Prima Pars
42. Summa I q.12 a.4–5: The Knower's Way of Being, Why Reason Is Immaterial, and the Light of Glory That Makes Us Godlike
Class of 2006-09-28
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/042-summa-i-q-12-a-4-5-the-knowers-way-of-being-why-reason-is/

[0:00] answer. It should be said that it's impossible that some created understanding, by its natural powers, right, see the what power the nature of God, the essence of God.

[0:22] For knowledge happens, takes place according as the knower is in the knower. I remember we first met that with the great Empedocles, right? In the beautiful fragment of Empedocles, by water we know water, by air we know air, by fire we know fire, by love we know love, and by hate we know hate. and so, on. it's by having these things in us that we what know them, right?

[0:51] And then, since he thought of God and correctly as kind of immortal, right? If I hate is what destroys things, pulls them apart, right? Then he said, "There's no hate in God," right? Which is good. Ah,

[1:05] sorry, what? But then, if by hate we know hate, and there's no hate in God, then God doesn't know hate, and therefore we know something God doesn't know. That's the difficulty that Aristotle got into, right? But going back to what he said. Was it was it correct that

[1:29] the known is in the knower before it's known? It's got to be in the knower in some way, anyway. Would I know any of you guys? if I met you on the street there in Worcester or something. would I recognize you. If I didn't have your your shape and so on, your color in my what memory, right?

[1:53] I recognize, you know, my five grandchildren this time. Actually, I saw the other six of them too. If I couldn't, if I didn't have their shape, their thing in me, right? But how is it in the knower? That's the question, right? Because if it was in there in a material way, then this chair would know what wood is if it's got wood in it, done.

[2:21] And right, nobody thinks that. Or what's his name would know what a stone is when he gets stone in his head. So Aristotle said, "Well, Empedocles is correct that the thing known must be in the knower, right? Before it can be known, then maybe he misunderstood the way in which it is in the knower. It's not in the knower material way, but in a what immaterial way, right?

[2:54] People take sometimes, you know, the example even of the senses, which are not as immaterial as reason. But you know, when you go into the shower or something like that, your body gets adjusted to the water, and then it doesn't feel as warm as it did, right? And people start to turn on the hot for a little bit more, right? And it's because your body is not taking on the what heat as its own, right?

[3:20] Is receiving it kind of material way, The brick receives heat huh? But we have to receive the form of another as other in order to know it. That's a kind of immaterial way of receiving. And as you go from the outward senses to the imagination and on to reason, you get something which is what more and more immaterial. So the imagination

[3:52] is more immaterial than the than the eye. When I see you now, it's not as immaterial. It's when I picture you in my imagination. I go home and I can still see you with my imagination. But that's not as immaterial as when I when I understand what you are, a man. And

[4:18] so, Thomas is in cognitum, right? Knowledge contingent, huh? It happens, huh? Takes place according as the cognitum, the known, is in the what, cognoscente, the one knowing.

[4:36] But the known is in the knower according to the way of the what knower. It goes back to the more general statement that whatever is received is received according to the receiver. That's a good thing. Remember your teacher, right? You know that the students always see what you say in a somewhat different way depending upon their preparation and so on, right? That's a terrible thing, you know, in colleges now when you have all this freedom of choice, huh?

[5:08] And so sometimes you've had this course, and sometimes you've had that course, and some have had neither of those courses. And what can you presuppose when you start to teach, huh?

[5:19] Isn't it? And which I have, you know, everybody has a different, background. coming in, and you can kind of build, you know. Yeah. You can't take away freedom to build, right? At TAC, right? Everybody takes the same thing. One thing builds upon another, and you get you get further that way. And if you have freedom, now, if you are free to take solid geometry, not having had plane geometry, and he's had plane geometry, he's going to learn more solid geometry with his background.

[5:51] But you should have been, you know, required to take plane geometry before solid geometry. Well, they might admit that math, but they can't see it. Other things aren't as easy to understand. When

[6:07] Aristotle begins to investigate the definition of the soul, remember that in the second book of the soul, and he approaches the definition of soul with six divisions, right? Three in the part of the soul, and three in the part of the body, right? And and the first division he gives goes back to the categories, first book of logic. And the second division into matter and form, the genus of substance, and so on, that goes back to the first book of natural hearing.

