Prima Pars
2. Dei Filius Chapter 1: God Distinct from the World, Creation, Providence and the Canons Against Pantheism
Class of 2005-12-06
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/002-dei-filius-chapter-1-god-distinct-from-the-world-creation/

[0:00] Okay. In particular, as regards his distinction from the world, I wonder if the text got that exactly right. Since he is one singular, completely simple, and unchangeable spiritual what substance, huh?

[0:21] Well, simple is the first thing to show about God after the existence of God, huh? God is altogether simple. And he'll, in the Summa Theologiae, he will have a separate article to negate each kind of composition in creatures, huh? And then finally, have an article say universally, there's no composition in God, right?

[0:45] It's completely simple and unchangeable, right? Well, that's another one of the five attributes of the substance of God in the Summa Theologiae. And spiritual means what? Immaterial. Immaterial. yeah. taken up in the simplicity of God. Okay. So is this as well ordered, as the Summa? What do you think?

[1:17] When Thomas is sometimes commenting on Saint Paul, and Saint Paul is giving a moral instruction, right, to this or that people, right? And he mentions certain virtues and maybe certain vices that he's criticizing in them and so on, right? And Thomas will say, "Well, is this a complete enumeration of the virtues or the vices, right? You know, and there's something ad hoc about Saint Paul, because he's writing an epistle to these people here, and these people are lacking in these virtues, or they're characterized by these vices.

[1:57] So his teaching is more perfect as far as what? Instructing this particular people, right? But it's not in terms of being a treatise in ethics as complete, right? As you might have in in the Summa, okay? So there might be here something like that that they're emphasizing certain things that are what being neglected in contemporary thought or lack of thought, and certain things that need to be emphasized, right?

[2:33] Okay. But maybe if you are going to just talk about the substance of God by itself, apart from what the hell's going on in the so-called intellectual world or the academic world, right? Anything might might be going on there, you know. But but you might order these in a little what more logical way, right? Okay.

[3:02] Because here you are talking about his substance, right? And right before that, you've been talking about his will and his understanding and so on, right? Okay.

[3:36] So this is not divided that the Summa will be divided into consideration the substance of God and the operation of God, right? Okay. Then you take up the Trinity, right? But you have to understand the the operation of God if we're going to understand the Trinity. But you have to understand the substance of God before the operation. But that's in our way of knowing, huh? Okay.

[4:05] But notice, the emphasis here is upon his being what distinct from the world, huh? And as you mentioned in the opening address, there the what pantheism, right? Is characteristic of the modern world, right? So it's it's emphasizing that, right? Since he is one singular, completely simple, and unchangeable spiritual substance, they're mentioning all those together because since he is all these things, he must be declared to be in reality and in essence distinct from the world, huh?

[4:39] Okay. But according to Tocqueville, right? He says that's what you've got to watch out for in democratic customs, as far as religion is concerned, right? It's going to give people the idea of what pantheism. I suppose that's something to do with the idea, you know, of democracy they were all equal, right? This idea of you know God altogether distinct and completely in control is kind of what undemocratic, right?

[5:06] Okay, Tocqueville doesn't go in, you know, really into the the reasons why, right? But he sees that this is the tendency of the democratic mind, and as I say, you know, you know, I always take an example with the students, you know, Star Wars, you know, the Force be with you, and how you become a part of the dark side or the bright side, whatever it is, of the Force after you die.

[5:28] But I said this idea of the Force, this this pantheistic notion of God, is not a result of much thought, but it's a thought that suggests itself because of democratic customs, huh? Was kind of good sign of this, huh? Because I say if you go through the incipient symbol arm in the nineteenth century, there you see Rome was always correcting. Seems to be just a German theologian, you know, but even you know, in the Catholic faculty there, who's falling into this, huh?

[6:01] Okay. What's that word by? Was it Siri? Was that the cardinal wrote the one, Gethsemane? That's the one that was kind of pointing out these somewhat pantheistic sounding phrases in Kuhn and Rahner and so on, right? Huh? So that's that's a tendency, right? So you have to watch out. And I mentioned how Einstein's idea of God was pantheistic, and he admits that, huh? And he refers back to Spinoza and so on, huh?

[6:33] And suddenly Hegel's notion of God is pantheistic, so that's a very dominant thing, right? So that may explain part of the order of this, right? That they're not considering God by himself. Let's just try to understand God, huh? But here we've got people running around with all these errors, right? And among these, very prominent is what pantheism, right? So one emphasizes, right?

