トマス・アクィナス著SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES の現代的解釈(2)

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13 : Reasons in proof of the Existence of God 14 : That in order to a Knowledge of God we must proceed by the method of Remotion 15 : That God is Eternal 16 : That in God there is no Passive Potentiality The proofs for God's existence are borrowed from arguments by philosophers and Catholic teachers (I, 13). The primary demonstration is the Aristotelian one from motion. The argument is an extended version of the terse and more famous first way of the Summa Theologiae. But even in this expanded version the proof is compressed: it summarizes in a few pages premises Aristotle develops through several books of the Physics and Metaphysics. The brevity of treatment reflects a reversal in structure and a transformation of intention. Since the Contra Gentiles considers philosophy under the light of revelation and reorders philosophical questions to serve theological ends, it reaches God not at the very end of its inquiry but at the outset. Brevity is significant for another reason: Thomas begins the chapter 13 by noting that he is simply restating familiar arguments. In the traditions with which Thomas concerns himself in the book, there was no disagreement over the existence of God. The brevity of the argument and the absence of dialectic, support the view that the Contra Gentiles is not an apologetic work designed for unbelievers. The argument for God's existence moves from the phenomenon of motion or change in the sensible world to a transcendent, causal source of motion. Thomas focuses upon the two key premises of the argument: (a) everything that is in motion is moved by another, and (b) procession to infinity among movers and things moved is impossible. The clearest argument in support of the first premise begins from the definition of motion as an actualization of the potential as potential (Physics, III, 3, 201a1O). Aristotle's definition captures the in-between status of motion, its ordered incompleteness. Motion is a process ordered to the actualization of a potency, to the acquisition of some thing, state, or capacity. Prior to motion, a substance is potentially receptive of a change; after motion, it has actually undergone the change. What is capable of change or able to move must be brought into act by something already in act, since the potential is never reduced to act except by that which is in act. If this were not so, a moving thing would have to be "at once in act and potency with respect at the same thing". If there were an infinite regress of moved movers, motion could never have begun: "in an ordered series of movers and things moved", the removal of the first mover cancels the motion of all other members of the series. On the supposition of an infinite series of movers, there is no first mover; all are intermediate movers. The infinite series simply postpones an answer to the question concerning the cause of motion. Thomas also argues that an infinite series leads to something impossible, namely, that a boby would traverse an infinite distance in a finite time. "In an apparent paradox, Thomas uses God's absolute independence and self-sufficiency as the basis for refuting the view that God is aloof from the world" (T. S. HIBBS, Dialectic and Narrative in Aquinas. An Interpretation of the Summa Contra Gentiles, Univ. of Notre Dame, 1995, p 36). Thomas accuses his opponents of having an imperfect understanding of perfection, that is, of projecting standards of human perfection onto God. In a reversal of perspective, God is no longer seen solely as an end to be attained, but also as the source and exemplar of the life of wisdom.
聖トマス大学の論文
2003-02-28

トマス・アクィナス著SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES の現代的解釈(2)

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