Prima Pars
9. Summa I, q.1, a.6–7: Sacred Doctrine as Wisdom and God as Its Subject
Class of 2006-01-12
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/009-summa-i-q-1-a-6-7-sacred-doctrine-as-wisdom-and-god-as-its/

[0:00] Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God our enlightener. guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, pray for us and help us to understand all that you've said. Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Now, if you want to follow the rule of two or three, right?

[0:30] In these ten articles, you could divide the first article against the other nine, right? Because the first one, in a way, is about the existence of this teaching, huh? This knowledge, huh? And the other nine articles are about the teaching itself.

[0:50] In those nine articles, you could divide into what three, right? Because the first five are about the kind of knowledge it is, and then the seventh one, seventh article, is about what the subject of this knowledge is, and then the last three are about the way of proceeding, huh? Okay, about the road, huh? And those first five articles, huh? You could divide, if you wanted to, into two, right?

[1:29] Because three of them are asking about it as a science, you know. What kind of knowledge is is the science, and if it's a science, is it one science or many sciences, and if one science is it speculative or practical? And then the next two articles are more about its preeminence over the other sciences. Granted, it is a science. Now, how is it related to the other sciences in terms of its excellence and so on?

[1:59] And the one we saw last time, the fifth article, showed that both is speculative and is practical because, in a way, it combines both. It excels the all the other sciences, and that kind of prepares a way for it being called a what? A wisdom, right? Because wisdom names the highest thing there, you might say, in knowledge.

[2:25] So let's look at these six articles. That's where we are now. It seems that this doctrine or teaching is not wisdom, huh? For no teaching which supposes its beginnings elsewhere is worthy of the name of wisdom, because it belongs to the wise man to order and not to be ordered. That's from the proemium to Wisdom at the beginning of the first book of wisdom or the metaphysics.

[2:54] But this teaching supposes. Its principles elsewhere from God, right? The knowledge of God or the knowledge of the blessed. Therefore, this teaching is not what wisdom, right? That's a good objection.

[3:15] Moreover, to wisdom it belongs to prove the beginnings of the other sciences, whence it is called the head of the sciences. In the sixth book of Nicomachean Ethics, he takes up the virtues of reason. But this teaching does not prove the beginnings of the other sciences. Therefore, it's not wisdom.

[3:39] Moreover, this teaching is acquired by study. I hope you're all studying. But wisdom is had by infusion or by pouring in. Whence it is numbered among the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, as is clear in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Isaiah. Therefore, this teaching is not what wisdom. But against this is what is said in the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter four, verse six, in the beginning of the law.

[4:18] The quote is: "This is what our or your, I guess, yours. This is your wisdom and understanding before the people. Now he says, 'I answer. It should be said that this teaching is most of all wisdom among all human what wisdoms, right? Not only in some genus or kind, but simply and without qualification.

[5:01] For since it belongs to the wise men to order and to judge, and judgment is had about lower things through a what higher cause,

[5:19] he is said to be wise in any genus who considers the highest cause of that genus. As for example, in the genus of building, the artist who disposes the form of the house is called wise, and the architect. Architect in Greek means what? Chief artist.

[5:47] With respect to the inferior artists who worked the wood and prepared the stones. Whence it is said in the first epistle of Paul to Corinthians, chapter three, verse ten, as a wise architect, I have laid a what foundation.

[6:10] And again, in the genus of the whole of human life, the man who has foresight, is prudent, is called wise, right? In so far as he orders human acts to a suitable end. Whence it is said in the book of Proverbs, the tenth chapter, the twenty-third verse, prudence or foresight, is the English word for that, is wisdom for a man, right?

[6:39] He therefore who considers simply, the highest cause of the whole universe. Incidentally, in Greek, I guess, and in Latin, they'll tend to speak of the cause as being what above the effect, huh? So the first cause would be the what highest, right? And you have this word in Latin that the effect depends upon the cause, right? And depends means hangs upon, right? Like a woman's pendant, here we go.

[7:16] But in English, we tend to what imagine the cause as supporting the effect, huh? And of course, sometimes you speak that way in Greek or Latin too. Speak of the underlying cause. That's why the native Anglo-Saxon word for cause seems to be ground. Shakespeare likes to pun on those two meanings of ground, like he does even in Romeo and Juliet. We see the ground on these walls do lie, right?

