Prima Pars
8. Summa Theologiae I, Q.1, Art. 2–5: Sacred Doctrine as a Subalternate Science, One Science, More Speculative, and the Highest Science
Class of 2006-01-05
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/008-summa-theologiae-i-q-1-art-2-5-sacred-doctrine-as-a-subalternate/

[0:00] But again this is what Augustine says in the fourteenth book about the Trinity, which is my favorite book of Augustine. But anyway, I like that more than the Confessions. So it was choosing my bent of mind.

[0:19] He's talking more about about God, right? What do they say? Was the Dominicans, you know, a religious should talk either about God or to God? That's it.

[0:34] Now Augustine says to this science, and he calls it a science there, right? In Latin, he's attributed that by which what the most saving faith is what engendered, right? Nourished, defended, what strengthened, right? And that's one of the famous definitions of theology, right? But notice that definition of Augustine here of theology as a science. There, you define it by what faith, right? As if it's there to defend faith and strengthen it, and to dignity to engender it in others, right?

[1:17] To nourish it in those who have it, to defend against the attacks, right? Strengthen it, right? Okay. A little different than that that definition of that they give to Saint Anselm, although it kind of goes back to Augustine too. Faith seeking understanding, right?

[1:40] It might give you the impression, you know, that definition that faith is for the sake of that understanding that we seek, you know. But actually, it's more the reverse, right? That theology is there to defend faith, right? To engender it, to nourish it, strengthen it. You know, the theology is for the sake of faith, rather than faith is for the sake of what theology.

[2:18] Kind of amazing narrative, Thomas, you know, points out later on in the Summa here that that even in the human virtues, there natural understanding is higher than scientia

[2:31] you know, because it is the beginning and the end. Something. We proceed from natural understanding, reasoned out knowledge, and we resolve all the way back to natural understanding. That's superior, right? And the way this is what we do in theology: we proceed from the faith and thinking about these things, and we turn back to the faith and to scripture to see that we're

[3:02] makes sense. Haven't gone astray, right? Okay. So this pertains to no other science than sacred doctrine. Therefore, sacred doctrine is a science. Well, Thomas is going to say, "Well, in one sense it is a science; in another sense, it is not. " So he's admitting some truth there in the first objection, right? But that's not the kind of science. The sacred doctrine is. I answer that to be said that sacred doctrine is a science, but it should be known that there is a twofold what genus of science, right?

[3:45] Okay. Now, you know, if you didn't know that Aristotle had pointed out this distinction already, you might say, "What Thomas is just inventing a distinction here to save the scientific character of theology." But no, this is a distinction Aristotle himself had already made and seen, right?

[4:07] For some there are which proceed from principles known by the natural light of the understanding, and ones like arithmetic and geometry, and ones of this sort. Notice he takes those as being the most clear examples, right? Okay. So a guy doesn't know Euclid, doesn't know can't understand the examples being given here, right?

[4:39] Some are those which proceed from principles known by the light of a higher science, as perspective proceeds from principles made known through what? Actually, the

[4:58] inverse square law in physics goes back to what the theorems in Euclid. Does in music. From principles known, what by arithmetic, okay? And in this way, sacred doctrine is a science, okay? So you have to make that distinction because it proceeds from beginnings known by the light of a higher what science, right? Now, what's that higher science? Is arithmetic or geometry? What is it? From the science of God, and also in a way from the science of the what?

[5:44] What is it Thomas is writing his exposition. of the epistle of St Paul came to him in the cell, right? The monk said, "You'll never guess who I've been talking to."

[6:05] That's getting in the horse's mouth, right? The old expression Whence, just as music believes the beginnings handed over to it from arithmetic. Right, In that case you would say the perspective, or geome or the astronomer, the ones from geometry. So, sacred doctrine believes the principles revealed to it by what God? Yeah. That's an important distinction, Thomas is making here.

[6:39] Have you seen that in any other theologians Is this common or is this rather an insight of St. Thomas? Where he speaks about the signs of God and blessed.

[6:51] Well, I don't read those other guys much. Yeah. I'm not sure what that one. But I don't know if they would they would they would uh know the the Posterior analytics, the way Thomas knows it. No, probably the distinction is there. Okay. And so, as he applied to the first objection, he says, "To the first, therefore, it should be said that the principles of any science are either known to themselves, or reduced to the knowledge of a higher science.

[7:20] And such are the principles of sacred what doctrine, as has been said. Now, the second objection was, hey, this is below fiction, right? This is by history. Talking about singulars, yeah. Okay. To second, it should be said that singulars are treated in sacred doctrine, not because it treats of them what principally, but they are introduced both for the example of their life, right? Just as we use examples in the what moral sciences, right?

