Prima Pars
69. Summa I q.16 a.5–6: Privation, opposites and the fallacy of the accident; one truth or many? (Marx on making, teaching, the two Summas)
Class of 2007-02-22
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/069-summa-i-q-16-a-5-6-privation-opposites-and-the-fallacy-of/

[0:00] Okay. Now the third objection was a little more amusing here. It's true that you you have sinned, and God is the cause of all truth, and He's the cause you are sinning, right? Okay.

[0:16] To the third, it should be said, and this is very subtle now, that none being and privations do not have from themselves what true. But only from the what grasping of the understanding.

[0:39] But all grasping of the by the understanding is from God. Whence whatever there is of truth in this that I am saying, that this when it's fornicating right is true, the whole is from God. But if he argues, therefore, him to fornicate is from God. There's a fallacy of what? Yeah, that's the first fallacy outside of language that Aristotle talks about.

[1:11] So the truth is primarily in the mind, there, right? So is God the cause of the person fornicating, or is he the cause of the statement that he's fornicating being true?

[1:29] Yeah. Fortunately, he'll know the truth about our our evil acts, right? And therefore, punish us. But notice that go back to the first sentence there. That's a very interesting thing. None being and privation. Now, what's the distinction between none being and privation?

[1:56] Is it privation should have being, but it doesn't have it, where it's not the same as none being. Yeah. Privation. The English word privation is lack, right? So privation or lack is a none being of something you're able to have,

[2:22] but don't have, right? Yeah. Okay. So the stock example is: What's the difference between saying that something is blind and doesn't see? I could say this cup here doesn't see, right? Yeah. But can I say strictly speaking, the cup is blind?

[2:44] You bought me a gave me a blind cup today. No, because blindness is the none being of sight in a subject able to have sight and that should have sight in the strict sense. That's what lack is.

[3:00] And and what is is what is bad? Maybe there's a lack of some moral. Yeah, but bad bad in in general is always a lack of some sort, right? Okay. So

[3:23] bad is not pure none being. Okay. It's an unbeing as something you're able to have, and and should have, right? I don't have, right? Okay.

[3:41] So, while in the case of pure non-being, then you have what they call the contradictory, not the lack. Aristotle, if you go back to the categories, one of the the chapter, in fact, before the chapter on before, a couple of chapters there actually, it takes up the four kinds of opposites, son.

[4:04] And so you have relatives, which are the least opposed in a way, like father and son, double and half. Then you have contraries, like virtue and vice. Then you have what

[4:20] the lack in in the having of something, like blindness and sight, ignorance and knowledge, and so on. And then you have being and non-being, right? Where the non-being is merely the negation of the other. On the case of the opposition of contradiction of everything, you can either what affirm or deny something, right? So everything either sees or does not see. But does everything either have sight or is blind?

[4:56] No. Okay. Only a thing which by nature is is apt to have sight, right? Only such things either have sight or are blind, right? But everything, even the mathematical point, right? Either sees or doesn't see. This cup that sees or doesn't see, right? So in the case of the contradictory opposition, there's no what middle ground. Okay. You're either a stone or you're not a stone. I can say everything, right?

[5:31] God included, right? Either God is a stone or he's not a stone. He's not a stone. Either you're a stone or you're not a stone. Okay.

[5:44] But now the lack and the the the having opposed to the lack, they have something in common, namely a common what subject, right? Okay. So my knowledge of ignorance have a common subject, my mind. Okay. Now in the case of contraries, you have not only a common subject, but you have a common what genus, son. So virtue and vice are both a what Habit, right? Okay. You may recall that.

[6:23] We talked about that a little bit in in the first book of Natural Hearing, right? And we bring out the difference there. Where Aristotle says change is not always between contraries, but it's always between the having and the not having, and the lack. Right. Okay.

[6:44] So, what's the difference? Say, you know, between knowledge, let's say, and ignorance, and knowledge, and a mistake or error. So these opposed in the same way.

[7:23] See, knowledge and ignorance. are Opposed as what, lack and having. Knowledge and mistake are opposed as contraries, because the man is mistaken, thinks something, right.

