Six Senses of Sleep, Tocqueville's Doubt, Providence and Contingency, and Whether Men Are Predestined (John 11–12; Summa I, Q.22 a.4 – Q.23 a.1)

Orientation #

He says “we’re up to question 22, article 4” and later “now we’re at the end of predestination… reprobation,” i.e. he has finished q.22 aa.1–3 and now reaches a.4, then begins q.23. He refers back to “distinctions before about mercy” (prev. lecture, not resolved further). The previous class treated providence as extending to all things including particulars, the next continues q.23 aa.2–4 on predestination and reprobation.

The class, in order #

1. Six senses of “sleep” in Thomas on John 11 (“sleep is taken in many ways”) #

Point: reading Thomas’s Lectura on John ch. 11, lectio 3 (Lazarus “asleep”), where he distinguishes six senses of sleep, and applying all six to Psalm 126 “he gives to his beloved in sleep”.

• Sleep of nature (Kings: Samuel slept until morning).
• Sleep of death (Thessalonians: “not ignorant about those sleeping”) — a Christian way of speaking, since it is as easy for God to raise the dead as for us to wake a sleeper.
• “Quandoque pro negligentia” — he takes it not necessarily as blame but as inactivity of the soul (Psalm 120: the guardian of Israel never sleeps).
• Sleep of guilt (Ephesians 5:14 “rise up, who sleep”).
• Rest of contemplation (Song of Songs 5: “I slept and my heart was vigilant”) — “when they say you’re not doing anything, you say, well, I’ve contemplated.”
• Rest of future glory (Psalm 4:9 “in peace I sleep in him”). Applied to Psalm 126 (“unless the Lord build the house…”): God speaks in dreams (Joseph); gives the beatific vision after death; is “always before us” moving us to act well before we act; comes first to lead us out of guilt; gives in contemplation; gives most in future glory. He calls it “a beautiful text” that illuminates the psalm.

2. Why they wanted to kill Christ: Matthew 21–23 and John 12 (“envious of his glory”) #

Point: comparing Thomas on Matthew and on John 12.

• Thomas on Matthew: chs. 21–23 give three reasons for wanting Christ’s death: (21) envy of his glory (entry into Jerusalem), (22) his wisdom (“whose son is Christ?” shows their ignorance), (23) his justice (reprimanding “whitened sepulchres”).
• John 12 gives two: envy of his glory (same as Matthew’s first) and their lack of belief despite the miracles. So four things altogether between the two gospels.
• All three of Matthew’s come from pride: pride is the source of envy (the devil envies us after revolting from God); being angry at being shown not to know what you claim to know is pride (Socrates: “what difference does it make whether I’m refuted or you’re refuted”, contrasted with the slave boy’s humility in the Meno and Protagoras’s anger); disliking correction of faults is pride; and failure to believe too comes from “a kind of pride”.

3. Aside: Tocqueville, doubt and “blind belief” (“no man can have complete certainty”) #

Point: a library biography of Tocqueville illustrates the modern alternative: total doubt or blind belief.

• Kergorlay’s letter to Tocqueville: no man can have complete certainty on any subject; all faculties are limited; life is spent classifying degrees of probability; “we will never get back to blind belief”.
• His objections: does that include the Pythagorean theorem, or “the whole is more than a part”? Faculties being limited does not mean no certainty at all; most of what we say is uncertain, but not all. “They’re always accusing us of not being able to live with uncertainty.”
• “Blind belief”: recalls Vatican I, that the assent of faith is not a blind assent; Fr. Boulay lectured on why assent is not blind (“another lecture in itself”).
• Tocqueville’s deathbed (from the biography’s appendix, an account he first saw at Assumption): wife Marie (Protestant turned Catholic) pressed him; he refused at first (“too many dogmas he did not believe”), then confessed to Abbé Gabriel, asked to be confessed again (“a little bit of the Jesuit in his background”), received communion 6 April, insisted to the nuns it was of his own accord; he was not required to consent expressly to doctrines rejected, only to accept the Church’s authority. Born 1805, died 1859 of tuberculosis.
• He ties it back to John 12: envy of his glory and inability to believe both come from pride.

