Prima Pars
36. Common Doctor, Dividing into Twos and Threes, the Aevum (q.10 a.5-6), and the Philosophy of the Continuous
Class of 2006-05-18
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/036-common-doctor-dividing-into-twos-and-threes-the-aevum-q-10/

[0:00] Those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all. Right. Now, those who speak with understanding and the antonomasia are the wise. So, if you understand what Heraclitus is saying there, then you realize that Thomas being called the common doctor—that's really a very what great title, right? And in some ways, although it's not as flattering as the title of Universal doctor, you know, in terms of his importance, right, for learning?

[0:35] As I say to students, the life of the mind together is impossible without something we have in common. And in the case of the teacher and the student, the student has to be led by the teacher from things that the student knows already to see some things that the teacher sees that the student doesn't see yet. But then those things that the student knows already that the teacher uses to lead them to something new, the teacher's got to have those too, right?

[1:13] So only on the basis of something that is common to the teacher and the student is teaching at all possible. And if you have you know a conversation that's not between say a teacher and a student but more between two more equals you might say right as you know when we converse we often disagree right and we get nowhere if I just you know say you you're off base there because you don't agree with me and you return the compliment the only way we can do is get try to get back to something we both have in common that we can use to decide whether you or I are right where we what disagree right so no life of the mind together is possible without

[1:59] some kind of a common what knowledge common understanding and if you look at the whole fragment of Heraclitus he says those who speak with understanding must be strong in what is common to all as much as a city is strong in its law even more so because the law of the city is fed by one divine law which is more sufficient for all but notice the beautiful comparison he makes there he's saying making comparison between the life of the mind and life together in the city two different lives in a sense but is life together in the city possible without some kind of common law so you guys are following the law of driving the right side of the street and I'm following the law

[2:46] on the left side right we're going to have chaos in our society right and if we have common laws about law I mean about Time and so on, right? We would have a we'd have a problem, and then but then he goes on to say, you know, the law of the city is fed by the divine law, and so the law about not taking human life, innocent human life, gives rise to all kinds of laws, right?

[3:13] Laws about how fast you can drive your car, you know, how you can shoot your car your your gun off in the city, and so on, and all kinds of things that you know are are invented to protect human life, right? But they're all being fed by this one divine law. So if we say you know that the laws of Nazi Germany are bad because they don't agree with the laws of the United States of America, the Nazi said one of your laws are off because they don't agree with our laws.

[3:41] Again, you have to go back to some kind of common law, some kind of natural law, some kind of divine law, in order to to judge that our laws are better. They are than the laws of Nazi Germany. So that's a beautiful comparison that Heraclitus makes, huh?

[4:06] So, I mean, you know, you know, life on a college campus. You know, you got to show up at the same time, the teacher and the students, right? They got some things in common, right? Huh? Common room we're going to meet, right? You know, one guy goes to one room to learn.

[4:23] It was kind of obvious, you know, but I mean, there are subtle ways that you need something that we have in common. So that's exactly what

[4:37] Aristotle in the way does the metaphysics, right? Because he takes what's common to all men, the axioms, and defends them, right? And the words in the axioms, right, which are common to all men, we all use the words whole and part, right? We all use the word being, we all use the word one, and so on. And so you see Aristotle's the only guy that understands these words.

[4:57] He's kind of the common doctor in a sense, too, right? Because he understands better than other people the words that are common to all of us, and that's that's the kind of reason we go back. I mean, Thomas is is tied into that tradition.

[5:16] Okay, I mentioned how I was looking at Thomas's little treatise called De Creaturis Spiritualibus right, and the seventeenth chapter there where he speaks of Plato and Aristotle as the chief philosophers. If you read the Constellation of Philosophy, you'll see that from Boethius, they are the chief philosophers, huh? And now, Augustine seems to have known you know Plato rather than Aristotle, but he's always trying to follow Plato so far as he can, but many in conformity with the Catholic faith, right?

[5:49] So these great minds, Albert the Great says the same thing. They take Plato and Aristotle as the chief philosophers, so. But again, you have to see, in a sense, how how they they got a distinct and ordered knowledge of what is common to all things. We're going to see that when you get into the eleventh question here, right? Eleventh question.

[6:25] Just look at the first couple articles there. It's on the unity of God, right? Yeah. But before he gets into whether God is one, that's after the third article, right? Yeah. And whether God is most one, right? Okay. But he has more general questions here. Whether one adds something above being, right? And whether the one and the many are opposed, and how they're opposed, right? Now, to my knowledge, Plato, I mean Aristotle, really, and Thomas are the only real great philosophers who understood the most universal things like being, one, good, true, right?

[7:07] And they were able to distinguish these, as you'll see Thomas distinguishing being and one here, but how they how they differ in meaning. But also, you'll see the what order among them, right? Okay. You see the same thing when he gets up talking about

[7:28] true, you know. Yeah. Yeah, question sixteen. Yeah, you'd be talking about true there in the first article, said Aristotle. And then the third and fourth article, mostly says about the comparison of true to being, and about comparison of true to good, right? Okay. So the distinction of of being, thing, one, true, and good, and the order of those five are very carefully thought out by Aristotle. And then they realize each one of those words is equivocal by reason, so they think out the what distinction and the order, the meanings of each one of them, and they see the distinction between good and bad, true and false, one and many, being and non-being, right, and the different kinds of opposites.

