Prima Pars
65. Summa I, Q.15 aa.1-3: Ideas in the Divine Mind (Whether There Are Ideas, Whether Many, and Whether of All Things God Knows)
Class of 2007-01-25
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/065-summa-i-q-15-aa-1-3-ideas-in-the-divine-mind-whether-there/

[0:00] So he says, after the consideration of the knowledge of God, remains considered about the ideas because this Augustine, right? Okay. And about this, three things are sought. First of all, whether there are ideas, huh? Okay.

[0:20] Secondly, whether there are many of them, or just one. There's one or more than one, huh? And third, whether there are ideas of all the things which are known by God, right? Huh? Okay.

[0:41] Now, as you go through the treatise on the Trinity, I just imagine how I was kind of finished rereading it, and you wonder if there's anything in there that Thomas says about the Trinity that Augustine hasn't said first, you know? It's really like you know, Cajetan, says that Thomas seems to have inherited the mind of all the Church Fathers because he so reverenced them, right? So I happened to be reading that at the same time, you know, same day, not the same time exactly, you know, reading the Golden Chain, you know, Matthew, you know, where he's always quoting Chrysostom and other people too, Hilary and Ambrose and Jerome and so on, you know, but he seems to have what inherited the mind of all of

[1:28] them. He so reverenced them, huh? I think you'd say something like that about Aristotle that he seems to have inherited the mind of all the Greek philosophers before him because he,

[1:40] you know, got something from all of them. So the first article, to the first one proceeds thus. It seems that the ideas are not, huh? For the great Dionysius says in the seventh chapter about the divine names that God does not know things by an idea.

[2:07] But ideas are not laid down towards something, except that through them we might know things, right? Therefore, there's no such things as ideas. Moreover, God knows all things in Himself, huh? As it has been said above, but he doesn't know himself by an idea. Therefore, neither does he know other things. Huh? Sounds very, very good, huh? How's he going to defend poor Augustine? I don't know.

[2:42] Moreover, the idea is laid down as a beginning for knowing and doing, huh? But the divine substance, essence, nature, is a sufficient beginning for knowing and doing all things, huh? Therefore, why not not to what, posit ideas?

[3:04] But against this is what Augustine says, in the book of the eighty-three questions. So much what force is constant in the ideas, that unless these be understood, no one can be wise. Really stretching to defend Plato in some way, right? Okay.

[3:32] I answer: It should be said that it is necessary to lay down in the divine what mind ideas, right? You got to be very careful because you don't have any composition in God's mind, right? You don't have any accidents in God's mind, right? Okay.

[3:50] Of course, what does this mean? Now he talks a little bit about the word "idea" in Greek, right? Doesn't mean idea. Latine would mean what? Form, okay. Now, just to go a little bit more into the word there,

[4:16] you may recall in logic there, when you distinguish between genus, difference, species, property, and accident, and species, these may be considered you know names or what the name signify, but species is the name the thing being defined, right? Huh? Genus is a name that begins the definition. Difference is a name that is used to what complete the definition, right? Okay. Now, in Greek, the word "species" is "eidos," huh?

[4:55] In Latin, the word is "species," huh? Okay. Now we dummies in English, right? We sometimes we in logic especially we tend to borrow the Latin word "species," right? And so Porphyry's, you know, text would say genus diaphora, right? eidos, we'd say genus difference species, eh? Okay. Now, perhaps the nearest thing in English would be the word what form, right? Huh? Okay.

[5:36] Interestingly, Thomas takes "forma" there rather than "species," right? Huh? Okay. Now the difference etymologically between these two words and "forma" or "form" is that there is kind of a reference to the eye. The Greek word to see is "eidenai right? And species is like the word we saw before, speculativa, right? So it's more like the the looks of a thing, right? So it's the the seen form, right?

[6:09] But the basic word again is the idea of form. So you could translate as form, right? And so in English, if I'm talking about genus and species, I might say government, for example, is a genus, and under government are species like democracy and oligarchy and monarchy and so on, right? So democracy is one species of government, right? But it might be more colloquial or more idiomatic in English to say democracy is one form of government, right?

