Thomas Aquinas & His Follower's Pseudo "Debate:" Review and Analysis - Jay Dyer

M S s SS, spending the most says really a most lives. I love spas, loves little space, the spand spend the span new All right, what's up? What come everybody? More of the stupid nonsense. So we're gonna do. I'm gonna play these clips or eight clip and for the benefit of the audience, because most people are not familiar with Tomism, they're

not familiar with a lot of these sort of scholastic nuances. I will be briefly pausing here and there to give the references and the sources to their various papers that I am referring to. So there's a couple of places where I want to pull up the Bradshaw book for you guys, or the text for you guys. This is not his book, airs Al Easton West. It's his paper from an Alogia Journal. It's the concept of divine energies, which I think you have to get. No, it's essence energy, what kind

of distinction? That's it. It's a separate paper. But I'm I'm trying to find the PDF link. What because the first part of our discussion is about cat epanoia, which you actually ended up agreeing on here. It is Okay, So I just want this link ready for you guys, so I can give it to you in the YouTube chat. It's one of those websites, but it's you can tell it. It's like it's a legit link. I've done loaded it many times. So I'll just tritt a bunch of coffee.

So that's why I'm all acting weird. Here is the ink for the Bradshaw paper that comes up pretty early in the discussion, and you know, Bradshaw goes into the different levels of later Latin types of distinctions, but really none of this he's even that controversial, because we actually ended up agreeing for the first fifteen minutes of this discussion on these points. So here is that link. There it is, and what we're gonna do is it's not a

very long clip. I'm gonna play the clip. I'm gonna explain some of the ideas and topics and what he was saying. And as you'll see, for about the first ten to fifteen minutes, we basically just agreed because he was stating the Thomas position, and this actually shows that we're on the same page. And what I've been saying Tomasm says for many years is actually correct. So I don't think he had the intention of demonstrating that I did accurately

understand the Thomas position. But when we go through the these points, it actually does show that. So it's fine for the first fifteen minutes, and then it turns into discussion about the divine ideas and the actualization of those ideas and pure act, and he tries to pull from some distinctions and acquaint us in an Aristotle relating to imminent action and transient action, which don't do the work that he thinks it does. And we're going to show that that imminent

activity and transient activity are a type of distinction that can be made. But the problem is not does Tomism claim that. So one thing that we'll notice, and this is my perpetual criticism of Tomism, is that quite often, not in every case, but quite often Tomism thinks that if you just keep

stating and fleshing out the position, that that constitutes an argument. And as we'll see, as we progress through the discussion, and as he unfolds more and more the Tomas position, it's not addressing the objection that's being made. He keeps adding new distinctions, and he adds new things like the difference between

an imminent action and a transient action. But that doesn't answer the question of when the fact that the divine ideas are synonymous with the divine essence and thus necessary to just say, well, but God is a personal being with will, and so he can will to actualize whatever he wants. I understand, we understand that that is the Tomas position. I know that you guys confess that God has a will. I know that you don't believe that creation is

necessary. I know that you don't want to affirm what the modal collapse arguments say. We know that, But the question is not do you have a position that says that God has free will? The question is is that consistent with what you've said over here? Those are two different things, and so so often because the way of the way that Thomas think about argumentation and the way they think about systems, they actually mistake the argument for the position with

laying out the position. And that's what we're gonna see. So I'll go ahead and start it. I think a lot of you are going to be really disappointed. You were gonna be all hyped up thinking that this was some like big gotcha and it's nothing. And the reason that I left the discussion was because it got to the point where I'd asked the same question about three or four times and he and I said, this is all just bullshit, dude, I'm talking about the discussion and he got all butt hurt about it

and said, what are you talking to me? It's such a way to its supped to be. It wasn't an insult. It just said the conversation is bullshit. Okay, that's not a personal insult on you. And so if it's at that point where it's like and then what's the point? So here we go. We'll play it and uh, this is there's so much

of hubble over nothing basically right here. Okay, So we're gonna have a discussion today with Fanatic Tomas on the topic of distinctions in God, the processions or generation and so forth, the energies, what his views are, what our views are. So now that we're recording, I'll let him go ahead and make his make his points. Yeah, so hi everyone on Fanatic Tomas. You guys already know me from Twitter. My ad is schlastic Kicks.

So the reason I agree to do this discussion with Chase because it's so hard to do a discussion on Twitter it's or limited characters, so it's fitter to have a yeah DC chat. So anyways, my I'm a Tomas and I take to classical Thomas position on the mine attributes the vine essence and the things of person the essence. So my position is that there is a minor virtual distinction between the divine attributes to divine essence and between the persons and the divine

issse. However, there is a major real distinction between the divine persons themselves. So the Father is really distinct from the Sun because by the virtue of the real production as beginner to the begotten, and the same applies to the spirit aspirator aspiated. Now, the way the hash out this distinction is that the minor virtual distinction is a logical distinctional rational distinction. It's called distinct your

atsioni's. But this distinction is not purely mental. So there's a difference between a purely mental distinction and virtual distinction. The purely mental distinction is only on the part of our intellect, whereas the virtual distinction is both on the part of our intellect and on the part of the thing itself insofar as the thing itself, in its richness, has the virtue or power. That's why it's all the virtual distinction. It doesn't power are present itself to your mind through

different aspects to An example of this would be rationality and animality. So rationality and animality are are not really distinct because man is rational and animal by one and the same entity. But just because you have animality, it doesn't mean that you have rationality, So you can have one without the other. But the converse does not all true. Now it's called a mid major ritual distinction because you have animality and you have rationality, but animality does not include rationality

necessarily. There's another kind of distinction called minor virtual distinction. This is called minor virtual distinction because it's not after the manner of excluding and excluded, like rational animal, but implicit and explicit insofar as concept of attributes implicitly include each other. So we can give the example of transcendentals. Each of them implicitly include the other. So for example, truth and being ends veritas, those are Yeah, so I forgot it. I didn't notice that that was muted

because I was playing the clip. Yeah, I apologize for guys. I'll just kind of add that in later the audio part. But basically what I was saying in summation is that everything that's going on here is not that controversial. We pretty much agree he's when he's talking about the minor virtual distinctions. He's talking about how at Hoomis conceives of the attributes as all basically in reality

identical and synonymous, but in our conception we make distinctions. Right. So he says that a minor virtual distinction does have some basis in the thing itself in reality, but it's not telling you ontologically what that thing is like. It's only telling you to use this phrase. It's looking to propose that to the mind, and then the mind, as he phrases it, struggles to capture this reality of God's unity in a bunch of conceptual distinctions. Right.

So that's what he means by a minor virtual distinction. And why is that Because all of the attributes are actually in reality synonymous with the divine essence and reducible to the divine essence. So in this debate, this is actually called identity thesis. And what I was saying a minute ago was that the major real distinction is what he believes about the persons, right, the Tomas position believes that the persons in the triad are major real distinctions. We believe that

that's not controversial. We agree with that. We don't affirm this. And this is the point. When Basil argues that the energies are just as distinct as the persons in the triad, then it's it's just as real for the energies. And so the later scholastic distinctions that come up in the Middle Ages that in the Bradshaw text that I linked you, they're they're not that relevant

for the Kappa nocean distinctions. And basically in Tomasm, we don't have a problem with this, except that the attributes can't be This is what we're gonna say. We would hold the real distinction or what they're calling a major real distinction also for the energies you see, and not just the energies amongst themselves, but also the energies as distinct from the essence. And I've got to press him on those points, but I hopefully hopefully we're seeing that right now.

He's just laying out the Tumas position, and I agree with him, and what this demonstrates is that I've accurately understood and present the Tumas position.

There wasn't misunderstanding. There wasn't me trying to be deceptive. In the history of these discussions, if you go back to the debate or the discussion that I have with classical theists, I mean, we basically had this same structure, right, We had me saying that the Thomas conception of the attributes is conceptual, but it's not the position of the Cappadocians, right, because the Cappadocians think that the distinction in the energies is just as quote real as a

distinction between the hypostasies. So there's a departure, there's a difference in this view, and we'll let him continue here implicitly include each other. And this is a kind of distinction that if you paus it between the divine attributes and the dvine essence and among the attributes himsell and between the person is in the

essence. So so this twofold foundation is first on the part of the think itself, insofar as the divine essence, in its supreme eminence and simplicity becaussesses all these perfections, not as really distinct attributes, but has one, so so there he's stating this that the reality of the divine essence is beyond our

comprehension, and so the various attributes cannot in reality be distinct realities. The Palamite synods actually use that terminology to contrast themselves to Tomism when the toe most defines it as distinct realities. The reality that is Providence is not and cannot be identical to the reality that is love or the reality of this glory and God. That's the real distinction or what they're calling a major real distinction.

So again when it comes to hypostases, we all agree major real distinction. Cappadocians call that a real distinction. Cat Epanoia is referring to that in Basil's uses, because cat ipanoia, for Basil is not strictly always purely conceptual. Sometimes it refers to something conceptual and real at the same time. And so what the Thomas is calling the major distinction between the persons is equivalent to what

Basil talks about when he talks about a real distinction. What they're talking about as pure cat epenoia or purely conceptual distinction is what they're calling their minor virtual right. And that's only applicable to the divine attributes and actions because in God, in Thomism, God is act as purists or pure act right, so there's not potential, there's not unrealized capacity in God. God is purely second

actuality. And that will come up here in a moment. God is one and God is powerful, and God is knowing game, God is feeling by one and the same thing, which is a divine issies. But since the objective, but you'll notice he made the statement there that the minor virtual distinction is grounded in the thing. So the distinction is grounded in it, but not actually ontologically present in it. It's only grounded in it in our conception

of it. You see, That's what's meant by minor virtual. But what I press him on here in a moment is that, as Palamoss press barleym,

the distinctions then in those terms actually come to mean nothing. They're they're only relative to human understanding and conceptual conceptualization, and thus we don't actually know what foreknowledge is or what providence is different or distinct from love and glory if they're just human conceptual categories and foreknowledge, and these things don't actually correspond to realities. Then they're all basically blended together in the modal collapse point. So

