Prima Pars
39. Summa I q.12 intro and a.1: we name things as we know them; can a created mind see God's essence?
Class of 2006-09-14
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/039-summa-i-q-12-intro-and-a-1-we-name-things-as-we-know-them/

[0:00] In the, name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, in order to illumine our images, arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, pray for us, and help us to understand all that you've written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Those three things that I ask the angels to do, you know, as Thomas does talk about those in various places, but they're all three right together there in his thing on the sentences.

[0:34] Oh yeah, exactly in that order. Yeah. Okay, let's look before and after here as Shakespeare urges us in his exhortation to use reason. And you talk about things and our knowledge of things, right? And the names that we give to things or place upon things, right? What's the before and after of these three?

[1:15] Our knowledge of things. That before after the things. Things. Yeah, the things are before our knowledge of things, and our knowledge of things is before Naming them. before naming them, right? Okay. And so you often see Thomas stating this rule that we name things as we what know them, right? Huh? Okay. But if you unfold them in terms of the order, right, you can see that our knowledge of things comes between the things and the names that we place upon them.

[1:56] And if you go back to the first book that's come down to us from the philosopher, I mean the first book in the order of learning, the categories, huh? The Greek commentators, when they first thought about the categories of Aristotle, they said, "Well, some guy said he's talking about things because there are some something said about things in the categories, huh? " And others said, "No, he seems to be talking about our thoughts, the universal thoughts we have, and so on.

[2:34] " Another says, "No, he seems here to be talking about words, right? " And each of these opinions as to what the book is about, they eventually decided, is a part of the truth, right? But that the scope us, the aim of the book, in some way involves all three things. And thoughts and words,

[3:00] but then they tried to say more exactly how these three come together, and they came to the idea that it's about words naming things through thoughts. Okay, now later on they make it more particular to that, but in general, right? It's about names signifying things through thoughts, but you have that same order, right?

[3:32] But of course, it's kind of easier to see it that way because the words are the most sensible of these three, right? And some things that signify by words are also sensible, but the thoughts are more what hidden in the mind, right? So you kind of get the character of the thoughts through the way the words signify things, because the words signify things through thoughts. So three is enough, as they say, right?

[4:07] These three go together in the book called the Categories, right? And they go together in naming things, huh? So when you have a word, for example, that is equivocal by reason, especially when you have a word that is equivocal by likeness of ratios, like the famous word "before" in the Categories, right? Or like the famous word "beginning" at the beginning of the fifth book of Wisdom, or like the word "to see," right?

[4:42] Or like the word "in" there in the eight meanings of the word "in." Then, when Thomas explains the order of these words, the order of these meanings, you'll come back to the idea that we name things, we put names upon things as we know them, right? And since our knowledge starts with our senses, we place names upon things that we can sense first, and sometimes we carry the word to things we cannot sense.

[5:14] Sometimes by likeness of ratios, sometimes by the ratio of the later things to the former things. So the Greeks might have placed the word logos upon something sensible, like the spoken word, right? And then put the word logos on the thought, which is not a sensible thing, but it's connected with that word because the word in some way signifies the thought, and then they placed it upon the thing that has thoughts, the reason, right?

[5:46] That's called logos too. Or the word to see is placed upon the act of the eye first, and then upon. Imagining and finally, upon understanding, right?

[6:01] So Thomas here, in a way, is pausing here, right? After knowing something about God, not only that He is, but something about His very substance, right? That He's simple, right? But perfect, and infinite, in a certain way, and unchanging, right? And altogether one. Now he's going to pause and talk a little bit about our our knowing this unusual substance, huh? And that's what he does in question twelve, and then in question thirteen, he's going to be talking about how we what name this substance, huh?

[6:47] So he has that same same three things, right? In the questions we just finished before vacation, we're talking about the thing about the very substance of God. Now we're going to talk a bit about our knowledge of that substance, and then we're talking about our naming of that substance. He does the same thing in the Summa Contra Gentiles, although he doesn't wait till he's gone through the complete consideration of the substance of God.

[7:16] But he does talk about the simplicity of God and the perfection of God, and then he pauses and talks about how we know God and name Him and so on, right? So, so

[7:36] because in the things above, he says, "He's a little premium here." We have considered in what way God is secundum se ipsum by Himself, huh? In Himself, it remains to consider how He is in our what knowledge, right? That is, in what way He is known by creatures, huh? It reminds me a little bit of the things in the Summa Contra Gentiles when he's talking about why God has made creatures like you and I and the angels, right?