[7:45] He thinks something is true that isn't He thinks something true, but isn't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, in both of these, you think something, right? You see. And but here, just none being of knowledge and a subject able to know, maybe should know. Okay.

[8:07] So, as you were pointing out there in the first book of Natural Hearing, before you come to know, are you necessarily mistaken? No. You're necessarily ignorant, right? Okay. Now the man who's mistaken is also ignorant, but is everyone who's ignorant mistaken?

[8:34] What does Augustine say there's something about? I forget what it is. Something about judging other people or something, you know. Or who's better? I'm not going to say anything about this. He says, "unless I want to be mistaken." He prefers to remain simply ignorant of this, right? Now there's maybe some matters where it's presumptuous to judge, right? Where the truth lies, so it's better just to remain ignorant, right?

[9:04] Because if you try to judge, you're probably what? You'll often be mistaken. So they're not the same thing, right? Okay. Or we had the example in ethics there, right? Before you acquire a virtue, you necessarily have the vice opposed to that virtue. No.

[9:30] But you necessarily lack the virtue before you acquire it. But not everyone who lacks the virtue has the vice. But the man who has the vice also lacks the virtue.

[9:44] But it's easier to bring out somebody to be virtuous who's never acquired the vice, than to take them has the vice and try to make them virtuous. And it's easier to convince somebody of the truth if he's merely ignorant of it, than if he's mistaken and adheres to the contrary.

[10:06] If you're undecided about my candidate, it's easier to convince you to vote for my candidate. than If you're of the opinion that the you should not vote for my candidate, but the other one.

[10:21] So when Thomas says "none being in privation," it doesn't mean exactly the same thing, does he? Now, you talk about these opposites here. It's kind of interesting to see this. If you take the the first one here, being and non-being, well, they are what? Contradictories, right?

[10:54] Now, if you take something and nothing, do they have anything in common? No. So something and nothing seem to need to be opposed, something like being and non-being. Okay. Okay. But now you come to

[11:18] true and false. Well, how are they opposed? Well, is is false simply the non-being of true in the subject? No. No. It seems more than that. Yeah. It seems more like contraries, doesn't it? Yeah. Right.

[11:50] And certainly, you know, a true statement and a false statement, right? They're both a statement. Um. But now, good and bad. These here are more like contradictories, it seems to me.

[12:14] Okay. But good and bad are how they're opposed. No. Yeah. Now, as Thomas explains, sometimes the first meaning of bad, as Aristotle taught us, is a lack, right? Second meaning of bad, of course, could be something that has a lack, right? And then the third meaning of bad would be something that causes a lack, right? Okay. So it's because blindness is bad that it's bad to be a blind man.

[12:54] And because it's bad to be a blind man, it's bad for me to poke your eye out or something, right? Okay. But the primary meaning of bad there is blindness, right? And what is blindness? It's really a lack. Okay.

[13:09] So it's interesting when you look at the opposites of these things. Maybe they're not opposed in the same way. How are the one and the many opposed Well, I'll give you that in the tenth book of wisdom. Got me with a few little things, huh? That's kind of interesting, huh?

[13:47] You see, opposites alongside, so they're more clear, right? That's why we have black and white, huh? The page. Okay. Now, that's a little kind of digression there, but

[14:21] in the fourth book of wisdom, when Aristotle shows that wisdom is about being as being, and his interesting way of showing this, because he's shown in the premium of wisdom that wisdom is about the first cause,

[14:51] and then he reasons from that that wisdom is about what being as being, right? Okay. Now, here you have the cause of all, and what do you have here? The being, the said of all, right?

[15:27] Now, cause of all and said of all are not the same thing, right? I mentioned how Hegel has this terrible confusion, right? Because Hegel says that the being said of all is the being who said, "I am who I." So he confuses these two, right? Okay. But in a way, Plato's doing a bit with his forms too, right? Because he's making the forms the first causes, right?

[15:56] But the forms are really the universal, given its own existence, the world of its own, huh? But is there a connection here between the fact that wisdom is about the cause of all, and therefore it's going to be talking about what's said of all? Is there a reason for that?

