The Post-Predicaments II: Before, Together, Motion, and Having (God's Goodness and Seeing Him Face to Face)

Orientation #

He opens “Let’s go on to the next post-predicament,” i.e. “before,” having just done opposites; he refers back to “we were talking earlier tonight” about things named equivocally by reason (this session). The previous class treated opposition and began priority and simultaneity; the next returns to the four kinds of opposition and to “before” in the Trinity.

The class, in order #

1. Before, after, order, distinction (“you’re there and I’m here”) #

Point: distinguishing the senses of “before” distinguishes “after” and therefore “order.”

• Order means a before and after; Augustine sometimes speaks as if in the Trinity there is no before/after but an order of “this from that” (“God from God, light from light” in the Creed); he notes he was using “order” in a different sense, and that Thomas has a formal text using order as before/after.
• Thomas: order sometimes involves, or presupposes, distinction; to be distinct is for one not to be the other.
• Etymology of differentia / Greek diaphora: “carry apart,” so distinction too is named from locomotion.
• Example (student the night before): the most obvious reason I am not Michael is that he is there and I am here — spatially apart. “You wouldn’t be here if you were all there.”
• De Potentia, on procession in God: Thomas stops to explain that we name things first from the continuous or what is in it, then carry the names over; his recurring example is “contraries are the species furthest apart,” taken from place.

2. Senses of “before”; everything named from the continuous (“taken from the continuous”) #

Point: the first sense of before is in time, as the first sense of “in” is in place; place and time are species of continuous quantity.

• “Procession” = going forward, which first names locomotion.
• Physics VI (“Natural Hearing,” “the sixth book”): continuity of the road, of the motion down the road, of the time it takes; as you divide the road you divide the motion and the time. Aside: “eight hours from Quebec and 24 hours from Saint Paul.”
• Shakespeare’s definition of reason contains all three: “discourse” from running (motion), “large” from magnitude (a discourse about the universal covers a large area), “before and after” from time.
• “Opposites” (Greek antikeimenon, thesis, position) also from place. So all three kinds of the continuous — magnitude, local motion, the time it takes.
• Aside: Shakespeare “time is your master/tyrant”; moderns “time is money” (something mathematical in money); Middle East “time is gold.”

3. Second, third, fourth (and fifth) senses of before (“before in becoming, and before in being”) #

Point: the senses are connected in a chain.

• Second sense: irreversible sequence (this can be without that, not the reverse) — before in being; the first is before in motion/becoming. Becoming is coming to be (“coming” itself from change of place), so there is a connection. Aside: is becoming being? “Thomas says yes. He knows better than I.”
• Third sense: before in knowledge; connection to the second is even easier — as this can be without that, so this can be known without that.
• Fourth sense: the better (“a synonym would be better”). Haydn came before Mozart in the first sense, Mozart before Haydn in the fourth; Haydn to Mozart’s father: “your son is the greatest composer known to me.” Parallels: Albert the Great coming to Paris to defend Thomas after his death; Plato saying of Aristotle “he’s a whole school in himself” — and he suspects later dialogues already take the bright student’s objections into account.
• Aside: only Aristotle could have seen these central senses of words equivocal by reason.
• Fifth sense (returned to later): he does not think it is fifth in order; it lies alongside the second. An objection Thomas answers somewhere: “what’s before is the cause of what is after” — not necessarily, the senses differ.
• Cause and effect as opposition: something relative, but perhaps relative secundum dici rather than secundum esse — I am a cause by my power, and a relation follows on having produced. Trinity: the Father generates the Son by the divine nature, not by his fatherhood — sign: every agent makes its like, so by fatherhood he would generate another father; sometimes they say by his fatherhood insofar as it is the same as the divine nature. “It’s a very subtle thing.”

4. Together (hama, simul), by negation (“equal is neither more nor less”) #

Point: together comes third because it is by negation of before and after, as Aristotle (in a book of the Metaphysics he does not name) has “equal is neither more nor less.”

• Genus before species; species into which the genus is first divided are together.
• First sense of together: in time — “we arrived together.” Runners who hold hands and cross the line: still one is technically over first, both get first.
• Are continuous and discrete quantity together? In the same division, yes; but continuous is defined affirmatively and discrete by negation. Euclid: even is divisible into two equal parts, odd is what is not (or differs from an even by one) — still defined through even. What one thing is known through is more known, before in the third sense.
• Equal/unequal: equal looks affirmative and unequal its negation, but maybe the real meaning of equal is “neither more nor less” — “very kind of subtle.”
• Application: God the Father and God the Son equal, hama.

