Prima Pars
27. Summa Theologiae I, Q.6, aa.1–3: God Is Good, the Highest Good, and Good by His Essence
Class of 2006-03-30
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[0:02] In the. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God our enlightenment. Guardian angels, open the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more quickly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Amen. Help us to understand all that you've written. Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. So we begin question six here in the prima pars? Then one asks about the goodness of God, huh?

[0:40] And about this, four things are asked. First, whether to be good belongs to God. Secondly, whether God is the highest good, summum bonum. Third, whether He alone is good through His essence or nature. And fourth, whether all things are good by the divine goodness, huh?

[1:16] Okay. Now it's easy to see why to be good would come before being the sumum bonum, right, in the order of those articles. But I think I mentioned how in the Summa Theologiae Summa Contra Gentiles, rather, he shows that God is good per summe at least that he said he's ipsa bonitas. Before he shows that God is the what summum bonum, but here the order is different, huh?

[1:47] Although perhaps the theorem is not exactly the same thing as saying it's ipsa bonitas, but it's very similar, right? And then whether all things are good by the divine goodness that would obviously be placed forth, huh?

[2:08] So whether to be good belongs to God, to the first one proceeds. Thus, it seems that to be good does not belong to God,

[2:19] for the thought of good consists in mode, species, and order. In fact, we had an article on that subject in a previous question. But these do not seem to belong to God, since God is immensus which means what? Yeah. Or we could say infinite, right? Okay, but immensus means not measurable not measurable. And he's not ordered to anything,

[2:50] so he doesn't have mode, species, and order. therefore, he's not good. Therefore, to be good does not belong to what to God, huh? Moreover, the good is what all want. That's the definition of first definition of the good. But not, but all things do not want God.

[3:17] Ah, because all things do not know him. Ah, but nothing is wanted unless it be what known. Ah, so. Therefore, to be good does not belong to God.

[3:42] But against this is what is said in the what's that limitations, Lamentations Ah God is good to those hoping in Him. Right, to the soul that is what seeking Him. Ah. I answer: It should be said that to be good, especially, most of all, belongs to what God. Ah.

[4:14] For something is good as it is desirable, but each thing, however, desires its own what perfection. Ah. Now at this point you'd think that Thomas would say what, but God is perfect as we showed back in the what fourth question I guess, and therefore He's good, right? That'd be the simplest way to do it. Yeah, but instead he gives a little kind of roundabout way of doing it.

[4:47] Huh? Shame on him! Right? Huh? We do this. But the perfection and the form of the effect, ah, is a certain likeness of the agent, ah, since every agent makes or does what is like itself, ah.

[5:14] Now sometimes we manifest that by what induction, right? So when the two dogs get together, do they make a cat? No, they make a dog, right? Huh? And the two cats get together, do they make an elephant? No, they make something like themselves, a cat, right?

[5:36] And you see that when you add, subtract, multiply, or divide, right, two numbers come together and you get a what? Yeah. And when you syllogize, two statements come together and you get a what? Yeah. So you can't see it inductively, right? Some might say, yeah, but. The carpenter, who's a man, makes a what Chair. chair, but now he's making the chair not by nature but by art, and he has the idea of what a chair is, so he's making something like what he has in his art.

[6:18] So in a more subtle way, he's still making what, like like itself, yeah. Okay. Now, when you go back to the distinction between act and ability, ability now in the passive sense, huh? You can say by your ability to receive, you don't give but you receive. But what is given is like what act, huh? So something gives in so far as it's in what act, act, yeah.

[6:54] And so act is something giveable, okay? So the cookie press, you know, gives its shape to the dough, right? It is able to receive that, huh? So every agent is going to make what is like itself and like the act that it is, huh? What's the old saying? It's more divine to give than to receive.

[7:16] But that's because God is pure act, right? He's not able to receive anything but only to to give, huh? So since everything then seeks its perfection, and the form of the effect is a certain likeness of the agent, right? Hence, the agent itself is what desirable, right? And has the aspect of the good. For this is what is desired about it that one might partake of its what likeness, huh?

[7:53] Okay, and that in particular is true about God too, huh? I know, you know, we already Shakespeare's exhortation to use reason didn't we? And when you're giving the reasons, why would you use our reason, right? And we say, well, there's one reason in comparison to the beast If you don't use it you fall in love with the beast. And there's two reasons in comparison to man himself, huh?

[8:17] That getting our chief good depends upon using reason, and only in this way can we be true to ourselves. And then I say there are two reasons in comparison to God, huh? We say, sure, he that made us with such large discourse gave us not that capability and godlike reason to fust in us unused. We say this is God's plan for us to use reason. He gave us reason to use, so we're obeying God's plan for us.

