Prima Pars
58. Faith, Hope and Charity in Jude; Is God's Knowledge Discursive? Is It the Cause of Things? (Summa I, q.14, aa.7–8)
Class of 2007-01-04
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/058-faith-hope-and-charity-in-jude-is-gods-knowledge-discursive/

[0:00] Okay, name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angel, strengthen the lights of our minds, order to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, pray for us. Help us to understand all that you've written. Name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. I'm going to give you a little side here now from the Epistle of Saint Jude.

[0:31] I was reading the Golden Chain there on the Gospel of Matthew, and of course, up in the tenth chapter there, where the twelve apostles are enumerated, right? So the church fathers have all kinds of things to say, right? And I didn't realize that the Mark has a little different order there for the first four. You see what is Matthew says: Peter and his brother Andrew, James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John.

[1:01] That's the way it goes. Well, Mark has Peter first, and then James, and then John, then Andrew fourth. And they say, well, it's the order of dignity, because those three were the ones who were taken up and long, you know, for the transfiguration and in the Garden of Gethsemane and and in the, you know, he raised the daughter of Jairus, was it, and so on. So they have some thing.

[1:31] But anyway, they were saying, you know, that that and one text, I guess, in Matthew, he's called Thaddeus, and and another place is Jude, I guess, and he's supposed to be the brother of what? James the lesser, James Alphaeus. And so I was reading that, and he said he says one is epistle, right? And so I said, okay, I'll go look at the epistle. It's a very short epistle, you know, it's the last one here.

[1:59] And he says he's the brother of James, you know, doesn't say which James, but go over there. But I was struck by this verses twenty twenty one. I don't know if you're familiar with those,

[2:15] but as you perhaps know, sacred doctrine is presented in at least three different orders. In one order, sacred doctrine is presented, and is of course sacred scripture, the order in the books of the Bible, and so on. And then another order is the one that you have in the Summas. It's: God in Himself, and God is the Maker, and God is the End, basically, but certain variations on that.

[2:47] But then there's another order which Augustine follows in the Enchiridion on faith, hope, and charity, and which Thomas Aquinas follows in the Catechetical Instructions, And which he also follows in his Compendium of theology, which he didn't complete, and there you divide sacred doctrine according to faith, hope, and charity. And what Augustine does, and Thomas does too, following Augustine, when you talk about faith, you talk about the creed and explaining the articles of faith.

[3:19] And then for hope, you talk about the Our Father. Sometimes the Hail Mary too, but primarily the Our Father, so that prayer corresponds to hope. And then for charity, you talk about the two commandments of love and the Ten Commandments, huh? And the Enchiridion of Augustine is written for kind of an educated man, but a layman you might say, right? And he wanted kind of a summary of these things, and so Augustine gave it in in that order, which is different than the order here, and different than the order you had in Scripture.

[3:54] But although these orders are all touch upon Scripture, and Thomas, when his catechetical instructions are called the Naples sermons at the end of his life, follows that same order. And when his brother, you know, asked him, you know, to give him kind of a thing he could carry around and you know, kind of a certain version, he gave the same order: faith, hope, and charity. It's much longer than the catechetical instructions, but that same order here.

[4:27] Well, you could also say that by faith, hope, and charity, we're ordered to what God is our end. We're ordered to what eternal life? Huh? It's a division, and because these are the three virtues that have God Himself as their their their object, huh? As you know, I'm very fond of the Premium to Dei Verbum in Vatican II, and it's very well ordered. That little premium, but it begins by talking about eternal life and how we're invited to this and so on, and then it ends up by talking about faith, hope, and what charity.

[5:05] Quoting Augustine, you know, by believing we come to hope, and by hope we come to love. So you see that order of faith, hope, and charity to eternal life, huh? In the Premium to Dei Verbum. Well, you have something like that in this little passage here from.

[5:27] There's no chapter division; that you just see verses, but verses 20 and 21, huh? And so he says, "If you can listen, stand my Greek here. " humeis de agapetoi, but you, beloved, right? Huh? Look, he's addressing us now, huh? And then he says, "epoikodomountes. " Now, that comes from the Greek word for what building a house. And generalized into building or building upon something, right? And so he says, "epoikodomountes building up is what they translated here.

[6:09] yourselves, huh? Tei hagiotatei humon pistei humon piste. In the most holy, or by the most holy, what faith of you, right? Of course, it struck me that Greek word. I was looking up in the dictionary at home. epoikodomountes, because I know it's related to the word for house, right? And they give us the first meaning of this of the verb form, building a house, right? And then it's kind of generalized.

