Grace via Thomas Aquinas

Sun Jan 28 15:36:49 CST 2018

According to Terrance W. Klein , if one keeps both early and late
Wittgenstein in mind, one can discern what he calls Wittgenstein's
Thomistic trajectory, which will prove to be very helpful in relating the
word 'grace' to human concerns.

Gleaned from the free sample of the book on Kindle.

On Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 1:55 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes! Yes! Yes!!  Double Plus YES...(I do not know the book mentioned
> but I'm ordering it right after this)
> ....but I too thought of Witt....and for those who may not know his
> work at all just see the
> opening sentence of his first major work:
>
> "The world is all that is the case", which is of course IN, sky-absorbed,
> V.
>
>
>
> On 1/28/18, ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Cool. All echoes LW to my ear.
> >
> > Wittgenstein and the Metaphysics of Grace
> >
> > W. Klein Terrance
> > Oxford University Press (2007)
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 28, 2018 at 9:15 AM, Thomas Eckhardt
> > <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
> >> I take this opportunity to return to the discussion about grace from
> >> August
> >> which I did not find the time to continue back then. The following is
> not
> >> yet very well structured, and the English could use some editing, but
> >> here
> >> goes.
> >>
> >>
> >> *Direct references to Aquinas in Pynchon*
> >>
> >> To judge from his essay on Sloth, Pynchon knows his Aquinas rather well:
> >>
> >> 'In his classical discussion of the subject in the "Summa Theologica,"
> >> Aquinas termed Sloth, or acedia, one of the seven capital sins. He said
> >> he
> >> was using "capital" to mean "primary" or "at the head of" because such
> >> sins
> >> gave rise to others, but there was an additional and darker sense
> >> resonating
> >> luridly just beneath and not hurting the power of his argument, for the
> >> word
> >> also meant "deserving of capital punishment." Hence the equivalent term
> >> "mortal," as well as the punchier English "deadly."'
> >>
> >> 'But Sloth's offspring, though bad -- to paraphrase the Shangri-Las --
> >> are
> >> not always evil, for example what Aquinas terms Uneasiness of the Mind,
> >> or
> >> "rushing after various things without rhyme or reason," which, "if it
> >> pertains to the imaginative power... is called curiosity."
> >>
> >> http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/sloth.html
> >>
> >> (Anybody who mentions the Shangri-Las and Thomas Aquinas in the same
> >> sentence is my friend.)
> >>
> >> Siegel's mother in "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna", "(...) at the age of
> >> 19
> >> had struggled with her soul one night in a railroad flat somewhere in
> >> Hell's
> >> Kitchen and, half-drunk on bootleg beer, had ended up refuting Aquinas
> >> and
> >> quitting the Roman church (...)"
> >>
> >> http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/vienna.html
> >>
> >>
> >> *Grace and understanding that things are exactly what they are*
> >>
> >> The text in question was:
> >>
> >> "One mild and ordinary work-morning in Chicago, Lew happened to find
> >> himself
> >> on a public conveyance, head and eyes inclined nowhere in particular,
> >> when
> >> he entered, all too briefly, a condition he had no memory of having
> >> sought,
> >> which he later came to think of as grace."
> >>
> >> Next paragraph:
> >>
> >> "He understood that things were exactly what they were. It
> >> seemed more than he could bear."
> >>
> >> AD, p. 42.
> >>
> >> This is of particular relevance as the final word of the novel is
> >> "grace":
> >>
> >> "They will put on smoked goggles for the glory of what is coming to part
> >> the
> >> sky. They fly toward grace."
> >>
> >> AD, p. 1085.
> >>
> >> Monte Davis quoted Laura Kelber on this (from 2007):
> >>
> >> "A couple of reviewers seemed to take the mention of grace at the end of
> >> the
> >> book in its religious sense.  The Inconvenience has become sort of a
> >> public
> >> conveyance, the world in microcosm, and it flies toward grace. But if
> >> grace
> >> is understanding that things are exactly what they are, it seems that
> TRP
> >> has something other than the religious connotation in mind.  Things that
> >> are
> >> exactly what they are don't have any particular grace of god bestowed on
> >> them.  They belong more to the preterite than the elect."
> >>
> >> I believe that this is one of the rare cases of Laura being wrong.
> >> Pynchon
> >> does not necessarily use "grace" in its religious sense but he
> definitely
> >> uses a Thomist concept of grace according to which perceiving things "as
> >> they are", i.e. in their whatness or quiddity, indeed means partaking in
> >> divine grace.
