Prima Pars
13. Summa I, q.2, a.3: Objections Against God's Existence and the First Two Ways (Motion and Efficient Cause)
Class of 2006-01-26
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/013-summa-i-q-2-a-3-objections-against-gods-existence-and-the/

[0:01] In the Name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angels keep the lights of our minds, Lord illumine our images and arouse us to consider more quickly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, pray for us. Help us to understand all Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Did I mention how I was looking at Thomas's exposition there of the 21st Psalm and the correct numbering?

[0:32] Which is kind of, I guess, the first of the penitential psalms, and the major one, I guess. And it's got a lot of things you're familiar with, like you know, it begins with the words that Christ uses on the cross in Matthew and in Mark. My God, my God, why have thou forsaken me? And it has the words that that prayer we say after communion sometimes in front of the crucifix and so on.

[0:57] But and then you quote David, what David said about you years ago, and that's in that psalm, right? And things about dividing garments and or that sort of thing. But Thomas says something kind of interesting. Going back to what he said about metaphor and so on, he's saying that David here in this psalm is a figure of Christ, and the psalm is about Christ. David is just there as a figure of Christ, and he mentions that Theodorus Mopsuestia whoever he was, but I know him from the scholion of Conradius, you know the heresies in various forms, but he was condemned at some council for denying that the psalm is about Christ.

[1:48] So it seems kind of something a little additional what Thomas is saying. You know, you wouldn't say that that David was a metaphor for Christ, right? But he seems to say there, if I read the text correctly, that the the the letter is Christ, and that David is is is is a figure. So that's kind of adds another subtlety to what we mean by the sense of the letter, right?

[2:21] Now, you know, when you say that God is a rock, we're saying that the sense of the letter is not that God is a rock, and then there's a true sense based upon the false sense. No, the sense of the letter is what the metaphor is meant to represent, right? By likeness. Well, what is the sense of the letter of the 21st Psalm? Is it David, who then represents Christ in turn, or does represent Christ directly?

[2:46] And David is really something more like a metaphor because he's called a figure there. That's kind of a subtle thing, but you look at the text again. I should look at it again myself, but I think it's kind of a subtle, subtle thing that shows how careful a writer Thomas is. Because there are other things, obviously, people in the Old Testament, where we say the sense of the letter is the man, you know, that seems to be written about, and that man in turn signifies what?

[3:15] Yeah. The thing signifies Christ, right? But in this case, it's more like what metaphor, right? But the sense of the letter is not the metaphor. That God is a rock, but but the that which is a figure, right? By metaphor. Okay.

[3:34] I was going on there, kind of reading with that nice little edition he gave me, and the the twenty fourth psalm there. He's talking about getting to God and getting to heaven, right? And of course, sometimes it's a little frustrating going from English, you know, text to the Thomas's, because the Latin text he has doesn't quite fit your English text. So he's he's finding the the Latin words.

[3:57] And in the Latin words, you have the psalmist praying for for the via, which is the way, the road, and the semita, the path, yeah. And Thomas says, "Well, the via is the the main road, the common road, right? That everyone has to take, right? The semita, semita, is the brief road, the short road, right? Get you there quicker. " And then he explains in terms of the what difference between the the commands, right, which you have to obey in order to get to heaven, you know, and then the the councils, right?

[4:40] That's the short way, the brief way to get there quickly, you know. And this new little grandchild name we have to say, Thérèse de Lisieux I'll go back with Thérèse but you realize what a short path she took to such high sanctity. I mean, she only at the age of what fifteen was it, and she died as a twenty four of her. Yeah, twenty three, twenty something like that.

[5:00] Okay, but but very short life, you know, and and went a long way. But but but it was a semita, right? Because she she really you know got into the councils very much in mind, and kind of interesting. But something like that too with Thomas here. I was trying to find the text, but couldn't remember exactly where it was. But I think it's one of the popes when he talks about Thomas, right?

[5:26] Quotes somebody with more or less, you know, support that you can learn more from a year of studying Thomas than from you know I don't know many years, whatever it is, of studying the Church Fathers, right? So that's kind of a reason to to concentrate on Thomas, right? You, it's a semita, right?

[5:48] What does Albert the Great call a summa It's brevis via. That's true about Thomas. You can learn more in a shorter time and in a shorter path. than, you know with a church father. It's kind of spread out and a little more, more loose, huh? Not that you shouldn't read the church fathers, but there's some reason to reading Thomas, especially.

