Prima Pars
23. Summa I, Q.5: Are Good and Being the Same? (Arts. 1–2, first part): Simply vs. in Some Way, and Why Dionysius Names God Good Before Being
Class of 2006-03-16
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/023-summa-i-q-5-are-good-and-being-the-same-arts-1-2-first-part/

[0:00] In the Name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit. Amen. God our enlightenment. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, pray for us and help us to understand all that you have written. Amen, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. So we're going to start the fifth question today, if I remember rightly.

[0:32] And Thomas is kind of stopping and doing what, in a way, belongs to wisdom or metaphysics, right? First philosophy, but for the benefit of the student and so on, he's going to talk about good in general before he talks in particular in the next question on the goodness of what God, right? To make sure that you have seen these things before, right? Okay.

[0:58] Okay. So this is attached to the what attribute of the perfection of God, right? Okay. So about the first four things are, sed question. First, whether good and being are the same, secundum realm, right? Huh? Okay.

[1:26] Whether they are really the same thing, right? Huh? Okay. Kind of interesting our word "really." Is that really so? I think "really" comes from what "res." Yeah, but I've seen it in the Greek, you know, the Greek kind of equivalent is "ontos," which is from being. say it in English? Right. But instead of saying "is that being so" or something, like that, he says, is that really so," right?

[1:52] Yeah. Yeah. Thomas uses sometimes the phrase, you know, in in rerum natura. It's in reality. It's a little more concrete. So that's the first article. Whether good and being are the same thing, secundum realm, huh?

[2:14] And or do they just, you know, are they are they synonyms, right? You know, or do they differ? What in notion or thought, but they're the same what thing, really? Like it's three feet and thirty-six inches. Same length, right? But it's not described exactly the same way, is it? Huh. Okay. So are good and being like that, or you know,

[2:46] same in things, but not the same in meaning? Slightly different in perspective. How do they differ in their meaning if they do, right? Huh? Okay.

[2:59] That probably come out in that first article. Now the second article, then, supposing. That they differ in ratione, in meaning or in definition, only right? Which is before,

[3:16] by reason, whether good or being is before, right? Okay. And then, supposing what we show in the second article, that being is before, whether every being is good,

[3:35] and you could ask the reverse: whether everything good is a being, right? Whether they are what convertible in the logical sense? What does convertible mean in the logical sense? Doesn't mean the same thing in logic and cars, right?

[3:54] They're almost all not identical, but identical meaning? No, we say that A and B are convertible if every A is a B and every B is an A, right? Okay. So two, let's say, and half of four are convertible, right? Because every two is half of four, and everything half of four is two, right? And so when we talk about that's a property half of four, but I'm in the strict sense.

[4:29] But if you have a definition of a thing, that should be what speech convertible to the thing being defined. So if a square is correctly defined as an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, right, then every square should be an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, and every equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral should be a square, right? And so you see Socrates sometimes, you know, turning around the speech that someone gives as an attempt to define something.

[5:03] You'd say, Berquist, what is what is a dog? And I say, Well, a dog is a four-footed animal. And Socrates might say, Well, it's true that every dog is a four-footed animal, but is every four-footed animal a dog? Right. Well, if you can't turn it around, it's not yet a definition, right? Okay. So that's one thing that is necessary, right? Okay. Which doesn't mean that every convertible speech is a definition, but that's one of the requirements of a definition, okay?

[5:35] It's got to also bring out the nature of what the thing is. Okay. So in a way, the third article there, whether every being is good, and maybe the reverse will come in too, you know, he's talking about their convertibility in a way.

[6:02] Now the fourth article: to which cause is the ratio? Of good reduced, huh? Can you guess which cause is going to be? Yeah, the end. Yeah, yeah. Because you know, we may remember in ethics, too. We first define the good. The good is what all want, right? And then we ask the Socratic question: Is it good because you want it, or do you want it because it is good, right?

[6:34] An example I always use, I think, most successful in my classes, you know, is the last drink at the party, right? Do you want another drink? And you say yes. You take it, and then you realize this is not good for you, right? So, if wanting made something good for you, that last drink would have to be good for you, right? But the kid who drives his car 100 miles an hour down this road, right?

[6:54] He wanted to do that, but after he smashes up and is in the hospital and his car is ruined, he might, you know, even to himself ad admit it wasn't good for him to drive his car, but he wanted to do it, right? Okay. So eventually, you you arrive at the thought that something is not good because you want it, but you want it because it is what good.

[7:15] And then you see the good as a cause of wanting, but there are four kinds of cause: matter, form, mover, end. And it turns out to be the cause called what end?

[7:28] Aristotle, when he talks about the fourth kind of cause, he often says the same thing as the good, basically. Not that the means can't be called good in a secondary sense, but primarily it's the what the end. Yeah, yeah. That's interesting, right?

[7:46] So, connection between God being the end of everything and being what? Being good, yeah, yeah. Now, the fifth article: whether the ratio definition of good or the notion of good consists in mode, species, and order, right? And this goes back to a statement of Augustine in the De Natura Boni, I think it is, where he says it consists in these three things. Thomas has some very subtle explanations of of how that's so.

