Prima Pars
11. Summa Theologiae I, Q.1 aa.9–10 and the Prologue to Q.2: Metaphor in Scripture, the Four Senses, and the Plan of the Summa
Class of 2006-01-19
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/011-summa-theologiae-i-q-1-aa-9-10-and-the-prologue-to-q-2-metaphor/

[0:01] Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angel, 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 written. Name of the Father and the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.

[0:27] I think we're up to the third reply to the third objection in Article Nine. Is that correct? The third objection was, as some creatures are more sublime, right? So they more approach to a likeness to God.

[0:49] If therefore, one takes some things from creatures to carry over to God, we're not to take things especially from the more sublime creatures, and not from the lowest. But this nevertheless is frequently done in Scripture. The Lord is a rock, huh? Okay, still saying the Lord is a soul. He's a rock, right? To the third, it should be said, as Dionysius teaches, that it is more suitable that divine things in Scripture be treated under the figures or likenesses of lowly bodies, right, vile bodies, than of noble bodies.

[1:35] And this, for three reasons: first, because through this or by this, the human soul is more freed from mistake or error. For as manifest, manifest it appears that these things are not said properly about divine things, which could be a doubt if they were described under the figures of noble what bodies. Okay, so the great philosopher Anaxagoras got in trouble for saying the sun is a stone on fire.

[2:06] We know it's the god Apollo, right? Okay, but nobody would think maybe the rock. is the god Apollo. but. Maybe the sun is, huh? So if you take it from lowly bodies, then you're not going to be so deceived, huh?

[2:23] And especially be deceived who cannot are not able to think of anything more noble, right, than bodies, and that's noble, right? I remember, you know, a conversation I had with one of my philosophical associates there, and his mother, you know, and trying to explain that God, His divine nature, has no body, and she just couldn't understand this, even though she was a good Catholic, you know. So it's hard people to rise above their their body, right?

[2:54] Right, above bodies. Secondly, because this way is more suitable. To the knowledge which we have about God in this life, for we more, he's more made known to us what He is not than what He is, and therefore likenesses of those things which are more distant from God give us a true estimate about Him. That He, that He is something above what we can what say or even think.

[3:34] I thought you know Father Boulay said at one time in that sense, symbolic theology is higher than other theology, right? Because that's kind of the ultimate thing in this life. No, He's above all of our thinking, huh?

[3:50] Third, because through things of this sort, the divine things, are more what hidden from the what unworthy, right? Okay, that's the reason he gave in answer to another objection, as well.

[4:07] In the book of Sentences, he gives other reasons why we should use metaphors, huh? And one reason, of course, is that every part of man should be what subject to God, right? So if he's subject the legs when he genuflect, let's say, right, or kneel, how much more so the imagination, which is higher than the legs? And so if we you know use our hands and everything like that, but the imagination is you know next to the reason and the will, huh?

[4:40] And of course, the imagination is a great cause of deception and so on. So you want to bring the imagination into subjection to God, and that's what these metaphors do. Okay.

[4:54] So, going back for a moment to the use of metaphors by the theologian or by Scripture rather, and by the poet, it goes back to that thing we saw in the second book of Wisdom that the difficulty in knowing can have two different causes, right? The difficulty can be in the things themselves, or it can be in the weakness of our mind, and in the case of the poet, the weakness, the difficulty is in the thing itself, that they're not really what that understandable.

[5:34] While in the case of God, He's too understandable for us, so it's due to the weakness of our mind that we don't understand God very well, huh? So in that sense, it's because of the difficulty in knowing that we use metaphors, both the poet and the sacred Scripture, but for exactly different difficulties. But they have something similar in that it is something in a way beyond our reason to some extent, huh?

[6:03] So now when he talked about a play. Aristotle, in the book on the poetic art, he says that Homer taught all the Greeks how to write a good play, how to write a good story, and he taught them that the the unity of a play doesn't consist in being about one man, there's all kinds of things that happen to one man, but it should be a course of action as a beginning, a middle, and an end, and so they fit together.

[6:33] And if it really is a beginning on end, you can't take this out or take that out. You see? But if you look at your life or my life as it really is, it's a jumble of things that don't really have any what connection one with another. And I did one thing at this hour, and another hour I did something else, and they don't fit together into any kind of a of a whole, right?

[6:54] So you give a plot as a beginning on the end, you're giving an order, and therefore an understandability more than it really has. And so the metaphors are what raising this up, okay? And you have something like that, of course, with music too. That secular music is trying to represent something that you can't quite say in words. I was looking at Roman Juliet again, and there's words in Romeo, where he's talking about let music express our joy, or it's like you can't say in words, right?