[6:39] So if someone is reading the second book about the soul and he's going to approach the definition of the soul, he doesn't know the categories. He doesn't know the right. The first book of natural hearing.

[6:55] What do you do? What do you do? Like my Monsignor Dionne trying to teach theology, you know, and telling them what a sacrament is, and the sacrament is a sign, right? I explain what a sign is. I haven't had, you know, the philosophical background. This thing is, he ends up teaching philosophy rather than than than theology.

[7:23] So he says the known, however, is in the knower according to the way of the knower, right? That's more particular, right? We begin by saying that knowledge takes place according as the known is in the knower, right? And now he's saying what the knower is not in the known, the known rather is not in the knower in the same way, right? Quite a different angle there. Whence he says the knowledge of each one knowing is according to the way of its own what nature.

[7:58] If therefore the way of being of some thing known exceeds the way of the nature of the knower, is necessary that the knowledge of that thing be above the nature of that one what knowing. Or is it

[8:19] your way of knowing can't, in a way, excel your way of being. That's part of the reason why we, so long as our soul is a soul in a body, right? Its way of being is in the body, right? And that's why its natural way of understanding is something that can be sensed or imagined. I sometimes kind of paraphrases what Aristotle says in the third book on the soul that our reason's own object is what it is of something that can be sensed or imagined,

[8:59] and what cannot be sensed or imagined, it can't know what it is, except perhaps by some kind of what roundabout way, right? And a way that involves something negation of what can be sensed or imagined.

[9:15] Okay. Now the way of being of the angels is different because he's not in in matter, right? And so he naturally understands himself and to some extent the other angels because they are actually what understandable.

[9:34] His way of being is not the way of being of the one who said I am who am," but said Thomas Aquinas. There is, however, a multiple or manifold many ways of the being of things, right?

[9:52] For there are some whose nature does not have being except in this individual matter, this flesh and blood and bones of this individual, right? Flesh, right here, right? Individual.

[10:08] And this sort are all bodily things. Some things there are whose natures are what subsisting by themselves, not in any matter, right? That's the angels, which nevertheless are not their own what to be their own being, their own existence, but they are having existence. So the having and the had are not the same.

[10:42] And these are the bodyless substances, right? What they often call the separated substances, but meaning separated from matter, which we call the angels, right? But that's more a theological term because you're being sent all the time. But only in God is proper the way of being that He would be His own what subsisting existence.

[11:12] What God is is to be. Okay, it's not what an angel is, but He has to be. Those things, therefore, which do not have being except in individual matter.

[11:32] Is connatural for us to know, right? In that our soul, by which we know, is the form of some matter. So remember the definition of the soul in the second book about the soul. It's the first act of a natural body, right? Composed of tools, the substantial form, right? Of a body composed of tools. It's organic means. Greek word organon means tool, right?

[12:13] Which soul nevertheless has two kinds of knowing powers. One, which is the act of some bodily organ, that's the senses. That's true of the inward senses as well as the outward senses.

[12:28] And to this, it is connatural to know things according as they are in individual matter. Hence, the sense does not know except what singularism. Okay, so I never see man in general. I see this man, right? I never see chair in general. It's always this individual chair, right? I never feel chair. I feel this chair. I can't feel chair. Feel this, okay?

[13:00] Because our knowledge starts with our senses. That's why our knowledge starts with what singulars, right? So Aristotle gives in the proemium to wisdom, if you recall, the order of our knowing. Right. Says it begins with sensing, right? Then you have memory of what you sensed. Then you have experience from many memories, right? But all of that is the knowledge of singulars, right? And only after much experience do you begin to separate out by your act of understanding what's common to these many singulars, And you begin to understand the universal.

[13:39] That's why induction comes before syllogism, because induction is originally from singulars going towards universal. Why the syllogism begins with something universal, and that's why you know the dialogues when they try to define something, Meno in that dialogue, Euthyphro in that dialogue, Theaetetus in the dialogue named after him. They give examples, right? Because that's closer to the senses. Original examples are sensible. And then you know, if you ask a little child, you know, what is a square, a rectangle?

[14:23] You point maybe to those objects you got around here, right? Or something else, is a rectangle. What's a circle? You point to the clock. There is something that's circular, a bit. Picture of that. Butterflies, or the thermostat, or something. You went about with the universal definition, right?