[8:15] Why He's made intellectual creatures, and that's so he can what communicate a likeness of Himself in a new way. Because in a sense, the material things, even the unknowing things, are like God in some way. At least there's, "A vestige of Him, right?" But in our minds, we can get another likeness of Him.

[8:36] Now, when he gets to the thirteenth, you just look at the beginning of the thirteenth one. There, he'll say, "Just to tie things together," there, the premium to the thirteenth question, having considered those things which pertain to. The divine knowledge, or our knowledge of God, he means right. We're not to proceed to a consideration of the divine what names, right? For each thing is named by us according as we what.

[9:08] No. Yeah. Okay. I usually state that principle in English by saying we name things as we know them, right? You have to at least be aware of things. That's not perfectly, but you have to be aware of them in some way at least.

[9:24] And then, kind of the direct consequence of that is that the order in naming follows the order in knowing. See, and it's more proximate to that, right? And not only when you take one name and carry it over, but I always take the example in class sometimes of water and hydrogen, right?

[9:47] As far as naming is concerned, water is named before hydrogen, and hydrogen is named from water because hydro means water, right? And I suppose it's gen it generates water, huh? Um water is H2O? They say. Okay. So we name hydrogen from water, and so in our naming, water is before hydrogen. But in things, if water is in fact H two O, then hydrogen is before water, right? That's the order in things.

[10:23] But the order in naming doesn't follow the order in what things. It follows the order in what In our knowledge, yeah, yeah. So because water is sensible in a way that hydrogen is not, and much more known to us, therefore it's been known since the beginning of man's life, right? The beginning of human history, Well, this hydrogen was discovered until I don't know Lavoisier in the 18th century, huh?

[10:52] Discovered before they chopped his head off in the French Revolution. Terrible thing. But you see, you see, the knowing is closer to the way, where you what actually name things, the order, right? Okay. So the first principle you see is that we name things as we know them, and then the order in naming follows the order in knowing. That's why we tend to use the word sense for the meaning of a word because our knowledge begins with our senses, huh?

[11:29] So kind of see how 12 and 13 then related to what's gone before, right? In the order among those two, huh? And about this, he says, we ask thirteen things.

[11:49] How unlucky. And the first thing is whether some created understanding is able to see what the essence of God, the substance of God, the nature of God is able to see what God really is. Is that possible? That's going to be the first article,

[12:17] and if we find out that it is able to do so, then comes the second article. Whether the essence or nature, substance of God, what He is, is seen by the understanding through some created what form, okay, species.

[12:40] And we'll see that it cannot. Okay. God has to what join Himself to our mind, right? Or join our mind to Him, so that He is both in the beatific vision what we see and that by which we see him. Okay.

[13:05] And then, whether God, the nature of God, the essence of God, what He is, is able to be seen by the bodily eye? Huh? Some people are disappointed when you tell them you don't. Not going to see God with your your eyes, huh? Okay.

[13:29] Now, the fourth article: Whether some created intellectual substance is sufficient or enough from its own natural powers to see the very what essence of God, and as you might suspect, no.

[13:49] This is natural only to God to see Himself as He is, right? So, before the created intellectual substance can see God as He is, it has to be raised by something above its nature, and this is called the light of glory, right? It's a created light, not to make God understandable, because He doesn't need to be made understandable; He's fully understandable. But to raise up the power of the mind, right, to be able to receive God as the form by which you see God as He is.

[14:32] And what was it that in the Catholic epistles there about the Father of Lights? He's called right. I read like that now. It says every perfect gift, you know, descends down from the Father of Lights, and I think it's in the plural lights, right? What's he talking about? Well, he's talking about the the many lights, the natural light of reason, right, and then the light of faith, right, and then the light of glory, right.

[15:01] These are the most perfect gifts, right, coming down from the Father of what lights, huh? Okay. Like it says in St. John's Gospel, "This is the light which enlightens every man who comes into this world." Right. So that's maybe referring, first of all, to the natural light of reason, and everybody's enlightened by the light of faith. But the light of faith is another light that raises us to seeing some things we wouldn't see, but tend obscurely, right?

