0005 How should I define the righteousness of the classical liberal?
The classical liberal entertains a perspectivec that occludes the foundational world of Christianity. The classical liberal extols3cequality, freedom and fraternity2c. These2c are the means to human fulfillment1c.
The American Bill of Rights declares life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Equality is the right to life and justice. Freedom is the liberty to make one’s own choices. Fraternity involves private property. One must own the possessions that one shares with family, friends, teammates and other social circles. Otherwise, one usurps.
0006 The classic liberal perspective-level nested form looks like this.
Figure 2
0007 Surely, this perspectivec level does not contextualize marxist contenta and situationb levels.
Why?
Hazony speaks of two steps. In the first step, the Enlightenment covers up Christianity. In the second step, Marxism occludes the Enlightenment.
So, let me start at the first step.
Christian social virtues describe what God reveals about human sociality. Saint Paul discusses equality in his letters. Christ frees humans from the chains of original sin. The body of Christ, the Church, possesses an object that brings all into relation. Finally, all these actualities emerge from the potential that a human can attain eternal life with God, the ultimate fulfillment.
The Enlightenment makes these virtues immanent.
0008 What does this immanence entail?
How does the Enlightenment perspective play into situation and content levels?
0009 First, let me simply slide the normal contexts of the situationb and contenta levels of the marxist sensible construction underneath the Enlightenment perspectivec level. Here is the resulting three-level interscope, a relational structure discussed in A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction.
Figure 3
0010 Second, I fill in the blanks.
The content level actuality2a turns extols3c into a dream2a, an object associating with an individual’s future, choices and companions. The individual’s dream2a arises from talents and dispositions1a.
What possibility1b situates the individual’s dream2a?
Of course, there must be opportunity1b.
Then, with hard work and luck, one realizes2b that dream2a.
0011 This sounds so American. Here is the interscope.
Figure 4
0012 The French Enlightenment, on the other hand, rots as it ripens. Unlike eighteenth-century America, France is loaded with god-defying intellectuals, salon-attending little royals and cunning lawyers, who dream of running political affairs without the burden of king and church. They have talents and dispositions1a toward promoting organizational objectives2bbased on reason1b. Reason1b gives opportunity to righteousness1a. As such, their dreams2b,2a are tautological.
The Marxist frame, perceptively delineated by Hazony, develops in situ within French Enlightenment civilization. The sarcastic godless intellectuals, self-absorbed gossip-bearing little nobles and the reason-worshipping lawyers consider themselves to oppressed by the oppressors, king and church. King and church express a false consciousness. The system works for them, not everyone else, especially the discontented. Revolution will reconstitute society and the inherent ironies of the present regime will disappear.
0014 Part 3 concerns the attractions and power of marxism.
The individual is attracted to classical liberalism.
The discontented are attracted to marxist (il)liberalism.
The current iteration of marxist religion is Big Government (il)Liberalism (BG(il)L).
0015 What do marxists have that liberals do not?
Here is a picture of the marxist’s sensible construction
Figure 6
0016 Where is the perspective levelc?
Is it too horrible to view?
The Enlightenment perspective-level actuality (equality, freedom and fraternity2c) addresses three important aspects of human sociality in our current Lebenswelt.
0017 According to Marx, these are not sufficient.
What else is required?
First (A), people form cohesive classes or groups. May I call them, “institutions”? Second (B) these classes or groups invariably oppress and exploit one another, culminating in one (the state) enforcing order. Third (C), the state eventually functions as an instrument of the oppressing class.
0018 Weirdly, Marx’s insight is captured in the chapter on presence in the masterwork, How To Define The Word, “Religion”. The three elements appear in the institution (content) and sovereign (situation) levels of the societyC tier.
Figure 7
0019 In theory, Enlightenment liberalism achieves order1b, while using the fewest official acts and decrees2b. It cultivates personal commitments2a to life (equality), liberty (freedom) and the pursuit of happiness (fraternity)2c. Civic culture consists of various fraternal institutions3a, some Christian (“religious”) and some not Christian (“not religious”)1a, pursuing diverse objectives2a.
Righteousness1a does not arise from within Enlightenment liberalism. Rather, Enlightenment liberalism is conducive to a wide variety of inspirations. Liberal righteousness1a demands that each individual pursues opportunities1b offered by competing civic institutions3a according to their talents and dispositions1a.
