we are all capable of becoming one another’s gardener- that we can, carefully, and with piety, bring one another closer to the flourishing that is the resting point of all our clockwork hearts.
But this seeing as much as its enaction has only ever been accomplished by the agape that Thomas himself advocates. The deep empathy of seeing virtue past the creaturely surface.
Why does the Catholic establishment persist with its complementarity, as if we finite imbeciles discovering artefacts of infinite hands could know through geometry alone? Why with creaturely biology treat this half holy beast? Moreover, with a method of biology that has since been abandoned by a science that has learned its limits?
I am, for the record, neither gay nor a first communioned Catholic. I am only offended by the persistence of a blind spot in an otherwise great thinker that has caused so much cruelty since.
Apologies if I come across over forthright. I thank you again sincerely for the video, and in advance for your reply.
Unless Ex Nihilo means out of water, it is wrong.
So a creation is an act the that leads to formation.
Hallo, Mr. Almighty... I'm giving you two geometric points - "Point A" and "Point B"
Now, please create any "Distance A - B" which not an outcome of CHANCE.
Good luck with that little number - your very existence depends upon it.
This is mind blowing
The notification turned off by itself. Is TH-cam doing it deliberately?
Yeah man! What so needed are our churches of the beauty of our teachings. There is great reluctance to the Bible studies and reasonings like this. But thanks all of you americans. 🇲🇽
God and creation need not occur at the begining but could be at the end of time since 'all times' are present along with all possibilities ultimately. For example the Bootstrap principle/theory says that a future event or creation can travel back through to the beginning of time before the creation and thus you have the virgin birth of creation or in the future an A.I whom is self aware and hugely powerful in quantum state can exist througout all times even before it is created, negating the need for creation of it.
Only from nothing material wise but of course his mind did thoughtfully produce
How can I help the channel?
Reading Genesis gives the feeling that there was something other than God; call it “not God.” There was no order to it for anything that is “not God” would be opposite of God; dead, chaotic, etc.
This constant intervention argument is circular equals god intervenes because we don't like it if he didn't
good deep explanation! quite surprising because it comes from a Catholic religion that created so much heresy over the centuries and still sticks to some of that
So if I disagree then I’m disagreeing with acquinus’ theory and that’s ok, I’m not wrong about my theory because we cannot prove aquinus is correct 🤝
The best theory currently available in physics for explaining the origin of the universe is the Big Bang theory. This theory explains the origin of the universe as emerging suddenly from no material thing. There was nothing, then there was something. This does not say anything about if there was a spiritual substance or not, but it certainly challenges the mind to be open to such a possibility. Of course when you consider other possibilities this is where the argument starts to get interesting.
Actually the big big theory is much more complex then that with matter existing in certain states before inflation.
What created God? If all existence is created, then either God doesn't exist, or something created god. I'm sure neither of these choices pleases the faith community, but current cosmology does not say the Universe was created, only that time and space are requirements for creation in the first place. The monotheistic traditions all hold that God created,. Bad thinking IMHO, as God needs time and space to create within (even if it is maintainance). Frankly Legge assumes creation where we don't need it. If we treat the Universe as existing as long as time and space exist (evidence supports this hypothesis currently), then creation isn't necessary. The Universe exists, end of explanation. No God, No supernatural realm. No need for salvation.
This makes no sense to my puny little brain.
Where is the requirement written that says we must prove beings came into existence in the first place? We observe matter transitioning (on average) from a low to high entropy state - OK... But if there is no 'bottom' to lower entropy (outside of hypothetical 0 Kevlin), why MUST there be a 'top' for higher entropy?
I really like the fact that theists say that their scripture is absolute but in reality the interpretation of their scripture changes in almost every generation. Like in the beginning of this video ( pun intended ) the father mentions the big bang Cosmology when in fact the big bang Cosmology is incompatible with the genesis account of creation allegedly written by the same god who created the universe that we live in
Genesis:1
1 In the beginning, God[a] created the heavens and the earth
14 God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of sky to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs to mark seasons, days, and years;
15 and let them be for lights in the expanse of sky to give light on the earth”; and it was so.