[7:34] What the joy is, and that's just not quite understandable. You can't quite say what God is either, but that's for a different reason. It reaches the mind. So you have those two.

[7:51] So it's interesting that Thomas has this article here, although in the Summa Theologiae you're not going to be proceeding metaphorically, right? Yeah. This would be more appropriate to certain parts of Scripture and so on. But perhaps one reason why he does it, and this is kind of a particular reason, is

[8:17] to guard us against thinking that the argumentative part is getting us as far as we might think it's getting us. But also because some of the objections in trying to understand what we can understand about God proceed from taking the metaphors what literally taking them as being said properly, yeah, okay. So let's look now at the tenth article here,

[8:54] whether sacred Scripture has under one letter many senses. To the tenth, he proceeds thus: It seems that sacred Scripture does not under one letter have many senses, which are the historical.

[9:14] Now, how should you translate literalis? I think I've maybe spoken about this before. I mean, some people translate it in the literal sense, right? But I think there's a danger in doing that because, as Thomas will explain, when Scripture uses a metaphor,

[9:37] people say, "Well, that's not the literal sense." You see, you say God is a rock. Well, Thomas will put that under the sense of the what? Letter. Literalis. So to avoid that, I in English often say what? Sense of the letter. Okay. So when it says that the Lord is my rock, the sense of the letter is not that He's a rock.

[9:59] You're saying metaphorically. That God is what our support or something of this sort, right? Just like if if the husband says his wife honey, right? His meaning is not that she's honey, but that she's sweet, nice, so on, right? Okay. So a lot of times people take literal sense as, excluding metaphors, right? Yeah. Okay. So you got to be careful about that.

[10:30] The allegorical, the tropological, which is not the most common word for that. The moral sense is better, right? Mm-hmm. And the anagogic. Okay. Now the first one would be the sense of the letter, but they also call it historical sense, and then the other three would be the what? Three spiritual senses, huh? Okay. Now the first objection: for the multiplicity of senses in one scripture, gives rise to confusion and deception, and takes away the firmness of what?

[11:11] Argument, right? Whence from many statements does not proceed argumentation, but according to this some fallacies are assigned, huh? But sacred scripture ought to be efficacious to showing the truth without any deception or without any fallacy. Therefore, there ought not to be under one letter many senses to be treated, huh?

[11:47] Moreover, Augustine says in the book about the usefulness of believing that the scripture which is called the Old Testament, huh, is treated fourfold according to what? History, according to etiologia. I guess that's probably from the Greek word for cause, huh? aetias, huh? So you're giving the cause, huh?

[12:18] Um, what's that word? Etymology, right? You know, we used to use. I have to have a copy at home. In fact, book by Partridge, huh? Called Origins. Have you seen that? About this thick, so it's kind of a nice one. I mean, there are more complete etymologies. This is pretty useful, and it's one that they kind of you know get you in your personal library, huh? What does the word etymology mean?

[12:46] You say? Well, he's titled the book the the book here origins. That's what says etymology means, right? A logos about the etias, the beginning or the cause, right? It translates one sense the beginning, right? So he had that a little bit here in the same word here, etiologia. According to analogy, according to allegory, right? Which four from the four fore said seem to be altogether what? Alien, something entirely different.

[13:18] Is not therefore suitable that the same letter sacred scripture be laid out according to the four senses before. The second objection is a different one, right? It's not so much denying the

[13:35] multiplicity of senses, or they should be, but they're not the ones that he just mentioned. Augustine has this other one, huh? Moreover, and then the other one, and the third objection, which has let something out. Moreover, in addition to the four said senses, right? There's found the what? Parabolical or the parabolic, which is not contained among those what four senses. Okay.

[14:08] So the first objection is quite different from the second and the third, right? The third one is accusing that distinction as being suffering a sin of omission, right? and then the second one is saying, "Well, Augustine seems to give a different list than that one, right? " But the first one is saying they shouldn't be on the list at all; they shouldn't be on the chain of sense, huh?

[14:35] Okay. But against this is what Gregory says. This is what Gregory the Great, huh? Not too many greats around, huh? Gregory the Great. In the twentieth book of the what morals, huh? Thomas is always quoting that morals really. Secunda secundi, right? He gets down to the details of moral matters, huh? And it was that Gregory gives the four species of pride and so on, huh? and Thomas will often talk about those seven capital sins.

[15:07] Huh? Gregory has a lot of things to say about these. Ah. So Gregory says that sacred scripture transcends all the sciences, right? By its what way of speaking? Because by one and the same speech, while narrates something that has taken place, it what brings forth a mystery. right?