[8:28] Nobody else has done that, right? So what's most common? What's most universal? Is understood distinctly, in an ordered way, by Aristotle and Thomas, and by nobody else, really, except a few who got a little bit from them, you know. Learned some of it from them. Yeah. Okay. And so,

[8:53] I think I mentioned before how. You can't understand the less universal without understanding the more universal. Now, if you realize that, you realize that's true. You'll find this even in a what a definition. The parts of a definition are more universal than the thing being defined. So, when I define a square as an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, right? Every part of that definition is set of more than square,

[9:41] and the genus especially, right? But even the differences: equilateral, said of square and rhombus; right-angled, said of square and oblong; quadrilateral, said of all those plus some other things. But the combination is said only the square. So, I'm understanding the less universal through the more universal. Universal, even in a definition.

[10:05] Now, once you see that, then you realize a couple of things. If you don't understand the most universal, you don't understand anything, and you can look at other thinkers. But thinkers who have not come into contact with Aristotle and Thomas, they don't seem to have an understanding of what the most universals are. They can't even enumerate them, and they don't see the distinction between them and the order among them.

[10:45] And you see it, you know, bits of that distinction and order in the articles on one here and the next question, and on true and good and the question on truth. And you find in the De Veritate, right? You know, in different places where this is touched upon, right out. So, if you have to understand the more universal before you can understand the less universal, and therefore you have to understand the most universal before you can understand anything,

[11:20] that there's not that. And Aristotle and Thomas the only guys who understand fully the most universals. Are they the only guys in position to understand anything? I guess I guess you're saying Thomas is the common doctor, right? huh? You know, he understands what's common to everything better than anybody else, except perhaps Aristotle. Yes, sir. So he's the only guy able to understand anything. Are they going to be

[11:55] defensive? That that rule of two or three that I had given you from logic. Well, I think I I came to adopt that rule, which is the rule two for the most part, as I say. By induction, you know, the

[12:23] thing that Thomas is doing that all the time, right? And I just gave in the students at the house there last night. Thomas's you know division of the Gospel of Matthew down to the individual chapters. I was pointing out how the division of the Gospel of Matthew into 28 chapters was not made by Matthew, but made for editorial reference purposes in the University of Paris in the Middle Ages, right?

[12:55] But you can't really understand the Gospel of Matthew by trying to understand division in 28 parts. And Thomas will divide the Gospel of Matthew into three parts, and then. Subdivide the parts until he gets down to the individual chapters, and even within them, you'll be dividing by two, into two or three, right?

[13:16] Now, if you wanted to say divide sacred doctrine, right? Would you divide sacred doctrine into two or three? Well, I would begin with the division that Thomas gives in the commentary on the Psalms, where he says, "Whoever teaches, right, teaches either things or words. Okay. He says we teach things; we teach faith and morals. We teach words when we teach what sacred scripture. Okay.

[14:03] So there, I have a division into two, right? Okay. So there is a difference between a work like the Summa Theologiae, or the Summa Contra Gentiles, or the Compendium of Theology, right? And his commentaries on the Gospel of Saint John or the Gospel of Matthew, and so on, right? Okay. Um. Now, when you're teaching words, now it's not a foot down, right? These are the words of God.

[14:37] When you teach in words, do you divide them into two or three? Hmm. Do you divide the Bible into seventy parts because there's seventy plus books or something? Right. How do you divide the Bible into two or three?

[15:00] Yeah, yeah, and Thomas, in his work on the commendation and partition of sacred scripture, right, gives as the basis of that division, right, he divides at the basis of law and what grace, right. Okay.

[15:23] That's a division into two, then, right? Okay, and he starts with the text of what of Saint John. The law was given by Moses, but truth came through Jesus Christ. Okay. Now, Christ himself, when he refers to the Old Testament, Thomas will note very carefully. Sometimes he'll call the whole of the Old Testament law, but sometimes he'll say the law in the prophets, and sometimes he'll say the law and the prophets and the Psalms, right?

[15:52] Okay. Um. So sometimes Thomas will divide the Old Testament into two parts: the law of the king. And the law of the what father, okay? That's a division into two. And the law of the king will include the Pentateuch and and the prophets who are urging men to obey that law. And then the sapiential books and so on, the Psalms and so on, this all pertain to the law of the father.

[16:25] Now he'll subdivide the law of the king, the law of the father, but you'll see in dividing them into twos and threes all the way down to the individual books and maybe within inside the books too, but okay. So the Old Testament is divided, perhaps into two parts: the law of the king and the law of the father. Though sometimes they do it into three, you know, making the prophets kind of a separate part.

