A Website for Disciples of St. Thomas Aquinas
Professor Knasas has kindly responded to my rejoinder to his reply to my review of his book. He considers, once again, Aristotle’s argument for the eternity of motion from time, discusses the limits of natural philosophic speculation when it comes to imagining realities beyond those limits, discusses the limits of the considerations of natural philosophy in regard to the human soul as a subject of contemplation, and concludes with a reminder to a text central to his aforementioned book (ST, Ia, q. 44, a. 2) as emblematic of his interpretation as part of the project of existentialist Thomism.
In a previous Thomistica posting I contended that Aquinas reformulates Aristotle’s third argument for the eternity of motion. The third argument is the argument from the eternity of time. In this third argument the now of time is characterized as middle such that there is always a now before and a now after. The argument includes the unfortunate comparison of the now of time to the point of a line. The comparison invites the easy rebuttal that the end points of a line are not middles and so perhaps not all nows are middles. The third argument can, then, proceed only by begging the question about all nows being middles.
The debate between Universalists and Perditionists ultimately hinges on conflicting understandings of God’s will, justice, and the purpose of creation. Given the lack of Universalists’ ability to demonstrate the impossibility of hell, the only solution—as in the situation of the eternality of the world—is to look at the tradition and humbly ponder it.