-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of Jeffrey Fisher Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 9:18 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Re: nailing the holy ghost
i do see what you mean. i blew right by that, thinking about thomas's hypothetical reaction to leibniz or spinoza. i guess it would surprise me if thomas would be so . . . irrational about it. for him, god is both rational and good, so it's not a question of god needing a theodicy so much as there being a reason for what god does, whether we can understand it or not. of course, our job (um, so to speak) is to understand it as best we can and let go of the rest.
but, unless i'm mistaken, and i may well be, thomas would have read job in the traditional way: job stayed "patient", never cursed god, and was rewarded at the end for remaining faithful. this is a rational view of god's activity, and more or less the wisdom tradition's view of justice, which is precisely what i would argue job was written to undermine.
i can't believe that i would claim to understand thomas better than maritain, but i also can't see thomas (or maritain, really) reading job the way i do. you're clearly right, however, about maritain's point in that passage -- indeed, god not only doesn't need but doesn't want a theodicy. i'm alternately intrigued and left cold by maritain. i may have to go back to him afresh.
j
-----------------------
I wonder if Whitehead, who knew his Job and lost a son in WWI, may be a bit more pertinent:
Thus as a further element in the metaphysical situation, there is required a principle of limitation. Some particular how is necessary, and some particularisation in the what of matter of fact is necessary. The only alternative to this admission, is to deny the reality of actual occasions. Their apparent irrational limitation must be taken as a proof of illusion and we must look for reality behind the scene. If we reject this alternative behind the scene, we must provide a ground for limitation which stands among the attributes of the substantial activity. This attribute. provides the limitation for which no reason can be given: for all reason flows from it. God is the ultimate limitation, and His existence is the ultimate irrationality. For no reason can be given for just that limitation which it stands in His nature impose. God is not concrete, but He is the ground for concrete actuality. No reason can be given for the nature of God, because that nature is the ground of rationality....
Among medieval and modern philosophers, anxious to establish the religious significance of God, an unfortunate habit has prevailed of paying to Him metaphysical compliments. He has been conceived as the foundation of the metaphysical situation with its ultimate activity. If this conception be adhered to, there can be no alternative except to discern in Him the origin of all evil as well as of all good. He is then the supreme author of the play, and to Him must therefore be ascribed its shortcomings as well as its success. If He be conceived as the supreme ground for limitation, it stands in His very nature to divide the Good from the Evil, and to establish Reason 'within her dominions supreme.'
"Science and the Modern World", 1925, p. 178-179
[Smith and Rothschild coming soon.......]
Ian