Prima Pars
61. Summa I q.14 a.12: Whether God Knows Infinite Things – Senses of 'In', Potency vs. Act, and Limits in Modern Physics
Class of 2007-01-11
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/061-summa-i-q-14-a-12-whether-god-knows-infinite-things-senses/

[0:00] Okay. So let's look at Article Twelve here now. So, whether God is able to know uh in infinity of things. To the twelfth one proceeds thus: It seems that God is not able to know an infinity of things, for the infinite, according as it is infinite, is unknown, because the infinite is that whose quantity, those taking it, one can always take something outside, right? As is said in the third book of the Physics, in Physics, Natural Hearing there.

[0:51] So you can see that about you know the the infinity there in the straight line, right? You can always bisect a straight line, and what do you get when you bisect a straight line? Two shorter lines, right? Well, you can bisect those, right? There's always another beyond this, right? Okay. Um. In

[1:16] the same way, numbers, right? There's always a greater number than the number you have, right? Okay. So there's always something beyond that you have. But Augustine says in the twelfth book on the City of God that whatever is comprehended or grasped by knowledge, right, is limited by the grasping of the one knowing. So how can you grasp something that always has something outside of what you you have?

[1:48] But the infinite cannot be made what finite. Therefore, they cannot be comprehended by the knowledge of God. Now, if it be said that those things which are in them, which in themselves infinite, are limited to the knowledge of God, right? Against this, you can say that the notion infinite is something you cannot go through, and of the limited, something you can go through, as is said in the third book of the Physics.

[2:26] But the infinite cannot be gone through, neither by the finite nor by the infinite, as is proved in the sixth book of the Physics. Zeno was trying to use that to so he couldn't get out the door, right? Can't sit in the chair. You'd never get there.

[2:49] Therefore, the infinite cannot be finite to the finite, nor even to the what infinite, huh? And thus, the infinite are not finite to the knowledge of God, which is what infinite.

[3:08] Moreover. The knowledge of God is the measure of things known, but against the notion that infinite is to be measured, therefore the infinite cannot be what known by God.

[3:24] You know, Aristotle defines number as a multitude measured by one, right? So I remember when I was in college there, we had the the Oxford translation of Aristotle, right, and reading class, and the translation has infinite number. And my teacher Kasurik says Aristotle didn't speak of an infinite number; that would be a contradiction in what terms? Yeah, Dwayne, he says, look up it in the Greek. I put you to my arms; I didn't know Greek, right?

[3:58] Kassirik was my advisor, and he's the one that insisted I didn't know Greek, so look it up. Right? There's no infinite number there in the Greek. There's infinite, but not number.

[4:09] And you know, Shakespeare speaks of something as being countless and infinite. If you count something, it would not be what infinite, right? So even Shakespeare saw that, you know, translator, huh? Well, that's kind of interesting because Kassirik didn't know Greek really, but but he he knew philosophy, and he knew therefore the guy was a mistranslator. And sometimes you you know Thomas says a very good translator, Moerbeke, right?

[4:41] But sometimes Thomas will disagree a bit with Moerbeke, right? And and he'll explain what Aristotle says. You you looked up in the Greek. That's Aristotle in the Greek, and that you know, Thomas knows that, huh? Okay. Um, I know second. I know it's in the seventh book of Wisdom there, where where the Greek word is Aristotle's talking about definition. He says the definition is never just one name; it's always a logos, right?

[5:11] Now, how should you translate logos? Well, you can translate logos in the English into Greek or into Latin rather as ratio, right? Which is more the thought, right? But in this context, if you're saying that you don't have a definition with just one word, you've got to have a many words, right? It'd be better to translate into Latin there by oratio, right? Well, Moerbeke translates ratio and Thomas, of course, understands this to be it as compositio nominum You know, you're putting together a number of words or names to make a definition.

[5:56] So it might have been better to translate oratio than ratio, right? But Aristotle, I mean Thomas understands Aristotle as meaning what that a definition is always what we call. Speech right is composed of names, huh? It's just not. He's not talking about the ratio in the mind, then. He's talking about the the spoken or written definition, right? That would be a better translation too, because it would.

[6:27] I'd say, what would you say? Some form of the expression would agree better. You have a ratio, and you have an oratio. Yeah. You'll see, just at least as far as the form of the word goes. Yeah. Yeah, it still makes the point in other places too, you know. So Thomas seems to know what these things mean, you know.

[6:52] Okay. So something can be measured, right? Okay. Then it's what limited, right? Okay. And the knowledge of God is a measure of things, don't.