[16:50] Now the New Testament Thomas divides into what three? Part grace, the origin of grace in the Gospels, the the nature of grace in the Epistles of Saint Paul, and then the effect of grace, the Acts of the Apostles, the canonical Epistles, and the Apocalypse. The effect of grace being basically the church, okay. Now Vatican II got very close to that, right? Because it talks about the New Testament, it singles out first of all the four Gospels, and even among the books of New Testament, these are the greatest because of the main witness to the life and doings and sufferings of our Lord, right?

[17:36] Okay. And then it talks about the unfolding of this more in Saint Paul, and then puts the what Acts of the Apostles with the other parts dealing with the origin of the church and its growth, right? So even though we put the Acts of Apostles, you know, between the Gospels and Epistles of Saint Paul, right, in our in our Bibles, Vatican II seems to be very close to Thomas in putting the Acts of the Apostles more with the origin of the church and the Apocalypse as the final state of the church, and the canonical Epistles are the growth of the church, huh?

[18:07] Effecting those Epistles, so that's a division into into three, huh? So now when when you go to the other kind of second doctrine, we're teaching things, okay? Thomas has basically two ways of dividing it, huh? But they're both into what three? And in in the major works like the two Summas, he'll divide it into three. You consider God in Himself or by Himself, God as the Maker and what He's made to some extent, and then God as the end and His providence for the end into those three parts, huh?

[18:55] That's very explicit in the Summa Contra Gentiles, okay. It's a little bit more, not not as crystal clear in the Summa Theologiae because of the great expansion of the moral theology, right? But that's all under the part of according to God is the end, right? Now the other way that he divides it into three is more for

[19:21] people in general, and following the lead of the great Augustine there, and in Credo in Deum, on faith, hope, and charity, in Thomas's catechetical instructions, right, and the Naples sermons, as they're called, he divides it according to faith, hope, and charity, right? So according to faith, you expound the creed, and according to hope, you expound the Our Father and maybe the Hail Mary, and then with charity, the two commandments of love and the Ten Commandments, huh?

[19:52] Okay, that's that's more proportioned to a what a layman you might say, right? But again, it's What three, right? Now the the Council of Trent and then the the Catechism of the Catholic Church, right?

[20:14] They divide into four, right? Because the sacraments are so important that they kind of get in the separate parts. So you you have a little departure from that, you know. If you look at Thomas's reply to the Bishop of Panormitanum wherever that is, you know, he wants Thomas to explain the creed and the sacraments and so on, give him a kind of handy manual he can have.

[20:39] And Thomas says, "Well, the sacraments pertain to one article of the faith, right? You know, in the first of the Holy Spirit, you know, sanctifying us and so on. But because of all the importance of the sacraments in our in our life as a Christian, there's kind of reason why you might expand that part, right? Then you, to certain extent, you you don't see the faith, hope, and charity as clearly as you do.

[21:06] You just divide it into three, right? Just like as I said in Summa here, you know. If you look at my volumes of the second part of the Suma, you know, the prima pars and secunda pars, and it's going to be twice as big as this, you know. So because of the necessity of entering into some detail when you talk about moral matters, as you know, as a confessor or something, it's

[21:32] just a little. It's not as clearly seen as it is in the Summa Contra Gentiles right, Where the where the moral theology doesn't go into the same detail it does here. But basically, you're following the division into three, either according to God in Himself. God is the maker. God is the end, like in that Psalm 99. You know, know that the Lord is God. He made us his we are.

[21:55] His people, the flock he tends. That's the three parts. You know. So since you're being urged to do the Sumas in that part of the Psalms, right? But then you have faith, hope, and charity. Then you're being what? This is the really the way you begin to be instructed first, according to faith, hope, and charity. That division, huh? It's kind of beautiful that Augustine and Thomas both see that as the way to do it.

[22:23] I was kind of followed when I was a child when I was a catechism and so on. and sometimes they'd take you know, I'm the way, the truth, and the life, but it'd be the same three, really. And take truth would be the the creed, right? Life would be the sacraments, maybe the you know, prayer, and then the way would be you know what you should do and don't do the commandments of love and the ten commandments, right?

[22:50] So that made sense, huh? So. So what is he doing? Dividing this into five things here, right? Huh? I kind of place the possibility, you know, of trying to write with these five by two and three, right? I'm not sure whether I should do that, you know. But I notice in the compendium of theology that the unity of God is among the articles or chapters on the simplicity of God, right?

[23:30] So they're very close together, right? Okay. And so it might be a way of, you know, but I'm not going to try to force the thing, you know. And to me, just like with Aristotle, I guess the chapter on quality has four species, right? Huh? I'm not going to try to force it into two or three, you know. But

[23:54] a lot of times, when you try to understand it, you do come back to two or three, most of the time, huh? If you have more, I was talking about students, and I said, now there are some students who want to know but aren't able to know. I had no students. I. Feel sorry for them. There's some students who are able to know but don't want to know.

