Prima Pars
56. Summa I, Q.14, Arts. 3–4: Does God Comprehend Himself, and Is His Understanding His Substance? (with 'simply' versus 'in some way')
Class of 2006-12-21
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/056-summa-i-q-14-arts-3-4-does-god-comprehend-himself-and-is/

[0:00] Prayer, name of the Father and the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, Order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and help us to understand all that you've written. Name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Let's interrupt Article Three now. right? We know that God knows Himself, but now does He comprehend Himself?

[0:35] Does He know Himself as much as He's knowable? The third one proceeds thus: It seems that God does not comprehend Himself. For Augustine says in the book on the eighty-three questions that that which comprehends itself is finite or limited to itself, but God is in always what infinite, as we saw. That was the third attribute of the substance. Therefore, he does not what comprehend himself.

[1:13] And second one, if it be said that God is infinite to us, but to Himself finite, against this, that is more true which each thing is before God than according as it is before us. If therefore God is finite or limited to Himself, but unlimited to us, more truly God is limited than unlimited, which is against what has been determined before the third attribute of the divine substance.

[1:49] Therefore, God doesn't comprehend Himself. So you're all convinced huh? He. Doesn't comprehend himself. Okay. Against this is what Augustine says there that everything that understands itself comprehends itself, but God understands Himself. Therefore, he what comprehends Himself. And we have two words we use there in philosophy sometimes for the first act of reason. One is intelligere, to understand what a thing is, and the other is to a simple grasping to grasp what something is.

[2:32] So the word comprehend has etymologically something the idea of grasping, right? Yeah. And therefore, it might imply that something's got to be finite to get around, you know, for you to comprehend it or grasp it.

[2:48] Now Thomas is going to reply. I answer: It should be said that God perfectly comprehends Himself. Which can be made clear in this way: for then something is said to be comprehended in the strict sense when one comes to the end of the knowledge of it, and this is when a thing is known as perfectly as it is what knowable. So it's known as much as it's what knowable, okay?

[3:30] And then this example that Thomas often uses, huh? It's important when they talk about the beatific vision, right? You know that some people see God more perfectly than other people, but everybody sees the whole of God. You know, if I see God less perfectly than you do, it's not because you see some part of God I don't see. In fact, God doesn't have parts anyway. But Thomas often uses this example here, right?

[3:58] That the man who knows the conclusion by the demonstration knows the whole conclusion, and the man who accepts the demonstration through some probable reason, like Euclid says this or something, right? He knows the whole conclusion too, but he doesn't know it wholly or perfectly because he doesn't know why it's so. Just as a demonstrable statement is comprehended when it is known by what demonstration, not, however, when it is known through some probable reason.

[4:40] So you might know the whole conclusion, but not know it as much as it's knowable, as fully knowable. Now it is manifest, however, that God thus perfectly knows Himself just as He is perfectly knowable. Now he's going to manifest those two things and how they go together, right?

[5:04] For something is knowable according to the what way of its act. This is something Aristotle brings out. We saw a bit in the ninth book of wisdom, right? Something is knowable insofar as it's an act. So when you see a building going up and you say, "What's that going to be? " But the more it's what completed, right? The more knowable it is, right? If somebody's painting something, what's he painting?

[5:33] You know, but the more actual it becomes the what The more knowable it becomes. So of course you learn in the ninth book there of wisdom that ability is not knowable except through the act for which it is an ability.

[5:54] So how do you know that I have the ability to talk? Because you're talking through my actually talking, yeah. Okay, the ability to walk through my walking, right? So ability is knowable only through act, huh? But act is knowable to itself. So as you recall in what Aristotle teaches there, in the ninth book of wisdom, that something is knowable to the extent it is an act. But we saw back in the question on the simplicity of God that God is what pure act, right?

[6:28] And that goes back again to the teaching in the ninth book of wisdom 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 it's something already an act. So that simply speaking, act is before what? Yeah. And so the very beginning of all things is going to be just an act, and in no way in the passive ability to be pure act, right?