[7:11] But against this is what Augustine says. This is Augustine, you know. He's calling this guy. He's quite an authority, is Augustine? Huh. I mean, I've been reading through the the Catena Aurea there on Matthew again, and it seems that Thomas quotes most at length Chrysostom and Augustine, those two guys. And I think it's even more explicit, though, in the commentary on John, you know, that he's he's always giving what Chrysostom and Augustine said, as well as what he himself is saying, following these guys, huh?

[7:45] But he may have a lot of respect for Chrysostom, huh? I don't know if he will. But because if you go through it, you know, how many, how many one, how many two, how many three? I think now where I'm. Am I playing about the chapter

[8:02] at? Fourteen, I guess. Yeah. And it's up to about, you know, forty-eight or something like that, or fifty, you know, how many, you know, and then there's a. Another thing of Chrysostom, you know, it incomplete thing he did on John, on Matthew, too, as well as this major work, I guess. So there's two things he quotes from: some, sometimes one, sometimes on the other. But if he keeps up, he's going to be up to a hundred.

[8:39] But against this is what Augustine says in the twelfth book about the city of God. Um. Though although there is no number, right? Of what? infinite number of things Yeah. Nevertheless, it is not incomprehensible to the one whose knowledge is no number. Okay. Now, in some of the in some of the official church documents, there, you know, councils and so on. I've seen God called immensus. Have you seen that in the Latin, the official text?

[9:17] And literally, what does that mean in English? How would you translate immensus? Not measured. What? Yeah. Not measured. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's really, I suppose, connected with the attribute of the substance we call God as infinite, right? But but they speak of as being immensus. Okay.

[9:46] Then they see that the Latin word for the mind, their mens, comes from the word to measure, right? Oh, makes sense. And that's an important thing to see, huh? Yeah. The number of things, measure things, seems to be an act of reason very much, huh? The mind. Pretty sure that's in the Athanasian Creed. Yeah, yeah. I've seen it in a number of things, things in some of the councils.

[10:12] I see Thomas is quoting the Athanasian Creed quite a lot there in the case of the Trinity, you know. But the one there, I think, is beautiful. About we should adore unity in Trinity and Trinity unity. And of course, as an old student of of the fourth book of Natural Hearing, Aristotle distinguishes in sense of in right. And kind of the fundamental text, fundamental example I always give is in one sense the species is in the genus, and the other genus is in the species.

[10:50] And of course, if you don't see the different senses of in, then you are going to end up with saying something is in itself. Strictly speaking, something cannot be like in itself. So if A is in B and B is in A, then A is an A. It seems right, unless A is in B in one sense then B is in A in another sense. And it's kind of striking because the thing about genus and species that in one sense species is in genus, and other sense genus in species.

[11:26] Can also say in one way species is a part of genus, in another way genus is a part of the species. But again, different senses of part. Otherwise, the thing is the part itself would make any sense, huh? And this is now see what two senses of in are they?

[11:47] We're talking kind of distinguishing the two senses of in there, right? When we say in the Athanasian Creed, now that we we should adore Trinity in Unity, right? And Unity in what Trinity? Is

[12:05] one nature in three persons, right? And three persons subsisting in one nature. In one sense, the nature is said to be in the three persons, and in another sense, the three persons are said to subsist in the one nature. There'd be a bit of the words of the Athanasian Creed yeah?

[12:33] See, I think the Athanasian Creed is the one that divides the articles into two, and the Nicene into three. Yeah, yeah. Which is more of the division we follow in what theology, right? Because the Trinity is going to be all in the prima pars here, and the Incarnation is going to be all in the third part.

[12:57] You find out that there is something said univocally of God and creatures, because man is said univocally of. Christ, right, and of us, something can be said univocally That's kind of a condescension of his. Do you have an answer for the two senses of in for this question? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can attach them eventually to the senses in the fourth book, I think, of Natural Hearing, but but the kind of you know extended senses, right?

[13:33] Yeah. But I mean, I mean, we speak of the of the what the nature of a thing is being in that thing, right? Okay. Yeah. But we also speak of the thing that subsisting in that nature, and then there's a different senses, huh? Yeah.

[14:00] You know what's that famous text in the Epistle to the Philippians? Is it? And was talking about the incarnation, but he was in the form of God, and then he didn't hesitate to take on the form. But what does it mean to say he was in the form of God? See.

[14:20] Yeah, form means nature. There's Aristotle. That's fair to say. There's the word nature there in the fifth book of Wisdom, right? Now, sometimes we're said to be in form, right? You know, like in daily life, you can speak and say,

[14:40] "What shape are you in? " See, I'm in good shape. Or I'm in good health, right? Okay. Now, what sense of in is that? It's a kind of strange sense, in a way, because you might say, in another sense, my health is in me, my shape is in me. How can I? What do you mean? I'm in in health. I'm in good shape. Is that a bubble orange?