[16:22] Because what is said of all is through another. Well, could you say that what is a cause of more right is a cause of something of which something more universal can be said? Here's an example I used to give from from a simple example from our practical life, right? If you said the the king and the general, right? Now, if the king commands a general, right? The king's causality extends to everybody who is a citizen of his kingdom, right?

[17:14] The general's causality extends to everybody who is a well soldier. Now, keeping my example simple, every soldier is a citizen, but not every citizen is a soldier, right? So when you talk about the king, you talk about the citizen. You talk about the general, you talk about the what, soldier, right? Okay.

[17:43] President Bush is the commander in chief by the Constitution, right? And considering him as commander in chief, his causality extends to whom? Yeah, he's not commanding me as president, he might, but not as commander in chief, right? You see? So you see a proportion there between, right? Just as the king, is a cause of more than the general, so the king's causality extends to something that is of which something more universal is said, and the general's causality extends to something of which something less universal is said.

[18:25] Well, then the science that considers the cause of all, the one whose causality is most universally extended to the most, is going to be about what is said at all, right? Okay.

[18:40] Remember that same thing in ethics, right? Ethics. The first thing we show in ethics is that ethics is about the end of man, right? The end of human life. And then we show that ethics talks about all the goods of man in general. But why should the science that talks about the end of man, the cause of all that he does in a way, right, talk about all his goods, rather than the medical art or the art of carpentry, we shouldn't talk about all the goods of man?

[19:15] But because the end of human life extends to the whole of human life, right? The the carpenter's art only extends to certain things, right?

[19:26] Okay, that's kind of a prologue there. But then Aristotle raises a problem there in the fourth book of wisdom, and he says, how can there be one reasoned-out knowledge about being as being, because being doesn't mean one thing, doesn't have one meaning, see? And then he goes on to point out, though, although it doesn't have one meaning, the meanings are all what? Connected with a fundamental meaning, which is that of substance, right?

[19:58] Okay. Now, sometimes to give people something easier to understand, I take the example of political philosophy, right? What is political philosophy about? Political things, okay. But the word political comes from the Greek word polis, right? Which some people translate the city-state for a lot of a better translation, right? So the fundamental meaning of political is the polis.

[20:29] But we talk also in political philosophy about the government. Now, is the government of polis? No. So, when political is said of the polis instead of the government, doesn't have the same meaning, does it? But is there a reason why we talk about government in the science of the polis? Yeah. Yeah. Because there's a connection between them, right? The government rules the polis, right?

[20:58] After we talk about government, we talk about revolution. Now is revolution, a government. No, it's a revolution of polis. No. So, I talk about it for the same reason our knowledge, of it, because it's connected, right? Because it's a change of government, right? Okay. So, notice there's an order: polis, government, revolution, right? Okay. Um. Well, something like that with being, right? The fundamental meaning of being is substance.

[21:33] Okay. That's what we're chiefly concerned with in business. It's about substance. But we also talk about accidents, right? Okay. Now, is an accident substance? No. So, why do you talk about accident when you talk about substance? See, why talk about health when you talk about the body? See, are they connected in some way? Health and the body. Yeah. What's connection? Is health and the body or what?

[22:06] Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Then, suppose we talk about becoming, right? Well, it might seem almost a contradiction to say becoming is is being. It's not being, is it? It's coming to be. But do you mean that becoming doesn't exist in this world? What do you mean? It's connected, isn't it?

[22:44] Yeah. If it exists, that means it to be belongs to it, right? So, becoming is a being. Sounds kind of strange, right? Yeah. You get a much less sense of being than accident, right? Okay. Accident is being less than substance, huh? Okay. Now, what comes last? As Thomas says here, Privation and being, right? Blindness, right?

[23:20] Something like that, right? Lack. Not being, right? That problem in Europe, there, right? High new birth rate, right? People aren't there; that shouldn't be there. You can talk about that, can't you? Talking about what is not.

[23:51] But does that mean having being at all? Nothing, right? It's not being, right? Maybe use the word something, well, they understood it, be not in the same way, right?

[24:20] Is becoming something? Is blindness something? But then you're really stretching the word, right? Yeah, because blindness is really the lack of something, right? And unbeing is something, right? Is nothing really something?

