Aquinas and Pseudo-Dionysius on the Metaphysics of the Good

In this video I reflect on the self-diffusive character of Goodness, which is a critical metaphysical insight in both the philosophies and theologies of St. Thomas Aquinas and Pseudo-Dionysius.
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[@arrus]

Fantastic video CT! It's interesting how strictly emanatory the 'bonum diffusivum est sui' is (hence also its adequacy in using such language for the procession of the incarnation-fitness argument). However, I do have to note the following - the reason why Neoplatonism takes the Good to be prior to Being is for another more fundamental reason: To be is to be intelligible (Plato's 'synousia', or in contemporary phenomenological parlance: 'intentionality'). To 'be' is to be one way or another - to be such-and-such, which makes perfect sense for any form of classical essentialism. But therefore, to 'be' is to 'be-delimited'. Hence why in Divine Names IV Dionysius tells us that the Good repels all being (all limitation/effability). Then in Neoplatonic language, "Being" is actually the collection of "all things" that are. The second hypostasis, Divine Mind, is just "Real-Being". So if one were to apply "Being" in this perhaps more Plotinian sense as the name of God, it'd be very pantheistic, hence the aversion to doing so by both St. Thomas Aquinas, Dionysius and the host of Pagan Platonists. So "Being" in the nominative sense actually points to two completely different things for Christian Theology and Neoplatonism. As you've mentioned in prior videos; to be God is to be "to be", and that isn't the sense in which Platonism designates 'Being'. To be "to be" is to be The Being of beings which is "ante-being" as Victorinus notes ---- not 'a being' and not "all beings" ---- and that's precisely what Being for us means which saves, in Christian Natural Theology, the name implying a pantheistic collapsing of the Godhead into "All things". As Eric Perl noted in 'Thinking Being', St. Thomas' Ipsum Esse coheres closer to Plotinus' rejection of Peripatetic designation of the First as 'ousia', and naturally, as Dionysius says, God isn't intellect but rather more adequately spoken of as "Wisdom" (Prov. etc.,) [I think Etienne Gilson begged to differ on this point but I forget his argument]. So, because the Good is the teleological, indicative, name of the First, it is prior to all beings, and thus prior to "Being" in the Neoplatonic employment of the Term. But the Good is the Being of beings and so is: "Being". It is especially "Being" in the linguistic sense that we derive "to be" from hawa/haje which gives us the best indication as to what YHWH means in Exodus 3:14. It seems odd however that Dionysius seems to have broken from Proclus in ascribing Good in Div Nom IV.1-3 to the efficient emanation of the grades of reality to God first and foremost, and not to being "that which all desire" and thus primarily teleological like his Pagan master. In this sense, Proclus (following Plotinus, Aristotle, Plato) is closer to Aquinas here. In Elements of Theology, "Good" is the teleological name, "One" the name demonstrating contingency, "First cause" being self-explanatory but by section B (Dodds transl.) they converge as all equally naming God. But the answer as to why Dionysius ascribes the Good to efficiency (and also the same with Beauty even though he eventually explores its erotic teleological dimension later on) with so much stress, before going on to the rightfully teleological aspect, may actually lie in an interesting polemical dimension that the Corpus Areopagiticum serves: In the Neoplatonic academy, Damascius had severely challenged Proclus/Syrianus and also what they shared with Christian theology on the notion that we could even ascribe efficient causality to the First. Damascius argued that we could not speak of the First as an efficient cause. Evidently, Christian natural theology need to ascribe efficient causality to the First due to creation (or else hold to it de fide). Damascius, arguing that he was staying in true fidelity to Iamblichus, insisted that the First is so Ineffable that it is beyond the One which causes Being. The Plotinian critique of Damascius, which works well against this, would evidently be that he's just gone ahead and reified conceptual distinctions into ontological ones because there's no reason why efficient causality robs the One of its ineffability if it isn't a being as such and thus not given to the intellect anyhow. But then, Dionysius' response was to take a far different approach: Damascius had still identified the Ineffable with The Good, so if one could ascribe efficient causality to the Good, Damascius would have to break with Plato in holding that the Good is not an efficient cause or not the First, thus break probably the entire academy since, thus problematising Damascius' entire project. Also, love that idea that creation is best expressed as teleological rather than expressed as efficient.