[7:45] But the true ground, meaning the true cause, you cannot put out through circumstance. To cry. So when he speaks of the altissima causa in Latin, there he means then the what the very first cause, huh? Once above all the other causes. For the whole universe, which is God.

[8:07] Therefore, he should be most of all be called what wise, right? Because not just the first cause in building or the first cause in human life, but the first cause simply of all things, huh?

[8:20] Whence wisdom is said to be the knowledge of divine things, as is clear through Augustine in the twelfth book of the what Trinity, huh? Of course, we saw Aristotle saying that too—that it's the divine science, wisdom, huh?

[8:41] Sacred teaching most properly determined. determines about God, according as he is the highest cause. Because not only as regards that which is knowable about him through creatures. Which the philosophers also do, right? As is said in Romans, as to Romans, chapter one, verse nineteen, what is known of God is manifest to them. That was the text quoted in the what, Vatican one, right? As to the possibility of knowing God by natural reason, but also as regards what is known to him only about himself, right?

[9:27] And is communicated by revelation to others. When sacred doctrine is most of all called what, wisdom, right? Okay. So you have that distinction between simply and what?

[9:45] In some ways, right? Okay. Of course, we use that sometimes when we talk, even in philosophy, and we say that first philosophy is wisdom simply, right? While ethics is wisdom about what human things, right? Ethics is about the first cause of all human things, namely happiness, the end, the goal of all human things. So you could say that ethics is wisdom in some way, right? It's a wisdom about human things, right?

[10:23] And you could say that natural philosophy is a kind of wisdom because it's a wisdom about natural things. That's a qualified term, right? But because first philosophy is about all things and about the first cause, then it's called simply what wisdom, right? And you'll see in the metaphysics Aristotle sometimes will call it simply philosophy, okay, or simply wisdom.

[10:51] But a fortiori, right? Sacred doctrine is wisdom in that sense because it's even more about God, right? Than first philosophy is because we find out in the fourth book of first philosophy that the subject of first philosophy is being and one, and God is only the what end or goal. But here in sacred teaching, sacred doctrine, God is the very subject of sacred doctrine.

[11:31] But furthermore, we know things about God through revelation, things that God alone knows about Himself, right? Which the philosopher will not know about God. So I've read Aristotle a lot, but I don't see any evidence that he knew about the Trinity. And even though he sometimes says we use the number three to praise God, but he didn't seem to have any knowledge of the Trinity, huh? Or the incarnation, for that matter.

[12:06] Now, how does he reply to these objections? It's? Kind of interesting, huh? He says to the first, it ought to be said that sacred teaching does not suppose its beginnings from some human science, right? Because that would make it what inferior to that human science, right? So it's not drawing its beginnings from any human knowledge. It doesn't put it underneath any other human knowledge, but rather from the divine science, the divine knowledge, which of course is the what Summa Sapiens, the highest wisdom.

[12:50] So it takes its what beginnings from the divine science by which, right? All our knowledge is ordered, right? As by a highest what wisdom right? So he's saying you know hey the the knowledge of God is the summa sapientia right? And this sacred doctrine is derived from that right? So it's closer to that which is the summa the highest the greatest wisdom right? Which all human knowledge in some way is directed right?

[13:22] So obviously this knowledge has more the character wisdom than any other human knowledge huh? Doesn't have more the character of wisdom than the summa sapientia that God has, but it does more than what any other one okay?

[13:41] Now back to the second objection there right? What about proving the principles of the other sciences huh? He says that the beginnings of the other sciences

[13:57] are either known to themselves right? And are not able to be proven right? Or they're proven in some other science through some natural reason,

[14:17] but it's proper to the knowledge of this science which is through revelation, or it's proper to this knowledge or science right? that it be through revelation, Now, however that it be through what natural reason, and therefore it does not pertain to it to prove the beginnings of the other sciences right? But only to what judge about them?

[14:47] For whatever in the other sciences is found repugnant to the truth of this science is wholly condemned as what false okay? We saw it already in Vatican I. okay?

[15:04] Whence it is said in the second epistle to the Corinthians the tenth chapter the fourth following verses destroying councils right? And every altitude extolling itself against the what knowledge of God okay? So he's saying it doesn't prove the beginnings of the other sciences because that's proven by some natural reason right? But it does have a what jurisdiction over them right? Because it judges them right? And it considers them as whether they are in harmony with this revelation or not right?