[15:14] Health. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you see, form in matter would be like the sense in which you say health is in your body, right? Or shape is in your body, right? But the sense in which you say that I'm in good shape or I'm in health, good form, it's kind of a distant cousin of the sense in which the part is said to be in the whole.

[15:51] Because as Aristotle explains in the second book of Natural Hearing, parts are to whole like matter is to form. So the. Parts are like matter, because matter, that kind of cause called matter is defined as what that from which something comes to be existing within it, right? So this table came to be from wood, I guess, and the wood is in it. So that's cause and it's a matter.

[16:21] Well, you might say that the parts that compose a whole, that the whole comes to be from the parts, right? Like the chair comes to be from the seat and the back and the legs and so on, And they are in it, right? So parts are like matter, right? Okay.

[16:37] And so we speak of you know the soldiers who make up the army as being the matter of the army, right? Okay. Or like in marriage, you can say the man and the woman are like the matter because they're the parts of it, right? Okay. Or we're parts of the church, right? Like the material cause. Okay. Well, then the whole is like the what? Form. Okay.

[17:09] So, like part and whole is matter and form. That's that's how I understand it anyway. So I'm in good shape, right? It's kind of just kind of strange sense, all right? Because

[17:28] I think really that the health is more in me, in my body, or the shape of my body is in my in the matter, right? Rather than I'm in that shape. You know, it's kind of an odd thing.

[17:44] But there's some proportional likeness there. The parts are to the whole as matter is to form. And therefore, as we speak of a part as being a whole, so we speak of matter as being in form. Strange, huh? It's a very different sense of in, right? From the sense in which we speak of the shape or the health as being in the body, huh? When you speak of the body in good health, is that kind of like if I say this chair is this wood is

[18:22] informed by the form and the shape. The shape of the chair is formed by form. Meaning the wood of the chair is formed in a certain shape. So if we then that sense of the the form acting on the matter, actualizing the matter in a certain way, then you could say that that form is in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's. But I might also say, how did the wood get into the shape?

[18:52] You know, and you kind of think you're like, you know, the wood is, you know, getting into that shape, like I get into my clothes in the morning, which is kind of, you know, the first meaning of in is is in place, right? Now I come into this room, right? Okay, and the matter gets indeterminate. Same way.

[19:13] I thought you got the first meaning, though, right? It's kind of an obscure meaning. Now, I answer. It should be said that God knows not only those things which are in act, which is said to be what his scientia visionis? But also those things which are in the potency or ability, either in His own ability or potency, or even in the ability of the what creatures, right?

[19:48] So you're going to get me on all my sins of omission, right? It was in your power, per question, you didn't actualize that. Now it's clear that these are what infinite, right? The things that are in the power of God, right, or even the power of the creatures, huh? And so, if he knows these things, it is necessary to say that God knows what.

[20:15] Yeah. And although the science of vision, which is only of those things which are, or were, or will be, right, is not of infinite things, as some say, right? Since they do not what lay down that the world was from eternity, right? Nor that generation and motion will remain forever, right? So that individuals will be multiplied without end.

[20:48] Nevertheless, if one diligently considers, it is necessary to say that God also, right, by the knowledge of vision, the science of vision, knows infinite things, right? For God knows also the thoughts and the affections of the heart, which are what multiplied forever, right? So, even in heaven, we're going to be, you know, saying praising Him and different things are breaking out. And rational creatures are going to remain without end, right?

[21:26] So some people praying and praising Him again and again, and others will be cursing Him. I see it's on down hell will be cursing Him or cursing themselves or something. So there will be what, even by the knowledge of vision, which is the knowledge of what was, or is, or will be, a knowledge of the what infinite, right?

[21:46] By knowledge of those things that are in God's power or in our power but never actualized, He has another kind of knowledge, right? And that before it's theory is going to be a knowledge of infinite things, right? Otherwise, he wouldn't comprehend himself and his own ability or his own power.

[22:06] Now, this I'm going to try to go on to explain how this is so. But this is so because the knowledge of any knower extends itself according to the way of its form, right? The form which is the what beginning, the source, right, of its knowledge.

[22:28] Now, the sensible form, which is in the sense, is a likeness only of what one individual. Whence to it only one individual is able to be known.

[22:44] The understandable form of our understanding is a likeness of the thing as regards the nature of the species, which is able to be partaken by an infinity of what particulars, right? Whence our understanding, through the understandable form of man, knows in some way. An infinity of men, right? Okay. The same way that I, knowing what a square is in a sense, know all squares, right? I know something which is said of all squares, right?

[23:21] So, in some way, know all things, but not in particular. But nevertheless, not in so far as they are distinguished from each other, right? Okay.