[6:34] It reminds me of the explanation you get in some of the church fathers when they talking about the one hundred twenty sixth psalm. It says, "Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it." And and one meaning of that, of course, can be the house which is the church itself, right? But another meaning, even for the individual soul, is that the foundation of the house is faith, and the walls are hope, and then the roof is what charity, right?

[7:01] So that word he chose is there, ep oikodomuntes. So you get to write economics from oikos, a household science, huh? We had two economists at school there, who are husband and wife, right? And so when they when they finally both got hired not at the same time, but eventually there, I see them walking down the hall together. They say, "Well, now I know what economics is—the household science."

[7:27] But kind of fun. So he says, building up themselves in the most holy faith, right? Huh? And then the next words is all one sentence. En pneumati hagio in the Holy Spirit, pros proseuchomenoi huh? So praying in the Holy Spirit, huh? It doesn't mention the word hope, but they mention Augustine and Thomas connect prayer with hope, huh? This is beautifully said, right? Praying in the Holy Spirit, like He groans in us, like Saint Paul says, and so on.

[8:00] And then the next part, which is still in the same sentence, keep yourselves in the love of God, huh? Heautous en agape theou teresate huh? Keep yourselves in the in the love of God. So you get the three in that same order, right?

[8:19] But then it goes on to eternal life. It's still in the same sentence. Pros dekomenoi, huh? Awaiting, right? It's beautifully said here. To eleos the mercy, right? tou kyriou hemon of the Lord of us, right? Iesou Christou Jesus Christ. eis zoen aionion in eternal life, huh? So it's beautiful. That same idea that you find in the proemium to Dei Verbum, but different texts, right? But here it's all in one little what.

[8:52] Or two verses, twenty and twenty-one. So, can you read the whole thing again? What? Could you just read the whole, the complete thing? In Greek or Latin, or are you are you English? Just just the English one. English one, okay.

[9:14] Actually, it's a fun transition. But, ye beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keeping yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. It's a beautiful. way it ties together eternal life with those three theological virtues, like it does in the premium. but I appreciate that. Again, it also touches upon that way of dividing sacred doctrine that's most appropriate for for a beginner.

[9:55] Okay, let's go back now to Thomas, huh and your. end or. goal in life is to what understand and love God, right? They're not the same thing, right? But perhaps understanding God, right, helps you to some extent to love God, right? So it gives you reasons for loving God, right? You don't get too tied up in the thoughts, you know. Where where Saint Francis, and he wanted to study theology rigorously in the Franciscan order of all places.

[10:34] He finally gave permission, provided they don't extinguish the spirit of what devotion, okay? But vice versa, you could say loving God—if you really love God—that should make you want to understand Him too, right? So these two things should work together, right? Understanding God should help you to love God more, right? Although you can love God more in this life than you can understand Him, right? But vice versa, loving God should incline you to want to understand God so far as you what can, right?

[11:13] You got to be careful. You don't want to throw the maybe the people of the parish right into this. But sometimes when one of the brothers all start off, and say. Oh, stop that! Stop that!

[11:27] Yeah. Article seven is following upon these articles, which show that God knows other things, right? And you might say, in a way that could be misunderstood, God knows other things than Himself and knows them properly, but He knows other things than Himself through knowing Himself, right? Okay. Now you can misunderstand that, right? Because I know the conclusion of a syllogism through knowing the premises, huh? I know the premises before my mind moves by what we call discourse to the conclusion, right?

[12:13] Was that the way God knows? You know, he's thinking about himself, and all of a sudden he draws a conclusion about you or me. See, well, no, it might be better to say God knows other things in knowing Himself, right? Huh? It's not from knowing Himself because that can imply that there's a a movement in God, right? And God is as one of the other canonic epistles says, there's no shadow of change in Him, right?

[12:42] Not even a shadow of change, not the slightest bit of change. Okay. To the seventh one proceeds thus. It seems that the knowledge of God must be discursive. Now we talked about the word discourse when we were explaining Shakespeare's definition of reason as reason, right? Its ability for large discourse, looking before and after, right? So he defined reason by what discourse, huh? And in the Middle Ages, sometimes in medieval logicians, discursus is sometimes used as almost a synonym for reasoning.

[13:23] But it comes in the Latin words to discurrere to run from one thing to another, has the same root as race course does, huh? Okay, or win in the course of human events, huh? But this is a movement inside of reason itself. Okay, but it could be used for any movement from one thing to another reason, but it's especially used for

[13:50] knowing one thing to another, right? But coming to know what you don't know to what you do know, right? But there's a real movement of the mind from one thing to another.