I understand them. But you'll notice that as I keep pressing these points, he doesn't addres rest that objection. He just states more of the tomistic positions and views, never addressing the point form of concepts of these attitudes differ. It has a foundation in the thing itself, but that foundation is potential, and it's looking towards in mind to present itself or in other words, to

impose itselfable. So notice there that he said that the foundation of the minor virtual distinction in God is looking really to impose that elsewhere in the human mind. So it's not an act. It's not a distinction that's actually grounded in the thing. So in other words, when we start listening divine attributes, and this is the Palami critique, the divine attributes begin to lose their meaning

because they're in reality synonymous. But when I press them on this, you'll see where he goes with it. So let's say that we have divine providence, right, and we have glory, and we have love. Right, here's some of divine attributes. The problem is that certain attributes only apply to the created order, and the answer of the Thomas will be to simply restrict these attributes to causal effects in the created order. But providence is not a

causal effect. Providence is an operation or action or energy or attribute of God. But you'll notice as we as I press this issue and keep pressing it, it keeps getting cashed out as Thomas always do as God cause and creature effect, creature effect, never addressing the actual objection, which is that the question is what is providence? Qua providence? I'm not asking you to tell

me that you think it's a cause and effect relation. I already know that everything in Tomism, when it comes to these attributes then gets cashed out as cause and effect. So when I ask him what is providence, he's going to explain that that is something that is a it relates only to the created order, and it's a created effect that is an eternal thing in the divine

mind. But that's not going to work because providence, love, glory, and the divine ideas are not just capacities in the divine mind that God wills or to not create. And why is that? Because the divine will is synonymous with the divine essence, which he will call necessary. That's the key point here. So I'm not asking him if he believes that God has a will and that he chooses which reality he wants to actualize and create. I

know he believes that. The objection is that it's not consistent with the way he's cashed out divine simplicit city and identifying and calling all the divine attributes synonymous. Because if these words are to have any meaning, and we're going to say that divine providence is also what eternal, because he's going to say that all of these are also eternal, then how does God have divine providence as a pure actual as a pure act Remember there's not a capacity, there's there's

no first actuality in God and tomism. Providence has to be actualized as an attribute, just as much as glory or love is actualized, right because God is pure act act as purists, and the problem is that he's that eternally and so when we start listing different types of attributes. This goes back to the area in debate with Saint Athanasius and the Arians the power of creating. He's basically going to end up saying that the power of creating is an eternal

capacity, but it only is realized in the temporal effects. But God has no capacities, and he says, yes, correct, God has no capacities. All God's powers are realized because he believes in pure act God is pure acts. So if he's pure act there's no potentiality, there's no capacities that are not actualized, and hence God does not have first actuality. God is pure second actuality, which is pure error, gone, pure work, pure

act Right do we see so far how this is working out? So I'm going to start pressing him on, well, how can all of these be synonymous and eternal? And then you're going to start restricting certain attributes to in the divine mind. But if it's in the divine mind, then he doesn't actualize all the potentialities are all all the possible worlds. Now, there's capacities in God. And they'll say no, no, it doesn't work because there's

also imminence and transient and there's imminent acts and transitive acts. But as we're going to say that, to talk about imminent actions and transitive actions transient actions is not actually going to work either, because the divine ideas do not, according to Quinas, relate to act in the same way as transient act does. In fact, the divine ideas are just as eternal and necessary as everything

else in God. And so if the divine will is equivalent to the divine essence, and is also equivalent to eternity, and is also equivalent to necessity, which you will say, is God's a necessary being, and God's attributes are also necessary, then the action of creating is necessary, which he says, yes, but not in the effect. That's bypassing the issue. The question was not do you think the effects are temporal? The question was the

act itself, the power of creating, to act to create. I know that you think creation is temporal, but I'm asking about the action of creating, which is not the same thing as the eternal manifestation of glory or love, because one pertains to the created order and is relevant only to creation. On that mind and then and the second foundation is the foundation on the part

of our intellect. So then we actually consider the object, that thing which has the virtue or character presents itself, that actually presents itself, And now mind captures that distinction. And so the first foundation is in the thing itself and in the case of God, the divine necess and the second foundation is on the part of our intellect, which is unable to grasp the simple, single, simple entity by one concept, so has to consider it by various

concepts. I think that's enough. Yeah, And so none of that is even controversial in regards to what Thomasm teaches, and it's what I've always said, Thomas teach right. But by the way, God is not an absolutely simple, single being. God is a triad, and he's known as triad. God exists in the mode of triad, not in the mode of absolutely

simple monad. And anybody who knows the Cappadocians, and I mean the Trinitarian theology of their communical counsels, would know that everything that he just stated there about God is completely foreign to the Cappadocians and the way that they go about

Trinitarian theology. I have a question on that. So, when you're describing the minor virtual and you said that the foundation in regard to the abtributes in the thing itself, that it really is some type of distinction that looks to impose itself on our minds, And I'm what exactly is the nature of the distinction itself in that in your view? Make sure if the distinction you mean

bitter is his real or between say, providence and divine glory. Oh okay, so between your providence and divine glory there exists and minor virtual distinction, right, but yeah, which which has a foundation? The thing is said, But there's a distinction God which has no foundation. And that's and he says, which does have a basis in the thing itself. That's what I'm concerned with that phrase, because the argument is that in minor virtual distinctions they're

only conceptual. Well, if they're only conceptual, there's not actually a justification for claiming that. But it also has a basis in the thing itself, because you don't actually know that these attributes match up to anything in the thing itself. I know you're saying that. I know you believe it on the basis of cause and effect. I know that. But the point is that if all of these attributes are synonymous, then you don't really have a conception

of what they are in terms of their definitions. So providence is not actually in reality different from glory, it's only different in our conceptions. And if that's the case, then you can total all of these up and make them come possible, and they don't tell you anything at all because they're interchangeable. They don't necessarily match up to the being that is describing. That's Palomas's critique

against Barlam in the debate with the Barlamon. So I'm well aware that you believe that these are minor virtual distinctions, and I'm well aware that you think in human conception that we can talk about these in different ways, but it's not addressing the actual question of how do you know that that matches up to anything in God? Because all you know these things by are created effects.

In Tomism, all you know when it comes to providence, glory, divine love is the created effect that signifies something quote grounded in that being beyond the veil of the created effects. But how do you know, other than to just restate Tomaism that love or glory is actually telling you something about God? You don't. That's why Paloma says this leads to atheism because there's no direct participation and real experience of the energies of love and glory. Remember in tomaism,

you are only experiencing various created effects. And if they are various created effects which signify these realities, they're not actually realities plural they are a different mode of being, which is a pure, single spiritual monad that does not bear a similarity to the multiplicity of attributes. So wait a minute. If it doesn't bear that similarity similarity, how do we know it. Oh, because the effect bears a similarity to the cause. But that's just restating what's

in question. How do you know that the effect bears a similarity to the cause. Oh, well, that's what Thomas says. You see, that's what Aristotle says. Yeah, but I'm challenging on this view how you would know that. You can assert that, but you've also asserted that the motive

existence of the divine essence does not correspond to this multiplicity reality. Furthermore, we go back to the modal collapse question about creating, and I'm going to keep pressing him on this show, and you'll see how he answers that.

Well, you'll see how he doesn't answer it in action. So, for example, God's knowledge, God's acts of knowing have no our only purely mentally sting right as God's knowledge and vil I understand that, yeah, yeah, because that's that would be required by actors purist right, Yeah, because you don't believe that God has so the humans have the power. Right. So do we see that I'm agreeing when he states the temas position, So I've understood the temas position. Yeah, yeah, so we agree. I mean,

I agree that I understand that your position holds that. Let's go back though to that minor virtual because what I'm what I'm trying to understand from you is sure what exactly you said? There is a foundation in the thing itself? Yeah, and you listed two things. The third the first thing I heard you say was it it looks to impose that on our minds, and then secondly our mind captures it. So remember without assuming an analogia. But

remember God's essence, right, is not like creatures. How do we know that the analogue loggia holds to the divine essence? Well, and if you read Whipple, Whipple starts to give different examples from a quinas to show that there's a similarity between the cause and the effect. He says, though there's a divine ideas, and then he says, there's the principle that every effect

bears some similarity to its origin and to its cause. We wait a minute, that's the thing in question, though, Now in the created order, I guess that might make sense. A son gives rise to a father gives rise to a son. Human being bears some analogy or some there's some similarity between those two temporal causes. But in the way that Tomasm describes God's essence, it is not like creatures. It is not temporal, It is not changeable, it is not passable, it is not composed, it is not

acted upon, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And so every way that it's cashed out is actually opposite the created reality. So the question is, then, if tomism is consistent with its view of simplicity, on what basis is there a similarity or an analogia between the creative principle of love and the divine essence is love because love is the divine essence And Thomas, what is the

reality? Oh, it's an analogia. Okay, so you're saying there's analogy, but the way that you've cashed out divine simplicity and divine essence doesn't seem to allow for analogy, because the mode of divine essence is not at all like creatures and their multiplicity. So when you call these different names, you're basically saying nothing about what's behind the created causal veil. It's a very simple

objection. I don't understand why Tomas have such a propt with this, and their answer is to just repeat tomism that every effect has a similarity to its cause. Every effect And it's like, I know you claim that, but we want to know the argument to prove that. Well, it's just self oathernent principle. Arosols better physics a self otheran principal. So you cite Ariostole as the source exactly, But the question is, how do we know Aerostol

is right about it? Maybe it is right. I'm not saying it's wrong. I actually do believe in the principle of cause and effect and that yeah, an effect bears a similarity to its cause. But you can't move from the created order of the similarity between a son and a father and then just assume that, oh, well that holds in the uncreated supernatural realm as well.

I mean, on what basis does that hold? How do you know because every way that you've cashed out God's attributes accent, simplicity, and Tomism is opposite creatures. Well, if God has cashed out opposite creatures, and I argue that he is intemism, how is their end? The loggia and all of these arguments presuppose anialgiin now in the Orthodox view, because the divine

essence is not like creatures, bears no similarity to creatures. As Paul says in Acts seventeen, how do we have the ability to predicate of God? Well, Basil answers that, and Basil says that the energies come down to us. And it's not just energies that are conceptual categories that allow us to name God. It's the same energy that Dionysius talks about that we participate in.

