About that we love that we love: it is obvious, for we desire that one does not only know what is good, but also loves it.
We love that we love that is good: for in man a love for what is bad can exist alongside a love for what is good, and the good for us will be that the first diminishes and the last grows. For animals love a sensual life, plants a vegetative life, but man should recognize that these things are only imprints from God their creator, and return (like the son in the gospel [Luke 15]) to his true being, eternal truth, and eternal and true love.
We know about our being, knowledge and love by inner enlightenment; but about the outcome of their good or bad use we do not know, but need to have or look for truthful witness about these things, which we shall treat later. Instead, we will now continue with what we already started, from the City of God, not in a state of pilgrimage and mortality, but immortal in the heavens, about the angels who forever maintain their allegiance to God, separated, as we told, from those that fell from God and became darkness.
Showing posts with label senses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label senses. Show all posts
Thursday, May 26, 2011
II.1 chapter 27
Man chooses misery above death or being not at all. Even nature in all its movements confirms that it wants preservation: all living beings, even plants, strive for life. This is a proof that we love that we are.
About that we love that we know: one does not like to be deceived; one desires to know the truth, even if it hurts, above knowing nothing or being deceived. This attitude and right judgement is in man only, not in any other living being, although some animals have better senses; for man is enlightened from within, through which we can distinguish by an intellectual idea between just and unjust.
About that we love that we know: one does not like to be deceived; one desires to know the truth, even if it hurts, above knowing nothing or being deceived. This attitude and right judgement is in man only, not in any other living being, although some animals have better senses; for man is enlightened from within, through which we can distinguish by an intellectual idea between just and unjust.
II.1 chapter 26
Do these three things in man, being, knowledge and love, form a unity in him too?
Man is made in the image of God, although he is not equal to God, rather, very far removed from him: not eternal, nor, to say all in a word, of the same being. But because man is the image of God we find the same unity: we are; we know that we are, we know that we love; and we love that we are, and love that we know.
These things are sure, not bothered by sceptical questions; for they are not dependent from any deceivable senses. Because: if I were deceived, I would therefore be; and therefore I can know that I am. Moreover, I know that I love: because I may be deceived in my love, but even if I loved false things, I would know that I loved. Finally, who does not love that he is, because to be happy, one has to be, and who does not desire happiness?
[Note: the last backward transitivity of desire does not seem to apply. If we desire to be married to Mary (D(p)), but it is impossible to marry Mary without killing John (p ↔ q), it does not follow that we desire to kill John (D(q)).]
[Note that Descartes took the same argument for being as a starting point of his metaphysics: dubio, ergo (cogito, ergo) sum.]
Man is made in the image of God, although he is not equal to God, rather, very far removed from him: not eternal, nor, to say all in a word, of the same being. But because man is the image of God we find the same unity: we are; we know that we are, we know that we love; and we love that we are, and love that we know.
These things are sure, not bothered by sceptical questions; for they are not dependent from any deceivable senses. Because: if I were deceived, I would therefore be; and therefore I can know that I am. Moreover, I know that I love: because I may be deceived in my love, but even if I loved false things, I would know that I loved. Finally, who does not love that he is, because to be happy, one has to be, and who does not desire happiness?
[Note: the last backward transitivity of desire does not seem to apply. If we desire to be married to Mary (D(p)), but it is impossible to marry Mary without killing John (p ↔ q), it does not follow that we desire to kill John (D(q)).]
[Note that Descartes took the same argument for being as a starting point of his metaphysics: dubio, ergo (cogito, ergo) sum.]
Thursday, May 19, 2011
II.1 chapter 21
What do the words "God saw that it was good" indicate exactly?
It does not mean that God became a knowledge he did not have before he made it. For God does not have a body, such that seeing and thinking would be different, but is eternal and unchangeable, such that the past, present and future are comprehended without transition of thought.
It is instead a statement of approval for us to know it was Gods will that was why it was created. This also Plato has assigned as the most sufficient reason for the creation of the world, that good works might be made by a good God. This completes our knowledge about the creation:
It does not mean that God became a knowledge he did not have before he made it. For God does not have a body, such that seeing and thinking would be different, but is eternal and unchangeable, such that the past, present and future are comprehended without transition of thought.
It is instead a statement of approval for us to know it was Gods will that was why it was created. This also Plato has assigned as the most sufficient reason for the creation of the world, that good works might be made by a good God. This completes our knowledge about the creation:
- who created, was God;
- how it was created, was by the word of God
- why it was created, the will of God.
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