Prima Pars
40. Summa I q.12 a.1 replies and a.2: God infinite and knowable, ratio in two senses, the light of glory and seeing God without a created likeness
Class of 2006-09-14
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/040-summa-i-q-12-a-1-replies-and-a-2-god-infinite-and-knowable/

[0:00] Now, how does he reply to the argument from the authority of St. John Chrysostom and the Dionysius, right? The supposed disciples in Paul himself, right? Well, he's saying you misunderstand the text, right? They're talking about what comprehension, right? Okay, which is knowing God As perfectly as he knows As knowable as he is know, as much as he is knowable, right? Only God can know that, right?

[0:33] The first effort should be said that both authorities speak of the vision of what comprehension, right? Knowing God as much as he's knowable, whence Dionysius puts forth before many those words proposed that to all he is universally incomprehensibilis, right? Okay.

[1:00] So that kind of confirms Thomas' understanding of what he's saying, and Chrysostom, a little after the words, right, adds, "Um, this vision, a most certain consideration of the Father and comprehension, right? Only as much does the Father has of the Son, right? So there, Thomas is looking before and after, like Boethius, right? He looks at what Dionysius says a little before, and he refers to comprehension, right?

[1:34] And then looks at what Chrysostom says after, and he's saying something referring to comprehension, right? I call vision here the most certain consideration of the Father and the comprehension of Him, right?

[1:53] Such as the what as much as the Father has of the Son, right? Translation in the past, okay. Okay, now in the reply to the second objection, as in the fourth objection, in both cases you'll be distinguishing senses of the word infinite. One case and of the word what proportion or ratio. Okay,

[2:31] Thomas tends to use the word proportion for ratio, right? You know, unlike it becomes customary. Five modern physicists use the word proportion to mean ratio, but in Euclid, you know, ratio and proportion don't mean the same thing. Proportion is a likeness of ratios, right? So two to three is a ratio. Four is to six as two is to three would be a proportion, right? But then people started calling the ratio a proportion, and that's unfortunate, I think.

[3:06] But you know, but sometimes you know Thomas has to kind of make a word proportionality he wants to talk about, you know. So so I like to follow my master Euclid and you know, but anyway Thomas goes along with the way people are speaking. So the second it should be said that the infinite, which holds itself from the side of matter not perfected by form, is unknown secundum se, right, as such, because all knowledge is through some form.

[3:42] That's another way of saying it's through act, right, or commit with it. But the infinite, which has itself on the side of form, not limited or contracted by matter, is in itself most known, right? And in this sense, God is infinite, and not in the first way, as is clear from the things above, going back to the treatise where we showed that God is infinite and what that means.

[4:10] Um, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, I kind of like the fact that Thomas takes up in the consideration the substance of God those same five things, but he takes up the infinity of God last, and he's already shown that God is not a body, is not continuous in the treatise on the simplicity of God, and God is is one and not many, right? So there's neither a continuous quantity nor a discrete quantity in God, and therefore when he begins consideration infinity of God, he excludes the infinity that's tied up with what quantity, right?

[4:49] Which is usually infinity that Aristotle has in mind when he's talking about infinity, huh? And and knowing that kind of infinity by enumerating the parts is something you can never do. You can never divide the line completely, and you can never, you know, enumerate all the numbers, right? And that's not the kind of infinity that God has. Let alone the kind of infinity that you, apply to matter, you know, and say that the first matter

[5:22] is infinite, considered just by itself, because it's not limited by any form. And what we learned in the first book of Natural Hearing, the first matter is not knowable by itself, right? Okay, so God is not infinite in that way, right? He's most knowable himself, huh? Just that we're not ready for knowing something that knowable, right?

[5:56] Okay. Now the next objection, now this is the one about God being what? This kind of Dionysius's way of speaking. Yeah, yeah. But a little bit

[6:19] like if you were to say, you know, that God's goodness is above the good, because the good means that you have goodness, and therefore, if you have goodness, you're not the same as your goodness, right? Well, God doesn't have goodness; it's goodness itself, so he's above the good. Okay, so that is a certain way of speaking kind of emphasizes certain things, right?

