Alexander wrote:
It might be worth keeping in mind that many (perhaps most) on this site are not convinced of the AT worldview - you don't have to buy into that particular system in order to be a classical theist, still less to find classical theism worthy of discussion. As for me personally:
I think a lot of A-T metaphysical concepts (such as act/potency, existence/essence, matter/form, substance/accidents) are useful to express problems which I feel intuitively but are otherwise hard to communicate. Whether those concepts are the best ones is another question, and I certainly don't see A-T as a comprehensive worldview within which everything can be understood. Its ideas have to be stretched considerably to fit the results of modern science, for example - this is no bad thing, but it is clear that the traditional "system" of A-T may be flawed even if its key concepts can live on in a transformed state. Mainly it was the central (not always explicit) presence of the PSR that attracted me to A-T thought, and soon after to classical theism in general. The conviction that reality is thoroughly intelligible in itself seems lost in a lot of modern thought, but is surely the foundation of any serious attempt to understand the world, and once certain questions are asked it leads naturally to some kind of belief in God.
The AT worldview is what I'm currently interested in, though I understand it's not the be all and end all of classical theism. It's what got me interested in classical theism. I think we're in a similar boat--I primarily find the AT metaphysical distinctions helpful in assessing the intelligibility of reality. So where did you go after your initial interest in AT thought?
