Divine Illumination

The method of attaining knowledge has been a topic of debate though out philosophy since as far as it has been recorded. A certain perception of this method, which held rule over all others during the medieval era was the proposition of divine illumination. Two philosophers who have dealt with divine illumination are Henry of Ghent in his “Summa of Ordinary Questions” and John Duns Scotus in his “Ordinatio”. While these two men were not the only ones to voice their opinions on the matter, they and their works shall be the focus in the following assessment of the two sides regarding the issue. Henry of Ghent is of the view that divine illumination is necessary for man to truly know anything. John Duns Scotus, who from here on will be referred to as Duns Scotus, holds the opposite view that divine illumination is not the reason for why human have the ability to cognize truth.

Before moving on to the discussion regarding divine illumination and its plausibility or not, it is crucial to define divine illumination itself. Divine illumination essentially states that a special divine assistance is required by humans in ordinary cognition of the truth. This is the simplest outline of divine illumination. From here it is prudent to consider arguments for divine illumination and then consider this arguments against. From there is an assessment of both opinion can be made and a crude conclusion may be form, or at the least that is the hope.

Since we should look at the arguments for why divine illumination is true, we turn to Henry of Ghent and his “Summa of Ordinary Questions”. In the simplest of terms, Henry of Ghent held that it is possible to know whether an object is true. This is agreed upon by most, but Henry goes further to say that any truth at all which is to be cognized requires intervention on God’s part for complete cognition to occur. To explain the first part of the Ghent’s opinion to be able to know what is true of a thing is different than knowing the truth of the same thing. He means that knowing what is true of a thing is to be able to represent the thing as it appears to be; and by knowing the truth of a thing is synonymous of knowing its nature. For Ghent, the first requires nothing to be knowing, but to know the nature of the thing, that is what requires God’s divine hand in human cognition. The key point of debate, as should have been apparent, is regarding this latter part, where divine illumination is necessary to know the nature of a thing. For Ghent and others, like Aristotle, only knowing the nature of a thing counts as having knowledge. Ghent holds that to be able to know anything the essence of the object should be grasped, and for him this cannot be done within the cognitive ability found in man, it requires the illumination of mind only God can provide. The key point of Ghent’s argument is that he says God is an intellect, much like what Aristotle says, he goes on to say that human intellect is from the divine intellect of God, however as human, we are not on the same cognizing ability level of God, this is the reason why we cannot cognize the nature of things without God’s assistance. From here we move on to John Duns Scotus, the opponent to Ghent’s divine illumination argument.

Duns Scotus argues that divine illumination is not necessary, and may in fact not be able to work if everyone was to take Ghent’s reasoning to heart. In his “Ordinatio”, Duns Scotus says that if without divine illumination no certain knowledge is possible, then even with divine illumination no certain knowledge is possible. This is explained as the infallibility attributed to humans in this aspect, is not something which is acute and contained, it would be an infallibility that affected the whole of the human cognition. Therefore, if humans cannot have certain knowledge without divine illumination, they should be able to have knowledge with divine illumination. Scotus, himself, holds the view that the human mind is capable of knowing truth on its own, without divine illumination. He goes on to outline four kinds of cognition in which there would appear to be necessary certainty. The first kind of cognition that is necessarily certain is regarding first principles. He says that the terms of the first principle are so self-evident that it is necessary for all of them to exist together, and when we cognize the terms it is not some great mystery as to what the terms entail, since one always includes the others. He goes onto say about the first kind that sense are not required to be able to compose formally these self-evident principles. With just the intellect alone, it is possible to know the that which is self-evident. The second kind of cognition comes from experience had by the individual. This it, seems, Scotus is trying to say is not as strong as the first kind, but is still necessarily certain. He says that we know, with infallibility, things from experience; and from experience which principles can be derived. He says experience allows us to makes conclusion even without the principle to guide us. This is sort of an inductive kind of cognition which relies of the past endeavors of the human mind to reach certain conclusions. The third kind of cognition is the cognition of self-action, a self awareness. Duns Scotus, likens the certainty of this kind of cognition to the first, self-evident kind of cognition. He says that even without the sense the intellect is aware of itself and the action it takes up. The last kind of cognition is the sensory kind. This is simple for Scotus to explain, but it also has the potential to be the most problematic. We are, for the most part, certain of what our sense tell us. Humans live through their sense, and consider anyone that is deprived of a sense to be disabled. This is the end of Scotus’ view on how divine illumination is not necessary for humans to be able to cognize the truth of things.