[14:05] Okay. First objection: for the knowledge of God is not according to knowing in habit, but knowing in act. But according to the philosopher in the second book of the about the places, it's a book on dialectical reasoning. One can know habitually the same time many things, right? Like I know all forty-eight theorems in Book One of Euclid. in habit. Okay, but I can understand only one of those at a time in act.

[14:46] Okay. Since therefore God knows many things because He knows both Himself and other things, as we've shown in the previous articles. It seems that He does not at once know all things, but He runs from one thing to another, right? And this is really drawing God down to the level of our what? Mind. I was looking at Thomas's thing on the Trinity here one time, and he's talking about how we try to understand generation in God, right?

[15:19] You have to understand it in the way Saint John explains at the beginning of his Gospel, right? It's intelligible generation, and it's like what you find therefore in the higher creatures, right? So he says you can't, you know, take your likeness from the lower creatures, right? You got to take from the higher ones to get something like God. But even that, he says, oh sure, and this is a good example, huh?

[15:43] Okay. Furthermore, to know the effect through the cause is to know in a way that the one discoursing knows, huh? The one running from one thing to another does, huh?

[16:03] And Thomas, sometimes, you know, when he talks about the discourse of our reason from one thing to another, he'll distinguish four main kinds of discourse from one thing to another thing, right? Sometimes our reason runs from the cause to the effect. More often, though, it runs in the opposite direction, from the effect to the cause, and sometimes it runs from one thing to another that is like it, and then it runs from one opposite to the other opposite, huh?

[16:39] So now I was trying to define comedy. I was running all the time from tragedy to comedy, you know. I said, "Well, tragedy moves us to pity and fear. Then comedy ought to move us to the contrary emotions. " So I was running from opposite to opposite, huh? But reason often runs from like to like. Whenever you make a a likeness, this is to that, is that is to that, you're running from like to like, and then some days you run from cause to effect and effect to cause.

[17:07] Well, seems that God is one of these, right? Because He knows effects of Himself through Himself, the cause, huh? So He's knowing effect to cause, just like us, right? So He must run from one to the other.

[17:25] Moreover, God knows more perfectly each creature than we know each creature. But we, in created causes, know their effects, and thus we run from causes to the cause, huh? Therefore, it seems that likewise it must be in God. Well, it seems to quote Plato there in the the Sophist, right? That likeness is a dangerous thing. It's a slippery thing, you know. if Plato has a way of saying it easily upsets you, huh?

[18:06] But against all this is what the great Augustine says in the fifteenth book about the Trinity, huh? Now I'm of the opinion that that's Augustine's greatest work. Certainly not his most popular work. I suppose the Confessions is the one that we put him on everybody's shelf. But I think the De Trinitate is his greatest. So the subject is the greatest. Okay.

[18:31] So God does not, in a particular way or bit by bit, right? See all things, huh? As he looks first here and then there and so on, but he sees all things at once, together. He seems the opposite of what before and after, which is in the definition of discourse, right? Okay.

[18:55] So Thomas says, "I answer. It should be said that in the divine knowledge there is no discourse, huh? " I might mention that you know if we ever get around to studying the angels, right?

[19:10] Remember when I said to my old teacher, the Serk, you know, I want to study the angels. Anytime he says, you know, he'd like to talk about the angels. But the angels don't have discourse either, right? And therefore, you know, Thomas is always quoting some philosopher, philosopher called Isaac, you know, who says that we live in the shadow of understanding. We have to think about things a lot to understand a little bit that we do, right?

[19:40] But the angels, everything he understands right away. That's why they, but by the way, they either chose God or they, you know, went back to God with what they had, and or else they said, "Oh, is it me? I'm the most wonderful thing." And. the Beautiful creatures.

[20:05] And it should be said that in the divine science there is no discourse, which in this way becomes clear. Now, this is the distinction that I often use when I talk about Shakespeare's definition, right? In our knowledge, there is a twofold what discourse. One by succession only, right? As when after we understand something in act, we turn to understanding something else, right?

[20:39] And the other discourse is by causality. And what does he mean by that? He means that not only do go from one thing to another, but the first thing is the cause you're going to the second thing. So if you know the premises, then you go to the conclusion, but the conclusion is what? Yeah, yeah. So what's the definition? What you call the definition there? Syllogism, huh?

[21:10] Which is the most effective one? If you see it, speech in which some statements, and it's usually just two, right? Speech in which some statements laid down. Yeah. That means firmly in the mind, right? Then another, meaning another statement, right?

