Prima Pars
38. Summa I, Q.11, Arts. 3–4: God Is One and Most of All One; Review of the Treatise on God's Substance
Class of 2006-05-23
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/038-summa-i-q-11-arts-3-4-god-is-one-and-most-of-all-one-review/

[0:00] So, Article Three now. Whether God is one, it seems that God is not one. An exchange quote here from One Corinthians, Saint Paul. If there are many what? Many gods and many lords. Okay. But this is probably nucification, right? They? Say they're all gods, right?

[0:27] Moreover, the one which is the beginning of number cannot be said of God, since no quantity is said of God. Likewise, neither the one that is convertible with being, because it implies a privation, a negation, a lack, and every privation is an imperfection, which does not belong to God. Therefore, it should not be said that God is one. He could be lacking in something, right?

[0:58] But against this is what is said in Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four: "Hear, Israel, the Lord your God is one." That's a pretty good text. Okay.

[1:13] I answer: It should be said that God is one can be demonstrated from three things. First, from his what simplicity. I mentioned how in the Compendium of Theology, the unity of God is in the middle of the treatise or the consideration of the simplicity of God. Well, here you see the connection here again between the two.

[1:40] For it is manifest that that whence some singular is a this something. Now that's the famous phrase of Aristotle, the individual. In no way is communicable to many, right? For that whence Socrates is a man is able to be communicated to many, right? But that whence he is this man is not able to be communicated except to one only. If, therefore, Socrates through this that he is a man through this was also what this man, then just as there could not be many Socrates, so there could not be many what men.

[2:28] But this is true about God. This belongs to God, because God himself is his own what nature. There's no distinction between the two. Therefore, it is by the very same thing that he is God and that he is what this God. Therefore, it is impossible that there be many gods. Okay. Notice how Plato's anticipating that with his forms, because The form of man and the form of dog or horse and so on is nothing other than what a man is, what a dog is, what a horse is, and so there is only one form of man, only one form of dog, only one form of horse.

[3:13] But that's the way God is. Secondly, from the what infinity of His perfection, right? I notice there the coupling of infinity and perfection. Now, can I get down to three, right? If you couple one and simple and infinite and perfection, you are down to three now, aren't you?

[3:42] It has been shown above that God comprehends in Himself the whole perfection of being. If, therefore, there were many gods, it would be necessary for them to differ, right? Something, therefore, would belong to one of them that did not belong to the other. And if this were a privation, he would not be what simply perfect. Perfect. If, however, it was some perfection, the other one would be lacking in it, right?

[4:13] It is impossible, therefore, that there would be many gods. Notice how Thomas turns all the way back now to the ancient philosophers, huh? Whence the ancient philosophers, as if what being coerced by truth itself—that's the phrase that Aristotle uses for the Greeks when they all talked about change being by contraries. None of them gave any reason why change had to be by contraries, but everybody who talked about change tried to explain it by some pair of contraries.

[4:46] And when I stop on that, you know how I stop and show that the Chinese at the same time were doing this, and the moderns, you know, were trying to explain change by contraries. So anybody who thinks about change comes up with some kind of contraries, as if coerced by the truth itself. It doesn't seem to be a hypothesis or something.

[5:15] Technically, talk about the difference between men and women, right? Anybody who thinks about men and women comes to the idea that they are different, right? Coerced by the truth itself, right? Whence the ancient philosophers, is coerced as it were by the truth itself, laying down that the beginning was infinite, they posited only one such beginning.

[5:45] Third, from the unity of the world, right? For all things which are are found to be ordered to each other, when some of them what serve others, right? But things which are diverse do not come together in one order, except they are ordered by one beginning. And is better that the many be reduced to one order by something one than by many, because per se one is the cause of what one, and the many are not the cause of something one except by happening.

[6:31] In so far as they are in some way one. Of course, the old idea that what is through itself is always before what is through happening. Yeah. Since therefore that which is first is most perfect and through itself, not by happening, is necessary that the first reducing all things to one order be one only, and this is what God. God.