[14:43] And I find that's true about students and especially children. Okay, but now there's another power in us. There is another knowing power of man, which is the understanding, which is not the act or form of some bodily organ. Now that's something that Aristotle first proves in the third book about the soul. Right? How do you prove that the understanding is not a body?

[15:23] How does Aristotle prove it? Very concrete way he has to show it in the third book of the soul because he's gone through the senses first, right? And it seems that the senses, in order to know something, have to be lacking that object to begin with, right? So if my tongue is going to be able to taste the sweet and the bitter and

[15:54] sharp and the you know the oily and so on, can my tongue have any taste? No. I mean, if my tongue was a sugary thing, would I be able to taste other things? No. And if my ears, you know, had Mozart inbuilt in them, I'm hearing Mozart all the time. Would I be able to hear all these different other sounds?

[16:26] Or if my eyes, you know, you know, had had in the center there, if they had, you know, green fluid, would I be able to see all colors. So it seems that the senses, in order to receive all colors, the eye has to lack any color in the center there, and the tongue, in order to receive all tastes, has to lack any taste in them. So reason is open to knowing what all bodily things.

[16:54] Therefore, it must lack any what bodily nature. Now another way that the kind of prison of style there is that reason knows the what universal. Now, if you know something about singularity,

[17:16] why is it possible to have, let's say, many chairs that are of exactly the same kind, right? You've got a number of chairs in there, right? Around this table, they all seem to be more or less the same kind. You've got many hooks up there on the wall, right? They're all the same, right? Well, the simplest answer is: in the one case, you've got enough wood. In the Other case, you have enough metal, wherever it is.

[17:47] So what enables you to have many individuals of the same kind is that you have matter subject to quantity, right? And so the woman rolls out the dough, right? And she's got enough dough, and she can make all these different what cookies at Christmas time, right? She stamps them a lot, right? Because one's here, one's there, one's there. So you see, matter as subject to quantity is the cause of what.

[18:19] The individuation of these different cookies, or these individual chairs, right? Or even you're in mine, right? Because my flesh is not your flesh, right? Flesh is divided up among us. Okay. So, what is received in a body is received as what? Here or there. It's received as what? Singular, right? See. But when I understand what a man is, or what a chair is, or what a one of those hooks is, right?

[18:57] I'm understanding something what? Universal. So chair is received in my reason as something what? Universal. But if my reason was a body, subject to quantity, what is received in the understanding would be received as what? Actually, it's received in the senses. as singular. So that's another way that they show, right? That reason is immaterial. That things are received in it in a what? As universal, rather than what?

[19:33] Singular. Yeah. Now you can see in the imagination again. It's received as what? Singular, right? Remember the difficulty of the English philosopher there, Locke. You know, he's trying to understand the general idea of triangle. And he's trying to he's mixing up the image of triangle with the idea of triangle. And therefore, it's got to fit isosceles and scalene and equilateral. It's got to be all none of these, right?

[20:05] And he can't quite grasp universal. But can you see or imagine the universal? No. Any chair you see will be individual, but even any triangle that I imagine is singular. And I can't imagine triangle here and triangle on this side and one above and so on. But chair and triangle are received in the reason as universals. So they're received in a what? None-bodily way. Okay.

[20:47] Um. Or take take another thing here. You know what the continuous is, right? Continuous is a quantity whose parts meet at a common boundary, right? Like the parts of a line meet at a point, or the parts of a circle and a line, right? Parts of a body of a surface.

[21:15] Well, is the definition of Triangle, or the definition of a circle, is that something continuous? I define a square as a equilateral and right angled quadrilateral. Now, equilateral and right angled meeting quadrilateral, like the parts of a line meeting at a point, or a line or something. No, so a definition of square is not continuous, is it? And yet, I am understanding a continuous thing. So, what does that tell me?

[21:56] I am understanding a continuous thing in an uncontinuous way. Is that because of what is being understood? No, I am understanding something continuous. Therefore, it must be that the one understanding that by which I understand is responsible for understanding the continuous in an uncontinuous way. I understand bodies in a body's way. That's a sign again, argument to show the immateriality of the understanding, yeah. And most people don't know that, right?