[15:43] I think Thomas sometimes calls a spiritual sense, mystical sense. I think that's fairly common in the he's common in scripture, right? Okay. And this suggests the that use of the word, you know. Okay. mystical. Puzzle, what does he mean by that? Does he mean the same thing as a spiritual sense, but I think he does. Meaning, you know, but anyway.

[16:09] Okay, now in the body of the article, this is a key point. Now, I answer. It should be said that the author of sacred scripture is God. That's where we gotta begin. In whose power it is that not only does he accommodate what vocal sounds, huh, to signifying something, right, which even man is able to do,

[16:41] but also the things themselves, huh? And therefore, since in all sciences, voices, vocal sounds, as to say, signify something, this science has proper or private, which you might say, huh? Sorry, the problem there. How you translate "proprium" in in English, right? Because you talk about say the the bonum proprium and the bonum communis, the common good. The other should be called not the proper good, but the private good, right?

[17:20] You know, but it's something that's belongs exclusively often to something, huh? So it's private in science, you might say, and that the very things themselves that are signified through the vocal sounds, huh, also signify something, right? So what he's saying is that in all the sciences, vocal sounds signify something. They better. okay. What's unique here, because the author is God, right? His providence extends to all things.

[17:58] That not only do the vocal sounds signify something, but the things themselves, right, in turn, signify something further. So there is a what order there, right? And the first is called the sense of the letter, and the second, which is more than one, is called the spiritual sense, huh? Okay, the spiritual sense presupposes the sense of the what letter, okay?

[18:36] So he says that first. Now, again, that's why I'm just saying first implies order, right? So he calls that the first signifying the first meaning, if you wish, right?

[18:52] That first signifying by which vocal sounds, meaning words, signify what. Things right pertains to the first sense that we just we enumerated, which is the historical sense, right? Or as I translate the sense of the what letter, okay.

[19:20] But that signifying by which the things that have been signified to the vocal sounds, right, again signify other things, right, is called the what spiritual sense, which is founded upon the sense of the letter and supposes it, right, okay. So it's important to see the the order there, right? Okay. Now, as I say, people sometimes get mixed up with the metaphor, right? Because they'll think that the sense of the letter, you say, God is a rock, maybe it is a rock, and that. Is not so right, huh?

[20:04] Thomas has has explanation of figures of speech very good in the commentaries on Saint Paul, right? And the text in in Saint Paul there where Saint Paul uses some irony, huh? And therefore Thomas has to defend that he's not lying, right, huh? Okay.

[20:28] And he explains what figurative speech is, huh? And he says that when a man speaks figuratively, the meaning of his words is not the meaning of the speaker,

[20:46] but there's some connection between the meaning of the words and the meaning of the speaker. So, and then he contrasts these two figures of speech: irony, the one that that Saint Paul happens to be using there, and metaphor, right? Because metaphor is based upon what likeness, huh? Okay. So when the husband calls his wife honey, or a more general metaphor, sweet, right? What he means is, oh thou pleasant one, thou agreeable one.

[21:26] You see, and that's by reason of a likeness, huh? Because the sweet is pleasant and agreeable as every kid likes candy. If a kid doesn't like candy I suspect there's something wrong with it, right? If I can't agreeable.

[21:40] And so, what is the meaning of the husband? He says, "Honey, you know, that the sticky stuff, you know, that's hard to handle, but oh thou pleasant one, " he means, right? You see, so the connection between what his word means and what he means is what one of likeness, huh? Okay. I talk to the students of the college there about irony, you know. I say, now suppose I come in here on the weekend and I find you drunk under the table.

[22:11] I said, what a fine example of an assumption college student, right? You know what I mean, don't you? But there, I mean, the connection is this: the opposite of what I said, right? Okay. I was watching a movie there, or a Bond movie, something like that, in theater, and the guy in the bathroom he knocks the other guy over into the tub and grabs the wire and ah, who's the guy?

[22:39] I hear somebody around me say, "Nice guy." But a lot of times, indeed, life, you know, you hear something a little bit nasty. Somebody say, "Gee, you're nice," you know, and everybody knows that they're speaking ironically, right? So, the sense of the letter is the opposite of what the words mean. The sense of the letter is not that you are nice. Okay,

[23:07] so some people, you know, make the mistake then of making the sense of the letter what the word rock means, right? In which case, scripture would be found upon something false, right? He's saying God is a rock. He's not saying that, right? He's speaking metaphorically. Okay,

[23:27] so you got to see care. That's one place where people get mixed up in the distinction here, right? And I think our use of the expression in English literal sense, people tend to use that for the non figurative, non metaphorical, right? And therefore, it gets them all caught up when they try to understand these things. Okay, now the second sense is going to be divided into what?