[7:01] Do you know why he uses the word plures instead of multos or something? Just just synonym there, or is there any special? You know, say many gods for some reason in this.

[7:17] Sometimes use that. In this in the plaving here. Yeah, in this reply on various occasions. For instance, at the end of the first argument, there, when he comes to his conclusion, it is therefore impossible to be plures deos, and he'll do that in a couple other places too. Um. Right before the end of that, right before that sentence about. I don't know. if maybe there's a grammatical reason why he said, "it, "I don't know."

[7:49] Yeah, just kind of crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Brother Mark would be the guy to consult on these matters. Yeah. Okay. Now the first objection is saying right.

[8:08] He's talking there about the pagans, right? Okay, so that's no big deal. There seem to be many gods according to the error of those who what worship many gods, estimating that the planets and other stars are gods, or even what individual parts of the world. Once he subjoins, for us there is what one God. Okay.

[8:39] Now the second objection is more forceful here about the privation. To the second, it should be said that the one which is the beginning of number is not said of God, right? But only about of those things which have being in matter.

[8:59] But the one, the one which is the beginning of number, is something of the genus of mathematical things, which have their being in matter, but are abstracted by what reason from matter.

[9:15] But the one that is convertible with being is something metaphysical, right? Because according to its very being, it does not. not depend upon matter. And although in God there is not any what privation, nevertheless, according to the mode of our what understanding, is not known by us except by way of what privation, or removal, or negation.

[9:48] And thus nothing prevents some things being said privatively of God, as it is incorporeal, right, infinite, and likewise about. God it is said that He is one, right? Actually, in other texts where Thomas takes up this, he'll go back to the fifth book of Aristotle's book on wisdom, right? And Aristotle will order the meanings of lack, and

[10:18] in the strict sense of lack, it's an unbeing of something you're able to have and should have, right? And therefore, it's not a pure negation; it's not just okay, like the difference between blindness and not seeing, okay? And then, a lesser sense will be where you don't have something that your kind of animal, let's say, is apt to have, but your particular kind of animal maybe doesn't have to have, and that's the lack of that's to be a lesser sense of it, lesser sense of it.

[10:51] And then finally, it's what, not having something that something or other is able to have, but you don't, right? And then you're moving away from the idea of this being something even what, bad, right? Okay. And the reason why they keep the idea of privation there is that one doesn't mean simply undivided, period, but it means undivided being. So you keep a subject there, which is what positive, right?

[11:24] So the word privation moves from a bad sense to a sense that's not bad at all, right? By dropping out parts of the meaning, right? And so this is not an appropriately said of God, right? You're kind of falling back in that first sense. Aristotle, too, he's always he doesn't do that here, but he's seen him do it elsewhere, you know. But kind of amazing that he'll go back and find the text there in Aristotle.

[11:52] I was looking at the Treatise on the Trinity Trinity this morning, and what yesterday, and he's trying to solve an objection which says that the Father and the Son are not what distinct because God the Father is the same as the divine nature, God the Son is the same as divine nature, things the same, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he goes back to the text of Aristotle in the third book of the Physics, right?

[12:23] Where Aristotle shows that acting upon undergoing are both the same thing as motion, and yet acting upon undergoing are not the same thing because they differ in definition, okay? So my kicking you and you're being kicked not the same thing. Say, even though this they're read the same as the what change taking place in you now, but it's kind of amazing. It goes back to Aristotle, right?

[12:51] Aristotle is making the distinction, right, of these two because of their yeah, in other words, it's called kicking because it's from me to you. And it's called being kicked because it's in you from me. You see, and and so this is something like the Trinity, where they're towards each other, right? They're distinguished, huh? But it's amazing to go back to Aristotle, you know, and then see Aristotle saw something like this, huh?

[13:22] And it's kind of you might think, you know, Thomas is inventing a distinction, you know, to save a difficulty, but Aristotle is already making that kind of distinction in something more proportioned to us. in these Kierkegares. it's just kind of amazing to see Thomas do this. Yeah. And I see in text where he takes this, you know, and goes back to the senses of of the Aristotelian distinguished them of privation of lack, right?