[7:06] In that regard, Anaxagoras is much wiser than Einstein, huh? Because he sees the greater mind as being what not mixed with things, and he gives that reason why the greater mind is not mixed with things—that it could not what rule over them if it was mixed up with them. And but Einstein doesn't give any reason, so we kind of figure that's the custom, right? And perhaps perhaps the scientific customs lead in that same direction, and you have in scientific customs the

[7:41] emphasis upon equality too, because the equation is a common thing, and so maybe that kind of disposes men a little bit for pantheistic ideas too. But too, the democratic customs too. Now his beatitude does not depend upon the world, huh? He supremely happy in himself and from himself.

[8:12] You know, some of the people, you know, you'll find people saying, you know, well, he had to make the world right because he was lonely or something, you know, or you know, he wanted to express himself or something. And they don't realize the what Avicenna, you know, Thomas quotes Avicenna, the Arab philosopher, he says God alone is liberal, right? Because you know the liberality, the virtual liberality, is where you you give not in order to get a return, but just because it befits you to to be generous, right?

[8:45] And so he says God alone is liberal, right, in the full sense, because he gets nothing out of this. And even our our praising him or thanking him, you know, is is

[9:01] our good more than his good, Um kind of strange, but that's the way it is. And so, you want to emphasize that God is supremely happy in Himself and from Himself.

[9:15] Interesting. My favorite book, the Summa Contra Gentiles, huh? That's the end of the first book. He shows that God is supremely happy in Himself and from Himself, right? And that—that's the culmination of Book One.

[9:34] And inexpressibly, what loftier than anything besides Himself, which either exists or can be what? Imagine, right? Okay. Then, which nothing greater can be thought, right? Okay.

[9:52] Well, it's up to this part. This kind of profession of faith, we're going to call it that, has been mainly about God in Himself, right, and His distinction from the world, huh? Okay. Now, this next part is going to talk more about God is the what creator, right? Okay.

[10:14] Why God created this one true God, huh? By His goodness, right? Because God is good, we are, as Augustine says, huh? Goodness is what. Diffusive

[10:32] of itself. Yeah, yeah, and of course, goodness is tied to which kind of cause? One of the four kinds of cause. So God is both the Alpha and the Omega, right? Huh. So by His goodness and almighty power, it's interesting that they mention His goodness first, huh? Because the end is the most fundamental, of the causes huh And if God was in some good other than Himself some good other than Himself, huh?

[11:02] Then he would be the first cause. That would be that would be the good itself, right? And God would be the Demiurgus of Plato, right? So by His goodness and almighty power, huh?

[11:20] Incidentally, you know, I've been thinking a little bit about that word "almighty," huh? And the word why do you use that word, right? Because what what is the that's English word that is common in our creeds, right? You know, well, what's the Latin word there that's being translated in that? Omnipotent. Yeah, yeah, and you say, "Well, potencia is is the word that would be used in the ninth book of of wisdom, right?

[11:47] You know, actus et potencia, right? " And now, potencia can be translated in English. You know, can kind of transliterated as potency, right? A lot of times, people use the word potency. You know, sometimes people translate potent by by power or force. You know, with the power.

[12:13] Why do we say all mighty rather than all powerful? I mean, we do say sometimes all powerful, but seems more common one is all mighty, right? Well, if you just

[12:28] cut off the word, you now the all, right? And just look at the word here, might, huh? It's kind of strange that word a bit, huh? Because you might say,

[12:43] "I might do that," I might go, right? Where where where might has almost a sense of what what can be and not be, right? And it's a little bit like reminds a little bit the word able, right? Because sometimes we say that what is able to be is able not to be. That's one meaning of the word able. This ability for contradictions, right? Can be able to be and not be, but there must be another meaning of the word able that can be said even of necessary.

[13:18] Because if you say what is necessary is not able to be, then it's impossible to be, and then you got real contradiction, right? So you have these two senses of able, right? The sense in which what is necessary can be able, right? In the sense in which we divide necessary against able, right? It seems to be something like that. The word might, huh?

[13:49] It might rain today, or it might snow today. What does that mean? Rain might snow. Yeah, see, you know, but taking that word all mighty, huh? So that's the word I have to study more. You know, I still think I keep the word, you know, ability, you know, my own translation ninth book, huh?