[8:43] And then when he says reason is godlike we're becoming like God, right? But after you talk about those two, then you say, hey, there's a connection between the two. That God's plan for us is to become what, like Him, yeah, Yeah, yeah. And then that's like St. John says in the epistle there, right? We know that He appears, we shall be like Him. For we shall see him as he is.

[9:07] So he's talking here about the what? One is seeking the likeness. When you say God makes everything for Himself, it doesn't mean He gets anything out of it. But it means He's trying to make everything what? Like Himself. He's trying to share His goodness with us.

[9:29] So he's showing how the agent now is what desirable, right? The Maker, huh? Because each thing desires its own perfection, its own perfection, its own actuality comes from the agent. So it desires to be like the agent, right? But we saw in the second question about the existence of God that God is the first what? Efficient cause of all things, huh? Whence is manifest that it belongs to Him the notion of good and desirable, right?

[9:59] Okay. And now the pernicious influence of Dionysius again, right? Right. He speaks this way. Once Dionysius, in the book about the divine names, attributes good to God as to the first efficient cause, saying that God is said to be good as that from which all things what subsist, right? Okay. So he's obviously thinking in the way that Dionysius thinks in that particular treatise. Huh? There is one way of bringing out that God is good.

[10:32] It kind of strikes me that he uses that a little more roundabout way than to just argue directly that God is perfect. The perfect is good or desirable, and therefore, right. But I suppose it makes more sense to say that the creature wants the good than that God wants the good, huh? Because want means almost the what lack, yeah, yeah. It's kind of interesting when when you teach the dialogue of Plato, the Symposium, huh?

[11:06] And Socrates is trying to give a speech about love, right? And everybody else has been praising love as one of the gods, huh? And how beautiful and magnificent love is, huh? And Socrates reasons in this way. He says, if you love something, right, then you want it, and if you want it, you lack it. Therefore, if you love something, you lack it, and since you love the good and the beautiful, then the love must be lacking the good and beautiful.

[11:39] And and most people say they think the reasoning is good, right? Okay. Well, then I say, yeah, but then God is love, as Saint John says, right? Then God would be lacking in goodness and beauty, and so on. Well, you could say that in one of the premises of Socrates, it isn't necessarily true, though has some probability, and that is that if you love something, you want it.

[12:08] Well, you you want it when you lack what you love, right? But if you already have what you love, then you have pleasure or delight, joy, but not wanting, huh? So it's interesting. The English word "want" I think more than the Latin word "desire" can mean desire, but it can also mean lack, huh? So if I say to my students, you know, you're sadly wanting, I don't mean you're sadly wanting to know, but you're sadly lacking something that you should have in your education, right?

[12:42] Um. So if you define the good as what all want, you see, well then, um, and you take wanting in the strict sense, where you lack what you want, then does God want himself? No, and Thomas will say the only things you have in God are love and joy, right? Okay. You can't have wanting or hoping or anything that that imply that God lacks and doesn't have what he loves, huh?

[13:19] Okay. So maybe if if you insist him more upon, you know, want, you want to go back to creature and reason from that back to God, but but nevertheless, he could have reasoned more directly, huh? I'll talk to him when I get up there about that.

[13:36] Burke was revised edition. No, but it's kind of interesting, you know, if you compare this with other texts, he might argue directly in some other texts, you know, and and so on, so.

[13:53] I think if I remember right, in the second article, he's going to argue very much on efficient cause too. So the first article prepares the way very much for the second article, okay? And he's going to, so there may be some, you know, reasons, you know, when you get a little bit further in the text away you'll see why I did it that way. Thomas will tell, me right?

[14:14] He had a point, but it wasn't exactly. You're not looking at the whole picture, you know. Okay. So now the first objection was that good consists in mode, species, and order, and God doesn't have any what? He's not measured. He's outside. He'd be outside all that. What? He'd be outside all that, like he's not in a species, he's not in order. It's interesting, The great Plato in his last work, you know, you know, he says, you know, he says Protagoras is wrong in saying man is the measure of all things, right?

[14:56] He said rather God is the measure of all things, right? But then God himself is not what measured. Now Thomas Sauls is very interesting by pointing out that mode, species, and order is what pertains to created good, huh? So Augustine's talking about the created good there, not good, period. To the first, therefore, should be said that to have mode, species, and order pertains to the notion of caused good, right?

[15:29] Okay. But the good is in God as in a cause, right? Whence to him it pertains to impose upon others, right? To place upon others mode, species, and order, right? That's what Scripture says. I made all things and and yeah, yeah, the sense of things. Whence these three things are in God as in a what? Cause.

[16:02] So, I don't know if that was clear from the article back in the previous question that this is what about caused blood, right? And not about the other. right Incidentally, I was thinking at the end there of Julius Caesar, there, where he says that you know he was what the elements were so mixed in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world this was a man.

