Prima Pars
22. Summa I, Q.4 a.3 and Q.5 Introduction: How Creatures Are Like God, and the Most Universal Things (Being, One, True, Good)
Class of 2006-03-02
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[0:00] So that was the reply to the first objection, I guess. And to that is clearly the reply to the second objection. He says, "Okay, which is about how opposites can be combined."

[0:20] Sort of interesting on the talk about the different religious orders. In the way Dominicans are supposed to imitate Saint Dominic, and Franciscans are supposed to imitate Saint Francis,

[0:36] and I suppose that's something like that is true for every order, right? Somebody's supposed to imitate, but you're all supposed to imitate what? Christ, right? You know. But does Dominic and Francis, etc., etc., do., they all imitate Christ in exactly the same way? You know, but they have something of him, right? And that's why you know, but like Saint Paul says, you know, be imitators of me as I am of Christ, right?

[1:03] So we imitate Dominic or Saint Francis insofar as they imitate Christ, but none of them imitate him fully or completely, you know. So he combines the perfection of Dominic with the perfection of Francis, with the perfection of Saint Teresa of Avila and the rest of them, but he's one man. So you see a little bit of that, you know, that that same idea, right? That

[1:33] he's a perfect model of Christ, more perfect than Dominic could be or Francis or any of the other founders, right? Okay. Now the third objection is a little bit like the last objection, the previous article, right? Dealing with esse right? Esse is not as perfect.

[1:58] To the third, should be said that just as in the same chapter Dionysius says, yeah, that although ipsum Esse, right is what more perfect than life, and life itself than what? Wisdom. Yeah. If they are considered according as they are distinguished by reason, right? Nevertheless, what is living is more perfect than what is being only, right? Because living also is being, right? And being wise is also being and living, right?

[2:58] Thus, although being does not include in itself, living and wise, because it's not necessary that that which partakes of being partakes of it according to its whole what way of being, right? Nevertheless, the to be of God includes in itself life and wisdom, because none of the perfections of being are able to be lacking to the one who is what to be itself subsisting, right? So one would not have any perfection through life unless through life one was living?

[3:35] And one would have no perfection by wisdom, as I was saying, unless to be wise belonged to me through my wisdom. Okay, and to be living belongs to me through my life. So it's only

[3:52] through to be in some way, right, that I am perfect by these things, right? And so, if God is to be itself subsisting, then He's going to have the perfections that we all have through being wise, or being alive, or being courageous or whatever it may be. huh? Okay, So we take a little break here before we go on to the third article. Let's see if I can first. Okay,

[4:25] whether any creature or some creature is able to be like God, the third one proceeds thus: It seems that no creature is able to be like God, for it is said in Psalm eighty-five, "There's no one like you among the gods," right, Lord? But among creatures, the more excellent ones are called gods by participation; shall be gods, much more therefore less would other creatures be able to be said to be like God.

[5:08] Moreover, likeness is a certain comparison, but there's no comparison of those things which are diverse genera, nor is there any likeness huh For you do not say that sweetness is like what whiteness not say that sweetness is like what whiteness, but no creature is of the same genus with God, since God is not in any genus, as has been shown above in the simplicity of God. Right?

[5:36] Let's see another reason why these articles come after the simplicity of God. Right? Okay. Therefore, no creature is like God. Right. Moreover, similar or like are said things that come together in form, but nothing comes together with God in form, for the nature of no thing is to be itself, except in the case of God. Therefore, no creature is able to be like God.

[6:08] Moreover, in like things there is a mutual likeness; the like is like what is like it. If therefore some creatures like God, also God will be like some creature. But against this is said in the Book of Isaiah,

[6:27] "Whom do you make what? Like God? Yeah. Or whom do you make God like too? Because he's arguing that way around. Yeah. Okay. But

[6:41] against this it is said in Genesis one twenty-six, "Let us make man to our image and our what likeness? Huh? And Saint John says in the that's the famous text there. We see him as he is, right? Mm-hmm.

[7:01] And when he appears, we will be what like him? He goes on to say, "Well, we'll see him as he is. " Okay. I answer: It should be said that since likeness is noted. According to a coming together or communication form, there is a multiple kinds of likeness, huh? According as there there are many ways of coming together or communicating in a form. For some are said to be like which come together in the same form according to the same what ratio, according to the same mode.

[7:48] And these are not only said to be like, but to be equal in their likeness, huh? As two things equally white are said to be like in whiteness, and this is the most perfect what likeness, huh? Okay.