> >>
> >> This does not mean that Pynchon embraces the concept, or that "grace"
> >> carries the same meaning in each and every instance. How and why Pynchon
> >> uses the Thomist concept for his own literary purposes, may well be a
> >> matter
> >> for discussion. *That* he uses it, to me seems indisputable.
> >>
> >> Professor Krafft helpfully reminded us of Gottfried's ascent in GR which
> >> also, if obliquely, seems to refer to understanding "that things were
> >> exactly what they were":
> >>
> >> "'This ascent will be betrayed to Gravity. But the Rocket engine, the
> >> deep cry of combustion that jars the soul, promises escape. The
> >> victim, in bondage to falling, rises on a promise, a prophecy, of
> >> Escape....
> >> Moving now toward the kind of light where at last the apple is
> >> apple-colored. The knife cuts through the apple like a knife cutting
> >> an apple. Everything is where it is, no clearer than usual, but
> >> certainly more present.'"
> >>
> >> GR, 758-759 (Penguin 20th Century Classics)
> >>
> >> Professor Krafft commented:
> >>
> >> "If observing/perceiving/understanding things to be exactly as they are
> >> is grace in AD, compare this passage from the end of GR. Surely
> >> Gottfried isn't flying toward grace, is he?"
> >>
> >> I suggest that Gottfried may not be flying toward grace but very much
> >> hopes
> >> that he is. Or, as these thoughts are very much out of character and we
> >> cannot be sure who exactly is speaking here, the narrator suggests that
> >> he
> >> hopes he is.
> >>
> >> Another possiblity would be that the passage refers to Fausto
> Majistral's
> >> "task of living in a universe of things which simply are" and its
> "innate
> >> mindlessness" (V., 326 Picador). Laura Kelber argued that this idea
> could
> >> provide comfort to Gottfried:
> >>
> >> "For Gottfried, that point at the top of the parabola -- where the knife
> >> cutting the apple is just a knife cutting an apple, where there's a
> >> complete
> >> absence of knowledge or morality -- is a comfort. For the Chums, it's a
> >> safe
> >> haven from the impending horrors. Don't we all attempt to retreat to
> that
> >> frame of reference - the cold, amoral universe, where things just are
> >> what
> >> they are - when confronted with the insanities of the day? I know I do."
> >>
> >> I am familar with the sentiment but doubt that it applies to Gottfried's
> >> (God's peace) state of mind here. There are quite a few  frames of
> >> reference
> >> for Gottfried's doomed ascent -- e.g. the Kabbalah, S&M, sacrificial
> >> ritus,
> >> death-wish -- but most of all to me it seems to be a savage satire or
> >> demonic inversion of the Christian myth of man's elevation to divine
> >> grace
> >> and glory, toward the revelation of the deity (I believe I am in line
> >> with
> >> the mainstream of Pynchon criticism here). Gottfried's ascent in this
> >> view
> >> is the expression of Blicero's desire for apocalypse (which is then,
> >> along
> >> with the technology and Wernher von Braun, transferred from Germany to
> >> the
> >> US via Project Paperclip -- "If you're wondering where he's gone, look
> >> among
> >> the successful academics, the Presidential advisers, the token
> >> intellectuals
> >> who sit on boards of directors. He is almost certainly there. Look high,
> >> not
> >> low." 749).
> >>
> >> My hypothesis would be that Gottfried's or the narrator's thoughts
> during
> >> the ascent have to be viewed against the background of Thomist theology.
> >> For
> >> one, the ability of understanding that things are just what they are, is
> >> explicitly called grace in Lew's case. My view is also supported by the
> >> fact
> >> that "the kind of light where at last the apple is apple-colored" is a
> >> direct reference to Aquinas:
> >>
> >> "For if we understood or said that color is not in a colored body, or
> >> that
> >> it is separate from it, there would be error in this opinion or
> >> assertion.
> >> But if we consider color and its properties, without reference to the
> >> apple
> >> which is colored; or if we express in word what we thus understand,
> there
> >> is
> >> no error in such an opinion or assertion, because an apple is not
> >> essential
> >> to color, and therefore color can be understood independently of the
> >> apple."
> >>
> >> http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1085.htm
> >>
> >> This is about essence and accidents, and with regard to Gottfried again
> >> about seeing things as they actually are.
> >>
> >> (I do not know what to do with the phrase "no clearer than usual", I
> have
> >> to
> >> admit -- things *should* be clearer than usual in the "kind of light"
> >> Gottfried hopes for.)