[23:58] Yeah. So, notice, although there are four senses, human mind breaks down; it can't understand the distinction of the four, right? Doesn't doesn't march, huh? Okay. Yeah, yeah. So you distinguish the sense of the letter against the spiritual sense, which is a distinction into what? Two, and then you subdivide the spiritual sense into three. So every single division is into either two or three. Okay. Second, when Thomas takes up Gregory's the four senses are four kinds of pride, right?

[24:40] Huh? Well, usually divide them into three and then subdivide one of them to get the four. So not going to pride today, but guard ourselves against that.

[24:59] Okay, now he goes into describing these three spiritual senses. For as the apostle says, now that's the example again of antonomasia. Paul and and Peter, right, are called the apostles by antonomasia. A little bit like John Paul II often called them the princes of the apostles, huh? And that's why that feast was it June twenty nine. Yeah, feast of Peter and Paul is the one where the the guy from Constantinople, you know, comes and he goes there for Andrew's feast.

[25:37] You know, we got the the big names. Peter and Paul. So Thomas often referred to Saint Paul, apostle of the Gentiles, by the apostle, huh? It's the Apostle. For as the apostle says in the epistle to the Hebrews,

[25:59] the old law. Is a figure of the what new law, right? A little bit like David, the psalm, the figure of Christ, huh? And then he quotes Dionysius for the second one here, and the new law itself, as Dionysius says in the

[26:24] ecclesiastical hierarchy, is a figure of what future glory, right? And then in the new law, those things which are done and narrated in the head, meaning Christ, right, are signs of those things which we ought to do, huh? Okay, now he's going to talk about the name of these three senses. According, therefore, as those things which are the old law signify those which are the new, there is the allegorical sense.

[27:05] According as those things which are done in Christ or by Christ, or in those things which signify Christ, are signs of those things which we ought to do, there is the moral sense, huh?

[27:22] And insofar as it signifies those things which are in eternal glory, it's the anagogical sense. Ana in Greek means what? Like anatomy, huh? Cut up. So the anagogicus is what, Leading up, right?

[27:44] But now Thomas associates himself with the great Augustine in this next paragraph, right? Because, however, the sense of the letter, which the author intends, since the sense of the letter is that which the author intends, but the author of Sacred Scripture is God, who comprehends right all things at once by His understanding. It is not inconvenient, huh? Unsuitable, not it's not unfitting, as Augustine says in the twelfth book of the Confessions.

[28:24] If even according to the sense of the letter, in one sense, in one letter of Scripture, there are many what senses, huh? Okay. And that's the opinion of both Augustine and Thomas, huh? I think if you go through church documents and see the use of Scripture, huh? You'll see that there is more than one sense of the letter.

[28:54] Like for example, take take one example here. I am the way, the truth, and the life, huh? Now, sometimes I see the the popes talking about these three in reference to the three attributes of Christ as man. He's king, he's priest or prophet, right? And he's what priest, right? Okay, and so life, priest, right? Truth, the teacher, the prophet, and the way is what kingship, commandments, right?

[29:35] Okay, and sometimes he divides sacred doctrine, Christian doctrine, that way, huh? Almost the same, like dividing according to faith, hope, and what charity, right? Okay.

[29:52] So that's the way they understand that scripture, right? These, you know, it's a it's a beginning, right, for the way they divide these things. But now, if you look. at The text there, another sense of the letter that might come to mind before that, because they're asking him, where are you going and how do you get there. And Christ is answering the two questions by saying, I am the way, the road, the truth, and the life.

[30:20] He's the end and the goal as God, as truth and life itself, eternal life. And as man, he's the road to get there. That's a different understanding, isn't it, of the same thing? You know. One of my favorite songs there was it sixty two, and it goes something like this: O God, you are my God, whom I seek. For you, my flesh pines, and my soul thirsts like the earth parched.

[30:51] lifeless without water. Thus that I gaze towards you in the sanctuary to see your power and your glory. Okay, and then it goes on to say what he's going to what. Your kindness is a greater good than life, and so on. And then it talks about what the banquet, huh? The riches of a banquet, That's mostly satisfying. And the result of this, my now praise you. But what does that banquet signify?

[31:19] It seems to be heaven. Well, I think it would be understood to refer either to the banquet of heaven or of the Eucharist. Okay, I'm influenced by Thomas's prayer because his communion prayers, you know, the famous one of Sacrum convivium and O sacrum convivium, Christus sumitur, and so on. There is calling the Eucharist a sacred banquet, but then but then in O sacrum convivium, you know, the inexpressible, he's referring to heaven, right?