[8:07] Another way things are said to be like, which come together in the form according to the same ratio, but not according to the same way, but according to more and less, as something less white is said to be like something more white, and this is an imperfect likeness, huh?

[8:29] In a third way, some things are said to be like which come together in the same form, but not according to the same ratio, as is clear in agents that are not univocal. For since every agent makes what is like itself in so far as it is an agent, huh? Does giving it what the act that it already has in some way? Um, for each thing acts according to its own form, it is necessary that in the effect there be some likeness of the agent cause.

[9:02] First thing to my Mohammedan friend, there right? God made us, there must be, because he made us some kind of likeness there, right? If therefore the agent is not contained in the same species with its effect, there will be a likeness between the maker and the made in form. Oh, excuse me. If he is contained, yeah, in the same species with its effect, there will be a likeness between the maker and the made in form according to the same definition of the species, as a man generates a man.

[9:36] If, however, the agent is not contained in the same species, there will be a likeness, but not according to the same what? Right. The species, yeah. As those things are generated from the power of the sun, but they will what approach to some likeness to the sun, huh? Not that they receive the form of the sun according to the likeness of species, but according to the likeness of the what genus, huh?

[10:06] If therefore there is some agent that is not in the genus, its effects even more, right, will exceed in a remote way to a likeness of the form of the agent. Not, however, that they partake. A likeness of the form of the agent, according to the same notion of the species or the genus, right? But according to some what? ratio. Yeah. Just as to be itself is common to what all things, huh?

[10:37] But not in the same way. And thus, in this way, all things which are from God are assimilated to Him in so far as they are beings, huh? Assimilated to Him as to the first and universal beginning of the whole of what being, huh? Okay. Um.

[11:02] That's why Thomas, there kind of a passage he has in the De Veritate, where he's talking about the likeness of ratios and talking about the likeness of creature to God. Well, he says,

[11:22] take this here, right? Let's say one to two. Okay. Now, which is more like a two? Let's say four or a hundred. Four. Four is much closer to it, right? Okay. But now, if you take the ratios and you say two to four, and let's say fifty to one hundred, right, is two to four more like one to two than fifty is to one hundred?

[12:08] No, not really, man. No, not so. So this is kind of a way of bridging the gap, right? By reason of a like a likeness of this is like a booze there, you know. I think wants to stay up. Yeah. Even Dickens says that you know,

[12:34] where the Joe comes to visit him, you know, Joe's you know country bumpkin, right? And he tries to put his hat, you know, on the thing and it falls off, and he picks it up again and it falls off.

[12:52] So this is kind of way of making things more alike, right? They're further away, right? Okay. So he wants to make use of that likeness of, but it's kind of an analogy. Analogy is the Greek word, or for proportion, proportion, Euclid. You know, proportion got used for ratio sometimes, but. You could use the word proportion or analogia for a likeness of ratios, and you can kind of compare things that are very far apart, right?

[13:27] Like two and one hundred, there. So, the likeness between us and God, forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, right?

[13:54] So, you know the servant to know who got forgiven, went out and throttled the other servant, right? But in a sense, what you're saying here is that God will be to you as you are to your neighbor, let's say, right? Huh? So you're making a proportion there, right? This is a likeness there, right? Somewhere you're like God, right? When you forgive your neighbor, right? Huh? Okay. Even though the distance between you and. God is infinite, huh?

[14:22] There's some likeness there. Now, in Psalm 85, here, who's like God, right? To first, therefore, it should be said, as Dionysius says in the ninth chapter about the divine names, that when sacred scripture says that something is not like God, right, this is not contrary to its having an assimilation or likeness to him, huh? Or how can this be, huh? Well, the same things are what like God and unlike God, right?

[15:06] Like him in so far as they imitate him in some way, right? In so far as it is possible to imitate him, who is not perfectly what? Yeah, imitable. Okay. Dissimilar, according as they what fall short of the equivocal cause, you could say, right? Okay. Not only according to intensity and emission, like the less white falls short of the more white, huh? But because they are not what coming together either in the same species nor even according to the same what genus, right?

[15:44] Okay. So another man can be like me because he's in the same species, man, right? And the dog or the cat can be like me in some way, right? But in a more remote way, right? But our being like God is more remote than the dog or the cat being like me. At least the dog or the cat is in the same genus as I am, right?