[15:28] And then finally, the light of glory, and they'll have that famous words there in the Psalms: "In Your light we shall see light," right?

[15:43] Now, whether one of those right seeing the nature of God sees it more perfectly than what another, right? Okay. So you know when you say the Our Father, in English we say "Our Father who art in heaven," right? But I think in the in the Greek or in the original, it's in the what? Heavens. Heavens, yeah, yeah. Well, one meaning of our Father who art in heaven, in addition to you know the power that he shows in the heavenly bodies, but in the what saints and in the angels, right?

[16:28] We're seeing him as he is. But he's in the heavens because there's many heavens, right? And when Saint Paul speaks of a man who's carried up to the third heaven, right? Yeah. Various ways of understanding that, but there's different levels you might say, right? Of seeing God, and he's up to the level of the what seraphim, I guess. So,

[16:53] so you might suspect one of those seeing the nature of God sees it more perfectly than the other, right? But as Thomas will say elsewhere, everyone is satisfied with what seeing God, he sees God as much as he wants to see God, as much as he loves God, right? Proportional to the love of God.

[17:18] But now, given that some see better than others, does any created understanding, even seraphim, or Saint John, does it comprehend the divine nature? Does it see the nature of God as much as it's knowable? No, only God sees the divine nature as much as it's knowable.

[17:45] Now, God, by knowing Himself, knows all the things, right? And then the question naturally arises: When we see God as He is, do we know all the things? Well, yes and no, depending on what you mean by all the things, right? Okay, but but the whole created world, you see, not everything that God could have made, because that's no end of that.

[18:17] Whether the things that it knows there, meaning in seeing God as He is, does it know them through some likenesses? No, it's the divine substance itself that is what a likeness of all things. Yeah, because all things are insofar as they have some likeness to God. Goes back to fundamental principle that every maker makes what is like itself. So everything made by God is in some way like Him.

[18:47] So He is a form by which all things can be known. So not many thoughts or many likenesses there. And then, whether we know all these things together when we see God, okay, and. That's only going to be one act there. We're going to see them all at once together. So I won't be thinking about, you know, what a dog is, and then what a cat is, and then what a triangle is, and then what courage is, and so on.

[19:20] But I'll see all these things together at once, seeing God. So this is the thing about our knowledge is all stretched out. You know, go from one thing to another, right? I read a couple, you know, chapters in the Summa Contra Gentiles today. You know, and next day I'm reading some other chapters, and I, you know, I won't be thinking about the things I thought about the other day, but I think about something new and keep on going.

[19:47] You know, but I'm barely staying alive, right, On my mind. you know, We'll take up the knowledge of God Himself there and get into the.14th question so on we'll say God knows all things by one act right as you go down from God all the way down to our mind which is the lowest mind that could possibly be we have more and more thoughts as you go down but they know less and less perfectly

[20:25] so you've heard my little poem I always use it God the Father said it all in one word only when that word became a man he spoke in words so few and said so much he was the brevity and soul of it You see the truth of this idea of Shakespeare the brevity is the soul of it, right Our style speaks of that too in the fourteen books of wisdom right in fact in the Latin translation they'll say this is a brevity something small in size but great in its power

[21:09] now question is in the state of this life is someone able to see the nature of God and generally would say no right but there's a kind of unusual position of

[21:30] Saint Augustine and Thomas Aquinas following him and agreeing with him that two guys Moses and Saint Paul saw God as he is in a transitory way right and that's kind of there's some controversy about that you know I don't know if the church has ever officially proclaimed about that but but both Augustine and Thomas say that that's because the eminence of these men is prophetic as teachers you know

[22:08] now what's the difference between all these articles up to this point and the last two articles the twelfth article says whether we are able to know God in this life by our natural reason

[22:31] well remember we looked at the perhaps the most fundamental document of the church on these matters which is the constitution there in the first Vatican Council that makes very explicit that it is possible right and and goes back to you know taking the text in Epistle to Romans chapter one verse twenty okay but you know very imperfectly right. In the way you can know a cause through effects that don't do justice to that.

[23:01] When Thomas talks about you know why God made so many different things, right? And he compares it to an artist, right? Who, when he sees he has not fully said all he can say, right? He makes some more things, right? And I notice myself, and I, you know, I've been reading through the plays of Shakespeare this year. And if we just had you know a few of Shakespeare's plays, you wouldn't realize the what.