[6:40] For God is not thus said to be not existing, as if in no way he exists, but because he's above everything existing, which is not the same as his existence, right? For existence, you know, in the way of speaking, there seems to be saying that you have existence, right? And therefore, you're not your very existence, but in so far as he is his very to be, his very existence.

[7:07] That's something we learned in the question on the simplicity of God. Whence from this does not follow that in no way is he able to be known, but that he exceeds what all knowledge that we have of creatures, anyway, which is for him not to be what, be able to be comprehended now.

[7:31] So the third and the first objections has something in common, right? Okay, and that's that they bring in to some extent the idea of God not being able to be comprehended, right? But the second and the fourth, we looked at the second already, but the second and fourth have in common that there's a word infinite in one case, other case proportion or ratio that are used in a what?

[7:55] Different sense, right? So you have the fallacy, of the equivocation in those arguments, right? Okay. That the infinite, which is not knowable, is not the infinite which God is, huh? Okay. And the ratio of the creature is not the original sense of ratio. We have a definite ratio, you know, half or a fourth, something like that. To the fourth, it should be said that proportion or ratio is said in two ways.

[8:34] In one way, as a certain what? Relation. Relation of one quantity to another, according to double or triple or equal, are species of ratio. That's the one that you're mainly concerned with in mathematics, right?

[8:52] So the ratios and then proportions in Euclid sense are much more exact, you might say, right? Another way, more generally. The relation of one thing to another can be called a what ratio, and thus in this way there can be a ratio of the creature to God, in so far as it has itself to Him as an effect to a cause, and as ability to what act, and according to this,

[9:24] the created intellect has a ratio. Actually, we don't have a good word to say in English. Proportion, we have to use, probably, to knowing God, right? There is a proportion there. And if you go back to what we learned in the first book of Natural Hearing, Aristotle is talking about matter towards the end of the book, and he says it's knowable by proportion. And he's saying that the first matter is to let's say man and dog, like clay is to sphere and cube.

[9:59] Okay, well, it's not as exact as four is to six, is two is to three, right? See, but there is a what a likeness of the way one is to the other, right? Okay.

[10:16] So that's kind of thing you have to understand in its broader sense. Okay. Now, I think that example there is, I mean, that that kind of equivocation is the equivocation where a word is carried over by having part of its meaning dropped.

[10:42] We had an example of that. I put the word undergoing. Undergoing first means to be acted upon in a way that is contrary to yourself and destructive of yourself, right? I am under the weather. I've undergone this, okay? And then you can say what the senses undergo, but this is not really contrary to the senses, but it perfects them, right? It's still kind of a bodily change going on, and that's why if you you know look at the light or the bright too long, your eyes are going to become affected, and if you hear sounds too much, you can go deaf, right?

[11:25] And then finally, we speak of understanding as a kind of undergoing, right? We're kind of generalizing the idea, right? That's how you carry the word over. Or when you carry the names of the emotions over to the acts of the will,

[11:43] you keep the formal aspect of the emotion, but you drop out the bodily transformation that takes place when you undergo these, right? So the terrorist comes in, and I'd be afraid, you know, I have a bodily, you know, thump thump here, right? Okay. Now, as a philosopher, I'm not afraid of making mistakes, right? But it's not the same kind of fear. It's more in my will, right?

[12:13] I realize how easily the mind is deceived, and but the word fear is not purely equivocal, there, right? Okay. Or when I say I love the candy, or I love the woman, or something, that's an emotional thing, right? But to say I love wisdom or I love the syllogism, I don't have emotion about these things, you know. But is the word love

[12:45] purely equivocal? No. But as I carry the word love over from the emotion to the what act of the will, I'm dropping the bodily aspect out, right? That's one way that a word becomes equivocal by reason. I'd say that's very important example, right? You know, when Thomas is talking about the theological virtue of hope, well, hope first names an emotion, an emotion whereby a man screws up the courage to, you know, to overcome the difficulties to get something good, right?

