UPDATE on the continued disthomism of Doc Angelic of feserismisnotthomism.wordpress infamy, part I
Given that the disthomist critic of Dr. Feser has updated this section of his ill-informed attack, some additional remarks seem to be in order.
As our blog argues (meeting no substantial argument from Doc), the usage of "personal God" and its cognates on the part of the Church and St. Thomas is not "enthuasistic" in any sense serious enough to justify his wild speculations concerning Dr. Feser. Contrary to Doc Angelic's assertion, it has not "been used from earliest times in the Church in definitions of the Faith and in the liturgy". The usage seems to have increased with the necessity of countering errors connected to pantheism arising in force by the end of the 19th century, as is indicated in the sources quoted in the first post. But even then it's not so significant as to entail, absolutely, viewing the non-usage of the English term as seriously suspicious, "a declaration in itself" etc.
A somewhat technical aspect demands attention: even in the passage of the Summa quoted by Doc, St. Thomas doesn't actually employ "(a) personal God". The saint writes:
"I answer that, “Person” signifies what is most perfect in all nature—that is, a subsistent individual of a rational nature. Hence, since everything that is perfect must be attributed to God, forasmuch as His essence contains every perfection, this name “person” is fittingly applied to God; not, however, as it is applied to creatures, but in a more excellent way; as other names also, which, while giving them to creatures, we attribute to God; as we showed above when treating of the names of God"
He says that "person" can be applied to God. What does Aquinas mean by person? "A subsistent individual of a rational nature". One should note that indefinite articles mandated by English are absent in the Latin. Obviously, this applies to all the loci quoted in the first part of our response that were originally written in Latin. Importantly, "a person" can connote something that is part of a genus (something personalists seem to maintain about God), something that is directly contrary to the saint's teaching. This isn't quibbling (and if it is, it is Aquinas' and Dr. Feser's). Nor is Dr. Feser championing the supposed ban on the word "personal", not even apparently, in fact; he uses it instead.
In the latter's post, for example, he replies to a personalist attack:
As I've noted many times that the classical theist does not deny that God is personal, and indeed typically insists on attributing the key personal attributes of intellect and will to God. Certainly the Christian classical theist does not regard God as “an abstract object, a universal, a force” etc. So to cite biblical passages in which God is described as personal by itself cuts absolutely no ice. Christian classical theists are well aware of those passages and accept them just as much as Dale does. Hence, if Dale means to imply that the classical theist regards God as impersonal, then he is simply attacking a straw man.
More likely, Dale just doesn’t agree that the passages in question are best interpreted the way the classical theist would interpret them. Evidently he supposes that in order to think of God as personal, you have to regard him as “a being” alongside other beings and “a person” alongside other persons, rather than as Being Itself and Intellect Itself. “Jesus is literally a self,” he writes, “and so can’t be Being Itself” (emphasis added). But of course, the classical theist doesn’t think this follows at all. The classical theist thinks his own understanding of what it means to describe God in personal terms is perfectly compatible with the Bible, rightly understood. Dale merely assumes, rather than argues, that this is false. Hence he simply begs the question.
<...>
Dale gives us no reason at all, then, to doubt that a “God” who is composed of substance and accidents, genus and specific difference, essence and existence, or in any other way is less than absolutely simple, is also less than divine. Indeed, his proposals merely reinforce the conclusion that a “God” who is merely “a being” rather than Being Itself or merely “a person” rather than Intellect Itself, is necessarily also only “a god” rather than God. Qua metaphysically complex, such a god can only ever have a god complex -- delusions of true divinity but not the real McCoy. To paraphrase J. B. Phillips, the god of theistic personalism is too small. Or as the Hulk would put it…
Any informed reader of Dr. Feser's blog could testify that he is quite clear in his non-pantheism (for example, here). As all of his natural theology work indicates, he clearly maintains that God has personal attributes and calls them that. Now this is something that truly can be proved many times over, for a change. Belief in God's personality by itself does not necessitate any special preference for the usage of the concrete term "(a) personal God", as the sources indicate. The charge is evidently based on a factual error about them (and what seems to be mind-reading).