[7:00] So if something is knowable to the extent it is an act, and God is pure act, then God is what completely knowable. but not to us. For it's

[7:15] manifest that God. Well, let's go on to where it extends that. For each thing is knowable according to the way of its own act. For something is not known according as it is an ability, but according as it is an act, as is said and explained in the ninth book of the metaphysics, ninth book of wisdom. So on the side of God's knowability, it couldn't be more knowable than God is, right?

[7:44] But now it goes to the other side of the equation. You might say, and why does God know Himself as much as He's knowable? Well, so much is the power of God in knowing as His actuality in what existing.

[8:05] Because, as we saw in the previous articles, the first article in fact, because through this fact that He is an act and separated from all matter and all what potency in the passive sense, God is a knower, right?

[8:26] So being pure act is also what most of all knower. Okay. Whence it's manifest that so much He knows Himself, or He knows Himself as much as He is knowable. we probably say, in English Okay. And on account of this, He perfectly or completely comprehends Himself. Okay So he argues from God being pure act both that He's what the most knowable thing. And that he knows the most, right?

[9:00] And therefore, he knows himself as much as he is what, Knowable, right? Of course, as Aristotle says, the knower, in act, and the knowable in act are the same, right? So God is most of all an act, right? Both as knowable and as knower, so he knows himself as much as he's knowable. Therefore, he comprehends himself, right?

[9:36] So, notice what we've seen so far in the three articles, right? The first article reasoned out that God what knows or understands, right? And the second article says that what he chiefly knows is what God himself, right? We'll find out later on whether he knows anything else. We don't know yet. Okay. And now this third article was how much does he know himself, or how well does he know himself, right?

[10:06] Okay, and he knows himself perfectly. He knows himself as much as he's what knowable, right? Now Thomas coming back to that first meaning of comprehend, right, and the first objection there. To the first, therefore, it should be said that to comprehend, if it be taken properly or strictly, signifies something having right another and including it, surrounding it, so to speak. And thus is necessary that everything comprehended or grasped be limited, just as everything included, huh?

[10:54] Surrounded. You can't surround the infinite. Now, not in this way is God said to be what comprehended by himself, in the sense that his intellect is something what other than himself, right? And that it what grasps itself and yeah surrounds itself. But then, how are you supposed to understand these things, right? Well, these ways of speaking should be expounded by what negation, right?

[11:37] For just as God is said to be in Himself, right? Now notice, on. Grammatically, you're saying God is in Himself. It's grammatically in what affirmative, right? But how should be understood? Yeah. Okay. And something like that, you know, sometimes when people distinguish between substance and accident, right? They'll say accident is a thing that exists only in another, in a subject, right? But substance, they'll say, sometimes exists in itself.

[12:17] Well, should that be understood affirmatively? Can something be in itself? Not strictly speaking, no. So it's a a affirmative way, in a way, of saying something what negative, right? And we need to say substance exists in itself means that substance exists not in another, right? Okay. So Thomas, you know, explains substance very formally. He'll say in Latin res a thing cui to which conveniat belongs esse. to be non in alio not in another.

[13:03] Okay. So you've got to be careful there, right? You know, some of these words said of God, like infinite or unchangeable, immobile. The grammatically, the word is negative, right? But a word like, say, simple. Simple is what grammatically affirmative. When you go through the question on the simplicity of God, what you are shown is that God is not composed in this way, not composed in that way, in all the ways that in all the ways that compose creatures, and then universality is not composed in any way.

[13:41] But it's said with a affirmative. God is what simple, right? Okay. So. So thus God is said to be in Himself because He is not contained by anything. What? Yeah. So He is said to be comprehended by Himself because there is nothing of Himself that is hidden from Him.

[14:19] For Augustine says in the book about seeing God. He's got so many books, Augustine, huh? What do you? Find all the time, huh? That the that whole is comprehended in seeing that is seen in this way that nothing of it is hidden from the one what Seeing, right? Okay.

[14:45] Now the second objection that God is in a way what finite to Himself. We sometimes say that, right? Well, this is misunderstanding the likeness and ratios here. The second, it should be said that when God is said to be finite or limited to Himself, this should be understood according to a certain likeness of what proportion, because thus He has Himself and not what exceeding His understanding, right?