4. ST I q.22 a.4, objections and corpus (“places necessity upon the things foreseen”) #

Point: providence imposes necessity on some things, not on all. Objections as read: (1) every effect having a cause as such that already is or will be follows necessarily (Metaphysics VI); God’s providence is eternal and cannot be frustrated; (2) every provider makes his work stable as far as he can, and God is most powerful; (3) Boethius, Consolation IV: fate from immobile providence binds the acts and fortunes of men “by an indissoluble connection of causes”. Sed contra: Dionysius, Divine Names 4, “to corrupt nature does not belong to providence”, and some things are by nature contingent. Corpus:

1. Providence orders things to their end.
2. After the divine goodness (the end separated from things, the last end), the chief good in things is the perfection of the universe — “an old principle going back to Aristotle”. Two orders: things to their last end (more fundamental) and things among themselves; the chair example: parts are ordered to sitting, and therefore to each other at this angle. So the order of the universe’s parts is on account of its order to God.
3. The perfection of the universe requires all grades of being; necessary and contingent is a division of being as such.
4. Therefore God prepares necessary causes for some effects and contingent causes for others, “according to the condition of the proximate causes”. Conclusion: God’s foresight is infallible, but some things it foresees take place necessarily, some contingently — by luck, chance, or free choice. “God’s causality extends not only that something will be, but how it will be.” Reply 1: what providence disposes to come about necessarily comes about infallibly necessarily; what contingently, contingently.

5. Aristotle, Metaphysics VI: not everything by necessity (“everything has a cause as such”) #

Point: the first objection’s Aristotle text is from the place where Aristotle shows not everything happens necessarily.

1. If everything happened by necessity, everything would have a cause as such, and that cause could not fail.
2. Causes can fail: nature like art is impeded (cook overcooks the meat; child born without an arm; seeds that don’t germinate), so their effects hold only for the most part.
3. Not everything has a cause as such, because of accidental being. Example: “I am a Christian geometer.” There is something by which he is a geometer (knowing Euclid’s theorems) and something by which he is a Christian (baptism, grace), but nothing by which he is a Christian geometer — no Christian geometry; no way of becoming one; so no cause as such. Likewise driving up to give class and being hit by someone fleeing the police: bad luck, not necessary, but possible. Conclusion: both premises needed for universal necessity are refuted in Metaphysics VI.

6. Replies 2 and 3; necessary and contingent follow being (“just like odd and even follow upon number”) #

Point: stability and immutability belong to providence’s certitude, not to the effects’ necessity.

• Reply 2: the order of providence is unchangeable and certain — all things come to be in the way he foresees, whether necessarily or contingently; “realize the excellence of God’s causality.”
• Reply 3: Boethius’s immutability pertains to the certitude of providence, which cannot fail from its effect nor from the mode of coming about it provides; not to the necessity of the effects.
• General principle: necessary and contingent properly follow upon being as such, as odd and even follow upon number; hence the mode of contingency and necessity falls under God’s foresight, the universal provider of all being, not under any particular provider.
• Student: is “Christian philosopher” like “Christian geometer”? Yes, same thing, “be careful about that.” Student: but faith strengthens reason? He grants that faith and reason help each other — “maybe geometry helps Christian too.”

7. Aside: 17 graduates, 153 fish, and metaphor in theology (“the Lord is my rock”) #

Point: why far-fetched likenesses are appropriate in theology though not in philosophy.

• Trivium School graduation with 17 graduates recalls Augustine on the 153 fish (John 21): the net does not break there (the shore of eternity) though earlier nets do (the Church in this world). 17 is prime, so no “sides” (the ancients’ word for factors; cf. twelve apostles = 3 × 4, Trinity to four corners); its parts are 10 and 7: those who fulfill the ten commandments through the seven gifts of the Spirit. 17+16+…+1 = 153.
• Modern scripture scholars dislike this, but Fr. Boulay: some things appropriate in theology are not elsewhere. Theology ends in Dionysius’s via negativa — after all the Summa, you still don’t know what God is. Metaphors are closer to negative theology than the Summa, since with the Summa you may think you understand more than you do (Socrates’ warning). “The Lord is my rock”: nobody thinks God is really a rock; “God is understanding, will” is riskier. So Scripture, as Thomas points out, prefers lowly metaphors (rock rather than soul).
• Platonists making everything numbers (soul a self-moving number; justice an even number; liberality perhaps odd — “we find odd people humorous”): a distant likeness, inappropriate in philosophy, but appropriate in theology, like “the Lord is a rock” or “fire”.