[15:43] Okay, so in that sense it's has the character wisdom. Now the third objection was based upon hey wisdom is a gift of the Holy Spirit. And the gifts of the Holy Spirit are what breathed into us, right? Okay. Well, here Thomas is going to say, "Well, this is a different wisdom than that. He's going to distinguish between the wisdom that's acquired by study and the wisdom that is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

[16:18] He's going to say something here about what the difference is. In the secunda secundi of the Summa, there, when he takes up the virtues in detail, right, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit, and you may recall how he takes up faith, hope, and charity, and then the four cardinal virtues—prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance—and he considers other virtues that there are by their connection with one of these seven main ones, huh?

[16:52] And he also takes up the gifts of the Holy Spirit that are corresponding to these. Well, the gift of the Holy Spirit called wisdom is taken up with what virtue?

[17:06] With charity. With charity, yeah, yeah. Not with faith, right? But with what? Charity, right? And that's relevant to what he's going to be saying here in this reply to the third one.

[17:23] To the third, it ought to be said that sense judgment, huh? Now, what is judgment, by the way? It's the definition of judgment. In philosophy, we

[17:44] say judgment is the separation of the true from the false. Sometimes we say also the good from the bad, right? In philosophy, we say by some beginning in our knowledge, right? Okay.

[18:26] To some beginning or some measure whereby we separate the true from the false and the good from the what bad, huh? Okay. So, in simple theorem and geometry, if these angles are equal, how do you judge that these two must be true and that they can be unequal is false? Right? How do you separate those two? Right? Well, if you know the theorem, what Euclid does is say that if one of these sides is longer than the other.

[19:00] Like say this was longer than this one here, you could cut off from the base here a line equal to what that over there, and then you could draw a line over to this corner like that, and now you've got two triangles, right? By your own admissions, that have equal angle, right? And since this side is equal to that, and this side is common, two triangles contained by what?

[19:32] Having equal angle contained by equal sides. Therefore, this triangle, the lesser one, is equal to the greater one, right? The whole is bigger than the part, right? Isn't it? So by that beginning in our knowledge that the whole is more than the part, I say it's false, right? That those could be unequal, right? And prove that they must be what? Equal. Okay. That's. judgment Right, That's separating the true from the false by some beginning, huh?

[20:06] And ultimately, you go back to the axiom about what being and unbeing. You know, someone says to me now, an odd number can be even. An odd number cannot be even. Let's separate the true from the false, right? Well, I'd say that an odd number can be even. That's false. An odd number cannot be even. That's true. I separate the true from the false. How do they do that?

[20:37] Well, because they know that an odd number is a number divisible, not divisible by two, and even is. So it can't both be and not be divisible into two equal parts, right? So I'm going back to the impossibility of both being and not being at the same time in the same way, huh? And so by that first beginning in our knowledge, I ultimately judge everything else. Why do I know?

[21:02] that a whole is more than a part, right? Well, if you know what a whole is, you know a whole is what has parts, right? So it must be more than what just one of those parts. Otherwise, it'd have parts and wouldn't have parts. It's a contradiction, right? So you judge everything ultimately by the axiom about contradiction, okay? But that's the first beginning of all. To separate the true from the false by some beginning, huh?

[21:34] It says, "Sense judgment belongs to the wise men. According to a twofold, two kinds, or two ways of judging, there is a twofold what way of taking wisdom.

[21:53] For it can happen for someone to judge in one way by way of what inclination. Just as who has the habit of virtue rightly judges about those things which ought to be done by what virtue, huh? Insofar as he is what inclined to them.

[22:26] So you know, it's that famous conversation between Desdemona and the maid there at the end of Othello, towards the end, huh? And the idea was, would you sleep with someone besides your husband, you know, for for all the world, right? And of course, Desdemona just couldn't do this. He cannot do this as possible. And the maid says, "Well, I do it the next morning. " Say, I didn't do it.

[22:49] I didn't do it. Well, it's kind of interesting because Desdemona is going to be accused falsely, right, Of adultery, right? but she judges these things as what? Repugnant by the very inclination of her what virtue, okay. Once it is said in the tenth book of the ethics that the virtuous man or woman is the measure and the rule of human acts, So in Desdemona, there is the rule, right?