[8:03] And to declare the authority of the men to whom a divine revelation proceeds to us, right? Upon which is founded sacred what scripture or doctrine, right? So he gives two reasons why it talks about singulars, right? Okay. Well, some of the singulars treated has such like when we talk about Mary as the mother of God and things like that. Oh, you're making an objection? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[8:35] Yeah. Well, you see, that's a little more subtle thing he doesn't go into right here. But when you talk about God becoming man, right? Yeah. You're understanding this in terms of something what universal? Okay. In that sense,

[8:57] it's a knowledge of the universal. Okay. But that's an objection that one should think about more. Okay. Um. try and take a break Yeah. we'll take a little break at this point. We come back to the objection a little bit. Okay, the third article. Whether sacred doctrine is one science?

[9:32] To the third, thus one proceeds. It seems that sacred doctrine is not one science, huh? Because according to the philosopher in the first book of Posterior Analytics, one science is one which is about one generic subject. But the creator and the creature, about which one treats in sacred doctrine, are not contained under one genus of subject, right? In fact, that's not in a genus at all. Therefore, sacred doctrine is not what one science, right?

[10:20] Moreover, in sacred doctrine, one treats of the angels, about bodily creatures, and about the morals of men, huh? But these all pertain to diverse what philosophical sciences. So, ethics would talk about the moribus hominum, and natural philosophy about creaturis corporalibus, right? And angels would be talked about in first philosophy, right? So, why wouldn't these be different sciences then?

[10:59] Therefore, sacred doctrine is not one science. But against this is what sacred scripture says, speaking about it as one science, as in the tenth chapter of the book of Wisdom, tenth verse. He gave them, he gave to him the science of the saints. One science of the saints.

[11:27] So he says, I answer. It should be said that sacred doctrine, sacred teaching, is one science. For the unity of a both of a power and of a habitum should be considered according to its what object, right? Not taken in material way, but according to the what. The formality. Yeah, the formal reason of the object. For example, man and the ass and the stone come together in one formal reason of the colored, which is the object of what sight.

[12:12] Because, therefore, sacred scripture considers some things according as they are divinely revealed, right? Therefore, whatever things are divinely. Revealable come together in one what? Formal object. Yeah, yeah. Okay. When you speak of the formal object, you mean that whereby you refer to that power or that habit or to that science, right? Okay.

[12:45] And therefore, they are comprehended under sacred doctrine as under what one science. Now, first objection was saying, how you talk about the creator and the creature in the same sense? To the first, therefore, it should be said that sacred doctrine does not determine about God and creatures, ex aequo equally, right? But is chiefly about what God, and about creatures, according as they are referred to God, as to a beginning or to a what, end.

[13:30] Now you know God says that in the Book of Apocalypse among other places, and the what Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, right? So sometimes on tabernacles they have the Alpha and Omega and so on. Um,

[13:46] that's kind of the basic way we divide theology. There are variations on that, but that's basically the way it is. This is very clear in the Summa Contra Gentiles, although it really unalized the Summa Theologiae too. In the Summa Contra Gentiles, the first book is about God in Himself. The second book about God as the Principium or the beginning or the Maker of creatures, and the third book is about God as the end and the ordering of things to God as an end, right?

[14:17] And the fourth book differs from the first three books. The first three books deal with those three insofar as they are known by natural reason as well as by faith. And the fourth book, insofar as those same three are known only by what faith, right? Then the third book, the fourth book is divided with those three parts: too. God in Himself, you talk about the Trinity, and then God as the Maker, you talk about the Incarnation and so on, the greatest thing He made, and then you talk about God as the supernatural in the third part.

[14:55] So that's basically the way we what divide theology. Consider God in Himself by Himself as a word, and then God as the Maker, and then God as the what end, right? But no, it's like when you talk about wisdom, you know, philosophical wisdom, it's about being, right? Well. Being is substance, quantity, quality, relation. These aren't one genus, right? So how can it be about all of these, right?

[15:32] Well, it's not about all of them x equal. It's not about them equally. It's chiefly about substance, huh? But it's about the others because they, in some way, are something else. Substance, huh? So quantity is the the size of substance, right? Quality is the disposition of substance, right? Okay. Relation is how substances towards another, right? And so on. So they all refer back to substance, right? So substance is the chief subject, right?

[16:07] And so when Aristotle when takes up the names of the subject in the middle part of the fifth book, you know the he first takes up the names in the way of the whole subject, and then the names of the parts. And when he takes up the names of the whole, he takes up the name one, the name being, and the name what substance, because that's the chief subject, huh?