[6:44] Monarchy or kingship or something is another form of government, right? When I'm in the philosophy of fiction, I like to say, you know, that epic is one form. form of fiction, right? Or the drama is another form of fiction, right? Okay. So it'd

[7:13] be better in English to refer to Plato's theory of forms, right? Rather than his theory of ideas. Ideas, the idea of more in English, idea can mean what thought or it can mean image, right? Because English philosophers can't distinguish between the two, right? We mentioned how John Locke confuses the two, right? Okay. But that's not really so good a translation then. It's it's a kind of what transliteration, carrying over the letters, right?

[7:48] Okay. Into English, more or less, making a word that seems some of the same letters in English as the original, but the When you do that, you get something that doesn't really have as much meaning. Form would be more, right? Meaningless. So,

[8:09] idea Greek, in Latin forma is said, whence through ideas are understood the forms of other things existing apart from those things, right? The things themselves.

[8:31] For the form of something existing apart from it, right, is able to be what? Two things, right? Either there'd be an exemplar of that of which is said to be the form.

[8:53] So an exemplar is a what? A model like that you can imitate, right? Huh? Make something like that. Or as a beginning, a source of the knowledge of the thing, right?

[9:09] According as the forms of things knowable are said to be in the what? Knower. And as regards both of these things, is necessary to what? Yeah, to lay down that there are ideas. Now, this can be made clear in this way: in all things which are generated, not by chance, right,

[9:42] is necessary that some form be the end of the what? Generation of something. For the agent does not act on account of some form, except in so far as a likeness of the form is in the agent itself, right?

[10:07] Now, this Aristotle pointed out in the seventh book of Wisdom, right? It can be in there in an actual way, right, or in a knowable way, right? Which happens in two ways, right? In some agents, the form, the thing that's going to come to be, preexists according to its natural being. So when the father generates the son, right,

[10:36] huh? When a dog generates a dog or a cat generates a cat, right, huh? It makes something like its own form, right? But the form of the son is preexisting in the father, right? According to what? Its natural being. Just as in those things which are done by nature, as a man generates a man, or a cat a cat, or a dog a dog, or tree tree, and fire fire, right?

[11:10] In some, however, it exists according to understandable being, as in those things which are done through the understanding. For a likeness of the house you're going to build, right, pre-exists in the mind of the housebuilder.

[11:28] So when he's going to start making something, not by chance, but by art, he has already a likeness of the form of the house or chair, whatever it is, he's going to make, already in mind. And this can be called the what? Idea of the house, right? Now he's starting to get a little closer to what we call idea, right?

[11:53] Because the artist intends the house to be like the form which he has conceived by his what? Mind. Because therefore the world was not made by chance,

[12:11] but was made by God, acting through his understanding, as will be clear below, right? When we take up the making the world, it is necessary that in the divine mind there be a form to the likeness of which the world is what made, and in this consists the ratio of what? Yeah. Now Plato has something like that in the in the Timaeus, right, where he has the Demiurgos, right, the worker, right, who looks at the forms and he makes something like them, right?

[12:50] So when God made the world, right, he made him according to what a form that he had already what conceived, right? Okay. Now you have to be very careful of how that is, right? Because you're not going to introduce now a multiplicity of thoughts as being God, right? You know? Okay. But he's got to have an exemplar according to which he makes things, right? Okay. As we'll find out, in understanding his substance, his nature, his essence, he understands every way in which his substance can be what imitated, more and less perfectly, right?

[13:40] Okay. And that's the way the ideas are, right? Okay. It's not that he has, in addition to his substance, a bunch of thoughts, right, of chair and dog and horse and ant and so on, but he knows. Every way in which his substance can be imitated, okay, and those would be said to be the ideas of God, right? Okay, so it's not like there's a multiplicity of thoughts in him, but in perfectly understanding his own substance, he realizes every way it can be imitated.