[8:25] And they're tied up with that text in Scripture too. You know, that God made everything in number, and order, and so on, measure, using somewhat different words. And then the sixth one, whether

[8:46] the good is divided into the honestum, huh? The honorable, the noble good, the useful, and the what? Pleasant, right? Okay. Now, what's the difference in five and six? Huh?

[9:09] The difference in those two divisions, in a way, right? Of the good, right? Is one uh, is it, is it, the sixth one in relation to other things, and five is in itself something like that. But I think the the fifth one is more like the what integral or composing parts, huh? Okay, that everything good, at least in creatures, not it's not only goodness of God, but the goodness of the creature involves those three things, right?

[9:55] Okay, but the sixth one is more like the division of a universal whole. Into things that are less universal, okay. It's like, if I was to talk about the sonnet, right, and if I were to ask, you know, whether the sonnet consists of fourteen lines, right, or whether the sonnet is divided into fourteen lines, and the answer would be yes, but every sonnet is composed of fourteen lines, and then I might go on in next article and say now whether the sonnet is divided into

[10:35] the English sonnet and the Italian sonnet, right, and then I'd be looking at its universal whole being divided into its parts, right. If I was talking about plot in poetics, and I said whether every plot consists of a beginning, middle, and end, or whether every plot consists of tying the knot or knots and untying the knot or knots, right, then I'd be looking at kind of the what?

[11:06] Something like the integral parts, the composing parts, right? Because every plot would have a beginning, middle, and end, or a tying of the knot and the end, and then I might say whether plot can be divided into comic plot and tragic plot or something like that, right? And I'd be dividing it like universal whole. And which of those would you do first? Which would be naturally the first?

[11:29] The first one, because you're looking into the nature. Yeah, yeah, and you can understand better the basis for the other division, maybe in most cases, huh? Okay. You want to know first of all that the sonnet has fourteen lines, and then when you come to consider the particular kinds of sonnet, how those fourteen lines are what divided, right? Because the English sonnet is divided into three quatrains and a couplet, and then the Italian into an octet and a sextet, right?

[12:01] So it's a kind of a different way that they're divided. Once in a while, Shakespeare, you know, hints a little bit, you know, makes it eight six. See he's a kind of crafty fellow, you know, but for the most part, that's the way it goes, huh?

[12:19] Okay, so this is quite a little treatise on on the good, huh? And you notice if you have the edition, the Marietti edition, it gives some of the parallel references. You know, it's kind of a nice little thing. But the question twenty-one actually in the De Veritate, huh, is the question that corresponds to this question here. It's got almost the same articles in it, right? But sometimes you bring out something in one and doesn't bring out on the other, and so on.

[12:52] That's what I like to call those things: the question is disputate, De Veritate, et bonitate, right? Because the first question is about truth, and then you have all these questions about. But God's knowledge or the angels' knowledge or our knowledge of various kinds, all the way down to you get to what to the twentieth question, right? And the twenty-first question is about the good, and then the remaining seven questions are about you know the desire for the good and and talks about grace and so on and that sort of thing.

[13:28] And so it should really be called De Veritate, et what Bonitate, right? yeah, yeah. But you know, it's among us. Those who know how to name things, right?

[13:43] Now, for the fun of it, I've adopted this way of speaking. You know, kind of making fun of myself, but Shakespeare he takes off in the *Love's Labour's Lost*. He has these pseudo sophisticates, right? We like to use big words and so on. And one of the says, "The other guy, let us meet in the postures of the day, which is always obscene." First, meet in the postures of the day, which the rude multitude call the what afternoon?

[14:15] Yeah, yeah. And Chris, it's very good. The afternoon, but I have to say, you know, you know, the eight books of natural hearing, which the rude multitude call the physics, or the fourteen books of wisdom, which the rude multitude call the. But I just kind of reversing Shakespeare's sense of humor, you know. I don't want to be too serious because they'll put Thomas Aquinas on the rude multitude, right?

[14:38] But he knows what he's saying. So let's look at the first article Whether good differs secundum rem from being right, huh? But it's really the same thing or not, right? Okay.

[14:55] And of course, he objects to what he wants to say first, right? To the first, thus one proceeds. Anybody else who does it? I always objects to what he's going to say. Assert? Why do I go there? I never think it does that, huh?

[15:17] It seems that the good differs secundum rem from being, huh, as a thing, huh. For as Boethius says, that's the great Boethius, huh? In the book *De Hebdomadibus, I see that in things, other is it that they are good, other that they are right. Okay. So this this is the great authority of Boethius, huh? And I think I mentioned before how I think the two greatest minds in the church are Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, huh?

[15:55] But between those two guys, I think and Boethius is the greatest, huh? In between those two, anyway. Time. So he's a very important thinker.

[16:12] Moreover, nothing is what informed and look at the etymology of informed, right? By itself, but good is said by informing being, as is had in the commentary of the book De Causis. And I think when Thomas was in his earlier work, he he was still kind of following the common opinion that the Liber de Causis was by Aristotle himself, and would be you know kind of the post-physics, right?

[16:44] We talk about the first causes, the immaterial causes, in, more detail, but then Thomas realized was not by Aristotle, right? But it's a very important book, nevertheless. And Thomas has a commentary on the Liber de Causis. Therefore, good differs secundum rem from being.