[16:36] So now this will come up again when we talked later on in the seventh article about the subject of science being God, right? In a way, you could say God is the subject of science, just as the subject of first philosophy you could say is substance, right Okay? So we're talking about other things besides substance, yeah, but as they are what? Yeah, in some way connected with substance, right?

[17:04] And so we don't talk about anything else in theology except God and other things in reference to what? God is their beginning, or their end. They're in. That's why they say you know it's more a theological definition of man to say he's the imago dei, the image of God, than to say that he's a rational animal or two-footed animal or something. Because then you're kind of considering man by himself, right?

[17:40] Okay. When you say God is man is the imago dei, he's made in the image of God, then you're considering man in reference to God, huh? Because that's to

[17:59] apply to the first objection, right? Now the second objection is really drawn from philosophy and say, hey, in philosophy these all belong to different things, right?

[18:17] But theology has more what unity than philosophy does. Why is that? Because. It proceeds from what God's knowledge, and God's knowledge is altogether one, right? So, what is one in God is many in the philosopher's mind, right? And this is true about knowledge as well as other things, right? Okay.

[18:44] He says to the second, it should be said that nothing prevents lower powers, right, or lower habits, to be diversified about those matters which, in common, fall under one superior power or one superior what habit, right? Because the higher power or the higher habit, the one, regards the object under a more universal what? Formal reason. Yeah, reason, formal reason. It goes back to the senses, now, right? We saw this before in the study of the anima, the beginning of the third book, if we recall, right?

[19:31] Aristotle says, you know, I can distinguish not only between red and gold, but between the whiteness of sugar and the sweetness of sugar. Oh, what is it in me that distinguishes between the sweetness of sugar and the whiteness of it? Can't be the eye because that knows only the white. It can't be the sense of taste because that knows only the sweet. So they come back to the common sense, the central sense, right?

[19:59] So what is divided in the lower senses, the outer senses, right? Is unified on the what? inner mind, okay? Whence the common sense, although it is one power, extends to all the objects of the five senses, huh? And a fortiori reason does, right? So reason can talk about what color is, right? And what sound is, right? And we talk about the taste of things and the smell of things, right?

[20:34] So what pertains to different senses, to no outward senses, one and the same reason, right? Talks about them, universally. And likewise, when things are treated in diverse philosophical sciences?

[20:53] Sacred doctrine is able, existing as one, to consider under one what reason, in so far as they are what Divinely revealed. So the reason why these things are considered in sacred doctrine is not the reason why they're considered in philosophy. They are, right? And the reason they are considered in sacred doctrine is because they are divine revealed in some way. If they're not divine revealed in some way, then they're not considered in theology, right?

[21:27] And they're being divine revealed as a kind of partaking of God's knowledge, and therefore the unity of God's knowledge. Okay. That sacred doctrine is, as it were, a certain what impression of the divine science, huh? And the divine science is one and what altogether simple, right? It's one and simple, one simple knowledge of all things, right? And so we have kind of a what partaking of that knowledge, right?

[22:01] And therefore, there's more unity in sacred doctrine than there is in what philosophy. Yeah, yeah. Makes sense. Hmm. That's going to come up also in the fourth article, right?

[22:35] Because unless there is one science, a sacred doctrine, when you're talking about, say, morals, right? You're talking about God Himself and so on, right? Then you might say, well, this theology is speculative and that theology is practical, right? But when you say there's one science, well, then is it like theoretical philosophy or is it like practical philosophy? Well, you're thinking like a philosopher, and you don't realize that there's one knowledge, whereby God what knows Himself and knows us and directs us and so on, right?

[23:13] And so there's one sacred doctrine whereby we know God and whereby we're directed as to what we should do or not do, right? Okay.

[23:31] So when you divide theology into dogmatic theology and moral theology, got to be kind of careful there, right? Because they're not two kinds of theology, like practical philosophy and looking philosophy, two kinds of philosophy, right? But they're really just two parts of the same. What do you think uses this word "impressio" instead of maybe "partaking"? Or do you ever think that out? Well, "impress" means pressed upon, right?

[24:05] Okay. So something of the divine knowledge and something of the unity of the divine knowledge has been, but bestowed upon us. Yeah, Yeah. Right in that relation to the his use of the word "the formal," object Oh it's giving a form, Yeah, Yeah, yeah, But unity to our knowledge, right? Because the form gives you both the being of the knowledge and the unity of it. They go together, like Aristotle said, being and one go together.

