Prima Pars
55. Summa I, Q.14, Article 2: Does God Understand Himself?
Class of 2006-12-14
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/055-summa-i-q-14-article-2-does-god-understand-himself/

[0:00] Look at the second article here, right? Which is about what God chiefly knows, huh? It's asked. The second one proceeds thus: It seems that God does not understand Himself, right?

[0:17] For it is said in the book De Causis, huh? Now that you know, it's got a long history. The book De Causis, they first thought it was by Aristotle, and then it's actually by what an Arab who had taken it from Proclus, I guess, and kind of contracted it. So Thomas has a commentary on the book De Causis. It's like the last books of wisdom, philosophic wisdom.

[0:42] For it is said in the book De Causis that everyone knowing who knows his own what essence or nature or substance is returning to his own essence by a complete return. But God doesn't go outside his essence, nor in any way is he moved, and therefore it does not belong to him to return to his own essence. Therefore, he doesn't what know his own essence, huh?

[1:14] Of course, even we in some imperfect way return to our own essence, huh? But what we first know is things around us, right? And then we come to know, our knowing them, and then kind of mind we have, and the kind of animal we are, and turn back, coming back to ourselves, huh?

[1:34] So if your reason thinks out the definition of reason, like Shakespeare does there that we had, then that's like the word of God, right? And if you love what you understand, and you like the Holy Spirit, that's the image of the Trinity in us. But in a sense, when reason knows what reason is, is coming back in a sense to itself, right, and coming back to itself.

[1:58] What God doesn't come back to himself, and he releases himself. Moreover, to understand is a certain what suffering, a certain undergoing, as Aristotle says, and to be moved, as is said in the third book about the soul. For science is an assimilation to the thing known, and the thing known is a perfection of the knower. But nothing is moved or undergoes or is perfected by itself, nor is a likeness to itself.

[2:31] This is what he says. Therefore, God doesn't what know himself, huh? Moreover, especially to God we are like according to our understanding, because according to our mind, and that maybe includes the will too, we are to the image of God, as Augustine says.

[2:56] But our understanding doesn't understand itself except in so far as it understands other things. As is said in the third book about the soul. Therefore, neither does God understand Himself, except perhaps in understanding other things.

[3:15] But against this is what is said in the first epistle of the Corinthians, chapter two: the things which are of God or pertain to God, no one knows except the Spirit of God. So God knows Himself.

[3:31] That's an idea, you know. That comes up a lot. That's kind of strange the way the scripture has us speaking. You know, where it says in the Gospels, "No one knows the Father except the Son, and no one knows the Son except the Father." What doesn't the Son know the Son and the Holy Spirit know that you know? And that way, Scripture is insinuating, right, that those things that pertain to the nature of God, right, are common to all, even though they're said to only what be known by this one person.

[4:01] And here he says, "No one knows this except the Spirit of God," right? That's the Holy Spirit, but the Father also knows it, and the Son also knows it. You can see how the heretics can, you know, have a problem with those texts, use them or misuse them. I should say.

[4:19] I answer: It should be said that God understands Himself through Himself, right? To the knowledge of which it should be known that although in the operations which go outside to an outside effect, the object of the operation which is signified as its term or limit is something outside the one operating. Nevertheless, in those operations which are in the one operating, the object which is signified as the limit of the operation is in the one operating himself.

[5:11] And according as it is in him, thus there is operation act. Whence it is said in the book about the soul, Aristotle, that the sensible in act is a sense in act, and the understandable in act is the understanding in act.

[5:31] For from this we sense something in act, or we understand, because our understanding or sense is informed in act by the form of the sensible or the what understandable, right?

[5:49] So your color and your shape have to act upon my eye before I see you, and in a sense, by seeing you, as result of what your color and shape being what pressed upon my eye. So in a way, my eye in act. It's actually seeing is what your color and shape being the same thing as my eye in a way,

[6:18] and according to this only is sense or understanding other from the sensible or the understandable, because both are in what only inability, which of course is not true about God, okay. So my what eye is an ability as far as knowing your color and shape at first, right, and your color and shape is able to be known, but it's not actually known by me, right, okay. But later on they become one when you act upon my eye, right.