[15:17] Just as something finite and not exceeding a what finite intellect Not, however, should it be understood that God is limited to Himself that He understands Himself to be limited. Okay. What you are saying in sense is that just as a limited thing is to a limited mind, right? So an unlimited thing is to a what unlimited mind, right? Okay. But you shouldn't exaggerate that what. Proportion. The likeness of those two, right?

[15:51] It doesn't mean that the that the unlimited is limited. To be speaking, no, it's unlimited. But the unlimited is to the limited, like the limited is unlimited.

[16:06] Okay. So now we know that God comprehends Himself, right? Now, before he goes on to talk about whether God knows anything other than Himself and into the problems of His knowing certain things in particular, he's got this what different article, right? This is a very important thing for understanding God and for understanding that around the Trinity, right?

[16:45] Why isn't, my definition of reason, or Shakespeare's definition of reason, reason itself. But the Word of God is God Himself. Don't get the Trinity yet, yes. We'll leave those difficulties till we get to the treatise on the thing. It's going to depend upon seeing this,

[17:10] upon seeing that the act of understanding of God is the same thing as a substance, right? And the same thing will be true, for that matter, about the act of the will.

[17:23] To the fourth, thus one proceeds. It seems that the understanding of God is not His very what substance, right? For to understand is a certain operation, but an operation signifies something going forth from the one doing it, operating. Therefore, the understanding of God is not the very what substance of God.

[17:56] It's nice objection, huh? Now, the next two objections, you know, are more based upon thinking about our own knowing our own thinking, huh? Moreover, when someone understands himself to understand, this is not to understand something great or something chiefly understood, huh? But it's to understand something secondary and accessory.

[18:27] So you know, when I understand something important, that's important. But when I understand that I understand something important, is that so important? As Thomas

[18:43] says, it pertains to perfection of my mind to understand God, even to understand what the soul is, right? But to understand that you understand it does not pertain to perfection of my mind. It's no big deal, right?

[19:03] If therefore God is what is very understanding, right? To understand God would be just like when you understand what to understand, right? So it's kind of thinking of what it is for us to understand our understanding, right? And if God is just his own understanding, well, then what's the big deal?

[19:27] And therefore, it'd not be something great to understand God, right? You know, if you understand a triangle is right, then you understand what it is to understand, right? Is it all just to understand God? Is to understand just to understand? That's all it is.

[19:51] Aristotle talks about this. That kind of translated, kind of funny in English, text you know that God is a thought thinking itself. Okay, now the third objection. Moreover,

[20:12] every understanding is an understanding of something, right? Every to understand is to understand something, right? When therefore God understands himself, if He Himself is not other than His own understanding, He understands Himself to understand, and He understands Himself to understand Himself, and so on forever.

[20:39] Therefore, the understanding of God is not His substance, right? So, in me these are all different things. I understand what a triangle is, and I understand that I what it is to understand a triangle, I mean I understand that I understand what it is to understand a triangle. You can go on forever, right? Aristotle talks about that in the third book about the natural hearing, the physics.

[21:09] As one reason why we speak of the infinite existing, right? Because there is kind of infinity there, okay. And or you can do it like this: you can say, "Socrates is Socrates. The statement, Socrates is Socrates, is a statement, Socrates is Socrates. " That whole statement is itself, and you can go on multiplying Socrates forever, right? Okay.

[21:35] In that sense, there is infinitive things there, too, right? But against this is what Augustine says in the seventh book about the Trinity. That in God is the same thing, right? To be and to be what? Wise.

[22:02] But to be wise is to understand. Now, therefore, for God to be is for God to understand. But the to be of God is a substance, as has been shown in the previous treatise on the substance of God. Did that in the treatise on the what simplicity of God? Right. Found out that I am who am. Therefore, the to understand of God is his very what substance.

[22:30] Now, how Thomas going to answer this? Huh? He's going to go back again to God being pure act, right? Answer. It should be said that it is necessary to say that the understanding of God, to understand of God. Is his what substance? Huh?

[23:02] That'd be interesting, huh? You know, For you to be is for you to understand. I don't know. I'm trying to fall. We currently exist. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of us here, we would be. So some of the minds get off and they start. off of Descartes. I think, therefore, I am, you know. And if I stop thinking now, I'll be lost. Is to be.