0020 In contrast, the Marxist vision proposes that a number of otherwise civic institutions3a (A) will pursue organizational objectives2a (B) that require official acts and decrees2b for their implementation1b (C).
0021 Hazony offers examples.
Ideally, public education should be implemented through a general decree stating that all individuals over a certain age must pass a civic exam in order to gain citizenship. The exam would be offered by (not one but) a suite of competing voluntary institutions, each operating with transparency due to competition. Education may be subsidized by vouchers to parents.
In practice, modern education engages unionized teachers (A) who demand a monopoly over “public” instruction and examination, as well as a host of other organizational objectives (B), that require state enforcement through official decrees (C).
In sum, Big Government (il)Liberal education exemplifies the Marxist vision.
0022 Hazony offers other examples. But, the point is clear. Marxist righteousness1a sensibly constructs organizational objectives2b, that, on one hand, arise from directly from the potential of submission by a target (individuals or institutions)1b, and, on the other hand, are virtually situated by official acts and decrees2b in the sensible construction of societyC.
0023 One reason why Marxist ideas are so attractive is that they promote a righteousness1a that both demands submission from others1b and entangles sovereign power3b.
The task of identifying like-minded individuals is relatively easy, since conservatives, Christians, nationalists and (above all) enlightened liberals espouse other styles of righteousness1a. All institutions in a modern civic society are vulnerable to infiltration by marxists.
In sum, marxists can easily identify one another, selectively promote one another, and humiliate perceived competition within each institution. Those who are not marxist within each institution are increasingly expected to toe the party line and to promote entanglements with sovereign power.
0024 Amazingly, Enlightenment liberals find themselves dispossessed by the very institutions that they built.
Does this imply that the marxists hold a perspective-level actuality2c that (if you will excuse the pun) trumps equality, freedom and fraternity2c?
0025 Hazony points to the obvious. Humans evolve in social circles where there are many relationships between a more powerful individual and a less powerful one, starting with mom, dad and their children. The organizational structure of this foundational institution is discussed in A Primer on the Family.
0026 The family starts in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. So, there is more.
We must add the unconstrained social and labor specializations that characterize our current Lebenswelt.
Our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0027 The organizational structures of civilizationB is a topic worthy of consideration. The institutionaC and sovereignbClevels of the society tierC contextualize the organization tierB. The organization tierB encompasses productionaB, exchangebB and assessmentcB. The organization tierB emerges from (and situates) the individual in communityA.
Too bad inquiry into the organization tierB is yet to be initiated.
Advancements are blocked by marxist theory, in its various guises. Marxist theory offers a “scientific” model that forecloses intellectual exploration of the organizations tierB.
0028 The model goes like this:
The diverse relations between more powerful and less powerful individuals in the organization tierB are equivalent to the relation between oppressors and oppressed.
The two are more than equivalent. They are contiguous.
Figure 8
0029 What does contiguity imply?
Peirce’s category of secondness consists of two contiguous real elements. The contiguity is not a real element, it is the substance that causally binds the two real elements. The marxist substance carries the character of equivalence, but that is not enough. Ask any marxist. The causality is systemic.
Anyone who disagrees speaks with what Jacques Lacan calls, the master’s discourse. Here is the oppressor.
Anyone who agrees speaks, to me3b, in discourses that Lacan labels, hysteric (for some) and scientific (for others). For the most part, I find it hard to tell the difference. I suppose the label depends on the slogan2a. Each slogan2a addresses the one who asks what does this mean to me3b.
“Me3b” is a placeholder, virtually situating the person’s reflection3b in the marxist mirror of the world3a.
0030 Oppressed? Or oppressor? Find a location within the abundance of asymmetric relations contained within the organization tierB.
Here is a diagram of the marxist interscope, as far as this discussion sees.
0031 From the masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion“, one finds that there are three tiers to the presence underlying the word, “religion”.
They are the societyC, organizationB and the individual in communityA.
The society tierC puts the organization tierB into perspective. The organization tierB emerges from (and situates) the individual in communityA.
Each tier is diagrammed as a three-level interscope.
0032 So, let me talk business.
When an young individual in communityA enters the organization tierB, by going to work, “he” engages a number of asymmetric relations.
How does a young personA navigate these relationsB?