[16:08] But God is not in the same genus as us, right? So there's a great distance there, huh? And only by analogies, he says. But you can't deny there's some likeness there, right? Scripture says that we are made to the image and likeness of God, right? But maybe it says to the image and likeness of God to indicate there's a great distance there.

[16:36] But I don't know if it's in here or not. But the text from the I think it's the Fourth Lateran Council, the 1215 one. did not note a likeness between God and the creature without a greater what? Unliken Unlikeness. Yeah. That's kind of a key text, you know.

[17:01] Okay. The second objection was about what you can only compare things of the same genus, right? Well, it's not altogether true, but okay. But God does not have himself to create. creatures as things of what diverse genera. Okay, because in sense the objection is is taking something from this genus and just genus and saying you can't compare them, right? But God is not what? Yeah, yeah. So it's not like He's in one genus and we're another genus, right?

[17:36] He's one kind of thing or another kind of thing, right? But He's like the what origin of every kind of thing. He's going to have a connection with every kind of thing, right? While one kind of thing may be more chopped off, than another kind of thing, right, and not so comparable, right? But every kind of thing can be compared to the beginning of every kind of thing.

[17:58] And there's a certain ratio there, because God is the beginning of every kind of thing, but is not any one kind of thing Himself. Is not anyone genus?

[18:13] Sometimes they use the word kind instead of genus in English, right? Like I was saying, sui generis. huh? Well, we say one of a kind, huh? Okay.

[18:33] So God is not in any kind of thing, like animal or substance or something like that, right? But He's the beginning of every kind of thing, original source of every kind of thing. So He has a connection with every kind of thing. The one kind of thing might not have another kind of thing. See that? Because one kind of thing might not be anyway a source of another kind of thing, right?

[19:03] But God is the source of every kind of thing. So He has an origin, to all right Okay? A little bit like the point in the center of the circle, right? You know, in the sense, if you think of all the lines as going from it to the circumference, it's the origin of all those other points, right? But they're maybe disconnected, right? One from another.

[19:34] So God does not have Himself to creatures as things of other genus, right? Because, but He is as that which is outside every genus, right, and the beginning of every genus. Okay, but to speak English, He's the beginning of every kind of thing. Okay,

[19:59] but is that which is the beginning of every kind of thing? No kind of thing? Or put it this way: is that which is the beginning of every kind of thing confined to no kind of thing?

[20:20] Is that confined to any kind of thing? Is he? No. Okay. Told you, say, God is some kind of thing. I think it would be bad. So not kind as the philosopher understands genus, right? No, no, no, no.

[20:47] He's something, yeah. That might limit him, right, to one kind of thing. Nowhere is nowhere included. Nowhere, see, I'm just one kind of thing, you know. Himself is God, just one kind of thing.

[21:16] No, no. Now, Thomas will take up the infinity of God after perfection of God, and it seems to me there's some connection between those two. Is God being universally perfect and is it being infinite? Huh? It's not limited in any way.

[21:45] Okay, a third objection. Those things are said to be like which come together in form, but nothing comes together with God in form, for

[22:01] the essence, the nature of no thing is to be itself, except in the case of what God, God alone. Okay. But it says to the third, it should be said that there is not said to be a likeness of the creature to God on account of it coming together in form according to the same what notion of a genus or species, but according to what analogy only, right?

[22:33] In so far as God is being through what essentially, right, and the others by what Partaking. Partaking, yeah, Yeah. So it's not a likeness of one kind of thing, right? Whether by kind you mean genus or species, right? Sometimes in English we'll speak of the genus as being a general kind of thing, right, and then the species as a particular kind of thing under that, right? Okay.

[23:05] But God is not any genus or species, so we don't have that kind of likeness to him. But according to analogy only, huh? Like the heat itself, not

[23:31] okay. Okay, the fourth objection: in things that are like, there's a mutual likeness and so on. Well, now Thomas is going to see a distinction here. To the fourth, it should be said that though, although in some way it be conceded that the creature is like God, right? In some ways, like God, very distantly, Nevertheless, in no way should it be conceded that God is like the creature, because as Dionysius says in the ninth chapter about the divine names, in those things which are of one order there is received a mutual likeness.

[24:10] Not, however, in the cause and the cause. For we say that the image is like the man, and not what converse. Okay. So if you do a painting or a portrait of me,and I,Say well, that's like purpose, you know. Would you say purpose is like that? Say, because that's being made like it, right?