[13:24] Um. But that involves something bodily too, and you drop that out when you speak about the theological virtue of hope. But you keep the idea of something good that's difficult to attain, and you have to, you know, rise up to and so on, right? So there's a whole number of words like that, right? Perfect. God isn't perfect because what's perfect is something that's completely made. Yeah. Yeah.

[13:53] Yeah. Yeah. To keep something that what has been made has been actualized, right? So there is in the idea of the made that some potency has been actualized, right? So you drop out the idea that it's supposed to be actualized, etc. , right? To keep the idea of act, and that's tied up with so. So those important important

[14:17] group of words that become equivocal by reason in that way. Um, the the great Greek philosopher spoke of a road in our knowledge, right? And I always, you know, quote my son Paul when he's a little boy, you know, and I said to Paul when he's kitchen table, I said, "What do you think of the basic road in human knowledge? " And he said, "because I've been talking about it all day long in class, and he said, 'Look at cars and trucks on it.

[14:44] ' He says. " So he's stuck in the first meaning of road, right? Said. When you carry the word road over from the road we walk or drive upon to the road in our knowledge, right? Do you keep something of the idea that road? Yeah, because what is did you keep?

[15:05] Yeah, yeah. Because when I take the road from here to Boston, let's say, one part of the road is before, another part of the road, huh? And so that before and after, I keep that idea. If I drop out the the asphalt, whatever the whatever's material there, right, and just keep the idea, what there's a there's a a what before and after in my knowledge, and I call that a road in my knowledge.

[15:30] Aristotle usually calls philosophy a what a methodos huh? And etymologically that's saying over a road, right? You say that philosophy is knowledge that's over a road that follows a road, right? There's a before and afterness in this knowledge, right? So that's another example of what you're doing, right? Right.

[15:52] But but the the material thing is more sensible and therefore it's named first, right? When I would teach the love and friendship course, you know, I'd send them into class of Christian. I'd say, "What is love?" And the answer is, "What's an emotion?" And you know, well, that's what they think of it first, right? I remember as a little child being in church and hearing the priest in the pulpit talking about the love of God, and I'm kind of thinking of you know my love of girls or something.

[16:19] But I think of this warm, fuzzy thing that involves some kind of bodily disturbance, to say the least. And and I said, "What does this mean, the love of God, right? Huh? Well, the love of God is really an act of the will, and

[16:42] so you carry the word love, or but you drop out this bodily aspect of it, right? But you keep the the formal aspect that comes from the soul rather than the body. And it's something like that, the word proportionate, right? probably the first place. Now I want to talk about a ratio as my proportion as I go back to to numbers, right?

[17:05] And even you know when when I illustrate Shakespeare's argument by proportion there, you know, he says, "What is a man if his chief good and mark of his time be but to sleep and feed a beast no more?" I say, "Well, the proportion he's got there is that the chief good of man is to man as the chief good of the beast sleeping and feeding is to a beast.

[17:27] And then I say, we just like in mathematics you can alternate the proportion. You know, I mean if six is to four as three is to two, and alternate six is to three as four is to two. So as the chief good of man is the chief good of beast, so is man to the what beast. So if the chief good of man is no more than the chief good of beast, then man is no more than a beast, and everybody knows that's that's false, right?

[17:53] I say to to to state Shakespeare's argument in numbers. He's saying, you know, what is the three if it be half of four? A two, no more, right? So half a six is to three as half a four is to what? Two, right? So if a two is half of four, it's I mean the three is half of four, it's only a two. I go back to something more known.

[18:23] We kind of see it first, and we have a more definite what a ratio, right? We use ratio, certa right? But in other words, we use sometimes I think is determinata. Sometimes you see that when this thing comes up, right? Okay. Now I remember seeing in the disputed questions on the very topic, right? Mir Thomas seems to speak in one place as if the creature has no ratio to God, right?