8. Student question: certainty, contingency and free will (“God moves our will to choose”) #

Point: God’s foresight is certain and definitive, yet imposes no necessity because he moves the will according to its nature.

• Student: God foresees a soul’s destination and it is certain, yet no necessity, because of free will — is that where contingency comes in? Yes: God moves our will to choose without forcing it, respecting its nature; “hard for us to understand.” Ties back: “he gives to his beloved in sleep.”
• Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics: the beginning of our deliberation cannot come from us, it comes from outside, from God — amazing that without faith a man arrives at this; God is unmoved mover even of the will.
• Student recalls Thomas elsewhere (locus not given): providence as foreseeing does not impose necessity, as seeing you sit does not make you sit. Another student: it is not simply foreseeing, since he also causes and moves the will. He agrees: “he’s directing us”; “this is mysterious to man.”

9. Luck and chance: Physics II, Poetics, Shakespeare (“something divine about luck or chance”) #

Point: natural philosophy is silent about the divine in chance; wisdom and theology extend God’s causality to the contingent.

• Physics II (“natural hearing”): after the four causes, three opinions on luck and chance: (a) no such thing, a name for our ignorance; (b) the sun, moon, stars, universe come from chance; (c) there is something divine about it. Aristotle refutes the first two and is in between (there is luck and chance, but not responsible for the universe as a whole); on the third he is silent, as Thomas notes — it transcends the natural philosopher.
• Poetics: a play represents a change of fortune (good to bad = tragedy; bad to good, eutuchia); a chance event with a hidden purpose arouses wonder — the statue of a murdered man falls during a festival and kills his undiscovered murderer.
• Romeo and Juliet (“I am fortune’s fool”): the prince tells the fathers heaven has found a way to punish their hate through their children’s love; Caesar assassinated beneath Pompey’s statue.
• In wisdom, seeing God as cause of being as being, his causality extends to the division of being (necessary/contingent); it belongs to the wise man and more to the theologian to see this. God is compared to the dramatist arranging chance events pleasingly.

10. Question 23, prooemium and article 1 (“whether men are predestined by God”) #

Point: predestination is that part of providence which sends the rational creature to an end above its nature.

• Prooemium: after providence, predestination, then reprobation and the book of life; eight articles listed (belongs to God; what it is and whether it places something in the predestined; reprobation; comparison to choice; merits as cause; certitude; certain number; aided by prayers of saints). Jokes: those asleep may suspect they are not predestined; the number is not certain to us.
• Objections: (1) Damascene, De fide orthodoxa II: God foreknows all but does not predetermine what is in us; merits are in us as lords of our acts through free judgment; (2) all creatures are ordered to ends by providence, other creatures are not predestined; (3) angels are capable of beatitude but never miserable, and predestination is “the proposal of taking mercy” (Augustine) — he recalls the earlier broad sense of mercy: a defect if you don’t exist; (4) God’s benefits are revealed by the Spirit (1 Cor 2), so the predestined would know it, which is false — “none of us here knows.” Sed contra: Romans 8, “those whom he predestined, these he called.”
• Corpus: (1) all things are subject to providence, which orders things to their end; (2) the end is twofold: one exceeding the nature’s proportion, eternal life in the divine vision; one proportioned to nature; (3) what cannot reach an end by its own power must be sent over by another (the arrow by the archer to the target); (4) the reason of this sending over pre-exists in God, as providence does; a reason of what is to be done pre-exists in the doer’s mind; (5) hence predestination (destinare, to send) is the reason of sending the rational creature to eternal life — a part of providence.
• Replies: (1) Damascene means predetermination as imposing necessity, as natural things are determined to one of two opposites — clear from his adding “he does not will wickedness nor compel virtue”; providence itself extends to contingents; (2) irrational creatures cannot see God as he is, so are not properly predestined, though “abusively” so called toward other ends; (3) angels are predestined though never miserable: motion takes its species from the term to which, not from which (becoming white from black, red or pale is the same); every bestowal beyond what is owed pertains to mercy in the broad sense; (4) revealed to some by special privilege but not to all, lest the non-predestined despair and the predestined grow secure — Macbeth: “security is mortals’ greatest danger” [ed.: his phrasing; usually “chiefest enemy”]. Break.