5. Motion: six kinds; “genus” (“motion is not just in one category”) #

Point: he groups the last two post-predicaments (motion, having) against the first three (before, together, and by extension distinction/opposites).

• Six kinds: generation and corruption (substance, mentioned first), growth and shrinking (quantity), alteration (quality), locomotion (where). Aristotle defines motion in Physics II and divides it in V-VI: division into kinds (as here) and quantitative division of a continuum. Motion is spoken of as a kind of genus like “kinds of causes,” but the kinds fall in different highest genera — be careful.
• Etymology of genus (Porphyry, following Aristotle): before the logical sense, genus is one man from whom many descend, or the multitude from one (the Kennedys from Joe Kennedy); the logical genus is one thing said of many. Thomas: natural philosophy proceeds per modum motus, logic by way of predication.

6. Having: seven senses, the first four (“the senses of have correspond to the senses of in”) #

Point: having follows motion because the result of motion is having something (I was growing, now I have this height; you were learning, now you have knowledge).

• First three senses tied to categories, as with motion: (1) having a virtue or knowledge — quality (the word “habit” is there); (2) having a size — quantity; (3) having shoes, pants, shirt on — the category echein/habitus. A religious habit is “habit” in this other genus, not the species of quality.
• (4) Whole has parts (mouth has tongue and teeth, head has hair, I have a stomach) — stands alone “like a sore thumb.” Metaphysics V: senses of “have” correspond to senses of “in”: part in whole, genus in species, species in genus — so whole has parts, species has genus, genus has species; also matter has form (form in matter, in potency), “I have you in my power.” Shakespeare: time has you. Aristotle touches these “as a wise man” but does not unfold them. He remarks how “insignificant” [ed.: probably “significant”] the word “has” is.

7. The last three senses; haver and had (“proper and most so”) #

Point: the last three senses have the had outside the haver, and Albert the Great calls one of them most proper.

• (5) Jar has the wine — tied to where (where is the wine? in the bottle, lagena).
• (6) Having a possession, a house or field — Albert’s paraphrase calls this “proper and most so”; he wonders if Albert means it is the fundamental sense. Aside: “the haves and the have-nots” (joked about with Warren Murray).
• (7) A man has a wife — Albert notes it is mutual; in the ceremony each gives self to the other, and if you give yourself someone has you. Student: “after the wedding they say you’ve been had.” Similar to possession: wife, friend, son are outside you yet had.
• Having implies distinction of haver and had; clearest with me and my house (my house in Shrewsbury, I here in Pearson — if the same, how?), less so with knowledge, size, clothes. So be careful saying God has wisdom: He is wisdom itself.

8. Having a name (“What does it mean to have a name?”) #

Point: a strange but important sense of have. A name is a vocal sound given by parents or by the order; like the last senses (outside you?). Everything in the Categories must have a name; genus, species; earlier tonight, things named equivocally have the same name, not the same meaning; things have a definition. Genesis: God had the animals parade before Adam to name them — a having related to knowledge. Aside: the ice box/refrigerator fight with his wife (“Adam was given the right to name things”). Asides: protesters who don’t know what they march for; the sixties hippie at Grand Central during the second Gulf War.

9. God is good and goodness itself (“God is whatever he has”) #

Point: because in creatures the haver and the had differ, we must say both of God.

• Summa Contra Gentiles, five chapters: God is good; God is goodness itself; nothing bad in God (if He were good but not goodness itself, something bad could be in Him — as in me, who have some goodness); He is the good of every good; He is summum bonum.
• Health vs. healthy: distinction of form/accident from what has it, even when intrinsic. I am a little wise because I have a little wisdom, but I am not that wisdom.
• Aristotle: either God alone is wise or only God is fully wise. Saying “God is wise” implies He has wisdom rather than is it; saying only “God is wisdom” — what good is being wisdom if not wise? (Virtue itself would be that by which one is virtuous, not virtuous.) “I stutter”; there is imperfection in our way of speaking, and the prophet (Zachary? he is unsure) says in that day there will be one name, when we see Him as He is.
• I have a body and a soul but am not either; still a distinction, less obvious than me and that car.
• Thomas often: God is whatever He is said to have — contradicting our speech of creatures. I have many loves but am not love; God is love, wisdom, justice itself.