[24:32] Um, yeah. And of course, sometimes Thomas will say, you know, and even less so can you say that God is assimilated to something, right? Okay. But the creature, you could say, is assimilated. The creature is made like God, right? Okay. And likewise, it is able to be said in some way that the creature is like God, not only that God is like the what creature. Okay.

[25:12] Of course, you come back and think about that a bit, huh? You know, when something is said metaphorically of God, right? It's primarily in the creature, right? Said the Lord is a rock, right? You know, well, rock is said properly of this thing that you stuck your foot on out here. But it's said metaphorically of God, right? It's kind of curious, huh? In terms of this likeness, huh?

[25:33] It shows you how distant the likeness that is, huh? In the case of the metaphor. So you're going to say God is like the rock,

[25:47] or is it because the rock is like God in some ways, most distantly? Rock has something of God's solidity. He's unbreakable. Just like that, I guess. With with cease to be an image, and in a certain way a son is the image of the father. I don't mean Trinity. I mean natural generation. You wouldn't say of my father, "Gee, you look like your son. " You'd always say it the other way, right?

[26:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, a fortiori with God, right? The way of speaking. So, we now know that God is perfect, right? And He's universally perfect, right? Okay.

[26:48] And now, to this, He attaches a consideration of the divine goodness, huh? But for the goodness of the teaching, He has a little treatise about the good first, right?

[27:01] Then one seeks, or one questions, about the good, and first about the good in community, right? Secondly, about the goodness of what God. Okay. Now that first consideration is really a consideration that is proper to what first philosophy, right? And and since He's giving a little summary of some of that teaching, right? So

[27:31] he finds need to do that, right? Okay. Now let's just talk a little bit about the most common things, the most universal things. The

[28:17] distinction of the most universals. Now, Aristotle, to my knowledge, is the man who succeeded in understanding the distinction of most universals. And everybody else who's understood anything of it has been influenced by Aristotle. Okay.

[28:49] But Aristotle doesn't bring it all together, right? To some extent, Avicenna does. If he misunderstands part of it, but Thomas, in the first question, the first article, the first question of the De Veritate, the disputed questions about truth and goodness, he follows what

[29:15] Avicenna says. His work, but this in a way goes back to Aristotle. But a few misunderstandings you find out that Avicenna has. Okay. Now,

[29:30] when I speak of the distinction of the most universals, there's really three distinctions he has to understand, right? Okay. One is the distinction of the most universals from each other. Okay.

[29:55] Now, at first sight, it might seem a little bit strange that there could be more than one most universal. How can there be more than one most universal?

[30:11] How's that possible? You know. Okay. I mean, before we get into it, this seems to be a problem, right? Because notice. As you go up from the less universal to the more universal, you get more and more what unity, right? Okay. And they used to call this the tree of Porphyry because he wrote these things, right? Okay. And as you descend from the more universal to the less universal, you get more multiplicity, right?

[30:47] So you start with substance, and that's one. You say, "Well, there's material substances and immaterial substances." Okay, now you get two, right? Material substances, you have the living and the what? Non-living, right? And then you have animals and plants, and you know. See, keep on going down, so they call it the tree of Porphyry, right? It's like a Christmas tree, right? One time at Leval, at the Christmas party, you know, they had a little Christmas party.

[31:14] Students here at Christmas time, and they gave the life professor a little tree. You know, I call it the tree of Porphyry. I have a joke, you know.

[31:25] But vice versa, as you go up, then you're getting what more unity, right? So you can't go up any more than the most universal. You expect there to be just one most universal, right? So how can there be more than one most universal? That's kind of strange, right? And when Thomas, following Avicenna, distinguishes the most universals from each other, he distinguishes six of them, right? Okay. Now I can only count to five, you know, back to my hand, and so sometimes I notice they put two of them together, but you know, but five or six.

[32:06] That's that's rather puzzling, isn't it? You think there'd be the maxima unitas there at the top, right? Okay. As I say, the only man I know who knows how to distinguish the most universals from each other is Aristotle, and those people like Avicenna and Thomas, who who come from Aristotle, right? And the only guy who got it completely Aristotle to my knowledge is Thomas. Okay. That's one one one distinction of the most universals.

[32:48] Now, there's a second distinction of most universals, and that's the distinction of the most universals from their opposites. Okay. Now that's extremely puzzling too.

[33:12] How can the most universal have an opposite? We do. Yeah, but then if you are dividing them, it's got to be something above them that's more universal than the two of them, right? That are opposed, right? You got you got virtue and vice, right? Well, you got above them habit, right? Okay.