[21:45] Follows necessarily because that's in the definition of those laid down. Now notice, I went from Jude to this article, right? Which kind of discourse is that?

[22:21] But was I drawing conclusions about whether God is discursive or not? From what we said about faith, hope, and charity, and eternal life. No. Yeah, I was thinking about that thing. Now I was thinking about this thing, right? Okay.

[22:36] But in syllogism, right, you have the second kind of discourse. We're not only going from thinking about one thing to another, but what you think about first is the cause of what we're going to right? So if I say, if I lay down the statement that every man, every mother is a woman, right, and no man is a woman, right. Lay down those two statements. What other statement follows necessarily?

[23:05] Yeah, no man is a mother right? It follows necessarily, and because of those laid down, right? Okay. Of course, this last part is very necessary, as I explain in logic. You know,

[23:22] when Shakespeare says, "It must follows the night the day, this above all to thine own self be true, and it must follows the night the day, but canst not then be false to me, man." I say, well, maybe night follows day necessarily,

[23:39] but is it because of day that night follows? Is day the cause of night? No, it's some third thing, right? Maybe the sun going around the earth, maybe the earth turning on its axis depending upon. You see, but if the earth necessarily turns on its axis, then day and night necessarily follow each other, right? Huh? But night is not following day because of day, right? Night is following day because of the rotation of the of the earth, huh?

[24:13] But in the syllogism, not only do you have one thing following another necessarily, but the thing that follows necessarily is because of what came before, right? Huh? Okay. Now, it's this kind of discourse, the second kind of discourse, that I think you should understand when you talk about the definition of reason, right? Because to some extent, with our senses and even our imagination, I can go from what when I read the Pickwick Papers, I go from imagining one scene to imagining another scene, right, and so on.

[24:50] When I go to look up there at those cards, I can go from looking at one card and the next one, next one, right? Say, but I don't see the second card through seeing the first card, do I? Say, but when I reason, I know the second thing through knowing the first one, right? Okay.

[25:13] So that's what he means when he says the other discourse is by causality, as when through principles, huh, or premises, we arrive at a knowledge of what conclusions. He says the first kind of discourse cannot belong to God, right? Huh?

[25:37] For the many things which what we understand successively, if each one of them is considered in itself, right? All of them we understand at the same time if we understand them in something one, right? If, for example, we understand the parts in the whole. Or if we see diverse things in the what mirror, right? Okay. It's like if if I think about what a man is, right?

[26:10] That's one thinking in mind. And then I think about what a stone is. That's another thinking, right? But if I think that man is not a stone, then I'm knowing man and stone at the same time, because they're in that one what statement, right? And then I'm not thinking, you know, at one time of man, at time of stone. I could never know that man is not a stone unless I could think of man and stone together, right?

[26:38] Yeah. But when I think of what man is, I don't at all at all think of what a stone is, right? When I think of what a stone is, I don't at all think of what man is, right? But I think that man is not a stone. I know both of them together in the one what statement, yeah.

[26:59] Well, God knows all things in Himself, right? And so He knows all things what at once together. Simul can be you know translated at the same time or together, right?

[27:17] But God, however, sees all things in one thing, namely Himself, right? When said once or together and not successively, He sees what all things, huh? Okay.

[27:33] Likewise, also the second discourse cannot belong to God, right? And I give a number of reasons for this. First, because the second discourse presupposes the first. For in proceeding from the principles or premises to the conclusions, one does not consider both what together, right? First, you consider the premises, right, and then you proceed from them. So that's one reason, huh? Okay. So that first kind of discourse is involved in that, right?

[28:13] Then, because such a discourse is that of one proceeding from the known to the unknown, whence it is manifest that when the first is known, the second is still ignored, huh, or unknown. And thus the second is not known at first, you could say, in the first, right? But from the first, right?

[28:43] But the end of the discourse is when the second is seen in the first, huh? When you resolve the effects into the causes, huh? Then the discourse what ceases, right? So it's like there's kind of a circle analogy. Go from the premises to the conclusion, and then you break the conclusion back down into the what premises. That's why those two books of Aristotle about the perfection of reasoning are called the prior and the posterior analytics, huh?

[29:12] Because at the end you take apart the conclusion and you get back to the what premises, huh? We have to go through that discourse.

[29:26] Whence, since God sees the effects in Himself as in a cause, His knowledge is not what discursive, huh? But you could say if God was also going from what the known to the unknown, He would be some change in Him, right? Becoming to know,

[29:50] and would He be knowledge itself? God's altogether simple. Is there any distinction between God and His knowledge? No, so could knowledge itself be ignorant? No. that'd be like whiteness itself being black, right? Huh? And heat itself being cold.

