A QUESTION OF NEO-ROMANISM

There appears in the technically excellent Creation Magazine, a regrettable tendency towards what might be called neo-Romanism. It is associated with doctrinal material which at times appears either in it or in associated work. One repeated error, not giving all highly relevant facts, appears in Creation magazine Vol. 33, No. 3, 2011 (cf. Lord of Longsuffering ... Ch. 2), and it has SINCE been repeated elsewhere. Now In Vol. 42, No. 1, 2020, pp. 26ff, of the same magazine is a  further selective treatment, in the same direction, this time of the arch-persecutor, Thomas Aquinas. He even puts in principle and was given much heed!

Since this new reference of the same kind has appeared also, it makes the trend the more dangerous. On this trend  see DBSA Department of Bible and Spiritual Affairs Vol. 11, Ch. 6, with Vol. 6, Ch. 8, and Vol. 5, Ch. 10, World Amiss, Heaven Abroad  Ch. 7. Now is another exhibit, one treating what has by some been regarded as the chief Romanist philosopher.

Amongst other treatments of Romanism, we have such aspects as those below in view. But let us consider the Aquinas matter. Is he a great brilliant thinker of appeal to Romanist and Reformer alike; or is his contribution one more perilously pointed contribution to that Romanist flurry which had an orgy of Christian deaths on its platter, rather reminiscent of the head of John the Baptist: that is, murders wrought in the pursuit of their will, principles and unbiblical doctrines ?

To be faithful to Christ, there are some aspects and items one is constrained to point out, and far from trivial they are (cf. I Timothy 4:1ff.). As with cancers, small things can accumulate to ruin a body; but the basis of these things here entering into the domain of Romanism and its associated philosophies and traditions is neither novel nor small.

After all, the most inclined to revise the attitude of 400 years of Protestantism to Rome, cannot ignore Thomas's relegation of those not conformed to Rome's configuration of man-made additives to the Bible, to the State. Why ? in order to dispose of them and this has no slight problem. It does rather confuse the act of being crucified, as Christ exemplified and even essentialised it, with that of imposing crucifixion, or parallels of torture and elimination on others as ironically noted by Philip Schaff. In his History of the Christian Church. In, Vol. VI, he considers the contributions of  Aquinas, as for example on  20, 78, 190, 649. In the last refers to the famed reformer Colet as citing Aquinas for his arrogance in attempting to define all things. That was his interest, but as he indicated, this formed a barrier imposed on his work, making it an impoverishment of the Bible in its philosophic juxtaposition.

.On the statement of Aquinas at that force level, see Department of Bible and Spiritual Affairs Book 5, Ch. 10.

Talk of ancient hatred can only distort the truth. Hatred of sin is the point, not people, of murder, of overall teaching power on the part of papal people (cf. Matthew 23:8-10), in flat contradiction to the commands of Christ. Hatred of the repetition by ANY other body, after  such a lead at the religious level , even in Christ's name is the need, to outwit ignorance as a vehicle of being taken once more by any such pseudo-Christian snare as history instead of progressing, in this should regress.

After all, what has Europe itself been doing ? Let us forget for the moment its two not so glorious world wars of the recent past (in such a perspective as this).

What are these traditions ? those of the Inquisition ? It has failed to affirm so far in its new Constitution all this glorious christianity, spelt here with a small 'c' because it is a small and diminutive edition of the real thing which is actually based on the meek but majestic Messiah, Jesus Christ, not on inquisitions* for centuries, grabbing riches for Rome and Romanism, and torturing bodies whose possessors do not believe in illicit magic and dreamed doctrines which are neither true not biblical (cf.  SMR pp. 1032-1088H). There is no glory in shame.

The ONLY GLORY is in the meek Majesty of the Messiah who DIED rather than murdered, who AROSE rather than slithered into ridiculous posturings of 'greatness' reduced constantly to ruin or the deliquescences of pride overruled and dripping into its dank spiritual slums as for papacy. By contrast, what the Messiah claimed, He demonstrated; what He said He would do, He did, what He asserted, it stood and all the king's horses (such as those of Herod) and all the king's men (such as those of the High Priest), yes and all Rome's audacious imperial aura, reduced to folly indeed by Nero as time passed, could not smash the Holy One, though they tried as much as wit and work could muster.