[33:41] And if the most universals have an opposite, or the one is not said of the other, right? So how is that? How do you have a most universal anymore? How can a most universal have an opposite? Because one opposite is not the other opposite, right?

[34:04] Right. Okay. Now the third distinction of the most universals is into. What is immediately below them, right, in the sense of what something less universal, right? Okay.

[34:33] The distinction of most universals into what they are first divided into, you might say, right? Okay, less universal things. Okay. Now all those things I mean extremely difficult.

[35:07] Now let's just look at the first one a little bit, right? Okay. Distinction of most universals from each other. The most universal that Avicenna and Thomas begin from, I guess maybe Aristotle too, is the universal being, right? Okay. What could be more universal than that?

[35:47] Everything that could be said to be in any way whatsoever, would come under being, right? Okay. Now being here in English might seem, you know, to mean to be or existence, but we're using it more in the sense of what is, right? Okay. So if I being you mean what is in any way whatsoever, that would seem to be most what universal, right? But seems to be tied up with to be in some way, right?

[36:21] With existence, right? Okay. Now, is there anything in a thing besides its existence? Huh? Well, you start with the things that are most known to us. Is the existence of a cat and what a cat is the same thing? Okay. And we found out that God, the existence of God and what God is are the same, right? But we know God only through creatures, right? And is that true that the existence of a dog and what a dog is are the same?

[37:08] No. And they seem to be different questions, you know, for the logician. Does the cat exist? And what is a cat? Right. That seems to imply the existence of the cat, but what it is is not the same thing, right? Okay.

[37:28] But can there be a cat or anything else that is not what it is? Okay. So, the second most universal is thing or something, right? Okay.

[37:53] And thing is getting its distinction from being because it's tied up with what a thing is, right? Or what it is. Here you're thinking of that it is, right? And now what it is, right? Okay.

[38:15] That's why we tend to use the word "thing" when we talk about what a definition is. The definition, we say, is speech signifying what a thing is, right? We tend to use it to say what a thing is than what a being is, right? Because the word "thing" seems to have a connection with what a thing is, huh? Okay.

[38:41] Now, anything else besides the existence of a thing is what it is? Well, now you see, Plato got thinking about numbers, huh? About what numbers are made up—many ones, right?

[39:22] And is everything something one? Okay. Now there's a little problem here: whether the one that is the beginning of number is the one that everything is, right?

[39:40] Heraclitus says it is wise and listening not to me, but to reason. To agree that all things are one. One way that could be false: you think a dog is a cat, right? But is there a sense in which all things are one? But not

[40:08] to say that something is a being, or to say that something is a thing. Does that mean the same thing as to say it's one, or does one have a meaning that

[40:25] is a little different from being and thing? What is the basis of the distinction between one and being and thing? Both those being and thing considered in in what actually exists, they say in like it's I guess you would say it's composition as it exists in reality. Yeah, maybe you'll see that around when Thomas is showing that every being is one, right? You'll use an either-or argument, right?

[41:12] You'll say every being or everything you could say is either simple or composed, right? Now a composed thing doesn't exist unless it's put together, right? And that's a kind of unity, right? Okay, unless the parts are unified, huh? So you don't really have a chair if you pull the parts apart. And so, if the composed is one, a fortiori, the simple is one, right? So everything that is is one, right?

[41:44] Okay. But notice, one is saying that something is undivided, right? Okay. And so, one is adding, or the idea of being or a thing, in, negation. Is it adding something real? No, because this negation is really a being of reason. Like it. It's not like you're saying, you know, a white man or white is adding something to what a man is, right? Okay. Say I am a man.

[42:19] I'm one man. Okay. So sometimes they say the meaning of one is undivided being, huh? Okay. And so you get to the a question on the unity of God, God being one. That would be the fifth attribute of God, is one. You've got to say that He's a being as well as that He's undivided, right? Okay. Of course, He's indivisible. You could say, right? Okay.

[42:52] Now, in the text in the beginning of the De Veritate, question one, article one, he says these three things are said of a of everything in itself, right? Okay. Now the next three are said in comparison to something else. Okay. And the next one is again negation, but you're distinct from all the things. Okay. Now sometimes he runs these two together, and say one means both. To say that I'm one man, I think, would mean not only that my body's sewed together and my other parts, but I'm distinct from all the rest of you guys.

[43:35] You see? Okay. But again, that's involving negation. I'm not you. I'm not you. I'm not this. I'm not that. Right? Okay. I'm not anything else. Okay.

