15 Aug Metaphysics
In essay format, answer the following questions. The paper should be 4 pages, have clearly-marked paragraphs corresponding to each of the following section headings. Use 12-point font, standard margins, and double-spacing. The point of this exercise is to practice producing clear, accurate, and in places, well-defended responses. Do not use outside sources. You are welcome to quote from any work of any of the authors we’ve read, but you need not do this so long as you explain things clearly and I know where you’re getting your information. If you choose to quote, please don’t throw block quotes at me without any explanation of them. They don’t explain themselves, you know! Cite any quotes simply by putting the fragment or page number at the end of the quote—e.g. “I hold you back from this path, that ‘it is not!’”(Parm. fr. B6), or (Physics 193b7), etc. You need not create a bibliography or title page.
1. Explain what Aquinas means in this excerpt from De Ente, c. IV (Chapter 5 slides, slide 25):
But it is impossible that the act of existing be caused by a thing’s form or its quiddity (I say caused as by an efficient cause); for then something would be the cause of itself and would bring itself into existence—which is impossible. Everything, then, which is such that its act of existing is other than its nature must needs have its act of existing from something else.
2. We cannot grasp the nature of God in itself. We only grasp the nature of God from the effects seen in creatures. There are two types of predication: negative predication and analogical predication. In this question (Chapter 6), you will define the following terms and provide an example (which can be examples from the text/slides or your own):
A. Negative Predication
i. definition
ii. example
B. Analogical Predication
a. analogy
i.definition
ii. example
b. reference
i. definition
ii. example
3. Interpret the following quote and expand upon the following: “…’being’ is expressed in two ways: in one way, it signifies the act of being; in another way, it signifies the composition of a proposition, which the mind attains in joining predicate with subject. Therefore, taking ‘being’ in the first way, we are cannot know the being of God, just as we cannot know his essence; but only in the second way. For we know that this proposition which we form about God is true, when we say ‘God exists.’ And we know this from his effects…” St. Thomas, ST, I, 3, 4, ad 2m.