[6:13] Okay, we're up to question two, article three, right? Whether God is right, and to the third he proceeds, one proceeds thus. It seems that God is not,

[6:29] because if one of the two contraries was infinite, right? It would totally what destroy the other, right? But this is understood in the name God. Did he be something that is an infinite good, right? There's no end to God's perfection, right? If therefore God were nothing bad would be found, okay? But there is found something bad in the world. Therefore, God is not right.

[7:09] So this touches upon what Thomas says. I think elsewhere is like the chief objection to the existence of God. And Thomas has a commentary in the Book of Job. I have in the eighteenth volume. But the Book of Job is um when Thomas divides. The books of Sacred Scriptures. He sees the Book of Job as being ordered to faith, and to the defense of faith against the chief objection, which is objection from the evil in the world.

[7:42] So you all maybe you know heard of Jews say maybe who turned away from even their their faith because of the Holocaust. How can you know God allows such things, right? Okay. So this is an appropriate first objection that that Thomas is giving.

[8:02] Now the second objection is a little bit different. It's like when I consider you know the question in natural philosophy, and we I think we did it in here, didn't we? Whether nature acts for an end, and I give some of the arguments against nature acting for an end, as well as arguments for. Then later on we untie these objections against nature acting for an end, but some objections were saying that nature couldn't act for an end, right?

[8:35] Like this first one is saying well there couldn't be infinite good if there's evil in the world, right? Now the second, the last objection I have against nature acting for an end was that some people think we can do it with fewer principles, right? Fewer causes, and therefore why do we have to have another cause, right? Okay, and that can be solved or answered too. But this second objection is a little bit like that.

[9:00] Moreover, what. Is able to be completed through fewer beginnings, through fewer causes, does not come to be through many. This is a basic beginning in natural philosophy. Aristotle uses it himself, and the and the modern physicists say this is the fundamental beginning. You look at Newton's, you know, Principia. That's his fundamental principle. Nature is pleased with simplicity, he says, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.

[9:31] I think this is a famous thing. But it seems that all the things which appear in this world can be completed through other beginnings, through other causes. Even supposing that God is not, because those things which are natural can be led back to the beginning or cause which is nature, and those things which are from the will, proposing to us when we speak with will, are reduced. Or by choice, you could say, also, are reduced as to a beginning, to the human reason and the will, right?

[10:07] So everything's explained, right? You look around the world, you would just see what it's natural things and artificial things. What we know the causes of natural things is nature, and the cause of art, artificial things is art. So everything's accounted for. Why bring in some, why complicate things to bring in some other cause? That's the objection, right? Okay. Now the the the beginning of fewness in science there, which some people call the principle simplicity, but I could say fewness better maybe.

[10:39] The beginning of fewness is that fewer beginnings or causes are better if they are enough, right? That's the principle, right? So this argument is trying to say, hey, this is enough to explain what we we see. So why go with some other stoic cause? Okay. But against this, I was interested in the subject that he chooses, huh? But against this is what is said in Exodus three, verse fourteen, when the person of God, I guess, when Moses asks him, "What are, what, who's sending me?

[11:12] " Which I tell them, "Who sent me? " And I am who am, right? Huh? That's a pretty definitive text on the on the contrary, right? Okay.

[11:28] So Thomas says, I answer it should be said that for God to be is able to be shown in what five ways, huh? Now in the Summa Contra Gentiles, the other major work in theology as a whole by Thomas, you have five ways too, huh? Okay. But the five ways or the five arguments are not exactly the same, right? The first argument here is going to be from motion, right?

[12:03] But in the Summa Contra Gentiles, the first two arguments are from motion. Okay. So there's two arguments from motion, and one of those arguments is given here, but not the other. And the one that's given here, there's some backup for the what premises, right? But in the Summa Contra Gentiles, there is even more backup for the same premises, huh? Okay.

[12:32] Now the second argument here will be from the maker, God is the first efficient cause. maker, and that would be in the Summa Contra Gentiles the third argument then. Okay. And then you have as your third argument here the one from the possible and the necessary, starting off from what is able to be and not being, going to what is necessary. Now that's not one of the five in the Summa Contra Gentiles, huh?

[13:01] But it is given in the chapter on does God exist, right? But it is given a little bit later on, okay. But the the reason he gives in backing up the one of the premises is different in the Summa Contra Gentiles and the reason given what here, right? Okay. Now, as I mentioned, huh, in the first argument for motion, the premises used in the argument are backed up with you know three reasons, huh, in the Summa Contra Gentiles.