[23:19] The measure, huh? But no, she's judging by the what inclination, the virtuous inclination of her what appetite. Another way, by way of knowledge, just as someone instructed in moral science is able to judge about the acts of virtue, even if he does not what have the virtue, huh? So watch out for these moral theologians, right? Make sure they have sinned before they do it. So he says the first way of judging, right, by the inclination of the appetite, of judging about divine things pertains to the wisdom which is a gift of the Holy Spirit, according to that of the First Corinthians chapter two verse fifteen.

[24:17] The spiritual man judges all things, right? And Dionysius says in the second chapter that about the divine names, speaking of Hierotheus Hierotheus taught as not only what learning, but as undergoing divine things, huh? Okay. And of course, when we take up the difference between the reason and the will,

[24:46] the will undergoes more than the what reason does, huh? And so that's very significant. He used the word patiens, undergoing divine things. Of course, as Father Boulay is to point out, you know, there's a way in which the will is more proportioned to God than the reason, because reason, as a knowing power, tries to get the known into the knower, right? So you're trying to get God into your little mind, see?

[25:22] But love goes to the thing loved, right? So it's like the difference between jumping into the ocean, which is more like the will, and trying to put the ocean inside of you. It's about what I got. Reason is trying to do, huh? So the one who loves God is able to judge well, right, because of the inclination of their heart, right, their will, and they have a kind of wisdom, therefore, that is what attached or connected with the virtue of what charity, and that's why in the Secunda Secunda, Thomas takes up the virtues and the Gets the Holy Spirit in particular, it attaches a consideration of

[26:08] wisdom to charity. Right? Okay. The second way of judging, huh? Pertains to this teaching, right? According as it is had through what study, right? Although its beginnings are had what from revelation, right? But you are judging other things by those beginnings had from revelation, right? It's more like the judgment of the philosopher, right? Okay. But the judgment that is tied up with the gift of the Holy Spirit of wisdom is more like the judgment that the philosopher talks about the virtuous man having, right?

[26:52] Okay. It's interesting in ethics, Aristotle says. You know, the starting point in ethics is to know that it is bad, and if a man doesn't know that, right,

[27:09] he's never going to get the reason why. It seems to me that that point is also true about the fine arts. Now, you've got to recognize that Shakespeare is better than Fletcher, right? Before you can give any reason why he's better, right? Okay. Or you can see the excellence of Mozart here,

[27:41] without or before you have to give a reason why. And if you can't see that it is better, you want to know why before you're going to admit this. You are out of order. Okay.

[27:58] You know, it's like a lot about you know homosexual marriage or whatever it is. You know, I mean, one is spontaneously rejected by the inclination of one is a virtue, right? Or even the littlest of virtues, shall we say? You know, and not to wait for some kind of a quasi scientific demonstration of the iniquity of this practice. Of course, the

[28:29] people you know have been brought up badly they have vice, and then they misjudge all these things, right? By the inclination of their the bad inclination of the appetite.

[28:46] And I suppose that would be true if, someone's brought up, you know, in the wrong things, drinking beer instead of wine, say, or listening to rock and roll instead of music, right? Their judgment is really really corrupted, right? And they don't spontaneously reject these things as bad.

[29:08] One of my brothers used to help in the hospital, and he said there was a girl. There was an abortion clinic nearby, and a girl had an abortion, and she was bleeding to death. And they rushed her to the hospital, and her friend came over, and he had to go out and tell this friend waiting that she had died. Yeah. So he's you know she's trying to be helpful.

[29:29] Well, here's her insurance card, and here's this, and here's that. And he says, well, she doesn't need it anymore because she didn't survive the procedure, or, whatever. Yeah. And her friend, her friend's response was, "Well, she just had an abortion." That was the response. Yeah. And he he said, "I wanted the strength." Just an abortion. Yeah. Yeah. She didn't say that there was like it was like your nails clipped or something.

[29:51] Yeah. Right. Okay, so that concludes. the first of the three parts of the second part, right? Okay. What kind of knowledge this is, right? It's a science, one science, more speculative than practical, but in a sense transcending that division, right? And then it's what superior to all the other sciences, and most of all among human sciences has the character of what Of wisdom, right?