[13:49] Where it moves from a bad sense to a sense not bad at all. But it's the reason why you move the word in those ways. It's only amazing to see him do that.

[14:01] Okay. whether God now is maxime unus, most of all one, huh? To the fourth, he proceeds thus: It seems that God is not maxime unus, For one is said according to their privation and division, but privation does not receive more and less. Therefore, God is not said more one than other things which are one, right?

[14:40] Moreover, nothing seems to be more indivisible than that which is indivisible in act and in potency, Of which sort are the point and the one, right? Of course, the modern mathematicians actually all followed up on that one, right? But the one is even simpler than the point.

[14:59] But in so far as something is said to be to be more one, in so far as it is what indivisible. Therefore, God is not more one than the unit and the point, huh?

[15:16] Moreover, what is essentially good is most of all good. Therefore, what is through its very essence one is most of all one. But every being is one through its very what nature a substance, as is clear through the philosopher in the fourth book of metaphysics. Therefore, every being is most of all what one. Therefore, God is not more one than other beings.

[15:46] But against this is what Bernard says: that among all things which are said to be one, that holds the what high point, I guess, right? The unity of the divine what Trinity, huh?

[16:03] Tell that to Muhammad. I answer: It should be said that since one is undivided being, now both of those things are involved in what one is. It's not just undivided, but undivided being. In order that something be most one, it is necessary that it be most of all being and most of all what undivided. But both of these things what belong to God,

[16:44] for he is most of all being in so far as he is not having some being determined to some nature to which it what comes. But he is what to be itself subsisting right. I am who am, as we saw right. In every in all ways undetermined. He is, however, most of all undivided, in so far as he is neither divided in act, right, nor is he divisible in inability, right.

[17:21] According to any way of division, right, since he is in all ways what simple, as has been shown above. Whence it is manifest that God is most of all one, right. Now notice it was in the treatise on the simplicity of God that you showed also that God is what I am who I am, right. So both things necessary to show that he is most of all one, are in the treatise on the what simplicity of God.

[17:49] So as I mentioned in the compendium of theology, the unity of God is in the middle of the consideration of the simplicity of God.

[18:03] Now the first objection was saying that privation, by itself, does not receive more and less. He agrees with that. Nevertheless, according as its opposite receives more or less, so the privatives themselves have said more or less.

[18:23] For according as something is more divided or divisible or less so or in no way, according in this way something is said to be more or less or what Most of all. Now to the second, it should be said. This is the argument from point in the unit, right? The second, it should be said that the point in the unit, which is the beginning of number, are not maxime entia, right?

[18:54] They're not most beings, fullest beings, because they do not have being except in some what subject or accidents. Whence neither of them is. What? Most of all one. Yeah.

[19:13] Just as the subject is not most of all one, on account of the diversity of accident and what subject, right? So, thus neither the what accident. That goes back to Aristotle's critique there of Melissus and Parmenides, right? Because they're denying any multiplicity in the world, right? But Melissus says that being is infinite, right? And Parmenides says it's finite, like a sphere, you know. Aristotle says, well, now you've got quantity there, and you've got multiplicity, right?

[19:50] Because you've got the substance and the quantity, right? So, altogether, what? To third says about substance of a thing being what. To third, it should be said that although every being is one to its very substance,

[20:30] nevertheless, nevertheless, the substance of each thing does not have itself what equally to causing unity, because the substance of some things is composed from many things, and of some not right.

[20:52] So my substance is composed of my body and soul, right? My body's got all these different parts and so on, right? So I'm not as one as the angels are, right? But even in them, there's this composition of existence and substance, so not as one as God is one.

[21:20] So that's the end of the consideration of the what substance of God, right? Now come back. a little bit here The question two what did you show? What existence? of God? Existence of God, right?

[21:49] Whether God exists, right? And then in questions three through eleven, right, we've been considering the substance of God, what he is. And Thomas divided that basically into five parts, right? That God is simple, that God is perfect, that God is infinite, that God is unchanging,

[22:23] and God is what one, right? Okay. Now to some of these he what attached another attribute, like the perfect that he's good, huh? To infinite that he's what everywhere and so on. Unchanging that he's eternal, okay.