They're not created realities. Divine glory is not a creature. When Jesus said in John seventeen that he would make us partakers of the glory that he had with the Father before the foundation of the world, that's not a created reality. It's an uncreated reality. The Eucharist conveys to us uncreated grace and

energy. Tomism and Rome Catholicism do not believe that, and it's consistent with their position on the attributes, because it's not just a question of how do we list these attributes and conceive them as systematic theology in our mind, it's a question of what are we participating in? Are we participating in uncreated glory or a supernatural accident in the soul, as Little God says, as Roman Callagdogma says. So the Roman Calic position is that grace is a supernatural creature

in the soul. So these are not just questions of God's relation to the created order. There are questions of grace and salvation. And Roman Catholicism teaches that grace strictly speaking, what you're participating in is it created reality. But what is the nature of the distinction quad distinction the thing? And what is that distinction that's that is in the object? In the object, So you would see that the real virtual distinction is a real distinction, not in the

minor virtual What is the what is that? Yeah, I'm a destriving minor ritual minor virtual distinction is a real distinction because it's exists in the thing itself. What is the nature of that distinction. Yeah, yeah, he's asserting that. I want to know how he knows that. How can he actually say these things? Right? I know that's the Tumbus position. We understand

that that the attributes are minor virtual distinctions. I'm going to explain that it's real listening in the thing it'sself, but it's not true as having diverse realities contained in it. But yeah, which we already know. So he's again just stating the thumbs position that in God providence, glory and love are not actually distinct, They're only distinct in our conception. So so it's not okay, So so it's not a diverse reality, so it's not. Yeah,

of course, minor virtual is essentially still conceptual. But you're saying that it has a basis in the thing itself, but you can't but what is the name? What is the basis in the thing itself? Yeah, the basis is its eminent simplicity, which, oh, but wait a minute, So the basis for the multiple attributes multiple at is the imminent simplicity. Imminent simplicity is not like the diversity of the attributes, is it? So the thing that I've asked him for the basis. You're saying that it does have an

origin in God. It does have an the many attributes has some point of origin actually in God. But that point of origin is a radical simplicity that is not like creatures and is not like distinct things. Because in Tomasm, distinction entails composition and division. So I'm asking him a very precise question about Wait a minute, you've said that there is some basis in the thing itself, in God for these distinctions. I ask him what is it? He

says, the simplicity of God. That doesn't answer the question. Do you see that the simplicity of God is not like the many things we're listing here, So it's not grounded in that thing. And then he'll just start saying, but it is, and let me define more Tomism for you. Okay, So simplicity, though, is not a basis for distinction. Yeah. Yeah, The basis is in the divine is which is simple. It contains all these perfections. Oh wait a minute, the divine essence, which is

simple, contains these perfections plural. But the perfections plural are not actually in the thing. Those are in our mind. So now he's going back and forth again. You see it. So first he said the basis was the absolute simplicity of God. Now he's saying it's the perfections plural, but it's it can't be both, and he knows that. The question I'm asking is, you're predicating multiplicity to something that contains no multiplicity. And you've already said

that that multiplicity only applies in human conception. But you said that it is grounded in the thing. So saying that it's the thing basically amounts to saying nothing, you see sist. Those perfections have a different object to formal concepts. They cannot be identified in concept with each other. So there's a foundation that things. I understand, so, but you said, but you said so. Then he just goes back back to restating that they're not identical in

human conception. We know that. We've always known that. I've been saying that for fifteen freaking years since I left a stupid system, And he just reached again. You're gonna notice all these people who thought there was some big own, Oh you got owned today. The whole discussion is this. It's a big bugaboo of nothing and nothing ever getting answered. Now I give him credit just in the fact that in the first ten to fifteen minutes, we're

basically just agreeing on what Thomism says. So I give him credit for just accurately saying Tomism. That's great. Finally, finally we have Thomas. He's not the only one, but finally we have Thomas who are accurately presenting Tomism. What do we see? We are agreeing on what Tomasm says all the way up until about maybe fifteen minutes in. So that means that I've accurately been saying what Thomas em says. I'm at lied about Tomaism. You might

disagree with me, but I'm not intentionally trying to mis represent Thomas. I actually have. These are the reasons why I don't believe the system anymore. I quit believing it. I mean, there's many reasons, these are some of the key reasons. So I keep pressing specific questions and they will not be answered. You see, you'll see that in the thing itself there is a basis for the distinction. But by basis, you're saying the basis is

in our head virtually right. No, No, there's a two fold basis in the thing itself and in our online What is the nature of the base. What is the nature of the basis of the thing itself? What is the nature of the distinction that he says it's grounded in the thing, and it impresses upon our mind. Our mind tries to grasp it. That's the twofold basis. We understand, that's the position. And this is every discussion

with A Thomas. Everything just comes back to them restating the position twenty thirty times. So when I leave, it's not because he stumped me. It's because the same question goes on for the After about the fifteen minute mark, it gets asked about three or four times, and since it's not going anywhere, and he just keeps introducing things that don't answer the objection, I just left. But I didn't just leave because of that. I left because he

got all butt hurt when I said that the conversation was BS. I didn't say he was bullshit. I said the conversation is And then he acted like he was all, Oh, you cushion at me, you hood my feeling. Here are the here's the crusaders right with his with this uh not testosterone based voice that he has of the distinction in itself and the thing itself. I just told you what it's. It's yeah, it's the power the champ

present itself to them. So I asked him for the basis of the multiplicity that he says is grounded in the thing, which is not really in the thing. The distinctions are not really in God. Between the attributes, I said, what is the basis for that? The power that it has to press to present thisself to our minds, that is not a grounding. That's just restating what you think it does in this causal scheme of cause and effect.

It's a causal relation of the created effects impressing upon our mind some similarity to God as the cause. But it's not addressing the objection that how do you know? And on what basis is it grounded in the thing? You're just stating that. And at no point in this discussion, as it keeps, the can will keep getting kicked down the road, at no point will the objections that I'm giving your actual arguments that if then if you believe this, then you should believe this. How do you? Oh? Thomasm says

this, Yeah, I know what your position says. Address the objection. That's the power, that's that's something directed towards us, and you're saying that it's in the thing itself. So this amounts to not not any kind of distinction. He's going to repeat that it's a conceptual distinction. I know that the point is that it's not telling us anything. It's not telling us anything. To say that, well, it just there's a power in the thing

that impresses upon us. Yeah, but the power and the thing is singular. Power is singular. These are plural, So the pluralities are not. Actually, when we define these words love, glory, providence, the meanings of those words is not synonymous, are they Can everyone understand this, Love and glory and providence are not defined in the same way there, They have

different definitions. So if the definitions of those words are going to actually tell us anything, they cannot be referring to something that is totally unlike that multiple reality. Well, it's not totally unlike that. There's an analogia. That's the thing that's in question. How do you know there's an analog gear without

just asserting it. And all of tomism, all of classical foundationalism, all of this recitilient stuff is just based on those assertions that it is so, and Father Deacon has a great paper where he points out that how do we know that it's I mean, we understand that you're asserting these things, and this is Palomas's objection to Barlan. Yeah, not so it's not a distinction at all. No, it's a virtual distinction. I'm telling you that it's

not any distinction sense that you haven't. Yeah, that's not real by in this, in the sense of when we delineate the attributes themselves. I know what the position is. That's what I've always said the position is. So the question then is would you then say that divine glory is identical to divine providence. It's identical materially enough formally well, so wait, in God there's material and formal distinctions. No, material and formal distinction is basically identity that

works and everything mad and everything. But hold on, material we're talking about in God? Yeah, you can go matter informed did not apply to God materiality inform matter. So he's avoiding he's beginning to avoid where I'm going with

us. Of course, So there's a material identity in God, which means that identity in reality, but there's not a formal identity meaning them So there's a there's a conceptual distinction between divine glory and divine providence, but in reality, in reality as a material identity is they're not right, That's what I'm in. If you said that, then you're wrong, But you're right.

Yep. Yeah. Are they both eternal? The providence and glory? Providence in so far as it's considered as an act of intellection and milition, yes, insofar as it's concerned. Start introducing the distinction between something that's purely a divine intellectual intellection versus something that's an actualized thing. But the problem is that that's not what providence and the divine idea is equate to. Right, there's no such thing as God having capacities or things in his mind that he doesn't

realize, because the divine ideas are synonymous with the divine essence. And I'll show you that in the in the Semihar in a second execution. Oh so God has not actualized all these capacities. No, Look, so did you hear what he said there? Did you catch that? There is in the divine mind providence as an intellection, but he does not necessarily execute divine providence. Now wait a minute, but providence is a divine operation. It's not

a purely intellectual operation. Right, It's an attribute that he just said was synonymous with these other attributes. But now he wants to introduce a distinction between operations or actions that are imminent in God that are not equivalent to the external effect or actualization. But that's bypassing and avoiding what the question is. The question is about the energy operation, the operation, or the attribute itself,

and you can't have in the divine mind capacities that are unrealized. But that's why I'm gonna start asking him questions about, well, wait a minute, does God know about worlds that he didn't create? And he'll say yes, and then I'll point out that, well, those should be actualized in there's a capacity which is not actualized. God could have created a world without Thomas Aquinas and he didn't do that. That's a potentiality. It's a capacity that

he didn't that he didn't. Actually, there's all kinds of capacities, and so this is why we believe that God can possess first and second actuality. But his position, as he will say as a Thomas, is that no, God is only second actuality. Do you understand what first and second actuality is. First actuality is a potentiality, a capacity to engage an activity that

is then the corresponding second actuality. Second actuality is the exercise of a function and air gone a work, and the first actuality is the capacity or the disposition to exercise that function. Bradshaw uses example that you might be familiar with of I have the ability, for example, to let's say, ride a bike, speak Spanish, and play guitar and do a live shame. I have those capacities, those powers, but I'm not necessarily actualizing all of those

powers at once. For the thomast in God, God does not possess first actuality because he cannot have any potentia, he cannot have any capacities that are not actualized realized, because he has act as pure as pure act right. So God is strictly speaking as he will say, second actuality. And they think that it has to be that way because otherwise God is not perfect. That's the only way that God could be perfect and have all the perfections.

And doctor bo Branson is some great talks critiquing and getting into a lot of these ideas of perfection in the middle ages, and how it's kind of tied up into presuppositions of metaphysics and metaphysical systems that are not necessarily justified. We don't know necessarily that all of the Thomas metaphysics crib from Aristotle is necessarily the case. That's why they're all foundationalists. And they just said, well,

it's self evidence. All the metaphysical things are first principles and they're self evident. Then we'll build our theology on top of that. You know, the Trinity is first, Triad is first. That's why John Damascus begins his systematic theology with the triad. So remember, first, actuality is capacity that's not necessarily engaged. And so I might will to ride my bike or to do something else. That's because I'm a being with free will. I'm not.

There's nothing about me that necessitates that I actualize all of my capacities, or all my potentialities, my all of my abilities. Right. They think that if we say that about God, we're implying that God is imperfect and he's like a creature. Well, now, wait a minute, you believe in

analyogists, so in certain ways he is like creatures. Supposedly, according to you, but no, we believe that he he's like creatures also in the ability to will or not to will, and the fact that he didn't actualize all the possible worlds that he has knowledge of shows that there is capacity in God. There is first actuality in God. He did not do the thing that he could do. And when I bring this up, you're going to

see that he doesn't actually address this critique or this question. He agrees with me that in the temus view, God is only second actuality, pure act But when I press him on what that should mean, what that should lead him to, what that implies, He restates things and uses analogies comparable to the analogies that I gave, which don't actually help his case. As you'll see, God there's always in second act The only thing that begins to exist

is the effect. God is always second act, second actuality. That's exactly what you just heard me say. So you guys can see I'm not misrepresenting anybody's position. That's what we've been saying for years. All right, we're all in the same page here. He says God is only second actuality. That means that there are no unrealized capacities potentialities. All potentialities must be realize

or actualized. So I just start asking him various questions about things that God didn't do which you could do, and then he'll say no. But there's internal actions in God versus external causal effects. So you see everything is cashed out as the cause and effects scheme, right, But the questions are constantly about not just that you're just assuming that it's a twofold diatic scheme of cause and effect God world, right. The questions are about the specific attributes and

actions themselves create the power of creating. Qua creating which you identify as in your system has to be identical to second act. Providence, love, glory are all identicals to second act? And what is he gonna say when I when I raise that objection, He's simply going to make a distinction between the created effects and the uncreated cause, the pure act. That's not addressing the objection. I know that you believe that, but it's it's it's bypassing.