That's it.
* * *
For some reason, Doc saw fit to add this bit of clear nonsense:
"Lately, Dr. Feser has renewed his efforts to create a civilisational war between ”classical theists” and ”personal theists”. Obviously, St. Thomas Aquinas was never perturbed by this, limiting himself to wonderfully explaining why our words and thoughts are indeed to be applied analogically to God. Why the feserist sense of crisis? Today, the world and the Church are not any more in danger of being destroyed by anthropomorphism when it comes to God that they were in the 13th century."
More brute asssertions: now it's not only total war that Dr. Fesers supposedly preaches, it is also "civilisational"; also, it's "theistic personalists"; but I'd like to note that previously Doc granted the legitimacy of engaging with problems not contemporaneous for Aquinas. As for the last remark, I urge Doc to supply examples of the 13th century prominent natural-theological anthropomorphists and/or, say, exponents of things set to tune of the "problem of evil", the “one god further” objection, "evil-god-challenge" (rather obviously rooted in non-classical theist notions of divinity) etc., that constituted a peculiar danger back then, but not today.
Feser cites as evidence three writers on philosophy from North America who write in English. But this little circle is not the world, and it certainly is not the Church. A dose of thomistic realism please!
I wonder what counts for a "big circle" in Doc's view; in terms of influence, it makes no sense to say that academics and published authors of the clout enjoyed by Plantinga et al form "a little circle" in the relevant field. Would the kind reader aid me, as despair overshadows me, in the quest of discovering the truly big circles in contemporary philosophy of religion? Anyway, the respective claims about the world and the Church are not found in Dr. Feser's writing; their probable origin seems to be Doc's trust in his clairvoyance.
OK he says, but what about atheists who hold up a caricature of God for refutation. Well the Church seems to have done a good job of refuting atheism without running away from the idea and terminology of a personal God and without ever coming near the adoption of the caricature held up by some atheists.
Apart from ignoring the reality of the false and current philosophy of theistic personalism that is incompatible with Catholicism (so, the "he" in question says no such thing); as has already been shown, the Church does not show the term "(a) personal God" much favour; apart from this, the idea and 'personal terminology' are not something Dr. Feser is "running away from".
It is curious that this same strategy of change in terminology and even substance is adopted by Dr. Feser apparently to oppose the caricaturization of the doctrine of Original Sin by the Church’s critics. This is not good strategy or even transparent, given that we were never given notification let alone an explanation for these changes.
Given that there's no relevant change of terminology - in the first suggested case, as should be evident by now, the explication of the second case is to follow soon, hopefully - the reader is entitled to no such thing (Doc's personal preferences, surely, possess no such universally binding force).
How unhealthy the attitude is can be ascertained from fan club comments on his blog which regularly ridicule religious people who they think ascribe too much of their own sentiment and other human characteristics to God. St. Thomas Aquinas, while teaching clear doctrine concerning God, NEVER ridiculed people in this way for having piously and well-intended but tendentious notions of this kind. Many of the commenters are clearly not Catholic. Dr. Feser does not take them to task.
Were Doc actually concerned with attitudinal health, one would think, he wouldn't publicly engage in bad-faith presumptious in-reading on a vast scale. At any rate, if this discussion is anything to go by, the user iwpoe, say, who made the remark addressed to Doc:
Feser robustly defends God's goodess, intellect, will, and love over and over. Do you want him to have God give you a hug too?
seems to be Catholic (if that is so important here), I hope Doc can at least acknowledge the possibility that a person familiar with his oeuvre and of a contrary opinion may think that an adult such as Doc (proclaimed bad temper notwithstanding) can handle a joke.
The attitude of ridiculing and being disgusted by man’s efforts to worship and come closer to God by every form of visible and human depiction will produce a self-appointed caste of Calvinist-hearted ”theists”. Should this mentality get beyond the group of US based enthusiasts which believes itself able to define thomism, the Church and just about everything, one can easily see them whitewashing the churches burning all those anthropomorphic images and statues, starting with the Sacred Heart
One should note that the object of the supposed ridicule and disgust specified by Doc (if a real occurence) is not the only possible one, to say the least. Idolatry inherent in theistic personalism can be one, or modern sentimentalism (not at all entailed by visible cult; just recall your average argument with an animal rights supporter, say, or an eternity of hell-denier). Both are ridiculous and disgusting.