[17:06] Moreover, being receives what more or less sounds or more or less good, but to be does not receive more or less, right? Okay, you guys might be better than me, right? But are you more than I am? I don't think so. Say, okay.

[17:26] Am I less today? I might be better or worse today, but am I? Am I less? Okay. How's your diet? How's your diet going? I put the weight on the scale. And in Florence. Okay, but that's okay. But against this is what Augustine says in the book on Christian doctrine or teaching that insofar as we are, we are what good. Okay.

[18:05] So Thomas says, "I answer. It should be said that good and being are the same secundum rem as a thing, right? They really, in English, made it more more colloquial to say they are the same thing, really. Kind of interesting, yeah. I know it's sort of a fundamental question. It is though, the good and being are the same thing or not? Who'd ask that? Except Aristotle and Thomas, yeah, or Augustine.

[18:42] But they differ in definition only, you might say, or in meaning only, right? Okay. Which can be made clear thus, just thus clear. The notion of good consists in this: that something is what. Desirable, okay. Our word "appetite" comes from the Latin word for desire, right? Whence, the philosopher, and that's the guy named Aristotle, right? In the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics, says that the good is what all want.

[19:22] The good is what all desire, right? You might remember the beginning of the Nicomaritan Ethics there. He has a little induction there. Every art and every science and every action, so and choice, aims at some good, right?

[19:38] Okay. But is manifest, however, that each thing is desirable according as it is what perfect, huh? For all things want their own what perfection, their own completion.

[19:59] But now, insofar as what, but to that extent, you might say something is what perfect in so far as it is what in act, okay. Whence it is manifest that to that extent something is good in so far as it is what a being, because to be is the actuality of every thing, as is clear from what has been said above.

[20:32] Whence it is manifest that good and what being are the same thing, secundum, but good adds, you might say, huh, the notion of what desirable, which is not said by the word what being, huh, okay. It's as if what good means a desirable thing, a desirable being, right? Okay. Okay, so what's his middle term then, right? Huh?

[21:07] He goes from what the good being what is desired, what is desired is perfection of a thing, perfection of a thing is its actuality, the actuality of the thing is its what being in in a full sense, eh? Therefore, they're really the same thing, right? Okay. Now you also see the reason why good is attached to to perfect here, okay?

[21:38] Do you see the argument then? Yeah, he's saying that the good is what is desirable, right? Right. What is desired is perfection of the thing. Perfection of the thing is not its ability, but its actuality, right? Oh yeah. Its actuality is what being in the full sense. Therefore, the good from the first to the last, the good is what the same as being, right? Okay. Now sometimes Thomas will say that everything wants to be, right?

[22:12] To be as such is good. Okay. But this is the way he shows it here. Okay. Now we saw it also in in the what ninth book of wisdom, huh? Because there, the ninth book of wisdom, we saw that being is sometimes divided into ability and act, right? And ability is for the sake of act, all right. So act is the end, and it's also the perfection of the ability, right?

[22:50] The ability is actualized, huh? So being in the full sense is actuality, but that's also the good of the thing, huh? But the ability, being an ability. Is good in a secondary sense, right? Because it's able to be formed to be actualized, right? Is for the sake of that. So it being a lesser sense is in some way what good, right? Lesser sense. Okay.

[23:23] Now, and as you apply here now to the first objection, which is taken from Boethius's De Hebdomadibus, where Boethius seems to be saying that other is it that things are good, and other that they are, right? Here it seems to be saying just the opposite, right? Yeah. Well, in this, Thomas is going to point out

[23:48] one of the four or five most common kinds of distinction, right? Um, and I've spoken before. Let's come back a little bit to this, though, because it's an important thing to say. That there's four or five kinds of distinction that are used over and over again in philosophy, right? You're going to see it over and over and over again, right? And four of these five kinds of distinction correspond, as I said before, to four kinds of mistakes that Aristotle talks about, huh?

[24:24] Yeah. So the first two kinds of distinction are the distinction of the what senses of a word, right? Distinction of the meanings of a word. This gets difficult when you get a word that's equivocal by reason, right? There's some connection among the meanings. And then, like that, is the distinction of the meanings of a what speech, huh? Okay.

[24:54] And these correspond to the first two kinds of mistakes from words: the mistake from mixing up the senses of a word, right? And the mistake from mixing up the senses of a speech, right? Okay. And Aristotle says the mistake from mixing up the senses of a word is the most common mistake in our thinking.

[25:16] And I had fun with the students today in class. There, you know, I was talking about which is better, you know, philosophizing or breathing. You remember that example? And they all said, of course, you know, how many think breathing? Everybody raised their hand, right? Nobody says philosophy. How many say philosophizing? Nobody raised their hands. I raised my hand. Oh, they all raised their hand for both. No, no, no, no, no, for for breathing, for breathing.

[25:44] Yeah. And then I said, how many? You know, you know, I could see it's unanimous. And then I said, how many think that philosophizing is is better than than breathing? And nobody raised their hand except I raised my hand. Okay. And then I said, now I asked the guy in the front there, and I said, why is. What's your reason for saying breathing is better than philosophizing?