[30:34] So to me, it doesn't make any sense to say that a man is a philosopher, right? And if he happens to be also a Christian or a Catholic, he wouldn't study philosophy ultimately for the sake of what theology. If he's a lover of wisdom, this is more the character of wisdom.

[30:58] And you know, when Aristotle speaks about these things, he says either God alone is wise, right, or God most of all. Which you find the same thought in in Pythagoras and in Heraclitus and Socrates and Plato and so on, all the great Greek philosophers. Either God alone should be called wise, or God most of all. So you would say, from what they say, they should be open to,

[31:29] if were possible, to partake of God's wisdom, right? If God were to share His wisdom with us, then from their own principles, they have to say that this is even more wisdom than this wisdom that we thought out.

[31:49] But you could also say that in the modern philosophers, when they rejected theology, revealed theology, rejected this share in God's wisdom, are they really rejecting wisdom? And eventually, reject even what the wisdom of this first philosophy first philosophy? And it would be inconsistent not to.

[32:16] Okay, now we come to the second part of the second part, right? And that is what the subject of this science is. And the question asked is whether God is the subject of the science.

[32:35] Incidentally, that that form in which these things are put, whether. That's the way you state a dialectical problem. Okay. You're going to what argue some extent on both sides, and the question is disputatae. I think if you're talking so on, you might have many more objections, and sometimes objections on both sides, right? And sometimes Thomas will answer objections on both sides. Sometimes, just on one side, depending upon where the truth is.

[33:12] So, whether God is the subject of this science, he's going to come down and say yes, but he's going to argue against it. So he says, it seems that God is not the subject of the science. First of all, in every science, it is necessary to suppose about the subject what it is, according to the philosopher in the first book of Posterior Analytics. So in arithmetic, right, the very beginning there, Euclid tells us what a number is, right?

[33:40] Know what a number is. So you got a that's kind of presupposed in the science of arithmetic, right? In the beginning of geometry, you have the definitions of what a triangle is, and a square, and a circle, and so on.

[33:55] But this science does not suppose about God what He is. For Damascene says, "To say in God what He is is impossible." We don't see God as He is, except in the intuitive vision, right?

[34:18] Moreover, all things which are determined in some science are comprehended under the subject of that science. But in Sacred Scripture, one determines about many other things besides God, for example, about creatures and about the morals of men, right? Therefore, God is not the subject of what the science,

[34:47] but against this, that is the subject of the science about which there is speech in the science. But in this science, there is speech about God, for it is called theology, as sermo de Deo "logia" is what, like "sermo," right? And "theos" is what, God, yeah. Therefore, God is the subject of this science.

[35:16] Can you step in that? What he uses is this word "supponere? Yeah, to place under, I suppose, literally, huh? Place under, actually, look at that means supponere. Yeah, but is it sometimes called the the individual substance of supposing to him? Yeah. So I don't quite understand how he uses it in these contexts. Well, supposes, I suppose, it means literally. It's placed under the science, right? Oh, that's right.

[35:53] So the principles, like when he was using, yeah, yeah, okay, ground, just like we just like we call the the subject of the science, right? That the subject is. Yeah, that's under, yeah. Yeah, okay. In Greek, they might say "hupokeimenon hupo under keimenon," placed under, right? Okay. We might use the word "presuppose" in English. Like if you take Latin. Yeah, yeah. Second semester Latin presupposes first semester.

[36:19] That's that's the transition. But but presuppose comes from the idea of being before, right? Okay. So so I mean going back to the image here, but as image of being before rather than than of being under, right? But supponer is the idea of being under, right then? Okay. But you can say both. You can say, you know, before you begin a science, you get know what the subject is.

[36:44] And you can also say the subject underlies science. Science would be there without the subject. That's it, yeah, yeah. Okay, I answer it ought to be said that God is the subject of this science. For thus the subject is to a science as an object is to a what power or habit.

[37:18] So we talk about what the three books about the soul. You take up the potentia, the powers of the soul, right? You distinguish them by their acts, and their acts by their what? Object. So you distinguish the eye and the ear because in one case you're sensing color, other case you're sensing what sound. So the object, color and sound, eventually distinguish these things. And my digestive power is food, right?