[18:54] Okay, and therefore use a likeness of ratios in talking about God, and. Thomas trying to make the point is that you can have a likeness of ratio between things are very far apart. You could say not only that

[19:12] three is to six as say one is to two, right? But you could say five thousand is to ten thousand as one is to two, right? Or five million is to 10 million. You can take things that are further and further apart, right, and still have the same what? Ratio. Yeah, a like ratio, right? And so he sees, you know, the

[19:39] likeness of ratios, to use Euclid's way of speaking, as more appropriate talking about God, right? Because you don't, you can kind of go things are very, very far apart, right? The Lord is my shepherd, right? The Lord is my rock and so on, right? In metaphor, You take things that are very far apart by kind of likeness of ratios.

[20:06] So when Thomas gives the two meanings of proportion here, he starts on the the first meaning and then he goes to the second meaning, right? Which you kind of draw something out, right? It's a whole series of words where you do that. Okay, and you find you know when Thomas in the objections, you know he'll he'll say you know is hope a theological virtue, and someone say, well, hope is a is an emotion, you know, an emotion, you know, but you won't hesitate to give a kind of objection, right, to make you stop and think.

[20:38] Well, no, um, that's the first meaning of hope. but it's not the last meaning. of hope, huh? you don't see that you're hopeless. We take a little break now, and we'll see. Whether the second one proceeds thus, it seems that the essence, the nature, the substance of God, is seen by the created understanding through some likeness, right?

[21:22] For it is said in the first epistle of John, the third chapter, second verse, that same one that we had. We shall see him as he is. We know that when he appears, we will be like him, right?

[21:38] And we will see him as he is, right? So we must become like God to see him as he is. So therefore, we see him through likeness.

[21:51] Moreover, Augustine says in the ninth book of the Trinity that when we know God, there comes to be some likeness of God in us.

[22:05] Moreover, the understanding and act is the understandable act. As we learned in the third book about the soul, second book, just as a sense and act is a sensible act, right? We learned in the second book about the soul.

[22:24] I know the shape of that picture over there because that shape has been received in my eye in some way, right? So the eye, in a way, has become a shape, huh?

[22:47] But this is not, except in so far as the sense is informed by the likeness of the sensible thing, and the understanding by the likeness of the thing what understood.

[23:04] Of course, in the case of imagination, we use the word image, which means a little likeness, right? And sometimes the first act of reason, which is understanding what a thing is, is called a what? Imaginatio per intellectum, right? Okay.

[23:26] If therefore God is seen by the created understanding and act, is it necessary that through some likeness he be what seen? But against this is what Augustine says in the fifteenth book of the Trinity

[23:45] that when the apostle says we see now through a what mirror, right? In in a what enigma obscurity, right? Obscurely, darkly, by mirror and. Enigma, by the name of Enigma, whatever likenesses, right, by him or from him, are signified to be understood, which are accommodated to what understanding God, right? But to see God through His nature or essence is not a what obscure vision, Enigma, or in a mirror, but it's divided against seeing Him that way.

[24:33] Okay, but the divine essence is not seen. Therefore, the divine essence is not seen through some likeness, huh. So Thomas says, "I answer: It should be said that for vision, both the sensible vision as well as the intellectual vision, two things are required, right? To wit, the power of seeing, right, the visual power, the ability, right, to Shakespeare's word, and the union of the things seen with the knowing power, with the sight, because vision does not take place in act except through this that the thing seen in some way is in the one seeing, right?

[25:26] That goes back all the way back to Empedocles, right? By earth we know earth, and by water water, and by air air, and so on, right? And we raise the question there: Do we agree with Empedocles,

[25:43] at least in general, that we know something because the thing known is what in us, right? When I know people and recognize my friends and so on, or my students and so on, if the what shape and the color of that person was not in some way in me, right? Okay, and so we agree with Empedocles that the thing known must be in the knower in order to be what known, right?

[26:16] Okay, but we disagree with Empedocles that it's in there in a material way. Otherwise, this picture here would know what water is because has water in it, right? And the chair would know what wood is because it has wood in it, right? And

[26:37] who was it that David shot the stone in him? Goliath. Goliath, yeah, Was that helping him to know what a stone is. What stone is not in you in that way? Maybe maybe David was a disciple of. Empedocles Could be could be a point Yeah, yeah, yeah. Drive home, drive home a point, right? But he wasn't driving home to him what a stone is, right. Okay.