[30:21] Now, to the first objection, he says that although there is only one understanding in God, right? Nevertheless, it can happen that many understood in something one, and he understands whatever else he understands in himself, right? Okay. So,

[30:46] notice that the language of Thomas going back to the body article again, and I said this before, but look at it again. There, he's talking about reasoning. He says, and thus the second is not known in primo said ex primo, right? Okay. So he says, better to say, don't have to misunderstand the thing, that God knows other things in knowing himself, right? He doesn't know other things from knowing himself, right?

[31:14] Although he could say, if you understood properly, perhaps, but it's being misunderstood, right? Okay. And likewise, he said he knows other things through knowing himself. Well, you can say that, but you got to be kind of careful, right? Because it might imply that there's a discourse in God, right? That through knowing himself, he comes to know other things, that isn't so. He knows other things in knowing himself, right?

[31:36] Okay. At the same time, right? Just like I knowing that man is not a stone, know both man and stone together at the same time in that one what statement.

[31:50] In the same way, you know, it's kind of marvelous in the syllogism, right? In the syllogism, you've got to have in mind at the same time both premises to draw the what? Yeah. If I thought the major premise, and then forgot about it, stopped knowing it, and then I thought about the minor premise, I wouldn't be able to draw any conclusion, right? You got to put these things together from in your mind at the same time, right?

[32:17] And then there's a kind of unity, right? Huh? That's kind of marvelous that our mind can can can do that, huh? Okay. The second objection saying, yeah, God knows the effect through the cause in a way like we do, you know, but we do it by a discourse, right? Okay. We run from one to the other, huh? But God knows the effect in the cause, right? In himself, huh?

[32:49] Okay. And shows the imperfection of our mind. That's why Isaac says we live in the shadow of understanding, right? That in knowing the cause, we don't right away see. All the consequences of it, huh? Yeah. And you know, when you go through Euclid, there you know, and he draws up another conclusion out of something, you know, say, oh, why, marvelous, marvelous, but you didn't see the consequence of what you already knew, right?

[33:13] Yeah. You didn't in the beginning see the conclusion in the premises, and you had to go through this this discourse, huh? Yeah. To kind of get to see, we practically did, you know.

[33:29] A little bit of motion, Thomas says. Sometimes that our understanding is by way of motion. Now the third objection, God more perfectly knows each creature than we know them, but we in created causes know their effects, and thus we run from causes to cause, right?

[34:00] Well, he says the effects of created causes God sees in the causes themselves much better than we do, right? Not, however, such that the knowledge of effects is caused in him from the knowledge of what the created causes as in us. Again, he sees them right, huh? In the causes, right away. whence his knowledge is not what discursive, huh? So how can Shakespeare say then that reason is godlike in the exhortation when he defines reason's ability for large discourses?

[34:39] What's only insofar as our reason is able to understand to some extent that it's what becomes like God, right? And the more you understand, the more you become what like God, huh? Especially become like God when you understand God, because you don't really strictly speaking understand God in this life, but we have some kind of consolation understanding, as Thomas says, huh? This is to console our mind for before we get to see God as He is,

[35:24] as Augustine says. I'm just a sort of man who would want to understand what he believes, and because that's natural, right? See, it's natural for our mind to to guess or believe another, right, before we know, right, and so that's observed even in the

[35:47] supernatural order, right, that we have to believe God before we will what see Him as He is. So he's not demanding something imperfect, huh? You know, someone comes to me and says, "Berquist I've heard about this Pythagorean theorem." You know, he showed it to me. You sure you want to know it? So the only proof I know is Proposition forty-seven in Book one of Euclid, and there are about forty-six theorems you got to do before you get there, and most of them, if not all of them, are necessary to get there.

[36:22] And you sure you want to do this? Well, he doesn't know it. Going through those forty-six is going to lead to that, does he? He's got to believe me.

[36:33] But if he doesn't believe me and goes through the forty-six, he'll probably never get there. Most of us never get there. Then I tell you about this theorem I was looking just recently in Euclid there, how to draw from a point outside a circle a line to touch the circle. Did I mention that theorem?

[36:57] That it's a very subtle thing, yeah. So subtle. So you got a circle, you got a point outside here. You want to draw a line from the point to touch the circle, right? Huh? I already know this theorem that you know that if they a radius right is drawn to a point, then you draw a line that the right angle is going to touch it, right? Okay.