It is important to take both these views into account, especially Scotus’ since it is said that he was the one who officially closed the philosophical debate on divine illumination. Ghent’s view is derived from Aristotle and Augustine. Aristotelean philosophy was greatly important during the Medieval times, so it is easy to see the influence he would have had on the topic. Augustine was credited to be the first medieval philosopher to bring divine illumination back to the surface of debate. The idea that Ghent proposes that God is the perfect intellectual agent comes from Aristotle. Aristotle says that the Divine being is the first principle of all. Everything is is causally rooted in God. Ghent then goes onto say that humans cannot fully know the truth of a thing without God’s guidance. This follows from the claim that God is the first principle of all and therefore all truths can be known by him and through him. While to the theistic philosopher this is very appealing, the rest of philosophy,  may find Scotus’ view on divine illumination much acceptable. Scotus says that humans have the ability to know truths, especially truth that are necessarily certain, such as first principles and self-awareness. This appeals to the nature of the human being which wants to know. The curiosity of man, as it were.

Between the two views of divine illumination, the latter, as presented by Scotus against divine illumination, seems to hold a larger place in the realm of discussion so far. At the time, Scotus seemed to shut the door on any further debate. While Henry of Ghent’s view may not be all that popular there is something to it, the fusion of Aristotelean and Augustinian doctrine, that appeals to the religious philosopher.

Good and Evil

The line dividing between good and evil has always been in debate; even the definition of good in its true form has never been adequately explained. During the Middle ages, the common belief of good and evil was called Manichean Dualism. Augustine of Hippo presented his own philosophical argument against Manichean Dualism and he is correct in doing so, however there are still some flaws within his argument.

! Manichean dualism presents a direct split between good and evil. The dualism defines good and evil as two separate forces which exist in contrast to each other. It is important to note that evil is an enhanced type of bad. Evil is defined as bad action done through the conscious exercise of an individualʼs will. Bad are negative occurrences in reality. So to simply Manichean Dualism, the concepts explains that there are two contrasting forces in perpetual conflict against each other, these two forces are called good and bad.

! Augustine, disagrees with this assessment of good and bad. Augustine proposes the thought that there is only one beginning for everything. According to him the point of creation for all existence in God, the Judeo-Christian god. Augustine asserts that God is perpetually good and cannot be bad, or evil. Augustine assumes that the bad, or the evil, is a privation, or lack, of some good that should exist by nature. To make sure of Augustineʼs theory consider this: all things that exist independently can be called substances; all substances have natures, or characteristics; therefore if something is lacking from the nature of a substance which prevents it from being constantly good it is bad. In other words, bad is a simple absence of a part from a whole, the have the whole would equal being in the state of constant good. God would be the best definition for the

whole, or the good, according to Augustine. ! This is Augustineʼs basic argument, God is the only perfectly good being, and is the creator of everything else in existence. All things that exist are meant to be good things, but due to the lack of some of the good, they become bad. Instead of constantly explaining the idea “lack of some good”, Augustine begins to call this privation a corruption. To explain this terms he goes back to the attribute of God being the perfect being and therefore incorruptible. The term incorruptible in this context implies that the substance has some good that can be lost, this begs the question of whether a substance which has no good at all is corruptible. Augustine answers by saying that if something has the nature of not being good in anyway it does not exist. Now it is possible to ask what things are corruptible, to this his reply is that everything that is good, but not the perfect good is corruptible. By this answer it is implied that everything can be corrupted and is corrupted, and God is the only substance, or being that is forever perfect. Augustineʼs reasoning in this is quite amazing. It is a fact that he simply states. According to his argument there should be no substance that can attain perfection. If any substance had the ability to attain perfection, would it already not be in its perfect state. Perfection ceases to exist as soon as privation enters. Substances can only be perfect from their conception to their end. If a perfect substance has room to be corrupted it is not perfect. In an indirect method, Augustine is telling us that perfection is impossible, but that we should still attempt to reach the level closest to it. ! Leaving Augustineʼs view on corruption aside there is still one flaw in his initial argument. According to the Manichaeans, there are two principles, good and bad, which are in conflict. Augustine refutes this by saying all things are inherently goos and that

bad is the simple lack of good. If this is so, then no one should willing commit a bad action. If the source of the action originates from the will of the individual it becomes evil, as mentioned previously. Following this process of thought would not the individual also be evil for exercising such an act, but then that would imply that evil exists as a separate nature. Augustineʼs argument does not account for the separate existence for nature, he says it is the lack of good within the individual that is the origin for evil. According to the Judeo-Christian tradition, God created all things. That would mean he is the creator for something that is lacking in good and therefore God would cease to be the perfect being. This begins to make the argument collapse upon itself. The main problem here would be that God allowed for imperfect being to decide on their actions; from this it can be inferred that God indirectly created evil.

