The Engaged Thomist

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and studying on the Trinity over the past few weeks and I would like to sketch a possible model of the Trinity. I’ll primarily be drawing on the work of Rob Koons and Joshua Sijuwade for this and I would like to note that Sijuwade has a new paper coming out on Divine Simplicity and his model of the Trinity which I recommend when it comes out (see here: https://www.metaphysics-of-entanglement.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/39516/Divine_Persons_as_Relational_Qua_Objects-_by_Koons.pdf , https://philarchive.org/archive/SIJBTM ). The big component of the Monarchy of the Father that this model utilizes is the identity of ‘God,’ by which I mean the Divine Substance or the entity which instantiates the Divine Nature, with the ‘Father’ of the Trinity. However, contrary to the traditional Monarchy of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit are not distinct ontological entities from the Father, but are qua objects within the Father. Essentially, the Father is th...

I recently came upon a critique of Aquinas’ response to the problem of evil and I wanted to share some thoughts on it (see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KO0YjGfF0c&t=380s ).   Firstly, I would say that his description of why Aquinas thinks that there is no best of all possible worlds is right. However, Fales' response seems to insinuate that this is Aquinas' response to Fales' version of the problem of evil, but it isn't. Fundamentally, Aquinas thinks that simply does not have to create a best of all possible worlds (see here: https://disputedquestionsblog.com/2018/12/11/is-god-obligated-to-create-the-best-possible-world-disputed-questions-article-one/ ). Aquinas' reason for this is that since God is perfect He has a perfect will and so His will will just move towards the highest good out of metaphysical necessity, but God is the highest good since He is the Good so there is nothing outside of God that can necessitate the Divine Will. Aquinas shares the...

I recently came upon an interesting critique of the First Way and I gave a response to it online (see here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheist/comments/s5q73t/double_murder_better_places_to_stab_at_aquinas/ )  I’ll post the original post below and then my response. Original Post Aquinas' First Way, like many other cosmological arguments, can be split into two stages. The first stage of the argument merely tries to show that there's an unmoved mover or an unactualized actualizer. The second stage tries to explore more of the characteristics of this unmoved mover such as whether it's a mind, omnipotent, omniscient, etc. How Should We Even Understand the Argument? First, we need to find a good formulation of the argument. Let's see what Thomas Aquinas himself has to say: The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is in motion is put in motion by anoth...