[13:41] Here it's just just one, right? Okay. But in the third argument, which is repeated in the or or anticipated, I should say, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, which I mentioned earlier, um, he backs up one of the premises with a different reason than he gives here, right? So he could have combined the two and given two reasons for the same what premise, right? Okay. Um. Then the the fourth and fifth are somewhat similar, huh?

[14:13] What you have in the Summa Contra Gentiles, huh? So in the Summa Contra Gentiles, the arguments for motion, you could say, are much more developed, right? Okay. And you begin to see how the the arguments for motion depend upon understanding of the whole of the what the physics of Aristotle, the eight books of the Natural Hearing huh, and some middle terms we drawn from Book Six and some from Book Eight and so on, right?

[14:41] Okay. Just mention that because sometimes Thomas is is brief about something. Sometimes he what unfolds it, right? Okay. And sometimes you'll find that Thomas will um be more unfolding, more expansive, or more developed, right? In the earlier work than in the later work, like the Summa Contra Gentiles is before this, right? But vice versa, the Summa Theologia also, and in general later works, sometimes will develop something more than earlier work does.

[15:17] Okay. So that's why I kind of think it's funny when they argue that the Gospel of St. Mark must be the first Gospel because it's the shortest, huh? Oh. And one time we're going to do a Gospel in the in the parish, and we had to select one of the Gospels to do, and we decided to do Mark because we thought we could get through it in the period that we were, you know, that that time, and but the fact that the Gospel of Mark is the shortest does that mean that must have been the first one written, right?

[15:47] Because then you have to say, well, he's shorter here in the argument for motion than in the Summa Contagentiles. Therefore the Summa Theologiae must have been written before. That doesn't follow, right? I know myself sometimes when I am thinking about something and multiplying my thoughts about it and really going into it, I develop it some time, and then at a later time I come back and state the same thing more briefly and succinctly, and maybe better, maybe not better, maybe less developed.

[16:17] But you just can't judge things in that way. It's sometimes and vice versa. I take something I thought about before, something expanded later on in time, right? So that's a fact of life, and I think it does, right? So,

[16:41] but this will also expand a little bit the difference in the order of the consideration of the divine substance in the two sumas, because in the Suma Contrajuntiles, the first of the five attributes of the divine substance that are considered in both sumas, right? The first one he'll consider in the Suma Contrajuntiles is that God is unchangeable, and it's almost you know already determined by the full development of of the argument for the unmoved mover, right?

[17:13] So it's kind of natural to begin with God being unchangeable, right? But here it's not until the what the fourth attribute of the five that he takes it up, right? Okay, so that is kind of an important difference, right? But it's kind of connected with the fact that the arguments for motion are much more developed. There is two of them, and even the one that's given here is much more developed there.

[17:40] Okay, so sometimes one has to go back to the earlier one. I can do that here, but but I mean you can realize sometimes he's more brief, and sometimes if if someone has difficulties, right?

[17:58] Someone's writing an ar writing article which. I had to look over for the journal on on the third argument here, right? And sometimes it's this kind of brief Thomas here, right? I mean, you could go back to the to the first book on the universe and Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and go through six lexicons and come away maybe with a better understanding of the premise here, right?

[18:23] Okay, but we don't always, you know, elaborate everything. Okay. What question? What question is it in the Suma Contrajuntiles where he deals with the argument of necessity? It's it's the the one. It must be one. There is any passive potency in God, right? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, but it's one or two chapters after, but two chapters or after the existence of God, right? Okay. Okay.

[19:04] Now again, a little caution there, as I mentioned before. I had a seminar from Charles de Koninck on the five ways, and we were all, you know, last year students and so on. So it's advanced students. And de

[19:25] Koninck actually began, of course, by talking about faith, right, and how he believes in the existence of God more from what his mother had told him than from the study of the arguments, right?

[19:39] And he's trying to give us kind of a fatherly talk, you know, that some people, you know, are looking for more than they can get out of the arguments, right? Maybe not more than somebody can get out of the arguments, but they can get out of it, right? And the need of faith, as Thomas said before, right, because of our Weakness of our mind in trying to understand the proofs, huh?

[20:05] And then, as I think I mentioned before, each of us had to write a paper, present a paper actually in the seminar on one of the five ways, huh? Well, we had we had to look at what either some modern Thomist had said about that thing, or what some modern philosopher had done, right, huh? Okay. And I think I mentioned I had to do it on Descartes because I was writing a paper so I was talking about Descartes, and I was kind of familiar with the texts of Descartes and so on.