[24:41] See, That's what. Thomas is saying, "None ends, none being, and privation do not have ex ipsis rebus, sed tantum ex apprehensione intellectus, but only from the grasping of the understanding, right? "

[25:02] So does the understanding understand something by the word nothing? Now, there's a famous statement of the Greek philosophers: you can't get something from nothing, right? So, he understood something by the word nothing, right? So, is nothing something then?

[25:23] From the understanding. Yeah, only for the apprehension of understanding. So, if being or something requires what, if truth requires some kind of being, right? There'd be something there to know. As we, there's nothing, nothing there.

[25:42] This can only be known if reason makes it out to be something. Aristotle, of course, gives as a rather strange sense of being, but it is one of the senses of being, right? But you're approaching it with becoming, right, and with motion, right? Because becoming or motion doesn't fully exist, does it?

[26:08] Can you be in two places at the same time? No. So if you're in the same place at any one time, there's no time when you're in motion, right?

[26:20] You only be in motion in time, and time doesn't exist together, does it? Before and after can't exist before the past and future together, right? So this hardly exists, right? But here you really got to talk about things, you know. This is has has a little bit of presence in the brain. Yeah, yeah.

[27:08] So evil has what being only in the mind, right? Outside the mind, it's non-being. And from the being that has in the mind, therefore it has the truth in the mind, right? But you're. making. the fallacy of of of happening of the accidental, if you say that God therefore is the cause of what the fornication in itself.

[27:39] Now this fallacy of the accident, Aristotle says, is deceived even the wise. It's a very strong way of speaking. You could go through the history of modern philosophy and see this fundamental mistake of the accidental happen again and again.

[28:12] You only know what's in my mind. That term? You you only know what's in your mind. Everything you know is in your mind, right? Therefore, you only know what's in your mind, right?

[28:42] It's the fallacy of the accident, there, right? Yeah. Otherwise, in the definition of square, my definition of square would be an equilateral right-angled quadrilateral in the mind of Berquist Yeah. And your definition would be equilateral right-angled quadrilateral in your mind, right? So we wouldn't have the same definition; we'd be knowing the same thing, would we? See? But it's accidental to the definition of square that's in my mind or your mind, right?

[29:18] Even though I can't know it unless it's in my mind. Yeah. So it's it's very hard, very easy that fallacy of the accidental, huh? Um.

[29:33] That's a the fallacy that, in a sense Plato's making when he identifies matter with lack of form, or Jean-Paul Sartre is when he identifies our freedom with non-being. Or another

[29:52] example there, the one I take from Marx there, where Marx tries to see man's what highest perfection to be in his making, right? Okay. You'd say it's kind of a modern idea, right? Because with our technology and so on, we're making things that the ancients and medieval men would have thought be impossible, right? Then we can make something to take us to the moon. I mean, who would they have thought of that idea?

[30:18] You know, but but even things like the telephone, right, or and these you know things people walk around all the time now, you know. Yeah. Um. You know, they kind of amazing things, you know. So, but Marx is saying, I mean, Karl Marx is maintaining that that in making things around him, the maker also transforms himself,

[30:44] and so man is being perfected by his making, and not just the things outside of him, right? Okay. Well, is that so? Is making a perfecting of the maker?

[31:03] Because Marx, in a sense, knows that the end of man must be something that perfects man, right? So, if man was not perfected by his making, then you couldn't see man's goal in making, right?

[31:25] Well, is the maker perfected by his making? See, well, I've heard carpenters say, you know, they're working on a job, they're doing something interesting, right? I'm learning a lot. They'll tell me that, right? I've heard them say that, right? They like the job they're on because they're not just doing the same thing over and over again, right? But they're they're developing, right? And you know, when they do these studies of the painters, you know, and maybe they paint a certain way for a couple years, and they they start discovering things, and they paint, you know, a different style and a different way, and maybe even better in some cases, some cases, right?

[32:00] And so on. So, and since Marx's position is based upon saying the maker is perfected by his making, well, is that true or not?

[32:23] Or is it true, for actually dance? You see, the Greeks, and medievals thought that man is perfected by understanding and loving God, right? Okay. But understanding and loving God is not making God or in any way. God is unchangeably can't be made.

[32:51] I say Thomas says, "You got to be careful. This word 'perfect' sounds like God because you're not made, right? " But he's already an act, right?