[14:15] But maybe this will come out when we get into the other articles get into the other articles. Now, the first objection came from the great Dionysius. To the first, therefore, it should be said that God does not understand things according to a form existing outside of himself, right? The way Plato has it in the Timaeus, as I mentioned,

[14:44] and thus also Aristotle disproves the opinion of Plato, right, about the forms, according as Plato laid down that they exist by themselves, not in the understanding, right? Okay,

[15:00] that's what Dionysius may be has in mind. Now, what about God knowing himself and not knowing himself through an idea, right? To the second, therefore, it should be said that although God, through his essence, knows himself and other things, nevertheless his essence is a principle of doing other things, right? Not, however, a principle of doing something with himself,

[15:42] and therefore his essence has the what notion of an idea, according as it is compared to other things, huh? Not, however, as it is compared to what God himself, right?

[15:58] So, to look how saying God knows himself as imitable, as able to be imitated in this way, right? And also in this way, and this way, this way, right? And that's why we speak of the ideas, right?

[16:18] And now he says in the third thing here, which is saying that the divine essence is efficient principle of knowing all things. We're not denying that, right? To the third, it should be said that God, according to his very essence, is a likeness of all things. All things that God made are in some way like him, right? Although very imperfectly.

[16:46] I mentioned that text always that Paul VI. called to my attention, you know, from the Fourth Lateran Council, from the Fourth Latin Council, right, where it says you can never know the what. Likeness of the creature to God without a greater what, unlikeness. That's the text I brought up to the, the Mohammedan right objected to Shakespeare calling reason godlike right, you know, and so I tried to explain what our position was.

[17:15] You know, wasn't far away from, but it's got to be some kind of likeness, right? Because every agent makes something like itself because it's acting through what its own form, the form it has in itself. So what it makes has got to be in some way like that form. And so,

[17:36] the divine substance is, as he says, a likeness of all things. Hence, the idea in God is nothing other than His essence, not something added to it, right?

[17:50] But it's part, you might say, of of His knowing perfectly His own nature, right? To know in every way it can be what imitated, right?

[18:03] You know, if Mozart knows himself, right? What does somebody describe? You know, J. C. Bach, youngest son of Johann Sebastian, he's Mozart with something missing.

[18:23] But Mozart might realize that others can imitate him, right, in some imperfect way, right? And so, knowing himself, he knows the way that some more and some less can imitate him.

[18:46] And Charles De Koninck came down, you know, the first time I saw him on his lecture tour, and even his physical gestures of the hands and so on, we who had studied under his students, right, could see, you know, that our own professors, you know, who stayed under him had picked up these little gestures of his, huh?

[19:10] I come back, you know, from one of these sessions with Monsignor Dion, you know, very intense things, you know, and I have all these little quirks, you know,

[19:20] and I kind of am a divining myself because I find myself, you know, getting very, very tense like Dion would be, you know, for you, for you, you know. Some people say it's it's hard to get his flash, you know, because you know it's a little point for you, for you. He's so excited that he sees something, you know, he wants to see it, you know, but you'd have all these little things when you came when you came back.

[19:50] But no, you still you know see a distinction there between. God knowing Himself what He is, right, and knowing how He is what able to be imitated, right? Okay, but that's involved in His knowing perfectly Himself, right?

[20:18] Just like a very good ball player might, you know, go and watch these little kids playing, and you know, seeing that they have something of what He has, right? They can hit the ball and they can take somebody out, but you know, they're not doing it too well, you know, and they fall short, right? Let's take a little break now a little break now. I'll wander in eventually Okay, so we're up to Article Two here, whether there are many ideas.

[20:43] or forms, huh? it seems that there are not many ideas, right? For as we said in the reply to the objection, right, the idea in God is His very what, essence or substance. But the essence of God is one only, therefore there is only one idea.

[21:07] Second article, right? Okay, that's his objection. So although the idea is a divine essence, the divine essence is understood as imitable in many ways, right?

[21:27] And that's why there's many ideas. Anyway, let Thomas answer the question. Moreover, just as the idea is a beginning of knowing and doing, so also art and wisdom. But in God there are not many arts and what many wisdoms. Therefore, neither are there many what ideas. That makes sense.