[20:43] And as I found was that Descartes had misunderstood the major premise and had misunderstood the minor premise of the very argument he was concerned with, right? But that was kind of a unanimous thing that happened in the examination of these modern Thomists, even, right? That they had not really understood the argument that they were what attacking, yeah, yeah. And I remember being at a philosophical conference, and something came up about these things, and this, you know, very dignified, you know, Monsignor what it was.

[21:17] Oh, I know. But he's just staying in the argument, you know. I'm about to come in. I said, "No, I don't think I will. " No, just appropriate to various people, but but I just mentioned that because it means you know it shouldn't be too ambitious, right? But you had to fully understand these arguments, especially the first, you know, several times you meet them, right? And don't have this naivete, you know, of Catholic colleges teaching the five ways and the freshmen they can go out and convert the world, right?

[21:48] And they don't need to understand them themselves, right? Even those people who are you know professional, shall we say, philosophers or even theologians, often misunderstand the very argument that they're what talking about, huh? Okay. Now, instead, we're going to try to understand them, but you know, we're not going to, especially be exhaustive, huh?

[22:14] Okay. And most of these arguments, you know, originally stated by what Aristotle, right? Okay. So I answered that it should be said that for God to be is able to be shown by five ways, huh?

[22:33] The first and more manifest way is that which is taken from motion. Now, why does he say the more manifest way, or the first way, arguments from motion? Yeah, yeah. You heard me quote Ulysses and Troilus and Cressida. Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs, huh? So if our knowledge begins with our senses and motion. Most of all, catches the eyes and the senses.

[23:03] You might say the argument from motion is kind of the first one, right? The first and most manifest one. Okay. Now, notice this argument depends upon having senses, right? And that's true. The next sentence too, for it is certain and stands by sense that some things are moved in this world, right? Okay.

[23:32] Now, the argument is going to assume is assuming now what's obvious that there is motion, right? And the argument is going to be based upon what two premises? Well, omne autem quod movetur, ab aliud movetur. Whatever is what moved is moved by another, right? Yes. Okay. And then

[24:08] that what? Not every what mover is what a moved mover. Yeah, it's a moved mover. That there is any mover that is what unmoved, right? These two things you that you can't go on forever. For instance, say A is being moved by B, and B is being moved by C, and C by D, and so on forever, right? Okay. So these two things you got to show, right?

[24:35] So those those are like the premises of the main what syllogism, okay? And then the others are to what other things said are being to back up those premises, huh? Okay.

[24:52] Now, right after he says everything that is moved is moved by another, right? He starts to give something of the reason for that. For nothing is moved except according as it is in what potency, and this is the passive potency now, right? To that to which it is moved.

[25:19] Now that goes back in a way to the what definition of motion, right? The motion is the act of what is what. The potential. Yeah, what? Yeah, the act of what is able to be, right? In so far as it's able to be, right? Okay, let's recall the definition for a moment, huh? Which is in the third book of Natural Hearing, third book of the Physics. When I am coming into this room, right?

[25:59] You could say that. My coming into the room is the act of the ability to come into the room. This would be a true statement, right?

[26:13] I was able to come into the room, and now I'm actually coming into the room, right? But this couldn't be a definition of coming into the room. That's the act of what is able to come into the room, because then you'd be defining something by itself, right?

[26:33] This little paradox, right? Now, if I want to avoid that circularity, I might say, "Well, coming into the room is the act, not of the ability to come into the room, but the act of the ability to be in the room." Okay, now to be in the room is not the same thing as to come into the room, right? So, in trying to define motion as the act, or trying to define coming into the room as the act of what is able to be in the room, I now avoid circularity, right?

[27:08] But now I seem to have a what? False statement. Remember that? Because to be in the room is the act of the what? Ability to be in the room, right? Yeah. But then he's coming to say, "But just a minute now! Isn't coming into the room in some imperfect way an act of the ability to be in the room? When you're coming into the room, coming through the doorway, that is to say, right?

[27:39] Aren't you already somewhat in the room? Yeah. So maybe we could say that coming into the room is, in some way, at least an imperfect act of the ability to be in the room, and that would separate it from actually being in the room in a full sense, and avoid, therefore, the falseness that was in saying that, right? And at the same time, it would be what?

[28:06] Saying what it really is. Now, is there something else though that is partly in the room without coming into the room? I suppose you're standing in the doorway with one foot in, one foot out. Yeah. Well, are you in the room partly? yeah, imperfectly and completely in the room, but you're not coming into the room, right? Okay. So you have to separate coming into the room not only from fully being in the room, right, but also from that partial or imperfect being in the room that is of the man standing there, right?