[22:55] And does attach I mean the measure of all things, but he could to. Is being one and simple. Okay. Now, in the twelfth and thirteenth, thing, which we'll get in the fall, right? Is that the Alex's decision? Okay. In the twelfth and the thirteenth, he's going to be talking really about our knowing God, right, and our naming Him, right. And I think he takes up these things here.

[23:28] It might seem to be out of order. Why aren't we back in the first question, right? Okay. But you have to know a little bit about God before you can see fully, right?

[23:40] How we know Him and name Him, right? Okay. That, some extent, is a little thing different what he's doing here. mainly studying God, right?

[23:52] Now, after that, he's going to take up the the operations of God, right? What God does and the doings of God. Let's put that way huh Yeah.

[24:18] Okay. Now, and then after that will come the treatise on the what Trinity Trinity, right? Okay. Now, why do we have? Let us leave the Trinity out of the picture because that's going to complicate things too much. Why do we have these three here? Existence of God, substance of God, and the doing of God. Are they three different things in God? Is God's existence and His substance the same thing?

[25:06] Yeah, there's going to be no difference between the two, since we found out, right? And we take up the doings of God as understanding and as willing and so on. Would they be something added to substance? No, they would be the very substance of God, right? Okay.

[25:29] So why do we have these three parts of our consideration of God? If there aren't three things, three different things corresponding to God, why? The way we know. Okay. What's the way we know God in this light? Through engagement.

[25:52] Through through. You know the simple through and the simple. okay? And basically, we know God through the things God has made, right? Now, is the existence of Duane Berquist or your existence and the substance of you that you are, are they the same thing? No, is your substance received its existence from God, right? Okay, and is your substance the same thing as your doing? You know, Descartes all mixed up in this mixed up in this.

[26:31] You know, I think therefore I am, and the early modern philosophers know if I stop thinking, why I cease to be, right? Well, the point is, your existence and your substance not the same thing as your thinking, right? And most people would cease to be a thinking versus substance. So, thinking about their substance or their existence

[26:58] So um excuse me, these are three different things in the creature, right? Okay. Now, go back to my little simple example here. Compare God to point again.

[27:31] You see, from the one simple God, there descends, you might say, right? The multiplicity of things in the creature, right? And here we just speak of the existence of the creature,

[27:51] the substance of the creature, and then the what, the doings, operations. Doings, I suppose you say in English. God is the source of all these things, right? So these three points here are really distinct. And this point is not this point. This point is not this point, right? And now we're coming back

[28:27] the opposite direction, right? Now, what does the great Heraclitus say? The way up and the way down are the same. But in God, you're going from something one and simple to the what many and composed here in the creature, and we're going the opposite direction from the many and composed back to something one and simple, right? So I can consider.

[28:55] This point here as the end of this line, right? And as the end of this line, and as the end of this line, right? And so now I have a threefold consideration of one point. I first consider at the end of this line, then at the end of that line, and then at the end of that line. Am I being false? No. But that threefold consideration arises because of my starting point there.

[29:29] Okay. But in order to not confuse my way of knowing with the way the center is, as I go along here, I will discover that existence

[29:45] and the substance of this God, right, are the same thing, right? And then that his doings are what the same as his substance, right? And. One

[30:06] doing his willing and his reasoning and so on, or his understanding. I should say, are really the same thing too, but they're the same as his substance. That's why

[30:17] we have these three parts of consideration, because we're knowing God as the source of these things and creatures, right? So any of these thoughts that we have about God are going to be inadequate to expressing all that He is, right?

[30:38] And this come up, you know, all the way through here, but it come up in this treatise here, coming up now in questions twelve and 15. Thomas will have to stop and point out again. that he's talking to the Trinity and so on.

[30:58] So you say, you know, God the Father. we'll talk about his being the Father. The name Father expresses something about Him, but not all, right? And the name God expresses something, but not all. All, So no name is going to be adequate to God.