[23:35] Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so he multiplies these things, right? Okay. And the same way, if you just do you know a few Mozart's pieces, you know, maybe the piano sonatas and like that, you know the symphonies, you know, the operas or something, right? You wouldn't have a very adequate idea, right? But even when God's got too big in the whole universe, he still hasn't done something adequate to himself.

[24:01] Um. I was looking in the Lombard Lombard. You know, he's talking about God's love and how he loves one thing more than another. And he says he loves even the human nature of Christ more than the whole universe.

[24:22] Of course, when you say God loves one thing more than another, what does that mean? It doesn't mean that his love is more intense for one than the other, because it's only one act of loving God, so it couldn't be more intense for one the other. But it's because he wills a greater good to one than another, right? So he loves the Blessed Virgin more than he loves us.

[24:42] And he loves even the apostles more than he loves us, not in the sense that his love of the apostles or Mary is more intense in his love for us, but because he wills to them a what greater good, right? So he loves Mary more than the apostle because he wills to her a greater good, but he loves the apostles more than us because he wills a greater good to them, right?

[25:05] And but he wills to the human nature of Christ to be joined to his very what. Person, yeah, person, and so he wills a greater good to that than the whole universe. So obviously, he loves the human nature of Christ more than the whole universe together. Christ's objection is saying, "well, he's just one man." Well, as Thomas says, he is an individual man. That's true.

[25:34] Or or tries to argue that the the whole is greater than the part, right? You know, so in the but you see, he's like a universal cause, right? Contains everything in a simple way. So.

[25:48] Now what's the thirteenth article? Right. Whether above the natural knowledge? Of reason, or the knowledge of natural reason, there is some knowledge of God in the present life through grace. Maybe that would refer to things like what Saint Paul. Yeah, Or knowledge of it by faith, right? Yeah. Oh yeah. Okay, so looking at this kind of briefly here, the first eleven articles seem to be all dealing with what?

[26:25] The seeing God as He is, face to face, right? All different questions are involved, right? And the twelfth one is dealing with what? Yeah, which even you know, kind of like Aristotle has, right? And then the thirteenth one with the in between the two, huh? I do the extremes first, and then.

[26:52] Although the the one back there, you know, article what four, you know, is important distinguishing, right? That the knowledge we've been talking about in those first articles is something different than this one we can get by the natural powers of our of our reason, right?

[27:12] Okay. So he's obviously most all interested in one of these three knowledges, right? Okay. Um. So let's look at the first article, but it's kind of interesting the order that he has there, huh? Okay.

[27:41] It's kind of theological, right? And in the Summa Congentilis, when he's showing that a knowledge of God is the end of man, final end, and then he asks the question: "Is well, is that kind of a confused knowledge that we all have of God? Is that the end that we're aiming at? " That's very imperfect, right? And then he goes on and says, "Well, what about the knowledge that the philosophers had, right?

[28:11] " And that's a little more advanced, huh? But then he'll show that that can't be the last end, right? And then what about this knowledge of God by faith, right? And then he shows the imperfection of that That can't be the final end, right? And then finally, he'll say, well, there must be a knowledge where you see God as He is, and then you go into the question of how that's possible and so on.

[28:31] They kind of ascend, right? But here it's almost the you know reversing, okay? To the first one proceeds thus: it seems that no created understanding

[28:49] is able to see God to His very what essence, to what He is, huh? And now he's quoting Chrysostom. We used to have this feast there at least. in the I Rite we did yesterday.

[29:04] And what was it? Thomas was coming across the city of Paris, right? And laying out there, you know, spread out, you know, in the valley. And someone said, "what would you do for this whole city?" You know, Thomas said he'd rather have Chrysostom's commentary. I don't see the Matthew or John, one of the two. He'd take that and face the whole city of Paris. He must have had a hard time getting a copy of the book or something, you know.

[29:32] So he had great respect for Chrysostom. What is it? What is it? I think it's a commentary on John, where Thomas seems to almost exclusively give the opinion of what Augustine and the opinion of Chrysostom. You know, as he goes along through the commentary, like he's kind of taking them as his masters to some extent, right? And seeing what those two guys in particular would say,

[30:00] For. Chrysostom upon John, huh? on the Gospel of John, expounding that which is said in John chapter one verse eighteen. For God, no one has ever what seen, right, huh? He says that which is God, not only the prophets, but not even the angels or the archangels, see, right?