[23:38] For if the to understand of God is other than his what substance, huh? Then, as the philosopher says in the twelfth book of wisdom, huh, twelfth book of metaphysics, twelfth book after the books of natural philosophy, and certainly second half of the twelfth book that Aristotle takes up, what God, okay, and there he'll show these things, huh, that God and his what act of understanding are the same thing.

[24:12] For if the to understand of God was something other than his very substance, it would be necessary, as the philosopher had already said in the twelfth book of wisdom, that something other than the divine substance would be the act, and therefore the perfection of the divine substance, right? Because the divine substance would be to that act of understanding as ability is to.

[24:45] To which the divine substance would be as ability is to act, which is altogether impossible because God is in no way but in potency; he's pure act. For to understand is the perfection and the act of the one understanding. So that would the divine substance be pure act, if it was an ability to the act of understanding. Well, it would be an ability to the act of understanding if that was something other than the divine substance itself.

[25:19] Therefore, the divine substance itself would not be pure what act. You see, why I always emphasize the ninth book of wisdom when I taught metaphysics, huh? Because that's the book on act and ability, right? And seemed to be the most important book for coming to know the first cause, most of all, right? I mean, all the books are important, but that book had a particular importance in for knowing something about the divine substance, its simplicity.

[25:48] He argues, and now the operation of God is the same, huh? But it's interesting to all these articles, really. He tried to show that he comprehends himself, but when he tried to show that he knows, right? That pure act is very important.

[26:11] Okay, now he's going to go a little bit after showing that it's so a little bit about how this is so, right? Huh? But this how it is so how it is, so to speak, should be considered. Huh? For as has been said above, to understand is not an action going forth to something extrinsic. Aristotle had made that distinction between a operation or a doing that remains in the doer, right?

[26:43] Like understanding and loving and even what sensing, right? An activity that goes out to something else, like kicking or shoving or heating something or knocking it or whatever.

[27:05] So as has been said above, to understand is not an action proceeding to something outside, but it remains in the one doing as the act and perfection of it, right? Has to be. Okay, now he's going to he's going to be giving a a kind of proportion here, right? For just as to be is the perfection of the one existing, right? Huh?

[27:43] Okay. And just as to be follows upon form, right? So to understand follows upon the understandable form, huh? Okay. That's what he's saying there, right? Huh? You know, it's something like this, huh? You can say,

[28:08] when does the the wood become a chair? huh? Yeah, yeah. So through its form, the wood is a chair, right? huh? It has to be a chair. right? But something like that is knowing, huh? Starting from our own knowing, huh? Because I have to receive, huh? The form of something outside of me as the form of something outside of me as my own form before I know it, right?

[28:43] So I have to receive the shape of the chair, let's say, or the shape of you, color of you, color of this chair before I know that right? So in a sense, the sensible form. Is to sensing like the natural form or the form in matter is to the being of the material thing, right? Okay, so proportionally it's like that in God, right? But now in God, going back to substance of God, is there any real distinction between the form of God and the existence of God?

[29:27] We saw that his very form, his very substance, his very nature was his existence, right? Well, then it would be the same thing in regard to his knowing, right? Okay, so you've got to kind of develop that likeness between the two. Just as to be follows upon form, just as to be follows upon form, right? So to understand follows upon the what? Understandable form, huh? Okay. um

[30:08] Spichiam has a sense of what form, the form that you've seen, the shape of a thing. Okay. But in God, the form is not other than is what to be, right?

[30:30] Whence, since his essence, right, is also the understandable form, as the understandable form or the form by which God understands. We can speak that way. Is his very what substance? Okay.

[30:53] Well, if the understandable form is the same as his essence, then his what is to understand is the same as his to be, and his to be is the same as his nature. Therefore, his to understand is the same as his what substance. You see that? Okay.

[31:23] So he's saying that the form or the substance of God is to his to be like the what understandable form is to understand, right?

[31:50] But there's no distinction between the substance of God and the being of God, as we learned in that question on the simplicity of God,

[32:02] and there's no distinction between the substance of God and the what? To understand. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. So there's any distinction then between his to understand and the understandable form, or between to understand and the to be?