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> *Quiddity*
> >>
> >> The idea of perceiving things as being just what they are is related to
> >> the
> >> Thomist concept of quiddity or whatness:
> >>
> >> "But the angelic and the Divine intellect, like all incorruptible
> things,
> >> have their perfection at once from the beginning. Hence the angelic and
> >> the
> >> Divine intellect have the entire knowledge of a thing at once and
> >> perfectly;
> >> and hence also in knowing the quiddity of a thing they know at once
> >> whatever
> >> we can know by composition, division, and reasoning. Therefore the human
> >> intellect knows by composition, division and reasoning. But the Divine
> >> intellect and the angelic intellect know, indeed, composition, division,
> >> and
> >> reasoning, not by the process itself, but by understanding the simple
> >> essence."
> >>
> >> Summa Theologica, I, Question 85, Article 5
> >>
> >> To perceive things exactly as they are, to "have the entire knowledge of
> >> a
> >> thing at once and perfectly", means to perceive things like angels do or
> >> God
> >> does. It also means that God's essence is revealed to man. It should be
> >> noted here that there are various stages of revelation in Thomist
> >> thought,
> >> each of them vaguely related to a certain kind of light: lumen naturae
> >> (light of nature), lumen gratiae (light of grace), lumen gloriae (light
> >> of
> >> glory).
> >>
> >> These different kinds of light play an important role in Dante's "Divine
> >> Comedy". Compare this comment by John S. Carroll on "Paradiso", Canto
> 30:
> >>
> >> "It will be noticed that I speak of this central circular sea as lumen
> >> gratiae, for it is still the light of grace which once flowed in form of
> >> a
> >> river; but that light of grace has now reached its perfect form of
> >> eternity,
> >> the lumen gloriae. The change of the river into the circular sea is
> >> Dante's
> >> symbolic way of stating that the grace by which a soul is saved and
> >> strengthened to persevere to the end of the earthly life, is not
> >> something
> >> different in kind from the glory to which it leads. According to
> Aquinas,
> >> 'grace is nothing else than a certain beginning of glory in us' [Summa,
> >> ii-ii. q. xxiv. a. 3: 'Gratia et gloria ad idem genus referuntur; quia
> >> gratia nihil est aliud quam quaedam inchoatio gloriae in nobis'], and
> the
> >> light of glory is simply the perfected form of the grace of earth
> [Summa,
> >> i-ii. q. cxi. a. 3.]"
> >>
> >> http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3024.htm
> >>
> >> It could be argued, I believe, that Gottfried desires the light of
> glory,
> >> a
> >> full revelation or apocalypse, whereas Lew unexpectedly experiences the
> >> "beginning of glory" in him.
> >>
> >>
> >> *Joyce's epiphanies*
> >>
> >> Quiddity is one of the many scholastic terms James Joyce uses and
> >> discusses
> >> in his novels. Stephen Dedalus talks about claritas and quidditas in
> >> "Portrait of the Artist", referring to artistic creation:
> >>
> >> "You see that it is that thing which it is and no other thing. The
> >> radiance
> >> of which he speaks is the scholastic /quidditas/, the /whatness/ of a
> >> thing."
> >>
> >> "Portrait", 231 (Penguin 20th Century Classics)
> >>
> >> In "Stephen Hero" we find the following, where Stephen ties the concept
> >> of
> >> quidditas to the idea of epiphany, again with regard to aesthetic ideas:
> >>
> >> "Claritas is quidditas. After the analysis which discovers the second
> >> quality the mind makes the only logically possible synthesis and
> >> discovers
> >> the third quality. This is the moment which I call epiphany. First we
> >> recognise that the object is one integral thing, then we recognise that
> >> it
> >> is an organised composite structure, a thing in fact: finally, when the
> >> relation of the parts is exquisite, when the parts are adjusted to the
> >> special point, we recognise that it is that thing which it is. Its soul,
> >> its
> >> whatness, leaps to us from the vestment of its appearance. The soul of
> >> the
> >> commonest object, the structure of which is so adjusted, seems to us
> >> radiant. The object achieves its epiphany."
