Thanks as always for your kindness and sharing the fruit of your study.
But,
getting back to the Kolbe stuff. The intelligent lady I am speaking
with seems to really want me to join the Koble MI. She's a good
Catholic, but she from a pro-life experience thinks apparently with the
Franciscans that will comes before intellect. She is in contact with a
big time Franciscan scholar. If our conversation continues I would like
to send her some your scholarship on the matter without mentioning your
name with your permission.
I have told her some of your problems with
the Franciscans. She is smart and sincere and always has a intelligent
reply. I am hoping to learn something and hopefully help her understand
why Thomists have problems with the Franciscan theology.
Fred
Subject:Univocity, etc.
I am very far from being an expert on Scotus, and have no desire to be so. But I would offer the following:
Employing
"univocity" in relation to any terms used of both God and His creation
necessarily terminates in some type of pantheistic-gnostic mush.
Strictly speaking God is the only Being, in the sense of possessing
Being of Himself. It is true that, in relation to created things, we do
distinguish the category of substantial being from all the categories of
accidental being by saying that it is something suited to exist "in
itself". But this is a definition necessary to distinguish the category
of relative, created, substance from accidens, which are suited to
exist only as inhering in substance. Without understanding the principle
of analogy between all created things and God, we necessarily
end up confusing the Thomistic concept of creative "participation" in
being with the idea that creative things are somehow "part" of God. In
other words, we destroy Catholic ontology (and all that is contained in
the concept creation ex nihilo), and ultimately everything which
is intimately connected to this ontology. Even sanctifying grace, and
the entire concept of possessing the life of God in our souls, must be
considered a created gift of God.
In regard to the so-called Franciscan doctrine which is usually now termed the "Absolute Primacy of Christ".
St.
Thomas, while certainly being clear that the question has not been
given final determination by the Church, yet declares his tentative
opposition to this notion because Holy Scripture never offers any other
reason for Christ's Incarnation other than that supreme Divine Love
which "bends over" towards man in order to merit our redemption from
sin. Christ Himself says, "Greater love than this no man hath, that a
man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). To attempt to
assert therefore that through the proposed doctrine of "Absolute Primacy
of Christ"(the notion that Incarnation would have occurred even without
sin) they somehow possess a greater and deeper understanding of the
primacy of Christ and the greatness of His love is indeed a "walking on
thin ice".It smacks ultimately of placing some sort of "necessity" in
God in relation to His creation.
Interestingly enough, Mary of Agreda (herself a Franciscan Conception), in the City of God, claims
endorsement of this Franciscan theory as a private revelation from
Christ (Vol. I, p.77). But even more interesting, she places "necessity"
in God in relation to creation. Thus, she writes:
"The
Majesty of God, beholding the nature of his infinite perfection, their
virtue and efficacy operating with magnificence, saw that it was just
and most proper, and, as it were, , a necessity, to communicate
Himself, and to follow the inclination of imparting and exercising his
liberality and mercy, by distributing outside of Himself with
magnificence, the plenitude of the infinite treasures, contained in the
Divinity. For, being Infinite in all things, it is much more natural,
that He communicate gifts and graces, than that fire should ascend, or
the stone should gravitate toward its center, or that the sun should
diffuse light." (ibid. p. 52)
So much for the total gratuitousness and freedom of God in relation to all of His gifts to man.
You might also be interested in reading my two-part fictional work The Mind of Antichrist, which is here:
The
second part examines an interview conducted by Jacques Servais with
Benedict XVI in 2015. He clearly rejects the traditional "Anselmian"
view of the reason for Christ's Incarnation, and instead places necessity upon
God for showing man mercy. Benedict of course has long been friendly to
Augustinian and Franciscan sources for his theology, while very clearly
and specifically renouncing Thomistic Metaphysics. Any embrace of
Bonaventurian theology of emanation and return, for instance, absolutely
places necessity in God in relation to His creation.
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