[30:29] For what is of a created, huh? A creatable nature. How is it able to see what is what? Uncreated. I think this uncreated, uncreatable. I don't know. Okay. And then this guy, who Thomas thought was the what? Dionysius Converted. had the Areopagus in Athens And Dionysius, in the first chapter, of the Divine Names, speaking about God says, neither is there a sense of him, right? Nor is there an image of him, nor opinion, nor reason, nor science, huh?

[31:06] Knowledge of him, huh? So these are a couple arguments from authorities, where they seem to be saying we don't know him. Second article or second objection. Moreover, everything infinite, as such, is unknown, right? But God is infinite, as has been shown above. Therefore, by himself, he's unknown, right? And I got to be careful because the word "infinite" has got many meanings, right?

[31:42] If you think of infinite in the way in which Aristotle is understanding it in the eight books of Natural Hearing, then the infinite is something that you can't really know, right? But it's tied up with something that's lacking. It's what form, huh? Something that's very, by its very nature, incomplete, huh? Or it's tied up with the infinite. That's tied up with quantity. We're trying to know step by step all the numbers are.

[32:13] And that's you can't do, right? But that's not the way in which God is infinite, huh? Moreover, the created understanding is not knowing except of things that exist. For what first falls in the grasp of the understanding is being, huh? But God is not existing, but above existing things, as Dionysius says. Therefore, he's not understandable, but he's above every what understanding, huh?

[32:51] Now, since what he's saying here is that the proper object of reason is what is, right? And what is there is what a distinction between what it is and its being right. Well, God is above that. I am who am right. So he's above what can be understood right. Interesting.

[33:18] And then the fourth one of the one knowing to the known, there must be some what proportion, proportion or ratio, since the known is the perfection of the one knowing. But there's no ratio of the created understanding to God, because they differ infinitely, right? Therefore, the creative understanding is not able to see the the nature of God. I think I mentioned that when we talked about the goodness of God, right?

[33:51] Thomas will sometimes raise the question: Is God and creatures better than God alone? The creatures, in other words, add something to the goodness of God, and the answer is no. And

[34:14] when Thomas is trying to lead us by the hand to understand that a bit, right? He has two ways of doing that, right? And one way is to say that well, the goodness of the creature is only partaking of the good of God, right? So just as Duane Berquist and the arm of Duane Berquist is no more than Duane Berquist alone, right? So, in a sense, God and what partakes of the goodness of God is no more than what God alone, right?

[34:50] But the other way he does, which is closer to what's going on here, is to say that there's an infinite distance between the divine goodness and the goodness of the creature, and therefore the goodness of the creature is the divine goodness, not like a shorter line is to a longer line, but like a point is to the line. Now, if you had a point to a line, how much longer is the line?

[35:19] Not at all, because the point is no length at all, right? So there's no proportion. How can you know? We know God, huh? A ratio.

[35:36] Well, like in the in the second objection, especially, you got to be careful about the word proportion, right, huh? Because sometimes Thomas would deny that there's a what. Ratio of the creature to God, right? Other times we say there is, right? If you take ratio in the strict sense, where you have a definite ratio, right—one half of, or one tenth of, or one hundredth, or one millionth, one billionth, right?

[36:10] Then there is no ratio between the two, right? Okay. But if you take ratio in a kind of broad sense, where one has relation to the other, right, then there is. And so I've seen Thomas sometimes deny that there is, and sometimes say that there there is, right? And he'll make that distinction here.

[36:36] Okay, but against this is what is said in the first epistle, Saint John, in the third chapter, the second verse. I can usually remember that one, three, two. so I'm kind of easy to remember that one.

[36:53] We shall see him as he is, right? So it seems to be two ways the Scripture has of seeing God, what He is. One is this passage here, and the other one is the phrase of Saint Paul, "They're seeing God face to face," right? You have that in the Psalms too. You know, this is the race that seeks the face of God in Jacob.

[37:19] So, but perhaps this is is said more properly in face to face, a little more proportion to us, but more metaphorically, almost down face to face, huh?