[37:49] Okay. But properly that is assigned as the object of some power or habit. A reason of which, right? All things are referred to that power or habit. Just as man and stone are referred to, say, sight, the sense of sight, in so far as they are what color, right? Whence colored is the proper object of the what sight. But all things are treated in sacred doctrine, in sacred teaching, in the holy teaching, under the ratio of God.

[38:40] Either because they are God Himself, right? Or because they have an order to God as to a beginning and a what end. That threefold distinction, right, was touched upon earlier in one of the earlier articles. Um, you asked me what was the one science and so on, right? There and the objection was that they talk about many things, right? Okay. So the rule of three is being followed here, basically in theology, right?

[39:15] And it's not as clear in the Summa Theologiae as it is in the Summa Contra Gentiles, because there the first three books, one, two, three, God Himself, God as the Principium or beginning, right, and then God as the what, the end, okay. But nevertheless, the Summa Theologiae really has that same division, right? But the part about the end is greatly expanded in the second and the third parts, huh?

[39:48] But basically, that's the way it is. So everything refers back to God, huh? You might be mind remember something like that in the uh Fourth book of wisdom, when Aristotle says that the subject of first philosophy is being, right? But being covers a multitude, and it's equivocal word, right? But they all refer back to what? To substance, yeah. Because quantity is the size of substance, and quality is disposition of substance, right?

[40:31] Generation is the coming to be of substance, and death is the the the opposite, and so on. So you can say the chief subject then of wisdom is, or first philosophy, is

[40:49] substance, right? Okay. Well, likewise here the chief subject is what God, okay? What's the chief subject of political philosophy? State in sense of polis, the city, yeah. Okay, so that's a political philosophy's name from polis, right? Okay. But you talk about anything besides the city. We talk about government, yeah. Is the government a city? No, no. But the government governs the city, okay. So it has relation to the polis, and that's where we take it up, right?

[41:41] And what about laws? Was the law a city? No, was the law government? No. But the government rules the city by laws, right? Okay. Well, then they talk about revolution. Revolution, a a city? No, is revolution a government? No. But it's a change of government, right? Okay. So still refers all the way back ultimately to the what polis, huh? Some things are closer, some things are further, right?

[42:12] So Aristotle takes up the various forms of government in books three and four of the Politics. But then book five he starts talking about revolution, then, and then book six and so on, institutional governments and so on. So revolution, institutional governments, are dated all the way back to polis because government that they're the change of or the institution of are rules the polis, okay? So you can say the chief subject of political philosophy is the polis.

[42:48] Chief subject of first philosophy is substance, right? Well, and likewise the chief subject here is what God, right? Okay. So notice again the difference between what is sometimes called natural theology, right, which is really the end of what, of first philosophy, and this theology, right. Theology has got more a right to the name theology, right, because it is sermo deo, right. While first philosophy is sermo de ente, it's about being, and God is only the end or goal.

[43:31] But here he's not only the end or goal, but he's the very what subject, right? Okay. What does the Dominican say? You should only talk about God or to God. You're talking about about God. That's one thing, and you're you know praying to God, you're intending towards God, right?

[43:56] Notice how Thomas following the great Aristotle, you know, sometimes principium is what adapted or used in particular for what the cause we call the what the mover or the maker, right? He says principium he has in mind God as being the mover or the maker of things. Now the beginning of the first book of natural hearing, Aristotle says in every science of which there are beginnings or causes or elements, right?

[44:31] And Thomas says, what does he mean by beginnings, causes or elements, right? And there he's not trying to really distinguish them in any great way, but there's one way in which you you distinguish those three words in the fifth book of wisdom, right? And there you say that beginning is more general than cause. That every cause is a beginning, but not every beginning is a cause, and cause is more general than what element, right?

[45:02] Okay. Because element is only strictly speaking in the material cause, one kind of cause, but sometimes we kind of adapt these, right? So elements to material cause, beginning to the what mover or maker, and then we use the word cause for the end and the form, okay? Kind of adaptation of that. That's the way Thomas is using principium here, right? Because he's contrasting principium et finis, even though you find out in the chapter on principium in the category in the fifth book of wisdom that the last meaning of beginning is the end, because it's first in intention, first in our goal, right?