[33:02] So, an activity like understanding and loving is an activity which essentially perfects not the thing being understood or loved, but the one who understands and loves, right? If he understands something great, like understands God, right, or loves God, then he's perfected by understanding and loving God.

[33:40] But it's accidental to the maker, and that he himself is being perfected by the making, because that's in a sense he doesn't know how to make. He's learning how to make, right? By making and learning from his mistakes and so on. So, but what's making as such is the perfecting of the thing made.

[34:10] So if I make McDonald's hamburgers all day long for my life, I'm maybe not learning anything about them. I make a hamburger, right? I make them pretty good, you know, fast and quick and so on.

[34:28] The same way, you know, good man. The other example I use is the one of teaching, right? Is can man's end or purpose be to teach? Say,

[34:42] I'm I'm a teacher, right? Once in the other, say, c'est ma vie, you know. Let's teach. What am I going to do? You know, I don't teach. But is teaching a perfecting of the teacher? Say,

[35:02] well, if you're teaching something profound like this, every time you teach it, you you learn it better and you see it better, right? Okay.

[35:12] So it might be true that always or most of the time, if you're teaching something profound like this, you're always perfecting yourself, right? You see,

[35:29] because you're always understanding these things better, right? But it's the understanding these things better that is the perfecting of you, right? It's not your teaching them that is perfecting of you, right? In a sense, that's accidental to my teaching

[35:44] that I come to understand the subject better. You know, because I'm not a teacher insofar as I don't know what I'm teaching. You see.

[36:02] And so it's really accidental to the teacher, right? And you can see that in in the teacher by Augustine huh. Did Christ learn anything by teaching us?

[36:16] No, no, nothing at all. And yet he is the teacher by Augustine, right? So if it belonged to teaching as such to perfect the teacher. Then our Lord should have been what? Being perfected by his teaching.

[36:35] It's perfecting our mind, right? It it's belongs to teaching as such to perfect the the student, but not the teacher. It belongs to the maker to perfect the chair or whatever he's making, not to affect the maker himself.

[36:53] But because because it happens most of the time that the maker, if he's doing, you know, if he's a nice job of making, right, where he's you know got some independence, he's not just a guy in the you know turning a screw on the on the production line at Ford Ford Company or something like that, where he's he's self artist so to speak, right? He's always learning, right?

[37:22] The teacher, if he has a can teach the stuff and that's something very good mentoring, he's always learning. It can seem to not be accidental, right? I bet if you went and talked to college professors, they probably think, you know, that it's not accidental teaching that he'd be learning what he's teaching, right? Oh, it's all part of it. He's one of the he's one of the students too.

[37:44] He's always a student. But they have a hard time seeing or making the distinction between the accidental and the as such, right? And something happens all the time, or most of the time, it doesn't seem to be accidental.

[38:13] So to be a teacher, I got to be a learner, right? And you probably people would say that sort of thing, right? You know, you know, if you're not learning, you're not teaching. You know, you can see why people say that, right? But it's still accidental. I'm learning what I'm teaching. So I got to

[38:36] be very careful that kind of a kind of a mistake. We'll take a little break now. Going to look at the article what six here, right? Yeah. The six one proceeds. It seems that there is only one truth by which all things are true, right?

[39:07] Because according to Augustine, nothing is greater than the human mind except God. But truth is greater than the human mind. Otherwise, the mind would what judge about truth, but now it judges all things by the truth, and not by itself.

[39:30] Therefore, only God is truth. Therefore, there is no other truth but God. Moreover, Anselm says in the book about truth that as time is to temporal things, so truth is to true things. But there is one time for all temporal things. Therefore, there is one truth by which all things are what true.

[40:03] But against this is what is said in Psalm 11. Thomas often quotes this psalm. Truths are diminished, huh? From or by the sons of men, right? Okay. They often take the example, you know, the the mirror broken, you know, and all these little truths, huh? In the creatures. But Thomas, you know, is going to distinguish. I answer: It should be said that in one way there is one truth, right, by which all things are true.

[40:36] Another way, there is not just one truth. To the evidence of this, it should be known that when something is said univocally, that means with one meaning, right, with the same exact meaning of many things.