[6:56] But since, therefore, God has nothing of potentiality, but God is pure act. See how important that ninth book of wisdom is, huh? The whole ninth book of wisdom is about what act and ability, right? And after Aristotle distinguishes the various kinds of ability and act, then in the third and culminating part of the ninth book, he talks about the order of act and ability. And one of the orders he talks about is that although the thing that goes from ability to act is an ability before it's an act, it goes from ability to act because of something already in act.

[7:39] So simply speaking, universe act is before ability, and therefore the first thing, the first cause, must be pure act. And so he's bringing that out again here, right?

[7:53] Since, therefore, God has nothing of potentiality, but is pure act, is necessary that in Him the understanding and the understood are altogether the same thing, right, in all ways.

[8:11] Thus, so that he neither what lacks the understandable form as our understanding does when it understands an ability, right? Nor is the understandable form other from the very substance of the divine understanding. As happens in our understanding, huh?

[8:37] When it is act, an act understanding, but the understandable form of the divine mind is the divine understanding what itself, right? And thus he understands himself through himself, right? And this, incidentally, is true about the angels, right? They understand themselves through themselves. They don't understand everything through understanding themselves like God does, right? But we don't understand ourselves through ourselves. We understand other things. And then we come back and think about our understanding and say, "Oh, yeah, I'm an intellectual creature."

[9:12] And then we start to know ourselves a bit, right? Well, we know ourselves through knowing other things. I know what a triangle is in the universe and that's something universal. Yeah, universal must be separated from matter. My understanding must be material, right? I try to know myself, right? But I have to know the triangle first before I can know how I know that my knowing is immaterial.

[9:40] So it's not the way God knows. Yeah. Okay. See, if God understood by Some form other than himself, then he'd be in what ability for this other form, and then he wouldn't be pure act, huh? He wouldn't be simple, right? So if he understands by the form which is himself, what does he understand primarily? Yeah, he understands that of which he has a form. So he has to understand primarily himself and owning himself, right?

[10:29] But in seeing himself, as we'll learn later on, he sees other things, huh? Because he's the cause of them, and they all have a certain likeness to him, and so on.

[10:40] Okay, the first objection was taken from the book of causes. There, to the first, therefore, it should be said that to return to one's own essence is nothing other than a thing to subsist in itself. For a form, in so far as it perfects matter by giving it being, is in a way poured out upon the matter. But in so far as in itself it has being, it comes back to what itself, right?

[11:14] So if our soul had had being only in the body, right, it'd be kind of poured out in the body, right, and its existence would be limited to the body. And but our soul has existence not only in the body. How do we know that? Well, you have to exist before you can do anything. And when we study understanding the universal, we come to realize that understanding the universal is not in the body.

[11:49] If it's in the body, it would be in the what continuous, and what's in the continuous is here or there, and therefore singular. So if things are received in the understanding universally and not as singular then the universal, the the understanding rather must be what immaterial.

[12:13] When you study, you know the source of individuation in material things. It's always what matter, right? So if we know the the natures of things in separation from matter, that's a sign that our mind itself is something immaterial. It's not because of the things we know because they're material. Okay.

[12:45] Knowing powers which are not subsistent but are the acts of some bodily organs do not know themselves, just as is clear in the senses themselves. So it's not only the hand does know what a hand is, but does the eye know what an eye is? Does the ear know what an ear is? It's only reason that knows what what reason is. You know the famous inscription of the seven wise men of Greece that include Thales, huh?

[13:18] The first philosopher and Solon, the lawgiver, huh? By Chilon and so on. But they said, "What Gnothi sautan? Know thyself, right? " And you've heard me talk about that before. But to whom is that address? Know thyself.

[13:39] To us, right? You know, it's addressed to someone who is able to know himself, but doesn't know himself or know himself well, right? And so it's not addressed to the animals, and a fortiori not to the plants and stones because they can't really know themselves, huh? And it's not addressed to the angels of God because they know themselves primarily. So it's addressed to man, right? But you could say also that it's more addressed to our soul than to our body, right?

[14:12] Because our soul can know what a soul is as well as what a body is, but the body can't know what a soul is. But it's addressed most of all to our reason, right? Because that's the only part of our soul that can know itself. So when they said "Know thyself," they're saying, you know, read Shakespeare's exhortation there to use reason. So it's your reason might know itself, right?

