Prima Pars
21. Summa I, Q.4 aa.1–2: God Is Perfect and Holds Every Perfection, Despite His Simplicity
Class of 2006-03-02
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/021-summa-i-q-4-aa-1-2-god-is-perfect-and-holds-every-perfection/

[0:02] In the. Name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, our enlightenment. guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds or to illumine our images and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Pray for us and help us to understand what you've written. Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. You're up to question four, the De Perfectione, the, perfection of God.

[0:38] So Thomas says a little premium, right? He says after the consideration of the divine simplicity, one ought to speak about the perfection of God. And because each thing, according as it is perfect, is said to be good, first one ought to consider about the perfection, the divine perfection. Secondly, about his what goodness. Goodness. So the question actually is two questions on goodness. They are attached to the consideration of the perfection of God, okay?

[1:13] Just like the consideration of the eternity of God is attached to the consideration of his being unchangeable, or the consideration of God being everywhere, in some way, to his being what infinite, huh? Okay. It doesn't attach anything to consideration of God's simplicity, or to consideration of his unity, huh? But it could have attached me to consideration of God being the measure of all things, because his property of the one to be a measure.

[1:45] And said first of the one that's the beginning of number, but then it's carried over to the one in the other genre. And it's in the laws I remember rightly, where Plato says, "Man is not the measure of all things, like Protagoras said, but God is the measure of all things, huh? " So Thomas often points that out about the one, right? It's the measure of things, and Aristotle has said this in the tenth book of wisdom, the book on the one and many.

[2:20] But he doesn't happen to give a consideration of God being the measure of all things, huh? Okay. Though sometimes they, does say the infinity of God, they say he's in Latin immensis, which means what? Immeasurable or, unmeasurable. Yeah, I don't know. you'd say un or immeasurable, but... Okay. Now about the first, one asks three things: the three articles now of question four on the perfection of God.

[2:59] The first is whether God is what. Perfect, huh? And secondly, whether he is universally perfect, having in himself the perfections of all things. Of course, the answer to both those questions will be yes. But Aristotle speaks of that sense in which God is said to be perfect in the chapter on the perfection, perfect. You know, other things, things other than God, are said to be perfect in their kind.

[3:32] So Homer is a perfect poet, Mozart is a perfect musician, right? But he lacks many perfections, obviously Homer does, right? Mozart lacks many perfections, but God doesn't lack the perfection of any kind of thing, so universally perfect.

[3:52] And then, why does he stick in this third article, whether creatures are able to be said to be like God, huh? Well, in the perfection of God, right? The distance is so great. How can they be said to be like God, huh? So very often Scripture says, "Who is like the Lord?" But then at the same time, in other places, Scripture said, "We're made in the image, or to the image, and likeness of God," which kind of touches upon the distance there.

[4:23] I told you my trouble there at the Mohammedan, right, in my class there, objecting to Aristotle calling, not Aristotle, Shakespeare calling reason godlike, right, huh? Yeah. And in the Merchant of Venice, he calls friendship and enmity godlike, huh? Of course, God is love, right, and so on. So there is something godlike about friendship, especially the highest kind of friendship. But still, there is a great distance, huh?

[4:54] And it's I think it's in the it's in the fourth letter of the council I believe where it says you can never note a likeness between God and the creatures, or a likeness of the creature to God, without at the same time a greater what? Unlikeness, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember John, I mean Paul the Six quoting that one time. That's kind of got me thinking about that text, and then coming back to it.

[5:19] So I used that with this Mohammedan there to talk about what the attitude was about saying something is like God, but you can, in a sense, both affirm it and what deny it, yeah. That would

[5:36] be important for understanding the names that we transfer from creatures to God, huh? Okay, to the first, thus one proceeds. It seems that to be perfect does not belong to God, for perfect. He's talking about the word here now in the first objection. he says the word "totally factum, huh? Holy made, huh? And perfectum comes from factum, I guess. But the God it doesn't belong to be made, huh?

[6:06] Okay. He's not self-made God, huh? Not me, but but he else. That's when we talk about the procession of the the word, huh? We never use the word factum, right? Genitum non factum, is that what the the creed says, huh? Yeah. It's important, though, that this this makes you stop and think about the word, right?

[6:37] But of course, that from which the word is taken is not necessarily that to which the word is applied. Times is always giving this thing for sloppy, sloppy dumb, you know. Yeah. Maybe a false etymology, I don't know. But what hurt the foot, right? Oh yeah. Yeah. And that's not what a stone is, but that's where it got its name, right? Because it hurts the feet when you're walking along.

[7:03] You notice such a thing that that was bumped into. But example I take sometimes is is the word what geometry, right? Which means what? Yeah, measure the earth, measure the earth. But of course, geometry is an abstract science, huh? Not concerned with anything sensible. Concerned with sphere and cube and abstraction from any material sphere or cube, right? But nevertheless, the name is taken from measuring the earth, huh?

[7:38] Maybe that's the way people first got thinking about these things or something, but but not what the meaning of the word is. Okay. A lot of times I hear people, you know, they say philosophy is a love of wisdom. And there the confusing, I think, the etymology that from which the word is taken with the meaning of the word, huh? At least as you find in Plato and Aristotle, the meaning of the word philosopher is a lover of wisdom.