[28:52] And of course, the difference is that the man who's standing in the doorway it's accidental, right, to the man standing in the doorway that he's ever in the room more. And standing in the doorway is not on the way to being in the room more. I might be just checking IDs there at the door, right? And no intention of going further into that wild part inside, right?

[29:18] Okay. So you can say that motion is the act of what is able to be, and then Aristotle says, in so far as it's able to be, but that last part of the definition separates it both from the full act, right?

[29:39] Because it's still in some ability to be in the room and not actually in there, right? And it brings out that it's what essentially ordered to being further in the room. So long as I am still coming into the room, I will be in the room more than I am now, right? And if I would not be more in the room. If if that doesn't pertain to to to my situation, I've stopped, right?

[30:08] Okay. Now, same thing could be said about other kinds of motion or change, huh? So we might say that when I'm heating the water for tea or something, huh? The water is becoming hot, right? Huh? Okay. Now, becoming hot is the act of the ability to become hot. That's a true statement, but doesn't tell you anything. Like saying a rose is a rose. That's true, but doesn't tell you anything about a rose either.

[30:37] Um. Uh. But becoming hot is, in some way, imperfectly an act of the ability to be hot. But there's something different between becoming hot and being warm. Now, if the mother is heating the milk bottle or something like that, she doesn't want it to be hot, right? She wants it to be warm, right? Okay. So it's accidental to being warm that you're ever what warmer or closer to being hot, huh?

[31:08] But so long as the water is becoming hot, not only is it imperfectly or incompletely hot, but it's going to be hotter as long as it's still becoming hotter. So this is very much involuntary behind the idea that the thing that is what moving, right, is in this passive ability, right? It has an ability that's being what gradually actualized, right? Okay.

[31:38] So nothing is moved except according as it is in potency to that which is moved, huh? Okay. But the thing that is moving it, right?

[31:53] It's moving it according as it is in act, right? So the stove is moving the water to be actually hot to being actually hot itself, huh? It's giving it the act it has, huh? Okay.

[32:09] And he elaborates on that a bit. For to move is nothing other than to lead something out of what potency into act, right? Okay.

[32:24] But from potency or ability, something is not able to be reduced to act except through some being already what in act. huh? And we saw that in the ninth book of wisdom, right? That we talked about, which is before in time, ability or act, right? And Aristotle sees a distinction, huh? And it's the kind of distinction that we call the distinction between simply and not simply, right?

[32:54] Simply in some imperfect way. And he said that in the thing which is going from ability to act, ability is before act. But something goes from ability to act to something already inact. Therefore, simply act is before ability, and that's the beginning for eventually concluding that the beginning of all things must be pure act.

[33:27] By those who make the second kind of mistake outside of words, right? The mistake for mixing up what is so simply with what is what not so simply. They're thinking that because ability is before act in some way, that therefore simply ability comes first, and therefore they reach the false conclusion that matter is most in potency, is the beginning of all things, right? Okay.

[34:00] Now it's interesting, huh? In that chapter, I was referring to the Summa Contra Gentiles Gentiles. After the chapter, you know, it comes a couple of chapters after the chapter of the existence of God. Thomas develops not only the argument from possibility necessity, I think, but he gives an argument just from act and ability without going down to motion, right? Okay. See, you could give an argument for the existence of God, the pure act, right?

[34:33] Just from that understanding in the ninth book, right? But this is more what proportion to us is more concrete, and you're seeing act and ability in motion, right? Which is very sensible and gets our attention, huh? And but the basic reason why the thing which is an ability can't give itself the act it doesn't have is it have to have it to what give it? huh I was quoting an old seminary professor who would ask students questions and they couldn't answer.

[35:09] he'd say, "Nihil dat quod non habet, nothing gives what it doesn't have." You know, I mean, you can't ask the question you don't have the knowledge, right? And but I mean, he's kind of you know emphasizing in a kind of humorous way that rubbing it in, I suppose, to a little bit that principle that the reason why you can't give me the answer is that you don't have the knowledge, you know, what this is.

[35:34] So the thing that is an ability and not an act doesn't, in fact, then have the act, and therefore it can't give itself the act it doesn't have, and therefore it has to go from ability to act because of something already inact. So simply speaking, act comes before, right? But here it's seen in a more concrete way that this is the thing that is moved that's going from ability to act, right?