[21:56] Now, if it be said that the ideas are multiplied, that Proclus is saying, according to the respect to diverse creatures. Against it is this that the plurality of ideas is from eternity. If therefore the ideas are many,

[22:16] but the what creatures are temporal, therefore the temporal will be a cause of the what eternal. Moreover, these what Respectus, that's kind of a word for relation, right? Okay. If these relations are either

[22:44] secundum rem in creatures only or also in God, if they are in creatures only, since the creatures are not from eternity, the plurality of ideas will not be from eternity. If they're multiplied only according to what their relations to these things, if, however, they are really in God, it would follow that there is a what a real plurality in God, in addition to the plurality of persons, the Father, Son, and, Holy Spirit.

[23:16] Which is against what Damascene says, Saint John Damascene, saying that in divine things everything is one, except for in generatione, which is the Father, in generation the Son, and the procession of the Holy Spirit. Thus, therefore, there are not what many ideas.

[23:38] But against this is what Augustine says again in the book of the eighty-three questions, the one where all those questions are. That the ideas are certain chief forms, right, or reasons for things, stable, right, and unchangeable, because they are not formed, right, and through them, right, being eternal and always having themselves in the same way, which are contained by the divine intelligence. But since they neither what come to be nor what cease, nevertheless by them are formed everything that comes to be and everything that is able to perish, everything that is able to come to be or perish, and everything that arises or is what lost.

[24:36] I answer: It should be said, Thomas, that it is necessary to lay down many ideas of forms, to the evidence of which it should be considered that in each effect, that which is the last end is properly intended by the chief agent, just as he orders the army from the what leader. That's Aristotle's example, the twelfth book of the Metaphysics, right?

[25:08] But that which is best in existing things is the good of the order of the universe, as is clear through the philosopher, which is antonomasia, right, for Aristotle, in the twelfth book of Wisdom, the twelfth book after the books of Natural Philosophy. But the order of the universe is properly intended by God, and it doesn't happen by accident, according to the succession of agents,

[25:44] like in those who say that God created what the first thing only, which then created the second thing and so on, the multitude of things came about as if it was not intended by any one agent. According to which opinion, God would not have an idea except of the first thing what created him. But if the very order of the universe is per se as such created by him and intended by him, right, it is necessary that he have the idea of the whole universe.

[26:23] But a the reason or the thought of some whole cannot be had unless one has the what proper thoughts of those things which are from which the whole is constituted. Just as the builder cannot what conceive the form of the house unless he has within himself the proper thought of each of its parts, thus is necessary that in the divine mind are the proper reasons of all things.

[26:58] Whence Augustine says in the book of the eighty-three questions that each thing by its own reason, right, by its own thought, is created by God. Whence it follows that in the divine mind there are many ideas. But now, why is this affected in the simplicity of God, right? Okay.

[27:29] But this, in what way, it is not repugnant to the divine simplicity? It's easy to see if one considers that the form of the thing to be done, right, is in the mind of the one doing, as it is what as what is understood, not, however, as the form, the species by which is understood, right?

[28:04] Which is the form making the understanding to be an act. Now, the form making the divine understanding to be an act is the very divine substance, right? Okay, it's not these many thoughts in there, right? Okay.

[28:19] Now, the form of the house in the mind of the builder is something understood by him, right? To the likeness of which he forms the house in matter. Now, it is not against the simplicity of the divine understanding that understands many things, but it would be against the simplicity of God if through many forms his what understanding was formed.

[28:52] Whence the many ideas are in the mind, the divine mind, not as many forms which he understands, but as what understood by him, right? That God, in perfect the understanding himself, understands the infinity of ways, right, in which he could be imitated, infinity of ways in which other things could be made more or less like him. Okay. So these many forms are not like many forms by which he understands, but many things that he does understand by one thing, namely his own what substance, right?

[29:42] Which, in this way, is able to be seen, as Thomas says, for he knows his essence, his substance, his nature perfectly. Right, whence he knows his substance, his essence in every way in which it is what Knowable.

[30:06] Now it is able to be known not only as it is in itself, but as it is able to be partaken of by some way of likeness by creatures. That's now saying in other words, there, but the way in which it can be imitated, right? Okay, so that's part of knowing perfectly his nature to know how it can be imitated in various ways.