[8:04] But Plato and Aristotle used the word philosophy to name the knowledge, huh? That the lover of wisdom pursues, not to name the love of wisdom itself, right? So most people are confused there, and they they mix up the id a quo nomen imponitur, that from which the name is is taken or placed upon something, and that ad quem to which it is placed, okay? Or what you could say, the etymology with the meaning of the word.

[8:33] And there's sometimes and many times connection between the two, but you can't simply say that they're necessarily the same. Bergquist, huh? Comes from Berg, that shows Bergquist, originally the name Berg meaning mountain, Quist branch, mountain branch. That's the etymology, my name, but yeah, but. But you say breakfast? I'm not really mountain bread. It's just metaphorically, you know, I'm into these mountains here and I'm a little twigged up, you know.

[9:06] But so that's that's an important distinction between the etymology and the meaning of the word. But now, if you're going to use the etymology to, which you can do many times, as a manuductio to lead somebody to the meaning of the word, right? You've got to know the meaning of the word and etymology, and to what extent it's useful. Right. And sometimes it can be a bit misleading on the etymology and lead away from what the meaning is, right?

[9:36] So that may be involved in this first objection, right? That you're looking at the etymology of perfectum, right? And it doesn't fit the God who's not made, huh? Doesn't fit the word of God who's genitum but not made.

[9:54] Moreover, God is the first beginning of things, huh? But the beginning. Beginnings of things seem to be what imperfect, huh? For the seed is the beginning of what animals and plants, but the seed is not an acorn it's not really a tree yet, huh? Something imperfect in that line. Therefore, God is what imperfect, huh?

[10:25] I think there are some senses only of beginnings where the beginning is something what imperfect, right? And so, as we were saying before, there is kind of a contrast between those attributes of God that could be said of every beginning, but not the same meaning, right? And one like perfect, which doesn't seem to be said of every beginning.

[10:51] It goes back to what we we pointed out in the ninth book of wisdom, right? How with the truth all things harmonize, right? That God is both the first cause and the best thing. But those who think matter is the first cause, the first cause, not the best thing. Okay,

[11:14] you could say here that God is quite a is both the first beginning and the most perfect thing. Okay. Ah, further, it has been shown above that the essence, the very nature, you might say, of God is being to be. But ipsum esse to be seems to be most what imperfect, since it is most what common and receiving additions of all things. Therefore, God is imperfect. Of course, if you compare genus and difference, and genus seems to be taken from what the matter, right, and difference from the form, and so just as matter can be formed in various ways, so the genus can be termed to be determined actualized, as it were, by different various differences, yeah.

[12:11] And so, the genus is more common, right? Huh? Okay. And so, if God is being itself, that's that's most common, right? Most indistinct, huh? And I told you that kind of a fun exchange between my friend and this guy at a I think it was American Catholic Philosophical Association. And my friend was talking about the distinction between nature and art, and he was saying, "Well, the philosopher doesn't make that distinction."

[12:42] Oh, why not? He says, "Well, because the philosopher talks about being, see? and on the level of being, there's no distinction." My friend said. That's the being that Hegel says passes over into non-being, right? You know, you know. If you ask me, what is this? They say, well, something or it's a being. I seem to have said practically nothing about it, right? Okay. Well, they're kind of confusing that being that is said of all things with the being that is God.

[13:13] That that old mistake, in a sense, and then this would be the most what imperfect, the most indistinct, the least formed. You might say, I think you could say.

[13:28] Okay, but against this is what is said in the end of the of the Sermon on the Mount, right? Matthew five. I think it said it more than once in that sermon, actually a couple times at least. Be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect, right? Okay, that's pretty good authority there, huh? Yeah.

[13:54] Now I answer. It should be said that as the philosopher, and that's by antonomasia Aristotle, right? So that's a great compliment that he pays to Aristotle. This is Aristotle refers to Homer sometimes, but as Homer and sometimes as the poet. Okay.

[14:15] For as the philosopher narrates in the twelfth book of wisdom, twelfth book of metaphysics, some ancient philosophers like the Pythagoreans and Speusippus that ne'er do well nephew of Plato, and you know, rough with him. That's when Aristotle left the school, right? I guess he couldn't he couldn't become head of the school because it was The Athenian law had to go to a relative or something. Oh. He couldn't have this property going to an outsider.

[14:46] Later on, Aristotle came back to Athens and set up the the Lyceum. So some ancient philosophers, as with the Pythagoreans and Speusippus, do not attribute the what optimum, the best, the most perfect to the first beginning, right? And seems to me you could say it's even more about the the more materialists, those who think matter is the beginning of all things, would not attribute best and most perfect to the first beginning.

[15:21] And he says the reason for this is because the ancient philosophers considered only the what material principle as beginning, okay? But the first material principle is most imperfect. That's why it was most stupidly taught by David David of Dinant that God is the first matter, because the first matter is what pure ability, yeah, pure potency. For since matter as such is an ability, it is necessary that the first material beginning be most devoid of ability.

[15:55] And thus, most of all, what imperfect? Okay. But God, however, is laid down to be the first beginning, not in the sense of the first matter, right? But in the other kind of cause, huh? The genus of efficient cause, the mover, the maker. And this necessarily is what most perfect, huh? Okay. Now he's going to manifest the reason why that is so, right? Huh? And could go back to the fact that one is an agent through what?