[16:32] When you say that the elements were so mixed in him, you're talking about that what modus, huh? You say there was nothing excessive, right? If you had too much fire, and you say you might be choleric, right? If you had too much water, you might be phlegmatic or something, you know. But they were well balanced, you know, and and so he was a man, right? You know, nature would stand up.

[16:58] Now, the second objection was saying that the good is what all want, but the objector says not all want God, right? In part because they don't know God. Now, to the second, it should be said that all, in desiring their own perfections, desire God Himself, in so far as what the perfections of all things are certain likenesses of the divine what being, right? So through every what perfection form, one is a certain being, and therefore one is like God, who is I am, who am, right?

[17:36] Huh? Okay. And you may recall that from the first book of Natural Hearing, first book of the so-called Physics, where Aristotle is reasoning against Plato from a common understanding that he and Plato have that form is something godlike, good and desirable, right? And the reason why we say form is godlike rather than matter because God is pure act, and form is some is a kind of act, while matter is much more distant likeness, something because it's not act but ability.

[18:12] And thus, of those things which desire God, some know Him by Himself or in Himself, right? And this is what private to the rational creature, that meaning us and the angels, huh? Some know Him, some know some partakings of His goodness, which also extends in a way to what sensible knowledge, huh? But some have a what natural desire without knowledge, because they are inclined to their ends from some superior what knower, right?

[18:49] Okay. But Thomas does have much more in the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? That in desiring our own what perfection. We are desiring to be like God, so the way we're desiring God. So the ultimate thing is is being desired as God. He'll stop make that same point when he's commenting in the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics when Aristotle. He's a little induction, and he says, "Hence they say, well, the good is what all want.

[19:17] You can take that good in general, right? But you can also take the good that is God Himself. That we all, in some way, want that. And so even the sinner, in a way, is seeking to be like God in kind of what perverse way. And you know that scriptural passage that they take as referring to the devil. You know, I'll be like him. You know, I'll ascend to heaven, and then he falls.

[19:45] You know, the Ernst Cassirer, one of his last book there was the essay on man, and of course Cassirer is kind of a famous neo-Kantian philosopher. Came from Germany, and then he finally settled down at Yale, and he wrote a lot of interesting books, but. One of his last books is the Essay on Man, right? And he makes know thyself is the end of philosophy, okay? And so I think he misunderstands the place of know thyself in philosophy.

[20:17] Know thyself is really pretty the beginning of philosophy. Know what you are and what's good for you, and know what you know and what you don't know, and so on. But he makes that the very end goal, right? Well, I guess perverse, really. But in trying to know ourselves, we're trying to be in some way like God, because God knows himself, and by knowing himself, he knows everything else, right?

[20:42] So if we seek as our final goal to know ourselves, then we're seeking to be like God, okay? But in a kind of perverse way, and the same thing is true about you know Marxism. Karl Marx says that in transforming the world, man in a sense sees himself in his own man-made world. So the end of man is not just to transform the world, but to see himself in the world that he's transformed.

[21:15] To see himself as the beginning, the end of all he knows. To see himself as a kind of God, right? Okay. But you could ask the question: Are we more like God when we know ourselves, since God knows himself primarily, or are we more like God when we know God?

[21:41] Because actually, when we're like God by knowing ourselves, it's kind of a proportional likeness, right? We're not really knowing the same thing. Or knowing God, we're knowing the very thing that God knows.

[21:55] And when Thomas gives the order theology, he says that we imitate in a distant way the way God knows, huh? So in revealed theology, the first thing we consider, like we're considering here, is God, right? Then we consider other things in relation to God, huh? So we're imitating God's way of knowing. By knowing himself, he knows other things. Unlike philosophy, where you don't really know God until the last part, the last part of philosophy.

[22:22] And then in the last books of the first philosophy, you know God to some extent. We're trying to be more like God. But when we see God as He is, we'll see other things in seeing Him too. We'll be much more closely like Him than we are in this book here. But so even those people who perversely, I think, like Feuerbach or like Karl Marx, or it might be, who want to make self-knowledge be the end, right?

[22:53] But still, they're seeking to be like God in a certain way, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Feuerbach you know, told you the syllogism, right? The human mind is infinite. The infinite is God. He takes, he quotes a theologian. They say the infinite is God. The human mind is infinite. Therefore, right? Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. And so there is different senses of the word infinite, of course. But it kind of strikes me, you know, you know, in the first book of Natural hearing, Aristotle, you know, points out that Melissus is mixing up two senses of infinite.

[23:35] Who is who? Melissus. Okay. And Melissus is reasoning that being, I had no what was not generated, had no beginning, therefore it has no end. Therefore, it's infinite, right? Aristotle says, "Well, it's one thing, one meaning of beginning and end would be in time; another would be in what size, right? " And he reasons from its having no beginning and no end, apparently in time, it was neither generated nor corrupted, but therefore it's what infinite.