[14:38] I didn't know I was the ability for a large discourse, looking before and after. That's what I am. Thomas compares that. He's talking about the image of the Trinity in us. That

[14:56] when our reason forms a definition of itself, right? When it when there proceeds from our reason a thought about itself, it's a little bit like God the Son proceeding from the Father as the Word of the Father, right? Like in the Adoro te devote, latens Deitas... nil hoc verbo veritatis verius, nothing more true than this word of truth itself, huh? And then once reason knows what reason is, then you see how lovable reason is.

[15:28] And then you have something like the what proceeding of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, the Spirit of God, huh? Now

[15:43] there's several texts now where the Holy Spirit is is called the Spirit of what of God. It's kind of neglected that name of him, right? But you know, just as we call the second person, you know, the Son of God, right? So we could call the third person the what spirit or breath of God. No, we usually call the third person the Holy Spirit, huh? But you could call the spirit of God, huh?

[16:15] Occasionally, he's called the spirit of the Lord too, but more commonly, the spirit of spirit of God, the breath of God. But knowing powers which are per se subsistent know themselves, In account of this, it is said in the book of causes that the one knowing its own what nature returns to its own what nature. But to subsist per se, most of all belongs to God, huh?

[17:01] Hence, according to this way of speaking, he is most of all returning to his essence, huh? And knowing himself, huh? Although as I say, that way of speaking, insofar as it implies motion, is not properly God, huh? But you have something like that, you know, in in the in the creation, where on the seventh day God what rested from everything he had made and kind of like returning to himself, right?

[17:29] Huh? But it's a kind of way of speaking that is more appropriate, maybe, to the creature who has to return to itself by a what operation that is something other than its very substance, huh? Okay.

[17:49] The second objection was Aristotle says in the third book about the soul when he's talking about our understanding that it's a kind of undergoing and being moved, right?

[18:02] It's interesting our word understand, right? Stand under as if you've been acted upon, but nothing is moved or undergoes or is perfected by itself.

[18:15] Okay. To the second, it should be said that to be moved and to undergo are taken equivocally, right? According as to understand is said to be certain what undergoing or suffering, right? This is clear in the third book about the soul. Of course, Aristotle will point it out in the third book about the soul. If you talk about sensing as undergoing, even that's equivocal, right? Now, as I mentioned before, I think we talk about those words.

[18:50] I have a little problem here in translating in English, but you see, in Greek, the Greek word Aristotle uses "paschein and so on, and the Latin word "patior." Has first of all the meaning of what suffering, right?

[19:16] Now suffering is something bad, and when you suffer, you are what acted upon a way that is what destructive of you, right? Now in English, the word suffering seems to have stopped in that meaning, but the Latin word "and the Latin word patior and the Greek word "paschein let's say, finish in there, is moved from that first meaning, right? And seems to be moved by dropping part of its what meaning, right?

[19:59] So. Perhaps the next meaning of suffering is by being acted upon in a way that changes you, but not necessarily for the what works, right? Okay. So I had a piece of clay here in the shape of a sphere, and I molded it into a cube, right? Well, it's undergoing another shape now, but it's not really contrary to its what nature, right? Okay. But it's losing the shape it had, right?

[20:31] And then maybe it's carried over and applied to the what the senses, which are acted upon by their objects, huh? And as a result of that, they're actually being perfected, huh? So the result of your shape acted upon my eye is that I see your shape, right? And now you're receiving the form of another while keeping the shape you already have. So you're you're dropping out more and more of this meaning, right?

[21:01] But it's still taking place in the body, huh? The eye, the brain, and so on, right? And then finally, it's carried over to what the reason, huh? And there you can drop the idea of the body being involved, huh? And then you're being acted upon, right? In a way that what perfects you on. So when my reason sees the nature of a triangle, I understand what a triangle is, right?

[21:28] When I see the nature of a dog or a cat, I understand to some extent what a dog or a cat is, huh? So they're having something very what perfect, right? Huh? So it moves a long way, right? But the English word for the English word for suffering suffering seems to be stuck on the first meaning, huh? I remember this one professor saying, you know, comes into class and he's lecturing and so on, and the expression on the students' face is, you know, why are you doing this to me?