[16:28] through what through act, yeah, yeah. Um, I can't give you ability through your ability in the passive sense that you receive something from me, right? Okay. But act is going to give you because I'm actually something. Okay, so when you make the Christmas cookies, there the cookie press there has already got the shape, right? And gives the dough what it actually has itself, huh? Okay. For just as matter, as such, is an ability and in the passive sense of ability, so the agent, as such, is in what act, huh?

[17:12] Okay. Now we understand that, huh? That the one who receives as such is an ability, right? And the one who gives as such an act, huh? And then what is given to something, like I give, you know, shape to the to the wood or the metal, wherever it is, right? Or Michelangelo gives a shape to the marble. What you give to something is as as act, right?

[17:40] And so it's insofar as you as you are an act that you are able to give somebody or something something, right? Insofar as an ability that you're able to what Receive, Receive, yeah, yeah. So if God is the first beginning, not in the sense of matter, but in the sense of the mover and the maker, then he's going to be most in act, huh? Whence the first active beginning, right?

[18:06] The active mover there is opposed now to the sense which matters beginning, right? Could that be the primum principium passivum right? Okay, not the first act of things. Whence the first active beginning is necessarily most of all an act, huh?

[18:27] Okay. Because that goes back to what Aristotle taught us in the ninth book of Wisdom that act is simply speaking before ability. Though the thing that goes from ability to act is an ability before it's an act, it goes from ability to act because it's something already an act. So simply speaking, act is before ability, and therefore the first cause is most an act,

[18:53] and act is more perfect than what ability, right? And so consequently, it's most of all what. Perfect, right? Okay. I notice how God, in a way, being most of all an act, or God being pure act, if you want to say that, is kind of a little term for saying He's what perfect, right? Yeah, yeah.

[19:16] For according to this, something is said to be perfect according as is an act. For that is said to be perfect to which nothing is lacking according to its what the way of its perfection. Now, okay.

[19:31] Now we go to the objections, and the first one was from, hey, perfect means made, right? Okay. To first therefore, it should be said, that is Gregory says, huh? That's Gregory the Great, huh? He's both a pope and a what? Chief Doctor? Yeah, one of the chief doctors in the Western Church. And Gregory, where they say Gregory Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, is the four ones of the Western Church. So he says, "uh delbutiendo Now, how would you translate that?

[20:05] Huh? Babbling, murmuring, stuttering. Yeah, babbling, or maybe even what? Stuttering, huh? Okay. When we speak about God, we stutter. Well, that's beautifully said, right? Huh? Because you're not talking about stuttering with the physical words, right? But the mental word, you're like stuttering, huh? So if just like we take the word "word" and apply it first of all to the spoken word, right, and then the written word, and then the thought that they signify, huh?

[20:40] So just as if I stutter when I speak, I can't quite say clearly with the spoken word. So my mind stutters; I can't quite say what clearly what I'm trying to say. Huh? Can't quite do things. Um. So by stuttering, in a sense, we what resonate the high things in God, huh? Okay.

[21:05] He says, "What is not made properly cannot be said to be perfect." And if you look at the origin of the word, huh? But because in those things which come to be, then something is said to be perfect, right? To be made when it has been what led out from ability into what act, huh? Then the what name perfect is transumptive. Huh? Sumiter means what? Taken, yeah, and then trans across, huh?

[21:40] Carried over, in a sense, right, huh? To signifying everything to which is not lacking to be an act, right? Whether it has this by way of being made or not, right, huh? In the case of God, without, huh? Okay. So

[22:01] we name things as we what know them, right? And the things we know at first, anyway, are the material things, right? And especially the artificial things, right? And they're perfect after they've been what made. Yeah, so that's where we get the word. But then we drop the idea of made and just keep the aspect of the being actual, right? And then we have this broader sense, huh?

[22:27] This transumptio Okay. So it doesn't bring in explicitly, but it could have at this point The distinction between the etymology of the word, right, huh? And the meaning of the word, right?

[22:44] Okay. Okay. I think. Trying to think now. I think the Greek word would be for teleos for perfect, huh? And it's more related to the word for end. I believe that's one used in the New Testament too, when you say the perfect is your heavenly father's perfect. I mean, the Latin text would have perfectus, but the Greek would have, I think, teleos.

[23:20] The idea is something is perfect that's reached its end. Of course, God doesn't have to reach his end, but he is the end of all things. So he's in a little different sense perfect. Okay.

[23:35] Now the second one is arguing that the beginning of things is what? Yeah. To the second, it should be said that the material beginning, which is with us, is found to be imperfect, right? But it's not simply first, right? But it's preceded by another what? Perfect, huh? Okay, now that's kind of staying with the word perfect and imperfect distinction that we're talking about earlier between ability and act, right?

[24:10] That simply act is before ability, although the thing that goes to ability that that thing is an ability before it's an act. So the thing that is gradually perfected it's imperfect before it's perfect, but it goes from imperfect to perfect by reason of something already perfect or an act.

[24:30] For the seed, although it is the beginning of the animal generated from seed, nevertheless it has before itself an animal or plant whence it is what cut off from.

[24:45] For it's necessary that before that which is an ability there be something an act. For being an ability is not reduced to act except through some being already an act. That's what Aristotle taught us in the ninth book of of wisdom. Huh? So who came first, the chicken or the egg? That's just. I said that it settles it. It's not all going on. Yeah, yeah. Well, no, you got the ninth book of wisdom.