It's missing the argument for the people in the chat. We're gonna open it up here in a minute. There's not much more to this, but there's a couple of maybe two more minutes. But yeah, we don't have a problem saying that, whether it's palamass I've got the book right here. If you look at Maximus is two hundred chapters. When he calls God pure act, he's not saying the divine essence is pure act. In fact, the first five pages of this book say that we can call God pure act in

his essence. We call God pure act in contrast to creation. So unlike creatures, right, God is not composed of parts. God is not a material being. God is not in time. God is not changeable. He doesn't undergo change in his essence. He's impassable. Right. Those are the things that Maximus says that we can say about God in contrast to creatures. Maximus also says that, however, when we call God pure act, it is not a statement of what he is in his essence, and he is

not reducible to that. The very five pages of this are an explicit rejection of saying that essence and act are the same in God. The two hundred chapters, first five pages literally says that. And why am I saying that about Maximus, Because that's the word our position. It's the exact same thing that we say. So when John Damascus says we can talk about God is pure act, he says it in trastic creatures. He's not saying that that's

the definition or what the identity of the divine essences. So Thomas take the statements about God's true act, which we agree with, and they say that God's essence is reducible to that. That's an identity thesis view. Peter Lombard the identity thesis view. God is reducible to the predicates that you say of him, but he actualizes all capacities, meaning that he has meaning that there's no distinction between first and second act and God in your view, what do

you mean by for sen second dact? Because whatever he just agreed, God is second act. So he knows what I mean by first and second act means what you just said, But it's always you said, He's always in second actuality. Yeah, first actuality is at second actuality is the actual So I asked him that he already said it, and then he agreed with it. But he says, what do you mean by that? He knows what I means first and second act to sure? Sure? So act is active

power? Right right? Yeah? Right? Kind of capacity. Yeah sure, yeah, sure sure. So the second act is action ractualization of death act. So first act is a capacity. Second act is the actuality corresponding to capacity. You see. So that's the difference between me actually riding the bike and me having the capacity or the power to ride the bike. Right, Donna miss actual power actuality first act, second act, second act is the work the air gone. In the Roman calittimistic scheme, God is strictly

and solely defined as pure act second act. Do we need to read phaser for you, guys? But it's not even This isn't controversial. God is absolutely pure act with no let's read phase. Turning to the divisions of act or actuality, the first distinction is between a pure act and a mixed act. Act as purists or act utterly unmixed with any potential. Is the core philosophy of the scholastic conception of God. Everything else is act in some way

mixed with potency. Only God is pure act with no potency. And so he goes on to talk about combining these senses as an expay is forty one. This is what we mean by doing amiss right and a Greek Combining these senses. A man's having a substantial form a rational animal is first actuality. Is having the power of speech is second actuality relative to that first actuality. Having the power of speech, however, itself, is first actuality if it's

relative to the actual exercise of that power. So I might have the ability to speak, that's first act When I speak right now, that's second act I'm actualizing a capacity of power that I have. Roman Catholicism does not believe that God possesses first actuality because they think that that would mean God's a creature, imperfect and so forth. We believe that for God to have free will,

he must have that as well. God does not have to exercise all of his powers or all of his abilities, and in fact, every time he does a specific action in history, and by the way, the divine energies actually are in history when it's Christ walking on water, that's a divine energy and action in history and time and space. Roman Caloics don't think that divine divinity can actually be in time and space, so they don't actually consistently

believe in the incarnation. Because if God is strictly speaking, pure act then the second hypostasis, the second person of Godhead can't actually be in time and space doing different actions. You see their act as purists would compromise the reality of the incarnation, and it actually does. Now. If I were to say that to it Thomas, the first thing they would say is, we believe in the incarnation. Thomas believes that the second person, the Trinity,

became incarnate. I know that the objection is not do you believe that the objection is is it consistent with what you've already said? This is a different argument, And you tell them that blows past them. They're just going to recite to you what Thomas's position is about the incarnation, which we agree with.

Yeah, we agree the second hypostasis became incarnate. What we're saying is that if God is reducible to pure act, and his actions aren't reducible to pure act, and they're only conceptually distinct, then Jesus walking on water is only conceptually distinct from the conflagration. That's dumb. Clearly, the creating of the world is a divine power and action that is not purely a created effect. The power of creating is not created. The power of creating is not

a created effect. But in their system it is because everything collapses into the twofold scheme of God's cause created effect. But the power of creating itself is not an effect. It's something God possesses. And God didn't have to create the world. So God had the capacity to create the world and chose to

create the world first actuality, second actuality. And as we progress through this conversation, he will consistently attempt to give analogies, an attempt to say things that try to allow for God willing certain realities to come to be, certain things to come to be. But that's not consistent with defining God as only second act And we've been hammering this for so long, and all he does is keep stating other Tomastic views and positions to try to make it work.

Right, pure, Yeah, exactly right. So I'm glad that he agreed that pure actual means God's will. The reasons say from that, right, we agree that. Okay, I don't, that's not my position, but that's no I know, that's what I understand the Tomust position to it. It's not controversial. We've all we've been saying this whole Well, yes, so there's no no unactualized capacities in God, right, yeah, because up there we go, there's no unactualized capacities. And when I start talking about

specific things that only makes sense in regard to the created order. He will attempt to introduce a distinction between the mental conception in God, in the divine mind of the created order, and the internal mental providence and the execution of that at extra. That's not what providence is. And by the way, there's not actually a distinction at intra at extra if God is reducible to pure

act. You see. In other words, it just keeps begging the question because if you say, well, God's reducible to pure act, but there are imminent divine ideas by which he can choose to create this or that, that's not consistent with what he just said. He just said God is second act with no unrealized capacities, and that's where he really begins to shoot himself in the foot. He would be imperfect Niste. Yeah, yeah, okay, So divine providence is not eternally actualized, or is it? Insofar as

it is an intitative act. It's always eternal in so far as there's an execution of effect. Notes. So now he's introduced to inction that divine providence is an imminent, intative act, but it's not executed forever. So now he's introduced two types of acts in God, acts that actually externally cause their effect and acts that are internal and intaitive in God. Right, But remember, how are we actually having all these different types of distinctions in God?

That all of the naming ultimately comes from predicates that are not actually matching up to the referent because when we talk about providence, school or or love or the power of creating, those are only virtually in our mind. If they were consistent, I could go on to say that, but the same way that you know that the persons are distinct is the same way that you know

the attributes. So you don't really have a basis to say that the distinction between the persons is a major, real distinction versus minor virtual distinctions of attributes. You can claim that, but you're introducing all of these levels into God, which in reality don't exist in God unless we assume your system in your position. But that's the thing in question. And so the same methodology by which he's going to say that the divine attributes signify a synonymous reality in the

thing itself, but in our minds are multiple. I can turn that around and say, why wouldn't it be the same thing for the divine persons. I know that you believe there's a major real attribute. I'm just getting you to try to tell me on what basis should I accept that you have an actual adjudication between major real and minor virtual. Do you understand that this is

just begging the question to introduce another type of distinction. Oh well, but there's these these well they're not really in God except for the major real ones. You see, it's just question begging. So you can layer on all of these different scholastic distinctions. But remember, at the base of it, all of these are known in the same way, which is by created analogia.

But how do we know that the created analogia when we predicate about the major really accurately matches up to the persons, versus when we do the minor virtual that it doesn't actually match up in reality? You see, it's all arbitrary. That's why I will start saying to him that the more distinctions that attacks on are arbitrary, and all he will ever do is just state the thumbus position over and over and over. And remember, now we've got other

levels of distinctions, major minor. So remember we've got major minor, begging the question that major and minor. Wait a minute, how do I know that that matches up? Because this is major and minor are actually the supercategory, or the more fundamental category by which to parse out names that apply that are minor virtual and names that apply that are major real like hypostases. Do

you understand that to keep stacking on these distinctions. I know he thinks that that's helping the system work, but all it's really doing is piling on more question begging, kicking the can down the road problems. And he they never get what you're asking. They never get this objection. And then when you say you're not addressing the objection, he'll say, I am addressing it by

giving you more tomistic distinctions. But the distinctions beg the question, and aren't ask answering my objection, which is very specifically and very precisely that the twofold distinction between major and minor itself is the presupposition that you can't justify. How do we know that you actually have the right list between the two, And god, well, it must be by a necessity and because I conside Aristotle blah blah blah blah blah. Oh, how can you have the action of

divine providence but there's no execution of that act? Sure, so let me give you an example of creation which will make it easier. So we have creation. You believe that creation, consider it as an act? So he will define creation by what. By the way, again, you're notice how he's not going to answer the objection because my question was divine providence or the action of create, the act of creating. I'm asking about that itself, and he's just gonna say, well, the cause is eternal God, the

effect is temporal creation. No, no, that's not the question. That is eternal so God never began. That's that's not true. Yeah. No, I'm seeing my position right, And I'm saying that that's not biblical theology because I'm saying that if you're considered that it would lead to eternal creation, it would lead to the originous position. Okay, you can't think that, and I'm disagreeing. I'm just laying out my position. I thought you were

here to lay out to our position. I'm listening, Okay, So creative action considered as an action is eternal. Considered in its termination is created. Action considered in its action is eternal. Notice he said that creative action in God. Okay, how does God act to create? But it doesn't eternally affect that action? Yeah? Sure so, because God's alitional agent. Remember

creative acting, the action to create is eternal. And what you're going to notice is that as he fleshes this out, the words themselves no longer have the meaning that they mean, right, because he's going to bypass the actual meaning of the word. The action to create is eternal. That's an eternal action according to him, and it has to be if God is defined as second actuality. And then he'll say that the termination of this eternal act is

temporal creation finite. So that's just the creaturely effect. But now wait a minute. Do you notice what's happened here? And this is the only reason they're doing this is because they want to try to believe in creation. X nelo. I understand Roman Catholics in Thomas that you, like us, we all affirm creation, x nelo. The problem is that this is not consistent. I know you believe this in creation, x neilo, but you just

said that the action to create is eternal. If this word has any meaning, if it's an eternal action, then what comes forth, what it corresponds to, must also be eternal or else this no longer has meaning. And actually, in Thomasm the words, as we begin to see, they lose their meaning. This doesn't actually mean this anymore because it's all cashed out in the twofold scheme of cause and effect, eternal cause, created effect. We're