His words #

• “sleep of nature / of death / for negligence (inactivity) / of guilt / rest of contemplation / rest of future glory”: Thomas’s six senses of sleep.
• “blind belief”: Kergorlay’s phrase, contrasted with Vatican I’s non-blind assent of faith.
• “divine foresight”: his rendering of providentia [ed.: providence].
• “the end separated from things”: the divine goodness as last end; “the chief good existing in things”: the perfection of the universe.
• “cause as such”: per se cause, required with unfailing causes for universal necessity.
• “accidental being”: being Christian geometer, with no cause as such.
• “natural hearing”: [ed.: Physics].
• “eutuchia”: good fortune, in the Poetics.
• “via negativa”: Dionysius; the end of theology is knowing you don’t know what God is.
• “sides”: the ancients’ word for factors of a composite number.
• “sending over” / “destinare, to send”: his rendering of transmitti / destinare in the definition of predestination.
• “predetermination”: Damascene’s term, taken by Thomas as imposing necessity.
• “abusively”: improperly, of predestination applied to irrational creatures.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Lectura on John ch. 11, lectio 3 (six senses of sleep), with Psalm 126 applied.
• Summa Theologiae I, q. 22, a. 4 (objections, sed contra, corpus, replies).
• Summa Theologiae I, q. 23, prooemium and a. 1 (objections, sed contra, corpus, replies).
• Biography of Tocqueville (library book; Kergorlay’s letter and appendix on his last days). Mentioned
• Thomas on Matthew chs. 21–23; Thomas on John ch. 12.
• Aristotle, Metaphysics VI (not everything by necessity); Physics II (luck and chance, three opinions); Poetics (change of fortune, statue); Eudemian Ethics (God as beginning of deliberation).
• Boethius, Consolation IV; Dionysius, Divine Names 4; Damascene, De fide orthodoxa II; Augustine on John 21 (153 fish) and “proposal of taking mercy”; Romans 8; 1 Corinthians 2; Kings, Thessalonians, Psalms 120, 4, Ephesians 5:14, Song of Songs 5.
• Plato, Meno (slave boy) and Protagoras (inferred from his reference to Socrates); Vatican I on the assent of faith; Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Macbeth.

His questions #

• Does “no man can have complete certainty” include the Pythagorean theorem, or that the whole is more than a part? No; limited faculties do not mean no certainty at all.
• Does providence impose necessity on the things foreseen? On some, not all: God prepares necessary causes for some effects and contingent for others.
• Is there really such a thing as a Christian geometer? Hardly: there is nothing by which one is such, no cause as such.
• What must be true for everything to happen by necessity? Everything must have a cause as such, and that cause cannot fail; Aristotle refutes both.
• Is “Christian philosopher” like “Christian geometer”? Basically the same; though faith and reason help each other.
• What is the connection between 17 and 153, and between 17 and being saved? 153 is the sum 17 down to 1; 17 = ten commandments fulfilled through seven gifts.
• Why does Aristotle refute two opinions on chance and stay silent on the divine one? It transcends the limits of the natural philosopher; wisdom and theology see it.
• Why does predestination seem so special to us and not other creatures? Only the rational creature is capable of an end above its nature, seeing God as he is.
• Are the angels predestined though never miserable? Yes: predestination is defined by the term to which, not from which.
• Why is predestination not revealed to all? Lest the non-predestined despair and the predestined grow secure.