Aquinas maintains a distinction between epistemic subject and object-- some relations are "imposed" by the reason of the subject onto the object, as when something is said to be "the same as itself." Other relations are inherent to the nature of the object.

What would it mean for these perfections, expressed as certain properties or determinations, to exist in God "unitedly and simply" as opposed to "divided and multiplied" in creatures?

Even positive determinations would thus be read negatively.

Again, is this fair? Anselm makes the crucial first point that such a thing exists at least in the mind, so in order for Aquinas's point to hold, these people would have to deny such a concept exists even in the mind.

Is this a fair critique? IIRC Anselm says that one would understand that what the word signifies exists actually on the condition that they properly think through and understand the meaning of the concept.

Sounds like the (later?) distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions.

Would that be called self-evident? It still requires a formal demonstration proceeding from the concept of God

Metaphor would obscure truth because it gets at it indirectly, by means of a comparison, rather than directly.

Weird to treat poetry as a science at all.

Faith itself must be defended in this case-- but how?

Markedly different from Maimonides who encourages us to interpret scripture differently, i.e. allegorically, when it appears to contradict truths arrived at through reason.

The implication is that political science, in turn, is oriented toward the end of eternal salvation.

Qua divinely revealed.

But Aquinas does not clarify how the "science of God and the blessed," upon which our sacred teaching is based, are known to human beings. This raises the question all over again: is the "science of God and the blessed" known to us by the natural light of intelligence, or by the light of a higher science?

Instead they presumably deal with universal principles?

Already a difference from Maimonides, for whom fully revealed truth about God need/should not be accessible to everyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JUQCyx58Ik

Maimonides seems to think that God's pure "essence" must have no attributes or qualities, or else it could be broken down into these parts and would no longer be a unity. But if God has no attributes, what is his essence if not "nothing"?

Because it has no derivation in some other word or term, it does not refer to any other concept, such as "lord" or "king," which is not identical with YHWH himself.

As we have seen in many of the previous texts, Maimonides introduces concepts into his interpretation of Hebrew scripture which are foreign to its original culture.

Bears similarity to the translation of the Greek "endoxa," according to footnote 7. What does this imply? Good and evil are mere endoxa, not intelligible objects, like truth and falsehood? Is the status of endoxa inferior-- meaning moral facts are inferior?

Interesting to hear a Jewish take on the story, which I'm most familiar with in the Christian context as a story of the "fall" and of original sin.

This might be hard to tell without knowing the original, but I wonder if Maimonides is missing the importance of context here. Even in English, the "like" in "I am like a pelican in the wilderness" is the same root as "likeness" in "the boy's likeness to his father," yet it is clear from context that the former is metaphorical and the latter is literal. It wouldn't be right to try to claim either the metaphorical or the literal meaning for the word exclusively-- the meaning depends on its context.

Prof. Callaway last semester specifically remarked on how physical the Hebrew is with the terms "image and likeness."

The only cause which admits the possibility of an actual internal inconsistency in the text.

How we should approach a text, for Maimonides, ultimately has its basis in the author's intentions.

Truth as it is as opposed to that which is merely useful.

Scriptural interpretation is now held against the standard of human reason, to which each interpretation must be answerable. Interpretations must be rejected if they contradict reason.

Genesis is re-cast as an account of natural science.

Something about the subject matter makes it inaccessible to direct speech-- it can only be hinted at in parables, riddles, allegories, metaphors, etc.

This is a far cry from the democratic (Christian evangelist?) understanding of truth as something that should be accessible to all.

This raises the problem of how the intelligible can be communicated, because to communicate it is already to turn it into something sensible (spoken or written word).

Is this to say that the soul/mind has no location?

Practical knowledge is that which manages sensible states.

Should we read "forms" here as having any connection to Plato's forms?

There is even hierarchy WITHIN the rational part of the soul.

Reminds me of Prof. Miller on how Aristotle might have considered some particular faculty of the rational soul to be able to exist separately from the body-- Avicenna takes a more definitive stance.

Avicenna determines one of the three concepts to be prior to all others so that he might define the others in terms of it without circularity.

If we can conceive of something in the intellect, this is a kind of existence for Avicenna.

A priori knowledge?

It is separable only in mind, in definition, as an abstraction.

Echoes Aristotle's distinction between "better known in itself" and "better known to us."

Are all these divisions really necessary? lol

Since there is no science higher than metaphysics.

Why is this impossible?

Hume will take up this argument centuries later!

IIRC Avicenna is the first of the texts we've read so far not to take the existence of God for granted.

Are mathematical objects separable from matter in definition but not in subsistence?

"Inasmuch as" looks a lot like Aristotle's "qua" -- theoretical sciences might sometimes tackle a similar subject matter as the practical sciences, but not insofar as it pertains to action.

Even negative statements apparently do not apply.

A reversal of ordinary Christian thinking, in which God and truth are associated with light.

This is how PD responds to the objection that he is speaking in contradictions.

Goes a step farther than Platonism-- leaving the senses for intelligible objects is no longer enough. We have to leave behind even the intelligible objects for something unintelligible.

As the source and cause of all things, knowledge of himself implies knowledge of all things.

Similar to the point about God's non-existence -- in saying this we mean that he is beyond existence.

Not just the efficient cause but the final cause.

Clear relationship to Plato's forms as causes.

A kind of ground of existence, which according to PD is time itself -- prior to existence. God is understood as this time which precedes existence, within which things can come into being.

These greater levels of faculties give one greater participation in the "one infinitely generous God."

God, or not? God was previously spoken of as beyond existence.

Seems to suggest that God does not "choose" anything but simply emits goodness of his own nature.

Similar to what Olivia brought up in a comment before -- he tries to get out of the objections that Parmenides brings against Plato's theory of Forms insofar as it would also apply to God.

Not oneness in this sense, or else he would be divisible.

If Jesus is wholly and completely human, and wholly and completely divine, and if to be human and to be divine are mutually exclusive, do we arrive at a contradiction? Are they not mutually exclusive?

"Being there" -- is this not existence? In what sense is God?

God is spoken about only negatively, in terms of what God is not. Pseudo-Dionysius seems to refuse to say anything positive about God, since that would imply ascribing to God concepts and words which remain in the realm of existence and understanding.

What would it mean to "transcend existence"? The implication is that God does not exist, but if not, how are we to speak of God as a reality?

But how can we speak about God if not in words and conceptions? Do we already fail by saying the name "God"?

Some trace the origin of the ancient Greek "logos" to a root meaning "to gather." God cannot be spoken of, "gathered up" by discourse.