The Armchair Thomist

     Among the variety of views on the nature of hell and damnation, annihilationism is certainly a minority. However, I have seen somewhat of a rise in its popularity, along with universalism, presumably due to moral dissatisfaction with the eternity of hell and the theodicies for that view. For those who are unfamiliar, annihilationism, broadly speaking, is the view that the damned will eventually be annihilated. This contrasts with universalism in which everyone is saved (or eventually saved if the view allows for temporary damnation) and with the view that the damned exist forever.     There are indeed simpler refutations of annihilationism than that which I will present here, specifically ones from the immortality of the intellectual soul and God's justice (see Grenier), but the argument here is one that came about through sudden epiphany and is, from what I can tell, a novel line of reasoning.     Before I begin, I have some preliminary remarks. ...

     While reading Existence and the Existent  by 20th Century Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, which is an amazing book covering the depth of esse  in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, the author put forth quite a beautiful line of reasoning for the nihilistic entailments of atheism. That form of reasoning is not novel nor particular to Maritain, but it is Maritain's particular formulation that struck me as profound. I say "line of reasoning" over "argument" because it is written more as a stream of consciousness as opposed to providing justification and defenses for premises, so this presentation may not even be what Maritain himself would agree with or what he was trying to say; it is only an interpretation with some of my own insights. If the reader wishes to see the original prose, I would implore them to purchase the book.    Maritain first begins with the fact that the human subject knows in an objective manner, i.e., by objectizing the subje...

     The Nature-Grace debate may not be something a non-Christian is familiar with, but in short, it is a long-standing debate in Christian theology as to how God's grace (some actuality in relation to the capacity for holiness given to creatures as a free gift directly from God) relates to the natures (the essences of things understood as principles of the scope of a thing's activities) of creatures. The debate, as least from what I have seen, focuses on whether the giving of God's (salvific) grace to creatures satisfies a natural appetite in the creature or a supernatural appetite in the creature (and thus whether the appetite for God is a natural or supernatural appetite), the degree to which God is obligated to Himself to provide creatures with (salvific) grace, and whether the beatific vision (the experience of God's essence and the final end of Man) is a natural end or supernatural end.      Here I have whipped up a few arguments for the position that...

     Given that there has been the recent stirrup in the culture about the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade, I thought I would revamp an old argument of mine and share it with all of you, whoever you may be!      This argument is essentially a reductio against those who argue for abortion on the basis of rights and thus, does not apply to those who endorse access to legal abortions for other reasons. Without further ado: P1. Humans have the rights to life, liberty, and property. P2. In order to the have the rights to life, liberty and property, one needs to be alive. P3. If one needs to be alive in order to have the rights to life, liberty, and property, then protection of the right to life is more important than protection of the rights to liberty and property. C1. Protection of the right to life is more important than protection of the rights to liberty and property. P4. If protection of the right to life is more important than protection of the righ...

 Something I wrote a few years back in college. I thought that I may as well post it here while I think of what to write for my next real blog post. Hope you enjoy it.      Few men can compare in wisdom, knowledge, vision, or insight to the illustrious Plato. One of the most influential philosophers in all of Western civilization, Plato stimulates the intellect like rain to a seedling, his recordings of the prying Socrates provoke the reader’s spirit of inquiry, and his contemplations on the nature of reality have been paving the road of philosophy for over 2,000 years. Delving into the deep waters of his dialectics is indispensable to fully appreciate the issues and context not only of contemporary philosophy but also modern, medieval, and ancient philosophy. Whether it is aesthetics, language, poetry, rhetoric, politics, logic, mathematics, epistemology, metaphysics, or theology, the arms of Plato’s mind extend and grasp without limit.      Grippin...

     My friend over at The Aspiring Jesuit blog ( https://theaspiringjesuit.blogspot.com ) has recently uploaded a short post about a model of the Divine Trinity that seems plausible to him, and so I figured I would do the same by trying to explicate my understanding of St. Thomas Aquinas' philosophical model of the Trinity which is a model that naturally flows from the basic framework that Aquinas works within.     For most Christian classical theists,  God is analogically said to be a pure act of intellect, but for Aquinas, "the intellect in act is the intelligible in act," so for the intellect to be in act means that it has some intelligible species by which it is in act, and of course due to divine simplicity, this intelligible species is just the divine essence itself. Furthermore, if God's intellect was put in act through an intelligible species that is from something extrinsic to Him (as what happens with us when we cognize the world), then that woul...

    A s the integrated substances that humans are (an example of this integrity is between our intellects which can move our bodies to certain ends and our bodies which can influence what objects we conceptualize, where this mind-body interaction would be expected in an integrated and unified substance), the intellect and body share certain qualities as being apart of that same substance. Here is one quality that they share: just as one can condition their body to be physically healthy, to form new reflexes, to get used to a poison through repetition, or to get used to a certain kind of food such that the bodily appetites are directed toward that food and opposed to others, the same can be said of the intellect, that it can be conditioned in a similar way to be habitually inclined toward certain objects as opposed to others. Now, the intellect's proper and principle object is intelligible being as such , which entails that the passive intellect stands in potency to the re...