[45:49] So this suggests a division of sacred doctrine into what three parts, right? Jesse has made more explicit the division of the books there in the Summa Contra Gentiles. Whence it follows that God is truly the subject of this science, right?

[46:18] And then he's the second way of manifesting it. This is also manifest from the beginnings of the science, which are the articles of faith, which is about what God, right?

[46:34] And this especially is seen in the what the creeds that followed the what Father, Son, and Spirit, right? Now the Nicene Constantinople Creed and the Apostles Creed, right? They're divided into three parts, right? And some articles are attached to the article about the Father, and some to that about the Son, and some to the Holy Spirit. Well, if you divide the articles according to the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, God, obviously the articles are chiefly about what God, yeah.

[47:09] So the beginnings of this science are all about God, and then this science must be all about God, right? Okay, okay. So he gives two reasons here, right, for showing that this science is about God chiefly, right? Nothing else is talked about in the science in addition to God. If anything can be in addition to God, except in reference to God, right, as its beginning and as its what end.

[47:46] The most explicit statement of "I am the Alpha and the Omega, beginning and the end" is in the Book of the what Apocalypse. I think is most explicit, yeah.

[48:04] But you find, you know, running through the Psalms a lot in different places like that. These three, right? Know that the Lord is God. He made us as we are. the people of his flock he tends. In a sense, that's a threefold division: right, God Himself, God as our Creator and Maker, God as our Shepherd, Himself as a Man. So Thomas would take up in the third book of the Summa, God is the end to show God is the end of all things, and then he would talk about the divine providence whereby He leads things to that end.

[48:38] But in the second book, you talk about God as Maker, right, and the Creator, God's creation, a little bit about what He creates and so on.

[48:57] And says some, paying attention to those things which are treated as science, and not to the reason according to which they are considered, right, have assigned otherwise the subject of this science as things and signs, right? Huh? Okay. And notice this has a footnote referring to that's the way the Lombard has a sentence to find it, huh? Okay. Or the works of reparation, right? Or the whole Christ, right?

[49:30] That is head and members. Now about all these things, one treats in the science, but according to their order to what God, right? Does Christ say, "I am the way, the truth, and the life"? And as God, he's the end, his truth and life, right? As man, he's the what? The way, actually, the Greek word is more concrete. It's this road, the hodas I am the hodas the road.

[50:06] And so when Thomas begins the third part of the Summa, there he's going to talk about the incarnation and therefore the human nature of Christ, right? He says that this is about Christ, who as man

[50:20] is the what, via tendendi ad Deum right? The road we're getting together. Now I think I mentioned this interesting division that Thomas gives in the commentary on Psalms. Then you run across it? He says who teaches teaches either things or words. Okay, and I think it's a very simple way of stating a distinction, right? He says when we teach the faith, the articles of faith, and morals and so on, the commandments and so on, we're teaching things.

[51:09] When we teach Scripture, we're teaching what words. Now, obviously, when you talk about things, you're going to use words, and you will at some time, maybe as he does later on, in 12 and thirteen, talk about the words you're using in talking about things, right? Okay,

[51:35] but nevertheless, you might say up front is the things you want to talk about, right? So this is the book about things, or chiefly about one thing, God, right? Okay, but when Thomas says when we lay out sacred Scripture, then we're talking about words. It doesn't mean that you don't talk about the things that these words signify. What's up front is the words of Saint John's Gospel, or Saint Matthew's Gospel, or the words of Saint Paul, wherever it might be that you're commenting on, and those words are your what starting point, right?

[52:17] And you're going to try to unfold the meaning of those words in the order of those words and so on, right? But there's a real difference between those two, isn't it? Okay. Now, Pius XII said no one can really be a Thomist without knowing Thomas's commentary on the Gospel of Saint John, right? Okay. I think if you compare the commentary on the Gospel of Saint John, or even the commentary on the Psalms, right?

[52:44] So different types of work in this. Dionysius's work on the divine names, as I've mentioned before, is sort of in between those two, right? Is that about things or about words? But but notice you know he's a pretty careful writer, and the name of the work is about the divine names right, you know, and the reason is that he's talking about as you read the books of the Bible, you'll see these names again and again, so you are going to talk every time it's said that God is good.