[24:33] They're really the same thing. Um, you know, when we're in natural philosophy, you know, I was mentioning, I think, how I kind of like that amphiboly of Shakespeare's name for the philosophy of nature. He calls it the wisdom of nature, but you can call, you can say, the wisdom of nature could have two meanings, right? One meaning could be that it's what the philosophy of nature, the wisdom of nature, the science of nature.

[25:06] The other could be the wisdom that nature shows and what it does, right? Oh, yeah. And that's something, as Aristotle says, something of another art, something of the divine art, impressed upon things, right? Yeah. So in the lowly insects. Even right, and in the plants, there is something of the divine art

[25:29] impressed upon them, right? Yes, something of the divine art. So you could say the philosophy, the wisdom of nature, in one sense, is about the wisdom of nature, in the other sense, right? Okay, just like the word of God in one sense is about the word of God in another sense, huh? Okay.

[26:00] So, we have time for another article, I guess, sir. Sure. With the sacred doctrine is a practical science, right? Okay. And also Thomas does it right in a way. The question here, if you go back to the proemium here at the beginning of this question, if you look at the fourth article, utrum sit speculativa vel practica, right? They put kind of, you know, is it one or which is it, right?

[26:32] But now that we see in the third article that it's only one science, right? It's even more forceful. The question, right? But he's going to argue in the body article that it's more speculativa than practica, although in some sense it transcends the philosophical division, right? So that's why he is objecting more from the practical, right? It seems that sacred doctrine is a practical science. He says the end of the practical is doing, right?

[27:04] According to the philosopher in the second book of physics, but sacred doctrine is ordered to doing, according to that of James, right? Epistle there, first chapter, verse twenty-two: "Be doers of the word and not hearers only." Therefore, sacred doctrine is a practical science. It sees something, you know, Reverend Neros telling Thomas that that's what it is, right? And quoting this this text of James, right? According to him, right.

[27:39] Okay, that's right to the point, right? Moreover, sacred doctrine is divided through the or by the old law and the new law, right? The law pertains to moral science, yeah. So, Plato's last work is called the Laws, right? Which is a practical science, huh? Therefore, sacred doctrine is a practical science, huh?

[28:17] That's right. That's that's where the Bible is divided in a sense, huh? Okay. So when Thomas divides it there, right, he goes to. What Saint John says, right? Huh? The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came to Jesus Christ. So he's starting to escape a little bit from seeing the two books as being chiefly about law, right? Huh?

[28:45] But against this, huh? Every practical science is about things doable by man, as moral sciences is about the acts of what man, right? And the building sciences are about what buildings, right? About edifices. Um. But sacred doctrine is chiefly about God, of which men are more the works, right? So God is not something doable. You can't make. God, right? Can't change him at all, right? So it's chiefly about God.

[29:28] How can it be practical science? I think the big obstacle is that you can't you can change God because God moves everything, but prayer moves God. So it's

[29:42] not therefore a practical science, but more a what? Speculative, yeah. I answer: It should be said that sacred doctrine, as has been said, existing as one, extends to those things which pertain to diverse philosophical sciences. An account of the what formal reason which it pays attention to in diverse things. That is to say, insofar as they are knowable by the what divine light, whence, although in the philosophical sciences, other is the speculative and other the what practical, right?

[30:31] Sacred doctrine, nevertheless, comprehends under itself both, right? Just as God, by the same knowledge, knows Himself and the things which He what makes. So that's the first point that Thomas wants to draw, right? That this transcends that dichotomy that you have in what philosophy, right? Okay.

[31:04] But notice he goes on to say, nevertheless, it is more what speculative than practical, right? Because it chiefly treats about more chiefly treats about divine things than about what human acts, right? Okay. Or you could say it's chiefly about God, right? And he's not makeable or doable.

[31:30] So it's chiefly what speculative, right? Okay. What can I say to Martha? You know, Martha Mary has chosen the better part; it should not be taken away from her. So ultimately, it's ordered to a what speculative thing.

[31:59] So in sense, we get thinking like the philosopher there, and not realizing the unity and the transcendence there of revealed theology, right? That it does partake of God's what knowledge.

[32:18] When Thomas contrasts the order, you know, of philosophy and theology, he says, in philosophy, God is the last thing we really know. And God is considered in the last part of the last science. So, in the first philosophy, in the order of learning, comes last. And God is considered in the twelfth book of the of wisdom, right? So, but in revealed theology, we imitate what God's knowledge, and so we consider God first, and another thing in reference to God.