[32:21] Okay. Understandable? Yeah. You know, just put that in abstract terms. If E is to be as X is to Y, and A is X, then what? B is Y. Then B is Y, yeah. And these two are the same. Therefore, these two are the same, right? But the to be of God is the same as substance. Therefore

[33:12] funny there. I was looking a little bit in the internet there under Albert the Great, and they had one of Father Weisheipl's articles on Albert the Great. I guess there was a little flurry of interest in Albert back in the 1980s, which is I think he died around 1280, so the centennial of so many. And so anyway, he says very interesting things, right? But but a little bit of humor there too, because Hegel I guess has some things to say about medieval philosophy, but he has no comprehension of what's all really about.

[33:55] And what he he does mainly I guess what Weisheipl says is to give a few of these crazy anecdotes that come down from the Middle Ages. You know that the the Albert had all kinds of kind of magical powers and stuff. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And one one that he tells is that Albert made some kind of a a robot, a robot today, and one went around and spoke.

[34:20] And Thomas is supposed to have been so alarmed that he thought the devil was in the thing, and he hit the thing, you know.

[34:29] So he really put Hegel in his place, you know. His scholarship, you know, is about what Albert he had to say, you know, is reduced to a few, you know, very questionable anecdotes that come down, you know, the jokes, you know. It's like you know the you know there's this joke about uh Dionysius in the ancient times there the Aristotle is supposed to have been a floppy dresser, you know, and tried to dress so fancy.

[34:59] Oh yeah, yeah. It doesn't seem to be a thing I've read of Aristotle, you know. But but these ancient authors who who who specialized in these incredible stories, right? The funniest one is the one he used to tell. Alexander the Great was a pupil of Aristotle, you know. Alexander the Great was kind of caught up with some young lady, right? Aristotle was you know warning him about you know not getting so attached to this young lady, right?

[35:33] And the young lady got annoyed at this Aristotle in the way of her conquering Alexander the Great. So according to the story, she decided to tame Aristotle, right? And she tamed to the point that he would get down on all fours, and she put a bit in his mouth, and he ran around the room like a horse, right? And one day Alexander walks in when this. Thing is going on, and Aristotle starts quickly as a investment, brushing himself off.

[36:03] And but, but, and and all the guys says, "What is this? You've been warning me about this girl. Look what she's done to you, right? " And Aristotle says, "Look, he says, if she can do this to me, I'm old and wise. What did she do to you, our young and foolish? " It's a kind of model to the story, you know. I don't think it's true, you know.

[36:23] But these kind of stories, that's kind of the the scholarship of uh Hegel about Albert the Great, you know. But but but Albert apparently was even more famous than Thomas during his time, you know. So it's interesting things he wrote.

[36:43] Okay, so to the first objection that an operation proceeds from you, right? Well, it kind of seems to imply that it's getting away from you, right? But to understand, is an operation is not an operation. Thomas says, going forth from the one doing it, right? But the one that remains in him, right? Okay,

[37:16] that's very important to understand. An operation that proceeds to something exterior could not result in what a person who is God, right? Okay, but a proceeding that remains within the one can be also God, huh? But anyway, let's leave that to treat us the Trinity. But you can see how you got to understand, in the sense, the operations of God, and the operations of God are the same as the substance before you can understand, so far as you can, the what Trinity, right?

[37:57] Yeah. So in that sense, it's ordered perfectly, right? Sure. Why in the in the um from a right in the sentences there are quite almost jumping into Trinity at first without having really gone through the explicitly this all about substance of God and then all about the operation of God and then final Trinity. But seems to me that's the order of what, when Thomas calls it in the beginning, if you remember in the first part,

[38:29] the things are non traduntur secundum ordinem disciplinae, right? Okay, they're not treated in the order in which you can learn them, right? You have to learn about the substance of God before you can learn about the operations of God fully, and you have to learn about the operations of God before you can learn about the what Trinity, huh? Okay. So Thomas is. You can see what Thomas means by that in a way.

[38:59] I was always trying to get my colleagues to admit the order of learning in philosophy. What point is the point there? But then they go on something else. What do

[39:10] you do? Retire. Oh yeah. This famous thing of Goethe the German Poet, where he describes the wise man separating truth from error to a man, you know, who's, you know, swimming and and parting the truth from the error. As he swims on, they come right back together again.