The main objection here is that God is ultimately responsible for the existence of evil, or the bad. While this may be held to be fundamental flaw, Augustine is correct in saying that Manichean Dualism is not the correct theory needed to understand the existence of good and evil. However, even with Augustineʼs philosophical discourse defining good and evil, a proper, concrete and accepted explanation is still to be agreed upon by scholars.

The Godman

Ok so this might one of the rare single post subjects depending on how long it becomes. Essentially this post is going to be concerning the humanity and divinity of Christ. Now that I think about it this is going to be part 1. So for this part will speak about the humanity if Christ and maybe touch upon the divinity aspect.
So the humanity of Christ. Where to begin? Let me start with the assumption that Jesus walked the earth, that in itself is one point towards his humanity. Him being human is a major factor to his humanity, now for me this includes all physical things he wet through, pain and hurt and the like.
Another big point for me is the fact that he was tempted by Satan. Temptation is something very unique to humans, even is philosophy. There are four different types of men regarding this. Bare with me as I go off on a little tangent. The frat type is the virtuous man, the who never considers the temptation, the man who easily overcomes any temptation. Some say that the virtuous man cannot be tempted, I agree with this. The next two are close together and also where most people usually find themselves. The enkratic man and the akratic man. The first of these two is the man who faces temptation and does not succumb to it. The second of the two is the akratic man, who faces an falls into temptation and feels remorse for it. The last of the four types is the vicious man, who indulges in all things which he desires regardless of good or bad. In this scale most of us are associated with the middle two, and we aim at the virtuous.
Back to Jesus, during the lent period he would be the enkratic man, because he was tempted and he faced off the temptation.
I will leave you all with this thought: if Jesus was supposed to be god and man simultaneously, how is it possible that he was tempted?

Moral man 3

Alright, I know that this post is going to up late. As of ringgit now when I’m writing this, I’m on the road on the way to Philadelphia.
Alright so back to the topic. In the last post I suggested two reasons, or explanations, for why we have an inherent morality. The morality that is naturally within us. I guessed that the natural morality is a protectiveness of oneself and close relationships. That was just a brief recap if the last post.
The two reasons, one is that God handed this nature of morality to man in the beginning and that at the time of falling away from God, man’s morality went out if sync with God’s morality. This explanation of morality within man is used by a few theologians that I have read, but for them it turns into an argument for the existence of God rather than an argument for an inherent moral code that exists in man. So in a nut shell this is the argument: we have a moral law, the moral law must have a source, it follows that a moral law giver is the source of the moral law. The moral law giver cannot be immoral, that would make the law a flawed law. The perfect moral law giver is God.
The second reason I derive from the recollection argument as presented by Plato. Now for Plato this is an argument for the immortality of the soul, it is not intended to attempt an explanation for the inherent morality within man. The recollection argument is like this. We recognize forms I the world. Forms of anything and everything. We do not necessarily know these forms completely, but in more minds we can recognize them. For example, anyone would be able to distinguish man form the rest of the animal kingdom. In this same way we can recognize things like virtue and justice, and in the same boat is morality. However we can only partly recognize these things, for if we had a capability to fully recognize them, it would be a memory, but we have no memory of our lives before birth. This means that the immortal soul was in the presence of the forms and that it knew the forms. Something happens at the point of embodiment, the point of when the soul is put into the body, which makes the soul not completely recall the forms.
So for me, personally, you don’t have to subscribe to my beliefs, I think that the two reasons I mentioned are the most plausible.
So next post, whenever it is, I think is going to be about the virtuous man.