not asking do you believe in a created effect? We're asking on what basis is it consistent to say that the effect is created in temporal when the action is not created in temporal. And he's going to say that the mine will, but the divine will is just as eternal and necessary as this as he will say, and that's why I keep saying. Then therefore it doesn't answer the objection, and he just keeps restating it. And volitional agent determines not

only the conditions of the effect, but also it's time. So because God is a volitional agent. Yeah, I know you believe that there's a divine will. I'm not asking you if you believe that, I'm asking you how it's consistent that there's an eternal action of creation, but the effect is temporal

because God only wills it to be temporal. Then this does not mean what you think of me is Now there's a distinction between the eternal actions in God, which are from all eternity, and the actions that he exercises towards the created order, which are not eternal, namely the power of creating. Now, why do you think Roman Catholics, as Palamas said to barleyam God wrested from his works on the seventh day? Does that sound like the power of

creating is an eternal action? So you don't actually believe God rested from his works on the seventh day. And if you read Augustine, because of his neo Platinian platinus neo Platonic doctrine of the monad in confessions, he struggles with this. He says, I don't understand how we could say God rests from his act of creating on the seventh day. God rested. That means he

did not continue the act of creating. And all they ever do to answer this objection it's and it's not an answer is to say the effects are temporal and created. I know that we know that's your position, man, But it's not answering the objection, and you'll see that it doesn't. So God's from only turn into you ill, is that this effect takes place like let's see in two thousand. Yeah, but you're just now he's saying that God's

will imposes that the eternal act of creating is only a temporal effect. That's nonsense. Now you've introduced new layers of distinctions which don't match up. And I hope Father Deacons able to come on here in a little bit because we're almost getting to the end here. That's not answering the question. That's just stating the difference between eternity and time, and that you think that there's cause

and effect. I'm asking how it's possible in the metaphysical scheme to be consistent to say that there's an eternal realization of providence that doesn't have an eternal corresponding. What corresponds to that? So the effect should be just as eternal as the cause. And their answer is that, well, God doesn't will it to be. Yeah, but God's will is identical to his essence. God's will is identical to his eternity. God's will is identical to Providence in their

view. No, no, dislets your confusing realization in so far, I know you make that distinction, but it doesn't because now providence doesn't make any sense because you've equated providence with divine glory and all these other attributes. So again, remember he wants a different meaning for the creative power, but he's also defined the creative power as identical to the other attributes like glory and love.

Remember that they're only conceptually distinct. Well, they're only conceptually distinct. Then they really don't do us any good because we don't know if it's actually matching up to the thing itself, and the prior distinction itself has to be true to know if you can distinguish major real and minor virtual. Father de you can. I hope you're hearing this and that you can comment on this in a minute. Okay, okay, So you think that God did until

he'sn't have a plan before creating. Now he's switching it over to the divine plan for the created order, which, yeah, we all believe that God has in the divine mind, the divine ideas. This is why Saint Maximus calls them the thought wills and they are not the divine essence. Saint or Thomas Aquinas believes that divine ideas are the divine essence, and that is right here in Suma question first one part first part, Question fifteen. I'll give

it in the chat for you. Right here you can see that for a Quainas, the divine ideas are absolutely identical to and synonymous with the divine essence. So the divine ideas are actually in that category that we mentioned earlier of

the major of the minor virtual distinct distinction. Again, just assuming that we know that that's actually correct, right, the divine ideas are also part of that category of things in God. Notice we're basically drawing out a giant algorithm and list of planes and levels of existence in God, which Pallemism does as well. But their system is saying that, well, these a lot.

Really this is all just deriving from human conceptual distinctions from analogia. Yeah, exactly, so that it's not actually corresponding to realities in the thing itself, which he's already admitted. And so if that's the case, then what he just said, we don't even know if that holds up, because it's another layer and level of distinction within God. And he's gonna tack on another one

here in a minute. The plan is not identical to the execution in your exact In his system, the plan, the divine ideas are the divine essence. Thomas says it right there for you in that Suma, in that section. And it must be held that the divine ideas are many. But again

they're many as they impose themselves upon us. They're not many actually in the Divine essence though so therefore, every creature has his own species, and in likeness of degree to the divine essence, God knows his essence, and thereby knows himself. By knowing his essence, the divine essence contains all of the divine ideas. And by the way, Whipple in his book on the Suma,

uses this as one of the arguments for why there is analogia. But again, remember it doesn't work to just say that, well, well, there's analogia between creatures and God because of the divine ideas. Right that's Thomas says that in that section. Okay, but how do we know that that's the case? You see, because remember the mode of existence of the divine ideas in the divine essence is not like creatures, but it's supposed to be

the blueprint and the pattern of the creatures. Well, creatures are really many. Did you notice that? Do you notice that creatures are actually many? They're not one? And so what their answer is that? Well, in the divine mind, the mode of the existence, the divine ideas might seem to us to be many, but it is actually one, and it is the divine essence. Oh okay, then the divine ideas, which are the patterns for the created order, are necessary and eternal. Therefore creation is necessary

and eternal. This is a Platonius turn. Do we see this? I know that you don't believe creation is a necessary emanation. I'm saying that you should say that if you were consistent, because you don't have the essence inery distinction. It's not execution. But that's why you need a distinction between essence and energy. No, it's a distinction of action and effect action. You know. Remember now he's made a new distinct. So the action to create

is eternal, the effect is temporal. So God is eternally acting to create, but willing that it only be temporal. Do you see that that doesn't match up, it doesn't work. And remember that the action to create is synonymous with glory and eternality and it's necessary. Remember he said that the attributes are necessary, and he classed this attribute amongst them, the power creating, because you've already defined the action of the buying, providence and creation as eternal.

Therefore the effect must be eternal as an act, not as an effect. That considered as an act, God is eternally creating, but the effect is temporal. I'm saying that's inconsistent the action. How does God eternally act to create but there's not an eternal corresponding effect of that? Okay, are you done? Yeah? So I remember God has no unrealized capacities, there's no first act. God is pure second act. If God's is God's messence

necessary? Yeah, God's assness is necessary. Okay. So remember now he's going even further into exactly what I hope they would say. So let's list these attributes or these and these powers creating, glory, love, providence. All are necessary, All are necessary? Is there the other attributes necessary? Every ever we want to attributes are necessary? So every attribute of God and power of God is necessary creating glory, love, providence, which are all

in reality synonymous, our nest necessary. How is that a God who creates by free will. I'm not asking you if you contradict yourself tomist and then turn around and believe in free will. I'm pointing out that that's not consistent. You see two different arguments. I don't need you to tell me in fifty other places that Aquaintas believes in creation Nextnilo. We all know that, and that's why we keep saying that you're not addressing the objection. The objection

is that it's inconsistent to talk about creation by free will. We know you believe that creating, glory, love, providence all are necessary. Creating is necessary. If it's necessary, then it's not by God's free will that he created. But everybody confesses that God freely created the world and not out of any necessity. So you see where he's beginning to go with this, and he's he's just going to keep tacking on more other Tomistic positions which don't address

the objection. Creating is necessary, Can ansider it as an act on the part of God, be called it initatively necessary, primitively streets So now there's different a new distinction. So intitatively it's necessary, but not in its effect in its terminus. Right, so we have inentitative versus the terminus another distinction, right. And I'm not mad that he's going to make these distinctions.

But my point is just that you can pile on all the distinctions you want between entitative and the creative effect or what the what it terminates in this is just another layer of something that we don't know that that's justified, you see. So it's just piling on more distinctions that aren't addressing the objection. So it's fine that you believe all those things we understand, but how do you know that? I mean, is the entitative versus the the transitive and the

termative and all this that you're later going to talk about. How much categories does that fit into? Are those major real? Are they minor? Virtual? Distinctions? In gone that's o no, no, no, no, no, yes, it is explain why you're just all you do is interjective distinction. No distinction is inconsistent because that's if you don't want to hear our positioned And why yet no, I understand that's the tumb of position. The

distinctions are just intended to try to rescue the position from necessary creation. Right, that's what he's trying to rescue. It's ad hoc rescue. And so you just come up with the distinction. Oh, well, the effect is created, but the action is eternal. Well, then the action doesn't. The meaning of that action no longer has any meaning. Eternal creating but temporal

effect. Why because God wills it to be that way. Yeah, but the divine will is synonymous with the drine essence, and both are necessary. Therefore creation's necessari And I've always understood that when I left it understood that's a position. And I'm saying that's inconsistent. You're just saying that. You're just saying, but the effect is created. You have a created effect of an eternal action. Yeah, the action should just be the effect should be as

eternal as the act. No. Otherwise, the words creating a providence mean nothing, They don't make any sense. That only follows if the action you have to go okay, okay, okay, that can only fall. Yeah, I agree that if there's an eternal action, there has to be an eternal effect if the action is transient, But if you don't believe it. But here we have another distinction that he's going to try to draw between imminent acts and trent acts or transitive acts. Right. So, and we're gonna

see once again that how do we know that this distinction holds? And he's gonna draw analogies from guess what, creation And the analogy that he's going to give is very similar to Bradshaw's analogy. Right, the creation is a transitent intection within them and intection. So because the tin of theemin intection remains in the criminals of the emin intection is intrinsic action and there's no need for defect to be positive in them and intection, you don't need to have any trinal

effect. Yeah, but creating is not an internal imminent action in God. That's what's under dispute here. And so he's trying to retreat into the vine ideas that God has a plan for the creative order. That's not addressing the question. The question is not you can't escape it by saying that this is an imminent action, right, because imminent action is not in the direct category of action. The second actions are called transitory action or transit actions. Right.