16 God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars.
17 God set them in the expanse of sky to give light to the earth,
18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.
No it doesn't change "every generation". They've been saying this stuff for like 1000 years. Why not watch their video on Genesis?
It was a Catholic priest who first proposed and supported mathematically the Big Bang Theory (Georges Lemaitre) who Einstein and almost all other physicists at the time derided as a "stupid" hypothesis.
Good try, I guess...
@@godfreydebouillon8807 oh what a horrible response. Lemaitre was indeed a priest but he didn't made his model by reading the Bible. What the hell kind of logic is this. And no Einstein never said that the big bang is a stupid hypothesis. In fact the big bang fixed a bug in Einstein's equations. Stop blabbering about things that you have no idea about
@@celestialsatheist1535 No, literally he got his hypothesis from reading the Bible, and it's clear you do not understand the Thomists view of the first half of Genesis.
The Catholic Church promoted the hypothesis before Lemaitre, because of the overarching view of Genesis that the universe was created "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth", and had a beginning. Pope John XXIII literally thought that this would prove to the world that God exists, but Lemaitre warned him that it would not, and atheist naturalists weren't going to give up being atheist naturalists just because they proved the universe wasn't static and eternal (as every physicist at the time thought).
Einstein absolutely thought the hypothesis was stupid, and he didn't stop there. He opposed Lemaitres hypothesis for YEARS, wrote about it openly and developed a competing hypothesis that was known as "The Einstein Universe", and claimed that Lemaitre knew how to do math, but his physics was "abominable" (exact quote from Einstein). You can look up every word I'm saying. Go look up"Einstein Universe", and in his mind there was no singularity and no beginning. The universe "just was" and had always pretty much been the same, but just superficial changes.
You literally have no idea what you're talking about and yet you're trying to hold these opinions, and it's very strange to say the least.
@@celestialsatheist1535 I mean seriously, just Google "Thomistic Institute Big Bang Theory" instead of just arguing against your delusional charicature.
@@godfreydebouillon8807 First the Big bang theory absolutely destroys the genesis account. Pretending that this someone enrages ' naturalistic atheist ' is beyond stupid.
No.
Einstein died in 1955, well before any mention of a Big Bang. Correction: Before the evidence of cosmic inflation had become compelling; before the Big Bang was generally taken seriously.
His early draft of general relativity predicted cosmic inflation. At that time no evidence had been discovered for cosmic inflation, so in 1917 he added a constant to his equation to fit a stable universe. There is no evidence or reason to suppose that a bias against religion had anything to do with that decision. He was simply trying to build a model that matched all that was known at the time.
When inflation was discovered in 1931, Einstein called the constant his greatest mistake, and removed it. That is the exact opposite of "rejecting the Big Bang". (The constant has since been restored, but with a new value to fit the later, more precise data.)
There is nothing to suggest that Einstein was blinded by a bias against religion. Given his position and credentials,
Interesting stuff !! Thanks !!! Ironically this teleological point of view syncs with L Ron Hubbard’s “theta” concepts.
Hubbard was a weirdo and a psychopath and has no link with The Divine in fact he was a Satanist
I would like to know if there are videos in this channel about emergentism, vertical causation, mental and physical causation on the free will and overdeterminism of human action. If not, it would be helpful if you explained these problems. Also, if free will is true, does it implies that the soul (immaterial) causes effects on our physical body, but the contrary is false?
Great questions. Free will is true, Aquinas can speak to the details. Our will suffers because of sin, but God’s first action provides grace, which we can either accept or reject.
@@CureInsomnia
Do unborn children and infants who succumbed early to death had FREE WILL?
Fr Dominic, thank you for your lessons. I've often wondered why in the Nicene Creed, we call Almighty God the "Maker of all things", instead of calling him the "Creator of all things" .... It causes me difficulty when I try to explain what you have been explaining here, in terms of the difference between 'making' and 'creating'.