Doc presents no evidence that Dr. Feser's blog is a hub of cynics out to get pious people, criminally tolerated by the blogger, Dr. Feser is combatting theistic personalism. The cult of the Word Incarnate and His salvific Love that is the Sacred Heart devotion has nothing to fear from classical theists. Bad philosophy, theology and religion do. The devotion, at least as approved by the Church, in no way presupposes theistic personalism and does not lead to it, as past centuries indicate, nor could it, the view in question being infected with heresy.
It would be great if the classification had no raison d'etre, that is, everyone had the correct theology. Unfortunately, the error is out there, and as long as it is, the true alternative had better be clearly identifiable. Precisely because most personalists in question profess adherence to Christian revelation, declared commitment to it, though necessary, does little to help bring the difference to light.
Ab idolis hominum, etiam mentalibus, libera nos, Domine.
Deus aeterne, omnino simplex et immutabilis, miserere nobis.
As our blog argues (meeting no substantial argument from Doc), the usage of "personal God" and its cognates on the part of the Church and St. Thomas is not "enthuasistic" in any sense serious enough to justify his wild speculations concerning Dr. Feser. Contrary to Doc Angelic's assertion, it has not "been used from earliest times in the Church in definitions of the Faith and in the liturgy". The usage seems to have increased with the necessity of countering errors connected to pantheism arising in force by the end of the 19th century, as is indicated in the sources quoted in the first post. But even then it's not so significant as to entail, absolutely, viewing the non-usage of the English term as seriously suspicious, "a declaration in itself" etc.
A somewhat technical aspect demands attention: even in the passage of the Summa quoted by Doc, St. Thomas doesn't actually employ "(a) personal God". The saint writes:
"I answer that, “Person” signifies what is most perfect in all nature—that is, a subsistent individual of a rational nature. Hence, since everything that is perfect must be attributed to God, forasmuch as His essence contains every perfection, this name “person” is fittingly applied to God; not, however, as it is applied to creatures, but in a more excellent way; as other names also, which, while giving them to creatures, we attribute to God; as we showed above when treating of the names of God"
He says that "person" can be applied to God. What does Aquinas mean by person? "A subsistent individual of a rational nature". One should note that indefinite articles mandated by English are absent in the Latin. Obviously, this applies to all the loci quoted in the first part of our response that were originally written in Latin. Importantly, "a person" can connote something that is part of a genus (something personalists seem to maintain about God), something that is directly contrary to the saint's teaching. This isn't quibbling (and if it is, it is Aquinas' and Dr. Feser's). Nor is Dr. Feser championing the supposed ban on the word "personal", not even apparently, in fact; he uses it instead.
In the latter's post, for example, he replies to a personalist attack:
As I've noted many times that the classical theist does not deny that God is personal, and indeed typically insists on attributing the key personal attributes of intellect and will to God. Certainly the Christian classical theist does not regard God as “an abstract object, a universal, a force” etc. So to cite biblical passages in which God is described as personal by itself cuts absolutely no ice. Christian classical theists are well aware of those passages and accept them just as much as Dale does. Hence, if Dale means to imply that the classical theist regards God as impersonal, then he is simply attacking a straw man.
More likely, Dale just doesn’t agree that the passages in question are best interpreted the way the classical theist would interpret them. Evidently he supposes that in order to think of God as personal, you have to regard him as “a being” alongside other beings and “a person” alongside other persons, rather than as Being Itself and Intellect Itself. “Jesus is literally a self,” he writes, “and so can’t be Being Itself” (emphasis added). But of course, the classical theist doesn’t think this follows at all. The classical theist thinks his own understanding of what it means to describe God in personal terms is perfectly compatible with the Bible, rightly understood. Dale merely assumes, rather than argues, that this is false. Hence he simply begs the question.