[24:21] I don't feel so sorry for them, but then there's a third group of those who are neither want to know nor able to know. And once in a while, you find that rare student who is both able to know and wants to know, right? Okay. So I divided all students into four, right? Okay. But really, what have I done?

[24:51] Two divisions into two, right? Those who want to know and those who don't want to know. Those who are able to know and those who are not able to know. And then I crisscrossed them, and so I got all those four categories, right?

[25:07] So if you divide into more than three, you are often what crisscrossing two divisions, or else using a division and a subdivision, right? Okay. And Thomas will not always stop there. It's kind of obvious to him by now, right? But like he divides order in comparison to reason, and he speaks of four orders, right? The order not made by reason, the order made by reason, in its own, acts the order made by reason, in the acts of the will, and the order made by reason in matter.

[25:42] So he's got four orders, right? But you could divide the first one against the last three because the first one is an order not made by reason, and the last three are orders made by reason. So you could divide into two, and then subdivide one of them into three, right? But Thomas. You know, students very taught, as he says about Aristotle. Sometimes he combines the two divisions once because you need fools to be able to see what he's doing, right?

[26:11] You know, but most fools don't see what he's doing. You see, so anyway, here we're getting a. little bit more Division into what three right? There is not only eternity and time, but there is this third thing called the what evil right? Yeah, for want of a better name, right? Okay. I mean, the fact they're difficult in the name is a sign that this third one is not as easily what yeah yeah okay.

[26:47] Just like they're calling that intermediary form a fiction, a tragic comedy because they didn't have a name for it, right? Okay. I answer it should be said now that by the article that the evum differs from time and from eternity as a middle right existing between them right. As I say, that's like Aristotle talking about what oligarchy and democracy before he talks about the republic. The republic is in between, right?

[27:22] Aristotle refers back to the fact that virtue is a middle between two extremes, right? Okay. But of these, the difference of these, some assign thus, saying that eternity lacks a beginning and an end, right? The evum has a beginning because the angels didn't always exist. but no end. Time has both a beginning and an end. right? As I was Mentioning earlier today, the apocalypse there, right? Time will no longer be.

[27:56] Okay. But notice how Thomas says here. But this difference is per accidens, just as has been said above, because even if the eternal things were always and would always be in the future, as some lay down, or even if at some times they failed, which is possible for God, still yet the evum would be distinguished from eternity and time.

[28:29] Others assign the difference among these three to this fact that eternity has no before and after. Time, however, has what a before and after, with a what. Yeah, and new things, right? Innovation, right? We say in English, huh? With new things and what things getting old, as I know here.

[28:59] But the evum has before and after, without what innovation and what growing old, right? It's a little bit like you know, and I think if I know some theorems of geometry, right? I think of one of them, and then I think about the other one, and then I go back and think about the first one, right? And there is nothing new to me, right? I'm not getting old, but there's still before and after in my thinking.

[29:24] That's kind of what the evum is. What some people think, right? Okay. But this position implies some contradictories, right? Which manifestly appears if innovation and growing old are referred to the measure itself.

[29:44] For if the before and after duration are not able to be together, if the evum has a before and after, is necessary that the part before receding, then the part coming afterwards is what new, huh? And thus there will be innovation in the evum as in time. If, however, it is referred to the things measured, there still follows some things inconvenient, huh? Um. For from this, huh, a temporal thing becomes what old in time, because it has changeable being, right?

[30:32] And from the changeableness of the measured, there is before and after in the measure. as is clear from the fourth book of natural hearing, the physics. If therefore the evum is not able to grow old or to renovate things, this will be because its being is not what changed, huh? Its measure, therefore, Its measure therefore will not have before and after.

[31:03] It should be said therefore that since eternity is the measure of a permanent being, according as something recedes from the permanence of being, according to this it recedes from what eternity.

[31:20] Now some things recede from the permanence of being that their very being is a subject of change, huh? Or it consists in change, huh? And these things are measured by time, as every motion is, and also the being of all what corruptible things. But some things recede less from the permanence of being, because their being neither consists in change, nor is it a subject of change, huh?

[32:00] I suppose the what motion is more something whose being consists in change, right? And the corruptible things are subject to change, right? Okay. But nevertheless, it has some kind of change joined to it. Either in act or ability, just as in the celestial bodies, whose substantial being is unchangeable, we may not agree with Thomas there, right? Nevertheless,

[32:35] their unchangeable being—they have this unchangeable being with changeableness according to place. They go from one place to another. Of course, they're seeing in Thomas today who's talking about the stars, and sometimes, of course, they're called planets a star. But Thomas distinguishes between the fixed stars and, in Latin, he says the errantia e r r a n t i a, which means the wanderers, right? Errant, a night errant.

[33:08] That's what the Latin—the word "planet" means in Greek. It means that they wander, and that's what I was mentioning before. How the word for "err" in Latin comes from the word to wander, and the Greek word for "planan comes from the word to wander there too. That's the words that Christ uses when he says to the Sadducees, "Right, you err, right? They translate sometimes, but panne, panes the verb for you err, knowing neither the power of God nor the Scriptures," he says.