[39:45] Used to have a student I was first teaching at St. Mary's College in California. Good student. And almost every day came out with an objection, and you can see he grips like that He come out with the objection, and of course I'd heard all these objections before, I? wasn't like? And I'd solve them very simply, you know. He was a good student. He realized I was solving them, and then he liked this, you know.

[40:07] A year's later, he told me, "You know, I was trying to catch you, but I never catch you." It wasn't so big. all these objections are in there already, you know, and you hear them coming back again, same mistakes. And you know, when DeConick used to teach even the first book of Natural Hearing, you know, and he, you know, explained what Aristotle and Thomas' explanation of Aristotle, then he stopped and he'd make an excursion, you know, and bring in Bergson Russell or somebody else is making the same kind of mistake that this other guy is making.

[40:36] And just like I was saying, you know, Thomas says in the Summa Contra Gentiles a whole chapter to bring out that God is not the being said of all things. That when God is, we learn that God is I am who am, right? That doesn't mean He's the being that is said of all things. His whole chapter is just to that mistake, right? And this is what Hegel's system begins with, right?

[41:02] I can't find those two. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it doesn't even mention, you know, anybody might have thought that they might be different, let alone reasons why they think they're different, let alone any refutation of reasons or solution of them.

[41:18] I always quote Santayana, you know, the American philosopher, taught at Harvard early in the century and so on. But he says, "Today we no longer bother to refute our predecessors; we just wave them goodbye." It shows you how how much you know. The modern is a la mode, it's, just a matter of fashion, right? Yeah, yeah. You don't, you don't. but... That's a contempt. It's not born a familiarity.

[41:54] Okay, now the second objection was saying, "Well, it's no big deal. We understand our understanding, right?" Okay, to the second, it should be said that when one understands that understanding that is not subsisting, right? It's not a substantial, right? One is not understanding something great.

[42:17] So my understanding of the Pythagorean theorem well it's nice to understand it, but it's a big deal about understanding that I understand it. As when we understand our own understanding, right, and therefore is not similar about the divine understanding, which is a what subsisting and substantial.

[42:41] And to this is clear the response to the third thing, for the divine what to understand, which is in itself subsisting, is of itself and not of something other, so that one has to proceed what. In infinitum, see. But notice, son, when I understand what a a triangle is,

[43:08] can I, by that act of understanding what triangle is, understand the fact that I understand what triangle is? That's to be another one, right? Okay. And then, if I understand, as I do, I think that I understand what I understand of a triangle, then that's another act, right? You know, and it goes on, huh? But no act can be really of itself, right?

[43:38] And even, you know, when you talk about logic is possible because reason can come back upon itself, right? And a kind of a sign of this is that there is not only a definition of triangle and a definition of circle and a definition of virtue and so on, but there is also even a definition of what? Definition. Yeah. Yeah. Say, okay. Well, now is a definition a definition defining itself?

[44:11] See. And sometimes I like to use a Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers question. I ask, you know, is a definition of definition a definition of a definition of definition? No. Say, put it on words, I see. And no, I just like to just do this with the before, right? What sense of before does one sense before come before this sense of before? Make life difficult.

[44:44] But say, is the definition of definition? Because the thing that there is a definition of definition, right? Yeah. That's just a definition of square and circle, right? As used in geometry, but in in logic, in science, logic, you have the definition of definition, right? So is the definition of definition a definition of the definition

[45:25] of definition? What do you say? No. Because the definition of definition is defining what definition is in general, right? So the definition of definition would be something like speech signifying what a thing is, right? Oh. Yeah. And that's no more. Talking about the definition of definition in particular, it is about the definition of what triangle, square, a circle, right? Because that's also speech signifying what a thing is, right?

[46:07] So you could say, in some way, right? Say, "quid the definition of definition is of itself, right? Okay. Better would like saying, you know, is the definition of animal a definition of man? I wouldn't say so simply, would you? Even though man is an animal, right? So in saying what an animal is, I have in some way, some imperfect way, said what a man is, but you wouldn't say simply that I said what a man is when I said what an animal is, right?