[23:38] Now you know my little sophistical argument, right? I'd always pick out a young lady from the class, and I'd say to her, "Now, she's going to convict herself. Now, just watch." I'd say now to her, "Do you know my brother Mark?" And she'll say, "No." And I say, "Oh, kidding? All right, what you say? Do you know my brother Mark?" I said, "You know what a man is?

[24:01] Yeah, that's where brother Mark is. Then you do know my brother Mark. You know what a brother is too, don't you? Yeah, that's where brother Marcus. He's a brother, so you do know him. So, in some way, you do know him, right? But we wouldn't say that you know him what? Yeah. So, simply speaking, you don't know him, right? But in some way, you do, right? But not as distinguished from other people, right?

[24:30] One time, they go, "I said, yeah, I know him." And did not she knew my son Marcus? I had a son whose name Marcus, right? And which her name Marcus. You knew my my son Marcus. I was quite surprised, I don't.

[24:46] It's kind of funny. Yeah. But nevertheless, not in so far as they are distinguished from each other, right? But according as they communicate or come together in the nature of species, right? On account of which the understandable form of understanding is not a likeness of men as regards their individual principles, right? But only as regards the principles of the what species, huh? But the divine essence, now which is is understandable form, the form which you understands, the divine essence, of the divine nature, the divine substance, through which the divine understanding understands, we saw before we found it out, is a likeness, a sufficient likeness of all things, right?

[25:42] Which are or able to be, not only as regards their what common principles, but also as regards the private principles of each one of them, okay, The ones that are peculiar to them, and that's because it's say what active power making all these other things like itself, right? So they're all included in that likeness. Whence it follows that the knowledge of God. Extends to infinite things, even as they are what distinct from each other, right?

[26:27] Now let's look at the reply to the objections here, right? Aristotle speaks, you know, of the infinite as as such as being unknown, right? To the first thereof, it should be said that the definition or ratio of the infinite belongs to quantity, according to the philosophy, the first book of the physics. In that sense, when you speak of God as being infinite, you got to realize He's not infinite in the way that what quantity is infinite.

[27:00] It's a quite different sense, different meaning of the word, right? Um, it's kind of striking there in the Summa Contra Gentiles He takes up the infinity of God as the last thing he takes up about the substance of God. A little different the order than in the Summa Theologia, right? But he's already considered the simplicity of God, and in considering the simplicity of God, he shows that God is not a body, that He's not continuous.

[27:30] So he's eliminated continuous quantity from God, right? And then, right before he comes to infinity, he takes up in fourth place there the unity of God, that God is one. Well, then there's no number there, right? So then, when he begins to consider the infinity of God, he first eliminates the ways in which God is not infinite, and that's the way that's tied up with the quantity, because there's no continuous quantity as shown in the consideration of the simplicity of God, and there's no what number of gods as is shown in the chapter on the unity of God.

[28:10] So then he he realizes that infinite must be said of God with a much different meaning, and we've saw some that before that we just saw on the infinite, huh? Okay, but not the infinite is tied up with quantity, right? So if it's in the scripture, you know that I'm wider than this and taller than this, you can't escape from me. That's being said what metaphorically, right?

[28:35] And I guess our friend Sir Newton, right? Newton used to dabble in theology, right? And gets into a lot of trouble because he doesn't really have the background, right? And he speaks of spaces, a sensorium of God, right? Well, he's kind of you know making God something continuous, huh? Okay. Um. So I kind of likened, in one sense, the order there in the Summa contra Gentiles, because you take up the infinity of God after both the simplicity of God and the unity of God.

[29:11] And therefore, you realize that infinity of God is not the infinity that we talk about in physics, there, which is tied up with what quantity, right? Okay.

[29:25] So the first, therefore, should be said that the notion of infinite belongs to quantity, according to the philosopher in the first book of the physics. Now, notice the word "infinite." You know, comes from negating the word what finite, right? Of course, what's the first meaning of of limit?

[29:52] Well, it's tied up with the continuous, right? You see, you see, in the I think I mentioned this before, but in the third book on the soul, when Aristotle's talking about our reason, and he's showing that the proper object of our reason is the what it is, something sensed or imagined, and that's why we don't think without imagining, right? Because what we're understanding is the what it is of something imagined,

[30:22] and so I can't see the blackness of your robe, right? Without your robe being there, because what I'm seeing is the blackness of your robe. So your robe has to be there for me to see the blackness of it. Which doesn't mean that my seeing the blackness of your robe is in your robe. It's in my eye. But I can't see in my eye the blackness of your robe without your robe being there with the blackness.

[30:47] Well, likewise, I can't understand what a square is without imagining a square, because a square, what a square is, is the what it is of that thing imagined, and so I don't think without images. And that's why, you know, Boethius raises the problem there in the Great Treatise of the Trinity. You can't imagine God. So how can you think about God, right? And that's why you have to think about God in comparison to material things, either by negating them, right, or by saying God is what their cause or something that sort, right?