[32:53] So it's just like a contrary order, right? But that's another example of how this is much more like God's knowledge because God knows other things only by knowing Himself. We kind of imitate that in in revealed theology, where we know God first of all, and other things are considered only in reference to God. It's a little bit like imitating God's way of knowing there, in a very distant way, but nevertheless.

[33:21] Well, here we're imitating the unity of God's knowledge. When we have a knowledge that is either what, restricted to the speculative or to the practical, right? But nevertheless, Thomas goes on makes a second point that it's more speculative than practical because it's more about God than about human acts. Chiefly about God, just like first philosophy is more about substance than about quantity. Because it's not about quantity except insofar as it's the size of substance.

[33:52] So it's chiefly about substance, right? Other things only reference to to substance. And so this only reference to God, so God being only the object of speculative knowledge, as such, is

[34:11] makes this science chiefly speculative. And it treats of human acts according as through them man is ordered to a what perfect knowledge of God, right? To eternal life, to seeing God as He is, face to what face, right? When seeing God as He is, Saint John says one, three, two. Is it?

[34:42] Or seeing him face to face, the Saint Paul says. Well, that's obviously speculative knowledge, right? Speculative means seeing, right? In which our eternal beatitude consists, right? So Christ says there in this, in the seventeenth chapter, John. This is eternal life, right? Didn't say to do this and to do that. This is eternal life to know Thee, you know, unto God and Him whom you have sent, right?

[35:12] So we got time for another article, wasn't it? I think so. We have now. Yeah. Okay. Um. To the fifth, one proceeds thus: It seems that sacred doctrine is not more worthy than the other sciences. I can guess from that that it's completely the opposite. Okay. For certitude pertains the dignity of a science. Okay.

[35:54] Now, Aristotle, in the beginning of the De Anima, there, says that all knowledge is good, right? Yes, sir. But one knowledge is better than another because it's more certain, right? Or because it's about better things, right? And in the proemium Premium to the Parts of Animals, he indicates that the criterion of being about a better thing is a more fundamental one, right? So it's better to know a better thing, right, imperfectly, right, than to know a lesser thing, what, perfectly, right?

[36:35] Okay. But nevertheless, certitude is a criterion of knowledge, right? Okay. But the other sciences, about whose principles one cannot doubt, seem to be more certain than sacred doctrine, whose principles, namely the articles of faith, receive what doubt? People have doubt the articles of faith sometimes. So who's the guy who's doubting whether the true presence of Christ in the in the host, right? Huh? Okay. And and miracle, right?

[37:20] Okay. Secondly, it's of a lower science to what take from a higher one, right? Mm-hmm. As the musician from the arithmetician. But sacred doctrine takes something from the philosophical disciplines. For Saint Jerome says in the Epistle to the great author of the City of Rome

[37:54] that the what ancient doctors of the Church, right, so spread around, you might say, the teachings of the philosophers and their positions among in their books that one doesn't know what to admire more in them. Their what knowledge of the world, right, or their knowledge of scripture. scriptures, right? Therefore, sacred doctrine is what with all the other sciences, huh? So we're going to use philosophy throughout the centuries.

[38:28] Did some philosophy before we did this, so I mean, obviously, if we're borrowing things, we're we're inferior to those from whom we borrow, right? Okay.

[38:43] But against this is that the other sciences are said to be handmaidens, right, of this or servants, and that's explanation of this passage in Proverbs nine, that it sent its handmaidens called as handmaidens to the tower, right?

[39:09] To the ivory tower, right? So he says. I Answer. It should be said that this science, in one respect, is speculative, right? And another respect is what practical, right? It transcends that distinction, but it has something of both, right? And it transcends all the other sciences, both the speculative and the what practical, right? Okay. So he divides it, right? Now,

[39:58] and he says that the speculative sciences, one is more worthy than another, both on account of certitude and on account of the what excellence of the matter, right? Okay. That's going back to what Aristotle says in the beginning of the what three books on the soul, right? He says all knowledge is good, right? But one knowledge is better than another because it's more certain or more sure, or because it's about a what?

[40:32] Yeah, yeah. Okay. Remember, my my teacher Kasurik had made a yeah loudspeaker, you know, musical system. He, you know, perfected himself, right? And really, it had technical, you know. They say if you turn it on full speed, he said it'll kill you. No, I'm not afraid of it. Blow up or something.

[41:07] So one, so so one day, you know, I'm over there with some other guy, and other guy interested in the technical aspect of this marvelous machine, you know, and and he's brought some some records he wants to play on his machine, you know, to see what they really sound on this great system, you know, all the fanfares and so on, right? And I brought some, you know, not so technically correct CD of Mozart, right?