[36:00] But the mover must be what. In act and moving it, insofar as it's in act. right? But of course, you know, later on the question arises. But if he's a mover because he's being moved himself, and that means he's moving another thing, in so far as and at the same time as he's being moved himself, well, what's moving it? Same sort of thing, a moved mover. And then the question arises: Well, can you have this series going on forever, or must you come to a mover that's moving other things without being moved itself?

[36:41] Right. Because if every mover is moving other things, in so far as it's being moved itself, you're going to have an infinity of what of moved movers, right? And is that something that could could be? Right. Well, that's got to be another part of the argument, right? But the first thing is to show that the the the moved as such is an ability, and therefore it's not moving itself, right?

[37:07] And therefore, it has a mover, and a mover must be an act in order to move, right? And then there arises this question: Now, well, is it a moved mover? Right. That's how it's an act, and then the other part of the of the argument. Yeah. For the other part of the the premise.

[37:29] Okay. Let's repeat a little bit there. For to move is nothing other than to lead out something from a potency to act. But from potency or ability, something is not able to be reduced in act except through some being in act. And he gives the simple example as what is hot in act, as for example, fire is hot in act, makes the wood which is hot in ability or in potency to be in act hot, and through this it moves and what alters it.

[38:08] right? Okay? Notice that Thomas is not using motion there in the narrow sense we sometimes use in daily speech, where motion means just change of place. Okay. It Includes alteration and growth and other things.

[38:28] But it is not possible that the same thing be at once in act and in ability according to the very same thing, right? But only according to diverse things. So the wood can be actually wood, but hot in ability, right? But it can't be in ability hot and actually hot at the same time. That's a contradiction. For what is hot in act is not able to be hot in ability.

[39:02] but is at the same time what cold? you might say in ability Okay Is impossible, therefore, that according to the same and the same way, something should be what mover and moved, or that it moves itself, right? Okay.

[39:24] So the conclusion then, and this is really concluding now to one of the major, one of the chief premises. Yeah. Okay. Everything, therefore, that is moved necessarily is moved by what another, right? And now he's starting to go to the other premise.

[39:46] If therefore that by which it is moved is also moved, right? Is necessary that it be what moved by another, right? And that by another right,

[40:06] this order cannot go on forever, right, infinitum, because thus there would not be some first what mover, and consequently there would not be any other mover, because the second movers do not move except by this that they are moved by the first mover, just as the staff or stick or something is not moved except in so far as it's moved by the what hand, right? Now that you don't go on forever, Aristotle will show this in a particular way in the eighth book of the natural hearing, the physics, huh?

[40:56] For the mover, right? In the Posterior Analytics, he'll show it for form. In the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics, he'll show it for the end, right? But if you recall in the second book of Wisdom, the second book of the what the rude multitude call the metaphysics, huh?

[41:20] He shows it for all four causes, right? He shows it universally, huh? But now, let's recall a little bit of that that reason, right?

[41:33] Why can't you just have move movers, right, in an infinite series of move movers, huh? They depend on each other, and you never reach the first, so the last one would never move itself. Yeah, but it kind of consists in seeing that a move mover is by definition, But what do you mean by a moved mover, right? A moved mover

[42:02] necessarily has something after it that is moving, right? And necessarily has something before it, because it's a moved mover, right? Okay, using our reasoning, looking before and after, huh? Okay.

[42:20] Now, if you had the caboose, let's say, of the train, and that's the last thing, right? That's moved but doesn't move anything. It's the it's pulled but doesn't pull anything, huh? But the car in front of it, the the car in front of it is a pulled puller. To make more individual or particular example of a moved mover, right? It's pulling something, namely the caboose, right? But it's pulling something in so far as it's being pulled itself, right?

[42:55] It's a pulled puller. Now, would you get any motion? For the caboose, or for that matter, for the pulled puller, if there is nothing before it, okay. Okay. Now the trick here, in a sense, is to see if you put another car before it, there has to be a pulled puller, right? So you have two railroad cars. You just have a what? A longer pulled puller, right?

[43:26] You can see the two of them together are one grand what? Pulled puller. And as Aristotle points out, it makes no difference whether you have one or many, and if many, a limited multitude or an infinite multitude. There's still one grand what? Pulled puller with nothing before that. In which case, nothing moves. Okay. So there must be a mover before, and that is not a moved mover, right?

[43:56] So it depends upon seeing that a moved mover is essentially a middle, and a middle is essentially something that has what? Something before and after, right? And seeing that, as far as that middle is concerned, it makes no difference whether you have one or many linked together, right? And if many, whether limited multitude or infinite multitude, there's still, by definition, one grand moved mover, and with this hypothesis, nothing before.

