aquinas

Thoughts on God as Pure Act of Being and Contemplation

Deacon Douglas McManaman

In my Thoughts on God as Pure Act of Being and Atheism, I pointed out that God cannot be reduced, by the mind, to a concept, because in God essence and existence are identical, that is, God is Ipsum Esse Subsistens, and the apprehension of being (esse) is not a conceptual apprehension (being cannot be reduced to a universal concept without emptying it of all content). And just as dealing with concepts or notions that the imagination cannot get a hold of (such as potency, act, prime matter, the particle and wave properties of an electron, etc) is initially very uncomfortable and for some, evidence that such notions are nothing but philosophical nonsense, so too the idea of the intelligibility of being or existence that is outside of and other than the intelligibility of essence (not an object of simple apprehension) can feel as if Being Itself is nothing at all. In other words, when being is identified with essence, form, or idea, then the very idea that there is something outside of that, something extra-essential, namely God, would seem to imply that God is outside of being, which implies that God is the great Nothing (Nirvana as Nothingness; Emptiness but fullness)–which is why the Buddhist notion of Nirvana as Nothingness is not all that problematic. [1] 

Moreover, when I am conscious of myself, I immediately apprehend my own contingency, my own lack of necessity–I am, but need not be. Included in that apprehension is my awareness that the whole of me–my very existence–depends upon something other than myself, an awareness that can be rather frightening. The awareness of my own contingency takes place against the background of a pre-conscious awareness of non-contingency, the Necessary Being (just as my perception of a piece of chalk is made possible by virtue of a non-white background). This preconscious awareness of the Necessary Being is also the reason you and I desire a happiness that is sufficient unto itself, complete, and final and is thus not a means to an end–for we cannot desire what we do not know, and nothing contingent answers to those properties.[2]

Contemplation must aim at becoming increasingly aware of this divine presence within our deepest interior, a presence that is intelligible but not conceptualizable. Moreover, close friendship depends upon a mutual, free and gratuitous offering of self to one another, and so although there is a natural and pre-conscious knowledge of God that is the condition for the possibility of the pursuit of science as well as the pursuit of happiness, God is free to offer each person, within that interior, a deeper and greater sharing in his nature, a deeper communion, which amounts to a communication, a spoken Word. This is what we mean by divine grace, which is a sharing in the divine nature. This interior communication is also not an object of the intellect, but remains a preconscious awareness.

The goal of contemplation is a deeper love, a greater purity of heart, which is accompanied by a loss of a sense of “I”. When we compare ourselves to others, perhaps feeling a kind of satisfaction in knowing we are better than another in some way (faster, smarter, more athletic, more talented, etc), there arises a definite felt sense of “I”. But think of when you are so wrapped up in a great film that you lose all sense of a “self” watching the movie. It’s as if you and the movie are one. That’s the place we need to get to in the spiritual life, if we are to be pure in heart. At that point, everything is seen in God and God is seen in everything; everything is loved in God, and God is loved in everything. The sense of “I” disappears (Fana). Rumi, the great Persian poet and Sufi, provides the following story that illustrates the importance of this loss:

One went to the door of the Beloved and knocked. A voice asked, “Who is there?”
He answered, “It is I.”
The voice said, “There is no room for Me and Thee.”
The door was shut.
After a year of solitude and deprivation he returned and knocked. A voice from within asked, “Who is there?”
The man said, “It is Thee.”
The door was opened for him”. (Jalal al-Din Rumi 1207-1273)

Along the same lines, Javad Nurbakhsh wrote: “I thought of You so often that I completely became You. Little by little You drew near and slowly but slowly I passed away” (The Path, Sufi Practices). Or, consider Husayn Ibn Mansur al-Hallaj, who writes: “Kill me, O my trustworthy friends, for in my being killed is my life.” [3]

Once again, that intelligible fullness of which I am aware within me is not an idea, not an object, but it is a presence. It is the presence of the primordial Silence. When you are alone in the forest, you are immersed in silence; however, there are spoken words (sounds) all around that carry the silence, for example, the wind that blows above, and in the distance crickets chirp, frogs croak, etc. These words carry and communicate the silence, as the Word reveals the first Person of the Trinity: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14, 9). We cannot make that silence the object of our thoughts any more than carrying a lamp around at night will allow us to see darkness,[4] but that silence is what we love, for that presence in silence is Love. Being Itself is the effusive principle and source of all that I can conceive and apprehend; creation is Silence burst into speech (Panikkar). 

Notes

1. Nirvana:  permanent, stable, imperishable, immovable, ageless, deathless, unborn, unbecome, power, bliss, happiness, secure refuge, shelter, the place of unassailable safety, the real truth, the supreme reality, the Good, the Supreme goal, one and only consummation of our lives, the eternal; hidden; and incomprehensible peace. 

2. Aquinas writes: “To know that God exists in a general and confused way is implanted in us by nature, inasmuch as God is man’s beatitude. For man naturally desires happiness, and what is naturally desired by man must be naturally known to him. This, however, is not to know absolutely that God exists; just as to know that someone is approaching is not the same as to know that Peter is approaching, even though it is Peter who is approaching; for many there are who imagine that man’s perfect good which is happiness, consists in riches, and others in pleasures, and others in something else”. S.T, I, Q2, a1, ad 3.

3. “The “life” he speaks of is not the biological life of the body, but the true, eternal life of the Spirit (Ruh), which is realized only when the false self is slain.” The Wisdom of Mansur Al-Hallaj: Divine Love, Ecstatic Truth, and the Cry of Ana al-Haqq. Sapientia Mundi Press, 2025.