[25:13] Yeah, last first. You got the ninth book of wisdom. See the ninth book of wisdom. Because there you realize that in some way the egg is before the chicken, but simply the chicken is before the egg, and you could add if you want to simply the chicken or something even more perfect than the chicken is before the egg, right? Huh? So that the answer to that question is is deep wisdom, right?

[25:41] The ninth book. Yeah, but so you got to go back to Aristotle. huh? You see? I told you about the the dinner in honor of Charles De Koninck and Jacques de Monléon Yeah. Remember that? So these two guys had taught at Laval for I don't know. Twenty thirty years were so they had this dinner kind of iron the two of them because they had come at the same time and so on and Jacques de Monléon and De Koninck after all these praises and so on they were asked you know to say a few words so de Monléon spoke first and he says he thanked everybody very collectively and so on for all nice things they said about him but he says, you should not have

[26:20] been praising me you should have been praising Thomas and then De Koninck had his chance and he said well you should not have been praising Thomas you should have been praising Aristotle You know, you're quite right see? and

[26:39] so one one of the forms of pride is to say that you would have something that an excellence that you don't have but another form of pride is where you might have a certain excellence but to say you had it from yourself when you actually had it from somebody else right and

[27:00] so did it come from Thomas originally or did he get it from Aristotle and yeah but like Cajetan says Saint Thomas so reverenced the fathers of the Church that he seemed to have inherited the mind of all of them huh

[27:18] you see something like that about Aristotle he so reverenced the minds of Plato and those before him that he seems to have inherited all their understanding but not all their errors but his own mind was developed by by by rejecting some of their refuting some of their mistakes okay

[27:42] now the third one objection is a little different saying that God is being itself but being is most general and what's most general is most indistinct yeah most least formed and so on now Thomas says to the third it should be said that ipsum esse to be itself is the most perfect of all things for is compared to all other things as act huh for nothing has actuality except in so far as it is right whence to be itself is the actuality of all things and also even of forms themselves whence it is not compared to others as the one receiving to the received huh but more as the received is to the one receiving and therefore his act is to ability like you were

[28:43] saying before. for when I say the to be of man or the horse or anything else the existence of man or the horse or anything else the to be itself the existence is considered as what Formal right and received.

[29:02] Not over as that to which it belongs to to be right. So to be is the most actual of all things, huh? So God, being I am who am, right? He's the most actual of all things. Could be more actual than that, okay? It's a subtle thing, right? Okay.

[29:25] So it's not like a genus, then, is it? And actually, when you contract, as we say, being, you know, it's not as if you're contracting a genus by differences, as if you have different kinds of being, but different natures partake of being in a different way, according to their own nature, huh? They partake of being more or less fully, huh? So? it's the being which is most actual, and the other things are receiving that.

[30:08] Okay. Okay. Second question. The second one precedes us. It seems that in God there are not the perfections of all things. Scripture, God says to I think is Moses and Abraham, both of them, I think, I will show you every good. And Thomas says that is myself. Okay.

[30:37] It seems that in God there are not the perfections of all things, for God is simple. as has been shown, right? But the perfections of things are many and diverse and other, right? Therefore, in God there are not all the perfections of things. Okay.

[31:03] That's a good objection, right? Moreover, opposites are not able to be in the same thing. But the perfections of things are opposites. For each species, each particular kind of thing is perfected by its own species-making difference. But the differences by which a genus is divided and the species are constituted are opposed. Since, they are for opposed things, not able to be the same time in the same thing, it seems that not all perfections of things can be in God.

[31:50] How can you have the perfection of a man and the perfection of a woman? The Saint Francis de Sales is correct. And Paul the Sixth what?

[32:06] Quoted him with approval when he made Saint Teresa of Avila doctor of the church, right? But he said that the woman has more capacity to love than the man does. Huh? That's kind of interesting, huh? And so you read Saint Francis de Sales. And and even Saint Alfonso

[32:32] and so on, they talk about love. Then we have to take an example from a female saint. And trying to talk about love, huh? But then the greatest theologians in the terms of faith seeking understanding and faith acquiring understanding are people like Augustine and Thomas and so on. There's no woman like that. So it seems that the that the man has a more capacity to understand than woman does.

[32:59] But the woman has more capacity to love, right? So how can God have both of those perfections, right? Being a simple thing, there seems to be a little opposition between the way love and knowing go, right? And there is a little contrariety, so to speak, between love and knowing, because knowing you are trying to get what something into your head, right? And then loving you are trying to get your heart into the thing that you love.

[33:32] So they seem to work almost in contrary ways. So how can you put these opposite perfections in God? Because they seem to one exclude the other, right? And thus it does.

[33:48] Moreover, living is more perfect than being. One time you know how it became kind of popular in philosophical times. Just talk about being, and he's talking about being. You know, De Koninck I read Charles De Koninck saying he's got another little essay the boredom of being. the boredom of being You know for creation all this talk about being You know just being doesn't seem all this talk about being.

[34:20] You know, just being doesn't seem too interesting, but any day. So being alive is more perfect than just being. Okay, and being wise even better than just being alive. Okay.

[34:36] Therefore, to live is more perfect than to be, and to be wise than to live. But the essence of God is to be itself, right? Therefore, does not have in itself the perfection of life and wisdom, and all these other what perfections? Huh? That's a nice, interesting objection, right? Okay.