[30:35] Now each creature has its own what form. By which, in some way, it partakes of a likeness of the divine essence. And so, remember what Aristotle says in the first book of Natural Hearing, where he says the form is something what God-like, right? And Plato said the same thing, right?

[31:01] Because God is pure act, and every form is a kind of act. Thus, therefore, in so far as God knows His what essence, as in this way able to be imitated by such a creature, there he's using the word I was using. Must have got a thing about that one, Thomas. A lot of times you go around saying things, and you say, "Gee whiz, I got the way of speaking."

[31:30] You know, I got from Thomas somewhere. Maybe not this text, another text. So, thus, therefore, in so far as God knows His own what essence, as in this way imitable, right, able to be imitated by such a creature, He knows it as the proper reason and idea of that creature, and likewise about all the other creatures. And thus, it is clear that God understands the many private reasons of many things, right?

[32:08] Which are therefore the many what ideas? That's clear enough, isn't it? So let's go back to objections here now. He says the idea in God is His essence, but the essence of God is one only. Therefore, there is only what one idea, right?

[32:40] Well, Thomas says to the first. Therefore, it should be said that idea does not name the divine essence in so far as it is what His essence, but in so far as it is the likeness and the reason of this or that thing. Whence, according as there are many likenesses or many reasons, right, understood from the one essence, in this way there are said to be many what ideas, right?

[33:10] Now, as God knows the many ways He can be imitated, the many ways in which other things can be made more or less like them, more and more or less like them than more like them, because they're at infinite distance, right? Okay. So, if He knows the many ways He can be imitated, that's why we say there are many ideas in Him, right?

[33:37] But he knows those many ways in knowing one thing, his own essence. Okay, that's the reply to the first objection. Now the second objection: the idea is a a beginning of knowing and doing. So also art and wisdom. We don't speak of many arts of God or many wisdoms, therefore not many ideas.

[34:07] Now to the second, it should be said that wisdom and art signify as that by which God understands, right? So God is said to have made the universe by his what? His wisdom, right? Or he made the universe by his art.

[34:30] But the idea signifies that which God understands, right? I see the difference between that by which you understand, what you understand. Now God understands many things by something one. That refers now to that by which he understands, right?

[34:56] And not only according as they are in themselves, but also according as they are understood, which is to understand the many reasons of things. But the artist, when he understands the form of the house and matter, is said to understand the house. When he understands the form of the house as something looked upon by himself, right? From that he understands himself to understand that thing, right? He understands in that case the idea or the reason of the house.

[35:33] Now God not only understands many things through his essence, but also understands himself to understand many things through his essence. And this is to understand the many reasons for things, or the many ideas to be in his understanding as what understood, right? Not as that by which he understands. So you got to not confuse confuse what he understands with that by which he understands.

[36:03] He understands what many things. Infinity of things, in fact, we've seen before, right? But that by which he understands is one. Brevity is the soul of what? Yeah, yeah. Once in a while, you can hear that the commentators on the radio. You know, quote that, huh? That brevity is the soul of wit Say so.

[36:31] I used to really inculcate in students, you know, and I'd walk by the dorms. Brevity is the soul of wit Some smart guy would yell at one of the dorm windows.

[36:51] Thomas begins on the compendium of theology, you know, quoting scripture that God made a verbum abbreviatum on the earth. Now the third objection: if it be said that the ideas are multiplied according to their relations to diverse creatures, against this, the plurality of ideas is from eternity. If therefore there are many ideas, but creatures are temporal, then the temporal will be a cause of the eternal.

[37:36] Now, to the third, it should be said that these relations or respects by which the ideas are multiplied are not caused by things, but by the divine understanding comparing its essence to things. Right? It's not like you have to have those things out there to make that comparison. He's comparing his essence to the various ways in which it can be imitated.

[38:06] Okay. Now, what about these respects? Are they in secundum rem, and therefore in God? And you have multiplication in God. or real distinctions. To the fourth, it should be said that the respects multiplying ideas are not in created things, but in God. But they are not real what relations as those by which the persons are distinguished—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—as we'll find out when we get to the Trinity Trinity.