[53:25] In What sense God is said to be good? Going to explain what good over and over again. Then you're going to have the repetition that Thomas talks about that the exposition of books requires right. So let's pull out those words that I said again and again of God right, and give a kind of a somewhat exhaustive consideration of what it means to say God is good or God is beautiful, whatever else we say about God.

[53:52] But you can see that the work of Dionysius and the divine names presupposes talking about words right, and it's closer to that right than the Summa is is. But vice versa, Dionysius and the divine names is closer to the Summa, where you have a treatise on the divine goodness all by itself right. The question will be on that, Then then the scripture is like this right. Okay, the reason why I kind of got into that here is that when you ask what is the subject of Scripture right.

[54:35] How does Vatican II talk about that? If someone said to you, "What is the chief subject of sacred Scripture?" Would you say it's God, or what would you say? Salvation. Well, what does Vatican II say?

[55:02] You know, and they'll say, for example, talking about the New Testament, that even among the books of the New Testament, right, the four Gospels have a preeminence. So the four Gospels are the greatest part, right? Okay.

[55:19] And the four Gospels why are they the greatest part? Because of the chief witness to the words and the deeds of what? The Word made flesh, right? Okay. And then when they talk about the Old Testament, they talk about it chiefly to prepare the way for the what? The Word made flesh, right? So, you know my enjoyment with Amphiboli, right? Okay.

[55:47] That the Bible, the Word of God in the sense of the what Bible, right? Is about the word of God, okay? And Vatican II kind of makes it more explicit. You say the Bible is chiefly about the word of God made flesh, right? Okay.

[56:12] And that the the Bible, the word of God in the sense of the Bible, is also made flesh insofar as it takes on what human language, okay? Now that's a beautiful, beautiful teaching there, Vatican II, because it shows the way of speaking fits what you are speaking of.

[56:36] And you may have seen Thomas, you know, he talks about the sacraments as being tools of Christ, huh? And how a tool should fit the the one who uses the tool, right? Just like you know the handle of the tool, you know, should fit my hand in some way. Um.

[56:57] So if you are talking about what the word of God made flesh, right? Um. You need a way of speaking where the word of God, words of God, so to speak, become flesh, taken on language. And just like in going back to the sacraments there, Augustine says the word comes to the element, becomes a sacrament. I baptize you in the Father, the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

[57:26] When those words come to the water, then it becomes a sacrament of what baptism, right? So it's kind of a likeness, right, of the words coming to the element and the word made flesh, which is what Christ did, huh? Fits that. Well, likewise in this way of scripture, right? Okay. That the word of God in the sense of sacred scripture is the word of God made flesh.

[57:56] Vatican II says that's to say the word of God clothing itself, right, in a kind of what human speech, right? Okay. It's appropriate to speak that way when it's going to speak about the word of God in the sense of the Son of God now, right? Made flesh, right? So it's appropriate that Son? Okay.

[58:20] So now obviously, huh? Because the connection, the three person, the Trinity, right? And Christ is God. You can say okay, in a way, scripture is about God too, right? But maybe you know there is some

[58:39] appropriateness in saying that the subject of what sacred scripture is the word of God made flesh. I wouldn't say that the subject of the Summa Theologiae is the word of God made flesh. I'd say it's God, you know. Okay. And I wouldn't. I wouldn't say it's false to say the scriptures about God either. It obviously, obviously is right. But I

[59:08] mean, when you read the Gospels, especially the Gospel of Saint. John, but all the Gospels, you're learning about God the Father. You're learning about God the Holy Spirit, right? But still, would you say, the four Gospels are four books about the Trinity, or four books about the what? Word of God made flesh. Because when we distinguish, when we distinguish the Gospels,

[59:36] often we divide the first three against the fourth one, right? And the distinction between the first three and the fourth is that the first three emphasize the human nature of Christ relatively more compared to the fourth, and the fourth emphasizes the divinity of Christ more relatively to the other but obviously, both natures are in every Gospel. Well, the very distinction, therefore, the Gospels, right, into two great things, is

[1:00:10] in terms of the Word of God made flesh, right, his divinity and humanity, rather than in terms of the Trinity or something that's certain.

[1:00:22] I suppose that indicates how Scripture is more proportionate to us. You know, who teaches verba? Who teaches words? In the sense of being more proportionate to us than man who teaches things, right?