[37:37] But now the problem here is I've got to find that point on the circumference circle to which I can draw this line so it'll be touching, right? T here is an infinity of possible points in that thing. Okay, so how do you find that point?

[37:58] Huh? Yeah. Well, what Euclid does is to draw four lines in a certain order, right? They have to be drawn in a certain order, and finally get that point. So he says, draw a straight line from this center circle to that point, right? So

[38:24] you see what the problem is, right? You know, in geometry, you can always draw a straight line between any two points. So if you knew the point here that would make the line touch, you could do it right away. But I've got to find that point. So what you do is first draw a straight line from this to that point. Oh, sure. That's the first line. Yeah.

[38:46] Then you use that to make another circle. Oh. It's really subtle what Euclid does. Okay, that's the second line. Hmm. you draw Now, what do you do,

[39:00] then you draw at right angles to this line, a straight line, right? Oh, okay, huh? Yeah. And then you draw a straight line from this point here to the center.

[39:16] Okay. And that should give me a point Now, believe it or not, that's the point you want to draw it to. But isn't that amazing? How do you figure it out? You had to go through four lines, right? You had to first draw this line, right? Then you had to draw the circle. Then you had to draw this tangent, right?

[39:38] I mean, I mean, just perpendicular. And then, for where that hit the outer circle, you had to draw a straight line down there. Okay.

[39:54] Now, the proofing is kind of easy because these two triangles are equal. Because they have a common angle, and then they have this side and this side, and isn't that

[40:12] right? Yeah. And this line, and this line, right? Okay. So eventually, what he does is to prove that these two triangles equal, and therefore, since this is a right angle by construction, right? Yeah. This angle corresponds to the other one; it must be a right angle, and therefore, we know from the previous theorem that there is one that the line meets at a right angle is tangent.

[40:38] But how do you figure that out, Jim? That's kind of amazing the way he does these things. He's a amazing man. Where was that in? That's in a different book, right? It's not the first book. This This is proposition seventeen in book three. Three. Yeah, book three is a circular book. Oh, okay. Books three and four are circular book. Okay. See, what's interesting is that he's always going with something you know to begin with.

[41:11] That's just kind of interesting because if you have the first point, then he says, "Well, you need another point. Well, you get a higher point from the center of the circle. Yeah. Then you have two points that you can make a line, and that already gives you another point to go. That gives you the radius of the second circle. Yeah, That gives you the outer, circle. That line, the first line you draw, gives you the radius of the second circle.

[41:35] Jim, interesting. But anyway, kind of interesting to compare, you know, the geometry with fiction, right? Huh? I was going to write a paper one time called "Tragedy and Geometry" because they both work on imagination, but in different ways, right? And you know, of course, tragedy is making a likeness in imagination. Huh? This is not making a likeness so much, but you're reasoning out something. But there's a work of imagination there in figuring out these unusual constructions, huh?

[42:09] Some of them are very striking in your book, but anyway. Okay, now we got to the eighth article. Whether the knowledge of God is a cause of what things, huh?

[42:29] Incidentally, Thomas sometimes has a three possibilities, right? If there's going to be conformity between what's in the mind and what's in things, right? Either things cause the knowledge of the mind, right?

[42:56] Or knowledge of the mind causes the things, right? Or a third thing causes both, and of course, in the case of our mind, knowing things through our senses and so on, which are acted upon by things, right? The conformity of our mind to things is because things are the cause of our knowledge.

[43:27] That's why when we make a judgment, we'll say, "Does that make sense, or that's nonsense?" Come to your senses. In the case of God's mind and things outside of him, right? Well, His knowledge is the cause of things, son. How about the angels? But that's a third possibility, right? Because these material things, God causes them, right? And He creates the angels with their what mind already formed with thoughts, son.

[44:01] And so He's the cause of both, and that's why they correspond, huh? It was kind of like Einstein would say, use Einstein's phrase: "There pre-established harmony between the two." Okay.

[44:17] Amazing. To the eighth, one proceeds thus. It seems that the knowledge of God is not a cause of things, son. For Origin says in his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, "Not an account of that will something be, because God knows it to be future, but because it is future, therefore it is known by God before it comes to be." Okay.

[44:54] Moreover, if the cause be laid down or is posited, then the what effect is going to be posited, huh? But the knowledge of God is eternal. If, therefore, the knowledge of God was a cause of things, it seems that creatures would be from what eternity.