[38:43] But they are respects understood by God, right? So. To the third article here, Whether of all things which are known by God, there are ideas. To the third, thus one proceeds. It seems that not of all things which God knows are there ideas in Him. For the idea of the bad is not in God, because it would follow that the bad is in God.

[39:24] But bad things are known by God, therefore not of all things which are known by God are there ideas. Moreover, God knows those things which neither are nor were nor will be. as Has been said above, but of these they are not ideas, because as Dionysius says in the fifth chapter of Divine Names,

[39:51] the exemplars are what the divine wills, right, the willings that determine and are what Effective of things, huh? Productive of things. Therefore, not of all things which are known by God are there ideas in Him. That's going to probably require some distinction, right?

[40:14] Moreover, God knows the first matter, which cannot have what a form, right, an idea, because it has no form. Therefore, the same as before, right? He knows something doesn't have an idea. Can't an idea that? Moreover, it stands that God knows not only the species of things, but also the genera, and also the singulars under these, right, and the accidents and so on.

[40:47] But of these there are no ideas, according to the position of Plato, who first introduced the forms, as Augustine says. Therefore, not of all things known by God are there ideas in Him, right?

[41:01] But against this, I can say that ideas are the reasons in the divine mind existing, as is clear to Augustine. That's also, I guess, in the thirty-eighty-three questions in my footnotes here. Okay, that's quite a book.

[41:21] But it's kind of a quadribitalis in Thomas. Have we seen these quadribitalis? You know, which means what you will, where you have kind of a you know both such novels, you know, things in kind of random. But of all things which he knows, God has proper reasons. Therefore, of all things which he knows, he has an idea. I answer: It should be said that since ideas were laid down by Plato, right?

[41:53] So he's even before Augustine responsible for this question getting here in the in the prima pars. And it should be said that since ideas were posited by Plato as what beginnings of the knowledge of things and beginnings of their what generation, right?

[42:19] To both of these, idea has itself in so far as it's what posited in the divine mind, right? And according as it is a beginning of the making of things, it can be called a what exemplar, right? And it pertains to practical knowledge, right?

[42:43] But according as it is a beginning for knowing, it's properly called a ratio, right? It's always a little bit hard to kind of translate ratio into English, you know. Seems to have

[42:58] sometimes not just the the mental aspect of thought, you know. In English, we don't have it exactly. Although sometimes you use the word reason, right?

[43:18] For what's in the thing, you know, we might say, you know, the reason why that happened. You know, I mean, somebody says, you know, the eclipse of the sun. The reason why the light of the sun is being what cut off is that the moon has come between the sun and the earth. Let's say. Now, what am I talking about there? Then I'm it's kind of inside the thing, right?

[43:44] Okay, so there's a little bit of that. A little hard to translate sometimes reason there. But according as is a beginning for knowing, is properly called a ratio, right?

[44:03] And is able also to pertain to what speculative knowledge, okay? According, therefore, as it is an exemplar, according to this, it has itself to all those things which come to be from God in some time, at some time. But according as it is a principle of knowing, it has itself to all those things which are known by God, even if at no time they what come to be things which he has a science of vision.

[44:45] And to all things which are known by God, according to their what proper reason, and according as they are known by him by way of what speculation, right? That's probably the distinction is going to be involved in answering the the objections, huh?

[45:05] Now, what about the bad? Well, to the first, therefore, should be said that the bad is known by God not through its own what reason, but through the reason of the good. And I suppose that's practically can be seen if you realize that what the bad is a lack, right? So we might say even for us blindness is known through sight, which is something good, right? Ignorance is known through what? Knowledge, right?

[45:40] Because if you define what is ignorance, it's a lack of knowledge, right? And blindness is a lack of sight, and so on, right? And something able to have it, and so on. So

[45:55] the bad, even by us, to some extent, is known through the good, right? And that's why there could be a form of the good, but and through that you'd know the bad too. And therefore, the bad does not have in God a what idea, right? Nor, neither, according to his ideas, an exemplar, going back to distinction we saw in the thing. Nor, according as it is a what ratio, right?