[24:06] Yeah, yeah. So he's obviously going from two different senses of infinite, right? But then you know you find the 19th century Feuerbach going from two different senses of infinite to making the same kind of mistake, but with the same word that Melissus is doing in the very, you know, Aristotle picks it on the very, very kind of crude thinking, you know, and Melissus is part, but that is the first philosophers, and you return to this crude thinking in the 19th century and beyond, huh?

[24:42] I mean, in a sense, when you say that our mind is infinite, you mean in a way, in part that we can always learn something more. You don't mean that there is no limit to what we know. All kinds of limits to what we know. But they

[24:59] have a little bit of a little bit of pride and arrogance, right? To to be to find these arguments satisfactory, you know, to base your your life on.

[25:11] Okay, so we're convinced now that God is good, huh? Okay. Now the question is whether He's the sumum bonum, huh? Which I guess would mean the what the highest good, right? Summum means highest, right? Mhm.

[25:28] Used to have an exclusive girls' school there in Summit Avenue in St. Paul, Summit. Yeah, yeah. Very snooty and so on. Okay. I guess means highest, right? Looked down upon the rest of us mortals. Huh?

[25:46] The second one proceeds thus: It seems that God is not the highest good, huh? Just got hard to argue against these propositions, huh? For sumum bonum adds something above good, right? Otherwise, it would belong to every good, right? But everything that has something from addition to something is composed. Therefore, the highest good is composed. But God is completely simple, right? Which

[26:25] has been shown above. Therefore, God is not the highest good. Okay. You could say the same thing about God is the first cause, huh? Okay. God is not the first cause because first add something to cause, so the first cause is composed, right? Of cause and first, But cause is altogether simple, therefore, Right? You can have a lot of fun arguing these ways, huh? Okay.

[26:56] Ah. Further, the good is what all want, as the philosopher says. That's Aristotle in the beginning of the *Nicomachean Ethics*, where he says this.

[27:09] But there's there's nothing other that all want except God alone, who is the end of all. Therefore, nothing else, nothing else is good except God. But also seems through what is said in Matthew chapter 19, verse 17, where Christ says, "No one is good except God alone." Huh? Then someone called Christ there, seeing his humanity. You know, you're good, right? He said, "Don't call me good. You know, God alone is good, right?

[27:41] Why do you call me good?" But sumum or highest is said in comparison of other things, just as the hottest things, the summa caliDum, in comparison to other hot things, right? So could you be most hot, most the hottest thing if there's nothing else that was hot besides you? Huh? It wouldn't mean much, but.

[28:08] Because hottest means what? Hotter than all the rest, right? So there's got the other things that are hot, but you can be hotter than, so you can be the hottest, huh? Okay.

[28:21] It's kind of puzzling that God alone is good, right? Instead of me. We'll see a little bit. Moreover, highest impor implies a certain comparison, right? But things which are not of one genus are not able to be compared. Just as sweetness, for example, which is a quality, right, is unsuitably said to be more or less than a line, right.

[28:51] Since therefore God is not in the same genus with other goods, as is clear from above, not in any genus for that matter, it seems that God cannot be said to be the highest good with respect to them. Right?

[29:09] Okay. Now, who's going to argue against this? But against this is what Augustine says, right, in the first book about the Trinity, that the Trinity of the divine persons is the summum bonum, the highest good, which is discerned by the most what Purg purged minds. Okay. In a sense, purgation and purification, I guess, are almost the same thing. But purgation is more the idea of removing something bad, right, and therefore rendering what is left purified.

[29:43] Right. Purified means more to make pure, right? But it's kind of two sides of the same coin. Sometimes in ethics, they always speak of the purgation or catharsis of the emotions, which means removing something bad from them, right? But therefore. Rendering the emotions pure or purified.

[30:08] I answer: It should be said that God is the summum bonum What? Simpliciter, now you understand a little bit what somepliciter means, right? Without any qualification, right? Okay. So we can call Aristotle the philosopher, the summus philosophus, right? But you can't call him, you know, the sumum simpliciter. okay? Or Homer or Shakespeare, somebody is is a highest poet. So God is the highest good simply and not only in some genus or order of things, huh?

[30:47] For thus good is attributed to God, as has been said, insofar as all perfections desired, right, flow out from Him, right, as from a first cause, huh?

[31:02] But they do not flow out from Him as from a univocal agent, as is clear from the foresaid. Now, what do you mean by univocal agent?

[31:13] Well, when a dog produces a dog, right, or a cat produces a cat, or a horse a horse, right, then the what? Cause and the effect same in kind. Yeah, yeah. But God is more what we call an equivocal cause, right? Okay.