At the Apologetics level, Thomas, as Gordon Clark points out in the first volume of The Encyclopedia of Christianity, Thomas has many errors. One is to use circular reasoning. He indicates in his Summa, that motion is a way to prove God, but in the process of argumentation, he declares that you must have a First Cause of this. But that, says Clark, is the point, the issue. It is merely at that stage, being begged. You cannot logically USE what you have to prove, to prove it. Indeed, no set of first or other principles can be used to prove God, since they are merely assumed in the light of human philosophy, the standing of which is to be proved, and cannot be without God. Hence the difficulties of Thomas with his various invented categories of what exists this way or that, to be superimposed on the issue, which is effectively not to USE assumptions or perspectives, but to avoid them.

There is no need to go to tremendous length to seek to establish principles in terms of which being so, you can argue for God. Nor do you need to limit these to the area of sensory impact as evidently appealed to Aristotle, evidently almost a patron non-saint of Aquinas. That is merely a phase of the impact, like the hum of mosquitos which have a far greater series of testimonies that this one aspect, the neglect of which categories leads easily to error, since parts are often indicative of whole, to be researched by other means, for a total and adequate testimony. What the method of this, our positive site presents is listed with no presuppositions. That is a distinctive of its existence. Its data are non-exclusive, just as Romans 1:17ff., shows them as they are, non-elusive but rather manifest.

We do not presuppose a world view; our task is to establish a correct one. So we proceed, not on this or that line of data, or in terms of assumed principles, but in terms of ALL data, at whatever level, aesthetic, poetic, commercial, spatial, critical power, analytical usefulness and verifiable utility. We pursue with what we have been given at EACH and EVERY level to find, as with anything else, what is causally required. The inability to give a cause of causality without engaging (again) in circular reasoning, makes it simply a segment of given reality. Verification on this method is of the essence.

Does the different procedure, unencumbered with world views, but using given abilities in the normal way, lead to verification ? Yes, this it does whether you use scientific method, where applicable, or other procedures where relevant. Repeatable testability is only one phase of aspect, but it is a very useful one, in considering the results of investigation at this level.

When as is here the casein the apologetics  presented in due course, you find it necessarily true that the Bible is the commanded and commissioned speech in written and authorised form of the Almighty, and that all it declares uses causality, whether in explaining some of God's actions, or evaluating some of mankind's, then it is apparent that it is both relevant and deemed fitting. For what ? It is this for treating episodes and events, whether at the natural, the supernatural, the personal or the impersonal levels. It is simply NOT a principle OVER God, but one chosen by Him and instituted in our space-time, consciousness, spirit, mentality and matter world in its inter-changes, invention and characterisability.

Causality is a modus operandi of value in this domain of Creator and creation. It is of course as noted, also logically impossible to dispense with it in our created mental and spiritual arenas. It is inherent in the type of system God has invented and which we have, and does not in itself distort. God indeed in His demonstrable revelation invites us to reason together, and at times gives concerning His own responses, as in Psalm 78, many items in progressive and cumulative reasoning about His own actions.

See Predestination and Freewill, Appendix on Kant. On the method here created, see for example Aporchestra, Secession from Presupposition Ch. 9 with What is the Chaff to the Wheat ? Chs. 3 and 4 (acronym, APBCA for this A-propositional Biblical Christian Apologetics).

In short, reason, simple and unchained, leads irrevocably to the Bible (as shown in The Shadow of a Mighty Rock), and the Bible not only to revelation including what could not be proved from outside, such as the intensive love of God and willingness to present Himself in human form as a sacrificial Saviour, positive knowledge needful for all, and available for any. Indeed it proceeds to indicate the often despised testimony open before all, of His divine nature.

{Thus just as Thomas' system  directly and systematically would - and does - lead to no positive knowledge of God, so Christ on the other hand makes the knowledge of God, close, intimate, as within a family, as in John 17:1ff., un-hypothetical, real, positive and lived, indeed so fundamental that without it YOU DO NOT HAVE ETERNAL LIFE. You are alien. His imposed additives have drowned truth in tradition.}

This is followed through in the Non-Presuppositional method used on this site, and so the steps TO the Bible in progression of aspects, and then FROM it, are as treasure found. The verification in BEING there to find, and again filled with such unmatched explicative power of any and every basic question of theology and philosophy concerning our race, augment it.

NOTE

The appalling result, as indicated in Gordon Clark's noted coverage, for Aquinas is that mankind can have no positive knowledge of God. His theory of analogy does not work, as a mode of groping for God, since in an analogy, Clark noted, you  know both subjects or objects, and the comparison enlightens; but with Aquinas, he is trying to find knowledge by comparing two things in order to find out about one of them, not an analogical procedure: analogies involve knowledge in terms of which things may be discovered, not questions in search of an answer, to be valid.