[46:28] Translation says, but only in so far as it denotes ratio. No, see, this is neque secundum quod idea exemplar neque secundum quod ratio. Yeah, it's like can you can you think of nothing?

[46:52] We don't think of. But you know, when we use the word nothing, we understand something by the word nothing, don't we? But I mean, you understand nothing through what something. It's no thing, right?

[47:08] So in some way, you can think about nothing. My old teacher could say it's a joke, you know. You know, in philosophy is the only class you can get paid for talking about nothing.

[47:21] And it's a chat to do, right? And suddenly, Augustine kind of, you know, exaggerates there what the bad is, and he'll say sin is nothing, and the man who sins becomes nothing, right? But strictly speaking, sin is not simply non-being or nothing. It's what privation or lack, right? Which is a non-being of something, and a subject able to have it, right? So,

[47:48] okay. Now the second objection was saying God knows those things which neither were nor are nor will be, right? But of these, there are no ideas according to this text of Dionysius, right? Now, to the second, it should be said that of those things which neither are nor were nor will be, God does not have practical knowledge except in his what power, right? Whence, with respect to them, there is not an idea in God, according as idea signifies exemplar, right?

[48:26] But only according as it signifies the what the reason, huh? Okay. The third one. What about God knowing first matter, right? To the third, it should be said that Plato, according to some, laid down that matter was not created, right? And therefore, he did not posit an idea of matter, but of the what? concausa, what is caused with matter?

[49:02] Well, I mean something like form in matter, right? concausa what is caused with matter, okay? Or else the the what the thing that is made out of matter and form, right? The whole the whole thing. Um.

[49:20] That's the way Plato seems to speak in the in the Timaeus, right? Now, um, you know, I often refer to a text there in in Marx and Engels, right? Where they divide all thinkers into materialists and idealists, right? And they say the some thinkers say that matter is the beginning of all things, even of what thought, right? So, Comrade Lenin says, you know, that thought is the highest product of matter.

[49:54] He says, okay. And you might say the first philosophers were kind of materialists, right? That Mother Earth or water or something was the beginning of all things, right? So they think of some kind of matter as the beginning of all things, even of thought. Like Empedocles says, blood around the heart is thought.

[50:17] And then, if you take somebody like Saint John, beginning his Gospel, right, he's saying beginning was the logos, right, the thought, and all things are made through thought. So there are people, and Hegel seems to be in that line a bit, right, with his starting off with logic, right, in his sense. So they divide all thinkers into those who say that matter is the beginning of all things, even of thought, and those who say some thought is the beginning of all things, even of what matter.

[50:54] Now, as a Christian, I ask: Is that a good division of all thinkers? Say. Or is three, you know? Yeah. If you take these two great thinkers here, Anaxagoras, right,

[51:16] and Plato, right, in the Timaeus, at least, there they distinguish between mind and matter, and the great Anaxagoras is the first man maybe to realize. Somewhat that the mind is immaterial, right? So we've read this great fragment there on mind, and the greater mind, you know, moves matter and so on. But he doesn't seem to have the idea that it's responsible for the existence of matter, right?

[51:52] Okay. So in a sense, he's a dualist. In a sense, there are two beginnings of all things: mind and matter, right? And Plato takes that position, at least in the Timaeus, he puts it in the mouth of Timaeus, right? There's a demiurgos, right? And then there's matter, and the Demiurgos is looking at the forms and trying to form matter according to these things. Now,

[52:21] whether by intention or ignorance, that Hegel, that Marx and Engels leave out that middle position, right? But there's something devilish, as Kierkegaard used to say. There's some diabolical influence in modern philosophy. Because if you leave out that middle position, it's very hard to go from the materialism that we kind of naturally start out with to what is the truth that there is a mind and thought that is the beginning of all things and created even matter.