[33:48] And likewise, it is clear about the angels who have unchangeable being, right? With changeableness according to what choice, as far as pertains to their nature, and with a what some changeableness of what understandings, right, and affections, and of places in their own way, right? They can apply their their power to different places, and therefore these things of this sort are measured by the evum, which is a middle between eternity and what time.

[34:32] But the being that eternity measures is neither changeable nor is it what joined to any kind of changeableness. Thus, therefore, time has a before and after. The evum does not have in itself a before and after, but they're able to be joined to it in terms of something other than their being, right? Namely, their what choices or their thoughts and their affections and so on. Eternity does not have a before and after, nor is it compatible with any kind of before and after.

[35:13] So he's a hard guy to influence, right? One question I like to ask people, you know, sometimes is: Does God love us because we are good, or are we good because God loves us?

[35:33] What's the answer? The love or. Yeah, yeah. We're good because God loves us. That our goodness is an effect of God's love for us. Huh? That's kind of a humbling consideration, right? Huh? Okay. Okay, so let's look again at the objections here.

[36:11] The first one is the text of Augustine in the eighth book of Genesis, to the letter, right? That's obviously what. It's talking about words there, right? And I know that I had heard. I don't know if this is true that that. Someone had accused him of being a little bit loose, or something, you know. And this is to the letter, right? Exactly to the words, okay?

[36:36] That God moves the spiritual creature through time, right? Okay. To the first, therefore, it should be said that spiritual creatures, as regards their affections and their what understandings, in which there is a succession, are measured by time, right? Whence Augustine says there that through time to be moved is to be moved by one's what affections, huh? But as regards their natural being, they are measured by the evum, right?

[37:15] But as regards the vision of the glory of God, they partake of what eternity, right? So they got three kinds of measure there, right? Huh? I have to talk to my guardian angel about that, huh? You know, but he says, "Hey, you got it right now, Berquist, huh? You know, I see God. I partake of eternity when I get the things out of your way. They're in place there in time, and but my my being is measured by the the evum, huh?

[37:50] Now the second objection was saying, "Hey, there's no difference between the evum and time, right? Eternity, rather. Okay. " Most of the ways, the first two objections are going. One is saying it's just time. The other saying it's just eternity, right? And Thomas says to the second, it should be said that the evum is totum simul right The being of the angels all at once, but is not nevertheless eternity because compatible with it is a before and after of operations, right?

[38:26] Okay. The third one is talking about the difference between what if it's all at once, there's no what um difference in being in the past and the future, and since it's going to be forever, it's going to be eternally what actually infinite, right? Okay.

[38:54] To third, it should be said that in the very being of the angel, considered in itself, there is no difference of past and future,

[39:06] but only according to the what changes that are joined to it, huh? Changes of operations. But when we say that angel is or was or will be, they differ according to the taking of our understanding, right? Which takes the being of the angel in comparison to the diverse parts of time.

[39:36] And when it is said that the angel is or was, there supposes something with which its opposite is not what subject to divine power. But when we say it is future, it does not suppose something, right? Because God could still eliminate it. When, since the being and the non-being of the angel is subject to the divine power, absolutely consider, God is able to make the angel not to be in the future.

[40:08] Nevertheless, he is not able to make that it is not when it is, or that it was not when it was not done. That would involve a contradiction.

[40:19] Now, what way is the duration of the evum infinite? He says because it's in the fourth objection, because it is not limited by time, and thus in some way for something created to be infinite, that not be limited by something else is not inconvenient. See,

[40:50] now we have time to do the article six here. So, whether there is one evum only, it seems that there is not only one evum. For it is said in the Apocryphal of Esdras, Majesty and the power of the evums in the plural, right, is before you, Lord. Moreover, of diverse genera, there are diverse measures. But some evum eternal things are in the genus of bodies, namely the heavenly bodies.

[41:27] Some are the spiritual substances to which the angels. Therefore, there is not one evum only. Moreover, since evum is a name of duration, of which there is one evum, there is one duration. But there is not one duration of all ev eternal things, because some come to be after others, as is most of all clear when the what in souls. Therefore, there is not one evum only.

[42:02] How do you think about these objections? I mean, nobody else does this, you know. You know, I was reading the fourth book of the Summa Contra Gentiles recently. You know, he he defends the the incarnation, you know, against the heretics and so on, and the scriptures and so on. And then he'll give these reasons from philosophy, might say, huh? Against the possibility of it, you know, and then you answer those, right?

[42:30] Nobody else does that, right? They don't really exercise the mind the way this guy does. Aristotle, in the book on dialectic, right, He gives us the first reason for dialectic is to exercise the mind, and these minds are not exercised in these ways. They're so weak, they're so easily deceived. It's amazing to see it.

[42:57] But anyway, moreover, those things which do not depend upon each other do not seem to have one measure of duration. On account of this, of all temporal things, it seems to be one time, because of all motions, in some way, the first motion is the cause, which is measured before the arrest by time. But the evum eternal do not depend upon each other. One angel didn't create the others, something like that, because one angel is not the cause of another.