Obviously, the individual in communityA relies on what “he” has been taught.
0033 American classical liberals teach that the individual should have a dream2a.
French classical liberals instruct the individual with tropes about equality, freedom and human brotherhood2a. These expectations2a encourage asymmetric business relations to be “win-win”.
Marxist (il)liberals indoctrinate slogans raising awareness of how asymmetric relations between individuals somehow cause (are contiguous with) systemic oppression2a.
0034 Liberalism offers a dream. Marxism offers a nightmare. Choose your false consciousness.
0035 Hazony describes the pairing as a dance. In this dance, one party negates the other. Thus, the dance is more like the mating ritual between the male and the female praying mantis. The dance ends when liberalism gets devoured as food for the fertilized egg sacs of marxism. Afterwards, an all-consuming fecund marxism dies from her own contradictions, in the winter of her totalizing reign.
0036 Why do I say this?
Compare the perspective-level actualities2c for American enlightenment and postmodern marxism.
Figure 10
0037 When the American enlightenment is reflected in the mirror of the world3a, slogans2a call for individuation1b. The asymmetric relations characterizing the organization tier are depicted as opportunities and hazards for fashioning a dream2a based on one’s talents and dispositions1a. When confronted with oppressors, the individual should learn how to detect, avoid and escape. When confronted with mentors, the individual should figure ways to flourish.
0038 Indeed, in America, opportunities1b for success are manifold, ask any movie actress2b promoted by the notorious Harvey Winerock, who turns out to be a postmodern marxist2a,b,c.
In contrast, millions of less-promoted actresses now live in movies of their own, the comedies and tragedies of life in the family2aB, the traditional portal to the organization tierB. For every one actress who reaches an accommodation2b with Harvey, by playing through his disgusting game1b, millions of women discover that the asymmetric relations inherent in the family realize2b their dreams2a.
Who should be teaching whom?
Surely, a Hollywood actress stands in asymmetric relation to innumerable mothers, among others.
So, what does she preach?
Marxist slogans2a?
Why?
In order to attain her dream2b, she is required to become so oppressed2c that she cannot recognize herself as an oppressor2c. She lives out the scientific truth of marxism2c. She submits1b and receives both rewards and marxist illumination2b.
0039 Why are so many civic institutions of American liberalism now controlled by marxists?
The marxist perspective translates the asymmetric relations of the organization tierB into the languages of oppressor and oppressed. Mirroring this perspective2c, slogans2a emerge from a righteousness1a that demands submission of the oppressors1b. One party in all asymmetric relationsB is already guilty of oppression1a on the basis of participation in the system. That party cannot be the marxist, who represents the oppressed.
By definition, the oppressed2c, such as Harvey Winerock and the Hollywood actress, are exempt because each is a marxist occupying a powerful position in a once civic, now marxist, institution. Each, in his and her own way, is a victim in an asymmetric relation with a more powerful individual.
For the actress, that more powerful individual is Harvey.
For Harvey, that more powerful individual is the one who bought his soul.
0040 Harvey Winerock is the poster boy of the marxist endgame.
Here is a character at home with the cruelty of the organization tierB, where asymmetric relations among individuals is contiguous with systemic oppression. Harvey stands as a gatekeeper for the studios of Hollywood. He is a gargoyle. Actresses and actors must speak the proper slogans2a and submit to the proper humiliations1b in order to pass into the bewitched enclave where every asymmetric relation stinks of systemic exploitation. Welcome to an institution filled with marxists.
0041 Harvey lives the marxist dream.
Until, of course, he does not.
Why?
Others can play the game. The organization tierB changes, every so slightly. The identification of oppressor and oppressed2c shifts out of his favor. Harvey and the actress point fingers in a house of mirrors.
0042 Hazony writes of marxism as the end of democracy.
It is really the end of sanity.
Why do French liberals (aka, “old time democrats”) and American liberals (aka, “tea party republicans”) find common cause in 2020?
They both gaze into the house of mirrors that is postmodern modernism.
There is one encouraging feature about the current scene. American academics, hatching the mantis eggs of the Frankfurt school, succinctly articulate their ever-expanding agendas. Hazony comes close to appreciating the paradox, where any asymmetric relation within the organization tierB may be interpreted as systemic oppression2c. If this actuality2c is true and if the organization tierB is full of asymmetric relations (not just full, but bursting with them), then systemic oppression2c is everywhere, except for once-liberal institutions under the control of marxists2b.