[26:06] Of course, the reason is if you're not breathing, you said you won't be doing anything else, right? I says, well, now since you you've shown me, huh, that seems to be the reason we all had in mind that breathing is before philosophizing in the second sense of before. I can breathe without philosophizing, but I can't philosophize without breathing. But you're saying because breathing is before philosophizing in the second sense of before, that therefore it's before it in the fourth sense.

[26:36] I said that'd be like saying you know that because Chaucer's before Shakespeare in the first sense of before it comes before him in time, therefore he's better than Shakespeare. It's obviously you know bad reasoning, right? I said I told you you'd mix up those senses after I you know I told you you know when we learned earlier in the course the four senses of of before and and time and being and knowledge right and then in goodness that you would mix these up and now you just did exactly what I predicted.

[27:06] And so those two kinds of distinction, but especially the distinction of the senses of word, is extremely common in philosophy, huh? And but they do correspond to those two kinds of mistakes. And then there are two other kinds of distinctions that are very very common that correspond to the first distinct the first two kinds of mistakes outside of of words, right? And the first one is the mistake for mixing up what is so what through itself and what is so through happening, or you could also state that what is so as such and what is so by what by happening, right?

[27:51] And so that's the distinction of between the through itself and the and the through happening, or distinction between the as such and the by happening. And then the second one is the distinction between what is so simply and what is not so simply, but in some qualified and perfect way, huh? Okay. And I was just you know I had people at my house last night there and we're looking at the definition of nature, right?

[28:23] And you may recall the definition of nature there in philosophy, of, nature as the beginning and cause, right, of motion and and rest, in that in which it is first as such and not by happening, right? Yeah, so even that distinction is the very definition, right? That kind of distinction is involved in the definition of nature because Aristotle is distinguishing between nature and the art of a doctor who cures not a another person who comes to him but himself.

[28:59] And but he says it's not as such. It's not as being disease that he has the art of medicine, right? It was by happening that he happens to have the the art whereby that disease can be cured, right? So, I mean, it comes right from the very beginning, right?

[29:19] And then it went on. We're talking about the difference between mathematics and natural philosophy, huh? And I didn't bring it out with them, but I was thinking about a little bit afterwards, and I was saying, now, someone asked me, "What is the subject of arithmetic?" Huh? What would you say? Arithmetic. Well, it's about numbers, right? About numbers as numbers. And what's natural philosophy about? Well, I'd say it's about natural things, right?

[29:48] Okay. Now, someone came back and said, "Well, does the natural philosopher talk about numbers at all?" Well, he does talk about numbers. Of legs that you have, right? Numbers of what arms you have, number of fingers you have, number of chambers in your heart, right? Okay. But I assume you wouldn't describe natural philosophy as being about numbers. But you could say that natural philosophy, at least in part, is about the numbers of natural things: the number of fingers you have, the number of teeth you have, the number of eyes you have, number of ears you have, and so on, right?

[30:30] Is it? So, what is the difference between natural philosophy when it talks about numbers and arithmetic? Arithmetic is about numbers. Period. Simply about quantification, right? I wouldn't say natural philosophy about numbers. Simply about quantification. It's about the numbers of natural bodies, right? Of natural things, right? I have to qualify, right? See. So it's kind of funny, you know. I think those two fundamental readings, huh? From Thomas there, Aristotle, the first and the third one in the second book, and the first one involves a distinction between simply, I mean, between the as such and the by happening, and the second one, in a way, between what simply and what not simply.

[31:29] Yeah. Now, I said four or five because sometimes we make a distinction a little different from the distinction between the through itself and the through happening. The distinction between the through itself and through another. It's a little different, but there's some similarity there, right? Okay. We had the famous axiom, I think, that the through itself is before the through another, right? Or before the through another, there's a through itself.

[32:02] Okay. So, not every statement can be known through other statements. Must be some statements known through themselves. Not every mover can be a what? Move mover, right? The move mover is a mover through another. So, if all you had was move movers, you'd have the through another and not the through itself.

[32:26] That makes any sense, does it? Okay. Couldn't be anything sweet in this world if nothing was sweet to itself. You always need something else, right? Before getting sweet. You never get any sweetness. Okay. Well, now in his reply to the first objection, what's very interesting about this is that the kind of distinction involved here is between simply and what? Not simply, right? But in the case of being and good, because they differ in what meaning, right?

[33:03] Being simply. And being in some way are just the reverse. You know the same thing that by by being simply I'm only good in some qualified way, and by my being in some way that I'm good simply, just the reverse. This is a very subtle thing, right? But it shows you how fundamental that distinction is okay. Let's let's see Thomas develop this here and see how he says this.

[33:37] Huh? To the first, therefore, the objection from the great Boethius. To the first, therefore, it should be said that although good and being are the same thing, right? Secundum rem. Nevertheless, because they differ in what meaning or definition, not in the same way is something said to be being simply and being good simply, right? Okay.

[34:08] For being says something properly to be in act, but act, however, properly has in order to what potenciarability. Then, according to this, simply something is said to be a being, according as it is first what distinguished from that which is in potency only, and this is the what substantial being of a thing, huh? Whence, through its substantial being, something is said to be simply without qualification, but through acts that are added above this, right?