[35:00] But against all this is what Dionysius says in the fifth chapter about the divine names that God, right, in something one, right, has all existing things. He praehabet as beforehand, right? Okay. So everything that's going to be in all these existing things, every perfection is had before by God, huh? Okay.

[35:33] Now, answer. It should be said that in God are the perfections of all things. It's a thing said about God during the Beatific Vision. He'll be omni and omnibus He'll be all things in all, right? It's kind of interesting you know think about that in terms of the Ser. Whence he is said to be what? Universally perfect, okay, because there is not lacking to him any nobility, right, any perfection, which is found in any genus or kind of thing.

[36:16] Now we saw before in simplicity that God is not in any genus, right? Everything else is in one kind of thing, and it has maybe the perfection of that kind of thing, but that's limited his perfection, right? But God's perfection is not tied to any one kind of thing. He's universally perfect. It's every perfection.

[36:41] And notice, huh? As says the commentator in the on the fifth book of Aristotle, Now, you'll find that same thing. The commentator refers to what the Averroes right? Averroes is common in almost everything Aristotle wrote, right? So he was known in the Middle Ages as a commentator. Although I think Thomas is a greater title to the. He is the commentator, in my opinion, the one guy who could, you know, because he understands Aristotle better than the commentator does, the Averroists huh?

[37:10] And if if you ever read Thomas's On the Unity of the Intellect against the Averroists right? You know, he goes through and refutes all their arguments and shows the truth and so on. And then he says, "But because they rest also on the authority of Aristotle, he goes through and shows, you know, that doesn't fit the text of Aristotle, right? " And the Latin says Thomas has a little bit of wonder at the end there.

[37:38] Quam leviter errant? How lightly and loosely they err? They make a mistake, huh? You know. So, but yet, you know, the commentator sees this in the chapter on perfection there, where Aristotle distinguishes the kind of perfection that the creature can have against perfection in the sense which God is perfect, and he sees that God is perfect in a quite different way, and it's the idea of universally perfect.

[38:10] So it's interesting that Averroes sees that in the text of Aristotle and meant correctly too, and Thomas will point it out when he comments on the fifth book. But you have to admire Aristotle for seeing that, right? Okay. And and again, what kind of distinction is that really between the

[38:34] way in which God is perfect and the way in which everything else that can be called perfect is perfect? What kind of distinction is that?

[38:44] What? Well. Simply a certain way. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it strikes me often that comes up that kind of distinction, and people don't see it, right? Because it came up when we're talking about act and ability just a minute ago, right? And that's kind of the crucial thing to see in the third part of the ninth book of Metaphysics (wisdom) right? Aristotle is comparing act and ability, which is before, right?

[39:14] And when it comes to definition and so on, and ability, act is clearly before ability. When it comes to goodness and perfection, act is before ability. But then he says, in time, in one way ability is before act, but simply act is before ability because the thing that goes with ability to act is an ability before it's an act, but it goes with ability to act, as we said, because it's something already an act, So simply, so that's really the basis for understanding the the mistake about the first cause.

[39:55] The mistake about the first cause, the most common mistake, is that the first cause is. Is the first matter, right? That's the first cause, you know. And what kind of mistake is that? Well, it's a mistake of simply and not simply, right?

[40:14] But that's also the kind of mistake we make in the beginning, huh? When you talk about the natural road, huh? That what is more known to us is not more known, okay? And when you read the the Meno, the fundamental mistake that would make logic impossible is the same kind of mistake the Meno makes there. And you get down to the private roads; it's the same kind of mistake because they want to proceed everywhere geometrically, because that's the best way of proceeding.

[40:50] But not the best way for other sciences, okay? So the best way of proceeding, the most rigorous way of proceeding, and so on, is not the best way of proceeding in natural philosophy. So that's again that same kind of distinction, and it's like the distinction Aristotle makes in politics, right? Where he says the best government is not always the best government for this people, okay? So it's best simply, but not for these people, okay?

[41:26] And what about perfect here, right? You say, "I'd say God is perfect, no qualification. " What about Mozart? Oh, he's a perfect musician, you know, not perfect simply. He's lacking in nothing, Mozart. No, that's not true. See, he's lacking in nothing that a human musician should have. Or Homer is the perfect poet, or Aristotle is the perfect philosopher, right? Okay,

[42:04] but he's not perfect. Period. Not perfect simply, without qualification. That's where God is, right? So that kind of distinction comes up a lot. To some extent, maybe that's why you know when they

[42:22] speak to Christ, there you know, and they call him good, you know, and he says, "Don't call me good. God alone is good, right? " Well, in a way, maybe he means what? Without qualification. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because because being good would follow upon being perfect, so God alone is is simply perfect, without qualification, is perfect, and therefore He alone is good, right?

[42:51] I'm interested in the way Aristotle touches upon that distinction there in the description of wisdom and the wise man. The first attribute of wisdom or the wise man. Is that he knows all things? Okay, Aristotle says the wise man knows all things in some way, because he knows that which is said of all things, right? Okay. If you know the difference between something and nothing, in a way, you know everything, because everything is something, right?

[43:23] Does that to know everything simply and without qualification? I don't. No, no, no. I don't think so. And so later on, when he gets to the kind of knowledge wisdom is, right? The culmination there is that it's the knowledge of God, right? Meaning that it's the knowledge which is about God and the knowledge which God most of all would have, right? Only God would fully have. So God is the only one who knows all things simply and without qualification.