[31:23] And the Trinity, something more, right? But when you state the Trinity, you'll see that it has to come after the consideration of the divine doings, right? Because the Son proceeds from the Father by way of His understanding, okay, okay, okay. And something like this in us, like when I even when I imagine, right? When I imagine something, I what? In my imagination, there proceeds an image, right?

[31:56] And when I think about something, there proceeds in my reason a thought of that, right? Okay, that's kind of a starting point to see that. And then when I love somebody or something, right? That person has made an impression upon my heart. So something that person is is in my heart, huh? Okay. So when God loves Himself, He proceeds by way of love too. So you have to really understand that God understands and wills before you can understand the Trinity.

[32:30] And when the question comes up, you know, can there be more than one Son or more? You know, you have to realize what you learned in talking about the operation of God, that He understands everything by one act. So it's only one thought, only one Son, right? And it's only one act of will in God, right? So you have to really understand that. This is perfectly well ordered, than Thomas does Thomas does, huh?

[32:58] And helps you to think about. I think he uses an analogy, right? Thomas used that comparison of God to the center of a circle. He is talking about eternity, you know, where the points of time are before and after each other, but they're all exactly opposite or across from, so to speak, the eternal now, right? So the past and the present and future are present to God, but they're not all present to each other.

[33:28] So you can make a little make a little use there, but all these things kind of fall short, okay? It's kind of interesting. I was mentioning I was reading Louis de Broglie about talking about the electron and so on, huh? And

[33:49] the difficulty in knowing electron is just the opposite of the difficulty in knowing God. The difficulty in knowing God is that he's too, yeah, so through the weakness of our mind, the difficulty in knowing the electron is that it hardly exists, okay?

[34:09] And remember what Thomas was saying about the metaphor before, you know, the comparison. Why should sacred scripture use metaphors? And isn't this something proper to the poet, right? So, why should the infima doctrina, the lowest teaching, use should be used in the highest teaching in sacred doctrina? And Thomas says, "Well, the reason why they both use metaphor is because you are talking about something that is beyond our mind, today, right?

[34:47] Okay. But in a way, it's just for the opposite reason. It's beyond our mind, right? Okay. Whatever that's is kind of similar to that, right? So, in the case of sacred scriptures, use metaphors. You are trying to bring something down to our level, okay? But in the case of the poet, using metaphors, he's trying to bring something up to our level, okay? What's

[35:20] interesting, huh? Because Niels Bohr most explicitly said that in talking about these material things, we have to use complementarity with an e rather than i, there, right? And we have to have what different images of these things that because sometimes it behaves like a particle, sometimes like a wave, and these are not altogether what the same thought at all about the thing. But we have to use both of them, right?

[35:54] Neither one seems to be adequate to describe it, right? And it's kind of interesting to see the way it's developed in modern physics, huh? They first discovered it about about light, right? And and they had in the 19th century they had pretty well determined that light was a wave-like phenomenon. And then Einstein in the 20th century, right, got the Nobel Prize for his explanation of the photoelectric effect, where he had to show that you have to consider light to behave like a stream of particles sometimes.

[36:32] Well, is it a particle or a wave, right? You see, well, neither one seems to be adequate. And in some experiments we treat it like a particle, and some experiments we treat like a wave. So the joke used to be on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, talking about it as if it were particles. Well, you know. but there's a little dislikedness between that and and and God, right? That no one of these thoughts that we have about God seems to be adequate to expressing the way he really is.

[37:05] We don't know him as he is by any one of these thoughts, right? But they all, in some imperfect way, correspond to God, okay? Do you see? And there's something like that at the other level. You get down to the elementary particles and so on, to the photon, electron, and so on. That you have

[37:33] different thoughts about them that, in some way, correspond to the reality of the electron, but no one which seems to be adequate to understanding what the electron is, huh? It's a nice little similarity there, like like the the use of the metaphor at times in explanation, right? So, but in a way, just for the opposite reason, right? That we do these things, huh?