0043 What a joke.
InstitutionscC contextualize organizationsB. InstitutionscC justify organizationsB on the basis of righteousness2a. Marxists act as if they are institutionscC without the trappings of an organizationB. Yet, organized they are. They demand sovereign power3b in order to achieve the organizational goals2b that actualize their slogans2a. Harvey Winerock and the movie actress both exemplify the exceptional character of marxists. They are exempt from the marxist critique2c because they self-identify as marxists.
Harvey is promoted by other marxists within the studio system, just as homosexual priests promote their confreres, actresses promote their marxist causes, and public school teachers protest for better wages, in order to get better working conditions. No, nobody here engages in asymmetric relations that characterize the organization tierB. Instead, the avatars of the “be little men” movement say that men must become aware how systemic oppression is built into their life, their liberty and their pursuit of happiness.
No, marxists cannot see their reflections in the mirror of the world3a, because their illumination2c is supposed to be reflected in the mirror of the world3a. They see their illuminance2c, not themselves, in their slogans2a.
0044 Academic postmodern marxist disciplines are inquiries into how this or that asymmetric relation in the organization tierB somehow causes (is contiguous with) a relation between oppressor and oppressed2c. Marxists destroy once-liberal civic institutions from within, simply by identifying and promoting others who are self-identified victims (and extollers2a) of particular types of systemic oppression2c. Indeed, their organizational objectives2b force others into submitting1b to slogans2a that assign guilt for participation in systemic oppression1a.
0045 Ultimately, sovereign power3b is required in order to promulgate their organizational objectives2b. And, this is the ultimatum that Hazony fears. What happens when marxists gain control of the levers of state power?
Yoram Hazony’s article is an intimation of what will be exposed when conservative, Christian and nationalist citizens challenge Big Government (il)Liberalism, the hidden and the complete perversion of the Enlightenment tradition.
0046 Five related works are available at www.smashwords.com.
A Primer on the Category Based Nested Form
A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction
How To Define the Word “Religion”
A Primer on the Family
A Primer on the Organization Tier (First and Second)
To date, it seems that Catholics have flown a white flag to scientism, especially when it comes to human evolution. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P., strikes back, in a 2018 article appearing in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly. This well-trained biologist delivers a blistering attack on the anti-essentialism of science.
Strangely, he locates an essence for the human in a 2016 book by two modern academics. Why Only Us? is authored by two Harvard professors, Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky. The first works on computer models for language. The second is a famously political linguist.
Comments are in order. However, in a blink of an eye for the world of academics, Marie George flexes her erudition by taking Austriaco to task on his interpretations of Thomas Aquinas. She hands the Dominican a tar baby of scholastic qualifications.
Academic quarrels do not get better than this. Instead of one commentary, three are necessary, one for Marie George, one for Nicanor Austriaco OP, plus one for Berwick and Chomsky. The category-based nested form and the first singularity offer insights not available to any of these authors.
Christians need not defend Adam against Darwinism. Rather, Christians have an option that reveals Adam within an evolutionary framework. This is the drama of An Archaeology of the Fall. This is the hypothesis of the first singularity. Our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
The following are available at www.smashwords.com.
Comments on Nicanor Austriaco’s Essay (2018) “Adam After Darwin”
Comments on Marie George’s Essay (2020) “Aquinas’s Teachings on Concepts and Words”
Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s Book (2016) “Why Only Us?”
These comments are posted as an advertisement of the series titled, “Peirce’s Secondness and Aristotle’s Hylomorphism”.
This series should be of interest to high-school and college students interested in science and religion in the upcoming Age of Triadic Relations.
Short introductions are found on the page of each e-work appearing in smashwords dotcom. The entire series offers more than a dozen commentaries.
In 2004, Armand Maurer publishes a brief history of primary and secondary causalities. They first appear in the Neoplatonic Book of Causes, which Aquinas comments on. It is popularized by Suarez. Darwin accesses them, as potential avenues for appreciating his theory of evolution. These comments examine this story using the category-based nested form.
An expert in Medieval Philosophy, Armand Maurer, traces their history, backwards from Charles Darwin. He publishes an article in The Review of Metaphysics (volume 57(3), 2004, pages 506-511).