[22:04] So they seem to be suffering in that first sentence, right? I'm trying to find a word that, to some extent, is more movable in English, right, or is more moved. I take sometimes the word what undergoing, right?

[22:23] Okay. Perhaps the word undergoing has something of the sense of suffering, huh? Because if we say about somebody that he's undergone a lot, what do you understand by that? Yeah, he's suffered a lot, right? Say, okay. But perhaps the word undergoing shouldn't be moved more in English than than the word suffering, huh? And so undergoing is being acted upon, right? And is being acted upon necessarily suffering?

[23:01] See, because my senses are acted upon by objects, right? And is somewhat material, so that you know if you shine a light in my face too long, I can kind of go blind, right? Or if the sound is too loud, you can go deaf and so on, right? But there's a kind of undergoing there that is a perfecting of the senses, and you see and hear as a result of being what acted upon, right?

[23:30] So I listen to Mozart, and my ear is being perfected, right? I look at the beautiful painting and so on, and my eye is being perfected, right? And then finally, you can speak of the reason as what undergoing, right? Being acted upon by the images and by the act of understanding them, and then it's a more perfect thing, right?

[23:59] Now Thomas is going to point out some more things here. To the second, it should be said that to be moved and to undergo are taken equivocally, according as to understand is said to be a certain to be moved or undergoing, as is said in the third book about the soul.

[24:19] But to understand is not the motion in its first sense, which is the act of the imperfect, huh? So Aristotle defines motion there in the third book of Natural Hearing, the so-called physics. He says it's the act of what is able to be, insofar as it's able to be, right? It's incomplete, which is from one thing into another. But to understand is an act of the perfect existing in the one what acting.

[24:52] Now we talked about that a bit, that distinction in the ninth book of Wisdom here. If you recall a bit of that, huh? When I'm walking home, have I walked home yet?

[25:06] And when I'm building a house, have I built a house? And my wife's making a cake. Has she made a cake? She's making apple pie. She made apple pie. So it's essentially an imperfect or incomplete act, huh? And when I have walked home, am I walking home anymore? When I have made a house, I'm making a house. So so long as I'm making a house, there's something incomplete and imperfect about this act, huh?

[25:41] But when I'm understanding what a triangle is, have I understood a triangle is yet? Yeah. And the same thing about love, huh? I'm loving somebody. Have I loved them yet?

[25:58] Yeah. Now that's the difference here, right? When I'm loving someone, I have loved them, right? When I understand something, I've understood it. But when I am walking home, I haven't walked home. You see? So, he called both of these emotions. They're emotions in a different sense, right? Huh? So he says, "Non enim intelligere." To understand is not the motion which is the act of the imperfect, huh?

[26:29] But the act of the perfect existing in the one what acting, huh? That's the distinction that Aristotle makes in the ninth book of wisdom. It's amazing what he does, huh? Likewise, also

[26:47] that the intellect be perfected by the understandable, or that it be what made like it, huh? This belongs to the understanding to that understanding which, sometime is an ability, right? Which is not true of the divine what understanding, huh?

[27:05] Because from this fact that it is an ability, it what differs from the understandable, and it becomes like it through the understandable form, which is a likeness of the thing understood, huh? Okay, just like my eye is not like the shape of you, right? Until it receives the shape of you, right? Okay, and then it sees your shape, right? Okay, but when it's an ability to receive in the shape of you, it's not yet like you, okay?

[27:42] And is perfected by it as ability is perfected by act, but the divine understanding, which in no way is an ability, right, is not perfected by something understandable, nor is it made like it, but he is his own perfection and his own what understandable. So in God, what is understood and what understands, and that by which it understands, are all one and the same. In us, they're all different, right?

[28:21] Okay. If I understand the triangle, triangle is not my understanding, and that by which I understand the triangle is not my understanding either. I am really kind of multiplied, huh? You know, but in God they're all one and the same, because He's a pure act. Quite something, this guy's understanding, huh? Now, Aristotle points out that our understanding knows itself. Only in so far as it knows other things, right?

[29:07] And of course, you're going to separate, see a distinction there between us and God. To the third, it should be said that natural being is not of the first matter, which is only an ability, except according as reduced in act to some form. But our understanding, possible understanding, as opposed to the act of understanding, has itself in the order of understandables as the first matter in the order of what Actual things.