[38:05] Bohr used to recommend, you know, to his physics students to read Washington, not Washington Irving, but, Kierkegaard, right? To read the Symposium of Kierkegaard, where these men go out to the countryside to have dinner and so on, and everybody's supposed to give a talk about women, right? Well, one man, you know, is a married man; he sees women a certain way. Another guy is a professional seducer.

[38:31] Another guy is a tailor. Another guy is a young student, you know. But they all have a view of woman that don't seem to be the same view of woman, right? But they all have some correspondence to the the reality, right? We used to recommend that they read this, you know, to get an idea of complementarity in a kind of a human way, huh? Um. So the same woman, say, could be a mother and a sister and a daughter.

[39:02] And a lover, and so on, right? And you'd look upon her different in each of these ways, and they all have something to do with what the woman is, right? She's all of these things, but it's kind of hard to put them together, right? You can't look upon them in the same way. I can't look upon my wife and my daughter in the same way, even though my my wife was a daughter and my daughter is a wife, right?

[39:25] Is somebody, right? And so Bohr was trying to take that idea of complementarity, right? That you that you had to not say this is what a woman is. No, each of these is an imperfect, but partially true, right? Understanding what a woman is, right? In the same way, the the wave and the and the particle corpuscle picture of the electron, they both correspond in some way to the electron, but neither one seems to adequately express what it is, huh?

[40:05] In the same way, these things here, right? Um, it's kind of interesting to see that. Yeah. Um, it's kind of struck by by one of the objections that I was studying the Trinity there. The guy was talking about the relations there and so on, and of course the objections from Avicenna, right? That relations of reason are multiplied forever, right? Okay. And therefore, there must be more than you know, just a couple relations or two, four relations, as Thomas says.

[40:42] And Thomas says, "Well, you're thinking in the human mind, of course, huh? " And so, if by an act of my reason, if I know what a triangle is, let's say,

[40:57] by that same act, do I know that I know what a triangle is? Right. That's another act, right? And if I know that I know, if I think about my knowing that I know what a thing is, I got another act in my mind, right? This is what Avicenna was talking about, right? Why God understands everything by one act, right? That's amazing.

[41:25] You know, usually what you usually think of, you know, is what God understands: what a dog is, what a cat is, what a horse is, what a triangle is, all but one act. That's that's one thing's remarkable that we can't do that, right? God just knows what is. Yeah, he knows it all by one act, He knows it distinctly, right? But also, he knows his very act by the same act, right?

[41:46] Exactly. Well, how can he do that? You know. See. Um, because basically Thomas will say what God understands is himself, right? But understanding himself, he understands his what understanding himself, because his understanding is himself, right? I say, well, see this. We can't do that, you know. That's kind of amazing, right? In the same way, you know, you take up God's understanding and his willing, I say, well, I understand to some extent what wisdom is, and I think I love wisdom to some extent.

[42:30] I said, but my understanding what wisdom is is not my loving what wisdom is, right? But God's understanding what He is and loving Himself are the same thing. See, how can this be? You know, see. Well, I won't really understand him until I see him as he is, which I hope to do someday. Um, but it's kind of interesting to think that in God. Understanding God and loving God are the same thing, you know.

[43:02] I'm always a little nervous when people say, "Well, gee, whisper, because you must love God an awful lot because you understand God more than other people." I said, "Well, no, they're not the same thing. I wish they were, but they're not the same thing, right? The same, okay?

[43:17] But I have to know, so far as I can, God's understanding and loving Himself, starting from my understanding and loving God, which are not the same thing. So I'm going to have a different thought about God's understanding and loving. But if they're really, as we can show, the same thing, there's no multiplicity in God at all. Well, then

[43:46] I realize that no thought I have about God is really adequate to expressing His perfection. So that'll come out in this next treatise here, right? But you're in a better position to see it here after seeing the substance of God than you would in the first question, right?

[44:05] So we're going to start on the first what Thursday of September is that the eighth or what? Whatever it will be after the eighth, because that's our big feast day, is our foundation day. So okay, so the second Thursday, whatever Thursday comes after the eighth. Okay, the eighth is a Thursday. I don't. Oh, I don't know. Okay, I have to look at the calendar. Yeah.