[43:33] Therefore, there is not one evum only, but against this is that the evum is more simple than time, and nearer having itself to eternity. But time is one only; therefore, much more so will the evum be one.

[43:55] I answer: It should be said that about this there is a twofold opinion. Some say that there is one evum only; some that there are many.

[44:09] Which of these, however, is more true, is necessary to consider from the cause, the unity of time, because we come to a knowledge of spiritual things through bodily things. Okay, I see a text of Thomas there in the Disputed Questions on Power the other day, where he's saying how all of our words, in a sense, go back in their first meaning to the continuous. Okay, you can see that, right?

[44:45] They tend to go back to place. Thomas gives often the the etymology of the word difference, and of course, the Greek word for difference is diaphora. Latin word is differentia. but it's put together from carry and apart, diaphora, to carry apart. You know, put one here and one there, right? They're two different things. One here, one there, and.

[45:23] Understand, right? To stand under something, right? To the spatial origin of these words, huh? Even for things that are not spatial, understanding. God is above us,

[45:39] right? I mean, these words take on different meanings, right? Is God above us in the way that the roof is above us? But you

[45:57] don't want to go through the roof. But that's the first meaning of above, right? You got to understand, you know, that the roof is above us before you can understand God's above us, right? See, or in logic, we say that the the genus is above the differences, the more universal is above the less universal, and we put the less universal under the more universal. Okay, that's why they speak, you know, in logic, of the tree of porphyry, right? Because you divide, let's say, substance into material and immaterial, and then you subdivide material into living and non-living, and it spreads out.

[46:33] So it's like a Christmas tree, right? Yeah. I told you one time at Laval there at Christmas time, their Christmas party they gave the logic professor who taught you know, a tree of Porphyry right? That's kind of a joke. But you represent in the more universal above the other, which is less universal, right?

[46:55] You speak of the underlying cause, okay? And sometimes you speak of the cause of being before the effect, but before and after goes back to continuous. The first meaning we said is out of time, right? And the before and after in motion and magnitude, but that's the before and after in the continuous, huh?

[47:20] The discourse of reason, the running of reason, right? So, So the sixth book of the Physics, of the Natural Hearing is the book the philosophy of the continuous.

[47:45] The whole book is devoted to that, huh? And that's where Aristotle takes up, you know, the magnitude is being continuous, right? The line and the motion down the line and the time it takes, they're all continuous, huh? And he'll show this in many ways, huh? But all the famous propositions about the continuous—that's divisible forever, right? That it's not composed of the indivisible, so, and so on. All these things are brought out in that in that sixth book, right?

[48:17] That became really a key thing, huh? I think I mentioned this famous article by Charles De Koninck called "it's in French in Laval Théologique et Philosophique: Paradoxes du devenir par la contradiction." And Aristotle solved the problem, right? But as De Koninck points out

[48:39] Hegel was deceived by this, huh? Didn't understand it, and De Koninck talks about the difficulties they had in Middle Ages about the Eucharist because they didn't understand this, huh? And it's a very subtle Aristotle does there, you know. But it's the idea that

[49:04] when you have what is not a circle becoming a circle, let's say, right? Okay. And there's a time which is not a circle, and there's a time around which it is a circle, right? Okay.

[49:19] And is the last instant in which it is not a circle. The first instant in which it is a circle, well, if you say that, then in that instant it would both be and not be a circle, which is a contradiction, right? Okay.

[49:42] But if the last instant in which it is not a circle, and the first instant in which it is a circle, are not the same instant, right? Then between them there has to be some time. Then you ask the question again: in that time, is it or is it not a circle? See, it's got to be one or the other. So you can't have a time in between that, right?

[50:06] Therefore, it seems that the last instant in which it is not a circle must be the first instant in which it is a circle, in which case you have a contradiction. That's the way Hegel proceeds, right? So becoming is a contradiction. Okay, that's where the Marxists get the idea that all changes is a contradiction. But this happened in the theology of the Eucharist, right? Because there is a time in which, under the accidents of bread and wine, there is really bread and wine there.

[50:40] And then there is a time in which there is no longer bread or wine there, but there is the body and blood of our Lord. Okay. And this is the problem: is the last instant in which it is, or the time in which it is bread and wine, the same as the first instant in which it is the body and blood of our Lord? Well, then you have heresy, right?

[51:02] Okay. But then, if they're not the same instant, then there is some time in which there is neither the bread and wine under there nor the body and blood of our Lord, in which case the Eucharist would be impossible because you couldn't change none being into the body and blood of our Lord. So

[51:27] that involves the solution of that problem, right? You can only solve it by going back to the sixth book of Aristotle's Physics. Now, what Aristotle does is very subtle, right? But he will show that there is no last instant in which you are what not a circle. As the last time, not the last instant. But there is a first instant in which you are a circle. You know that's very subtle, right?