[29:43] That's a beautiful proportion, right? This is the one that Verus, I think, even before Thomas saw this. Huh? Okay. Now you may remember this just about the first matter, right? Then, okay. If you consider the first matter by itself. Now, it's pure what ability, right? Okay. So the first matter, which you talked about in the first book of Natural, here you can call it first matter, considered by itself, is pure ability.

[30:21] And that's where Aristotle said that the first matter is not knowable, but by itself, and he made it known there by proportion, right? You could say that the first matter

[30:36] is to any material things you want to take. Let's just take man and dog. Something like a piece of clay is to a what sphere and cube. Just take a simple example, right? Okay. Now, what do you call that? Did I just put there and then? What do you call this here? Proportion. Yeah, you could call it proportion, right? Okay. And what is a proportion? Likeness or ratio.

[31:11] Yeah, it's likeness or ratios, right? And what is a ratio? What's the order or relation of one thing to another, right? So saying first matter is to man and dog, or man and tree, if you want to take that. Something like clay is to sphere and cube. Okay. I got to be careful with a proportion, right? Because a proportion we see as a likeness of ratios, but it's a kind of distant likeness.

[31:49] So you don't want to make them more alike than they are, right? Okay. And you've seen my simple example I give, you know, going back to the most exact proportion we have in math, right? And try to illustrate the point. I say four is to six as two is to what three? Okay. Is that correct? Okay. But not going to misunderstand this proportion here to illustrate the danger here, right?

[32:25] Two is to three is the ratio of an even number to an odd number, right? Therefore, four to six is the ratio of an even number to an odd number, right? No. Well, what's wrong with that? Isn't two an even number and three an odd number? And therefore, isn't not the ratio of an even number to an odd number? And isn't four to six like two to three?

[32:53] Therefore, four to six must be the ratio of an even number to an odd number. Well, four is an even number, and therefore six must be an odd number. Well, what's wrong with me? What have I done? I did something wrong here. What have I done here? See, is that the way in which four to six is like two to three in being a ratio of an even number to an odd number?

[33:22] Okay, so I failed to understand this proportion of that. Okay. Now I make make a second attempt, right? Two is a prime number, right? And three is a prime number, right? Therefore, two to three is the ratio of a prime number to a prime number. But four is to six as two is to three, right? Therefore, the ratio of four to six is the ratio of a prime number to prime number.

[33:52] Four prime number? Yeah. Oh, it's measured by the number two, and six is measured by both two and three, right? What have I done wrong here? I misunderstood the proportion, right?

[34:08] I misunderstood the likeness between these two, right? Because because there's more than one ratio, one one thing in which you can relate to. Yeah, yeah. And what way is the ratio four to six like two to three? See, if you're to really understand the proportion, you got to see in what way the ratios really are like. What way is four to six really like two to three?

[34:35] See, I've shown you two ways of misunderstanding what way they're like. Because in those two ways they're unlike. I misunderstood the proportion in that respect, right? What way is is four to six as two is to three.

[35:01] Well, Euclid would say four is the same parts of six as two is a three, right? Two parts of three. Yeah. So if you kind of imagine six as being what three twos, and four as being two twos, right? Well, then four is two of the parts of six, just as two is two of the three parts of three, right? Okay. So it all could be there, right?

[35:28] Okay. But that's what the likeness actually consists. So now, when I say the first matter is man and dog is clay to sphere and cube, somebody might say, "Well, clay is an actual substance,

[35:45] and sphere and cube are two what accidents? Because shape, as you know, is the fourth species of quality, right? So man and dog are two accidents. No, man and dog are two actual substances, right?

[36:05] They're not two accidents, right? And is the first matter an actual substance? No, it's substance only in ability right? So I don't see the likeness here. Well, again, I misunderstood the likeness, right? The first matter is to man and dog like clay is to sphere and cube, not in that the first matter is a substance. The two accidents, right? As clay is a substance, the two accidental forms, right?

[36:41] What what does the likeness consist, right? What consists in this? That just as the clay is able to be a sphere or a cube, but not both at the same time, right? And when it's actually one, it's able to be the other, but hither to become the other, it ceases to be the one it is. So the first matter is able to be a man or a dog, right?