[14:13] Because the word power seems to be stuck on the first sense, first sense of what ability, huh? That he has in the first part of the book there, the active ability, right? But we wouldn't use the word powerful, I don't think, for the ability to be crushed or something, right? We don't, but we do speak of breakable, you know, burnable, and so on. So that's why I've taken the word able because it's an ability because it's used for the active and the passive, huh?

[14:46] But I don't know about that word might. Might mean right. Yeah, but if he might, that means power, right? That means power, yeah, yeah. But they don't seem might. I don't think might is used. For the passibility, right? But it is just for this kind of weak sense of I. It might rain today, or it might. I might do that. I might. I might. I might go, you know.

[15:20] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, the guy translated here. So Almighty Power refers more to the what? The God being the cause and sense of the mover and maker, right? Okay.

[15:39] And this is very clear. Not with the intention of increasing his happiness. Well, that's the other side of what he said above. Supreme, ly happy in himself and from himself, right? And that's the way they understand the words of scripture. You know, on the seventh day, he what? Rested. Rested from all he had done, right? Supreme, ly happy in himself and from himself, not from what he has what made, right?

[16:06] Yeah. Um, it was not with the intention of increasing his happiness, huh? If I made made a world or universe. Nor indeed of obtaining happiness, right?

[16:28] Of course, you know the Marxists. You know, think that man gets his ultimate perfection from what making, huh? Okay. And seeing himself in a world that he has made himself, huh? If God would be happy to see himself in his products, right?

[16:49] But in order to manifest his perfection by the good things which he bestows and what he what creates, right? There you see the connection again between perfection and and good. Okay.

[17:15] Now, how God created in the order of creation by an absolutely free plan, right? Huh? I mentioned before how Thomas spent a lot of time there in the second book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, where he talks about creation, so on. That this is a free act in God's part, right? That the universe doesn't proceed from God by a natural necessity, huh? Which is the way Spinoza would see it, and the pantheists would see it if they see this at all.

[17:50] Together, from the beginning of time, brought in again. That's something that what we know more by faith than by reason. That time had a what beginning. It doesn't say in the book of Apocalypse that time will have an end.

[18:07] Okay, and that's kind of an example of one of the ultimate questions, right? Once you realize a father can be a son and a son can be a father, right? Then the question arises: Is every father a son, or is there a father who's not a son, like Adam, right? And is there some son who's not a father, right? The same way here, you realize that today, you know, is after yesterday and before tomorrow.

[18:46] But is there a day that's not after some day, and is there a day that isn't before some day? Is there a first day and a last day, right? Okay. Well, we say there is, but can you know that by reason? Thomas argues, you know, in the treatise on the Trinity, the world, and so on, that the arguments from reason for or against, right, are not necessary, right?

[19:16] Might incline you to one side or the other, but they're not necessary, you know, it only by faith. Aristotle, you know, in the book on on dialectical reasoning, speaks of this as a thing we'd like to know: whether the universe is eternal or not. Aristotle thought it was, but I mean, maybe he didn't think he knew, right?

[19:37] Something again, maybe probable reasons for saying one or the other, but not a reason that shows it must be so. So one thing he's saying is that it's absolutely free on God's part, right, to make the universe.

[19:56] So you should thank God for having chosen you. Okay, why should he choose you among all those who could have been? Your mother and father, you know, is it only one person they could have married? No, no. But I mean, you know, if what they tell us is true, you know that even in one

[20:17] male emission, let's say, right now, there's there's hundreds of these things, right now. You know, your chances are not very good looked at from the outside, right? You know, so so God chose you, you know, and He arranged your parents to meet your grandparents, your you know to meet all the way back to Adam, you know, and you say, "See, this is one hell of a guy?

[20:44] " But how gratuitous it was, right? Okay. I think that's a good thing. And he could have always made us, right? But with the beginning in time, right? Okay. This is the way we understand those first words of the Old Testament: "On the beginning, God created heaven and earth." Right? It was the beginning to to time.

[21:25] He brought into being from nothing, right? He didn't start with some kind of what matter, right? Okay. So I sometimes ask students when we get through studying, you know, the great fragment there of Anaxagoras, right? You have a kind of theological footnote, right? Has Anaxagoras arrived at the divine mind, or what we call the angelic mind? Huh?

[21:53] Well, the mind of Anaxagoras is not what created matter, right? It may move matter and order it. But it's not responsible for the existence of matter, right? So his position is still kind of a dualistic position, right? So he's really arrived more at what the angelic mind is. Um, it's a mind, you know, quite distinct from matter, not material, and so on, and then can act upon matter by change of place, but not a mind that's responsible for the existence of matter.