[45:17] Moreover, the knowable is before knowledge, and a measure of it, as is said in the tenth book of Wisdom of the Metaphysics. But that which is afterwards and measured cannot be the cause. Therefore, the knowledge of God is not the cause of things. That's very much submitting God's way of knowing to ours, right, huh? That's what I was talking about there. But against this is what the great Augustine says in the fifteenth book about the Trinity: that the universe of creatures, both spiritual ones, and immaterial ones, and bodily ones.

[45:59] Not because they are, therefore God knows them, but therefore they are because He knows them. Okay. I answer. It should be said that the knowledge of God is the cause of things, huh? For thus is the knowledge of for thus the knowledge of God has itself to all created things, as the knowledge of the artist has itself to the what? Anything. Yeah. Artificial things.

[46:41] Thomas makes a beautiful use of that explaining the Trinity, huh? You know, there'd be an objection, you know, to to the word being God because the word goes forward from God understanding Himself, right? And therefore, it seems to be contrary to being the first cause that goes forward from something, because the first cause doesn't go forward from anything. And Thomas says, "Well, but the first cause is a cause in the way of an artist, right?

[47:13] An artist causes things through his knowledge, right? Through his thought, right? And so, the word of God is like the what thought of which all things are made, as Saint John says, huh? That pertains to the first cause because the first cause is an artist.

[47:36] But the knowledge of the artist is the cause of the artificial things. Now, this artificial means made by art, things made by art. Just put together those two words. In that the artist operates through his understanding, whence it is necessary that the form of the understanding is the beginning of the operation, just as heat is the beginning of heating, right? Okay. Aristotle talks about this in the seventh book there, wisdom, huh?

[48:10] Okay. Even Karl Marx talked about this, right? That the artist makes the house in his head before he makes it in the wood and stone and so on.

[48:25] But it should be considered that the natural form, insofar as it is a form remaining in the one to whom what it gives being, does not name the beginning of action, the source of action, but according as it has some inclination to the what effect,

[48:51] and likewise the understandable form. Does not name the beginning of action, according as it is only in the one understanding, unless there be joined to it an inclination to the effect, which is through the what, the will, right?

[49:09] That's why you know when you talk about those Greek philosophers who said love is the beginning of all things, right? And that philosopher who said that mind is beginning of all things, they both have a what, part of the truth, right? But the mind would not give rise to anything without the what, will. But Aristotle develops this in the in the

[49:36] ninth book of Wisdom, because he points out that there's the same knowledge opposites. So the doctor, by his knowledge, can what, heal you or make you sick. His knowledge enables him to do that, right? In the same way, my knowledge of of logic enables me to reason correctly and to reason incorrectly, right? And. When I give an exam to my students, I make use of my knowledge of logic to see if I can fool them, right?

[50:09] And you know, again, my knowledge of grammar, I can say I am your professor, or I is your professor, and you are my students, right? I know how to speak incorrectly as well as correctly by the same art, huh? And so,

[50:25] knowledge gives me an ability for opposites, right? The rhetorician knows how to persuade you to do something and not to do it, right? You can do either one, huh? Depending on who's paying you. Um. So there has to be some kind of will there, right, for doing one rather than the what other, right?

[50:49] Okay. For since the understandable form has itself to opposites, right? He's going back to his master there, Aristotle, pointed out. Since there is the same knowledge of opposites, that was a famous thing that even even Plato had talked about before Aristotle. In the great dialogue, the Symposium, right? At the end of the dialogue, Socrates is talking to the Agathons, which in the great tragedy and won the prize that year.

[51:17] So it's a symposium in honor of his victory. And Aristophanes, the great comic poet, is there, right? And apparently, Agathon writes good tragedies, but doesn't write comedy. And Aristophanes writes comedy, but not tragedy. And Socrates, at the end, is saying, "If you guys knew what you were doing, you could write what both tragedy and comedy, huh? " And of course, the the great Homer, right? Homer wrote the Iliad, which is tragic, huh?

[51:55] And he wrote a comic work which is lost to us called the Margites. There is a few quotes we have from it. Margites, I guess, means a worthless one in Greek. Aristotle says in the book on the poetic art that the Margites is the comedy, but the Iliad is to tragedy. So if the Margites, as a comic work, was as great as the Iliad as a tragic work.

[52:20] Then Homer knows what he's doing; he can do both, right? And I remember my brother Richard, having to go to one of Shakespeare's comedies, and of course we're more familiar with Hamlet and Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet from high school, you know. And I didn't realize Shakespeare was so funny, but Shakespeare does both, right? See, why somebody like Moliere just writes what comedy, right? But if you get a good actor, you know, like Alec Guinness, right, he could play both comic roles very well and tragic roles, huh?