[31:33] But as from an agent that does not come together with the effects, neither in the notion of the species, right, nor even in the notion of the what? Genus, yeah. Okay. Was it the ass that is the offspring of what? A Horse and a mule? Mule, mule, mules. Ass, but yeah, yeah, yeah. They're exactly the same species, but the same genus, right? You know. But God, neither in species nor in genus, huh, agrees with his effects, huh?

[32:09] Um. Now the likeness of the effect and the and the univocal cause is found uniformly, right? In the same way, but in the equivocal cause, it's found in a more excellent way, right? And taking from the ancient natural science, as heat exists in more excellent way in the sun than in fire.

[32:35] I suppose it's even true to some extent of what we think about the the fire, right, the sun, right. And Aristotle rejected the idea of Anaxagoras that the sun is a stone on fire. It would have burned out a long time ago.

[32:54] But you think of how much warmth and energy the sun produces. And they say we're about what ninety three million miles away from the sun. So if you imagine kind of a sphere, you know, ninety three million miles diameter or radius, right? And we're occupying how much of that sphere? Practically nothing, right? It's a huge, sphere. And and so it's emitting that kind of radiation, you know.

[33:21] And then how all dependent we are upon the sun for the day being warmer and for all kinds of energy that's you know built up from the sun over a course of years and so on. It's amazing, right? And so, not surprising that we'd see that the sun is being warm in some different way than a stone on the fire. So, I guess Heisenberg's pupil there. They say Weizsäcker is the one who kind of explained the sun in the twentieth twentieth century, where the sun can what's going on up there?

[33:56] They can put forth that way, and it's incredible. It's just unbelievable. Thus, therefore, is necessary that since good is in God as in a first cause of all things, but not a univocal cause, right? That it be in Him in the most what excellent way, right? And in account of this, He is called the what good, yeah. So maybe Thomas argued that roundabout way he did in the first article because the way he's going to argue in the second article and one naturally what leads into the other, right?

[34:36] You don't want to confuse you with too many different what arguments, right? But giving an argument in the first article, there would have continuity with the argument in the second one, right? So you could follow one as a stepping stone to the other, right? So it's nice of him to do that, right? Yeah, yeah.

[35:00] You know, I know it's taking the Summa Contra Gentiles huh if he shows something in in one capitulum, little chapters they call them, and then he has you know the next chapter he's going to show something else, and he may have you know seven or eight arguments he's going to show it by. But very often the first argument would directly take off from the previous the conclusion of the previous chapter, right?

[35:20] So you make a link right away, you know, and then he'll bring another arguments that are not directly you know immediately linked to that conclusion. That's kind of a way of writing that is appropriate, I think, for the for the learner, right? It's not for the teacher himself. It's only for the learner, right? You see continuity there.

[35:40] Of course, in geometry, you could well. That's probably all he does, right? You know, he only gives you one argument, maybe maybe for the next next theorem, right? And the maybe the theorem directly before it, the conclusion of the theorem directly before it will be used as a premise in this argument here. You've heard me call those continuous syllogisms, right? Where the conclusion of one syllogism. Is the premise and the next syllogism?

[36:09] Now, the first objection was saying this is something composed sumum bonum, right? But you're looking upon the word sumum there as adding something what real to the good, right? And maybe you are. mistaken. Yes, thinking. yeah, That's adding something to reason. The first, therefore, it should be said that sumum bonum adds over and above good, not some absolute thing. Now, Thomas uses the word absolute. He's always contrasting absolute with what?

[36:46] Relative, yeah, you know. People don't people mean to when they speak of absolutely good or absolutely this, absolutely that. But absolute is always taken as kind of the opposite of relative, right? Yeah, that means distinguishing the categories there, right? Distinguishing quantity and quality from relation, right? And you'll use the word absolute talking about quantity and quality. Okay. So it adds only a relation, but now relation is what sometimes only a relation of what reason, yeah.

[37:24] And relation by which something is said of God towards creature is not what. Reason. Really in God, but in the creature. But in God, by what reason? And then he gives the example which Aristotle first taught us. Just scibile, scientifically knowable, you might say, is said relatively to science, not because it really is referred to it, but because science is referred to it. Okay.

[38:02] And thus is necessary, and thus it is not necessary that in the highest good there be some composition, but only that other things what fall short of it, huh? Okay. So it's not adding a what

[38:20] anything but a relation and a relation of reason, right? The same when you say, I suppose God is the first cause, right? First is what said towards creatures, right? But there's no real relation of God towards creatures, huh? In a wholly different. He's not in the order of creatures at all, but we're really related to him, and our mind can't understand one thing being really related to another without understanding that thing relative to it, right?

[38:54] But that other one is can be just a relation of reason sometimes, huh? All kinds of relations of reason, Thomas, in the De Potentia most complete distinction of them.

[39:15] It's a very difficult thing to distinguish between real relations and relations of what reason. Because finally, when we talk about God as even a cause, when we talk about the causality of God, finally, is not something more.