[32:01] At the end of his communion prayers, so maybe you have these two senses, right? Okay. Or maybe you could say that the banquet signifies the Eucharist, and then the spiritual sense is the next life. It's kind of a foretaste of the banquet of heaven, right? So, but more more ways to look at it. So I think that's interesting. Both Augustine and Thomas say the sense of letter can be more than one, right?

[32:34] And sometimes, you know, it is reference to Augustine at the end of the Confession, where he's talking about those who say, "Now this is what the Scripture means," right? And and your sense can't be right. And and Augustine saying, Well, any sense that is orthodox, right, and can be fitted to the thing, can be a sense of what Scripture. And I might see something in a scripture passage that you don't see, right?

[32:58] And you see something that I don't see. It's not that I'm right and you're wrong, or vice versa. But they're both could be what senses of the letter.

[33:12] Thomas in the commentary on Isaiah, it's there you know, There's kind of beautiful ways where scripture is metaphorically called water. Sometimes it's called fire. Sometimes it's called water. Because you know, you know, these have to be said metaphorically because the same thing can't be hot and cold and wet and dry and so on. But one of the reasons why it's called water is that water adapts itself to what the shape of anything, right?

[33:36] Yeah. So your problem in life might be different than my problem in life, and your situation different than mine. But the scripture fits my situation, and lo and behold, it fits your situation. So metaphorically, it's like water, right? It fits my container and your container, even though they're they're quite differently shaped, right? And so something like that with there being more than one sense of the letter, right?

[34:02] I read this word and say, "Hey, this this, you know." And I've seen that done a lot, you know, in people's statements and other, you know, authority things that sort of. So

[34:21] it shows the richness of it, huh? Even it comes to the Psalms, there Thomas takes some places, you know, with more than one interpretation of it, right? We have understanding it, and sometimes the two senses may be even you know talking about something good, something bad. See that? Seventeenth Psalm, in fact.

[34:47] Okay, now let's come back to the first objection. Doesn't this multiplicity of senses leave you what confused, huh? And I remember my my cousin Don, you know, saying, "What scandal there when you first started reading the the the golden chain, you know, and you get you know the church fathers, you know, giving a different explanation to the same passage, you know, this is terribly, you know." I mean, but is that really confusion, or that simply a richness of the Word of God?

[35:20] See, you know, there's in the Psalms, you know, I know by heart. I don't know, don't know off on fifty, but you know, twenty or so. I don't know, but the ones that I know and use in my own prayer life, as years go by, I see this again and again. I start to see, you know, another meaning in them, another thing in them. That's really very, very interesting, you know.

[35:45] Um. So would it be the same author seeing another meaning in the same thing he's read, or two different authors seeing different things? You know. It shouldn't be too much, you know, my sense, because that means that I like this sense, not because it's true, but because my sense. And then you know you are driven, as Augustine says, from from truth, which is common and not my good, more than your good, to to falsehood.

[36:15] And he quotes that passage on the devil spoke from himself when he lied. Okay. Okay. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the multiplicity of these senses does not make what equivocation, okay, or another species of multiplicity. Because, as has been said, these senses are not multiplied on account of this that one vocal sound signifies many things, but because the very things themselves signify the vocal sounds are able to be what signs of other things, okay.

[37:07] So he just he's not talking here now about you know you know any question arising from the multiplicity of senses of letter. He's talking about the distinction in the sense of the letter and the spiritual senses, right? The sense of letter there is not multiple because the sense of letter signifies these things, right? And it's the things that now signify something further, right? Okay, so it's not one the same thing there that is signifying more than one.

[37:38] Okay, the sense of letter is signifying this thing, and this thing in turn signifying something else. It's not the same thing that signifies more than one,

[37:50] and thus there is no no confusion follows in sacred scripture, because all the senses are founded upon one, namely the sense of letter. And from this only is one able to draw what an argument, right? Okay.

[38:10] Not, however, from those things which are said by allegory, as Augustine says in his epistle against what Vincent the Donatist. That's one of the heretics there in North Africa, right?

[38:29] But nevertheless, from this nothing is what taken away or lacking in the sacred scripture, because nothing that is contained under the spiritual sense necessary for faith, that scripture does not treat elsewhere manifestly through the sense of the what a letter, yeah.

[38:53] Something like the other the other objection about the metaphor, right? But this metaphor in one place is said openly, in another place. Okay. Now the second objection was this apparently different enumeration of four things by Augustine. huh? But as Thomas goes on to explain,

[39:16] those three—history, etiology, analogia—pertain to one what? Sense the letter. This is a subdistinction there. For history, as Augustine himself lays out, when simply something is proposed, right? Okay. Etiology, when the cause of the thing said is assigned, huh?