[31:28] But it's not the first thing our mind is going to know, right? Okay. So because of that, the Aristotle says in the book on memory and reminiscence and so on that we don't think without the continuous and time, because the images are continuous and they're in time, and that's why you know in every sentence we've got either past, present, or future. So you don't think about these things, and that's where he raises the problem now when Christ says, you know, "Before Abraham was, I am."

[32:05] It seems ungrammatical, right? But our grammar is limping there because it corresponds to our connatural way of knowing with the images, right? And so coming back now to the idea of words, if you look, say, in the fifth book of Wisdom for the word limit or in, right? The first meaning of in or limit is the end of the table, the limit of the table, right? Just like the first meaning of beginning is the beginning of the continuous, and then gradually carry the word over to things that are not continuous.

[32:45] So if you see in the word infinite there the negation of finite, you know, infinite in a sense means what endless to speak in English or limitless. But end or limit, what has its first meaning? The end or limit of the continuous, huh?

[33:07] If you look in the fifth book of wisdom, there Aristotle will speak first of all the end or limit, meaning the end or limit of the magnitude, and then the end or limit of the motion, then the end or limit in the sense of your purpose, and then finally definition. It comes from Phoenix, right? Okay, but but it moves gradually from one to the other, and it is.

[33:38] That's a beautiful. He does it right, but only Aristotle could do that. I think maybe Thomas could, but he had an advantage of Aristotle. You know, but we had it as I mentioned that thing in the fourth book of natural hearing. Aristotle doesn't order for us there the eight meanings of in. He just distinguishes them, and Thomas says, "Well, we're going to order them, and he orders them in the way he says Aristotle teaches us to order these things in the fifth book of wisdom.

[34:05] " And I think only Thomas could have done that, right? You know, he was in mind. He was able to distinguish. Yeah, but that was Aristotle, right? But he's a very faithful disciple in that sense of Aristotle. That's the fifth book. The fourth book of natural hearing. Where St. Thomas orders the senses of limit. Yeah. Yeah, it's in the third part of the fifth book. Yeah. Where does he do that with the senses of in?

[34:40] The senses of in is in the fourth book of natural hearing, the fourth book of the physics, where he's talking about place. The first meaning of in is in place. We're in this room, right? And but he distinguishes all together, eight senses there, but he doesn't order them there. And but Thomas Aquinas in the commentary will will order them. It's really beautiful. He doesn't. Very striking, you know, and the there is

[35:13] some surprising things there, right? You know, like like the the sense of species and genus is before form and matter. I say that's strange, you know, because say form and matter. I mean, that's more sensible, right? You see, but you have to follow the order them to see this, right? And see, the first meaning of of in is in the room, right? The second meaning of in is part and whole, and Thomas points out that if you cut out the part from the whole, so you can take it in and put it back in, then would be in there as in the place.

[35:58] See, so my teeth are in my mouth as a part of the whole, but if I had false teeth, you know, or if you you know hit me in the mouth and. I can take the tooth in and put it back in again. You know, would it be in there as a part anymore, or is it in the place? If I cut a hole here in the middle of this table here, right, so I could take out a piece and put it back in again, would it be in there as a part of the table anymore?

[36:26] It'd be in there in the way of a specific, yeah, yeah. So you see how close the senses are, part and whole. And there, from there, he goes to the third sense, which is genus and the species, and in general, the part of the definition of the definition. But still, part of the whole. But it's less known to us, obviously, than. And then he goes to a rather strange sense: the species and the genus.

[36:54] And of course, we do speak of the universal whole sometimes, right? And in in Greek, you know, the Greek word for universal there is kathalou, right? We get the word Catholic huh The katholou comes from the Greek word for whole, kata holas. and the word for what comes under the universal whole. In English, we'll call it a particular, but the word particular comes from part. So the universal, the genus to the species, a bit like whole to part.

[37:33] So the species in the genus is like part and whole, but it's a much more obscure sense, because the species exists in the genus only in what potency, right? Okay. And then he goes on in the fifth sense. Form is in matter like species and genus because it's in the ability of it, huh? Okay. That's kind of striking, right? So species and genus is like, on the one hand, form in matter because it's in their only ability, not in act.

[38:05] And in that sense, both of those meanings are different from the first three, where something is actually in something, right? But still, it's like genus and species because it is a part in the whole. Okay, so you got to look at it before and after. You know, you know, Shakespeare tells us the importance of that, right? So the the the fourth sense of in should be more like the third sense than the fifth sense is.

[38:39] And the fourth sense of in should be more like the fifth sense than the third sense is. See, right? Okay. Well, the fourth sense of in, which is the species in the genus, right, is like genus in the species because it's also in a way part and whole.