Moral man 2

Alright so quickly recapping the last post, it is plausible that morality is inherent in human nature, however it is more likely that morality, the human conscience which distinguishes between right and wrong, is developed within us by society. Quick note: Socrates and Plato believed that virtue, or good behavior exists with the nature of man. Formally the claim is that no man would do wrong willingly. They also think that if you are forced to do something your are not willingly doing the task and therefore are not accountable for that wrong.
Alright back to the moral law within man. Personally I believe in a composite morality within man. Hopefully that made you go “huh?” Well let me explain. I would think that the human conscience, the human moral law, is a fusion between something within the human nature and something accumulated from the constant nurturing pro livers by society. The bit of our morality that comes from nature is derived from the instinct of self preservation that all animals have. Human being different from animals, having reason within them go beyond that basic instinct, the instinct breeds a fear against harm against oneself and close relations. Generally in human society, harm is seen as wrong. We would do anything to avoid harm to ourselves and we would be considered good if we protected those around us from harm as well. I say generally because there are psychopaths who, philosophers would consider defective humans where the rule would not apply.
If you think about that basic instinct of protection, which comes from human nature, and take a look at the base law of social morality, you should find the connection, it is quite apparent. Now the rest of morality that humans has that has not blatant connection to the nature of protection, those codes come from the nurturing of man by society.
There are those who would disagree with me at the drop of a hat about this view, and I understand why they would.
So moving away from the little psychology bit and back to the philosophy of the matter.
I do believe that there is a true moral law that exists. The absolute moral law, this would also double as the logos of morality, a true definition of morality, for those of you who don’t understand what logos meant. I believe that the composite morality we have comes from that absolute morality, but is defective. When and if anyone reaches and acts with absolute morality that would be when this discussion ends.
You should have noticed that I said the moral law that we have within us is derivative of the absolute moral law. The question I am hoping that makes you ask is how we got the morality we have from the absolute version. I think there are two plausible scenarios to answer this. The short versions are 1) god gave it to us and 2) our souls are remembering in part the absolute morality.
Those two points I will elaborate on in the next post I put up today.
Just a heads up, there will be no Friday post this week since I’m not in the country at on that day

Moral man

Alright, this was supposed to go up yesterday, but due to some technical difficulties it goes up now.
In the first few posts I did, I spoke about the good as a concept. I spoke about it in a theoretical sense. Not exactly a view which enables anybody to do something about the good. The posts I make about the moral man essentially deal with morality as a concept and the human conscience. That is the plan anyway, I’m not promising that I will not go of in a tangent.
So we can start now. Being raised in a Christian home has obviously influenced what some might call my standard of morality. If you do not think that nurture wins it over nature, here are my reasons for it. Nature is always perpetual, it never leaves us and by definition it should not change. Nurture is also always perpetual, from the time of birth tithe point of death. Our parents and the rest of society are the producers of our nurtured behavior. We our condition in such a passive aggressive way so that nurture takes place of our nature. This explanation, brief though it may be, accounts for most of humanity. This is what our conscience derives from, our nurture or our nature.
Ideally I would try to define human nature and the nurtured human, but I cannot. I cannot define nature simply because I am not a witness to it. I would very few people are able to witness the human nature within themselves, but I would not know who those people would be. So because of this hole, I turn to Socrates and Plato who assert the claim that man is inherently good. The formal statement is: man does not do wrong willingly, or rather man does will not do something if he knows that it is wrong. Obviously I can call forth many examples to prove this right, and at the same time wrong. For these two philosophers, anything wrong is done out of ignorance. Here in this instant, ignorance has two definitions, or clauses. There is the ignorance of a child, the lack of knowledge. There is also the ignorance of the fool, the having of false knowledge, or belief as some would call it. Both of these as causes for wrong doing. This of course means that anyone who has knowledge but still does wrong is evil. How they define good and evil is very vague and something that I don’t fully understand.
This is what I call the conscience of knowledge. This is a very basic conscience, something a child could follow.
The real question comes out when we deal with the idea of a moral law inherent in a person. That I will post about in a few hours.

The “paradoxical” God? part 2

Just to recap, there are groups of people who find the Christological definition of God to be flawed. The main “flaw” that is often pointed out is concerning the benevolence of God. Recall that benevolence is defined as “a disposition to do good”, it does not simply mean “good”. This definition, although technical, is the main cause of hostilities.

The main argument which claims God to be contradictory is that if God is supposed to be benevolent there is no reason for a judgement day to have been prophesied. Let me elaborate. God, being inherently good, according to our understanding, will contradict this attribute when judgement day occurs. This is a bit over simplified, but it works for the purpose intended. Now this appeals to most rational people, because it is sound in logic.

This is essentially one of the core arguments against the existence of God.

Now I’m going to deconstruct the argument. (this might get a little technical, if you have any questions there is a comment section below USE IT!)

My first argument is derived from Plato and his concept of the forms. If you have read my earlier posts, you should know that Plato thinks that the highest intellectual form, or essence is “the good”. He claims this but he never defines what good is. I believe he skips over that definition because as a man he cannot define it. I am of the same view in that respect. There are always a few certainties when it comes to ethical / moral behavior (i.e. murder is bad). Let me question you as to why you think murder is bad. Why? What motivations do you hold which make you come to the conclusion that murder, or anything else, is bad or evil? When I thought about this for a long time (that’s the reason for the no post Friday) I arrived at the conclusion that society tells us that it is. Now I’m not promoting anarchy or anything of the like, I am simply promoting you to doubt everything that you think you know.

That is your assignment, think about everything and question it.

Seriously, stop reading, the post is not going anywhere. Take some time and just think.