[43:55] No man, not even the wise man, knows all things except in a very qualified way, because he knows that which is said of all things, right? Being in one and so on, but that's to know in a very imperfect way and qualified way, right? It's the way in which you know every man in the world when you know what a man is.

[44:21] every man in the world, do I? I don't think so. Yeah, we want to qualify that a lot, right? You know. I know everything that's knowable, right? Some way, because it's knowable, right? To be knowable, instead of everything that's knowable, right? If everything is knowable, is knowable. I know what knowable means, so sometimes I know everything, you know. You always get some wise kid in class, you know, and you try to explain this.

[44:54] You know, oh, that's wonderful! I've been told by dad I know everything, you know. Who's that crazy professor up there telling telling students? But now you know everything.

[45:06] But the average person has a hard time seeing that kind of distinction, right? It takes a long time before you really get a hold of that kind of distinction, right? But then once you get a hold of that kind of distinction, you see that it comes in again and again in philosophy all the way through it, right? But kind of strikes me, you know, that the mistake of Descartes about the natural road, right, and about the private roads, and the mistake of Meno about the road of logic, is that kind of mistake.

[45:31] And that's at the beginning of philosophy, you learn the road to follow, and then at the end you learn about the first cause. That same kind of mistake shows up again, right? But then in between, it comes up again and again too, you know. So, but it kind of comes up here in a way, you could say that.

[45:53] Can't say Mozart is perfect without qualification. You have to qualify it. He's a perfect musician. Right? It doesn't have the perfection of the philosopher, it doesn't have the perfection of Shakespeare, it doesn't have the perfection of Einstein, and so on. Right? Okay.

[46:13] Now he stated the conclusion first. Now he's going to show it. Right? Do my Euclid there? Right? Euclid's going to prove first. In the. In the English editions of Euclid, they'll say, you know, Proposition One. Yeah. But that's kind of misleading. You know, it's really Proposal One. What he proposes to prove, right? Okay. It's not prothesis, which is a Greek for proposition, but prothesis. Okay. Or it's proposition in the sense in which a man said to proposition a woman, right?

[46:51] Okay. It's not proposition in the sense of a statement. Okay. So, so proposes to to prove now, right? Then he goes and proves it.

[47:05] Okay. Now he's going to two different ways of showing this, right? First, through the fact that whatever a perfection is found in the effect, right? It necessarily is found in the what? Efficient cause, the making cause. Either according to the same what ratio, if it be a univocal agent, right, like when dogs generate a dog, right, or cats generate a cat, or men generate a man, and so on.

[47:39] Or it's got to be found in a more what eminent way, right? If it be an equivocal agent, right? And taking the old example, as in the sun is a likeness of all things which are generated through the power of the what sun? Okay.

[48:02] Is manifest for is manifest that the effect preexists in the what virtue in the power, right? In the agent cause, huh? Okay. But to preexist in the power of the agent cause is not to preexist in a more imperfect way. That would it would be to exist in matter, right? But in a more perfect way, huh? Although to preexist in the power in the ability of the material cause is to preexist in a what?

[48:36] Imperfect. Yeah, yeah. In that matter, as such, is imperfect. Huh? The agent, however, as such, is what perfect. Since, therefore, God is the first efficient cause, making cause of things, is necessary that. The perfections of all things preexist in God in a more what eminent way, right? And this reason is touched upon by Dionysius

[49:12] in the fifth chapter of the Divine Names, saying that right God is not what This but not that. not that, but He's all things, right? And what sense, not that He's composed of all things, right? But as the simple cause of all things, okay. That's one way this shows that God is universally perfect, right? That in the efficient cause has to exist, right, in a perfect way.

[49:41] Everything that's going to be found later on in the effect, right, So God is the first cause of all things. He must have within Himself in a more perfect, eminent way the perfections of all things.

[49:56] The second argument is going to be taken from Him being episteme right. Okay, and that second reason you could say then depends upon what was shown in the question on the simplicity of God. The first argument is taken from things that were shown in the question on the existence of God, right? That he's the first efficient cause, right? Okay. But the second one depends upon simplicity. So I notice in all in both Sumas and in the Suma in the Compendium of Theology takes up the simplicity of God before the perfection, right?

[50:36] So there's some you know first should be last, last should be first. There's some you know things that are before and one and after and others, right? But in all three of them, the simplicity of God is considered before the what perfection of God, right? And and one reason why that makes sense is because you're going to argue from God being ipsum esse, right? From there being no distinction between the substance of God and and to be, right?

[51:04] Okay. I think that's what's been argued. I see the right way before. Okay. Secondly, from what has been shown above, and that's referring back to the what previous right question, the fourth article. Okay, that God is what to be itself, right? Subsisting by itself through itself, right? Okay.

[51:36] From which it is is necessary that he contains in himself the whole perfection of what being, yeah, yeah. For it's manifest that if something hot does not have the whole perfection of hot, this is because heat is not partaken according to its perfect notion, huh? But if heat would subsist by itself, there could not be lacking to it anything of the power of what heat, huh? Okay, so heat is that by which the hot is hot, right?

[52:18] So if something was heat itself, it'd be lacking in nothing whereby the hot is hot, right? Okay. Well, that's the way God is not with regard to heat, but with regard to be, right? Okay. So nothing that something has through in some way partaking of being is going to be lacking to God, because he's to be itself. He's going to have perfection that anything else has by its partial way of being, its contracted way of being.