And if you look this up, if you look into tomistic and Scholastic theology. It doesn't rescue the objection because, first of all, imminent activity in God is synonymous with the divine essence and is necessary. So even if he tries to say this, it doesn't do anything for him. It's just introducing another distinction to have God thinking about and knowing the divine plan of the creative order versus God willing to exercise that. And that's why I'm going to

ask him. Yeah, but doesn't God have in his mind the knowledge up doesn't even know all the possible worlds, and yet he doesn't actualize all of them. So there's capacity in God in the case of transing detection because transingtection necessarily proceeds from the agent to the patient. So if there's a transing pation,

now you've introduced a new distinction into God. Right, Yeah, of course there's transient So he's introducing a distinction to get around the objection by saying that there's imminent action in God and transient action that refers to the receiver of the agent's action. Right, But this is all just questioning acts and there's eternal acts. What are transit acts? No? No, no, no, you believe that thought's action. So first let me define two. Yeah,

okay, I'm going to explain it. So the emin intaction, as theirs thought explains in Metaphysics Books None, chapter eight, the emin intactions and action whose terminus is in the agents. He gives the example of acts of

new Ingaenville, and Venue. Again, this doesn't work for God and the created order because the point is that the divine ideas in the Divine mind are eternal and are just as necessary as the divine nature because they're identified to the in the divine Do you understand that they're identical to the divine essence, The divine plan the create order is identical to the divine essence. Therefore, if they're identicals, then they're also necessary. Therefore, the plan of the created

order necessitates an eternal creation that comes forth. So the originists and even Aristotle on this point are more consistent because if you're saying that God is an eternal, for example, actualizer, there must be something that he actualizes other than himself. Right. If God has an eternal, necessary created order, then he must exercise that. And he's already said the action of creating is eternal. But they're saying, but the terminus, they're saying that the effect is

temporal. We know that, and we're saying that that is inconsistent because it's a creation in time. It's a work that is specific in time. And this is where they start to have problems with God being in time and space. Baser says that God cannot be in time and space. He says that in the chapter on the Plotinian argument for God's existence, he says, that's

a good argument we can borrow. We can use Plotinus's argument that God cannot be in time and space because it would require him to change and undergo change. Oh, good job undercutting the incarnation, because the incarnation is the second hypostasis of the Godhead in time and space, really doing actions in time and space, not just human actions, not just created effects, divine actions. John Damascus says walking on water is a demonstration of a specific divine act,

a divine power in time and space. You know, saying Thomas can't say that. Thomas have to say that everything Christ does in time and space is a created effect because they believe it would compromise their doctrine of simplicity and their doctrine of pure act and so all of this philosophy philosophizing undercuts the incarnation. And remember, at the end of the day, Roman Catholicism is no longer this scholastic tomistic thing that Internet nerds are all obsessed with. Roman Catholicism is

Francis. You can larp all day long that Roman Catholicism is medieval monastics and some you know monastery somewhere snorting book dust all day long and writing vast tones of thousands of pages. That doesn't exist anymore. You live in a fantasy world. The reality is Francis in Rome. The reality is the Abu Dhabi Faith Center. So we can get into all the weeds of all of this. At the end of the day, this system failed, This system is

no longer held in Rome as the normative system. They don't care that Leo the thirteenth said that scholastic Toomism is the official teacher. Francis doesn't care. Francis just paid a document called the Alexandria Document, which concedes the orthodox critiques of the papacy. Go read the Alexandria Document. That's the reality of Rome. That's where your church really is. It doesn't exist in the fantasy world of Internet and Thomas on the Internet and twenty year old guys in some other

country spurging out over this that doesn't exist in reality. It's Francis, that's the reality. It's the assy meetings that are the reality. And all of this is a distraction from that, because this stuff is not your church anymore. This is medieval stuff. And you all know this, and this is why you get so mad and play the gatcha game something the acts of knowing. When Bill something, the acts of filling is in you, whereas there's a transient action which is not in you but in the thing. It's in

the thing that is acted at possible. All he's stating is that the transient action is the created order that receives the effect of being created right, that receives the coming into being, and so forth, once again cashing everything out as to cause and effect dual scheme, never addressing the specific objection, which is about the power creating itself, always coming up with twofold distinctions intitative, the terminus, the imminent, the internal, the external, recipient whatever.

None of that addresses all these dents, restating other Tomistic views of cashing things out as cause and effect agent recipient not address. This doesn't address objection. For example, if you build the house. Yeah, but the action of creating is not attornings. All you're doing is inventing distinctions that don't answer the question. You're just saying, oh, well, there's another distinction. There's

another distinction. I know that he's not literally himself inventing them. I'm saying that the scholastic position invents distinctions to make systems work, and that's notorious for scholasticism, and it only attracts these hyper spergy people who will eventually when they figure out that their worldview in their church doesn't believe the stuff anymore, will cause them to have a crisis of faiths. The distinctions are inconsistent with what

you're saying. So it's all you're doing. If you let me lay out my position, you're nothing consistent. Laying out your position is just stating what you think is the case. That doesn't make it consistent because it's not anti So again I'm giving objections and he's saying, let me just keep laying out the position. Laying out the position, let me lay out more of the

position. That's not an argument. We're already passed. We agree what Tomism teaches, and so he's just let me, let me say more Tomism though asking why it's a consistent but it's just inventing a new neo school. It's a scholastic distinction to say, oh, well, the problem is resolved by saying that there's two different types of acts, and it's all it's doing is

restating by saying there's a transitive versus a nontransitive act. It's restating the very original question, which was, how is the action of God, which is eternal directed towards creation, not affecting eternal creation? And you're saying, well, because there's transitive action, there's imminent acts, right, That's what I'm trying to explain. Any that distinction is just another kicking the candem. How do we know that that distinction is actually in God? That's the point.

And he's just gonna lay out more Temism because again, how many distinctions have we had? Now piled up a lot of them, and again maybe maybe that isn't God, but you understand that it's an ad hoc rescue when you pile them on and don't address what the objection is. The objection has been consistently. The attributes are all identical, so we don't know if it's telling

us anything about the actual object. When we ask for that grounding in the object, you said it's in the mind, and you said a bunch of begging the question that, well, it's just the external object. God impresses that upon our mind. There's a power that he possesses that impresses that upon our minds. That's what we want to know. How do we know that that's the case based on created analogs to these attributes, which are not actually

multiple, they're actually all just one. Do you see that it cancels out the reality of those things does not correspond to what they are in our virtual conception. The mode of their existence totally different. And so what's it all based? Well, but there's an analogy between them? That's the how do we know that that? You're just saying that on what basis do we match that up? Given the way you cash out divine simplicity. That's never answered,

it's never addressed. They just brush past it. It doesn't answer the objection. All they do is introduce new distinctions. You're saying you can invent and distinction these distinctions all day long, but they don't answer the objection. They do know they don't, so they just do do they answer? They just do. It's adding on new distinctions in the system. Okay, So I mean so if you just add another distinction, how does that answer the

question I'm trying to ask her, and you're just cutting me out. Like, so, let's be clear about imminent activity, right, and you can find different academic sites for this for the sake of the audience. Eminent activity in the ristilianti mystic tradition is very precise. It is an activity that has no product, and of itself is perfective of the agent that carries it on. So it's an an internal sort of It doesn't I can think about and he'll use the example, or he maybe he already did. Uh, you

know, in two years, I want to build a house. This does not work. When you've already said that God is second act. There's no such thing as a distinction between imminent activity that doesn't necessitate the actual effect. The power of creating cannot be a purely eminent activity distinct from the external at extra effect. Otherwise, God is not second act anymore, because what he's

wanting to introduce is that God can will to create or not. But remember God's will is synonymous with the divine essence and is eternal and is necessary, So every act is eternal unnecessary. But no, it's not. Because there's imminent ones and then there's transitive external recipient ones. You're just inventing distinctions that are not consistent with what you what you previously said, it's an ad hoc rescue. Stating the system. You don't understand. It's not Thomas. You

guys think. You guys think that stating your system is an argument the system. You don't understand. It's not Thomas. You guys think. You guys think that stating your system. I hope that Father you can can come on and talk about knowing the first cause what's better known by us versus what's known in itself, because a lot of this pertains back to the Aristotelian principle that

undergirds a lot of Tomaism and undergirds the analogia. And Father Digga Duck right now says a lot of good talks and works on that very very Tom We're almost done. No, I'm not just taking my system. I'm proving getting all all you having, so all he's done is state thomasm. And now he's saying, I've proven my system. He didn't prove Jack. And this is where I am starting to get annoyed because everything has been fine up until not we've agreed, until I start to ask questions, I start to raise

objections, and he says, I'm proving my system. All you've done is state your system. But this is how these people think. They literally think that when you state tomaism, it's proving it all you have it. No, I'm proving attain. You were saying, oh, you don't have a response, and you think the proof is just stating new distinctions that don't answer the question. It doesn't answer the question. How I'm telling you're not letting me. I'm let him talk for the last twenty minutes. What do you

mean, I'm not letting him totally? Not. This is where it starts to getting letting you talk. You've talked all the time. No, every time I speak and say, oh, that's a new distinction list because it's you think I didn't start interrupting and bumping into it. But until about seventeen minutes into his thing, and by the way, he said after about five minutes that I could talk anyway. I think that laying out a position is

an argument. That's not what an argument is. Yeah, but if I don't lay out my position, how are you godn't know what my response is? When are you going to address the objection? Because I've asked you the same question like four times and you just keep I didn't answer your question. I said, from any trinal action, it's not it's begging the question. It's begging the question. You're just moving the can back and stuff by introducing

a new No. Yes, of course, because but look, each one of the distinctions just he states the divide between God and world, cause and effect. It's not addressing the objection. Yes, I'm interesting the objection. No, you're not stating your possession addressing Jay Jay if my name, just address the argument. Okay, what should I call you? You don't have to repeat my name, just address the argument. Okay, Sorry, I'm sorry. Okay. So I'm saying that from any trinal action, tnal effect

follows. If the action is formally transient, how are we granting and knowing that the distinction between imminent and transient is the case. Again, he's just stating that, well, there's these different types of things. You see another another layer and level of distinction. Right, I want to know why should we think that's the case, especially given all of the other things that have been said, and what does he do just keep stating the position. I'm

saying that that that distinction is an ad hoc distinction. That doesn't I'm not saying, by the way, when I when I call the distinction ad hoc, I'm not saying that that's not a toomistic position, right, because if you look up you know scholastic philosophy. Yeah, Thomas and Aerosol talk about this. I'm saying that it's not functioning as he repeats this position to do the work that he wants it to do. It's not answering my objection.