[41:33] So we had two different purposes in mind, right? The one guy looking for this great sound, you know, in a sense a great reproduction of sound, you know. But I would rather hear Mozart on an inferior, you know, reproducing system than this other junk on what perfectly reproduced, right? With great clarity and so on, right? Okay.

[41:58] Just like you know, I'd rather see you know interesting movie, even it's not too clear the the copy we have, right? Than one that's crystal clear on these new DVD. What do they call these different screens? You know, some stupid thing going on. It's very clear, you know, and you know, but but that is nevertheless an excellence, right? On the TV screen, right. Which is more important?

[42:20] What is being shown, or how well it's being shown? Right? I go for the quality of the movie myself. I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, these new TV sets where they're bringing out now—you know—they cost you know a lot of money right now, and they'll come down in price, I guess. They really have clarity, you know, huh? But but that's obviously not the greatest criterion, right?

[42:43] Yeah. Clarity of of the stuff they put on TV, usually. No, but. But nevertheless, there's a two criteria. To see a better thing or to see it better. Okay.

[43:07] Now, by certitude, because the other sciences have certitude from the natural light of human reason, which is able to err, right, to be mistaken, huh? But this has certitude from the light of the divine science, which cannot be what deceived, huh? So, therefore, in that sense, this science excels all the other sciences in certitude, right? You might say we we share in the in the certitude of God's knowledge, right?

[43:41] In this science, huh? So, if you're looking at that criterion of certitude, it's not the greatest criterion, right? But still, a criterion. This knowledge speculatively excels all other sciences because it has the greatest certitude.

[43:56] According to dignity of the matter, because this science is chiefly about those things which transcend by the altitude our reason, right? And the other sciences consider only those things which come under in some way reason, huh? Okay. So, from the fact that this science is about those things that are above our reason in some way, this science is going to have to be the best, right? In terms of what it knows.

[44:25] Okay. Now, as far as practical sciences, huh? That one is more worthy is is greater, which is ordered to a what further end, right? Okay, he's going back to what Aristotle points out at the beginning of the what Nicomachean Ethics, right? Where every you know art aims at some end, but sometimes the end of one is oriented to another one, right? So, the end of the pharmacist, which is the medicine, right, is oriented to the end of the medical art, which is health, right?

[45:02] Okay. So, the medical art is higher, huh? Okay. So, I just say to the students, which is higher, the the. The art of making money, let's say, or the medical art, which is higher? let's say? Well, if health is a higher good than money, then the art of medical art is higher than economics, right? Most of my economics or physics, like that. So, say which is higher, economics, you know, the Wealth of Nations, or the medical art, right?

[45:37] Which is higher, wealth or health? Yeah, you're going to give your health for wealth, or use your wealth to restore your health? Okay, then truth is even higher than health. So logic is even higher than medical art. So they should give more money to.

[46:02] You can go all spending to the medical schools, which is okay, but they should give some to the logical schools of logic. So he says, the practical sciences that is more worthy, which is ordered to a a what further end, right? Okay, as the civilian as the civilian is higher than the military, art, right? For the good of the army is ordered to the good of the what the city, okay, Defensive.

[46:35] But the end of this teaching, in so far as it is practical, right, is eternal beatitude, eternal life. To which, as to a last end, are ordered all the other ends, right, of the practical sciences. Whence it is manifest that in this way it is what more worthy than the others, right? Okay.

[47:04] Notice how well Thomas has ordered these articles, right? Because in the fourth article, you see that although it transcends being just a looking science or just a practical science, it nevertheless has something of both of them, right? Although it's primarily, you know, looking. And then we decides is it better? Well, he uses both the criterion for saying one science is better than another in terms of just the knowing itself, right?

[47:31] And then you have two criteria that Aristotle finds out: how well you know it, and what you know, and in both respects, how well you know, how certain you are, and what you know, both are what. It's higher, and then in terms of the practical, what's the end to which you're ordering, right? That is knowledge. In order to a higher end, therefore, this knowledge is is higher, right?

[47:58] So in every way, it's it's higher, right? Okay. Now, the first objection was saying, "Well, yeah, but people can doubt the articles of faith, right, and so on." He says to the first, therefore, it should be said that nothing prevents that which is more certain by nature to be towards us less what certain. This goes back to what Aristotle said in the beginning of the Physics, right, and then also in the second book of Wisdom, on account of the weakness of our understanding, which has itself to the most manifest things of nature as the eye of the back to the light of the sun, as is said in the second book of the what Metaphysics.