[46:52] Okay. But you have to say, in some imperfect way, I said what a man is, right? Okay. The same way here, you can say the definition of definition

[47:07] is telling us in some general way what the definition of definition is, but at the same time it's telling us in general what the definition of circle is, the definition of square, and the definition of tragedy is, and so on, right? Is it? Okay. Now, what distinction am I using there? General, particular, how would you say? Applied to that, yeah.

[47:41] But it's a distinction, distinction between what is so simply and what is not so simply, right? But in some imperfect way or some qualified way, right? Okay. Now this distinction runs through the whole philosophy and the whole of what theology, right? And it corresponds to one of the thirteen kinds of mistakes, right, that Aristotle distinguishes in the book on Sophistical Refutations. It corresponds to the second kind of mistake outside of speech, right?

[48:32] The mistake for mixing up what is so simply and what is not so simply, right? Okay. I was just in the fourth book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, my favorite book there, and in the part now where he's got through with the Trinity and now he's talking about the Incarnation, right? And there's a chapter I have to look at this morning. There, where he's saying, where the question is, is Christ a creature?

[49:04] What would you say? I think yes, because because of what that word signifies, Christ. Back to the drawing board. You make a mistake. Mistake of mixing up what is so simply and what is so not simply.

[49:34] Because Christ refers now to the person, right? And the person is the Word of God, and the Word of God is not a what creature. The human nature of Christ is a creature, right? Okay. So you could qualify and say Christ as man is a creature, right? But if you say simply without qualification. That this man, even right, is a creature, pointing to Christ, right? And this man refers to the person.

[50:11] Then you are saying something false, because this man, the person there, right, is the Word of God. I was thinking, of. Christ is the anointed The nature, of the creative nature is anointed. I. I think you could say that Christ, that name, is taken from his human nature, right? Okay. But he said something that's clearly taken from his human nature. This man, right? You're referring, meaning this person, this man.

[50:42] Is this man a creature? No, because this person is the second person of the Blessed Trinity, and this and that person is is not a creature. See, so Thomas says simpliciter. Simply, Christ is not a creature, but in a qualified way, you can say so, right? Okay. And notice that that distinction comes up, you know, in the most universal things when you talk about being, right? You know, the example I give you in class all the time.

[51:19] I'd say now, if you leave this room, where you cease to be, what would you say? Cease to be in this room. You got to qualify, right? Yeah. You can't say simply unless you die in this room, or you know, when I came into this room, did I come to be? See. Well, if you don't qualify, you see, it's simply without qualification. Then you say, I didn't come to be when I came into this room, right?

[51:49] You can say in some way, some particular way, I came to be. I came to be in this room, right? But I have to stay, in this room. So I mean that that thing stretches all the way through what philosophy, right? And you'll find the distinction again and again in being, but seen by Aristotle or Thomas, but overlooked by most other people, right? The same here, as I say.

[52:16] You know, sometimes when we say logic is possible because reason can think about its own act, right? But when reason thinks about its own thinking, is the is the

[52:34] thinking whereby it's thinking about its thinking, the thinking is thinking about. Is it? Is it? I say I understand what a triangle is, and then I understand my understanding what a triangle is. What second understanding is an understanding in itself? No, then I have to have a third understanding. Understanding that understand that understand, but you see, that's very subtle. So there is

[53:14] always some kind of distinction there, right? The same same distinction he used. I just recently looked up St. Thomas's question about Christ's descent into hell, and he says, "Is the whole Christ in hell?" And he says, "Yes, because it refers to the person." He uses the same. thing. It's even though part of his human nature too, but the whole Christ is in hell. Yeah, yeah. Because of the union of the natures

[53:53] So that's the distinction in the Meno that the Meno overlooks right Because Socrates wants to investigate what neither of them knows, namely what is virtue, right? And and Mino says, "Well, how can we direct our thinking to what we don't know? How can you aim at what you don't know, right?" Yeah. And and that's an objection. That's like Zeno's objections to motion, right? You know, Zeno's objections are really saying that motion is impossible, right?