[52:00] Aristotle saw that, right? See, but you know that didn't end to the theology, right? And he's kind of showing in that article the difficulty the theologians had until Thomas, using Aristotle, solved the difficulty. But you find Hegel making the same mistake, right? And therefore saying that contradiction or change involves a contradiction, right? But obviously he doesn't know Aristotle, so I find the moderns, you know, repeating the mistakes that Aristotle is are refuted, and it's like they don't know.

[52:39] They're repeating history, right? But you see the importance of this for theology, right? That people couldn't solve it without Aristotle. So that's, but so the philosophy of the continuous is extremely important. But as I see in this text of Thomas there in the De Potentia, Quaestiones Disputatae De Potentia, just kind of my favorite work of all the Quaestiones Disputatae, got nice sections on it and on the Trinity and so on.

[53:12] But Thomas makes his point on how our names seem to come from the continuous, huh? Because our knowledge starts there with the continuous. Of course, we always fall back upon the continuous, and sometimes get into false imagination. And Thomas has to point out that God is not indivisible like the point is, because the point is something indivisible that has a a a a location in the continuous, right?

[53:46] It's here or there, right? God is indivisible outside the whole genus of the continuous. So, but you have to you know distinguish God from the continuous, huh?

[53:59] What's the first thing we learned about God? The substance of God, I mean, after his existence. Is the material body? Well, God is yeah. God is not a body, right? You see, even before he doesn't have matter. You go back to the very

[54:20] first article in question three, right? Yeah, when God is a body, right? Huh? Okay. There you learn that God is not what continuous, right? There you learn.

[55:04] No, so I talk about a road in our thinking, right? And the Greeks had all talked about a road in our thinking, but a road in the original meaning of the word is something continuous, huh? But when Aristotle talks about thinking there in the third book about the soul, he points out that thoughts are like numbers. Not like what something continuous, right? So when you carry over the word road to the mind, you keep the idea of before and after, which you can have with numbers, right?

[55:38] But you drop the idea of what the continuous. Okay. So thoughts are not divisible forever, like continuous is. Between the the premises of a syllogism, the conclusion there's no thought.

[55:56] If I say every mother is a woman, and Socrates is not a woman, there's a next thought. Socrates is not a mother. Yeah, yeah. See, just like the numbers, right? Three to the next number, four, right? But this line here, is there a next line? Next longer line? No, no. You see? So there's a next thought, but not a next. Longer line, okay.

[56:30] And thoughts are not divisible forever, just like numbers are not divisible forever. That's one of these crazy moderns who think the one is divisible, right?

[56:44] So this is a very important principle here. You know what does it say about God there in the Apocalypse? God, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Arche in Greek, huh? The Telos. What's the first meaning of Arche?

[57:02] The beginning of this table. That's the first meaning of beginning. This is the beginning right here, and that's something in the continuous, isn't it? Yeah. So the first meaning of beginning is what in the continuous, and then at the other end we're saying God is the beginning of all things, right? But you had to go through these different meanings of beginning to get to God, huh?

[57:28] That's Aristotle does. That's where he begins in Book Five, huh? So that's a good example of why you start the continuous. First meaning, first meaning of in is to be in place. Place is something continuous, right? It's tied up with the continuous. This is part of understanding our words, right?

[57:56] That's why we tend to use the word sense for the meanings of a word, right? Because we go back to our senses for the first meanings, huh?

[58:07] Come into this world knowing no words at all, right? So the first words you have to be learned by connecting connecting a sound with what something sensed. Cookie, huh? Want a cookie? That's it. I stabbed that on the tape with my son Paul. Um. So the first words are all tied up with the sensible, and therefore the continuous. Now some say that there is one time of all things temporal.

[58:41] On account of this, that there is one number of all things numbered. Since time is a number, according to the philosopher, right? antonomasia, he calls him the philosopher, right? But this does not suffice, because time is not a number as abstracted, right? Outside the numbered, it's a numbered number, as we say. Okay. But as existing in the numbered, huh?

[59:16] My teacher, an undergraduate there, Kasurik had written his doctoral thesis on numbers, right, and so on. He's talking about reading John St Thomas there, the student of Thomas. And John St. Thomas begins, you know. Let me pass over the vulgar distinction between numbered number and numbered number, you know. Because it takes a what is that distinction? No, you should know it by now, you know. I mean, but here, here Thomas is making the distinction here.

[59:44] Otherwise, it would not be what continuous, right? Okay, because it's the number of a continuous thing. That's why time can be divided forever, right? Because the abstract number would be discrete. Yeah, like unum quod? I forget what that means in Latin, but it's one measure of the bread, right? Have continuity not from number but from the what numbered, right? Okay.

[1:00:14] What cloth? Yeah. Span of cloth. Oh, okay. Okay. Excuse me. I think I'm getting started with panis, two Ns. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think. Oh no. Was that was an elbow or something like that? That was that's the cubit. Oh, cubit. okay. Oh, yeah, That's the elbow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[1:00:36] But it has continuity not from number but from the numbered, right? For the number existing in the numbered is not the same of all but diverse of diverse things. Okay. So there's six or seven of us here, right? It's a number, numbered. Whence others assign the cause, unity of time, from the unity of eternity, which is the beginning of all duration. And thus all durations are one, if one considers their beginning, but they are many, if one considers the diversity of those things which receive duration from the influx, the inflowing of the first beginning.