[52:57] You've got to first of all see mind as something immaterial, and that doesn't depend upon matter for its existence, right? Before you might eventually come to the idea that there's a mind that is responsible even for what for matter, yeah, yeah. So

[53:21] Plato, at least you know, I can't say what you know Plato is to me. I mean, but Plato, according to some, lays down matter not to be created, right? And that seems to be the way that Anaxagoras speaks. He doesn't speak as if the greater mind is responsible for the existence of matter, but merely for moving it and ordering it in some way, right? Okay. And Timaeus speaks that way in Plato's dialogue.

[53:49] But because we lay down that matter was created, God, right? But nevertheless, it is not created without giving it somewhat form. Matter has an idea in God, but not one what other from the idea of the composite of matter and form. Okay. And that's what maybe he's referring to. he's talking about concausa, right? Okay. God can't make matter without some form. He can't make it therefore by itself, right?

[54:24] Okay. Yeah, yeah, but for matter by itself can neither be, nor is it what knowable, right? And so the philosopher says there in the first book of Natural Hearing that the first matter is knowable by what a proportion. Remember that that the first matter is to man and dog something like right. Clay is to sphere and cube. Okay, but the likeness there should not be what misunderstood, right?

[55:04] Because sphere and cube are two accidents, right? And clay is an actual substance. While man and dog are not two accidents, but two substances, and the first matter is not an actual substance, right? But just as clay is able to be a sphere and a cube, but not both at the same time, and when it's actually one, it's able to be the other. But if it becomes the other, it seems to be the former.

[55:30] So the first matter is able to be a man or a dog or some other material substance, and when it's one, it's able to be the other, right? But if it became the other, it would cease to be what it was, right? But Aristotle is saying you can't know it by itself, and therefore the difficulty that we have there is a difficulty due to the thing itself. It lacks knowability.

[56:00] Remember that thing that we do in the second book of wisdom, right, where Aristotle talks about the difficulty of knowing, and can be in the thing or in us. And that's a very good distinction, right? And can be applied to other things. You know, some things are difficult to love,

[56:22] and most people don't find difficult to love wisdom, right? But that's difficulties in them, because wisdom is something very good, right? But if you find difficult to love cancer or something like that, right? Don't think it's a defect in your heart, but you can't love cancer. You don't have a loving heart. You see, it's not a very lovable thing, right? I don't love rock and roll. You know, I don't love a very lovable thing.

[56:49] I can't really like this stuff. But it's not only a defect in my heart, right? If I didn't like Mozart, that would be a defect in my heart. You see, because that's really good stuff, you know. So

[57:06] Thomas is saying something like what he said in the reply to the first objection, right? Okay. The bad is really a lack, a kind of non-being. Matter is not non-being, but it's it's not being an act considered by itself, right? It'd be only in potency. And so Heisenberg says, right? We only know matter through the forms of matter. We don't know it by itself. He's saying something like what Aristotle said.

[57:41] Now the last one is talking about genera and singulars and accidents and how Plato didn't give forms to these things. The fourth, it should be said, the genera are not able to have an idea other than the idea of the species, according as the idea signifies what exemplar, right? Because one never what has a genus coming to be except in some species. So you never make an animal that is either a dog or a cat or a horse or some other particular kind of animal.

[58:17] Likewise, for accidents that in a inseparable way follow upon the subject, because these come to be together with the what subject. But the accidents which come upon a subject can have a special idea, right?

[58:38] For the artist, through the form of the house, makes all the accidents which are like properties, right? Which follow from the house from the very beginning, right?

[58:54] But those things which come upon the house already made as pictures or something of this sort, he makes through another form, right? You get an interior director. But individuals, according to Plato, do not have any idea other than the idea of species,

[59:15] because the singulars are individuated through matter, right? Which he laid down to be what uncreated, right? And what he concauses, idea idea, right? Then, because the intention of nature consists in species, nor does it produce singulars except in so far as in them species are saved. But we'll come back to this. We'll take it at divine providence, right? Because divine providence extends not only to species but to the what singulars, and to some extent God it takes care, especially for us as individuals, and not just reference to the conservation of human species.

[1:00:09] Okay. So I have to wait, you know, two weeks now till I come back, right? Went away this Friday and.