[34:51] Something is said to be what? Yeah, secundum quid. That's the Latin word for some way, huh? Not simply. As to be white signifies to be what in some way, right? Not ah for ah

[35:12] for to be white does not take away what potency simply, right? Since it comes to a thing already existing in act. Okay, that sounds you know kind of difficult to understand for us, but just take a simple example of that, right? Um,

[35:29] I came to be in this room today, right? Okay, now would you say that I came to be when I walked in the room? See, once said simply, would you? No. When did I come to be? Why, before. the war. Yeah, when my parents conceived me, I guess, right? God infused my soul and so on, huh? Then I came to be, right? Okay. Um, when I walked into this room, I didn't come to be.

[35:57] I come came to be in this room. You have to qualify it, right? That's a diminishing sense. Huh? You've probably heard the example I use in class a lot. I'll say,

[36:10] if I say to the student, you know, if you leave this room, you will cease to be. Doesn't that sound like a threat? Well, a little bit threatening, right? And suppose the student brings it to court, you know, for threatening the students and so on. I say, well, your honor, all I meant was that if she left the room, she would cease to be in the room.

[36:32] Well, Mister Burquist, no one would understand that for what you said, right? You see, okay. So, my substantial being is being simply, right? My accidental being is being secundum quid in some not simply, but some limitedly qualified way, right? But good is going to be just the reverse now. Good says the meaning of what? Perfect, right? Okay, which is desirable, and consequently, it gives the what notion or thought of what is ultimate or last.

[37:15] Hence, that which is at last perfect is said to be good. What simply? What does not have its last perfection, which it ought to have, although it has some perfection so far as it is not, is not nevertheless perfect simply, nor good simply, but secundum quid, right? So this, you know, we'd say Hitler. You know, was he good? In a certain way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Insofar as he existed, that existence was good, right?

[37:49] Huh? But we call him good simply because of that. I don't know. He had to have virtue or something like that, right? Okay. So, in a way, it's just the reverse with being and good, isn't it? Being simply is what being good in some way, and being good simply is being in some way.

[38:15] Okay. Thus, therefore, according to the first being, which is substantial, something is said to be being simply, but good only what secundum quid in a qualified way, in so far as it is a being, right? But according to its ultimate act, something is said to be being secundum quid and bonum what simply, right? Okay. Thus, therefore, what Boethius said that in things, other is that they are good, and other that they are right, should be understood to refer to what being good and being what simply, right?

[39:03] They're not the same. That's what that's the great Boethius means, right? Actually, you need to ask around to explain what Boethius means or what what Augustine means, even if I know what Aristotle means. so, you know, my rule of thumb: Aristotle means what Thomas says he means.

[39:23] I was looking at I think it was the the the very chapter De Bonitate, where Thomas says about Augustine. Augustine tried to follow Plato as much as he could, right? You know, as far as Plato was was conformable to the faith, right? Huh? You know, where Thomas seems to be following Aristotle more. You know, I don't think Augustine really knew Aristotle's works. You know, but he I don't even know know if he knew Plato.

[39:52] You know, the original I don't think he did, but he said he you know was in contact with those who were unfolding Plato's teaching, right? So he was pretty familiar. With it, that's why why you talk about you see later on you talk about the ideas. So Augustine talks about the ideas in the way that is conforming to the faith, not in the way exactly Plato talks. But you see, he's playing as much as he can out of Plato, right?

[40:17] Okay. But he says, nevertheless, according to the first act, is in some way good, right? Huh? And according to the ultimate or last act, in some way it is what a being, right? Huh? Okay. So I'm said to be when my parents generated me, right? Um, um, I didn't come to be when when I learned geometry, but I did come to be in some way, right? I did come to be a geometer.

[40:49] But when I acquired virtue, if I did, I came to be good, right? But when I was generated, I was good in some way, right? So if you take being and good simply, they're not the same, right? But being simply is in some way good, and being good and good simply is in some way being, right? So they are really the same thing, right? But there's this interesting distinction that Thomas makes, right?

[41:20] And he's looking both at the what the same kind distinction he's making with the what being and with the good, right? And then after seeing the distinction, the same kind distinction in both, he realizes that they're just in a way what contrary, right? Okay. Do you see that? Okay. Do you see how fundamental that distinction is? Again, huh? That particular one of the four or five distinctions I said that are used again and again in philosophy.

[42:02] Okay. Now the second objection was saying that the good informs being, right? We're thinking of the good simply as informing what? I mean, now that you now that you are, why don't you why don't you think about being good now? You know, that's going to be something added, right? Huh? So now that you are simply, why don't you think about being good simply? See, and then that's something added, right?

[42:29] But still, what you're adding there is being in some way too, right? Okay. And that's where he also solves the third objection, right? That good is said according to what more and less, right?

[42:52] According to the what later kind of being, right? Okay. As according to science or virtue, right? So you can be more courageous or less courageous than me, right? You can be wiser or less wise than I am. But can you be more or less than I am? No, say okay.

[43:20] But you can be more or less wise, be more or less courageous, be more or less healthy, or something like that, right? Okay. So the

[43:36] where you find good simply, you find being more or less. Where you find good only in some respect, being simply, you don't find more or less, right? So you can solve that. You can see the way the objections are arranged, right? Because the solution of the first objection helps you see the second and the third, right? That's the teacher does, right? He, you know, in real life, the the the objections might come in any order, right?