[49:01] And Plato has it in Republic right, as similar example. You know, compares us to those who are born in the cave, right? Oh yeah. And there's less light in the cave than outside the cave. If you get out the cave, you know, you'd be kind of blinded by the sun, huh? It's like coming out of a movie theater in a bright summer afternoon, you know, you can't kind of see what you're doing. And so you see things that are less visible, really, better than the things that are more visible, right?

[49:33] That's the nature of our mind. Hence, the doubt which happens in some people about the articles of faith is not an account of the thing being itself uncertain, right? But an account of the weakness of the human what understanding.

[49:54] But then he touches upon what Aristotle says, and in the beginning of the Parts of Animals, which he calls the eleventh book about the animals, right? Because sometimes they take the the

[50:08] history of animals and so on, and the and you know number of them all together, right? Okay, but usually it's what we call the Parts of Animals. For Aristotle, of those two criteria, right, that you have in the um

[50:27] the animal, he shows the more important one is the thing you are knowing, right? Okay, he uses a very simple sign of this that we'd rather see what someone we love briefly or even at a little distance, right, Imperfect. than to see the boss or somebody all day long, right? That we don't care for, right? Okay, so it's better to see the person you love imperfectly, right, than to see someone you don't love at all much clearer, okay?

[51:04] Or it's better to hear Mozart on a imperfect, right? You know, than to hear some other composers on a perfectly, you know, suitable system, right? Okay. Um, you don't want to listen to heavy metal perfectly. No, no, here is the one. Here is the one you think. Heavy metals in the junkyard.

[51:35] So he says. So he says. Even if there was there is some way to say you know that there is a lesser certitude here, right? Because on our side, right? Because people can doubt these things, right? Nonetheless,

[51:49] the least that we could have in the knowledge of the higher things, right, the highest things, is more desirable than the most certain knowledge which is had about what lesser things, as Aristotle says in the eleventh book about the animals. That's actually in the proemium to the Parts of Animals, huh? Okay.

[52:14] I think what you have is ten books to the history of animals, right? And then comes the what. Four books and parts of animals, so this is called the eleventh book. But the beginning of that, huh?

[52:33] So even if you attain to these higher things only by belief, right, and not by what evidence, right, it would still be better to attain to the higher things by belief than to attain to the lower things, even by what reason, evidence, right? Okay, okay. Um, it's better to know what the soul is, even imperfectly, right, than to know perfectly what the triangle is, what the circle is, huh?

[53:03] You can see that, Einstein, you know, was talking about the responsibility of the scientist, you know, to make known to the general public to some extent his discoveries, right? And because the people are impoverished if they don't what partake in some way of these scientific discoveries, huh? But you know, when a scientist tries to explain his theory to the public, the public is going to get a rather imperfect but understanding of it, right, huh?

[53:37] And they describe these stories when Einstein would be giving these kind of public things, you know, and all these stupid questions you get, and so on, so on. And I guess so. One of them, you know, they they told this before, but a woman says, "What do you feel about all this?" Oh no. Einstein says, "Well, just a minute," he says he. went over and he got out his violin and then he started playing Mozart.

[54:01] That was the end of the question period. What do you feel about this? Because I'm playing some Mozart. Einstein had a good judgment there about music, you know. He realized Mozart was much superior to Beethoven, I. He said Beethoven made his music, but Mozart found it. Mozart's music seems to be always a part of the universe, he says. Okay. So even though

[54:36] nuance we applied that first objection, right, huh? Okay. Okay. But you know, I was thinking, you know, of in the Adoro te devote right? Thomas, says in the second quatrain, he's talking about why he believes these things, right? Credo quidquid dixit Dei Filius; nihil hoc verbo veritatis verius right nothing is more certain, right, than what the word of God says, right? So in some way, this is more certain than falso, right?

[55:05] But even you want to say that there's something in the objection, you know, in saying that, well, I can't really deny that a whole is more than a part, but I could deny that there are three persons in God or something of that sort, right? But even that would not make this what of more worth, because the chief criterion is what you're knowing, right? So knowledge of a better thing is better knowledge, right?

[55:31] Okay. And it's a great criterion. Aristotle himself saw that, right? Okay. And of course, if you take that criterion, you say, "Well, how much better is God than other things? " Well, it's infinitely, right? So the knowledge of God, however imperfect your knowledge of God might be, it seems to be infinitely better than the other knowledge that you might have. So when they ask me, what are you going to do in your retirement, I'm going to, think about the best thing.

[56:04] See if they figure out what I may do in my retirement. Spend my time thinking about the best thing. Yeah. What's that? What's that?