[39:45] As when our Lord assigns the cause wherefore Moses permitted the license of repudiating their wives, huh? Because otherwise they'd kill them. on account of the hardness of their hearts, right? Huh? Okay, analogy when the truth of one scripture is shown to not be repugnant to the truth of what another, right? I suppose that's when when Augustine is writing the Harmony of the Four Gospels, right? There seems to be you know discrepancies, you know, two guys carrying one guy carrying the other one, or something, you know, or before or after, and he has various ways of resolving this, huh?

[40:31] And then allegory is used by Augustine there for what the three spiritual senses, huh? Okay. Just as also Hugo of Saint Victor, right? I'm always attracted to him because of his name, huh? So I was christened I was christened Hugo Hugo Duane, Yeah, And my my confirmation name is Victor. My father was Reno Victor I don't think Victor has the.

[41:05] Just as Hugo of Saint Victor, under the allegorical sense, also comprehends the what? Anagogical, right? Laying it down in the third book of his Sentences, laying down in the third book of Sentences only three senses, huh? The historical sense, the allegorical sense, and the tropological which is the another name for the what? Yeah, yeah, that makes some sense, huh? Because there's something similar about the allegorical and the anagogic, right?

[41:38] You know, the Old Testament's signifying the final thing. So you can see why man might put them together, right? Then you have three to begin with, right? And you could subdivide one of them into two, right? Okay. These minds that are obsessed with the rule of two or three. I think that's what St. Thomas does in the four little questions, where he takes up the sense of the scripture and makes how he divides it.

[42:05] Yeah. The allegorical and the anagogical putting them together. Yeah, yeah. The moral they're they're more similar in the moral sense is is much different, right? And the sense historical sense, yeah.

[42:21] Now the third objection was a little more particular. What about the parabolical sense? To the third, therefore, it should be said that the parabolical sense is contained under the what sense of the letter?

[42:39] For through vocal sounds is signified something properly and something what figuratively, right? Okay. Now, as I mentioned before, I think the best explanation of that is Thomas in the commentaries in Saint Paul, where he says that. In figurative speech, right, the meaning of the speaker is not the meaning of his words, but there is a what connection of some sort between

[43:15] the meaning of his words and his meaning. So Saint Paul is not lying. Okay. Nor is the sense of the letter the figure. If you have a figure, like the metaphor, right, but that which is figure, right. So when I say the Lord is my rock, what's the sense of the letter there? Like God really is a rock. No, no, no, making sense. The real sense is that he's my support.

[43:52] I can rest upon him and so on. Okay, that's the sense of the letter. That's the sense intended by the speaker, right? Not it's not the the meaning of the word rock though. Not the meaning of rock is something that comes, you know, have different meaning. You know, the metaphor becomes very common. Sometimes people think that's the meaning of the word, right? But then, if that became the meaning of the word, it wouldn't be a metaphor.

[44:18] So when I say you pig, you ate the whole pie. The metaphor loses all its force if a meaning of pig now became glutton, right? So glutton is the meaning of the speaker. It's not the meaning of the word pig. Instead of calling you a glutton, you glutton. It's more expressive of my emotions and my annoyance of you to say you pig, you ate the whole thing.

[44:46] You see? Okay. For when scripture, for when scripture names the arm of God, right? Huh. The sense of the letter is not that in God there is such a bodily part, or member, but that which is signified, huh? Through that member, namely God's power of what operating, doing something, yeah.

[45:21] In which it is clear that to the sense of the letter says Scripture, never can there be anything false. But there would be if you said the sense of the letter in saying God is the arm of God, right, or saying God is a rock, is that God has an arm or he's a rock? And there'll be some falsehood there in Scripture. Okay, so that's why I say the the you got to be careful about the translation of senses literalis, huh?

[45:49] You tend to look at the grammar and say, "Well, literal sense, yeah." But in English, the literal sense seems to exclude the metaphor. Right. Okay. So, I thought since in the letter just avoid that. This question for you. I don't know exactly how to express it, but when we're talking about how, like, how two people could have two different interpretations, but they could both be true, whatever the replies are like.

[46:18] How does that then relate to what? Because one or both those might even be completely different from maybe what Saint Paul had in mind originally, or whatever. So how somehow it falls into God's authorship? Well, God is the chief author. Yeah. Yeah. Um. But um. But God had in mind. Okay. Um. Okay, so that's just the answer then. Yeah. It's not necessary for a prophet to know all the meanings, into the God word.