10. Seeing God as He is vs. face to face; the book of life (“to see God face to face”) #

Point: “as He is” (John’s epistle) vs. “face to face” (Paul, Psalms) — the second is a metaphor whose basis he proposes.

• The face shows emotion, intelligence, love; the senses are concentrated there. So seeing God face to face may mean seeing His understanding and love, “as He is” His nature — really the same thing. The most beautiful thing in a woman is her smile (love, kindness, delight); a student’s face shows enjoyment of a lecture; understanding shows in a smile. Aside: granddaughter Isabella Rose, “Isabella the Rose.”
• De Veritate on the book of life: objections take it literally (a book is written on, so God undergoes); Thomas explains metaphor — God a lion, the Lord my rock, for a reason. Three senses: the Bible (by way of teaching how to live); Christ (by way of exemplar, per modum exemplaris — the Imitation of Christ, Teresa of Jesus); God’s memory of the names of the predestined, like those admitted to the city (aside: “very much like Trump now”). He has not seen Thomas explain the face metaphor.
• Student: mother and baby staring at each other with love and understanding; the baby’s smile in the morning.

His words #

• order; a before and after; sometimes involves/presupposes distinction
• distinct; one is not the other
• difference / diaphora / differentia; carry apart, from locomotion
• procession; going forward, first names locomotion
• Natural Hearing [ed.: Physics]
• large discourse looking before and after (Shakespeare’s definition of reason)
• opposites / antikeimenon, thesis; from position, place
• irreversible sequence; second sense of before, before in being
• before in becoming / before in being / before in knowledge / the better
• together / hama / simul; by negation of before and after
• relative secundum dici vs. secundum esse; cause and effect perhaps the former
• six kinds of motion; generation-corruption, growth-shrinking, alteration, locomotion
• genus; one from whom many descend, the many from one, then one said of many
• per modum motus; natural philosophy; logic by way of predication
• have / echein; also the category of habit (clothes)
• lagena; wine jar
• haver and had; his phrase for the distinction having implies
• summum bonum
• “I stutter”; his term for saying both “God is wise” and “God is wisdom”
• per modum exemplaris; Christ as book of life

Texts #

Read in class

• Aristotle, Categories, post-predicaments: before (five senses), together, motion (six kinds), having (seven senses) — discussed from memory, not quoted

Mentioned

• Augustine on order in the Trinity; the Creed (“God from God”)
• Thomas, De Potentia, on procession in God and naming from the continuous
• Aristotle, Physics VI (continuity of road, motion, time); II (definition of motion); V (division of motion)
• Shakespeare, “large discourse, looking before and after”; “time is your master/tyrant”
• Aristotle, Metaphysics (equal as neither more nor less; book V on senses of have/in — book numbers inferred)
• Euclid, definitions of even and odd
• Porphyry (Isagoge, inferred) on the meanings of genus
• Albert the Great, paraphrase of the Categories, on having a possession and having a wife
• Genesis, Adam naming the animals
• Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles, five chapters on God’s goodness
• 1 John (“we shall see Him as He is”); Paul and Psalms on seeing God’s face; a prophet (Zachary?) on “one name”
• Thomas, De Veritate, on the book of life; Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ; Teresa of Jesus

His questions #

• What does it mean to say that things are distinct? That one is not the other.
• What’s the most obvious reason to say that I’m not Michael? He’s there and I’m here — spatially apart.
• What’s the first sense of before? In time; place and time are species of continuous quantity.
• Do you put Haydn before Mozart or Mozart before Haydn? Haydn before in time, Mozart before in the fourth sense (better).
• Why does together come third, after before? Because together is by negation of before and after.
• Is continuous and discrete quantity hama, or not? In the same division yes; but discrete is defined by negating what is in continuous.
• What kind of opposition is cause and effect? Perhaps relative secundum dici, not secundum esse — fundamentally a power; left tentative.
• How many senses of have does Aristotle distinguish? Seven; first three tied to quality, quantity, habit; fourth whole/part; last three outside the haver.
• What does it mean to have a name? Left open — “a strange sense of have,” but essential to the Categories.
• Should we say God is wise because He has wisdom, or that He is wisdom? Both, with an admitted imperfection in our way of speaking; God is whatever He has.
• What does the metaphor “seeing God face to face” mean? His proposal: seeing God’s understanding and love; he has found no explanation in Thomas.