[27:18] So he says, there has not come to be seeing an act, right? Except through this that the thing seen, quodam modo, in some way, right, is in the one seeing, right?

[27:32] And in bodily things, right, it appears that the thing seen is not able to be in the one seeing through its very what, essence or nature, but only through its what, likeness, huh? As the likeness of the stone is in the eye, through which there comes to be sight and act, but the very substance of the stone is not in it. That's what happened. That's what happened.

[28:02] If, however, it was one and the same thing that was the beginning or the source of the what seeing power, and which was the thing seen, right?

[28:24] It would be necessary, huh, that the one seeing from that thing had both the power of seeing, right, and the form to which it would what see, right? Huh? Now it is manifest that God is both the author, right, the efficient cause, the maker, right, of the power of understanding, right, and He is able to be seen by the what understanding that power.

[29:00] And since the understanding power of the creature is not the nature of God, right, it remains that there be some what likeness, huh, partaken, right, of Him who is the first what understanding, right? Whence the power of the intellectual creature is said to be a certain understandable what light, huh? As a word derived from the first light, right? St. Thomas in the Communion Prayer calls God "Deus Lux Vera."

[29:46] Okay. Whether this be understood about the natural power, right, or through some perfection added above this of grace or of what glory, right? Huh? There is required, therefore, for seeing God some likeness of God on the side of the what. Knowing power, right? Huh. By which the understanding is what efficacious for seeing God, right? Huh.

[30:25] But on the side of the thing seen, right, which is necessary in some way to be united to the one seeing, through no likeness, huh, that is created, is the nature and substance of God able to be what seen, right? Because what he's going to say is that no created likeness would be adequate to expressing God as He really is, and so we can't see God by that kind of a likeness of God created and put into the mind, right? But rather, he's going to say that God Himself must be in the mind, right?

[31:07] Okay. To see a creature, God would have to create another God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. First, because as Dionysius says in the first chapter about the divine names, through likenesses of a lower order of things, right, in no way can higher things be known, right? For through the forms of a body, one is not able to know the nature of a bodiless thing, right?

[31:43] Much even less than right. Through a created form of any sort, can the very essence or nature of God be seen, right? Okay. Secondly, and this is the second argument, is because the nature of God, the essence of God, is His very being, right?

[32:08] And this could not belong to any created form. Okay. So in every created form, in every creature, the existence of it and the thing itself are distinct, right? Okay.

[32:25] Therefore, it is not possible that any created form be a likeness representing to the one seeing the very nature of God, huh? Okay. It would have to be its own being. It would have to be what it is, but they can't be that created thing. Okay. And the third reason is that the divine nature is something infinite, uncircumscribed, huh? Okay. Containing in itself, in a more what superior, eminent way, right?

[33:01] Whatever can be signified or understood by the great intellect, right? And this in no way is able to be represented by some created what species. So it's going to be limited to some species or genus of things. Because every created form is determined according to some

[33:26] notion of wisdom or virtue or being or something else, huh? Whence to say that God is seen through a likeness is to say that divine nature is not seen, which is erroneous. So he gives three reasons. Huh? Three is enough, as we say, huh? I know it's Thomas a lot in the disputed questions. He'll give three reasons and he'll stop, right? Other than Summa Contra Gentiles I'm guessing he has you know twelve reasons or something.

[33:56] I don't remember these at all. Okay. It should be said, therefore, that. To seeing the divine nature, there is required some likeness on the side of the what knowing power, right? To wit, the light of glory, right? To make our what power of understanding more like the divine power of understanding, right? Okay. Strengthening the understanding to seeing God, right? About which it is said in Psalm thirty-five, verse ten.

[34:34] We have that Thomas commentary in Psalm thirty-five, right? In your light, we shall what see light, done. But not to somewhat create a likeness is the what nature of God able to be seen, right?