<...>
Dale gives us no reason at all, then, to doubt that a “God” who is composed of substance and accidents, genus and specific difference, essence and existence, or in any other way is less than absolutely simple, is also less than divine. Indeed, his proposals merely reinforce the conclusion that a “God” who is merely “a being” rather than Being Itself or merely “a person” rather than Intellect Itself, is necessarily also only “a god” rather than God. Qua metaphysically complex, such a god can only ever have a god complex -- delusions of true divinity but not the real McCoy. To paraphrase J. B. Phillips, the god of theistic personalism is too small. Or as the Hulk would put it…
Any informed reader of Dr. Feser's blog could testify that he is quite clear in his non-pantheism (for example, here). As all of his natural theology work indicates, he clearly maintains that God has personal attributes and calls them that. Now this is something that truly can be proved many times over, for a change. Belief in God's personality by itself does not necessitate any special preference for the usage of the concrete term "(a) personal God", as the sources indicate. The charge is evidently based on a factual error about them (and what seems to be mind-reading).
That's it.
* * *
For some reason, Doc saw fit to add this bit of clear nonsense:
In his post Classical Theism Roundup, Feser relativises God in history:
”Classical theism is the conception of God that has prevailed historically within Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Western philosophical theism generally. Its religious roots are biblical, and its philosophical roots are to be found in the Neoplatonic and Aristotelian traditions.” But there is no separate classical theism God, only the God that has revealed Himself from the Garden of Eden onwards, and the arguments of natural theology are directed towards Him. There are also varyingly true or complete notions of God among some pagan philosophers, and religions apart from the Catholic Church. St Thomas Aquinas does not make it his business to promote ”Classical theism”, only the God of Abraham, basing his discussion on arguments derived from revelation and philosophy mingled together. God cannot be split up in the way Feser does, by making God just a denominational RC subsection historically of ”classical theism”. This is not true historically and it is not Thomism. Historically Thomists believe things happened the other way around, with philosophers groping for the God of revelation who has spoken and made himself known in a certain way that cannot be mistaken or confused, which is why there is religion on this earth."
Were this the first case of egregiously question-begging reading-in, this would be mind-boggling. Unfortunately, it isn't. Unless Doc is prepared to argue that the God of Abraham and the God of the "The One God" chapter of the Summa, say, are identical in sense (or logically), not just in reference (or really) - a clearly absurd thesis to hold and claim the use of reason, let alone attribute to St. Thomas and Catholicism - and/or that "non-Abrahamic-religious" philosophical theists did not exist, and/or that classical theism vs. theistic personalism debate is not descriptive of the people involved and their positions/an argument that needs to happen (a thesis that would, let's say, be problematic for a Catholic claiming to be a Thomist, as the first post argues), the intelligible point made here is a mystery to me. As to the "history" bit, Dr. Feser doesn't make the claim imputed to him; on the contrary, the biblical religious roots are explicitly acknowledged in the quoted passage, and Doc concedes the existence of "some pagan philosophers" with their "varyingly true and complete notions of God"."Lately, Dr. Feser has renewed his efforts to create a civilisational war between ”classical theists” and ”personal theists”. Obviously, St. Thomas Aquinas was never perturbed by this, limiting himself to wonderfully explaining why our words and thoughts are indeed to be applied analogically to God. Why the feserist sense of crisis? Today, the world and the Church are not any more in danger of being destroyed by anthropomorphism when it comes to God that they were in the 13th century."
More brute asssertions: now it's not only total war that Dr. Fesers supposedly preaches, it is also "civilisational"; also, it's "theistic personalists"; but I'd like to note that previously Doc granted the legitimacy of engaging with problems not contemporaneous for Aquinas. As for the last remark, I urge Doc to supply examples of the 13th century prominent natural-theological anthropomorphists and/or, say, exponents of things set to tune of the "problem of evil", the “one god further” objection, "evil-god-challenge" (rather obviously rooted in non-classical theist notions of divinity) etc., that constituted a peculiar danger back then, but not today.
Feser cites as evidence three writers on philosophy from North America who write in English. But this little circle is not the world, and it certainly is not the Church. A dose of thomistic realism please!