[44:04] As people think of them, right? When the teacher orders them, you know, he realizes that the solution of this objection is presupposed the solution of that objection, so he'll put this objection before that objection. It's interesting, Thomas, in the third part of the Summa, when he's asking, you know, whether some of these inferior kinds of knowledge will remain with the beatific vision, right? And he says, "Well, even dialectic remains after you get episteme or science, and you actually you is more perfect because it's more what ordered, right?

[44:40] So if you read Plato's dialogues, right, the conversations in the dialogues are a long way from knowing the truth, and they are oftentimes you know kind of frustrating. They don't you know resolve the thing, and they say the dialogues written to be to be read by students coming into the academy, so you have all these questions you want answered and so on. Well, we don't know how far Plato got, but the dialectic, you might say, the dialogues is not as well ordered as the dialectic that Aristotle has in in the eight books of Natural Hearing and the Nicomachean Ethics.

[45:16] Huh? But after man's arrived at the end, he realizes that some dialectic is more what useful to lead a man to eventually see something, and as you see it here too, you know, it can order it better, right? So dialectic is actually more perfect after you you're sure about what the truth is. So I

[45:39] describe myself now in my own teaching. You know that the more I see the truth, the more I can see those probable things that will lead somebody towards the truth or not, right? But don't do this well. This guy doesn't, guys. Now,

[46:03] second article: whether good. In definition, is before being, right? Okay. Of course, Thomas is going to say the reverse, right? So then he objects to himself, right? Huh?

[46:19] I suppose it's like God just said it. I just like rather man always objects to what he thinks before he goes further. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[46:41] Somebody, my brother Richard, went to college with you know, and he went in fact, got a medical degree. then. He went into psychiatry, you know, he had medical degree. And you talk to him, you know, he's he's he's got the idea that we're all, you know, right at the borderline, you know. Actually, been studying all these all these mental illnesses and so on. Then you go out into the real world, shall we say, and you get tired.

[47:04] And you realize, hey, this guy just about ready to go over the edge. You know, all of us are just you know just that far away. You know, that's the way the world appears to him. At least, maybe it's true. I don't know. We were all that close.

[47:24] To the first to second, one proceeds thus. It seems that good in definition, you might say, huh? secundum rationem is before what being, right? Huh? For the order of names is according to the order of the things signified to the names. But Dionysius, now he's he's a big authority, huh? Among the other names of God, puts good before being. As is clear in the third chapter of the Divine Names, huh?

[48:02] Therefore, good in definition is before being, right? A good, you might say, in our knowledge is before being, right? Okay. So this is again the authority of Dionysius. Moreover, that is before by reason that is more universal that extends to more things, right? But good extends itself to more things than being, because as Dionysius says in the fifth chapter about the divine names, the good extends itself both to existing things and non-existing things, huh?

[48:49] But the being to existing things only. Therefore, good is before in thought or reason than what being, huh? Okay. Moreover, what is more universal? Is what before according to reason? But good seems to be more universal than being, because good has the notion of the desirable. But to some, it's desirable for him not to be. For it is said in Matthew chapter twenty-six, twenty-four, Christ speaking now about Judas.

[49:33] This is the traitor to Israel. It would be good for him if he had not been what born. Terrible. Therefore, good is before being, in definition, right.

[49:50] Moreover, not only is being desirable, but also what life and wisdom and many other things of this sort are desirable, right? Okay. Thus it seems that to be is a particular desirable thing, right? And good, the universal. Therefore, good simply is before by reason. than what being? Okay. So the third and fourth objections have something in common there. They're trying to show that being is, I mean, good is more universal than being, right?

[50:27] How could it be more universal? About being, but you make a good, good, good, good attempt to do it. You show this anyway, right? But against this is what is said in the book De Causis, right? That the first of created things is what to being. I answer: It should be said that being, by definition, or according to reason, is before good, huh? For the definition that is signified by the name is that which the understanding or the reason conceives about the thing, and what it signifies through what words, the vocal sound.

[51:27] Therefore, that is before by reason, which falls before in the what? In the thoughts of the understanding, right? But first, in the thinking of the the concept, conceiving of the understanding falls being. Because as Aristotle shows in the ninth book of Wisdom, each thing is knowable in so far as it is what act. Remember that? Are you showing that with the example? You know the triangle, and you had to draw the line, make it actual before it became understandable, right?

[52:06] Hence, being is the proper object of the understanding, huh? And thus is the first understandable, just as sound is the first hearable. Therefore, by reason, being is before the what good. Okay.

[52:44] We're saying in a sense that something is knowable in so far as it is what an act, right? In so far as it has being, right? And therefore, secundum rationem, talking about the order in our knowing, in a sense, right, is going to come before good in our knowing. It's not knowable. Because it's good, it's knowable because it's actual, right? Okay. You can see that in a geometrical example too.

[53:11] You draw that line; you're thinking of the good there? no, you're making actual something that was there in potency. So when it becomes actual, has more being. It's more of what Knowable, right? So it's knowable in so far as it is being. So it's having being comes first in our knowledge, then it's being what good, okay? It's not knowable because it's desirable, is it? No, it's knowable because it has what being, yeah, it's actual, right?