[34:59] Which represents what the divine essence as it is in itself. So the divine essence has to be joined to the mind as the what understandable form by which we see God as He is. Because only that would be adequate to representing God, okay? Because that and what it is, and that it is, are the same, right? And that is not limited to what it represents, and

[35:32] the first argument there. It's not inferior to what it represents. Okay, those three reasons, son. Okay. But and but I still don't understand. He talks about this

[35:47] light of divine glory. He seems to be saying that that's that's the image. No, no, no. That is disposing our mind to receiving the divine substance as the form by which we see God as He is. Okay. In other words, the divine. When you take up, we'll take up. You know, when we get into the fourteen, fifteenth, you know, questions, we'll see that God understands Himself through Himself, right?

[36:17] So God is spoken of as being the form by which He understands Himself as He is, right? And so, for us to see God as He is, the divine substance has to become the form, right, by which we see God as He is, huh? And therefore, that form has to be received in our mind, but our mind has to be disposed to receive it as its form by the light of glory, because this is above the natural what form of our mind.

[36:48] This is the form of understanding which is natural for God, His understanding, and so before it can become, in some way, the form by which we understand God as He is, our mind has to be raised up by the light of glory, right? That light of glory, as Thomas would explain, you know, other places more fully, is not fully to make the divine substance understandable. The divine substance is pure act, right?

[37:14] Yeah. And therefore, fully understandable, right? Yeah. But it's not proportioned to our mind as a natural form of our mind, son. So our mind has to be given a supernatural disposition, right? Whereby it's raised up to be a subject that can receive the divine substance as a form, which is going to see God as He is. Okay, so that's there's a likeness there, right? But not a likeness of the divine substance, because that would be something created, right?

[37:45] But a likeness to the divine understanding or ability to understand, right? Whereby our mind is raised up, so it's going to understand in a way a bit like God understands, huh? And God understands what primarily Himself through Himself, right? And so we've got to, in a sense, partake of that, right? And therefore, our mind has to be raised above its very nature. Okay, so it's like a disposition, the side of our of our mind to receive the divine substance as a form by which you understand God Himself as He is.

[38:20] That's an amazing thing, right? Saint Paul says that that's a perfect gift coming down from the Father of Lights, right? It's the third. You know, three is enough, as they say. It's the third light, but it's different from the other two lights, huh? As Thomas would explain, because the other two lights are to make something understandable that is not yet understandable to us, right? The natural light of reason and the light of faith, right?

[38:48] But this is not to make something understandable, but to raise up our power of understanding to dispose it to receive the divine. form. Okay, so it's a little different meaning of the word light, huh? Like Saint Paul says about the same passage he quotes there. Then I shall know even as I know. Yeah, that's an amazing thing. That's what he's talking. Yeah, yeah. We'll see God in the way God sees Himself.

[39:20] That's what he says. He says, "Now we know in part. " Yeah. But then I shall know even as I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's an amazing thing, right? Mm-hmm. John is saying that in the epistle, right? the quote there that we know we must be in some way like God because we're going to see God in the way God sees Himself. And how can you see God the way God sees Himself unless you become in some way like God?

[39:49] And this human glory is doing that, right? Okay. But we're being raised up to be able to receive God as the form by which we see God as He is.

[40:03] That's the form in which God sees Himself, but He comprehends that form. We don't. Same. But we're going to see Him as He is because this is the form which we see Him. If We saw Him by created likeness. We wouldn't be seeing Him as He is. Now, you see the angels in their natural knowledge. the angelic substance is more like God, than our soul is, actually speaking.

[40:38] and therefore they see God more perfectly in their natural knowledge than we do. Right? They still don't see Him as He is because their very substance, in these three ways that He explains in the body article, falls short. Right? It's still inferior to the divine substance. Right? And it's it's. the. Difference between the existence and the substance, right? Of this form, right? Okay, and it's limited. Okay, okay. So through the likeness, which is own substances of God, he can't see God as He is.

[41:22] Therefore, He has to be raised up too, right? That's that's the morning knowledge, as Augustine says of the angels, right? On the evening knowledge is the knowledge they have in their own natural knowledge, right? But then those who were who said, "Hey, thank you," then they received this higher knowledge, right? They'll just say, no, thank you," They lost out. The demons are still smarter than their servants.