I wonder what counts for a "big circle" in Doc's view; in terms of influence, it makes no sense to say that academics and published authors of the clout enjoyed by Plantinga et al form "a little circle" in the relevant field. Would the kind reader aid me, as despair overshadows me, in the quest of discovering the truly big circles in contemporary philosophy of religion? Anyway, the respective claims about the world and the Church are not found in Dr. Feser's writing; their probable origin seems to be Doc's trust in his clairvoyance.
OK he says, but what about atheists who hold up a caricature of God for refutation. Well the Church seems to have done a good job of refuting atheism without running away from the idea and terminology of a personal God and without ever coming near the adoption of the caricature held up by some atheists.
Apart from ignoring the reality of the false and current philosophy of theistic personalism that is incompatible with Catholicism (so, the "he" in question says no such thing); as has already been shown, the Church does not show the term "(a) personal God" much favour; apart from this, the idea and 'personal terminology' are not something Dr. Feser is "running away from".
It is curious that this same strategy of change in terminology and even substance is adopted by Dr. Feser apparently to oppose the caricaturization of the doctrine of Original Sin by the Church’s critics. This is not good strategy or even transparent, given that we were never given notification let alone an explanation for these changes.
Given that there's no relevant change of terminology - in the first suggested case, as should be evident by now, the explication of the second case is to follow soon, hopefully - the reader is entitled to no such thing (Doc's personal preferences, surely, possess no such universally binding force).
How unhealthy the attitude is can be ascertained from fan club comments on his blog which regularly ridicule religious people who they think ascribe too much of their own sentiment and other human characteristics to God. St. Thomas Aquinas, while teaching clear doctrine concerning God, NEVER ridiculed people in this way for having piously and well-intended but tendentious notions of this kind. Many of the commenters are clearly not Catholic. Dr. Feser does not take them to task.
Were Doc actually concerned with attitudinal health, one would think, he wouldn't publicly engage in bad-faith presumptious in-reading on a vast scale. At any rate, if this discussion is anything to go by, the user iwpoe, say, who made the remark addressed to Doc:
Feser robustly defends God's goodess, intellect, will, and love over and over. Do you want him to have God give you a hug too?
seems to be Catholic (if that is so important here), I hope Doc can at least acknowledge the possibility that a person familiar with his oeuvre and of a contrary opinion may think that an adult such as Doc (proclaimed bad temper notwithstanding) can handle a joke.
The attitude of ridiculing and being disgusted by man’s efforts to worship and come closer to God by every form of visible and human depiction will produce a self-appointed caste of Calvinist-hearted ”theists”. Should this mentality get beyond the group of US based enthusiasts which believes itself able to define thomism, the Church and just about everything, one can easily see them whitewashing the churches burning all those anthropomorphic images and statues, starting with the Sacred Heart
One should note that the object of the supposed ridicule and disgust specified by Doc (if a real occurence) is not the only possible one, to say the least. Idolatry inherent in theistic personalism can be one, or modern sentimentalism (not at all entailed by visible cult; just recall your average argument with an animal rights supporter, say, or an eternity of hell-denier). Both are ridiculous and disgusting.
Doc presents no evidence that Dr. Feser's blog is a hub of cynics out to get pious people, criminally tolerated by the blogger, Dr. Feser is combatting theistic personalism. The cult of the Word Incarnate and His salvific Love that is the Sacred Heart devotion has nothing to fear from classical theists. Bad philosophy, theology and religion do. The devotion, at least as approved by the Church, in no way presupposes theistic personalism and does not lead to it, as past centuries indicate, nor could it, the view in question being infected with heresy.
It would be great if the classification had no raison d'etre, that is, everyone had the correct theology. Unfortunately, the error is out there, and as long as it is, the true alternative had better be clearly identifiable. Precisely because most personalists in question profess adherence to Christian revelation, declared commitment to it, though necessary, does little to help bring the difference to light.
Ab idolis hominum, etiam mentalibus, libera nos, Domine.
Deus aeterne, omnino simplex et immutabilis, miserere nobis.
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