[46:51] Yes. Yeah. So Isaiah spoke prophecy without knowing it. Saint John certainly spoke prophecy. Right. Then the question that still falls under the literal sense, then. Yeah. Yeah.

[47:11] Okay. Now let's look at the premium here to question two. Now, because the chief aim of this sacred teaching is to treat of the knowledge of God, and not only according as what He is in Himself, but also according as He is the what beginning of things, huh? And that means the beginning in the sense of what the maker, the creator, right, the mover, and the end of them, purpose of them,

[48:02] and especially insofar as he's the end of the reasonable creature, huh? Now, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, right, the division into books—you want to call it this—divided into four books.

[48:24] Um, the division of the first three books, right, exactly corresponds to that, right? Because the first book is speaking about God in Himself. The second book is speaking about God as the beginning, the principium, the maker, right, and some things about the things He has made, right. Then the third book is about God as the end of all things. And then about the divine providence moving things towards this end in general, and his special providence finally with regard to the rational creature, right?

[49:06] Okay. Now, one thing that differs though in the in the two sumas is that in the Summa Contra Gentiles, the fundamental division is between those things that can be known about these three by reason as well as by faith, and that's in the first three books, and only by faith in the what fourth book, right? But the fourth book is subdivided into the same three, and the first part you talk about what belongs to God Himself that can be known about only through faith, and that's the Trinity.

[49:47] Then, and what He has made right only by faith can be known, and that's the Incarnation mainly, right? And then the final state of man, right? His goal, his end. Things that can be known about that only by faith, okay. But

[50:10] it's not as neat the Summa Theologiae, partly because Thomas going into much more details into what we might call moral theology, right? Okay. So that the and the order to God as an end, which is where you begin with God being the end of man in moral theology, and then everything else is related to that, is expanded, right? So you kind of distort it a bit, huh?

[50:43] For that reason, the structure of those three parts, but you're still following that, right? Okay. And you can see that as he goes on here because he says, "First, we will treat about God, okay? " Now you might say, "Well, you think he's going to be talking there just about God in himself, " but he doesn't mean that. Okay. Secondly, about the movement of the rational creature in God.

[51:18] Okay. Well, that's part, maybe a principal part, of the third part. God is the end, right? Okay. And then you have another, a third part

[51:35] about Christ. Christ as man, right? Who, according as he is man, right, is the via, the road for us tending to God, right? So it's almost like the second part of the Summa, right? And the third part, right, are both about getting back to God as the end of the universe.

[52:01] And the second part, particularly about the motion of the rational creature towards God, right? And the third part, the necessary help we have, right, to get back to God through God becoming man and through his instituting his sacraments and so on, so. Christ, the whole thing about the incarnation and human nature of Christ, and so on, and his life, even you know, and the sacraments is in the third part, right?

[52:32] So both the second part and the third part, in some way, come under what? God as the end, right? Okay. Well, what about God as the maker?

[52:48] Well, that's pushed into the first part, and now he sub divides what he's going to do in the first book. The consideration about God would be. Three parts. In three parts. First, we will consider those things which pertain to the divine essence, right, divine nature. Secondly, those things which pertain to the distinction of the persons. Okay, don't have that distinction you have in the Summa Contra Gentiles.

[53:18] But both of those pertain to God Himself, right? And then the third part of the first part, those things which pertain to the procession of creatures from Him. That's really God as the what, Principium. Yeah, you see. So it doesn't fit as neatly. It doesn't emphasize as neatly as the Summa Contra Gentiles. But I think it gets a little bit. You might say, I'll say bloated.

[53:49] But it gets a little distorted. I mean, a little disproportion because of the much greater detail that you enter into in what in the moral theology part, in the prima pars and secunda secundae, right? And you know, I in my office or in my edition here, I have it in five volumes. You know, the secunda secundae you know, is almost as big as the prima pars and the prima secundae together, right?

[54:16] And Thomas would give us a reason why he's going to detail because this is practical matter and you have to descend more down to details, right? Although Monsignor Dionne says Summa is just the common principles. You've. Got to go to to Saint Alphonsus de Liguori to get the proper principles. So you've got to be in the confessional there. You got to be in confession. So you got to get something more particular, even than the second part of the Summa.

[54:45] But nevertheless, you'd say the second part of the Summa goes down into the virtues much more in detail than the Summa Contra Gentiles does, right? The Summa Contra Gentiles remains more speculative in that sense. I mean, does have the practical in there too, but doesn't have the great detail that the Summa does, huh? Okay. In the Summa Contra Gentiles, when he's dealing with, if he would be in the third book where he's dealing with God as God as end, but there there he would he would end up going into explicitly into the fact that man is ordered to a supernatural end, so he would be going into things which are.