[53:44] Okay, kind of subtle reason. Now, do you see it a little bit, huh? Yeah. Now he's got to face the objection from the great Dionysius, and of course he himself says that Dionysius he falls short of understanding Dionysius fully. But again, you know a lot of things in Dionysius are misunderstood, big boy. But to the first, therefore, it should be said that Dionysius determines about the divine names according as they what

[54:21] import about God the what relation between them of a cause, right? For we name God, as he himself says, from creatures just as a cause is named from its effect. The good, however, has the what notion of the desirable, right? Or the good, since it has the what

[54:48] meaning of the desirable, implies the what Final cause. relation of the final cause, and that's the cause of the what causa causarum cause of all the other causes being caused right? Whose causality is first? Because the agent does an act except in account of the end. So the agent is a cause because of the end. The carpenter makes a chair because of sitting, right? And from the agent, the matter is moved to form, whence the end is said to be the causa causarum right?

[55:23] Now remember, was it Charles Hall and countless doctoral thesis causa causarum, all about this topic, right? Writes a whole doctoral thesis that the end is causa causarum the cause of causes that the moderns neglect the most, right? Yeah.

[55:40] And thus, in causing, good is before what being, right? Just as the end is before the what form, right? That's why form is so important in metaphysics, right? Because that's the science of being as being. And for this reason, among the names signifying divine causality, first is laid down good, then what being, right? Okay.

[56:08] Let's stop there for a moment. Okay. There's something special about the way in which Dionysus is what considering these names, right? That makes them give the name good before the name what being, right? And that's because you're considering these names according as they what has some connection with God being our cause, right? And good being tap at the cause of causarum huh? But they're going to be there for the most fundamental name, right?

[56:43] Okay. So it shows the great care that these people wrote, huh? This is an amazing thing. One thing I noticed in my study of the fifth book of wisdom, which is the book about the names, right?

[57:03] Well, when he gets to the names of the subject of wisdom, right? The subject of wisdom we learn had learned earlier in the fourth book of wisdom. The the subject is first of all being as being, right? And then afterwards Aristotle shows that it's also about the one. That one and being are the same as convertuntur, right? And even closer than than good and being, right? Okay.

[57:31] So when you get into the middle part of Book Five, which are the names of the subject and the parts of subject, you have the name being and the name one, right? And then the names of the parts of being and the names of the parts of one, right? What order do you think he does it in?

[57:52] Well, he does the name one before the name being, and then the names of the parts of one before the names of the parts of being, huh? I said that's very strange. I said, right? Because in Book Four, when he shows that the subject is being and one, he shows it as being before he shows as one. And when he takes up the subject in Book Six through Ten, he takes up being as being in Book Six through Nine, and then he takes up the one and the many in Book Ten.

[58:24] So the order in Book Six through Ten and in the beginning of Book Four is being before one. Now, when you get to the names, he takes up one before being, and it doesn't seem to be a you know textual accident because not only does he take up one before being, but he takes up the parts of one before the parts of being, the names of those.

[58:47] Why does he do this? Well, might be more than one reason, right? Huh? And there's a couple of things that I see, but kind of special to the way the book is arranged, huh? Aristotle will take up the names of causes first.

[59:13] And then the names of the subject, and then find the names of the properties, like perfect and so on. Okay. And why do we begin with the names of the causes, right? Well, of course, the main name of causes is the word cause itself, right? And he spent all this time in Book Four, in Book One, showing there are four kinds of causes on it. So it's kind of natural to begin with that, right?

[59:38] Those names. And the first name he begins with is the name what beginning. Okay. But then we find out that it's a property of what one to be at the beginning. So because he started from the word beginning among the names of causes, right? So they're appropriate to begin with one among the names of the subject. Because of the affinity between beginning and one, right? Now later on, you get down to the names of the parts of one, and what follow upon them, you get before and after, and so on, and that corresponds to beginning again, okay?

[1:00:15] Now maybe there's another reason there too, because the Aristotle distinguishes the names of the subject, and then the names of the parts of the subject, right? He has three names in subject: substance, being, and one, okay? And now you got a special problem there, right? You've got to you've got to distinguish the meanings of being before the meanings of substance,

[1:00:48] because substance, although it's the chief subject of wisdom, right? and therefore it's put with being in one, nevertheless, in some ways a little more particular than being, right? So you've got to kind of distinguish the meanings of being, among which are the what figures of predication under which is substance, right? Before you you do substance, right? So if you did one after being and and substance, right?

[1:01:16] You'd be a little bit jerky because the meanings of one and being are very similar. Beings are something quite different, So you gotta do being and one together. But you got to do substance right after being, right? What can you do? You see? And maybe one is a little less complicated than being too, so it's a little easier for our mind to do, right? So there seems to be some kind of special reasons, right?

[1:01:42] You see, why he takes up the the word one before being, right? Partly because he's begun with the word beginning, right? You see? And it's kind of striking, though. It's just reverse order of what you have in Book Four when you find out that the subject of wisdom is being and one, right? And when you take out the subject in Books Six through Ten, right? It's always being before one, right?

[1:02:05] But then in the middle, reverse order, right? But I think there's a special reason, right? And I can think of those reasons at least, right? You see? You get the sense of what care Aristotle wrote these things, right? The same way you get the idea you know what care Dionysius has, but also Thomas has an understanding that there's a special reason why Dionysius put good before being in the names of God, right?