[39:02] But it's also more like form and matter. Than genus and species because the genus is in the species actually, and form is in the matter to begin with, only in potency, right? And the species and the genus only in potency. So it's more like five, and three is like five, and it's more like three than five is like three. It's pretty, right?

[39:32] And then I discovered a little, you know, thing in daily life, which you find people making a mistake. I say now, you know, you may be ready for this, but here. Suppose I have a piece of clay here, right? A piece of clay in the shape of a sphere, and I mold it into a what? Cube, right? What has changed the clay or its shape? What would you say? Huh?

[40:11] No. No, but the actual person, what's happened? They'll say what? The shape has changed, right? So they're imagining the genus, which is shape, as going from one species to the other. That's really kind of a false way of looking at it. Yeah. But they'll invariably say that, right? Yeah. You know.

[40:33] And you know, when somebody's sick or something like that, his condition changes. See. Well, has his condition changed, or has his body changed? From one condition to another. Yeah, yeah. You see, so the body has changed, right? It's not the genus, right? But but but people will say the genus has changed, right? Right. So they're they're actually in trying to talk about the fifth sense, form and matter, right?

[41:06] They fall back upon the what? Fourth sense, species in what? The genus. They think it's just the genus, or like the the matter that is changing from one species to the other. It isn't, huh? Okay. Because this is the first time I've understood this. You've said this year after year. Yeah. And it's like I know you're right.

[41:30] I finally followed you. What takes a long time to to to get those senses down, you know? But you get off a mileage out of them once you get them down. Yeah. They show up again and again. Yeah. You know, the the I mean, the word "in" shows up everywhere, and you're constantly getting confused and maybe mistaken, right? I mean, when Alexander is trying to understand matter, right?

[42:04] He he he imagines everything that comes out of matter to be actually in there, and then he has the problem of fitting it in there without making it fully small, and it gets into all these difficulties. So he's falling back to an earlier meaning, right? When he should move forward to a later meaning, right? My teacher Monsignor Dionne would say, you know, about somebody, you know, he can't move the word.

[42:33] And Thomas speaks of you know the words being placed trist upon this and being picked up and placed upon something else and always the new meaning, right? As you move it along, but immediately has some likeness or connection with the meaning went before. If you can't move the word, then you're you're lost, right? But people will fall back upon the earlier sense.

[42:57] Um. You know Heisenberg's book there on unified field theory of elementary particles, right? Several places in there, he mentions the well-known formula. He puts in quotes: "Every elementary particle is composed of all the rest."

[43:19] Because out of any elementary particle, you can eventually get all the rest. And so, this is a well-known formula. I assume well-known among the students of elementary particles that every elementary particle is composed of all the rest. But that is not so. And if you said that, you'd be back in all the difficulties of annexing this. We try to make all these things to be actually in there that can come out of the potency of matter.

[43:53] You have particles, and then particles, and then particles, and then particles, forever getting smaller and smaller and smaller, which is contrary to our knowledge of the elementary particles, where all electrons have the same mass, all protons have the same mass, right? So you're you're fouling back upon the second sense of in right when you should be talking about the fifth sense. I don't think that's what Heisenberg himself thinks, but he does refer to that formula several times, right?

[44:25] That well-known formula he calls it. But when when Heisenberg is speaking more in his own mind, there he goes back to Aristotle's idea, right? That matter can be formed in various ways, right? But matter is a kind of potency, huh? And so he compares energy back to Aristotle's matter, and the elementary particle is in a different form which is that this matter can become. So it's very common, right?

[44:52] People say that. Even Michelangelo speaks, he knows if the form where the statue is already in the marble, right? And all you do is kind of. Mm-hmm. That's kind of funny. You speak that way, you know, but everybody knows, you know, you find this in the popular treatment. So Michelangelo, he spoke that way, right?

[45:15] The forms are already there. No, I guess the Pietà says he saw a big slab of marble. Says someday I'll make something out of that, you know. But the Pietà is already there in the marble, right? But but that's imagination of the man, right? And and Weizsäcker that student of Heisenberg, Weizsäcker says, you know, when we imagine something, we make it actual in our imagination, right? But if he didn't see it, he wouldn't be able to make it.

[45:41] Yeah, yeah. In a sense, it's already it's already actual in his imagination, you see. But it's not actual in the marble. And you know, you're not you're not unwrapping the statue. You're not inventing the statue. You're wrapping it in. But imagination is what deceives us, huh? Because imagination makes actual these things that are there only in what ability, huh? You see, you see, if you get hydrogen and oxygen out of water, our mind tends to assume that there's actually hydrogen oxygen in the water, and that may not be so at all.