Done?

You sure?

Ok now we  move on. Hopefully, we can agree that we know almost nothing. Whatever we do know has been told to us. Our definition of good was given to us. But assuming that there is a God (which you should have been since the The “paradoxical” God 1 post), the true definition of good can be something which is entirely different to what we think good is.

Now for me the question would break down here.

But for the sake you, my readers, I will continue.

This time I’m going draw form Aristotle. Now Aristotle says that “God” or a being of pure intellect which was the first cause, does thinks which we cannot comprehend being human and all that. This should be a comfortable idea for most people of Christian faith. The idea that man can never truly know the will / mind of God. This is point for me is just a reassurance of something that I accept already. The point is as a being of pure reason, or transcended reason and logic the methods of a divinity cannot be comprehended by mere mortal, and if we could comprehend such a mind, our lives would hold no more meaning, we would have superseded the common man, and entered into the realm of the eternal (why this is I will explain is later posts)

(Sorry for missing the Friday post drop, hopefully this was a good enough post to make up for that mistake.)

Medieval Good

All right here is the second and final post on the topic of “the Good”

Medieval philosophy, European Medieval philosophy anyway, had two prevailing views on “the Good”. Both views were based on the belief that a deity exists.

The first view, and rather uncommon, is that of Manichaeian Dualism. This view says that there are two fundamental forces in the world. Good and evil, these forces are always in conflict with each other, in what may be an eternal struggle. (the maybe in this case is because the Manichaeians postulated that the evil power is semi-eternal, meaning that the good could overcome it. However the evil force is still powerful enough to hold its own, it’s quite confusing) This view of good does not attribute good to being all-powerful in order to side step the problem of evil issue the second view faces.

The second view, is accredited to St. Augustine of Hippo. In his reply against the Manichaeians, he puts forward the idea that God (the Judeo-Christian God) is “the Good”. He is perfect and to be perfect he has to be good. This implies that perfection and good are one in the same. Augustine continues with this process of thought and goes on to address the problem of evil. The problem of evil is a obstacle that must be overcome for this view to hold any water (to have plausible validity). He says that other that God, and possibly the angels, all things are imperfect. He says that all things are created to be good referring back to the Creation story in the Bible, where God declares every single creation good. Evil, according to Augustine is simply the lack of good necessary to be perfect. There are degrees at which something can lack good, and the more evil it becomes. For example, disasters lack a lot of good, and because of that they cause harm, if disasters did not lack good, then they would benefit all of nature.

The second view, Augustine’s view, is the one that is taken by most european medieval philosophers to be the best explanation of “the Good” and the problem of evil. Then again it is wise to remember that most european medieval philosophers were theologians of the Christian faith.

 

Plato’s GOOD

So technically, with it being past 12 am on Friday and all that, here is the post continuing on the topic of “the good”

You may, or may not, know of the theory of Forms.  The theory of forms posits that every tangible object has its root in an intelligible, non-physical form. In similar terms, everything has an IDEAL FORM of which it is representative. The example commonly given is that of a circle. In reality, or at least what we call reality, there never exists a perfect circle. It is not possible for there to exist a perfect circle. However, the theory of forms tells us that in the realm of logic, the reality of pure reason, there exists a perfect circle and that all circles which exist in the material reality (our reality) are reminiscent of that circle form. This is applicable to all things that exist, that have existed and that will exist.

Now Plato, the man who first formally introduced the theory of Forms also said there is a hierarchy to the forms.  According to Plato, the form of the Good is the highest of all the forms. If one can ever know the form of the Good, that person can know all the other Forms without trouble. A term that Plato associates with the From are divine, so in a sense, you could take that to mean that the forms exist in a plane of spirituality, the same plane in which a divine being (God) would exist. Plato thinks that all knowledge that can be known, can only be known through the form of the Good. An illustration to simplify the concept: We see things only because of light, without light, our sense of vision would be quite ineffective. Light shines on the things around us, the things then reflect light and we process that reflection. In the same way, the form of the Good illuminates all things that are knowable, and we can only know knowable thing because of the form of the Good.

Introduction to “the good”?

In philosophy, it is said “good” is the best possible thing out of all things that exist. Vague, but we will get there eventually. The first question that poped into my head was: What is “good”? The definition with which you are most comfortable is the ethical definition of good, which is essentially a set of rules most of society abides with. When any of the rules are broken, it is called “bad”, the opposite of “good”. There is an infinity of possible definitions of “the good”, and the definition you have right now is most probably a composite of a few of them. There are a few philosophical definitions of “the good”. the first couple of posts following this one will deal with the two philosophical definitions of “the Good”