[39:33] It's real when when you look at it from our point of view. He's yeah, but nevertheless, when you talk about it as God, there is something of reason. Yeah, yeah, but we we really depend upon him, right? Yeah, that's why it's real from our point. of view. So it's truly said to him that. He's our cause, right? But still, that relative towards us is not a what?

[39:53] It's not real. And yeah, real something really added to God, because then God would be composed. Then you'd have an accident, right? Okay. That's very hard for us to, you know, understand when you first hear that, you know. But, as Aristotle first discovered there were these relations that are only a reason, huh? And, you know, when you say Socrates is Socrates, Socrates is the same as Socrates. That's a relation of reason, because there's only two Socrates in the mind, right?

[40:19] Think of it twice. Or Thomas will take, you know, the idea that left and right is something real in us, right? But if I say, you know, the left pillar and the right pillar, that's not really in the pillar. So there's nothing more by this is left and that's right. But it's said in reference to us, right? Okay.

[40:44] I used to say, you know, that I'm taller than Tabitha, our cat, huh? Much bigger than Tabitha, right? I'm convinced that's a real relation between Tabitha and me. And if I was the Tabitha, like a toy soldier, would be in size to Tabitha, right? Tabitha would be what? I'd be the hunter. instead of the hunter, right? I'd be in real trouble with that Tabitha if I was that size, you know.

[41:10] I was, I got a little bit of respect because of my science from her, huh? That's it. So, I was really bigger than her, right? That's very important for my survival. Survival.

[41:27] This is movie, you know, the Incredible shrinking man. the guy who took the wrong thing he's so small, he's always eaten by the family of cats, you know. It's a horrible thing, to yeah. So, some relations are real. When we learn theology, that's the teacher that we had mentioned. He just mentioned it in passing that this what you're talking about in God is not a real relation.

[42:00] As cause, he referred to it when we speak of either way of that relation. He said it's it's a non- mutual relation with me, because it's not the same. It's not the same. Yeah, it's a real relation. on our part, but not the same. We have a non- mutual relationship with God. You're kidding. Okay. Now, the second part is explaining a little bit. First of all, what we mean by the good is what all desire, right?

[42:30] The second, therefore, it should be said that when it is said that the good is what all desire, it not it should not be understood as if each good is what desired by all, right? Okay. But that whatever is desired has the aspect of being good, huh? But when it is said that no one is good except God alone, right? This is understood about what is good through its way.

[43:01] essence, as will be said later. That's the subsequent article, right? Okay. So that's the way he's understanding what our word means, huh? Okay. He's not denying that we partake of good in some way, but we're not good through essence, huh? That's the way God is.

[43:25] Now to the third, which is the argument about comparison. To the third, it should be said that those things which are not in the same genus,

[43:36] if they are what contained in other genera, right? In no way are comparable, right? You can't compare things that are in different genera. But God

[43:52] is denied to be in some genus with other goods, not that he himself is in some other genus, but because he is altogether outside the genus, right? And is as the what beginning of every genus, huh? And thus, being the principium or the cause of all the genera, he is compared to all of them by what excess in the way that an equivocal cause, you know, it exceeds its effects, huh?

[44:23] And and highest good or greatest good implies this kind of a what comparison, right, huh? Okay. So it's not like he's more more wise than us in what the same line of wisdom, or he knows more theorems of geometry than I know or something. No, but his knowledge is of entirely a different kind, not in, doesn't have the confined generic nature of my geometry, huh? Okay. Now the third article, whether to be good essentially or by essence or nature is what private to God, right?

[45:13] Okay. So there's a little problem how to translate proprium, you know, but it has a lot of times the sense of being what unique to, right? Private to, huh? Okay. Sometimes you speak of the bonum commune and the bonum proprium. Should that be translated the common good and the proper good, or the common good and the private good? I think is the way it should be translated, right?

[45:38] Okay. Now sometimes it seems almost you should translate proprium proper, but I think it's very often it should be translated private, and those people tend to kind of transliterate it in English to make it proper, but then they would make the other one maybe improper, right? Yeah. Yeah. My common the common good is my improper good. God is my improper good, or the church is my. You know that's exactly what you mean, huh?

[46:07] For just as one is, okay, it seems it to be good through essence or through its nature is not a property of God, right? It's not private to God. For just as one is convertible with being, so also good, as has been said above, huh? These are among the what most universals, huh? Right now, I was giving you that what idea that if you don't understand the most universal, you don't understand anything.

[46:39] What I argued? If you don't, you can't understand the less universal. So, unless you understand the more universal, so you can't understand what an odd number is if you don't understand what a number is. But you can understand what a number is without knowing what an odd number is.