[55:25] Oh, he went into into ethics in moral theology too. There. Yeah. But not in the detail here, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And this is enormous compared. I mean, you might say that the Summa theology got more on moral theology than dogmatic theology, right? You couldn't say that about the Summa Contra Gentiles, huh?

[55:47] So, as you saw before, theology is both, but but in moral matters, you got to, you know, into into great detail. I remember consulting Alphonsus about some moral question, you know, and you know, see, he's going. further than Thomas you know, and spelling things out a little bit more, and but you're already, you know, pushing that here. So that kind of, you don't see in the three parts of the Summa Theologiae, the three parts of theology, a one-to-one correspondence, right?

[56:21] The whole of the second part, the whole of the third part, the way he presents it, seem to be talking about getting back to God as the end, right? And then God in Himself and God as the Maker are both in the what first part, right? But he distinguishes, you know, the part on the essence of God from the the Trinity, right? Okay.

[56:51] Now, in looking at this part here now that we'll be coming to next, what he calls primo there, huh? Those things which pertain to the divine essence before you get to the distinction of persons, right? Okay. You're going to have this second question, which is on the existence of God, right? Okay. Now, if you look at the beginning of the third question,

[57:37] you can say that in starting the third question, he's going to talk about really what God is, right? Or what he is not. After you know that he is, right? Okay.

[57:57] And then when you get down to question 14, he's going to talk about the divine what operations, right? Okay. Now, notice the way he begins in the prelude to the 14th question. He says, after the consideration of those things which pertain to the divine substance, I think it's interesting to use the word substance there, right? It remains to consider about those things which pertain to his what operation, operation, right?

[58:38] Okay. And that will take us up to the beginning of the what consideration of Trinity, right? And of course, you have to understand the divine operation before you can understand the Trinity, huh? Okay. So this part that Thomas has before he takes up the Trinity, right? We might say has three parts. In question two, he talks about what existence of God. In questions three through thirteen, as he says here, the substance of God, and in question fourteen, the what operation of God?

[59:18] Okay. Now, that's interesting. He's doing it right. Now, go back to my comparison here. What did the great Heraclitus say? The way up and the way down is the same. Oh. Okay. Except for going in different directions, right? Okay. Now,

[59:53] if you think of the center of the circle as representing God, right? Huh? And the radii coming out from that going to the Circumference as being a procession of things from God, right? And the points at the other end of these radii, which are many, as opposed to the one point, going from one to many. As these things proceed from God, what is one in God is many in what creatures?

[1:00:25] Okay. Now there are many many in creatures, but one thing we learn about creatures is that the existence of the creature and the substance, meaning what he is, are not the what same thing. In other words, for example, the existence of a cat is not the same thing as what a cat is, and the existence of a dog is not the same thing as what a dog is, right?

[1:01:05] Okay. Likewise, the substance of a dog or a cat, what it is, is not the same thing as its what operation, what it does. So, in you and me, our existence and what we are and our doing are three different things, really. Okay. Now, the way up and the way down, as the great Heraclitus said, are is the same. So,

[1:01:43] in learning about God, we're going what up, right? Okay, and when things proceed from God, we're going so to speak down speak down, right? Okay. So, since we have to start to know God from creatures, in a sense, we can say that in this life, we're knowing God from creatures, right? From creatures, When, we see God as He is, face to face. we have one name, as, Thomas says.

[1:02:19] Okay, but when we know Him from creatures, there's this multiplicity of creatures, and that's going to be found in our what knowledge of God from creatures. Although we will find out that the existence of God and the substance of God are the same thing, and we'll find out that the substance of God and the operation of God are the same thing, really.

[1:02:51] And yet, in question two, we talk about the existence of God. In questions three through thirteen, especially three through eleven, right, we talk. About the substance of God, and then starting question 14, we talk about the operation of God, his understanding, his willing, and so on. Right? Why we have these three parts? Right? If they're all the same thing in God, well, the multiplicity in our knowledge of God here comes from the fact that we're knowing God going upwards, right, from creatures, and the multiplicity is in our knowing, not in the one we know, and we don't affirm the multiplicity again, right?

[1:03:43] And in a way, it's just the reverse of God. God knows simply the composed, right? God knows in a unitary way multiplicity, right? But we know the simple, the composed, and the one in a way through the what, the many, right? So that's why we have these these three parts, huh? But that's in the multiplicity is all in our knowledge, right? Okay, you see.

[1:04:22] So we take a little break now before we begin the next. appropriate time to do so.