> >>
> >> http://theliterarylink.com/joyce.html
> >>
> >> There is a subtle but important difference between Stephen's take on
> >> Aquinas
> >> in "Stephen Hero" and in "Portrait of the Artist" which is discussed by
> >> Tudor Balinisteanu in "Violence, Narrative and Myth in Joyce and Yeats:
> >> Subjective Identity and Anarcho-Syndicalist Traditions":
> >>
> >> "In Richard Kearney's words, from Aquinas, Joyce seems to have 'gleaned
> >> an
> >> understanding of epiphany as "whatness" (/quidditas/), meaning an
> >> experience
> >> of luminous radiance (/claritas/), wherein a particular thing serves to
> >> illuminate a universal and transcendental Form.'"
> >>
> >> Kearney's argument according to Balinisteanu is that Joyce moves from
> >> this
> >> understanding of epiphany -- "the experience of ascension from the world
> >> to
> >> the divine, as with Aquinas" -- to the "experience of a reality 'where
> >> the
> >> divine descends into the world'"
> >>
> >> (The latter idea Kearney ascribes to Duns Scotus and his concept of
> >> "thisness" (/haecceitas/). Scotism is referred to on p. 596 of M&D in
> what
> >> I
> >> take to be positive terms.)
> >>
> >> https://books.google.de/books?id=7BprhEnSeQ0C&pg=PT57&lpg=
> PT57&dq=ascent+to+God+grace+aquinas&source=bl&ots=YgIjcLRpeY&sig=
> EoTnQTv6L3bpbrVcpPAWMBa62XA&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwin1Nawi_
> DYAhXqLsAKHeMoAis4FBDoAQg2MAE#v=onepage&q=ascent%20to%20God%
> 20grace%20aquinas&f=false
> >>
> >> I am quoting this because it seems to describe the fundamental
> difference
> >> between Gottfried's desire for epiphany or revelation or apocalypse (all
> >> related to a manifestation of deity) and Lew's experience. See below.
> >>
> >> Epiphany:
> >>
> >> "The Feast of the Epiphany is celebrated in the Christian calendar on 6
> >> January each year, and commemorates the revelation of Jesus’ divinity to
> >> the
> >> Magi, the three wise men who had followed the star to Christ’s
> >> birthplace.
> >> Derived from Greek, the word ‘epiphany’ means a sudden manifestation of
> >> deity. In Christian theology, it also means the manifestation of a
> hidden
> >> message for the benefit of others, a message for their salvation. "
> >>
> >> http://jamesjoyce.ie/epiphanies/
> >>
> >>
> >> *Lumen gratiae*
> >>
> >> To come back to Aquinas and Pynchon: As I said, perceiving things in
> >> their
> >> quiddity means to perceive them like angels do or God does. For man this
> >> means to gain at lest partially angelic or divine knowledge, angelic or
> >> divine powers of perception. This is only possible through God's grace,
> >> because grace adds to nature and thus elevates man and his intellectual
> >> capacities:
> >>
> >> "All rational and intellectual creatures have a natural desire to see
> >> God.
> >> While they can reach a knowledge of God commensurable with their natural
> >> capabilities it is simply beyond the reach of these natural capacities
> to
> >> know Him in his essence. For this they need divine help. This help God
> >> freely and gratuitously offers them; we name it grace. For Aquinas the
> >> angels needed this help if they were to be converted to God and to be
> >> beatified by Him through the vision of his essence."
> >>
> >> http://catholic-church.org/grace/western/scholars/lap1.htm
> >>
> >> Or, as the man himself puts it:
> >>
> >> "(...) the human understanding has a form, viz. intelligible light,
> which
> >> of
> >> itself is sufficient for knowing certain intelligible things, viz. those
> >> we
> >> can come to know through the senses. Higher intelligible things of the
> >> human
> >> intellect cannot know, unless it be perfected by a stronger light, viz.
> >> the
> >> light of faith or prophecy which is called the "light of grace,"
> inasmuch
> >> as
> >> it is added to nature.
> >>
> >> Hence we must say that for the knowledge of any truth whatsoever man
> >> needs
> >> Divine help, that the intellect may be moved by God to its act. But he
> >> does
> >> not need a new light added to his natural light, in order to know the
> >> truth
> >> in all things, but only in some that surpass his natural knowledge."
> >>
> >> http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2109.htm
> >>
> >> Elsewhere, Aquinas states that the "light of grace" or lumen gratiae
> >> means
> >> "participation of the Divine nature."
> >>
> >> http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2110.htm
> >>
> >> Not suprisingly, given this background, the light of grace in all but
> >> name
> >> also turns up in AD. The narrator describes what Lew sees while in a
> >> state
> >> of grace, then states:
> >>
> >> "Lew found himself surrounded by a luminosity new to him, not even
> >> observed
> >> in dreams, nor easily attributable to the smoke-inflected sun beginning
> >> to
> >> light Chicago."