[44:37] Okay. Makes sense. Yes. Therefore, there must be an unmoved mover, right? Therefore, it's necessary to come to a first mover that is moved by no one, right? And this we all understand to be what? God. Okay. So you see the argument? Okay. I was thinking about this the other day, and this back up the second one here, right?

[45:11] How do you know we don't just have moved movers, right? Well, this is one way of seeing it, right? Okay. I was thinking of another thing. I'm going back to an axiom. And as you know, the axioms are what can be understood when their parts are understood, right? So if you know what a whole and a part is, you know that a whole is something that has parts and so on.

[45:38] Then it's kind of obvious or known through itself that the whole is more than one of its parts, okay? And I was just going to axiom in class today with the students here. I was saying, well, now if you know what before and after is, you can see that nothing is before or after itself, right? I said today is is before tomorrow, and today is after yesterday.

[46:03] But can today be before today, or after today? Well, no, no. And and the second sense of before is in being, right? And this can be without that, but not vice versa. And well, could something be before itself in that second sense? The second sense would be this can be without that, but not vice versa. So something could be before itself in second sense; it could be without itself being, which is absurd, right?

[46:29] Okay. So it's using that to lead up to what Thomas says in the sentences there. The distinction is before what, before and after, right? You have to see a distinction if we can see before and after. Well, another distinction that you meet in the fifth book of wisdom and so on seems to be an axiom involved, right? The distinction between the through itself and the through another, okay.

[47:05] I take very simple examples, and you say, "Is coffee sweet through itself?" That means is coffee sweet through being coffee, okay? Well, then if the coffee is sweet, why is the coffee sweet? Through another, yeah.

[47:28] Now, would anything be sweet if everything was sweet through another? No. No. No. If everything's going to be sweet, it's got to be something sweet through itself, right?

[47:47] So it seems to be just about an axiom to say that before the through another, there is a what. Through itself, through itself, right? Okay. That's very important in some things, right? You know, some people think that every statement needs to be proven. Which case they're saying that every statement has to be known through other statements, and then they're saying that there's a through another without anything through itself.

[48:18] Would anything be known that way? No. No. And sometimes you take a simple example. Now you take you take words, right? And sometimes you don't know the meaning of a word, so you go to the dictionary, and you come to know the meaning of this word through other words, right? So is that the way all words are learned through other words? No. But you come out of your mother's womb knowing no words, not even "mummy" or "daddy," right?

[48:44] I mean, in our family, you know, the the it's always a question to see what does the baby say first, "mummy" or "daddy," right?

[48:54] And some babies are trying to say "daddy" before "mommy, you know. Most of us are supposed to say "mommy" before "daddy," but they couldn't tell me which one I said first, because I was I was a diplomat with my mummy and daddy. But the point is that you come out of your mother's womb not having knowing any names, right? So how would you begin to know any names if every name had to be known to other names?

[49:18] You'd never know any names, right? So the first names are known by associating a sound with a what object. I used to have a tape recording at the time of this high tech equipment. Tape recording of myself trying to teach my son Paul, my oldest one, he's just in a high chair there, The word cookie, right? I'm getting him to say cookie, you know. But you know, you have a cookie and he likes the cookie, and then he starts to associate the sound cookie with that.

[49:46] And then someday, you know, instead of you saying, do you want a cookie?" You know, he'll he'll on his own say "cookie, cookie" or something, you know, and he's associate that, right? So you could say the first words are not known to other words; they're known to associating a sound with something that you sense. So is it true that before the through another is a through itself, right?

[50:14] Yeah. Okay. Kind of obvious, right? Okay. Now, what's a move mover? What kind of mover is that? What? Yeah, yeah. So before the move mover, there's another infinity to them, and that would have to be a what? Unmoved mover, right? Okay. So this currently is the second way of kind of manifesting, giving a reason for the second major premise, right? The second major premises of the argument.

[50:58] If you only had move movers, you would have only something that is a mover through another. How can you have through another without having through itself? But if something is a mover through itself, then it can't be the moved mover. Because a moved mover, by definition, is a mover through something else, but he is moving it. So if there is a must be a mover through itself, there must be an unmoved mover, right?

[51:25] And that's God. Okay. Now the second way, second road, huh? They use via to translate hodos in Greek, right? Now we translate them abstractly. We say Christ says, "I am the way, the truth, and the light." In Latin, the way would be the word is via, and in the Greek, it's hodos, road, hodos. The same way when they're talking about the natural road there in the beginning of the physics, the Greek word is hodos, and the Latin has via.