[43:54] And of course, in my own terms I take the word "aliquid and make it mean "aliquid quid." Okay. But let's just say distinct from all other things. Okay. But it's hard to put them together, and I have many texts of Thomas and even Albert the Great, right, where he says that one means what, undivided in yourself, right, and distinct from all other things, huh? Okay. So sometimes I put these two together because I like number five, and I did that number five, okay?

[44:47] But these two have in common the addition of a negation right? One negation of division in oneself, and the other negation from not being anything else, huh? Okay. Now there's still two more of what's universals to come,

[45:09] and Thomas says, well, there's another way that you can add some meaning without contracting. Well, you can't add something real, right? It's got to be something of reason. But what is there of reason besides negation?

[45:40] Well, there are some relations that are reason only, right? Okay. And he says it's got to be something that in some way is all things. Ah ha! In the third book about the soul, Aristotle gets to talking about the senses and reason. He says the soul is in some way what, all things, right? Okay. And you see this especially in our reason and in our what, will, okay?

[46:12] So things are knowable can be true, right? Everything. And good, true and good, right? Okay. So true adds this relation to reason, right? But that's not a real relation. And good, this relation to the will, right? The good is what all desire, what all want. First definition of it, huh? Okay. That's the way you get the six transcendentials they call, right? That they transcend the ten categories they found in all of them, right?

[46:56] But they say sometimes I think even Aristotle talks about the one he has in mind, both being undivided in itself and being distinct from other things. And many times you'll find Thomas and Albert using the one in that sense, right? But that doesn't really change what we're saying here, right? Okay. And these two both, you know, you know, involve adding the negation to other things.

[47:24] So you're going to hear a little bit about this when we talk about the good now, right, in the general chapter. You know, find out some things about the one. He comes to talk about that, right? So get little bits of this teaching, right? Okay, but this is, in a rough way, the distinction of the most universals from each other, right?

[47:48] Now somewhere in your education, somewhere along the line, you'll be talking about the distinction of these from their opposites, right? Now the opposite of being is what none being, right?

[48:06] And what kind of opposition is it that you have between being and non being? To be or not to be, that is the question. That's the opposition that the categories is called a contradiction.

[48:24] Now, what's the opposite of thing? And perhaps it may be easier if you said something instead of thing. What's the opposite of something? Nothing. Yeah. Now these are very close. Okay. The opposition of being and non-being and something and nothing seem to be almost the same, don't they? Okay. Shows kind of you know the affinity those two, huh? And if I remember correctly, I have to read again to make sure I'm not engaging false imagination.

[49:00] But the Greeks say you can't get something from nothing, right? And Parmenides says you can't get being from non-being, right? Kind of the same thought in a way, isn't it? It's the same thing. Is the opposition of something nothing? the opposition of contradiction.

[49:21] Is it a little contrary. Well, you see, contraries are not as opposed as contradictories, right? In contraries, you have a common subject and a common genus, right? So virtue and vice are in the same thing, right? Oh yeah, okay. So courage, say, and cowardliness, are both in the irascible appetite, right? Temperance and intemperance in the desire appetite, right? But they have the same genus, which is habit or quality, right?

[49:57] Now privation or lack and having are in between contraries and contradictories, because there you have a common subject, right? Say blind, blindness and sight are in a sense the same thing, right? Same subject, but they're under the same common genus, okay?

[50:21] But privation or lack is the non-being. Of something you're able to have, and the being of that, and the subject able to have, right? Okay. But the negation but the kind of contradictories, you know, you can say not see, even as something that is not able to see, right? You can say the chair doesn't see, right? Speaking speaking, chair is not blind. Only a man or an animal can be blind.

[50:49] Something that's apt in nature to have that. So, quite the opposition of contradictories is nothing, right? Okay, that's why we say with contradictories it's one or the other. to be or not to be. Okay, you either are a man or you're not a man. You're either a monkey or you're not a monkey. You're either red or you're not red. Huh? There's no no alternatives there. But you either have sight or you're blind.

[51:20] No. You either have virtue or vice. Well, that chair doesn't have either virtue or vice, right? Okay. Either sick or healthy. What's the point, sick or healthy? You know, is it? Well,

[51:38] Shakespeare says, "To be or not to be, that is a question." I often say to students, "A question, because you can't both be and not be, and because you must either be or not be," right? Then, okay.

[51:55] So, the opposition of something and nothing seems to need to be like contradiction, right? Because there's nothing that they have together, right? Common subject, right? Or common genus, something and nothing, right?

