Closeness and Infinity. A Few Comments on the Presence of God in the World Based on “Negative Philosophy” of Thomas Aquinas Read Today
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/PCh.2013.023Keywords
negative philosophy, God, presence, relationship, Thomas AquinasAbstract
Thomas Aquinas is said to be a representative of extreme scholastic intellectualism. Analyses conducted in the article on the basis of question 8 from Summa Theologiae, De existentia Dei in rebus (On the presence of God in things) show however that his greatness is of entirely different stature. The opposition of closeness and distance with God, existence or relation, do not create a separate alternative: either – or, but rather characteristics of complementarity for those perspectives. Aquinas illustrates certain tension between religion of the mind and religion of the relation (personal). It can be notably seen in his analysis of presence of God in things in things, but one certainly cannot claim he forgets lively closeness with God. Understanding is a field of human mind, nevertheless it is simultaneously realised by participation of love relation. Presence-God’s being in the world is the juxtaposition of the Infinite with the finite, the juxtaposition full of respect and cooperation, as soon as in the first stage of mutual understanding of the truth about the situation of the beginning, where God is the Creator, the world, things, the man possesses within the gift of the received existence. The situation begins to crystallize more and more, when a man as a rational being is invited to take a “position”, that is in the entire freedom of self-realisation, in space and time provided by God. How can you not wonder about this invitation for personal relation of friendship and love. All three lines of thought, presented by Aquinas, God’s presence in things per essentiam, potentiam and paesentiam as necessity are illustrated as if they were separate sections of subsequent attempts and actions. It is however the one, exceptional presence of God in the world. It has its own educational implications: it opens up the great perspective of upbringing towards “the freedom of attention” and upbringing towards “the freedom of question”. Thomas Aquinas refers with great force to the reality of the world, to the insight into the thing which exists as created, without concern that a man would have too many questions. Actually, there might be too few questions. Contemporary thinking concentrates so much on thinking patterns of a man that it does not seem to notice the reality of the world, and the “language of God” in this reality. The upbringing “of attention” is nothing else but accepting the proposition given by the reality of things openly, without conceit towards own proposition coined in the mind. The question about res is also accompanied by the question about the person. The word “God” is reserved for such a being, who is self-aware and free, therefore it is a person. A man having his eyes fixed on what is esse, has his eyes fixed on himself, as a person he also belongs to the world, and here he discovers God’s plan, “longing for” Incarnation. Here the question of personalistic theism is resolved. Christian education is never afraid of confirming existence, all researches and science do not cover it with fear. A man can believe the appearance and his senses, as well as the driving force of the mind, which strives to enter the unknown.
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