Such arguments about the mode of existence of mankind and God being different, so that the meaning for each is different, lead to their own invalidation. Overall, the distinction is irrelevant for our present point. Thus the  argument that existence would not be comparable for the two, ignores the fact that logic unites the two modes AS illustrations or examples of existence, and this, which they have in common, involving being an actual entity or not, is the pertinent and simple point at issue. It needs no introduction.

Trying to define and identify what  everything REALLY is, instead of using what our relevant minds (in God's image) show till led to the Bible, simply places a wall, a barrier, a human idea, a contrivance before we start which, held to the finish, imposes prior ideas on whatever comes, and so merely dictates the nature of what is to be said, in this case, even categorically. In fact, the divine power of God is manifest, as Paul indicates in Romans 1:17ff., for "what may be known of God {not nothing} is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them." These ? "His eternal power and Godhead." For how long has this been so ? "since the creation." And this ? it is very positive knowledge.

Small wonder his assumptions and procedures leave Aquinas with no positive knowledge of God. Matter is not eloquent. Nor is the human, because this product HAS a body, to be limited by its vulnerability, or small compass, as if logic were not endemic to the mind which is part of the initial equipment provided. It is not as if his mind did not  have abilities far transcending mere observation of the physical. To assume in practice or theory, that it is otherwise is merely to close the eyes to the total data. Using such thoughts to  limit the area of actual investigation, again, with a pre-empting authority, that is merely illusory.

Objects of sensory perception, to which in the natural order Aquinas binds himself so pre-emptily, simply do not contain, nor show elements to allow them to  contain, any abstractive characteristics whatever, such as universals, let alone, as Clark points out, things like the square root of minus one! Pretending otherwise simply invalidates the whole system as does the misuse of analogy. It provides what God-plus-man create; but this is not the objective: but truth which meets every criticism valiantly, and provides every answer unswervingly.

Indeed, Aquinas'  idea of a First Cause and First Mover again betray his confusion concerning 'nature' and more importantly, the failure to appreciate the majesty of the living and revealed God. God in creating did not introduce Himself as a part of the entire process, as if in the realm of movement, He first moved, or in the realm of causality as we know it, He constituted the first one. God is independent, autonomous, eternal, has aseity, and no more makes of Himself, beginning or end or middle, any constituent of His creation than a author becomes a word in his book, whether first or last. It would be as if I were to write a book and transform myself, or part of me, into the first word. It is all other than Himself, yet it bears the imprint of His mind (as tends to be the case with our own creations).

The crucial points is this in this sphere: God constitutes NOTHING else in His actual Being, being its entire Creator, time, space, forces, powers, inter-relationships included. He constitutes nothing, but institutes everything, though laws and limits apply, as do scope for action by man in His image, whether against or for  many things. However, man, despite his limited (but remarkable) powers, is limited, dependent, derivative, temporal, so that God Himself in essence of Being, plays no part in the constitution of this, His product. Like a fork or spoon, He handles it, but He does not partake in any of their prongs, points or functions. He makes objects and functions, without in any sense constituting them, parts of them, phases of them, results of them, though He can and does intervene at times to secure necessary instruction, reproof or commendation in this world (Psalm 78, Proverbs 1, Amos 4:8ff., Isaiah 40) and can, at desire, incarnate Himself for a purpose as one of the Trinity. And some interventions are permanent.

This He makes clear in the prophecies and principles of the Old Testament (Isaiah 34, 40-42, 44-46, 50-55, Proverbs 30:6, Micah 5, 7, Joel 2, Jeremiah 30-33, Ezekiel 34, Isaiah 24, Deuteronomy 18, 32) and the New (Matthew 5:17-20, 24 - multiply, Revelation 22:18-19, Jeremiah 23, Luke 19, Jude, I Timothy 4, II Timothy 3-4, Acts 1, Romans 11, II Thessalonians, I Thessalonians 2:23, 1I Peter 3, I Peter 1). He has thus endowed the earth with a whole Age till His return to it, with an absolutely unchangeable Gospel, steadfast from the lips of Christ (Matthew 28). This Gospel is one that mirrors His heart and so those toying with it in utterly intrusive pride might be compared to non-medically instructed children or youth toying with the composition of antibiotics or input through prepared levers, into an atomic bomb. False instructors like those in the day of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 23) are like kindergarten teachers presenting an ancient Babylonian script as the sole relevant instruction to their wards. Jude has a word for those who innovate in God's name.