[46:57] Of course, something can be what more universal than one thing, but less universal than something else. And so, what is most universal, right? Then, if you can't understand the less universal, the more universal. If you don't understand the most universal, you don't understand anything. Of course, first philosophy is about the most universal. So, if you don't know first philosophy, you don't know anything. Okay, and

[47:27] some truth to that, right? But likewise, if there is nothing most universal, you wouldn't understand anything. Because if you have to understand the more universal before you can understand the less universal. There'd be an infinity of what things to understand before you understand anything. So, anyway, we're back to some of these most universal things like being and one, which is convertible with being, right? And good. Now, sometimes you find people referring to those as the transcendentals, right?

[47:59] But transcendental means transcends. What does it transcend? It transcends the the ten genera, right? You know, okay. But every being is one through its own what essence, huh? As is clear through the philosopher in the fourth book of wisdom in the metaphysics. Therefore, every being is good through its essence, huh? This becomes interesting what comes up in this objection because you see how one is closer to a being, right?

[48:35] Than what maybe good is, huh? And of course Aristotle says the subject of wisdom or first philosophy is being and one, and then good and true are more like properties, you know. But there's a reason to take you know one is being closer to that.

[48:55] But every being is good through its. Okay, therefore every being is good through its essence, right? Just as it's one through its essence. huh? Okay.

[49:08] Moreover, if the good is what all want, what all desire, since to be itself is desired by all, the to be itself of each thing, or its being, is its good, right? But each thing is being through its what? Essence. Therefore, each thing is good through its essence. That's pretty convincing, right? There's a lot of times you read these objections you say, If I only had the objections, or someone given me, you know, I might have got along with this.

[49:47] And they said that Voltaire, you know, went through and grabbed the objections, you know, and used them on his Catholics he ran into. You know, because they were, if you could handle these objections. So... So... So... So... So... So... I read somewhere, you know, somebody praising the some of the early fathers, you know, for holding on to the faith despite certain objections that they couldn't answer.

[50:14] Most people couldn't answer these objections, right? And even if you're a student, you know, sometimes some of these objections kind of shake up for a while, anyway. Sometimes for a long time.

[50:27] Moreover, everything through its own goodness is good. If, therefore, there be something that is not good through its own essence, it would be necessary that its goodness not be its what essence, right? Therefore, that goodness, since it is a certain being, it would be necessary that it be good, right? And if it were good by another goodness, then one ask also about that goodness. Either, therefore, we must proceed forever, or we don't have to come to some goodness which is not good to another goodness.

[51:11] Therefore, we're not there the same reason, therefore, we're not to stand in the very first and say it's good by its what essence, right? Therefore, each thing, therefore, is good through its own what essence, huh? We touched upon something like that earlier, didn't we? About you know things are said to be what

[51:36] is by existence exists. Then I have to have an existence for my existence, right? And then you'd ask, does that existence of my existence exist? And that's an existence for the existence of you know. So you get into a certain problem, right? Okay.

[51:57] But if you say that my existence exists through itself, then why can't I exist through myself, right? My existence exists through itself, but my existence doesn't exist

[52:09] in the way I do. Is I'm the existing thing, and my existence exists because it's that by which I exist, not because it the thing that exists. So there's a distinction, right, between the way it exists and I exist, right? Okay, that kind of sort of thing, but that kind of mix-up, you know, may be going on in this objection, but we'll see.

[52:32] But against this is what Boethius says in the book De Hebdomadibus, which Thomas has a little commentary on. That all other things from God are good by what participation? Yeah, which means by partaking, right, by having a part, not therefore through their what essence, huh? Okay.

[52:55] Now I answer. It should be said. That God alone is good through His what essence, through His nature, through His substance. I was going to explain. For each thing is said to be good according as is perfect. That's why we should use that first. I recall, right? Not in the most direct way of doing it, right? In terms of what had gone before, right? You know, in the question about God being perfect, right?

[53:26] Then this would be the next step, right? But Thomas seems to be looking after it than before, which you know he's going to do afterwards, huh? Before. But the perfection of each thing is threefold, huh? First, according as it is constituted in its very what being or existence. Secondly, in so far as there are added in addition to it some accidents, right? Necessary for its what perfect operation, right?

[54:06] Okay, so I had to add to myself geometry and justice and many accidents, right, to make myself more perfect than I was when I came out of my mother's womb, right? Okay.

[54:19] The third perfection of something is through this that it attains something else as its end, right? And now he gives a concrete example here from the old science. As the first perfection of fire consists in its what to be, huh, in its being existence, which it has through its own what substantial form. The second consists in these accidents, right, in its hotness, its lightness, right, its dryness, huh, and those of this sort.

[54:56] Third, in so far as it reaches its own place, right, as it rests in its own place, huh? Now he says this threefold perfection belongs to nothing created by its very essence, but to God alone. Because only in God is His essence His own what existence, right? Okay. And to Him there does not belong any accidents, as we saw in the question on the simplicity of God, right?