[1:01:20] Others assign the cause, unity of time, on the side of the first matter, which is the first subject of motion whose measure is time. But neither assigning seems to be sufficient, because those things which are one, in a beginning or subject, and most of all remote one, are not one simply but what Secundum quid.

[1:01:49] The reason, therefore, for the unity of time is unity of the first motion, by which, since it is the most simple, right, all others are measured, as is said in the tenth book of the metaphysics. Tenth book of metaphysics is about what the one and the many, And it's a property of the one to be a measure, right? Aristotle elaborates on the idea of measure there.

[1:02:17] Thus, time is compared to that motion, the the first motion of the heavenly bodies we fall around us. Not only as a measure to the measured. But also as a what accident to its subject, and thus from it it receives unity. But to other motions it's compared only as the measure to the what measure. Whence by their multitude is not multiplied, because one measure separated is,

[1:02:52] or by one measure I should say separated, many things able to be what measured. This being had now, I got all that in your head now. It should be known about the spiritual substances that there is a twofold opinion. Some say that all proceed from God in a certain equality as Origen said right first Democrat right.

[1:03:20] Or also many of them as some say. Others say that all spiritual substances proceed from God in a certain grade and order. And this Dionysius seems to think right, who says in the tenth chapter of the celestial hierarchy that among the spiritual substances there are first ones, middle ones, and last ones, right? And even in each one order of angels, there is the beginning, the middle, and the last.

[1:03:51] Well, according therefore to the first opinion, it is necessary to say that there are many Eva, according as there are many aevum eternal things first that are all equal. But according to the second opinion, it is necessary to say that there is one aevum only, because each thing is measured by what is most simple in its kind, as is said in the tenth book of wisdom. Therefore, since the being of all aeviternal things are what measured by the what being of the first aeviternal things, which insofar as it's more simple as before, and because the second opinion is more true as he will show later on, he takes up the angels.

[1:04:42] As will be shown later on, we concede for the present that there is one aevum only, right? Okay. Now the first objection was taking aevum in a sense of age, right? So that was just equivocation. And he says the celestial bodies and spiritual bodies differ in genus, have their nature, but nevertheless they come together in that they have unchangeable being according to the old opinion. We can forget about that.

[1:05:17] It's the angels do. When Thomas discusses that opinion there in the book on universe, he says, "Well, maybe the heavenly bodies take a longer time to change than the lives of many men." So he's aware of the fact that it may not be altogether necessary for Aristotle's argument. Just like Aristotle thought that time, what, was instantaneous. Okay, it's kind of amazing how fast light is, isn't it?

[1:05:46] It's pretty probable that it should take time to get, you know, seems to take no time for it to go right across the whole sky.

[1:06:12] And the third thing about some things getting a later start. The third, should be said that neither do all temporal things begin together, right? And nevertheless, of all of them, there is one. What time? On. Account of the first that is measured by time, and thus all eternal things have one of them on account of the first, even if not all begin at once. On

[1:06:41] the fourth one, he seems to say you don't have to have the one that measures all the rest be their cause, right? What it has to be is more what simple than the other ones, yeah. Okay.

[1:06:59] It's interesting though. If you go back to God being the simplest of all, then God would be the what? In some sense, the measure of all things, as Plato says in the

[1:07:14] Comedies, right? No, excuse me, in the Laws. The Laws, I think he says it. Yeah. I've often toyed with the idea, you know, that if you want to add a little here to the treatise on the substance of God, right? As you know, the treatise on the substance of God is divided into five parts, right? So you have God being simple, God being perfect, God being infinite, God being unchanging, and God being one, right?

[1:07:48] But to some of these five things, he attaches something, right? So to God being perfect, he attaches a consideration of goodness of God, and to God being infinite, is being everywhere, right? And to God being what unchanging is being eternal. He doesn't attach anything to as being simple, right? Or to as being one, right? I have to think for a minute. You could attach to one as being the measure of all things, because the property of the one to be the measure of all things, right?

[1:08:19] But you'd also say here it seems to be a property of the simple to be the measure of other things, right? So if you wanted to have a consideration of God as the measure of all things, would you attach it to as being simple or one? There's a reason to attach it to to either, right?

[1:08:40] Now, of course, there's no problem in the compendium of theology because he takes up the unity of God and the consideration of simplicity, so. The two go together, right? But you could have a reason for maybe attaching it to either one, right? The

[1:09:00] property of the one to be the measure. Of course, the first one we think about is the one to be the number right? It measures the numbers, but you kind of carry it over by analogy to other genera, right? So Mozart is a measure of all musicians. Shakespeare is a measure of all poets.

[1:09:19] Aristotle is a measure of all philosophers. The next time we'll find out about the most universal thing. First two articles there, right?