Okay, that's why it's at It's an ad hoc rescue against my argument. I'm not saying that the Thomas don't believe this. I know that they do. Okay, Okay, let's be give you an example. Suppose that I'll pay attention to his example, because this is a key point where he makes a big mistake. His example is not actually going to work to the question

of creating. He's going to use a creaturely example, which is very silar two kinds of examples that Bradshaw is for first act and second act right, and his example is not gonna work for what he wants it to do. It doesn't correspond to God in creation punched the wall. Okay, can you hear me? Yeah, you're punching off the wall and wall getting punched are simultaneous, right, M. Yeah, So that's it. That's an example of transin tections. So the cause and effect are simultaneous. M. And

then there's an action called emminenttection, such as active filing. You can able to build a house like now, but you can actually build it like to your boom. You hear that, let's hear it that repeat it, because this is the capacity's first and second actuality argument. This is the point where their position is not consistent. This is why I was hammering first and second act earlier on, and he agreed earlier on that God is only second act

right exactly. Now he wants to use an analogy of a power in a capacity that I don't have to actualize. This is where he messed up. Let's repeat it. So that's an example of transintection, so the cause and effect are simultaneous, and then there's an action called emminenttection, such as active building. You can't able to build a house like now, but you can

actually build it like two years later. So it guess what, You just shot yourself in the foot, because that is an example that requires first act as a capacity and second actuality as an actualization. That doesn't exist in God. According to you, that's when you messed up. The effect doesn't have

to follow just because you have an action in mind. Just because you want to build the house, that doesn't mean you're actually going to Yeah, but God doesn't as an analogy to God because God is pure No, it doesn't. God is pure act. Therefore that analogy does not work. He used a creaturely analogy of a capacity that I don't have to actualize. Earlier, he said, God is pure act with no unrealized capacities, only second act. And this is what you guys are all thinking that you had this great

gotcha. So this is the essence of the debate. I'll play the last couple of minutes. Then he just starts getting alsoy about me, saying that the conversation was bullshit. He acts like I attacked him. Well, are you custing? So I didn't insult you, I said the conversation is bullshit, because that would mean your your argument that you just gave there is based on first act and second act. Yes, it is first hold on, listen, you want me to make Look, I understand your position. So

let me put it this way. Let me ask you a question. Are there worlds that God could have created that he did it? Yeah? Of course, So not every potentiality is actualized, right, Yeah, because because duels are secondary objects, they're not on the part of God's acts, which is in stated. Well, hold on, it doesn't matter that they're quotes secondary objects because they're based on the divine ideas, which are in the divine

essence and synonymous with the divine essence. That's the point in terms of the divine ideas, that the divine ideas also contain all the possible worlds doesn't matter, because doesn't God possess in the divine essence all the ideas of all the possible worlds? Sure, then the possible worlds, which are divine ideas, are also just as necessary as the other ideas in the Divine essence because the mine essence is necessary, an eternal, and it's anonymous with the power creating

an act of action of creating. Okay, did he actualize all the possible worlds? No? Because the divine there's capacities of potential and God. No. No, no, His very example of me thinking about building a house, having the power to do it, and waiting to actualize it, right, is a creaturely capacity first act moved to second act example, which doesn't apply to what he says about God, who he said earlier is only second act, only pure act. Yes, no, yes, I'm explaining how

that doesn't follow. He doesn't explain it. He just gives more tomistic position every time. This is all they ever do. Should follow, But you're not consistent, that's the point. No, no, it does. It actually does not follow. By Yeah, I'm explaining because all of those possible worlds that you call those are considered as secondary objects of the divine relation.

Now since Field he's talking about the creative effects, right, But it doesn't matter because the creative effects are based on all of the divine ideas of the possible worlds and the actual world that God created that are also in the divine essence, and they're also anonymous. Remember how he defined the minor virtual distinction of the attributes. That's the same for the divine ideas in Tomism, and you can go read that in Whipple. This is inconsistent, though I understand,

Yes, it is. I understand that you believe. I mean every time I explain something, because I already know this position. I've had this debate for like, no, no, no, no, I don't think you do an every time I do understand the consistent without giving any arguments. So he knows I understand the position because we already got fifteen minutes in and he understood. We both understood that we're saying the same position. So he

knows I'm not misunderstanding the position. But he's not addressing the objections that I brought up. Number one, This is not the first time I brought these objections. These are objections we brought up. I've been bringing up these objections since I first learned to them, at least ten or twelve years ago. I'm gonna get say, oh, that's bullshit. You want to do you

want to just cut this off? We won't conversation. Why are you insulting me, I said that is bullshit, and now he's mad that quote I'm insulting him. It's not an insult to you to say that what you said right there's bullshit. That's just that's just how normal dudes talk. I'm sure that in these circles there's not normal dudes. But I mean, when I'm talking to my bros, we say, that's a bunch of bs. Okay, you tuldn't get your feelings hurt over that. That's it the end of

the discussion right there. So we're gonna open it up. Hopefully everybody can understand. I've got I'm ready to talk to any Thomas that want to talk, and you can make whatever points you want. Don't get butt hurt and start crying about me saying something's BS. If I think it's BSSBS, big deal. And there's quite a few people here, I guess actually there's not that many people here. There's ninety on Twitter. Any of anybody who wants to come on can talk, request to speak, uh, father deacon on

if you wanted to talk or not. But Danny, what's up, Danny? I guess it's connecting for him. Go ahead, Danny, h Well, it's trying to connect to him. We'll go to Garrett. What's up, Garrett, m We got all blurred out? What's up? Garrett? Can nobody connect you Gotta? I'm mute if you would. Also, you can support the stream vias super chats. Nobody wants to talk naktarios. What's up? Hello? What's up? Hey? Jake? Uh? I had a quick question on baptism and the reception of heterodoxy. Okay, that's not

the topic today. Man. I'm not trying to be rude to you, but like it's all about tomism. So Jesse, what's up? You gotta? I'm mute? Man, Hey Jake, thanks for taking time to answer a few questions. I had a bit of a mini challenge for you.

Let me preface the question with this quick observation. I'm finding in my conversations and just society in general, that we're just not really a philosophically literate society, Like we don't really value rigorous thoughts and like even using basic terms like epistemology, ontology, blah blah blah, claims those just go over I would say ninety five percent of people's heads. And I'm not claiming that like I'm an arm chairful. I'm like, I'm from the side look looking at this

stuff. So a lot of this, a lot of philosophical arguments can go over are a bit too lofty for me as well. I get the sense that when this is your audience, not you, it's specifically, but in general, people just end up hearing like a word salad and it just gets dismissed because they just it just goes over their heads. So here's my question. Could you explain the transcendental argument for God to say a ten or twelve year old? Could you could you like simplify to that degree, considering this

audience doesn't know much about philosophical terms and whatnot. I mean, we've done many talks, you know, where we make a kind of a easier, simpler presentation of TAG. I mean today we're talking about you know, tomism in these issues. But I think the easiest way to make TAG for younger

people is to talk about how arguments the argument from the ethical angle. I mean, if if there aren't if there is no transcendent realm at all, if God doesn't exist, then there really is no basis for morals or for ethical claims, right and wrong. There's no basis for you know, saying this is good. This is about value. Judgments really don't have any way

to be grounded beyond pure subjectivity. So I think the easiest way to introduce it to you know, ten thirteen year old people is to say things like, you know, relativism is self refuting, right. These are elements of the transient argument, where you say things like there's no there is no truth. Well, that's a truth claim that there is no truth. Right, everything is relative. Well, that's contradicting the notion that everything is relative because

you're saying that this is objectively true. And if this is objectively true, then it's not the case that everything is relative. So these are kind of easy ways to introduce people to TAG, and I've met many teenagers over the years who have understood TAG at that level. Interesting. Yeah, that's that's

that's interesting. How would you were you were to take the next step and start to bring in issues like well, we assume mathematics or we get into that realm of like, yeah, that's taken it out of fix and into and knowledge and into metaphysics, and so metaphysics is usually you know, a little more difficult little more technical of a domain, and so it might be longer to wait. You might want to wait longer. By the way, all the Thomas and the chat like, I mean, we got an open

chat right here, and you can talk. But I'm not I'm not gonna ban you or boot you unless you do something right to make me do that. So you can come on and make your points. I mean, if you saw in the conversation with the guy, I mean, we went fine for the first first fifteen minutes. And so if you want to address those kinds of objections and if you want to get into the actual specifics of like

you know, tomistic metaphysics, let's do it. I mean, that's I'm giving you the Twitter space right there, and so I'm not trying to be mean to you, Jesse. I know those that those are good questions. But really this this stream was directed towards responding to a lot of these tomistic positions and claims and arguments. And father Deacon, are you there, are

you able to talk for a little bit? Would you speak maybe if you could to some of the topics that you and I've talked about for many years, and and you know, like your paper you talked about knowing the good Uh, well, knowing something as it appears to us versus as it is in itself. And you know, when you you did a good critique, I think of Thomas's you know, position that every effect contains a similarity to its cause. I mean, these are really the positions that underlie the tomistic

analogia. And that's the problem is that those are the things that are in question. Those are the things that are assumed when we have all of these various distinctions that the Scholastics put upon God. They're all still based on analogical predication. But how do we know that analogical predication holes and that it is the case. Maybe it is, but they always want this to just assume it. I don't know. Those that sounded like a bunch of words salad

demand. All right, Okay, here we go. What is known in itself versus what is known to us? Like that kind of stuff. So look, a quaintness gets something right and does acknowledge that our ability to reason and obtain truth depends on God as But the problem is that and this will end up being viciously circular, and you create an autonomous epistemology that can't do the work, but the preconditions for intelligibility don't need to be placed in God.

In other words, you can He has this. Basically, what's better known by nature is the cause, and what's better known to us is the effects. So the idea is that in the natural order of things of our inquiry, it's to start from things that are more noble to us. So we start with sense, perception, and all this different stuff, and then we proceed towards the things that Aristotle and acquaintance car clear in of themselves, like being God, et cetera. So temporarily speaking, the effects are then

first and then the cause. But an acquaintance realizes, but in the real order existence, it's the cause. It's first. Now, the problem with this is that's just a it's a metaphysical statement, right, It ignores the epistemological issues here that let me put it this way, it's putting your metaphysical

horse before the epistemological card. And so if so, that was a metaphysical description about causality the way the world is, and you know, causes, relate effects, et cetera, and our metaphysics determines that we can know and how we can know. But the problem is I have to know which metaphysics is correct. So like the your friends that you were, Militant Thomas that you're you're arguing with, all they're doing is telling a story. In one

sense, they're just giving you a metaphysical story. But giving a metaphysical story is not an argument, right, So when we're asking an argument, we're in the epistemological category. And the problem is you can't do what a Quaintas and Militant Thomas and these various people are doing. You can't put your metaphysical

horse before the epistemological cards. So if the metaphysics the correct view right, determines what and how you can know, but then I have to know prior to my metaphysics, so I know what my metaphys what the correct metaphysics is, right. This is a problem if you start off with this kind of

natural theology that I can build a system. Yeah, I can build a system autonomous from a presupposition and the only standard that could actually do the work as far as just location God, And then I'll get up to God, and then I'll retrospective and be like, well, but you know, after I figured it all out, and proven God, then I can say, well, of course he's the better known by nature and the cause of all

this. But the whole problem is you started your enterprise on shaky epistemological grounds, no epistemological grounds, We have no idea if that's actually correct, and so what ends up happening is something vicious circular. We'll just grant to me that it's actually true without me having to justify it, because the justifications of a ladder category, which is going to be dependent circular right on on my metaphysics, so that I can actually just my my metaphysics and epistemology. Do

you see the problem? Absolutely? Yeah, every Tomas is going to be demanding that we just grant him in that system, and they're not. They're not interested in epistemology. I mean, if we go into epistemology, they're gonna fold when it comes to questions of justification, self evidence, classical foundationalism and all that. And also, how do I know that that's even right?