[52:49] The questioner says, God is being, being all that being can possibly be. Yeah. Okay. Hence, since God is. What to be itself subsisting, right? Nothing of the perfection of being is able to be what lacking to him.

[53:14] But the perfections of all things pertain to the perfection of being. For by this some things are perfect that in some way they have what to be. Okay.

[53:30] So as Thomas will say, you know, you would not be perfect through wisdom, right? Unless through wisdom you could be said to be wise. Okay, so you can't be perfect except through what partaking of to be in some way. But God is to be itself, right? So he contains in a simple way the perfections of all things that they have through being in some particular way. Hence, it follows that the perfection of no thing is lacking to God, and this reason is touched upon by Dionysius.

[54:11] He's pretty important guy, Dionysius, isn't he? Thomas says there in his thing on the, you know, he falls far short of Dionysius, right? And it's kind of it's kind of interesting because I guess Thomas, back in the Middle Ages, thought that Dionysius was what Dionysius the Areopagite, who was converted by Saint Paul, right? So you got things from Dionysius; you're getting from the horse's mouth, right? You know, this guy's close to Saint Paul, right?

[54:38] And that was Gregory the Great who brought Dionysius's works back, I think, from Constantinople to the medieval world. Yeah, yeah. So, but he may not be the Dionysius that Saint Paul converted, right? So, but they had great deal respect for him.

[54:55] And this reason is touched upon by Dionysius in the fifth chapter about the divine names. But God is not what in some way existing, right? But simpliciter, right? That's that word that we talked about, huh? The Greek word would be haplos, right? Haplos. And incircumscripte, right? He's not encircled in any way, right? To the genus, the whole he takes in himself uniformly, right? He pre-excepts, right? If okay, and afterwards he subjoins that he is to be to all subsisting things.

[55:38] Okay. So those are the two ways that you what see that God is universally perfect. These the first efficient cause, right? And efficient cause has to contain in an equal or more perfect way, right? Perfections is found in its effects. So since God is the universal cause of all things, he must have their perfections already in himself, right? But in a simple way, huh? And then, because God is to be itself, right?

[56:11] Whatever else is perfect by being in some qualified way, right? In some limited way, it must have in a simple way, right? Being being itself, okay?

[56:24] So that's quite a perfection he has, huh? Now let's go back to the objections here. The first objection, now that God is simple, right? But the perfections of all things are many and diverse. Okay. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the Son, as Dionysius says in the first fifth chapter about the divine names,

[57:04] it being one, unus existing, right, and uniformly shining, right, in itself uniformly, right, takes beforehand, right, the many and different qualities. And substances of sensible things, huh? Contains them all. Okay. So much more in the cause of all things, meaning God, I guess, is necessary that there pre-exist all things according to natural union. And thus, the things which are other and opposed in themselves pre-exist as one in God without any what detriment to His simplicity, huh?

[57:54] Okay. Okay. So that's hard for us to understand, right? Um. Aristotle's talking there about the about friendship, right? Huh? And he distinguishes the three kinds of friendship. And one friendship is the friendship of utility, right? You're useful to me; I'm useful to you, right? You know, we trade information, so on. Okay. And but our friendship would stop if you ceased to be useful to me, right? Okay.

[58:34] And they compare the friendships among nations to that, right? So in the wars with Germany, there France is useful to England, right? But in the war with Napoleon, Germany is useful to England, right? Okay, but they change, huh? And then you have the friendship of what pleasure, right? Huh? I enjoy your company and so on. But then you have the highest kind of friendship, which is a friendship based upon what virtue, right?

[59:04] Huh? Okay. So we're friends because we're both wise and courageous and. Temperate and so on, and but if you're wise and courageous, aren't you really more useful to me than the man who's not? Yeah. You know, in time of war, you know, courageous man next to you is useful. And you try and learn something. A wise man is useful too. You're right, huh? Um.

[59:33] But uh, and won't such a person be more pleasant to be with? Huh? You see, as Aristotle points out, two bad persons might enjoy each other's company because they're alike in their badness, right? But they're alike in something that is not naturally what pleasing, right? You know. So two cowards let us say, right? They're both escaping the battle and fighting and so on, but cowardliness is not a quality that is intrinsically pleasing to to possess, you see.

[1:00:16] Well, if you and I are two courageous men, right, we're alike in something that is naturally pleasing and praiseworthy and so on, so we should be more pleasing, right? Well, if you and I are a pair of fools, right, we might enjoy each other's foolishness, right? You know, and screwing up and all this sort of stuff. But

[1:00:40] folly and foolishness is not intrinsically a pleasing thing in a person, huh? But two people who are wise are wise in qualities that are intrinsically pleasing, so they have reason to enjoy each other's company, not only because they like each other, but because they like each other in something that is naturally what pleasing, rather than like each other in something that is naturally disgusting or displeasing, right?

[1:01:08] So that the the true friendship, as as as, uh, Cicero would call it, contains what the lower ones do, but in a what simpler, fuller way, right? I had kind of a little hint there what we're talking about, right? Okay. Or we said simple example there, you know, the square containing more area, right, for less perimeter. Okay, that's just kind of a hint, you know. But that's why we want to see God as He is, right?

[1:01:41] So we can see much better that He's at the same time what completely simple and universally what perfect, right? Okay. We're proving here the reason why He must be universally perfect, right? And before that, He's altogether simple.