[52:51] And so, knowledge leads you open to what Contraries to opposites, yeah. So you need that will. So, since the understandable form has itself to opposites, for there is the same knowledge of opposites. So, could the doctor know, or could there be a knowledge of what abnormal blood pressure is, high blood pressure is? that wasn't also a knowledge of what normal and correct or healthy blood pressure is.

[53:32] No, so necessarily it's the knowledge of the same both. And in the very definition, you might say of abnormal or high blood pressure is, yeah, yeah. And the ethics there, right? I told you that that kind of a bright student who said you shouldn't be teaching ethics because you learn in ethics not only how to be good but how to be bad, and people are inclined to be bad, so you are making it worse.

[54:01] As a good, the best reason ethics to be a course is required. Everybody, you know, often is. That's a pretty good reason for not teaching ethics.

[54:13] But some truth is objection. Maybe there should be a weirder course. Yeah. So, since the understandable form has itself to opposites, since there is the same knowledge of opposites, it would not produce a determined effect unless it is determined to one of the two opposites, right? To desire, right? As is said in the ninth book of wisdom or first philosophy, the ninth book after the book of natural philosophy, okay, about the Physics.

[54:44] It is manifest, however, that God, through His understanding, causes things, since His very being is His what understanding. Whence it is necessary that His knowledge be a cause of things, according as it has what will join to it.

[55:08] Whence the knowledge of God, according as it is a cause of things, is accustomed to be named the science of approbation, approval. Okay. Now the first objection is taken from the text of what Origen, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that Origen has spoken, paying attention to what the notion of science to which it does not belong, the idea of causality, unless you what join to it will, as has been said.

[55:56] But that what he says that God foreknows something. Because your future, it should be understood according to the cause of what consequence, not according to the cause of being, right? I say if something is future, God must know it. You can you can draw this conclusion, but it doesn't mean that it's being future is the cause of his knowledge.

[56:28] For it follows, if some things are future, that God foreknows them. But nevertheless, future things are what? Not, however, are future things a cause that God what knows them? But his knowledge is a cause that they are. Okay.

[57:00] The second objection is saying, but God's knowledge is eternal, therefore, when his effects have to be eternal, right? If his knowledge is a cause of them,

[57:10] he says the knowledge of God is a cause of things according as things are in his knowledge, right? But they are not in the knowledge of God that they would be from what eternity, right?

[57:25] Hence, although the knowledge of God is eternal, it does not follow that creatures are from eternity, huh? As we mentioned before, here the great Boethius takes this up in the last book there of the Consolation of Philosophy, right? And that's who introduces Aristotle. This is true Lady Philosophy or Lady Wisdom does, but goes back to what we said before that he has to understand that the way we know, right, doesn't have to be the way things are.

[57:58] And I went back to the central question, as I call it, philosophy. Does truth require that the way we know be the way things are?

[58:10] And as I say, there is two answers: that are yes and no, right? And most philosophers seem to be answering implicitly, if not explicitly, yes. And Aristotle is answering no. Okay.

[58:29] What you say about things has to be with them, right? But the way you know them doesn't have to be what. And I can know the shape of this glass, what through my eyes and through color, right? And I can know it without color, without my eyes, right? That

[58:51] make it false? Or I can know what. The past, no. My false knowing the past, now. I have to wait till I'm in the past to know past. Yeah. Can't think of the past, you don't want to know. That's true. Let them pass. Yeah.

[59:28] Okay. Now the third objection, huh? It's taken from a text there in the metaphysics, huh? But the third, it should be said that natural things are in between the knowledge of God and our knowledge, right? For we get our knowledge from natural things, right?

[59:54] Of which God, through His knowledge, is the cause. Whence natural things are knowable are before our knowledge, right? And they are a measure of our knowledge.

[1:00:14] So, likewise, the knowledge of God is before the natural things and a what measure of them? Just as some house is between the knowledge of the artist who made it, right, and the knowledge of the one whose knowledge is taken from it when it's already what made. So, if you say the artist is going to make the house, his knowledge of what a house is and how to make it is before the house, right?

[1:00:45] But I come upon the house after it's made, and now the house is before my knowledge, right? Well, this is the way that our mind is towards what natural things, like the man who's coming upon the house already made. That's where Aristotle says that art imitates nature, right? That's where our knowledge begins. But God's knowledge is before. So Aristotle is talking about our knowledge in that text and all that he's, referring there in the tenth book of the Metaphysics.

[1:01:14] Now, should we take a little break here before we do the ninth article?