[22:30] And so I sometimes, you know, Karl Marx and and Engels, you know, they give a division of all thinkers. They're either materialists or idealists, as they would say, right? But either they say matter is the beginning of all things, even of mind, right? Or else they say that some mind is beginning of all things, even of matter. Now, as a logician, I say, is that a good division of thinkers?

[23:05] But either they say matter is the beginning of all things, even of mind, as Karl Marx says, "Mind is the highest product of matter."

[23:19] Or, like Saint John say at the beginning of the Gospel, you know, says there is some mind, some thought, right? That's the beginning of all things, even of matter. And see, is this a good division of thinkers? What's wrong? There could be intermediate. Yeah, yeah. Where would you put Anaxagoras, I say, right? Because he doesn't say that this greater mind is responsible for the what existence of matter, right?

[23:50] And you have a similar position there in the Timaeus of Plato, right, Where the Demiurgos, right, acts upon matter and reduces the chaos of matter to some kind of order, but is not what responsible for the being of the matter. So it's an in-between position there, right? But in leaving out that in-between position, not only do they have a what a bad division because it leaves out one of the historical and real possibilities in this position, but they make kind of impossible, right?

[24:28] To go from the thought that men kind of start out with that matter is the beginning of all things, to the truth which is that there is some mind that's responsible for all things, even for matter. You can't really go from one to the other by reason. I mean, alone, without going to the intermediary position. Thomas Aquinas thinks that Aristotle understands creation, right? But you couldn't get to that until you saw mind as something independent of matter.

[25:02] You wouldn't even begin to ask: Is there a mind that could be responsible for the being of matter? And so by leaving out the middle one, it's like leaving out the bridge; can't get across the river. So you're going to stay on the materialist side. So there's something kind of you know diabolical about leaving out the intermediary position. It's not until you know Anxiaigus sees that there's some mind that's independent of matter, and then later on Plato and Aristotle will see that the human mind, right, can exist after death and so on, that you would you know be open, right, to

[25:44] saying you know even to raise the question: could there be a mind that's responsible not only for the order of matter, but for the very being of matter?

[25:56] That's extremely difficult, you know, to arrive at that by reason. But most men would never do that. But Aristotle seems to arrive at this.

[26:12] Because he has a cause even for necessary things. Of course, Aristotle is very clear that the human soul didn't exist before the body, right? And yet, in the book on the generation of animals, he says the human soul didn't come from the parents.

[26:30] Well, if it didn't know it exists, it didn't come. Didn't come by the transformation of matter. It must have come to be by what we call creation. And

[26:43] so, in that way, Aristotle is arriving at the idea. That's one place where he's arriving at the idea of creation. But he was a wit, a wit, a witness. He brought into being from nothing the twofold what created order. That is the spiritual and the body, bodily, the angelic and the what earthly, right? And thereafter the human, which is in a way common to both, since it is composed of spirit and body.

[27:34] And notice that that is the theological order. So when Thomas takes up creatures there in the Summa Theologiae and the Prima Paras, you take up the angels first, the spiritual ones, then you take up the what physical world, you might say, and then you take up man. And you see this in in the psalm sometimes praising God, or in the psalm from

[27:58] three men in the furnace, right? You know, you have the the angels praising God, and then you have the material world praising God, and then last of all, man, right? Okay. But Thomas will come back to that when he's talking about. The appropriateness of God assuming human nature, huh? Because it's like he's assuming the whole creation. Man is a, as Democritus says, a microcosm, a little universe, because he has something of the material and the spiritual, and so in a way he's assuming the whole of creation.

[28:33] But notice, that's the theological order. That's not the philosophical order, right? Because the the angelic thing would be the last thing known in that twelfth book of wisdom. You'd study the the human soul. That's kind of the gateway to the immaterial world, for reason, actually speaking, huh? That's why we studied the soul before. We go to wisdom. Aristotle, you know, he talks about in the first book of wisdom.

[29:08] He talks about there being something besides just material things, right? He'll point to the soul, right? That's kind of the gateway to these immaterial substances. So the order in theology is quite different, and the order in scripture

[29:26] is quite different, huh? You've got the angels before the soul. Angels are much more like God than what the soul, right? So, right, we read the Fatal there in the introduction to philosophy, but that's about the soul, not about the angels. Very inappropriate to have a situation about the soul there in the beginning of philosophy, and about the angels.