[41:51] I mean, the demons are smarter than bad men. No, yeah, yeah, they're smarter than us, but I mean, by nature, but if someone doesn't have the help of the light of grace and other things,

[42:06] a bunch of things. You know, the last petition of the Our Father, we usually say, is deliver us from evil, right? But you know, maybe the Greek is more like deliver us from evil one, right? And I know it's like in some of the famous traditional prayers of the church. You know, like the

[42:31] prayer we associate with communion there, Anima Christi, you know, and so on. And then, then it kind of follows the order roughly of the Our Father, right? Except for "Give us this day I did a bread," because you're receiving it. but then it says, you know, towards the end there, from the evil one, right? Okay,

[42:54] so it takes it that way. Make mark across the creek, you know. He's someone to be avoided, right? You read in Saint Teresa of Avila, you know, the devil tempting these saints. You know, God doesn't need to tempt us lesser ones. So to say directly, but yeah.

[43:29] Okay, so the reply to the first objection is taken from John there, right? On the authority speaks of the likeness, which is what through the partaking of the light and glory, right? Okay.

[43:47] But they say, you know, Thomas in other places he talks about the glory. He says the light of glory is not like the light that makes the colors what visible, right? Makes you visible, right? Or like the light of the age intellect, which makes the phantasms actually what understandable. See, that what's what's in the images is only what understandable in ability, and it's made actually understandable by the natural light of reason, okay?

[44:19] And by the light of faith, something is made understandable to us that would not be understandable otherwise, right? We might think within the light of glory, it's making God understandable. No, no, no, no. God is is is completely understandable, right? He's He's pure act, right? Huh? So it's not it's a light in a somewhat different sense, right? But it does contribute to understanding, right? Because it disposes our reason to receive God as the form by which we're going to see God as He is, okay?

[44:53] But not a light that makes God understandable, okay? God is is understandable to Himself, right? But He has to become the form of our mind before we see Him as He is. But that's not the natural form of our mind, and therefore our mind has to be raised up to something more supernatural, okay? In in a sense,

[45:27] sometimes I think you speak of the light of glory as gratia consummata, consummated grace, right? Okay. Now, when Thomas speaks of grace and and the theological virtues, he says the grace is in the soul, right? And it's giving the soul a kind of what new being, right? A kind of spiritual being that's more than what a natural being, right? And just as the the reason and the will and so and the powers of the soul flow from the nature of the soul, right?

[46:02] So the soul is raised up, right, to a kind of of spiritual life, right, that it didn't have before. There flows from the soul into the reason and the will the what virtues, right? And and first of all, the theological virtues. And so, in a way, you're you're being raised above your nature, huh?

[46:25] So, in in a way, the light of glory, or glory itself, is what kind of the consummation, the completion, right, of grace, huh? Now, our Lord uses the thing there of speaking of grace as like a fountain, you know.

[46:45] It's like the fountain is going up higher, you know, but doesn't he speak of it as going up into what eternal life, right? Okay, so it's it's kind of the completion of grace, huh?

[47:06] But that completion gets rid of faith and hope because then you have the end, right? But but charity remains and is more perfect now.

[47:20] Okay, the second thing here: when we know God, there comes to be a certain likeness of God in us, as Augustine says in the ninth book of the Trinity. Augustine says there speaks the knowledge of God which we have on the road in via, right? Okay, that's a word that they use Latin to translate the Greek word for road. hodos? If you look at Saint John there, he says, "I am the."

[47:48] We should translate: "I am the way, the truth, and the life." But the the word "way" there is translated in Latin by "via," right? Way in English, but the Greek word is what? hodos It's much more sensible, you know, its original meaning. Huh? I am the road. You know, quite my way is a little more abstract. You know, I mean that it could be used for the road, right?

[48:13] But now this is the way to Boston. This road, right? But way is sometimes used a little more immaterial way, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, the third objection, right? They're saying that the sense in act is a sensible in act, and this is brought out in the second book about the soul. And the understandable in act is the understandable in act, huh?