[55:32] So whatever perfection we have by these additional accidents, like to be wise or just, God has through His what substance, right? Okay. So God's the divine nature has judgment. You know the human nature has no judgment. You got to have all these things added to you before you can judge whether you know the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the squares contained by the right angle, right?

[55:59] I got to have this geometry added to me before I can judge such things, you know. I don't have judgment of all these things because I'm a man, right?

[56:16] Okay. To whom do not to whom meaning God do not belong any accidents, but what are said of other things accidentally belong to him what essentially as to be what powerful, wise, and things of this sort. Okay. Also, he himself is origin nothing other, right? Has to an end, but rather he is the last end of all things. huh? Whence it is manifest that God alone has every sort of perfection according to his essence, right?

[56:53] Because his essence is his existence, and has all the perfection we have through accidents in his essence, right? And his essence is the end of all things, right? And therefore, he alone is good through his what essence or nature. That's pretty definitive, right?

[57:19] I'm convinced. Okay. Now, to the first, it should be said. The first objection says that one is convertible with being, and good is also convertible with being, right? But every being is one through its essence, as is clear through the philosopher in the fourth book of physics. Therefore, every being is good through its essence, right? Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that one does not imply the notion of what perfection, right?

[57:54] But of indivision only. Okay. Now, when you get to the to the article on the question on the unity of God that God is one, Thomas will explain what one means the transcendental means, but it means undivided being, right? Okay. Now, sometimes Thomas will will add to that, and and Albert will too, undivided being, but distinct from all other things too. Okay. But the fundamental idea is undivided being, right?

[58:23] Okay. So that doesn't have the idea of perfection in it. Yeah. But the idea of indivision only, which belongs to each thing according to its essence. Okay.

[58:38] For the essences or natures of simple things are undivided, both in act and in ability. You can't divide a point. It's not actually divided, nor is it divisible. Right. Has no parts. But of composed things, the essence of composed things are undivided according to act only, but they are divisible in potency, right?

[59:08] And therefore, it's necessary that each thing be one through its very nature, but not however good, because good is the idea of being what perfect. Now, going back to your fifth book of wisdom,

[59:26] Thomas divides the words there that Aristotle explains into three words that pertain to cause, right? And then you have beginning, cause, element, nature, and then necessary, which is a condition of comparison of cause to effect, because. And then the names of the subject, right? And under the names of the subject, he takes up what one in being and substance, and the parts of one, the parts of being, right?

[59:57] And then the third one are like the properties of being. And then he takes up the word perfect, word whole, part, and so on, right? So those transcendentials that seem to name perfect, right, are more like properties in this science, right? But one is put with being as the subject, right? And you can see a little bit Aristotle gives some reasons why one is the same thing as being there in the beginning of Book Four, right?

[1:00:26] But you can kind of see it here a little bit, right? Perfect is not as close, right? Because through my my very nature I am one, right? I am divided, but to my very nature, am I good? See, I don't have being through my nature, and I don't have that perfection I have through all these accidents added to me, right? I am a very complicated person, and I certainly don't have my end or purpose through my nature, right?

[1:00:56] Okay, so it's a little more remote. Now, second objection is saying that if the good is what all desire, since to be itself is desired by all, the to be itself of each thing is its good, but each thing is being through its essence, right? Now, Thomas says the second should be said that though each thing is good in so far as it has to be, or in so far as it has existence, nevertheless the essence or nature of a created thing is not its very existence, right?

[1:01:42] And therefore, it does not follow that a created thing is good through its own essence. Otherwise, it would be the cause of its own existence. So, what does not exist would be the cause of what exists. No sense. Okay.

[1:02:07] So, in a way, the the nature of a thing, just like like form, is the beginning of existence, but it's not really cause in strict sense of existence, huh? Um. Third objection.

[1:02:25] There's one about what? Well, if I'm not good by my what? Through my nature, right? Then I'm good through some goodness added to me, right? Oh no. Now, how's that goodness good? That good through some goodness added to it, and this can go on forever, right? Now, to third, it should be said that the goodness of the created thing is not its very nature itself, right? But something added above that, either its very existence which is added to its nature, right?

[1:02:59] Or some perfection, accidental perfection, you could add there, right? Added above, or the order to the end. But the goodness thus added above is not is said to be good, just as it's said to be a being. But for this reason, said to be being, because by it is something, right? Not because it itself by something other is. Okay, whence for this reason it is said to be what good, right?

[1:03:34] Because by it something is good, right? Not because it has some other goodness by which it is good. So it's not good in the sense of what? What is good, but in the sense of being that with something else. With something else good. Good, yeah, yeah, okay. It's interesting. It's a little thing to chew on. I'm gonna take a little break here maybe before going to the fourth article.