[30:13] Now, of course, there's the dilution of the doctrine. Now, most people today they already think the angels are real, right? Huh? I mean, it's kind of you know, myth, huh?

[30:25] one philosopher whose wife thinks she knows. So it's funny, you know, to talk about angels. And I was teaching a class one time, and all the angels came up, you know, and some guy. I think he was a seminary too, you know. You looked at me kind of puzzled, like, "You know, do angels really exist?" And I told you my answer. I think.

[30:46] Yeah, I said they're more real, I said, than you are. But you know, people they don't, you know, aren't aware of this, huh? My teacher, Kasurik, said, "You know, you should make an act of will, opening up your mind to your guardian angel, right? So he'll direct you, huh? Don't have any secrets from your guardian angel, huh?

[31:21] Now, part three is about God no more as the what ruler, right? It's kind of interesting how you know when you talk about the practical reason there in the Nicomachean Ethics, right? The two virtues of practical reason are art and foresight, huh? Art and prudence, huh? When we talk about God as creator, we think of God more as the artist, right? When we talk about God as the end and divine providence, then we're talking more about the divine prudence and the divine foresight directing us, huh?

[32:05] So the statement of divine providence by the consul. Everything that God has brought into being, He protects and governs by His what providence, right? So the consideration of divine providence would be in the third book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, huh? And providence, if you look at the treatise on on prudence, on the Summa, one of the integral parts of prudence will be providence, huh? And of course the objection to that being an integral part is it's the same thing as prudence.

[32:41] Apparently the Latin word prudence comes from the word providentia. and the proper English translation of of prudence is really not prudence. That's kind of a transliteration, but the translation would be foresight. And

[33:02] so it's interesting how those two virtues of practical reason that we know in ourselves, huh? When we talk about God, something like them, right? Much superior, of course, to our art and our foresight, but we talk about the art more, and we talk about it as maker, and the foresight or providence here. So everything that God has brought into being, He protects and governs by His what providence, huh?

[33:31] Which reaches from one end of the earth to the other, and orders all things well, or some of the translations say all things sweetly, right? Mightily. Yeah. All things are open and laid bare to His eyes, right? Nude, naked, huh? Okay. Even those which will be brought about by the free activity of creatures,

[34:02] so He knows what we will freely do, right? Before we do it, huh? Now, for each of these chapters, you'll see that there are certain things called canons, right? Which kind of put in kind of a form of propositions or statements, you know, that if you don't accept your anathema, you're cursed, right? You suffered shipwreck, huh? Okay.

[34:36] So, what time do you want to stop? Four thirty. The latest. Four thirty. Okay. Well, let's look at the canons here for this first one here.

[34:48] So these are canons that go with the with the first chapter of the work, huh? If anyone denies the one true God. Creator and Lord of things visible and invisible, let him be anathema. Right.

[35:05] That way speaking, they dropped in Vatican II, as you know, right? We noticed. Yeah, John the Twenty Third. Yeah, let's see the clarity here, right?

[35:19] Okay. If anyone is so bold, now boldness is a cause of error, right? Socrates is always inculcating fear, right? Fear of being mistaken. If anyone is so bold as to assert that there exists nothing besides matter, let him be anathema. Right. We could say most, I suppose, most scientists today are what materialists, right?

[35:57] If anyone says that the substance or essence of God and that of all things are one and the same, let him be anathema. That's directed against the what? Pantheism, right? Okay.

[36:11] If anyone says that you become a part of the force after you die, would it be the dark side or the bright side? Let him be anathema. Right.

[36:29] If anyone says that finite things, both corporal and spiritual, or at any rate, spiritual things, emanated from the divine substance, that's kind of a kind of a natural thing, huh? Follows from it. I guess was it that Spinoza's assertion that follows from God like equality of angles of two right angles follows from what a triangle is? Oh. That kind of a natural necessity, huh?

[37:01] Or that the divine essence, by the manifestation evolution of itself, becomes all things. Huh? That's kind of the way Hegel would speak, right? Huh? Hegel identifies what the being which is said of all things with what God, right? Look at Hegel's Logic. He identifies the being that is said of all things with the one who says, "I am who am." Right. As I mentioned, Thomas has a chapter in the first book of Summa Contra Gentiles he said God is not the esse formale omnium, right?