[1:02:04] But we're understanding this more negatively, right, than understanding it as He is, right? Okay. Which is exactly that tension, that difficulty our mind has in in combining these two in the same thing, right? In seeing that the same thing must be both completely simple and what universally perfect, huh? That's why Thomas maybe puts these two together here. Yeah. Unlike what he does, maybe some of the other some of the other summas but it works.

[1:02:37] but because he wants you to to transcend your experience of the material world, right, where these two don't go together. In fact, they seem to be almost opposites, right? Yeah. What the more perfect is. But as I said, there's that that hint, you know, little things like I was mentioning how Aristotle gives reasons in the book in the Poetic Art why tragedy. Is more perfect than what?

[1:03:04] Epic, epic. Oh, epic! Yeah, but it's simpler than epic too, right? So you begin to see the idea that something could be simpler and yet more what? Perfect, perfect. And the beautiful words there of Saint Teresa of Avila, where she says, "God is altogether simple, and the closer one gets to God, the simpler one gets." Huh? And you kind of see that in the saints, aren't they really very simple people?

[1:03:30] And I have a girl student this year. She's from Albania. She's come over about four years ago. I guess they were in Salem first coming up here, so I happened to talking to her, you know. I said, "Well, you know, that's where Mother Teresa comes from, Albania." I said, "You know about Mother Teresa?" That's all she knows about Mother Teresa But?" Mother Teresa is very simple, you know, when you got to know the woman.

[1:03:53] I mean, um, uh, you know, you're kind of looking sometimes for beauty more complicated than they are, right? Well, you know, you go to Machiavelli now and invites the prince and so on, right? Huh? Then you realize that bad people are kind of complicated and and just the opposite of the saints, right? But then you see in the in the saint there the simplicity and perfection going together, right?

[1:04:26] And there is a connection between the fact that, as Teresa of Avila says, you know, God is altogether simple, and the closer you get to God, the simpler you are, but also the more what? Perfect, you are right. And

[1:04:42] you know, most of us are kind of distracted by many things, and we're being pulled in many directions, and we're kind of complicating all these these needs that have to be met. Like Martha, there, you know, you know, concerned about many things, right? And and and Mary has chosen the better part, right? And much simpler thing that she's doing, right? Um,

[1:05:10] my father has still you know business now, maybe a hundred employees and so on, you know. And since we were down there on Sunday or something like that, and walking through the the company there, and all these details and the fact he was a four child, and we all my mother says, "How are you?" My mother, you know, says, "Like father, how are you keeping all this in mind?"

[1:05:32] You know, you know. And of course, my father ends up with three philosophers, right? Three sons, three philosophers. But he says, "You are going to have a better life," he says. But it's only simpler than the life he was leading, right? You know, you see, you know, and you know, people can be all the things you do, you know, and and.

[1:06:00] But that doesn't necessarily bring happiness, though you know. So you can see the certain perfection in simplicity, huh? Now I have in my mind that I read somewhere that Thomas is supposed to have said, but I never able to find it again. That the way to become wise is to be a man of one book,

[1:06:27] and obviously Thomas read many books. But but there's a way in which there are some books are so important you really have to what nourish yourself on them, huh? And I guess when Charles De Koninck was a was a student, someone told him, you know, some Dominican, I guess, you know, the way to become wise is to memorize the Summa.

[1:06:51] And there's a lot of truth to that, right? You know, that there's so much in there, right? Now, um, and you ever see those letters of John Paul II, he was a student at Angelicum, huh? The famous letter there, where he's writing to one of his friends, and he's kind of certain awe there that Thomas could write so simply and yet be so profound. Now, coming from Poland and all these crazy things that he'd been introduced to, you know, before, where wisdom goes with complication or is presumed to go in complication, here a man could be much wiser than the people he's met before, but yet be very simple in his way he expresses himself, you know.

[1:07:40] Well, you see a little bit of of that, little likeness to God there, right? Huh? That in some ways Thomas is much simpler than than Hegel or or Kant or these guys, right? But but but much more wise and much more what profound, huh? You see, and uh...

[1:08:07] De Konin used to say sometimes, I mean, get back to the simple understanding of Aristotle and Thomas, huh? All this complication of layers of of complication that some writers on them pour forth that doesn't really illuminate the text at all. So so get little flashes of the idea that. There might be some way of combining, you know, the simpler with the perfect, huh?

[1:08:40] After Pope Benedict XVI went to Cologne, yeah, there was a little blurb from one of the German papers. Finally, a scholar we can understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is real

[1:08:57] fitting for Germany. For Germany, I think I told you I read this recent biography of Chairman Mao, you know. And I guess uh George Bush is reading it too, you know. Laura Bush gave him a copy of it, say you need." so, I mean, you know, complicated man, this guy, you know, huh? You see? And you know, crafty, you know, and so, you know, but but really kind of crazy when you get down to it.

[1:09:26] And that's what you find that the evil men there they have a complication that a saint doesn't have, okay? And no wise men I really have known, you know.

[1:09:50] I mean De Koninck and Dionne and so on, are much simpler, really, than most people I've met in the academic world. But you know, simplicity of profundity, right? If you read Shakespeare's sonnets he speaks. You know, he's one sonnet. He's complaining about various things. One thing he complains about is simple truth miscalled simplicity.

[1:10:18] Something to think about. Okay.