Grace via Thomas Aquinas

[Mark Kohut]

Yes, "good unsought' is, I would read, grace without the Calvinist wanting
of it, so to speak. Without the Calvinist-added (I say) notion that one's
Good state via hard work is
what is sought.

And I would gloss that the "Pinkerton work" for which Lew is now suited is
that his mind/being is now free of preconceived notions, the guilt--the
projection of a world-view-- that skews one's 'objective' seeing. So, now
he can be a detective with freshly opened eyes.

I think you may be--are--very right about the difference between Aquinas'
quiddity and Wittgenstein's statement BUT I think that is a kind of
scholastic (academic) distinction
which at base rules out the associative meanings that art, not philosophy,
has. And also see below,  where it is Greek translated as "the what it is
to be (a given thing)."

Wittgenstein's early Tractatus philosophical stance was to take the 'what
it is of given things' and see all of them overarchingly as 'what is the
case', I might argue.
I might say that he saw the essence of a thing as itself. A brick is a
brick, not another brick in a wall, so to allude cutely (I hope). My point
being---there is NO ESSENCE
inside the brick but THAT is an essence, the essence, loosely phrased. So,
a jujitsu turn on Aquinas and mentally a cousin (or sibling) and lassoed
together conceptually by an artist.

n scholastic philosophy <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism>, "
*quiddity*" (/ˈkwɪdɪti/ <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:IPA/English>;
Latin <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin>: *quidditas*)[1]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiddity#cite_note-1> was another term for
the essence <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essence> of an object, literally
its "whatness" or "what it is".

Contents  [hide]

   - 1Etymology <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiddity#Etymology>
   - 2Overview <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiddity#Overview>
   - 3Other senses <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiddity#Other_senses>
   - 4See also <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiddity#See_also>
   - 5References <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiddity#References>
   - 6External links <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiddity#External_links>

Etymology[edit
<https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quiddity&action=edit&section=1>]

The term "quiddity" derives from the Latin word *quidditas*, which was used
by the medieval scholastics as a literal translation of the equivalent term
in Aristotle <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle>'s Greek
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek> *to ti en einai* (τὸ τί ἦν
εἶναι)[2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiddity#cite_note-2> or "the what
it was to be (a given thing)".

On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 5:47 AM, Thomas Eckhardt <
thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:

> Thanks for all your replies. Right now, however, I only have the time to
> stubbornly follow my own thoughts. A few remarks:
>
> It was no accident that I posted this on January 28, the name day of a
> certain author and one of its German readers.
>
> Note that in the final paragraph of AD it also says: "For every wish to
> come true would mean that in the known Creation, good unsought and
> uncompensated would have evolved somehow, to become at least more
> accessible to us." (1085)
>
> A "good unsought" refers us back to Lew's state of grace or epiphany.
> Which, on the other hand, in the eyes of Nate Privett makes him suitable
> for "Pinkerton work"...
>
> Near the end of VL, in his attempt to kidnap Prairie, Brock Vond tries to
> bring about another false ascent: "'The key is rapture. Into the sky, and
> the world knows her no more." (VL, 376) Is it grace, as in Horst's case in
> BE, that Ronald Reagan at the very last moment calls the operation off?
> Prairie later regrets that Brock did not manage to carry her away.
>
> For rapture in Aquinas, see:
>
> http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3175.htm
>
> I would be very much interested in what the more philosophically minded
> have to say. Wittgenstein's "The world is all that is the case." as far as
> I can tell does not refer to things but to facts or states of affairs, and
> thus not to quiddity in Aquinas' sense.
>
> Perhaps the key to understanding the role of grace and similar concepts of
> theological origin in Pynchon lies in accepting that, as is suggested in
> GR, the invisible powers are not necessarily angelic or divine, and
> certainly not necessarily benevolent. They have their own hierarchies and
> bureaucracies, as is suggested in GR -- an idea that I suspect has its
> origin in Aquinas and his disquisitions on angels and their hierarchies.
> Perhaps among these angelic or invisible bureaucracies a "Department for
> the Bestowing of Grace" may be found?
>
> Aquinas on the "angelic degrees of hierarchies and orders":
>
> http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1108.htm
>
> Concepts we commonly associate with Christian theology would in Pynchon
> then be linked to invisible and inscrutable powers giving and
> withdrawing grace/participation in divinity at will (the Calvinist
> concept, also very Kafkaesque). But, and probably this would be my point,
> the Thomist model is very clearly a frame of reference and as such could be
> subject to further research.
>
>
>
>
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