> >>
> >> AD, p. 42.
> >>
> >> Then:
> >>
> >> "He understood that things were exactly what they were. It
> >> seemed more than he could bear."
> >>
> >> Note also that Lew is being described as "transfigured" on p. 43. -- a
> >> transfiguration being "a momentary transformation of a man or woman into
> >> someone having the aspect of the divine."
> >>
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfiguration
> >>
> >>
> >> *Difference between Gottfried's and Lew's experience*
> >>
> >> To be able to perceive things in their quiddity means that one has been
> >> touched by God's grace, partakes in the divine. It may even mean a
> >> revelation of the essence of the divine being. It is what Gottfried
> >> aspires
> >> to, what he desires, hopes to ascend to, but does not achieve, and what
> >> Lew
> >> receives as a spontaneous gift, "generous, free and totally unexpected
> >> and
> >> undeserved", as it should be.
> >>
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_in_Christianity
> >>
> >> Gottfried's ascent is linked, at least by him but surely also by
> Blicero,
> >> to
> >> finality: a telos, a violent revelation or apocalypse. Insofar as the
> >> purpose of the rocket is concerned, which, the novel suggests, may bring
> >> about the end of the world in a thermonuclear catastrophe, the Thomist
> >> meaning of an ascent through grace to the revelation of the divine
> >> essence
> >> is turned on its head.
> >>
> >> Northrop Frye would probably call this "demonic imagery" ("Anatomy of
> >> Criticism, 147). Wiki provides a summary:
> >>
> >> 'At one pole we have apocalyptic imagery which typifies the revelation
> of
> >> heaven and ultimate fulfillment of human desire. (...) At the opposite
> >> pole
> >> lies demonic imagery which typifies the unfulfillment, perver[s]ion, or
> >> opposition of human desire.'
> >>
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomy_of_Criticism
> >>
> >> Lew, on the other hand, experiences a comparatively mundane epiphany, on
> >> an
> >> "ordinary work-morning". I suggest to see this as an epiphany in the
> >> Joycean
> >> sense discussed above: The divine descending to the world instead of man
> >> ascending to the divine, as in Aquinas.
> >>
> >> I do not believe that Pynchon uses "grace" in its religious sense here
> >> (after all, the grace bestowed on Lew qualifies him for "Pinkerton
> work")
> >> but he uses Aquinas' frame of reference.
> >>
> >> As for the Chums, in the light of what I noted above, I believe the
> >> ending
> >> of the novel is highly ambiguous. Remember, they have to shield their
> >> eyes
> >> against the revelation that is to come:
> >>
> >> "They will put on smoked goggles for the glory of what is coming to part
> >> the
> >> sky. They fly toward grace." (1085)
> >>
> >> It has been pointed out to me that among the things they are flying
> >> toward
> >> is WW II and the atomic bomb.
> >>
> >> Again, notions of revelation, apocalypse, a blinding light, grace...
> >>
> >>
> >> P.S. In BE Horst ponders why he was saved on 11 September and links his
> >> luck
> >> to his "weird talent" for predicting market behaviour:
> >>
> >> '"So if you guys hadn't decided to sleep in..."
> >>
> >> "Back in the pits, I used to know this Christer coffee trader who told
> me
> >> it
> >> was like grace, something you don't ask for. Just comes. Of course, it
> >> can
> >> be withdrawn at any time."'
> >>
> >> BE, 320.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Am 22.01.2018 um 21:46 schrieb David Morris:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> http://religion.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/
> 9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-335
> >>>
> >>> Most interpreters have rightly understood that in Luther’s view, to
> have
> >>> a
> >>> gracious God means to have a God who does not require human beings to
> >>> fulfill a set of prerequisites in order to receive God’s gift in Christ
> >>> or
> >>> to reciprocate God’s giving in order to continue receiving Christ and
> >>> his
> >>> benefits. For Luther, to have a God of grace means to believe and trust
> >>> that
> >>> through Jesus Christ, God has already met all prerequisites and
> >>> fulfilled
> >>> all reciprocations. On this point, Luther found himself breaking new
> >>> ground
> >>> (or recovering lost ground) in the understanding of divine grace.
> Luther
> >>> “broke” with those theological forebears who taught that divine grace
> >>> was,
> >>> in one way or another, partly dependent on human willing and doing.
> >>>
> >>>
> >> -
> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> >
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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