[22:37] See, but because you are understanding that what it is is something sensed or imagined, your reason, as long as it's in your soul, is in the body, it naturally turns towards images, right? So, when I think about what a triangle is, I imagine a triangle, right? But I understand what this is I'm understanding something universal So, I would say it depends upon the imagination there. But so, the like dependence I have upon you being there for my seeing you,

[23:13] but my seeing you is not in you at all, is it? It's in me, right? Okay, and people get confused about that, right? Because a blow on the brain interferes with thinking, alcohol going to the brain interferes with thinking, et cetera, et cetera. See, but you are leaving the room would interfere with my seeing, right? Knocking out the light, there would interfere with my seeing, right? But it's on the side of the object, not on the side of the sense itself.

[23:46] So, a little review there of some things there from the third book about the soul. Okay, so there is another knowing power he says in us, which is the understanding, which is not the act of some bodily organ, right? Because it knows bodies in bodiless ways, right? And it's open to knowing all bodies and so on. Whence the understanding is connatural, it's of our very nature, to know natures which do not have being except in matter that is individual, but nevertheless not according as they are in matter that is individual, but according as they are abstracted or separated from matter by the consideration of the understanding.

[24:46] Whence by the understanding we are able to know things of this sort in general, universally, which is above the ability of the senses. But to the angelic nature, or understanding it is connatural to know natures that are not existing in matter, which is above the natural ability of the human understanding, according to the status of the present life, right? In which it is united to a what body, right?

[25:20] It remains, therefore, that to know ipsum esi subsistensna. right. Is connatural to only the divine what understanding, and that be above the ability, the natural ability of any created understanding, because no creature is its own what. Existence. Yeah, its own being, its own existence, its own to be, right. But it has being that is partaken of.

[25:54] Therefore, the created intellect is not able to see God, whose essence or in His essence, except in so far as God, by what His grace, right, is joined to the created understanding as something understandable by right. In your light; we shall see light, as it says. Huh. Let's take a break here at 3: 30 Let's try to look at the fifth article if we can. To the fifth one proceeds thus:

[26:32] It seems that the created understanding does not need some created light to seeing the essence of God. For that which is what lucid of itself or by itself in sensible things does not need another light that it might be seen. Therefore, neither in understandable things, but God is understandable light. Thomas in the in the prayer there communion prayer calls him lux vera, right?

[27:13] Therefore, he is not seen through some created light. Was not to be making God visible that this light is required? It's a little different sense of light, huh? But we'll see what the answer. Moreover, when God is seen through some middle, right, some middle term, so to speak, to another, he is not seen to his own essence. But when something is seen through some created light, it is seen through some middle.

[27:52] Therefore, it is not seen through its very essence. So, there's another interesting objection, I'll know a different one. Moreover, that which is created, nothing prevents it from being natural to being natural to some creature. If, therefore, through some created light, the essence of God was seen, that light could be natural to some creature, couldn't it? That's what he said. And thus, that creature would not need another light to seeing God, which is impossible.

[28:28] Therefore, it is not necessary that every creature requires for seeing God some light added above his natural light. But now Thomas says this is the one quote from Psalms. But against this is what is said in Psalm thirty-five. That's correct numbering. Verse ten: In your light we shall see light. What are those two lights that he's talking about there? Right, not the same light. Illuminate the light in which we will see the lux vera.

[29:09] That's God Himself. God is light. There's no darkness in him. Scripture says, "What's this other light in which you will see Him?" Right? Was a light to make Him visible? No. Okay. I answer. It should be said. That everything that is raised up to something that is above its nature, right, is necessary that it be disposed, right, by some disposition which is above its own what nature.

[29:49] Now, incidentally, disposition is in what category? Quality. Yeah, it's the first species of quality. A lot of times you don't meet the categories and meet them in foreign words or foreign born words, you know. But to some extent, everybody understands those, right? And if you went down to the to the order of Aristotelian study of philosophy, and you say, "Well, you know what a dog is, you know what a cat is," and I say, "I can't know what a dog is, what a cat is, I recognize them anyway."

[30:34] And is the size of a dog or the size of a cat? Is the size of a dog what a dog is? The man in the street wouldn't say that It's not the same thing. What a dog is and the size of a dog, what a cat is and the size of a cat. But now he's distinguished between substance, which is what a thing is, and size, which is called quantity, right?