[@arrus]

How will the Thomists ever recover??!

[@nomore9004]

.

[@arrus]

@@nomore9004 yea im mostly active on twitter - ill be back there in a week or so

[@gr8sword97]

I thought this sounded like an arrus post…looked at the account and whaddya know

[@TheBrunarr]

For more on this I'd recommend _The Good as Self-diffusive in Thomas Aquinas_ by Bernhard-Thomas Blankenhorn, O.P. and also _Why Is It That ‘Goodness is Good’ but ‘Whiteness is Not White’? Thomas Aquinas, Philip the Chancellor, and their Neoplatonic Sources on Reflex Predication_ by Gaston G. LeNotre

[@reeceosullivan9414]

Thank you, Classical Theist

[@yankeesuperstar]

A light lecture on pop culture...

[@notcardlinsytaccount1355]

Great video!

[@charlesudoh6034]

Very insightful

[@soulweaver8552]

I love your channel ♡

[@OUTBOUND184]

Great stuff. Only tweak I'd suggest is plainchant for your intro. Much better.

[@purplelegendxd6024]

What is the argument for the self diffusiveness of the good because someone is just going to say what’s your rational argument for the good being self diffusive.

[@catholickirby]

Didn't Polycarp write a couple of letters referencing Dionysius? Isn't the hypothesis that his writings were "updated" later on stronger than that he lived circa fourth century AD? Therefore there's no need for the "Pseudo-"?

[@arrus]

Yes but he never referenced Dionysius' writings nor his supposedly famed master Hierotheus. We have good reason to believe that Dionysius was actually the Pagan Neoplatonic convert to Christianity "Hegias" mentioned in Damascius' Life of Isidore. Emperor Justinian then just commissioned him to write a treatise that would in one fell swoop BTFO all the latent heresies in the empire (Nestorianism, Eunomianism, various antinomian groups) by fabricating stronger apostolic authority for present-day orthodoxy (which by no means wasn't already there).

[@thomascomerford9683]

Hello. Pseudo-Dionysius was indisputably an Orthodox (that is to say, non Chalcedonian) author. Saint Severus of Antioch is the first to quote him, and he was also used as proof for the doctrine of the nature of Christ at the conference with the Severians under Justinian in 532. In response to this, the heretics said that Dionysius was an Apollinarian forgery. It wasn't until John the Scholastic (not the Grammarian) that the neochalcedonians considered Pseudo Dionysius to be authoritative. The idea that Justinian wanted it written to defeat heresies, when in actuality the Orthodox used it to combat the heretics of Justinian's ilk, is utterly false. Dionysius carries a strong Orthodox Christology (which is miaenergist), which is representative of the Henotikon era.

[@adindubose9314]

Do you have some thoughts to offer on the supposed problem of arbitrary creation?

[@Aristos_Arete]

Have you noticed that the structure of the summa actually mirrors the metephysics/philosophy behind it? In being proceeding from God and circularly coming back to Him.

[@matheusmoura4848]

Interesting video but i have a question: could not one use your reasoning here to argue directly to the christian religion in the end of a cosmological argument? On stage two, one could establish the generic classical theist view of God and then use these claims to argue for the christian view, kinda like fusing your video for monotheist with the one for christianity. From what i got from Aquinas, the saint view is that reason alone can at most give us the God of the Philosophers, revelation is needed before we can have the incarnation, the Trinity etc. If your reasoning here is sound, them there is not necessarily a need of revelation to get these truths. Or is the claim rather that while it is logically possible to us to get by reason alone to these doctrines we will not actually get they if we don't first receive revelation? Because that would make sense, seeing how no pagan thinker was able to deduce our dogmas before knowing the christiam faith.

[@ratio518]

Time to debate Jay Dyer the meanie head

[@adteioseph4237]

YOCT

[@rebelape4257]

Aquinas is basically a atheist, no univocal predicates so god ain't a person or mind