[52:14] Okay. Now, what's the opposite of one? Yeah, yeah. That's that's going to be a different kind of opposition, right? Okay. Now that gets very complicated when they get into that, right? Because both Plato and Aristotle, two of the greatest minds at all time, right? They both got mixed up between the one that's the beginning of number and the one that's one of the most universals. And the one that's the beginning of number is the what measure of number, huh?

[53:00] So, number is a multitude measured by one. So, there's kind of a relative opposition there, right? But here, it's going to be a different kind of opposition.

[53:11] It's going to be what? Undivided being and divided being. It's a little bit more like what? Lack. Okay, and this is lacking the division that the many has. Okay, it's kind of curious now because Aristotle says, in one sense, the many is before the one in our understanding, just like we were saying before about the simple. You know, the point is defined which has no parts. We define the simple by the negation of the composed, right?

[53:44] So in a way, we define one by the negation division. Well, negation is posterior in understanding, right, to what's being negated, and when it's divided, you have many. Okay, united we stand, divided we fall. Right? Okay, but then Thomas, you know, says, but Aristotle is not speaking as what nuanced as he could here, right? Because although you're negating the division that's in the many, right?

[54:15] Yet the idea of many is many ones. Okay. So this is very tricky, right? First, you understand division, then you understand the undivided, then you understand the one, then you understand the many as a whole, right? Because it's manyness, okay? But so it turns out that this opposition here is different from the one up here. Here it's more contradictories, right? And here it's what?

[54:46] Black. Yeah, more like black, right? Okay. It's a very subtle thing, right? But if you're yeah, primitive, yeah, that's that's a Latin word for lack. But if you're thinking of the one that's the beginning of the number, then it's kind of a relative thing, you know. And it's amazing these these two great minds, Avicenna and Plato, they're both a little mixed up, right? And so the one that's the beginning of the number adds something real, and therefore it's not a most universal thing anymore.

[55:18] And and Avicenna gets mixed up and thinks the one here adds something real too, and he's in trouble, right? And then Plato thinks that that that this one, in a sense, is the one being a number, never everything is numbers, right? Okay, so that's a very subtle thing, right? Okay.

[55:39] Now, what's the opposite of the true? False. Yeah, yeah. How are the true and the false supposed? Would they be contraries? I think so. Yeah. Yeah.

[56:11] See, if I think that two is half of four, you think that two is not half of four, right? That's not simply negation of thinking that two is half of four, right?

[56:26] Because if you're simply ignorant that two is half a four, you're not mistaken, are you? And false. But if you think that two is not half of four, then you're thinking contrarily. Right? You're actually thinking something, right? Okay. So you have thinking divided into thinking true and false, right? So they're like two forms of thinking, right? Okay.

[56:55] But now, good is opposed to the what? Bad. What kind of opposition is that? What? The lack. Yeah, yeah. Basically, the basic meaning of bad is the lack of something you are able to have and should have, right? Okay.

[57:18] The other senses of bad—that's a fundamental meaning of bad. So, bad seems to be opposed to good as a lack or privation, the same way that the one is opposed to many, right? So, it is very subtle to see the opposites, right? And you have perhaps

[57:40] in the opposites of being and thing, if they're somewhat the same, right? There is no question about the being and non-being is actually a contradiction, but something and nothing seems to be like that, okay? They seem to have no common subject, no common genus, right? Something and nothing, the one and the many, and the good and the bad are both different ways, right? Because the good is is the positive one, and the bad involves what the lack of that.

[58:20] But the one, the many, the one being defined as undivided being has the lack of the division of many, but that's not a lack that makes it what bad, right? And when Thomas gets into this, it's very, very, very subtle, you know. And it's almost like you know I say about the threes and the trinity trinity. You don't talk about the trinity without having the actual words of Thomas in front of you on your mind, right?

[58:50] You know, it's easy to go astray there, you know. Um. But Aristotle distinguishes a whole number of different senses of lack, right? Huh? Okay. And and it's only in the what earlier senses of lack that lack is something bad, right? Get to the last senses, it isn't. It's very subtle. You have to see the text in the fifth book again of wisdom, right? Huh?

[59:23] Um. So the the kind of lack that is bad and the kind of lack that is in the definition of one is quite different, huh? Sense of lack, huh? So you've got to know the fifth book of wisdom there, and Thomas pulls it out. That's actually that's incredibly. easy. He doesn't, you know, I don't even do do what Thomas does. It's Aristotle himself, you know. And okay, so that's the second kind of distinction, right?