[37:39] Okay. I answer, he says, "It should be said that each thing is knowable according as it is an act. " Now, what part of philosophy is that beginning here taken from?

[38:05] Natural philosophy. No. Wisdom. Yeah, and from the ninth book of wisdom, right—the book on act and what ability, right—and there you see that ability is not knowable by itself, right? It's knowable only through act. So something is knowable through act. So it's it's brought out there in the third part of the ninth book of wisdom. We looked at that book a little bit, you know, but.

[38:43] But God, who is pure act, right, without any. Mixture of potency in the passive sense, huh? Now, where did we learn that God is pure act?

[39:04] Yeah, yeah. Because in the ninth Book, Aristotle shows that although in the thing that goes from ability to act, that thing is an ability before it's an act. It goes from ability to act because of something already in act. So, simply speaking, act is before what ability, and therefore the first being, the first cause, must be what pure act, right? If it was a mixture of ability and act, there'd be something before it, right?

[39:40] It would not be first. So sometimes, like in the Summa Contra Gentiles Thomas would give that kind of an argument by itself for God, existence of God as pure act, huh? Other times, though, you'll see it kind of coming out in the more concrete form of the argument for the unmoved mover. Okay,

[40:04] so God was pure act. Now, if you might remember in the in the in the Summa Theologiae, where is that brought out? Question two or three. It brought out actually when he talked about the simplicity of God at the beginning of that, right? So if you look back here for a second, question

[40:28] three. If you look at Article One of Question Three, huh? The second article there, right? That's in the context where the God is a body, right? This is Question Two, Article One. But the second article says, secondly, because it is necessary that that which is the first being, the being before all the rest, right? Because primum is defined by before all the rest, right? To be an act and in no way in potency, and then he calls it Aristotle says in the ninth book: although in one and the same thing that goes forward from ability to act, it is an ability before is an act in time, right?

[41:17] Simply, though, act is before ability, because what is inability is not reduced to act except through a being in act, right? Okay, it's been shown over above that God is the first being. Therefore, it is impossible that in God there be something in ability, right? Now, sometimes Thomas will do this in the Summa Contra Gentiles too. He'll recall that we've shown that God is the first being, the first cause, and then he argues like he does here, right?

[41:48] But then he'll take it and make it make it just an argument by itself for God, right? That the first thing must be pure act, right? Must be a pure act that is the first thing. But I like the way he does in the Summa Contra Gentiles, in a sense, because he has a chapter just devoted to showing there is no potency in God, right? And that's where he develops these these arguments.

[42:11] Here he's kind of stuck in the middle of the article on the God is a body, right? But anyway, okay. So we see each thing is knowable according as is an act, but God is pure act without the admixture of any potency. Therefore, right,

[42:39] as far as in himself is concerned, he is maxime, most knowable, right? Okay. But now he recalls the distinction that Aristotle makes, and we saw it where you first see it as you study Aristotle: distinction between what is more knowable. By nature, and what is more knowable to us? Isn't that the first part of the natural

[43:12] area of the first book Yeah, yeah. in. The very beginning of the first book of the physics, right? The first book of natural philosophy. That's where he brings that out a bit, right? And of course, he comes back to it in the fourteen books of wisdom, the second book, in the ninth book, and so on. Okay,

[43:32] that's you know one of the hardest things to understand, right? But why is it that what is most knowable is not most knowable to us?

[43:52] Yeah, but because our mind in the beginning is purely in what potency, right? Okay, and so as our mind goes from potency to act, it knows those things that are less than act first. So, what act is most known to us?

[44:22] Well, in the ninth book of wisdom, Aristotle says that it's motion, right? Okay, and I always quote Shakespeare there, in uh Ulysses' speech there, in Troyes and Cressida, right? Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs. We get a lot of mileage out of that, right? Yeah. I was talking to the students there on Wednesday night there about Shakespeare's definition of reason, right? And he first tells us that it's an ability for discourse, right?

[44:58] And discourse comes in the Latin word for running. So discourse names an act of reason that is like a motion; it's going from one thing to another. And then I was recalling the statement: "Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs." So it's our reason in motion that catches our attention more, right? And discourse is a kind of motion, right? But how actual is motion?