[37:05] Huh? But not at the same time. And when it's actually one, it's able to be the other, but if it became the other, it ceases to be this one, right? So if the dog ate the man or something, right? The first man would become a dog, but then it would no longer be a man, right? So that's where the likeness consists, right? So

[37:28] the first matter is not really knowable by itself because it's only inability. So you have to know it by its proportion, huh? Well, what is our understanding in the order of understandables? It's like the first matter. It's understandable only inability, and has to become actual by reason of something that it well receives, and becomes actually understandable through receiving what the natures of other things at first. It's like the first matter has existence through receiving what some kind of form, which makes it to be actually a man or a dog or a tree or a stone or something else.

[38:12] So this is the great likeness now that that. I think Averroes was first pointed out, if not before him, but at least he did right. So that in the order of understandings, our understanding is like what first matter, right? It's like pure potency. That's why we're at the bottom of all understandings, right? Huh? Okay. And the divine understanding at the other extreme, pure act, then, and the angels in between.

[38:47] Okay, partly inability, partly in act. Okay. So he says to the third, it should be said that natural being is not of the first matter, which is inability, except according as is reduced in act to some form, right? And that form is something other than itself, right? Now, our understanding, our possible understanding, has itself in the order of understandable things as first matter in the order of natural things.

[39:23] There's the proportion, right? In that it is in potency to understandable things, just as first matter to natural things, like man and dog and tree.

[39:37] Whence our understanding, our possible understanding, is not able to have an understandable operation, except in so far as it is perfected by the what understandable form of something else. And thus, it understands itself through an understandable form, just as it understands other things. For it is manifest that from the fact that it understands the understandable, it understands its own what act of understanding, and through the act it knows the understanding power.

[40:11] That's the thing that Aristotle points out, that in knowing in general the powers of the soul, right? You know the powers of the soul through their acts, and the acts through their what object, right? Okay. So you know the difference really between the sense as a sense of sight, let's say, the sense of what hearing, by the difference between seeing and hearing. And seeing and hearing are both sensing, but one is sensing color and the other is sensing sound.

[40:43] So through the difference between color and sound, you know the difference between sensing color and sensing sound, and then the difference between the ability to see and the ability to hear, right? And the same way the understanding knows itself, right? Okay.

[41:02] For it is manifest that from the fact that it knows the understandable, it understands its own what understanding, and through the act it knows the understanding power, right? Okay. And notice it's something like that in ethics when you know the what virtues.

[41:23] You know the virtues through their what acts, and the acts through their what object, right? Okay. So chastity and sobriety are different virtues, right?

[41:39] But how do you know these two virtues? And the acts. Yeah. And and both acts, there's a kind of moderation there, right? What's the difference between the acts of these two? You got to go back to the object. The one object is a male woman, and the other object is is wine or beer or something, right? The alcoholic beverage or something that sort, right? Okay. Um. So the difference in the objects helps you know the difference in the acts, and the difference in the acts, the difference in the what?

[42:14] In the virtues. Yeah, yeah. So it's it's similar to what you have here, where you know the difference in the powers through the difference in the act, right?

[42:27] His ability to walk and the ability to talk, same ability. How do you know they're not the same ability? The ability to talk and walk the same ability? Suppose I maintain the act. Well, you can walk without talking, talking without walking. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, you have to see the difference between walking and talking, right? And see that walking is not a kind of talking. And talking is not a kind of what walking.

[43:03] So once you see that those two acts are different, and one is not a particular kind of the other, then you realize the ability must be different, right? Okay.

[43:15] So this is the way understanding works. But God is what? Just the exact opposite. God is as pure act, both in the order of what? Yeah, Natural existence, as well as in the order of understandables. And therefore, he understands himself through himself. Wow, that's the way to go. That's not the way for us to go, right?

[44:00] So again, he's distinguishing, huh, between the way in which we know ourselves and the way God knows Himself, right? God knows Himself through Himself, right? We know ourselves through knowing other things first.

[44:19] See, that's where the baby refers to himself or herself in the third person sometimes. The baby does that. He does that. Funny. I guess we have to kind of

[44:32] stop now here. Yeah. Okay.