What's better normal by nature versus what's exactly So this Aristotelian principle right, or you know, the paripotatic axiom, how do we know that the pariptatic axiom is actually the justified starting point. Yeah, because I can tell story, a metaphysical story. Yeah, that's what they'll do. They say, well, here's a grand metaphysical story. So it's to see if that's a

proof. Yeah, and if you get me on something, I'll just throw on an ad hoc rescue and to add another distinction on there to make the story even more Colm, that's why it's sorcery. Right, It's just it's all an illusion, right, It's just I'm gonna make it more and more complicated and look, to be fair, all all of the hope philosophers do this, right, you start getting to the heart of the matter, and what do they do. They make it more and more complicated, so you

can't actually see that it's a con. Yeah, that's why I kept saying that, really, all you're doing is just introducing more, introducing more and more distinctions without dressing an objection. It's like, and the reality Roman Catholicism is not this stuff, right. The reality Roman Catholicism is Francis and Abu Dhabi faith Center with the Muslims and Jews. Right, that's the reality.

It's not this stuff, but it's good to point out that this natural theology no point ten naturally leads, right, it's the natural outworking of Yeah, absolutely no explicitly is basing its perennialist approach to the world. Religions all having the same generic God on the tomistic idea of natural theology that we and natural theology is defined in fit us at ratio by John Paul the Second, as

Father Deacon points out, as philosophizing about God apart from divine revelation. Right, so it's autonomous, which is absurd, And this is an easy way to fleck. I was speaking to a ten year old a transidental organ what do you possibly think could be independent or a higher standard than God? They say nothing. That's like, then you've got the transidental argument. That's it. There is no independent starting point and there's no epistemic standard that's higher than

God that you prove God by. So you don't prove God. God is that by which you prove everything else. So it's a fundamental category mistake, right to think that, oh, well, I'm going to prove God. It's like, no, no, there has to be something. And everybody realizes this, you know, in both in philosophy and logic, there has to be something that's not proven but that's necessary, and is that by which proves everything else? And that's pretty straightway forward with stating the transitional argument.

What would you say, what specifically could you elucidate that point you were making about which is better known in itself versus that which is known by us? And you started that paper off that you wrote by by that quoting that from Aristotle, and how we're just as assumed that that's the case. Right, But it is that sort of begging the question, maybe it is the case, but why are we supposed to think that it is the case? Yeah, that's well, that's the question. Why should we Why should we think

that that's the case. So, because I've always thought that it's the principle of sufficient reason, that every effect has a cause that I can even I mean, look at hume, what human brings up? I don't even know cause and effect? How is that even possible from sense experience? Oh, you just gotta assume this metaphysical, this whole metaphysical story again, that you start from the effects which are clear to you. So that would be something

in the astemological category, but in the real order of things. Ontologically speaking, it's the cause that's farther away, as far as known, But the real order of things, that's what's most real. And so you've always got to perceive in this way. But think about how many think about how many presuppositions are loaded into that ye, about the nature of sensation, about the way that we know cause and effect, and furthermore, somehow I'm actually another

way that it's viciously circular. I know, what's the principle what's better known by us versus what's better known by nature? By what the principle of what's better known by us versus what's better known by nature? Do you see what I mean? Yeah, So that's a metaphysical and epistemological story that if I ask them, how do I know that that's true? What are they going to say? Because the metaphysical picture is true, that's how we know.

But that's what's in question, you see. Yeah, And that's a you know, great epistemic critique. What's the name of your paper? Is it still in the discord? I can put it in the chat too? Is the theory of knowledge? Yeah? Epistemological apolitic medics, the methods of the trip flaws. Let me put this in your YouTube chat right there, and in regard to the distinctions in God and the scholastic distinctions, it's in there.

Yeah, oh thanks, so everybody. Then the chat there is the Patristic faith linked to that paper that father Deacon wrote, kind of illustrating what he was critiquing about that which is better known by us versus what is known in itself that how do we know that that self evident principle is actually self evident? Right? Well, the tell mystic aristating position, just like the peripatetic axiom, says, well, it just has to be that way.

And by the way, we can go into why rhetorsion doesn't actually get you to justification later on. We've done that many times. Go back to that. I did a whole talk on the Russmannion paper which is about that. Let's read the super chats. I don't know, I mean, I gave this out link out to like countless Roman Catholics. I don't know where they're at. Blake, do you want to say something our black staff? Did you want to say something? Oh? Yeah, yeah, can you hear

me? Yeah? Yeah, okay. I kind of had two things, but One of the things that I'll bring up first is, uh, you know about Tomasm. I've read like a bit of the Suma, you know, and one thing that I find really confusing is he seems to say that the relations of opposition are themselves the essence correct, So how do you distinguish between the persons anymore at that point? Or is this just him being inconsistent. That's an inconsistently right, because he'll he'll make statements like that all the

time that for the worth of all we think are problematic Yaska tements. They'll just say, well, but elsewhere he says this, so yeah, yeah. And so the other thing that I wanted to bring up is something that I think gets overlooked by Roman Catholics when trying to understand the Orthodox position.

And I noticed this fanatic Thomas Dude posted this on Twitter earlier, a screenshot of a quote from Saint John Damascus Orthodox faithbook one about about generation being an act, about it well, about it being from the from the essence. Yeah, this is fundamental mistake. It's the essence of the father, right, It's not it's not the essence quite essence, because in the sun would

generate himself. Yeah, and I mean in context, if you go read it, really, what he's getting at is that the sun and the spirit are not a product of the will right there, naturally coming from this. It's a natural generation, not a you know, the Eunomies position is that

the sun is at work of will and energy. Yeah, and so what I wanted to ask you though, and this may kind of be off topics, so you don't want to get into it, that's fine, But I'm gonna think I got another podcastle I go to do in a minute, gog ahead, Yeah, Like, is there a sense in which we would say that the essence is sort of derivative of the father? Yeah, that's actually an the original nice scene Creed and it's an Athanasius that the son derives his

entire being, his existence is hypostasis and everything from the Father. Yeah. No, but I'm talking about the essence itself. It seems to me that, like, because the Father just is the way that he is, that kind of defines the way that the essence is. Would that be incorrect or what do you mean? How does the father being what he is, define

what the essence is? Because there's no ontological priority, right, there's so like in my mind, it seems that like the Father just is the way that he is, and he is God and he is the divine one who has the divine essence that he then communicates to the son and the spirit. M So it seems to me and and so like I see, Like that's why I was saying, I'm not sure about the term it being derivative of

because I don't want to bring in contingency per se, you know. But no, I think that I don't see why that would be a term. It's not a temporal derivation. It's an eternal derivation. Yeah, I mean, Jesus says that everything that he has he has from the Father, so

from signifies derivation. Yeah, But I'm talking more about like because they tend to start with the essence and then attribute all this stuff to the persons based on the essence, right, It's like I think that they get confused about the fact that the Father is like self determinant in all of his properties and everything, right yeah, because they don't start with the monarchia of of the

person of the Father, right. Yeah. I just think that that's something that they kind of really miss, is that like the Essence isn't defining the divine persons are No. Essence only exists in hypostatically in the persons that have it, and so person's first, not essence. Yeah, So I just wanted to kind of like run this by you a little bit because it's something I've been thinking about and make sure I had it kind of like framed right in my head. But that's all I got, all right, man,

Thank you great questions and points. I got a couple of super chats, and I gotta go run beyond somebody's podcast, So they're gonna be mad if I don't get over there, based and chase ten dollars? Is there salvation in the Roman Caloic Church? The Roman Catholic Church can't save you. But if Christ has a way by which he can unite people to his mystical body,

he can certainly do that like the thief on the cross. But the normandid means by which people are saved is through coming into the Orthodox Church. Thory and pie infusion, elector ten dollars, what's happening? Dire exposed cave to totally generousy. Oh he likes my NPC comedy video. Thank you, bon Jovi, nineteen twelve forty dollars is nominalism? Is this a nominalistic viewpoint? Tomasm? I mean tomasm is not identical to nominalism because Acquintus has a

form of realism. But many Thomas have argued that some of Thomas's positions, especially about universals, do anticipate later nominalist developments. So it gets really precise, but it kind of depends on what Thomas's status for universals is, and a lot of there's Tomastic debates amongst Thomas that's exactly what his position of universals is. But to me he seems to be more leaning nominalistic in my reading of Aquinas Cataclysm ten seventy three. Do the debate review with Orthodox Shahada and

also the Doctor Branson stream. Yeah, Doctor Branson and I are going to be doing a show very soon and we'll get into the monarchy of the Father more in depth with him, and I think orthdox Shad and I are doing a debate review. It's just we're trying to get it to where we can all do at the same time. Brand Will fifty dollars day, I love your stuff. How do we bring Orthodox people from the furry world. I mean, I mean, well, they're gonna have to just give up furry

stuff first. So I don't have any insights on furry outreach. I don't have the furry outreach program. So I just think that's a weird, odd community. It's creepy. So they're gonna have to just give up that stuff they need. Jesus. I was wanting to know how you go about it, if you have any ideas, I guess be nice to them and tell them to come to church and then tell them to throw away their cat costumes. Do you have twenty dollars? Think everythingalysis? Can you upload the TikTok

debate? It's on my rock fan truth Seeker twelve ten dollars? Tell us believe that person in nature are identical to essence. Do you hold this position? Well, person in nature exists in the mode of the person has it's in iposthtize, But nature and person are not identical in a strict sense. That would be modalism. Why don't you argue this more often? We argue all the time. I've probably got thirty podcasts that argue about the nature person

distinction. You typically talk about the relation between the attributes and the essence, but not persons and essence, because Thomas will just say that Thomas believes in a major, real distinction between the persons. But it's true that between nature and essence. Thomas consistently says that what I lost people are talking about nonsense. Yeah, I mean so a Quantas has these statements, and you saw Ybara repeat it like a couple of years ago, right, that nature and

person are identical. Yeah, maybe I need to focus on that more. King, I tell a five dollars. Prime supports the fanatic Thomas on Twitter. Of course he does. I mean he argues all these Roman Catholic positions. He argued is that we believe in and Selmian and penal substitution, Augustinian stuff, and then I called him out on that. So of course he's going to agree with anybody who goes against me. So I mean, if Prime wants to go off into Roman Catholicism, I mean that's the direction he's

head it. In Aasgar one forty four is to incarnate a divine action, correct, So what does this imply for identity thesis and an eternal incarnation or Patripassianism. Yeah, if God's an absolutely simple essence, then it should be the incarnate. It should be the Divine Essence that incarnated. If person in nature are absolutely identical, then uh yeah, it would seem to follow the

Divine Essence became incarnate. But it's not the Divine Essence, it's the Divine's son who Again they all the whole problem is that their order of theology is wrong. They start with the Divine Essence, they start with a absolutely simple monad. They don't begin with the person of the Father. And so go watch doctor Bill Branson's lectures. It will cure your Tomism. And I think that's all the super chats heading over to chalk dot com us the promo code J fifty