[52:06] So I have to translate road rather than the way. it's no more sensible. Okay. Now the second way is from the reason for the efficient cause, huh? For there is found in these sensible things an order of what efficient causes, huh? And you could call this an order of what makers too, right? From facere, huh? I suppose makers are more concrete than efficient cause, like we say in English, huh?

[52:40] But in the Latin, you'd see in the word efficientium or the idea of the the maker, right? Now it's kind of interesting. Now when Aristotle talks about the four kinds of causes, I don't know if you remember exactly what he does, but he talks about material cause first, right? And then the form, and then the third cause he calls the mover, right? But he puts with that the what maker, right?

[53:08] So the third cause he first defines the mover, whence first there is the beginning of motion and so on. But then he said, and in general, the maker of the made and so on, huh? This kind of a cause, but notice how he kind of begins with the mover and then goes to the what maker, yeah, yeah. And of course, the maker has more the sense of being a cause of the the form of the thing, right?

[53:34] The maker is the one who forms. Thing, the maker is the one because it's its existence. Therefore, by way mover, of course, is it caused motion? But motion is more sensible than being or form. It catches attention of our senses more. It's interesting that Aristotle uses the word mover before maker, and you find here the argument for the mover before the argument for maker. And Thomas calls the one from motion manifestior, more manifest way.

[54:06] Okay, so let's come back to second argument here. So there are found in these sensible things and order, of efficient causes, huh? And order makers. Nor is it found to be so. Nor is it even possible that something be the what? Efficient causes itself. Yeah, it'd be the maker of itself, right? Because thus it would be what before itself. Ah, the axiom I was talking about today, as I said in classes by students, huh?

[54:45] You know, I was trying to show them that if reason is able to see order, and order means it before and after, right? Then reason must also be able to see the distinction of things. And I was trying to show them that this by what I call the axiom of before and after, the axiom order. Nothing is before after itself. He's using that now here, right? Okay.

[55:16] Now, one of the senses of before that you might recall from the categories, huh? The first sense was before in time. The second was before in being. Third was before in the discourse of reason, or in general before in knowing. The fourth sense was before in goodness or better, right? Then Aristotle brings in the crowning sense, which is most like the second sense of those four, the sense which the cause is before the effect, right?

[55:44] So that's one sense of before. So if something was a maker of itself, it would have been what self. I'm giving an American expression: a self-made man. And I suppose you'd say my my father was a self-made man in this sense.

[56:04] But is that strictly speaking true? He was a self-made man. No. Not finally, there's going to have to be something. Yeah, yeah. But but you read that that guy named Karl Marx, right? And he's trying to show that history is is a process whereby man makes himself, right? And if man made himself, then that's made me like the catechism says, right? I made myself. But strictly speaking, you'd say what contradiction, right?

[56:41] And even Sartre, in a way, sees that the individual nothingness, where he says that man is trying to be cause of himself, right? But that's impossible. So man is a useless passion, he says. Well, you shouldn't try to do those things, you will be finding rather useless to try to to make yourself. So there is always some distinction between the maker and the made.

[57:12] So nothing is what the maker of itself, right? And then, somewhat like the other argument, nor is it possible that in efficient causes or makers, one go on forever, right? Because in all ordered efficient causes, right, the first is the cause of the middle, and the middle is the cause of the what last, okay?

[57:46] And this is true whether the middle are what many or one only, and you can add as he does sometimes, and whether the many are limited or unlimited, right? Okay.

[58:00] So if every maker is a maker in so far as it's made itself, right? Then what? There is no making at all. You have made everything.

[58:19] But if you remove the cause, you remove the effect. Therefore, if there was not a first maker, there would not be a last one, nor even a what middle one.

[58:32] But if one proceeds forever in efficient causes, there would not be then a first efficient cause or first maker, and thus there would not be a last effect, nor the what middle makers or efficient causes, which is clearly false. Therefore, it is necessary to what lay down some first what maker, right?

[59:03] Which all call God, right? Okay. Now we come to the third argument here. Question. Just a little observation that that same thing says with the with the cause being removed, the effect is removed. It just made me think of that line from what is it? Is it God even exists without the creator, the creature disappears? Yeah. Just made me think of that.

[59:42] Yeah. Because now he uses the comparison there of the. Sun disappears, right? It'd be all dark. Nothing left.