[37:36] He's not the being that is said of all things, huh? But if you say he is, you're going to identify God with all things, huh? But then Hegel has, by some kind of mysticism, the universal what producing the particulars by some kind of what evolution, a little bit like the evolutionists have matter. Developing into all these forms, okay, but not really explaining how this can be,

[38:06] because how can ability give itself the act it doesn't have? But that's the way Hegel speaks, and that's the way the materialist speaks, huh? Because, in some sense, Marx is correct when he says we're going to set Hegel on his head, right, or on his feet. But this is really matter that is evolving into all these forms, right? Not the universal, but the mind is evolving into it.

[38:29] But that kind of reflects this, right? Okay, but there is some likeness there because the genus is taken from what is material in the thing, and just as the matter can be formed in various ways, so the genus can be differentiated in various ways, huh? So just as the wood is able to be a chair, a table, or a door by a different form, so a triangle is able to be equilateral, scalene, scaling, right?

[38:57] So in some ways, the genus is to the species, or the differences, like matter is to what? Form, that's what I was saying, you know, you know, if you ask somebody, you know, when a piece of clay in the shape of a sphere is molded into a cube, what has changed, the clay or its shape? Well, it's really the clay that's changed. But you're speaking is if the shape, right?

[39:23] As if the genus has changed from one species to the other from one species to the other, right? But you speak that way because there's a likeness, right? That shape is to these two different shapes, something like matter is to these two different forms, huh? So the average person will say the shape has changed. Okay, we'll say the, we'll say if the sick man becomes healthy or the healthy man becomes sick, we'll say his condition has changed.

[39:52] Has his condition changed? Has his condition changed from health to sickness? No, his body has changed from healthy to sick. But there's much a likeness there, huh? So you've got all this stuff here with Hagel, you know. He's the

[40:09] they describe, you know, modern philosophy, especially in Germany after Hegel, you know, is kind of picking up his corpse, you know, the decomposing corpse of of Hegel is being made into all kinds of philosophy. And you know, you get, you know, when a corpse decays, you get all kinds of living creatures, and they're all living off the corpse of Hegel, right? So he's the kind of universal cause of corruption.

[40:33] huh? They say one reason why there's two judgments, right? That all the evil you've done is not clear until the last judgment, because you know, in your writings, you influence all kinds of people, right? So all the evil that Hegel has done, or Marx has done, or somebody else has done, will not be clear until you see all people down through the years after they died, reading their books that have been led astray, right?

[41:05] All the harm they've done, huh? Or finding this is, this part is even more, more like Hegel, and finding that God is a universal or indefinite being, right? Okay, so he's identifying God with the being which is said of what all things, right? And that being in Christ for Hegel, it first passes over into its opposite, which is nothing or non-being, right? And that shows you how indeterminate it is.

[41:37] So this is explicitly talked about Hegel, you know, most clearly is saying, but it runs through all this German idealism, huh? That God is universal or indefinite being, which by itself, which by self determination establishes a totality of things, distinct and generous species of individuals. Let him be anathema, right? Okay. So this is very much, you know, reacting. You know, and condemning mistakes that are especially prominent in the 19th century because of Hegel, people like that.

[42:12] That hot character is saying about the council, right? Because they say Thomas is already condemning the error there and refuting it there in the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles.

[42:30] Marx is kind of a satirization of Hegel, you know. He says, "What does Hegel do? He's got an apple here, he's got an orange and a pineapple, and so on. " And he abstracts the idea of fruit in general, right? Now he's got to figure out a way of evolving from the general idea of fruit, apple, and orange, pineapple, and so on. So, the way Hegel does.

[43:01] If anyone does not confess that the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, were produced according to their whole substance out of nothing by God, right? Or whole that God did not create by His free His will, free from all necessity, right?

[43:23] But as necessarily as necessarily he loves Himself. Well, you know, Thomas will take this up in the very first part of the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? That God necessarily loves Himself, right? And although, by loving Himself, He loves other things, right? He doesn't necessarily love other things. And when you say that

[43:53] that God is able not to create us, right? You're using the word "able" in this metaphorical sense that Aristotle distinguishes against the ones he talks about in Book Nine. At the very beginning, he goes all the way back to that. What that means? That's a very subtle thing that Thomas is doing. Anyway.

[44:20] Or denies that the world was created the glory of God. Let him be cursed, anathema. Okay? Now, starting in Chapter Two and Three and Four, we'll be talking the thing we're prim primarily reading this for, right? Now it's kind of a transition, right? But we're learning some things about God too. But I want to talk about revelation and faith, and then revelation and faith. and then transition.

[44:53] So we'll meet next what Thursday? Thursday. Okay. We'll start with Chapter Two then. Oh.