[1:02:32] Not because he himself thought that in our understanding the meaning of good is understood before the meaning of being, no. But because he has a particular way of ordering, you know, the names of God insofar as they what pertain to God being our cause, right? God is being named as a what from his effects in a way, right? As a cause of them. And therefore begins from the name that most of all tied up with the cause and the first cause, the end.

[1:03:07] You know, was kind of special reason there, right, for ordering that way. Um. So, was Saint Thomas supposed to thank God among other things for having understood everything he read?

[1:03:27] I don't know. I can't thank God. I should thank God a lot of things, but I can thank him for for having understood everything I read because there is something that I read I haven't understood. But, but you know, he's understood Dionysius, he's understood Augustine, he's understood Boethius, right? You know, and he's probably brought into people who have misunderstood Dionysius or Boethius or Augustine, and there are all kinds of people running around who still haven't understood them.

[1:03:52] Okay. Okay. Um. Now, you got to realize that Dionysius is more in the Platonic tradition than in the Aristotelian tradition, right? Okay. I think I mentioned earlier today the De Veritate, where Thomas was quoting Augustine. So Augustine tries to follow Plato as far as he can,

[1:04:26] so long as what Plato still conforming to the faith, right? Okay. So he kind of adopts the Platonic ways of speaking, right? He speaks more like a like a Platonist, right? Okay. And that's why I say I think a certain you know reasonable belief in Plato as a philosopher. Um, you get that from the authority of Augustine as a Catholic, right? And and the reasonableness of believing Aristotle to some extent, right?

[1:04:55] Because of Thomas, right? You know. But in the case of Dionysius, he's he's more speaking like a Platonist, right? And you have to understand that he's kind of stretching, and to a certain extent, the Aristotelian might say that, right? To make this way of speaking, use Plato as far as you can, right? Okay. And that's what Thomas says. And also because, according to the Platonists, right, They couldn't do Platonicals, right,

[1:05:27] who not distinguishing matter from privation, right? Remember Aristotle? We saw it, didn't we, in the first book of Natural Hearing? The confusion and the Platonists between matter and what? Privation. Privation, right? You can kind of see how they would do that, right?

[1:05:46] Um. Because if you are distinguishing between matter and form, considering them you know separately in your mind, then you are thinking of matter without form, and therefore matter is being formless, right? Okay. But Aristotle says.

[1:06:06] Matter and this formless are not the same thing, right? Because the matter is not as such non-being, but the lack of form, right? As such, is non-being, huh? Okay. And the matter, in a way, is what desires form. It's perfected by form, but make no sense for lack of form to desire form, right? So the Aristotelian would want to distinguish between matter and lack of form more than the Platonists, huh?

[1:06:39] And there is a great danger in confusing matter and lack of form, because the lack of form, in a way, seems to be opposed to form, and form is something good and desirable. Therefore, the lack of form seems to be something bad. So, if you don't distinguish between matter and what lack of form, you are going to think of matter as something what bad or evil. And if you if you look at Plotinus, right, he he speaks that way that matter is evil, right?

[1:07:06] Well, now you are into the Manichean position, really, because it's a very dangerous thing, right? Huh? Okay. But Dionysius and Augustine are trying to use Plato as much as they can, and and they have something of his way of speaking, right? Huh? Okay. So and it's important he says, who not distinguishing matter from privation, right? Huh? Okay. Say that matter is non-being, right? Okay. Now, simply speaking, that's not true, right?

[1:07:38] But you could say in some way, right? It's not it's non-being an act, right? Huh? And so on, huh? Um. No, if you read some of these passages of Augustine, he talks about the first matter, right? If I could say it's a something that is a nothing, or a nothing that is a something, that's what I would say. You know, if you realize it's not exactly, you know, altogether clearly saying, right?

[1:08:03] But it's a rather strange reality, right? See, but he's not in a sense distinguishing clearly between the matter and the what lack of form, right? Okay.

[1:08:18] So, because they don't distinguish between matter and privation or lack of form, they say matter to be non-being, right? Okay. And then they extend to more things the partaking of good and partaking of being. For the first matter partakes of the good since it desires it, right?

[1:08:39] For nothing desires something unless it be in some way like itself, right? Um, but does not partake of being since they lay it down to be non-being, right? So, Aristotelian would have to say but it is being but being to say, but it is being, but being inability, right?

[1:08:56] And therefore Dionysius says that good extends to what non-existing things, huh? Okay. Now, as Aristotelian, I don't think Thomas, you know, thinks that's the best way of speaking about this. But he's willing to go along with Dionysius and Augustine's way of speaking, right? Which is closer to the Platonic way of speaking, right?

[1:09:21] But strictly speaking, you'd have to say that matter is what being an ability, right? So even if matter is in some way good, it's not as if it's not being in some way, right? But it's not as good as act and form. That's where St. Thomas says there that form is something God-like, right? Because God is pure act. huh? But insofar as abilities for the sake of form, it partakes of something of the goodness of form.

[1:09:59] So why don't you take a... A little break, is it too early? A little break after the injection. Yeah. A little break. Okay. For going to a second injection.