[46:21] See, they might be there only in what ability, right? Maybe they are an actor, but but you know there are chemicals. I was just going to tell me, was it salt? I think the two chemicals are are deadly, but together, you know, it seems that they're both actually in there and they're both deadly by themselves, right? I think that was the example we showed, but it was some you know chemical that that was made out of two chemicals which are both poisons to us, right?

[46:50] And yet we use it every day, you know. The chemicals are shit. Yeah, but it shows you something, but where our mind thinks, right? But so what happened in the state of the elementary particle is that the elementary particles you got, on, one of them, right, are sometimes larger than the original one. Well, that makes no sense to say that they're actually in there, because then you know they'd be bigger than the original particle, so it kind of forces the idea that that they're are you size particles that they're only an ability, right, and not actually composing them.

[47:38] Once you see that, then you come back and you say, well, let's be careful even about water, right? You know, the fact that you can get hydrogen oxygen out of water by itself, right? That alone, that that fact alone, doesn't tell you the water is actually composed of hydrogen and what oxygen, right?

[48:00] Because I can get maybe out of out of the what wood, you know, chair and a table and a you know out of the trees I can get chairs and tables and doors, right? Because in some sense, even these things have come from the trees, right? But you obviously don't want to conclude from that that they're actually chairs and tables and doors and the trees out there, right?

[48:20] You know, in that case, you'd say they're they're only an ability, right? So from the mere fact you can get hydrogen oxygen out of water, which you can, that alone is not enough to tell that they're actually in there. You see, but this it might be that there's something in the water that's able to become those two, right? Okay, I'm not saying that saying what the truth is about that, right?

[48:51] But people just kind of assume that because you can get hydrogen oxygen out of water, then it must actually be composed of them, right? And and they carry that that same way thinking when they start to study the elementary particles, right? So because out of any elementary particle you can get the other ones, right? Then they say, well, it seems like every elementary particle was composed of all the rest, and that gets you into all the difficulties that Anaxagoras again,

[49:19] because inside the proton there would be, let's say, a positron and neutron, and inside that neutron would be a what? Proton and electron, and inside that proton another neutron, another part, you know. But they keep it getting smaller and smaller, and that's contradicted by experiment, which says shows us that all protons have the same mass, the same size, and all electrons have it, right? Which is one of the difficulties Aristotle brings out with Anaxagoras right?

[49:49] Because Anaxagoras is assuming you know that flesh and blood and bone can get smaller and smaller and smaller, right? And there's no limit. And Aristotle argues in the first book of Natural Hearing that if the parts can get smaller and smaller without limit, then the whole animal or plant can get smaller and smaller, and then he goes out to experience and says, "Yeah, but we see different kinds of plants.

[50:12] There's certain limits within which they're found, right? So if the parts could be just any sizes, then the whole, which is put together from the parts, could be just any size, right? And there'd be no limit in the direction of the large or the small. And

[50:29] that's kind of striking. Aristotle saw that, right? In the physical sciences, this came in in physics in a more narrow sense. In physics, it came in really in the 20th century with the quantum theory, right? Because Max Planck introduced the idea to avoid a contradiction, doing these terrible contradictions, infinite energies, and all crazy things. In order to save what he observed, he had to posit that energy cannot be given or received in just any amount, but there's a smallest amount in these different types of phenomena that you give or receive, or some multiple of that, right?

[51:16] And that's contrary to what you had in Newtonian physics, where you could give, you know, half of what you gave before and half of that, right? Like like in geometry, right? And then Einstein introduced the idea in 1905 that there could be a what a limit as to how fast things could go. And part of the special theory of relativity is that the speed of light is the maximum speed in the what universe.

[51:46] And both of these are are contrary, right, to what you had in Newtonian physics, where you could always, in principle, go faster and faster and faster, right? And

[52:00] and then when the quantum physicists went on to study elementary particles, they were working with the idea that there's going to be a what minimum length in the universe, a limit to the nature of these things. And then when they started studying cosmology with the general theory of relativity, it seemed like the universe had a limit. The universe is limited, first of all, in in size and space, you might say.

[52:27] And then you know they begin to get some evidence. Maybe it might be limited in time too, you know. And this is you know very strange. But Weizsäcker the pupil there of Einstein, I mean, of Heisenberg, says that

[52:45] he's a scientist. He explained why the the sun can go on for centuries after centuries and so on. But Weizsäcker describes giving a talk one time on modern physics and all these limits that they discovered, right? And some older physicists getting very angry about this. And he he went to see the physicists afterwards to talk to him privately why he was so upset and. Did he have some objections to the new theories?

[53:10] I mean, some scientific objection? Well, no, he didn't have any scientific objection, but he just didn't like the idea of all these limits. And then, then Weizsäcker had a very interesting little essay in there, where he said that this idea that the universe is infinite and so on, right, came in at the time of the Renaissance, because Aristotle thought the universe was what limited, right? So, and it's at the same time they gave up God, that they started to attribute the universe infinity, right?