[59:57] Now, if you look here, excuse me, um, you see, like in the fifth, but perhaps most of all in the the sixth article there, whether good is divided into honestum utile, and delectabile right That's might be. To some extent, one of the first distinctions of the good, right, into something less universal than, than good, right? But

[1:00:30] notice in the first article whether good and being are the same, secundum rem right? Huh? With the distinction between good and being, and again, you can ask the same question about all these universals: is that a real distinction, or a distinction in what reason? In reason, right? Huh? Okay.

[1:00:57] Of course, you'll see what Thomas says. But you might suspect that they're not going to be really different secundum rem, right? Okay. And it's like the question we ask about these five attributes of God, right? And all things about God, huh? Is the knowledge of God and the love of God the same secundum rem?

[1:01:20] Yeah, Because if they weren't the same secundum rem, then God would really be composed, right? Okay. Now, second one, you kind of guess what the answer was in the first one. Supposito, suppose that they differ in definition only, right? Okay. Which is before secundum rationem huh, whether good or being, right? Huh? Okay. It's a question you'd ask about these things. There's no order about them, right? Okay.

[1:01:50] And different places, Thomas will talk about the order of these, right? Which is before one or two. Okay, but here he's asking particular between being and one, right? I mean, excuse me, being and good, huh? Okay. And you can kind of guess the answer to number two from what he says in three, right? Supposing now that being is before, right? Whether every being is what good? This is convertible, meaning with being, it's universal as that, right?

[1:02:27] And you may see gradually that maybe this is as universal as being, but you know, differing in ratio and being posterior in ratio. And then, to what cause the ratio of good is reduced, right? Of course, you've been told before about the connection Aristotle saw first between the good and the end, right? Plato saw kind of thinking of the good itself, but as a kind of separated form.

[1:02:54] Aristotle says, well, it's it's, it's more in than form, right? So form has something to do with the good too, right? " And then these two ways of what dividing it, right? Huh? Okay.

[1:03:11] Now, I don't know if he, you know, explicitly talks about. About the opposition of good and bad, but it'll probably come in when he talks about whether every being is good. Because I say, hey, not every being is good. There are bad things in the world out there. More bad things than good things, and so on. So it may go up there a little bit, right? But but you're going to be getting a little bit of the of the what distinction, and you could add the distinction now in the order of these, right?

[1:03:41] Distinction and the order, at least of good from being, right? And the order of these, right? In our thinking, and then something of the first distinction of the good, right, into its particular kinds. Okay.

[1:04:00] Now, if you have to understand the more universal before you can understand the less universal, as Aristotle argues in the beginning of the physics, right? Well, then you got to understand the most universals before you can understand anything, right?

[1:04:18] And the most universals are extremely hard to understand. Right, and as they say, Aristotle and Thomas are probably the only guys who understand the most universals. So they're the only guys who understand anything, right? Yeah, I've been a little playful, you know. I told the students in philosophy nature they don't understand change. They don't understand changing things. If they don't understand changing things, they don't understand unchanging things, because as the word unchanging suggests, they're known by the negation.

[1:04:49] Now, if you don't understand changing things or unchanging things, you don't understand anything. So, from first to last, you don't understand change and understand nothing, right? And I understand we don't understand the most universals. You don't understand anything, but but there's some truth to that, right? Or a lot of truth to that, right? You see, if you don't know what a quadrilateral is, can't understand what it is to be four-sided.

[1:05:13] Can you understand what it is to be a square? If you don't understand what it is to be a number, can you understand what it is to be a prime number or a composite number? If you know what a number is, without knowing what a prime number is. But you can't know what a prime number is without knowing. So it seems you have to understand the more universals before you understand the less universal.

[1:05:32] And therefore, you must understand the most universals before you can understand anything. Yet the most universals are very difficult for us to understand, right? And Aristotle and Thomas, are the only guys who understand the most universals. The only guys who understand anything. What's wrong? Why isn't it?

[1:05:53] Ah, you know, you know, it's like taking back the simple understanding of these things, right? You know, see, it never occurred to me. I understand anything, but understand the most universals, right? Then you see, you know, a mind as eminent as Avicenna among the Arabs and Plato among the Greeks, you know. Not to mention lesser lights, who don't understand these things. What? Concedantur rationes.

[1:06:28] Reasons are conceded. Yeah, yeah, yeah.