Darwin thinks that his theory of evolution endowed living beings with secondary causalities more profound and subtle than hitherto contemplated. Creatures have the ability to produce new substances on their own accord. That new substance is a new species or genus.
Before this, philosophers never confront the question of evolution. So, secondary causality belongs to creatures, in accordance to the Will and Presence of God, the primary cause. Secondary causes are living creatures getting on with their lives.
As it turns out, that is also what living creatures do according to Darwin’s theory of evolution. The difference is that their survival is subject to natural selection, especially in regards to exploiting their niche.
Surely, there must be consistency here, besides that both medieval philosophers and the educated folk of Darwin’s time use the terms, primary and secondary causes.
Maurer ends with Maritain, who publishes and exploration of the role of primary and secondary causes in Darwin’s schema.
The introduction and five parts follow the Maurer’s arguments, not point by point, but according to the timeframe that he articulates. The story begins with the Book of Causes, a Neoplatonic work written around Baghdad a few decades after the death of the Abbasid caliph, Al-Mamun.
This work comments on an article by an expert in medieval philosophy, Armand Maurer, published in The Review of Metaphysics (volume 57(3), 2004, Pages 506-511). My goal is to comment on this work using the category-based nested form and other relational models within the tradition of Charles Peirce.
‘Words that belong together’ are denoted by single quotes or italics.
Dates are in Ubaid Zero Prime. 0 U0’ equates to 5800 B.C., around 7800 years ago. 0 U0’ roughly marks the first appearance of the Ubaid culture in southern Mesopotamia.
Prerequisites: A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction
0001 Armand Maurer publishes a short paper tracing a path, through time, of the idea of secondary and primary causes. I follow the timeline, which starts in section three.
Around two decades after the death of the seventh Abbasid caliph, al-Ma’mun, in 6633 U0’, someone puts pen to paper. Centuries later, when the Book of Causes is translated into Latin, some medieval scholastics assume that this “someone” is Aristotle. Thomas Aquinas writes a commentary on the work.
0003 The irony?
Al Ma’mun’s story as caliph calls to mind our world, in the 7800s.
First, al Ma’mun tries to directly reconcile Sunni and Shi’a branches of Islam. This approach dramatically fails within his lifetime.
Second, during his remaining 15 years, he tries an indirect reconciliation by promoting Islamic thinkers familiar with the rationalist methods of ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers. He encourages translations from Greek into Arabic. He promotes an academy called, “The House of Wisdom”, in Baghdad. Again, this approach fails. Many of his subjects refuse to believe that the Qur’an is a “created” work.
Thus, the Book of Causes may address a question relevant to our time.
Could the the Qur’an be ascribed to secondary causation, in concert with a primary cause, God’s Will and Presence?
0004 Here is how this might look as a category-based nested form. See required reading.
Figure 1
Note that God’s Presence1 is the potential underlying the normal context of God’s Will3.
0005 Okay, on to Thomas Aquinas (7025-7074 U0’).
In 7068, he notices a similarity between The Book of Causes and a newly translated work, The Elements of Theology, by Neoplatonist Proclus (6210-6285 U0’). This suggests that the idea of primary and secondary causation is much older than the Arabic translation of The Book of Causes.
0006 What does Aquinas say about The Book of Causes?
He focuses on two propositions (A and B).
0007 First (A), primary cause has greater impact than secondary cause.
Thomas notes (more or less), “This is true for God as a primary cause. God causes being to exist.”
The Latin term, ‘esse’, refers to being as existent, in contrast to “ens”, being as being.
God may bring things into being (esse) from nothing, that is, without a pre-existing ens.
Otherwise, God creates ens, being as being, then ens enters form and becomes esse, being as existent.
The pattern of ens preceding esse appears in the Genesis Creation Story. On several days, God says, “Let there be (ens)…” and then, the earth brings forth, (esse).
In this, the earth has the power to bring forth.
These powers go with secondary causation.
0008 Second (B), we see causes in the nature of things.
Things have their own powers. These are not the powers of the Divine. Rather, these are particular powers, characteristic of the substance of each creature. These powers specify one or another outcome. They are called, “secondary causes”.
