Thomas Aquinas – The world is divine

Summary

A large part of our civilisation rests on the shoulders of one medieval monk: Thomas Aquinas. Amid the turmoil of life, riddled with wickedness and pain, he would insist that our world is good. And all our success is built on this belief. Note: Before we start, let’s get one thing out of the way: Thomas Aquinas is clearly a Christian thinker, a Saint even. Yet he was also a brilliant philosopher. So even if you consider yourself agnostic or an atheist, stay with me, you will still enjoy his ideas. What is good? Thomas’ argument is rooted in Aristotle’s concept of goodness: Something is good if it fulfills its function. Aristotle had illustrated this idea with a knife. A knife is good to the extent that it cuts well. He made a distinction between an actual knife and its ideal function. That actual thing in your drawer is the existence of a knife. And its ideal function is its essence—what it means to be a knife: to cut well. So everything is separated into its existence and its ideal essence. And this is also true for humans: We have an ideal conception of what the essence of a human being is—Aristotle suggested a clear mind and a good character. And in our own personal existence, we can strive to live up to this ideal essence. Thomas follows Aristotle’s distinction between existence and essence. But he adds one important exception: God. God’s essence is to be good. But He doesn’t need to strive for this essence because He already is perfectly good. God is not just good, he is goodness itself. Likewise, He does not just exist, He is existence itself. God is equivalent with absolute goodness and being itself. This unity of existence and essence does not change. And there can only be one. This also makes God the origin of everything, the creator, the unmoved mover. Created order a) In creation, essence and existence are separated. However, things are different with everything that was created by God. As we have already seen, in creation existence is separated from esse...