[31:00] See, now see if he uses the more Latin words substance and quantity. You see, it's between those two. Well, I don't know. You see, but Aristotle calls substance there in the opening of the places. Tiesti, what it is, right? So, what a dog is and the size of a dog, same thing. What a man is and the size of a man, okay.

[31:26] And then, if you want to separate the next one, instead of saying quality, right, you know, but take something more particular and say, well, um,

[31:38] is the shape of the thing and the size of the thing the same thing? No, it's it. Now, disposition maybe not a common word, but say,

[31:54] is the body and the health of the body the same thing? See, now you are distinguishing, in a sense, between the disposition, right, and that of which it is a disposition, right. We even say a man is indisposed. Yeah, yeah. And when Thomas says, "What is grace?" Right? Well, it's kind of like a disposition of the soul, right? If you had to put it in the categories, you'd put it in quality, but it's a unusual quality that the philosopher wouldn't know about.

[32:28] Just as air. Is going to receive the form of fire is necessarily to be disposed by some disposition for that form, which would be heat, right? Okay. So there's a they saw for example, like say, paper would be receiving the form of what fire, right? In order to receive the form of fire, you have to heat the paper, right? And that's the disposition that makes the paper suitable for that.

[32:57] And this is this is something we see, you know, in ethics. There, when we see that the emotions are kind of what habituated to follow reason, right? And therefore, they become something more reasonable. But reason is something above the emotions, and the emotions can be raised to the level of something reasonable through some kind of a what disposition of emotions, and therefore, it has to be acquired by disposition by repeated acts and so on.

[33:34] But when some created understanding sees God through his very nature, in his very nature, the nature itself, or the essence of God, becomes the what understandable form of understanding. What does that mean? The form by which it understands, huh? Okay.

[33:58] So now you're you're receiving as the form of your mind a form that is what not your natural form, right? A form that is way above your natural form. So you have to be disposed to what receive that form, because there's got to be some ratio there between the form and the subject. Whence is necessary that some supernatural disposition be added above to it, so that it might be raised up to so great a what sublimity.

[34:42] Since therefore the natural power of the created understanding does not suffice to what see, huh? The essence of God, as has been shown, right?

[35:01] That was back in what the second article. Okay, but before we did that, the first day, right? Okay, first class. Article two. Article four. That's what this. I have the text here refers to. Yeah, yeah, article four. Yeah, excuse me. Okay. Um.

[35:28] Since, therefore, the natural power of the created understanding does not suffice for seeing the essence of God. Right? It has been shown is necessary that

[35:43] from divine grace, right, there be added some power of what understanding. Right. So it's not inside the object so much, but it's inside of the mind, And this must augment but this growth. okay, of, the intellectual power

[36:09] is called the what? Illumination of the understanding, right? Lumen or Lux Light. Just as the understandable is called what lumen or lux, light. And this is the light about which it is said in the book of the Apocalypse, chapter twenty-one, that the clarity of God illuminates it. That is the society of the blessed seeing God. And according to this light, we are made what? Like God, huh? Deiformes huh?

[36:55] Seeing form is God, anyway. That is like God, according to that of John three two. When he appears, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. Now, this is one of the most important texts in scripture, right? To see God as he is, right? He's referring to the beatific vision right? In in theology, we see God as he is not in a way, right?

[37:21] But he is not, right? He's not composed. He's not limited, and so on, right? When we see him as he is, we will be what? Similar to him, right? We'll be similar to him by what? This light that raises up our power of understanding, so that God can be received in the mind as the form of which you will now see God as he is.

[37:51] See what he's doing there, huh? And according to this light, we are made Deiformes the same form, of, the divine form. That is like God, right? It is very precisely a text of John. You see it, right? When he appears, we will be like him,

[38:12] because just as God sees himself as he is, right? So we must become like him to see him as he is, right? Because it isn't natural for us to see him as he is. It's natural for us to see the triangle as it is, and maybe the dog and the cat to some extent as they are, right? But it ain't natural to us to see God as he is.

[38:43] And so, the only way we could come to see God as he is would require us to become like God. And so, when he appears to us as he is, we must have become like him to see him as he is. That's interesting.