4. “We can certainly speak about silence as we can speak about what happened to me yesterday, or about X, or any subject matter. But the silence about which we speak is not a real silence, for silence is not an object.(about which you can think, speak.). We cannot speak about real silence, just as we cannot search for darkness with a torch in our hands. Silence cannot be spoken of without being destroyed, since it is not on the same level as speech”. Raimon Panikkar, Invisible Harmony: Essays on Contemplation and Responsibility. Ed. Harry J. Cargas. Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1995, p. 41.

A Brief Note on Aquinas, Progress, and Asking Questions

Deacon Douglas McManaman

Aquinas was a genuinely progressive thinker. In fact, he was the “progressive” theologian of the 13th century. Thomas was open to everything that was good and useful for helping to explicate the faith. He exhibited great reverence not only for St. Augustine, but also for “the Philosopher” (Aristotle), as well as for Dionysius, Hilary, Ambrose, Peter Lombard, Maimonides, Avicenna and Averroes, Damascene, Gregory of Nyssa, and so many more. Although he was raised on Augustine, he clearly did not limit himself to Augustine. The irony, however, is that a number of Thomists during my early years in philosophy would limit their sources to St. Thomas Aquinas. In fact, in my 2nd year when we were taught modern philosophy for the first time, the professor would teach us some basic ideas of this or that thinker and then proceed to tell us what was wrong with them and why Aquinas had it right. This, of course, was a terrible way to teach–it was grounded in a flawed starting point. The result he was trying to achieve was for us to limit our thinking, our sources, to St. Thomas, which is a very “anti-Aquinas” way of operating. 

We have much more data at our disposal today than Aquinas had in the 13th century, very important data on human nature thanks to the development of the science of psychology and its various schools of thought, as well as psychiatry, neuroscience, anthropology and sociology, physics, history and various approaches to hermeneutics, etc., not to mention the different kinds of logic that developed in the 20th century, such as mathematical, modal, epistemic, temporal and many valued logics. There is no doubt that Aquinas would have taken a deep dive into all of this and more. 

There is a serious temptation in some people to want to keep things very simple and manageable, i.e., the bible alone, the koran alone, or the Catechism alone, or Aquinas alone. I believe that is why many young university students are drawn to ideological thinking, for it makes life much simpler. They can look at this utterly complex world through the lens of an ideology and everything begins to make sense. Karl Popper addressed this problem and showed how this kind of thinking is problematic–everywhere one looks one can find confirmation for an overarching idea.[1]  Ultimately, this is just lazy mindedness and an inordinate need for security. In short, closed mindedness. We see this pattern of thinking in fundamentalism of all stripes, that is, in Islam, Evangelical Protestantism, Catholicism, left and right wing political ideology, etc. It makes for a very simple existence, but an impoverished one. 

When we study Aquinas for years on end, we do see that out of great reverence he very often bends over backwards to defend the particular authority he leans on, such as the Philosopher (Aristotle) or whoever he cites in his Sed contra. He’s very respectful of these authorities, but not all of his arguments are of the same strength and weight–some just hang from a thread. He has been severely criticized for his arguments for the death penalty–dangerously akin to totalitarian thinking–, and Grisez took issue with what he wrote on desire after the Beatific vision, and in the end it is hard to disagree with Grisez on this. The point I make is that one can indeed argue with Aquinas, and great theologians have been doing so for the past 700 years, but especially in the 20th century. He was a genius of the highest order and a Doctor of the Church and deserves great reverence and consideration, but the notion that he cannot be contradicted and is immune from further development is not quite right. The wonderful thing about Catholic theology and Catholic teaching is that, despite what many traditionalists seem to believe, it continues to develop on the basis of questions that have never been asked. Questions are the driving force behind any science, and Aquinas asked a ridiculously large number of questions, which is why he made so much progress (progressive). But all possible questions have not been exhausted and never will be.

Notes

1. In his Science: Conjectures and Refutations , Popper writes: “These theories appeared to be able to explain practically everything that happened within the fields to which they referred. The study of any of them seemed to have the effect of an intellectual conversion or revelation, opening your eyes to a new truth hidden from those not yet initiated. Once your eyes were thus opened you saw confirming instances everywhere: the world was full of verifications of the theory. Whatever happened always confirmed it. Thus its truth appeared manifest; and unbelievers were clearly people who did not want to see the manifest truth; who refused to see it, either because it was against their class interest, or because of their repressions which were still “un – analysed” and crying aloud for treatment.

The most characteristic element in this situation seemed to me the incessant stream of confirmations, of observations which “verified” the theories in question; and this point was constantly emphasized by their adherents. A Marxist could not open a newspaper without finding on every page confirming evidence for his interpretation of history; not only in the news, but also in its presentation which revealed the class bias of the paper – – and especially of course in what the paper did not say. The Freudian analysts emphasized that their theories were constantly verified by their “clinical observations”. As for Adler, I was much impressed by a personal experience. Once, in 1919, I reported to him a case which to me did not seem particularly Adlerian, but which he found no difficulty in analyzing in terms of his theory of inferiority feelings, although he had not even seen the child.

Slightly shocked, I asked him how he could be so sure. “Because of my thousand-fold experience,” he replied; whereupon I could not help saying: “And with this new case, I suppose, your experience has become thousand-and-one-fold.” What I had in mind was that his previous observations may not have been much sounder than this new one; that each in its turn had been interpreted in the light of ‘previous experience’, and at the same time counted as additional confirmation. What, I asked myself, did it confirm? No more than that a case could be interpreted in the light of the theory.”