[53:45] And so, it suggested to Weizsäcker that the infinity of the universe was to be a substitute, right, for the infinity of God, because our mind cannot be separate, cannot be satisfied without something infinite, and so if you give up the infinity of God, you've got to find a substitute for a universe, and but then the universe turns out to maybe not be infinite. They're kind of panicking, you know, and so that's kind of interesting.

[54:17] Just to finish this article here, if you can hear, right? Okay, so we're in the reply to the first objection here, right? To the first, therefore, it, should be said that the notion of infinite belongs to quantity, first meaning of infinite, right? According to the philosopher in the first book of the physics, but of the notion of quantity is the order of parts. We're at primo here, okay, to reply to the first objection.

[54:50] So to know the infinite in the way of the infinite, right, is to know part after part, right? Okay. Should be like you know counting to the end of all numbers, where you're never going to get to the end because there isn't any end, right? And thus, in no way is it possible to know the infinite, right? Because no matter what quantity of parts is taken, always remains something outside of it to be taken, now.

[55:21] But God does not thus know the infinite or infinite things, right? As we're enumerating part after part, right? As if that's we a mind that is what discursive, as Shakespeare calls our mind, right? The ability to discourse. And counting is a kind of discourse, right? Since it knows all things at once, right? Which is the opposite of before and after, right? Not successively one after another. Whence nothing prevents him from knowing what infinite things, right?

[56:05] Now the second objection is similar to that about the transition. You can't go over the infinite. To the second, it should be said that transition implies a certain succession in parts, and in this way, is not possible to go through the infinite,

[56:23] neither from by the finite thing nor by the infinite thing, but to the notion of comprehension suffices what, equalness huh, because that is said to be comprehended or grasped, nothing of which is outside the one grasping it.

[56:48] Hence, it is not against the notion of the infinite that be comprehended by the infinite, and thus what is in itself is infinite can be said to be finite to the knowledge of God in the sense that it is what comprehended by it, but not in the sense that he goes through it one by one, right? You know, even eternity would not suffice to go through that one by one, huh?

[57:13] But he sees them all at once. It's marvelous that Aristotle in the category says that one chapter on before and after, the successive, and then following chapters on the simul the together at once.

[57:33] Okay. Now the third question is about the measure of things, right? God is a measure. Now you know the the divine Plato, right? Huh? In his last work, there, the Laws, he begins by

[57:46] rejecting, you know, Protagoras, who says man is the measure of all things. Okay, and you can kind of see in the in the recent addresses of John, I mean, of Benedict the Sixteenth, right? Huh? That this idea that man is measure of all things is very much in the mind of these technically facile people.

[58:10] To the third, it should be said that the knowledge of God is the measure of things. Oh, excuse me, Plato says, but man, God is the measure of all things, right? That's what he says in the thing. Okay.

[58:23] That's kind of what distinguishes the Greek thinkers and the modern thinkers, right? Because the Greek thinkers think that God is a measure of all things, right? And Plato thinks, and the humanists and the the moderns there think that man is the measure of all things, huh? But um, yeah. Now

[58:49] I sometimes thought you know Thomas should have another question on God is the measure of all things attached to his being what one? It's a property of the one that Aristotle says to be a measure. so you might have attached to that, a? Consideration. To the third, it should be said that the knowledge of God is the measure of things, but not a quantitative measure. Thomas has stated to this thing on a consideration of the knowledge of God,

[59:23] which kind of measure the what infinite things lack, right? Okay. But each thing has, to that extent, the truth of its nature as it imitates the what divine what knowledge, right? Just as in the artificial thing, in so far as it agrees with what art, right?

[59:50] But given that there were some things infinite in act, according to number, as, for example, an infinity of men, or according to what continuous quantity, you know, even if this was be granted, but Thomas doesn't think that this is so, right? As if, for example, there was infinite air, right? That he thought the universe went on forever, as some of the ancients thought, right? Nevertheless, it is manifest that they would have what a determined kind of being, right?

[1:00:21] And a finite kind of being, because their being would be limited to some determined what natures, whence they would be measurable according to the knowledge of God.

[1:00:36] So, guys, now there was with this, with this ruler there measuring the, you know, or looking at your thoughts and counting them, right? But he's seeing, you know, what does it say in scriptures, It say in the Psalms, you know, he knows my thoughts before I have them, right? You know, so past, present, future thoughts—they're all actual God's knowledge now, right? He knows them all at once, not waiting for us to have next thought.

[1:01:04] Because then he'd never get through, right? Because we always have a new thought, huh? Well, I guess we should stop here because we'll be up to the knowledge of future contingents and then enunciables and so on. So, a lot to think about this here, huh?