[39:09] Now, at least the word "light," there is you've got to be kind of careful there. because usually we think of light, light to begin with, in the senses as making something actually visible. That's not visible until the light. Is there, right? And when Aristotle speaks of the act of understanding as a kind of light, it makes what is able to be understandable actually understandable, right? Was this light doing that?

[39:41] Is God only understandable in ability or in potency, and this makes him actually understandable? No, no, that's that's misunderstanding, right? Okay. And the first objection is saying, "Well, God is, in a sense, is understandable, right? Act, he's pure act.

[40:10] So if God is pure act, and God is understandable. He's understandable, in act. He's purely understandable. Well, what do you need this light for, right? Well, for the first, therefore, it should be said that the created light is necessary for seeing the divine essence, not that by this light the essence of God becomes what understandable.

[40:41] Because the essence of God secundum se, right, by itself or in itself, is understandable, right? But it's necessary that the understanding might become what powerful enough, right, to understand it, right, in the way in which a power or ability becomes more powerful to operate through a habit. Yeah.

[41:13] So when I acquire the habit of geometry, right, my mind is more able to understand the triangle, and we're able to understand the circle, right? We're able to know how to make a oblong or a square equal to a given oblong, right? You know, my mind is made to become more powerful, right? Okay.

[41:42] Okay, just as the bodily light is necessary in exterior vision, insofar as it makes the what the medium right transparent and act, so it can be moved by the colour, the way Aristotle understands it. then. Okay.

[42:03] Now the second objection, in a way, is thinking of this light as a medium through which you see God, right? As if you see this first, so to speak, and God through it, okay. And that's again a misunderstanding, right? Okay. To the second, therefore, it should be said that that. Light is not required for seeing the essence or nature of God, as if it were a likeness in which God is seen, right?

[42:39] So it's not like the image I have of you when I go home at night, right? It's not like the thought I have of what a man is, right? It's a likeness in which I see something,

[42:53] but it's a what? Perfection of the understanding, strengthening it to seeing God, huh? Okay. And therefore, it can be said that is not a middle in which God is seen, right? Because God is seen in Himself, right? But under which He is seen, right? Huh?

[43:22] And this does not take away the immediate what? Vision of God, huh? So. Just as as my sense of geometry doesn't get in the way of my seeing the triangle as it is, right? It strengthens my mind to see the triangle as it is.

[43:44] Now the third objection was a little different. The third objection was saying that what? If this light of glory, as they call it, was a what? Something created, right? Why couldn't you create an angel at least? it's not a man. Create an angel who, actually had this power, already, Right. Okay.

[44:10] Well, Thomas answered very simply. To the third, it should be said that the disposition to the form of fire is not able to be natural except to something having the form of fire.

[44:25] Whence the light of glory could not be natural to a creature unless the creature was of the very divine nature. Now that's impossible sense. Okay.

[44:42] But through this light, the created creature becomes what? Deiformis How would you translate that? Deiformis Transliteration. Comes as a form of God, right? Godlike. Godlike.

[45:11] Close. Going back a little bit there, you talked about understanding or loving, for that matter, and grammatically, right? They seem to be just like the verbs that have the name and activity that's acting upon something else, right? So I kick the chair by the subject there, and then kick, and then the chair, right? Well, me in the chair. Where is the kicking in comparison to me and the chair?

[46:18] In between, you say, right? So there's me and there's the chair, and the kicking is in between. right? Okay. That's because I'm in a way acting upon the chair, right, through my kicking it. Okay. Now, grammatically, it seems the same thing to say, "I see the chair."

[46:39] You might think the seeing is between me and the chair. Or I love the chair, or I love candy or something. The love is between me and what I love, right? Is that the way it is? Like that. Or is the grammatical?

[47:02] From something to another, but has a before. Yeah. Yeah. But yes. But is it my seeing the chair that unites me with the chair in a sense, right?

[47:21] Or is my seeing the chair a result of the chair being in me in some way? I think it's it's what unites you to the chair. Well, what comes first, right? Does the chair, in some way, act upon my eye, right?

[47:46] And therefore, producing something in my eye like itself, right? And then I see it. See. So the chair, in a sense, is united to my eye, or a likeness of the chair is united to my eye, right? The chair in some way, and the result of that is that I see the chair. I see. So, so the grammar there is deceiving, right? Is deceptive, right? Because grammatically, when I say I kick chair, right, I have no contact with this chair.

