[lbo-talk] Re: Atheistic religions

C. G. Estabrook galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
Wed Jan 5 23:12:58 PST 2005


This is as sloppy (to borrow Carroll's word) in summary as in reference. There are four Question 94s in the Summa theologiae (not Theologica), and the one Rosenbaum refers to is not by Aquinas. (He died while writing the Summa, and it was completed by others.)

In 94.3 of the supplement, the question is posed, "whether the blessed will rejoice in the punishments of the wicked," and it's answered that they will not do so as such -- "and so the saints will not rejoice in the punishment of the wicked" -- but only "by considering the order of divine justice and their own liberation, about which they will rejoice."

Pretty far from recreational sadism. --CGE

On Thu, 6 Jan 2005, Carl Remick wrote:


> [...Ron Rosenbaum has an interesting NY Observer column on theodicy
> this week...:]
>
> ... A God who encourages watching torture—as in the theology of
> Aquinas, who imagined that one of the pleasures that God would offer
> the souls He saved would be gazing down from Heaven upon the cruel and
> prolonged tortures of the damned in Hell. Recreational sadism from
> Heaven’s luxury skyboxes (Summa Theologica, Question 94)...
>
> <http://www.observer.com/pages/frontpage3.asp>



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