[54:25] Right. And motion was impossible, then there wouldn't be any motion. Therefore, there wouldn't be any natural philosophy, there wouldn't be any nature, right? So if Meno, if Zeno's objections are good, and they're to back up, you know, Parmenides who said there is no motion. If his objections are good, you do away with the whole natural philosophy. And just like you know in ethics, if you if you had the proof that there is no free will, then you do away with the whole ethics.

[54:57] Well, likewise, if you if Mino's argument was good, that there is no what way to investigate what you don't know, you do away with the whole logic. You do away with logistike too, in the Greek sense, huh? Because logike logic, and logistike are arts for coming to know what you don't know to what you do know. They're arts that direct you to coming to know what you don't know, and somebody says, "Well, how can you aim at what you don't know?

[55:31] How can you do that?" By using what you do know, there are certain things. Yeah, but even to do that, you see, you have to bring together what you do know, right, with a view to knowing what you don't know, right? So the end goal is know what you don't know, unless you know in some way what you want to know but don't know. You can't see what you have to bring together to know it.

[55:58] Okay. Okay. Now, now take I take a simple example there. To to bring the solution to this, you say if you wanted to measure this room, right? I know what to do for the area of this room. I'd what measure the length and the width, and then what multiply the length by the width. Now, before I multiply the length by the width, do I know the area?

[56:34] No. Now, do I know what I'm trying to know? Yeah. But simply, no. You see, example I used in class all the time. You know, I have a bigger class than this, but maybe you'd have maybe 25, 30 students, and I'd say, you know, I don't know how many students have in class today. Honestly, I don't know how many students have in class today, but I could direct myself to what I don't know—the number students in class.

[57:06] I can know exactly the road to take. just a count in this case. Yeah. And so then I count them, and I end up with a number. Let's say I end up with 26. And how did I direct myself to 26 when I didn't know that it was 26? I was trying to get to.

[57:22] How did I know exactly, in fact, in this simple example, the road to take, right, to get to 26 when I didn't know I was trying to get to 26? Some way. Yeah, because 26 is in fact the number of students in class, and I didn't know that 26 was the number of students in class, right? But I knew I wanted to know the number of students in class, and so did I know 26 in some imperfect way.

[57:54] Yeah, it's very generally right, but knowing that I wanted to know the the number of students in class was enough to tell me I had to count.

[58:08] When you try to you know give people this difficulty at first, and you say to them, if I go into the the gas station, I ask the guy, "How do you get there? " What's he going to say? Where? Yeah, I don't know where I'm going to get, but how do you get there? It's always my time, buddy, right? You see, you've got to know where you're going before you can know how to get there, right?

[58:33] But the difficulty seems that the unknown, right? How can you know? Yeah, if you're trying to direct yourself to what's unknown, well, you're overlooking this distinction, right? That what is unknown simply can be known in some way.

[58:58] That's the solution to Christ's growing in knowledge, because he doesn't come to know by we. Which is to go from not knowing to knowing. He goes from knowing in one way to knowing in another way. Yeah, we're not sure. You know, Christ might have had some kind of sense knowledge, right? That would be new to him, right? Okay, and therefore some memory and so on. But as Thomas, you know, gets older, I guess he attributes to Christ every kind of knowledge, you know, from the beatific vision to infused knowledge, you know, to the arts and the sciences and so on, right, and even experience and so on, right.

[59:42] So there can be a certain growth of certain kinds of knowing in in Christ, maybe. Okay. So I just cut off this a little bit here, but but you know the distinction you could say here this kind of you say how is. logic possible? Well, when Thomas explains in the premium to logic, he says reason

[1:00:09] invents the other arts by thinking about how to use your hands, your feet, and so the carpenter and the tailor and so on. They use their hands, right? But then he points out that reason can think not only about the hands or the feet, but about what its own act. Okay, and that's reflected in the fact that you have things like what a definition of definition and statements about statements, right?

[1:00:43] But is a statement about statements a statement about itself? You see, a statement is speech signifying the true or the false. I mean, a statement's about statements, right? But is that a statement about itself? No, but in some way it is

[1:01:05] because it is an example of speech signifying the true or the false. You see, so that distinction comes up again and again, right? But you usually appreciate that distinction most of all when you see there's a common kind of mistake and getting to overlooking that particular one.