[48:30] Ah. Or my leg and the chair have no contact except through my kicking it, right? Okay. Um. So it does make sense that the kicking is between me and the chair. Um, and and therefore the union of being the chair, so to speak, in this act of kicking, um, is the kicking. But in my seeing the chair, grammatically it seems like the same thing. I see the chair.

[49:04] I mean, I kick the chair. But actually, the chair has to be in some way united to me. Ah. Before I see it, okay, and they call that the the visible form, right, into that that union, right. So that's a beginning of my seeing the chair, right? Now, is it the same way in the case of my loving something, right?

[49:45] Does love begin to unite me with the person or the thing I love, right? Or does that person or that thing make an impression upon my heart, and then I begin to what love it, right? See,

[50:08] you know Thomas says you know the loving is an undergoing, right? I used to sometimes refer to the the word we use in English sometimes impression, right, which means press upon, right, and I used to take the example with students, thinking that I was familiar to them. You know, you go to the party, you know, and and maybe your friends notice you made a big impression upon her, right, or she made a big impression upon you.

[50:40] In a sense, you're saying that because you acted upon her, you made an impression upon her that she's begun to like you, or because she made an impression upon you upon your heart that you've begun to like her, right? So,

[51:05] if she made no impression upon my heart, I would not have begun to like her, okay? And or I listen to music of Mozart, right? Makes impression upon my heart, you know. Or I taste some food, you know, makes impression upon my heart, and I like this food or something, right?

[51:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, in a way, my liking this food or liking the music of Mozart, liking this woman or something, is a result of of her or the music or whatever it is having acted upon my heart, right? The union of me in a sense with this object is what gives rise to loving, right? In that sense, the loving is not between me and the one who made an impression upon my heart, but my loving or liking this person or thing is a result of it having made an impression upon my heart.

[52:09] Makes sense. Kind of similar, see? Yeah. Now, going back to knowing, the case of knowing, the the thing known has acted upon the knowing power, and every. Agent makes something like itself, right? So we speak of it as inducing a form like its own form, right? And that's called in Latin like the forma sensibilis, right? But it's a form by which you now see that person, right, or know that person, right?

[52:45] In the case of the understanding, the forma intelligibilis, the understandable form, right? Okay. And so, what is the understandable form by which God understands, right?

[53:04] As what's Himself, right? Then, okay. And when Thomas, after Thomas has shown that, then he concludes, "What does God know? Well, you know that which we have the understandable form. What does God know Himself, right? Okay. And then later on, you say, "Well, but but understanding Himself understands other things, right? But it doesn't understand other things by having, you know, the understandable form of them pressed upon it, right?

[53:33] But by understanding Himself, right? And then how does that place goes on to explain that, right? Well, then the question is, what is the understandable form by which I see God as He is, right? See, because the understandable form of which I know God in this life is not God, right?

[53:55] But the understandable form by which I see God must be God, what? Himself, right? Okay. But to have God as the understandable form of your mind is not opposed to your nature,

[54:16] but it's not natural to you, right? Okay. It's it's having the form of something above you as your form. Well, how can that be possible, right? Unless there be some disposition of your understanding, right? Whereby that is now the appropriate form of your understanding, and that disposition whereby your understanding is a suitable subject for this divine substance as the form of your understanding is this what's called the light and glory, right?

[55:00] Okay. But it's not something you you see, and and through knowing you know God, because that's a second objection is excluding, right? Then it's not in the middle, right? Okay.

[55:21] What what you have in philosophy, right? You know, understanding act and ability and pure act, and through that you have some understanding of God, but not as He is, right? You know, through by analogy and by negation, ultimately, but you know Him, and it's not a like like agent, like to make God actually understandable, right? So it's kind of word light in another meaning, right? But it's appropriate because it has something to do with something coming to be understood by you, right?

[55:59] But it's actually a disposition of your of your understanding, whereby it can receive the divine substance as the understandable form of which it understands, and what does it understand? Understands God as He is, right? Do that, so that's that's

[56:17] quite quite a it's a sublime thing, huh? Quite a sublime thing. So that's one of the things coming down from the Father of Lights. Interesting in those, those I don't know if you know those prayers of Thomas before and after communion, but kind of addressed to God the Father, right? But appropriate, I mean, every prayer in a sense is directed to God, but it's appropriated to the Father, right?