0009 These two propositions, A and B, associate to a nested form in the following manner.
Figure 2
0010 The actuality is dyadic. This is typical in the category of secondness. Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements. In the above notation, one real element [is contiguous with] another real element. The contiguity is placed in brackets. The contiguity bears the marks of causality.
There is a certain circularity to this actuality. The earth holds creatures, even though it brings creatures forth as existent beings. Existent beings that the earth brings forth participate in the earth’s powers, once they are present. So, as the earth brings forth, the earth appears to increase in its powers. Each additional type of creature adds to the capacities of the earth. When a type of creature disappears, the earth loses the power to make that specific creature.
Does that sound sufficiently circular?
0011 Compare this circularity to the following example of secondary causation.
Consider a pen.
A pen cannot write a note to a my friend.
Instead, the pen is an instrument for me, the writer.
So, if I am going to be a writer, I better acquire a pen.
0012 The writer and the note constitute a dyad. The writer is a real element. The letter is a real element. The pen is the instrument that brings the two real elements together. Is it not curious that the word, “pen”, is also a verb?
Here is a picture of this actuality.
Figure 3
0013 The pen is an instrument. The actuality2 has been alchemically isolated from its nested form. So, no one can determine the aims and designs of the note.
Here I may ask, “Does the instrumentality of the pen account for the realness of the writer and the note?”
Of course, a scientist may reply, “If I observe the writer and all the notes that the writer produces, then I can generate a mechanical model accounting the use of a pen, and publish the results in the EmpiricalJournal of Pens.”
In short, the scientist focuses on actuality2.
0014 However, the instrumental causality of the pen occurs within the actuality2 itself. It offers no clue to the question that everyone asks.
Why is the writer penning a letter?
Material, final and formal cuases address this question. Once answers come to light, the actuality2 is no longer alone. It participates in a category-based nested form.
0015 Here is a picture of the way that Aristotle’s four causes, starting from within actuality2, intimate normal context3 and potential1.
Figure 4
0016 What does this imply (C and D)?
0017 Instrumental causes are secondary causes (C), without the primary cause.
Consequently, I anticipate that instrumental causes may be confounded with secondary causes.
In the above example, the scientist does this. The scientist focuses on the instrumental and material causality of the pento the exclusion of final and formal causes for the writer and note.
0018 Aristotle’s remaining four causes (D) construct a nested form around a dyad in actuality.
Material causes link actuality2 to the possibility of ‘something’1.
Final causes connects the actuality2 to both normal context3 and potential1.
In this example, the writer [pens] a letter2occurs in a particular normal context3, say, remembering an old friend3. Plus, there is an incentive to say ‘something’1, recalling a fond memory.
Formal causes draw the writer to compose the note2 in a certain style, suitable for conveying a particular mood.
0019 Here is how that looks.
Figure 5
0020 Overall, Aristotle’s four causes are neither secondary or primary causes. Rather, they draw a creaturely power (the power of the pen) into its corresponding category-based nested form. This corresponds to a transition from instrumental to secondary cause2, as well as a transition from the remaining causes to elements that point to a primary cause3,1.
0021 Are these surprising claims?
Consider a thing2 or event2.
How do Aristotle’s four causes come into play?
When we explore its instrumental causes, actuality may become a dyad in secondness. Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.
When we look at its2 material causality, potential1 comes into consciousness.
When we consider final attributes. Potential1 is clarified. Normal context3 comes to consciousness.
When we think about formal requirements and design, normal context3 is clarified.
Secondary causality associates to actuality2 in a category-based nested form.
Primary causality associates to normal context3 and potential1 in a category-based nested form.
0022 At the time of Thomas Aquinas, several philosophical schools argue that secondary causes detract from the idea that all causation rests in God. So, actuality2 is just a residue of the divine.
Aquinas argues against this proposition, saying that this point of view reduces the dignity of the creature and by extension, God’s creation.
If the Ash’arite school is correct, then the creature cannot be responsible for its own actions. Only God is responsible.
If creatures are not responsible, then why do they take care of themselves so well?
If the claims of Bonaventure and his followers are correct, and secondary causes are not sufficient, then how do creatures get along in the world?
Indeed, they get along so well that the seem designed to do what they do.
0023 Aquinas never envisions that the word, “adaptation”, could replace the word, “design”. Why? Aquinas lives in the enternal now. Species of plant and animal are always the same. Each bears according to its kind.