[56:15] Let them figure that. If you don't know, help you. Okay. Now, the the second objection was saying, "Hey, don't you borrow things and take things from philosophy and use them in your science? Aren't you a borrower? "

[56:42] It says that this science is able to take something from the philosophical disciplines, not because it needs them, right, a necessity, but for the greater manifestation of those things which are treated in this science.

[57:00] For it does not take its beginnings from other sciences, but immediately by God through revelation, and therefore it does not take from the other sciences, as it were, from higher sciences, but it uses them as what lower ones and as what servants, handmaidens, right? Just as the architectonic sciences use the ones that administer to them, as the civilian science uses the what military science. So President Bush is a commander-in-chief, right?

[57:39] But he's also commanding other things. And this that it uses these right is not an account of its defect or of its insufficiency, but an account of the what failing of our understanding, right? Because from those things which are known what through natural reason, from which other sciences proceed, we are more easily led by the hand, right? than those things which are above reason, which are treated in what this science.

[58:18] Okay. And little footnote to that, use of the word manuductio. Okay. If you have the whole prima pars, I know if you probably don't have it here. But if you look at question one seventeen, article one.

[58:45] Good for me too. What? You kidding? Me three. Well, I two turns. Two turns. The article one is where it comes up before me. Well, I'm in the middle. Oh, I thought you was missing something. No, he got even two. I heard me say it. That's why. Why I oversaw it. Was whether one man can teach? Where is it again? Question one seventeen, article one. With one man can teach another, right?

[59:12] Okay. Um. Now I'm not going to go through article here, but look at the last. Paragraph, right? Where Thomas last paragraph of the body of the article. Okay. He says the teacher leads the student, right, from what is foreknown to a knowledge of the unknown. Okay. Okay.

[59:43] In two ways he does this, right? Okay. First, by proposing to him some aids, right, or tools, right, which his intellect uses to acquiring science, as when he proposes to him some statements that are less universal, which nevertheless, from things already known, the disciple is able to judge, right, or when he proposes to him some sensible examples, right, or some likenesses, right, or some opposites, right, and other things of this sort, from which the understanding of the one learning is manuducitur, right, is led by the hand to a knowledge of the unknown truth, right.

[1:00:43] But in another way, when he strengthens the understanding of the one learning, not by some act of power as it were of a higher nature, as has been said above about the angels illuminating it. that can be called upon an angel to help us, right? instinct not out of my mind. Okay, not that, because all human understandings are one grade in the order of nature, but insofar as he proposes to the disciple or the student the order of principles to what conclusions, because perhaps through himself he does not have such a power of bringing things together that he can deduce conclusions from the principles, and therefore it is said in the first book of the Post Analytics the demonstrations that teachers are making us to

[1:01:37] know. This is a very important text that Monsignor Dionne you know, would would expound on, right? And he gave us a course on the manuductio necessary for wisdom, and a course on the manuductio necessary for logic. because. These are both very difficult sciences. But this is something other than what you're doing, mainly in geometry, right? We're proposing the order of what principles and conclusions, right? That's almost all you have to do in geometry because it's so proportioned to us.

[1:02:10] But in the other sciences, and the more difficult they are, the more you need this one, leading by the hand, right? Okay. So. Because what is being proposed to us in sacred doctrine is so elevated, right? We need to have what be led by the hand, right? Using things that are what more known to us, okay? And

[1:02:37] you'll see that throughout this, right? Okay. So when Augustine is talking about the Trinity, he'll go back to what what we know about our own mind, right? And how your own mind might know itself and say, "hey, I'm lovable, and then love itself, right? And then you start to what has something that has certain likeness, right? Because we're made in the image and likeness of God, right?

[1:03:04] And you can be led by that to understanding, yeah. So in Thomas, you know, if you look at Thomas's even the commentary on St. John there, the beginning was the Word, right? We're going to talk about you know how our thought is to our thinking and so on, and kind of lead us from that to see what St. John is saying about God, right? But then he's using that on the kind of weakness of our mind, right?

[1:03:28] We've got to be led in that way, yeah. So that's a distinction that Thomas gives in that question one seventeen, article one, between manuductio and disciplina, right? And then the more finishing thing you might say the teacher proposing the order of principles to what conclusions, huh?

[1:03:54] Okay. See Aristotle again in the beginning of the physics there, right? He gives the reason why we know the confused before the distinct. Then he gives us three kinds of examples to show that in fact we do, and then you can break that down into very singular examples, huh? So what I do and I teach that.

[1:04:20] Okay, so we'll stop there in the fifth, fifth, start.