[45:30] It's empirically actual. Yeah, yeah. It hard it's hard to actual, right? So if I walk across the room, always as I walk across the room, part of my motion is in the past and doesn't exist. Part of the future doesn't exist, right? And how much motion is here all at once?

[45:57] No, because I'd be in two places at the same time. So, so motion. Barely exists, just like Aristotle says, you know, about time, right? And he says, well, the past doesn't exist, the future doesn't exist yet, and between the past and the future is only time. So how can they exist? You know, when its parts don't exist, right? So this is the least actual of acts, right?

[46:26] But the one that gets our attention most known to us. When I tried to explain the senses of the order of the senses before and after there, in the twelfth chapter, the categories. The first sense of before is before in time, right? Then comes the sense of before in being, and then before in the discourse of reason, and then before in goodness or better. But I ask, why does he start with before in time?

[46:56] Well, that's tied up with the before and after in motion. Time is the number in the before and after in motion. So because things in motion catch our attention most known to us, the first sense of before and after is that found in motion. Um, you get a lot of mileage out of that, okay? So what's most knowable to us is least actual. And when we reason, as we did in the first argument for the existence of God, when we reason from motion to eventually the unmoved mover, when we find out eventually is pure act, right?

[47:38] We're reasoning from what is most knowable to us to what is what. Least knowable to us. Least knowable to us, but most knowable simply, right? Yeah. Um.

[47:56] But you know, when we come to see God as He is face to face, it's going to be reverse in a way. Just like you know,

[48:14] the way of knowing in geometry is better than in the other parts of philosophy, because in geometry you tend to know the cause before the effect. That's a more perfect way of knowing, but it's not very characteristic of our mind. And we don't even do it in this kind of abstract science, you know, where we consider triangles and circles and separation from the sensible world and so on.

[48:43] And then we have a little bit of you know, knowing the effect from the cause rather than the reverse, right? But that's what God is, everything, right? By knowing Himself, huh? So we're going to partake of that when we come to see God face to face, huh?

[49:05] He goes on to point out the difficulty of our mind, but what is most knowable in itself to some understanding is not knowable, right? On account of the exceeding, right, of the understandable above such an understanding, right?

[49:28] And then use Aristotle's comparison. Aristotle thought the bat flew at night time because the light of the day was too what? Yeah, just as the sun, which is most visible, right, because most got light cannot be seen by the bat on account of the excess of the light. Now, if you read the Republic there of Plato, right, Socrates says something like that, right? He compares us to those who are born in a cave, right, and somebody escapes. gets. out into the sunlight, you know but he's kind of what, Blinded right?

[50:06] So things are more visible in the sunlight than in the cave, because there's more light out there, but they're less visible to what, to him, right? Because of the weakness of his eyes, right? That's why Aristotle said in the second book of wisdom that the chief cause of difficulty in our knowing is the weakness of our mind,

[50:29] because the things that are most knowable are least known to us. Okay. Remember my little comparison there, you know, Aristotle in the second book of wisdom there he talks about how the difficulty in knowing can be from

[50:50] the object of knowing, or from the what, the mind, right? And that's a very interesting distinction, right? But as Thomas will explain in commentary, this can be said of other things besides knowing.

[51:08] So I say if something is difficult to love, it can be because it's not very lovable. Like it's difficult to love cancer or something like that, right? Not very lovable. I find it difficult to love rock and roll music. It's not very lovable. You know, Not only do you see it's defect in my heart. It'd be defect in my heart. if. I love these things.

[51:38] These terrorists love to blow us up. You know, I don't think that's you know a very lovable thing, really. See, but if I don't love truth, I don't love wisdom, I don't love God, or I find difficult to love these things that are very lovable, right? Because they're very good. Then obviously the defect is in my heart. is I've got a de I have a weak heart.

[52:14] Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you might say chief difficulty would be the weakness of my my will that I can't love the things that I most love about

[52:29] okay. Now some people paying attention to this lay down that no creative intellect, right, is able to see the essence of God. You can see what people might think this, right?