[48:59] Of course, both of those take place, right? As we learn in the De Anima, by having a likeness of the thing in us, right? So, it wouldn't be the same thing when we see God? Okay, he said. Now he says to the third, should be said that the divine essence, the divine nature, the divine substance, right?

[49:19] A little bit of Charles DeConnick's prejudice against the word "essentia, right. Essence. I didn't like that word "essence," which apparently in French means gasoline and so on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But but speak more the divine nature, divine substance, right?

[49:39] The divine essence, the divine substance, divine nature is what existence itself, to be itself, whence, just as other understandable forms, which are not their own what being, right, are united to the understanding, huh? According to the being by which they inform the understanding itself, right, and make it understood, right,

[50:11] make it to be an act, right. So the divine essence, the divine nature, the divine substance is united to the what created understanding, so that might be understood an act, right, through itself, making it understood in act. huh? Okay. So they're even more explicit what I was saying earlier, right? Then the divine substance itself is united to what our mind, or maybe better to say, our mind is united to the divine substance.

[50:43] And how can the form which is proper to one thing become the form of our soul, right? See, what has to our our mind has to be raised up by this disposition called the light of glory, which is something necessarily therefore supernatural, right? So it's disposed to receive. The divine substance as the form which it's going to understand. That's not the natural form which I understand. That's a lot better.

[51:12] than the form which I usually understand, right? Okay. And there are many forms for which I understand, right? I have one form whereby I understand what a triangle is, and one whereby I understand what a dog is, and another one whereby I understand what what courage is, and like all these forms up in my head, right? You know, Aristotle says in the *De Anima*, the soul is a place of forms, right?

[51:34] Okay. Kind of, you know, disagreeing with Plato because Plato has all these universals existing in the world by themselves, right? But no, they're all in the what understanding, right? The forms of which it can understand. And since our mind is so weak, we need a different form for everything to understand, really. Therefore, we can't understand very much at once. You know, we barely understand at all at once.

[52:01] And so we have to go from one thing to another, right? Okay. Hopefully. Hopefully. Yeah. We have to do that even in geometry, right? You go from one thing to another, right? Those who are marking you know how the you know what delight I was having here in the 14th theorem, the last theorem in the second book of Euclid. And it's broader than what I'm saying, but what's kind of new in there is Euclid shows you how to find the side of a square equal to a given rectangle or oblong, right?

[52:43] That's a very simple thing in a way, but if you ask the person, has a person do that, they don't know how to do it. And the way he does it is through an earlier theorem in Book II number five, which is that theorem I love so much, the theorem that shows, which when I see it, there's a little tragedy, right? The theorem that shows that for the same perimeter, right, a square would have more area than a what rectangle or oblong with the same perimeter, right?

[53:22] But the way Euclid actually states it for the theorem is that if a straight line would be cut into equal and unequal segments, the square on the half will be greater than the what, or greater than the one contained by the inequal ones by what the square between the points of section. Yeah. He's going to use that later on too. He's going to use also the Pythagorean theorem, right?

[53:47] You know, so one thing he adds to another thing, you know. But all these things you got to, you know, consider them one by one, you know. And it's kind of marvelous when you do it, but you realize at the same time, you know, the the natural limitations of this mind, you know. You see one thing, then you see something else, and so on, and. paulatim, you know, step by step, bit by bit.

[54:08] You know, we see get a little understanding. It's kind of kind of marvelous to see that, but this would be much more satisfying. Not laborious. See, yeah, and as we go on, we'll see that that in seeing God as He is, you'll see everything else you naturally want to know. You see the whole universe,

[54:33] you see. You'll see at least the divine mind, the divine substance, clearly enough to see everything you naturally want to know. So I know I know all Euclid, you know, but all all at once, all at once, you know, huh? Okay, but I know the the whole natural world, huh? You know. What's he going to say there on the Bible? I won't go out anymore.

[55:03] I have everything, you know. But I've been listening to Palestrina the last few Sundays. You know, when I come back from Mass, Palestrina, you know, here, nice mass, and really pretty good. at Palestrina, right there, very good. Thomas says there will be vocal praise there in heaven, so we'll have to see what Palestrina's up to when he gets there.