[56:54] And so, again, you speak of the Father of Lights, you can refer to God, but it could be appropriate to the Father too, right? You know, you're asking him, in a sense, you know, to ultimately bring it to this ineffable convivium, right? He speaks of banquet. How does that compare with what the how the angels know God? Well, the angels, as far as the vision concerns is the same as the way we know it, right?

[57:28] They know through the light of glory, but the natural knowledge that the angel has of God is much better than the natural knowledge we have of God, because we know God from

[57:42] actually from motion, right? From from sensible things, which are not as like God as the angelic substance is, right? And so the angel knows God in knowing his own, naturally knowing his own what substance, but he's a much, he's an effect that much more like, God, right? Even though he's infinitely distant from God, right? So he can't know God as he is in knowing him, but he can know him much better than we know him.

[58:08] And but as I say, you know, in in the some of the saints there, they have a knowledge of God by his effects, right? But by spiritual effects in the soul, right? Which are and gives them a better knowledge of God than the philosopher has, who knows God more through these these sensible effects. But

[58:36] but even so, even in our life, they speak of a knowledge of the soul as being the the window or the doorway to the consideration of immaterial things. So if you can't know the immateriality of your own soul, you have a hard time understanding the immateriality of the angel, right? And as Thomas says in one place, he says, you know, I consider the body so I could consider the soul.

[59:06] I consider the soul, so I may consider the angels. When I consider the angels, so I may consider God, and that's it, you know. But

[59:19] sometimes it makes me think you know makes you teach the Summa you know start with the treatise on the soul like we did, you know, and then go to the treatise on the angels, right? And then go to the treatise on God you know. Well my first teacher there, College of St. Thomas there, Kasurik, you know, said that when you die, your soul separates from your body, and you encounter your guardian angel, right?

[59:44] You know, you gonna this is God. He'll say, no, no, no. he knows I have nothing. I mean, I mean, he's going to be so, you know,

[59:57] marvelous creature, right? That you are going to think this must be God. I mean, what more could you, you know, could be more beautiful than this? And

[1:00:12] of course, you know, when you study the angels, you find out that each angel is different in kind from other angels. Two kinds. And sometimes, Kasurik is explaining a bit of how we don't really count the angels, right? They're so different, you don't you don't think about it. You count things that are somewhat alike, right? But each angel, is different. Oh, oh, It's a kind of a world.

[1:00:39] You know what's the famous lines of Miranda there in Shakespeare's play? You know that the that oh brave new world, right? You see, but Miranda had been what marooned on the desert island, or the island I don't know, it's a desert, but on the island, and the only man she's known is her father, who's kind of an old man, right? Yeah. And then Caliban is half savage, right?

[1:01:08] Well, then the young man is shipwrecked on the island, right? Huh? You know, and she sees, you know, oh brave new world. That's where the words come from, right? It has such creatures in it, you know. But that's but but her name is taken from what wonder? Yeah, but that's the way we will be, you know, oh brave new world, right? When you see these angels, see in that sense of understand, you know, a brave new world, that has such creatures I didn't realize that that beautiful thing's around, you know.

[1:01:40] It's I was kind of surprised that we're in Kansas, so to see the grandchildren. Kind of surprised, kind of beautiful state, you know. Yeah. You think of the Midwest as kind of sunburned but it's really kind of beautiful, you know. And it's kind of struck by how hilly it was, and the patchwork to come down the airplane, you know, and you see the green everywhere, and it's very well, you know, forested in a sense that, I mean, that everything's supposed to guard the farmland, you know, and keep the the uh yeah, yeah, everything going away.

[1:02:17] And uh really kind of uh beautiful. I said beautiful. Kansas. I mean, but you see the angels, didn't you know this is quite this beautiful. I mean this is this is interesting, you know. They they say you know they took all the best minds, you know, Aristotle's mind, Euclid's mind, and Einstein's mind, all this, done, you know, you still would have something equal to an angel, you know.

[1:02:43] He would be, you know, the same. Because Kasurik used to say, "The angel watching you make a decision is like you're watching an ant where I make a decision. You make a decision. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

[1:03:04] So I got by here. They said, they said pass at your own risk, ' you know. Yeah, I did. You know, too bad. I'm a coward. I cagis.