[52:45] But this is what not suitably said, right? For he says, huh? Since the what last beatitude of man, right? Consists in his what highest operation right

[53:05] his greatest operation which is the operation is understanding right if the great intellect never saw the what essence the substance of God the nature of God what God is

[53:26] either it would never attain beatitude right or in something other right than God his beatitude would consist right and this is alien from the what faith right

[53:48] for in him is the ultimate perfection of rational creature in him who is the what beginning of being right for each thing is what perfect in so far as it attains its what beginning

[54:10] that's one reason he's giving that, right likewise he says it is outside of reason for there is in man a natural desire of knowing the cause that's where Aristotle begins the fourteen books of wisdom he says man is by birth by nature right man wants to understand right to know the cause

[54:40] and you could say also that the reason wants to know not only what is but what it is so naturally wants to know not only that God is but what He is so the very nature would seem to be frustrated huh so if if our reason naturally wants to know not only what is but what it is then it eventually wants to know what God is and this would make the natural inborn desire there in vain right

[55:13] for there is in man a natural desire of knowing the cause when he sees the effect and from this wonder arises in men if therefore the understanding of the rational creature is not able to arrive at the first cause of things the desire of nature would remain empty in vain

[55:36] when simply it ought to be conceded that the blessed see the what Blessed. Yeah What does Christ say about the angels right they always see the face of my Father right I think he used the word face there doesn't he in that particular passage yeah yeah that's the way St Paul speaks right to Psalm also to seek His face forevermore yeah yeah a number of Psalms right yeah.

[56:01] Okay, as one would just seek to face the God of Jacob, right? Yeah. Okay, so it's kind of difficult sometimes to understand the the theological virtues, right? And

[56:33] why there should be three, and why you have hope. Because one theological, all theological virtues have God as their what object, right? Well, how can there be three virtues then? Because God is one, right? Okay. But God is the object of faith and the object of charity for different reasons, right? He's the object of faith insofar as he's the first truth. Okay, and that fits with faith being in reason because the object of reason is truth.

[57:07] Okay, he's the object of charity, huh? Insofar as he's the sumum bonum, the highest good. Okay, the good of every good, Saint Augustine says, and that fits charity being in the will, whose object is good, right? Now what's left for hope? The theological virtue in between, right? And I was reading in the place he takes it up in the sentences, and he's saying, "Well, this is the what supreme arduum right,

[57:44] "That's kind of strange, you know, because it's something you know analogous to the irascible, right? You know, the emotions, Or the irascible aims at the the difficult, the arduum, right? " Um. So when one animal fights another animal, it's not because it's pleasant or agreeable to the senses, but because it's a difficulty to overcome, right? Put the other animal down.

[58:07] Like his cat and Tabitha, they'd be a strange cat in the backyard. You see Tabitha come around the back, and she's like a wild, a wild woman, you know. You know another cat. See that Tabitha coming? She jumps and runs off around the yard like that. While the other cat pops, just kind of sits there and watches, you know, not doing anything, you know. But Tabitha, I mean, you know, when he first got Tabitha, I was almost afraid of her myself.

[58:30] I didn't know where that. Especially with the children, you know, you know, because you know, is a tough cat. But that's the arduum But when Thomas is explaining, he knows that this is arduum He says, "because beatitude, and he then he quotes what Augusta, I mean Boetheus says that that happiness or beatitude is a state made perfect by the congregation of all goods. " That's a arduous thing to to pursue, right?

[59:04] And you know, if they're not to pursue without the help of God, the mercy of God, and without some merits in your own, through the grace of God, and so on. But it's as the arduous as it can be. And of course, in a way, God is is is every good. You know, like He says to Moses, "You know, follow me, and I'll show you every good."

[59:23] Thomas says, "That is myself." Okay. I can't remind you here because you say just be with us. Some people might say this is so up above us, right? You know, Thomas says here because what is most knowable is least knowable to us, right? You might say, as he says here, "Hoc attendentes pay attention to this. Some posuerunt lay down that no created understanding is able to see the essence of God, right?

[59:58] This is an arduous thing, right? And therefore, you need the what hope, right? I mean, Thomas would approach it by saying, in order to pursue a good, you have to know it in some way, you know about it, and faith does that, right? You have to want it or love it, and that's what charity does, right? But you got to see it as possible too, and that's how hope comes in, right?

[1:00:25] And so, promised to us. yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. But Thomas says, you know, when he gets through showing what our real beatitude finally consists in, he says, and therefore they will blush. He says, right? Who seek the end of man in something, you know, can be or a woman or whatever, you know, whatever people seek, money, power, you know, something, you know, we realize how high the the end that we're called to, okay?