[40:56] That is found according to its proper definition in each one of them, just as animal in each species of what animal. So, an animal said of dog and cat and horse, even though they're different kinds of animals, animal is saying something that's common to all them and it has exactly the same meaning. Said of dog and cat and horse. But when something is said analogously, huh? Equivocally by reason.

[41:27] That is found in its proper definition in one of them only, from which the others are what denominated, right? And now the example of health is the example Aristotle uses in the metaphysics, in the fourth book of wisdom. Just as healthy is said of the animal, and of the urine, and of the medicine. Not, but that health is what the animal, yeah. But from the health of the animal is denominated medicine healthy, in so far as it produces or causes effects that health in the body.

[42:09] And urine is said to be healthy, or your complexion is said to be healthy, right? In so far as it is a sign, it's significant. It signifies that health, right?

[42:21] And although health is not in the medicine or in the urine, nevertheless, in each of them, there's something to which this makes health in the animal, and that signifies the health of the animal, right? Okay. We might say your diet is healthy, right? Um. Now it has been said that truth is before in the understanding and afterwards in what things, according as they are ordered to the divine understanding, huh?

[42:59] But with us it's kind of the reverse, huh? If therefore we speak of truth, in so far as it exists in the understanding, according to its proper reason or definition, thus in the many created understandings, right? There are many what truths, huh? Even in one and the same understanding, right? Like the whole is more than the part. Nothing is before after itself. The other things that I have truths in my head, according to the many things known, whence the gloss, huh?

[43:38] And in my footnote here it says from Augustine, huh, in that place, whence the gloss upon that text of Psalm 11 that was quoted before, that truths are diminished from the sons of man, that says just as from the one face of man results many likenesses in the mirror, right? So from the one divine truth results many what truths in the created minds. If, however, we speak of the truth according as it is in things, thus all things are true by one first truth, huh?

[44:17] To which each thing is assimilated according to its what being, right? And thus, although there are many essences or natures of things or forms of things, nevertheless there is one truth of the divine understanding by which all things are what denominated true, huh? So one sense he admits, another sense he will what deny it, And I think he does another text when he talks about the same question.

[44:52] Now, the first thing about our judging all things by the truth. To the first, therefore, should be said that the soul does not judge about all things according to

[45:08] just any truth, right? But according as the first truth, but according to the first truth, in so far as it results in it as in a mirror, right? It reflects. Paul speaks of us seeing in a mirror darkly, huh? According to the first things that are understandable by us, whence it follows that the first truth is greater than our soul, right?

[45:37] But nevertheless, also the created truth, which is in our understanding, is greater than the soul, not simply, but secundum quid, that distinction again, right? In so far as it is the perfection of it, huh? Just as in some way knowledge can be said to be greater than the soul, huh? But

[46:04] it is true that nothing subsisting is greater than human reason, except what God, huh? Augustine has kind of a a strange way of speaking sometimes, where he says that if you and I decide between ourselves by the truth, right? We're not seeing it in your mind or in my mind, but in the first truth like in God, right? Well, in a way, you are knowing it not, right?

[46:35] Because you're kind of seeing it in the impress of that first truth in our mind, right? In the things that we naturally understand, right? So I'm not seeing, you know, in geometry I judge something by the statement that the whole is more than a part. I'm not seeing this in God's mind. I'm not seeing this as a bit of vision, right? Say, but this truth in my mind that I see that the whole is more than a part is a result of what the divine mind, right?

[47:09] And so, in St. John says in the beginning of his gospel, This is the light that enlightens every man that comes into this world. But then he's talking about the partaking, you might say, the divine light in the natural light of reason, right? So in a way, you're seeing it through the divine light, but maybe you can be more precise and say It's you're seeing it through a light that you that is a partaking of the divine light, huh?

[47:37] That is a result of the divine light, huh? It's an effect of the divine light, huh? Which you're not seeing it in God like human beauty vision huh The expression, that St Bonaventure uses is not intuition; it's a contuition it's a light by which we both see. the truth

[48:02] But it's like the sense that it's not numerically one in us, right? The second thing about Augustine, I mean, the text of St. Anselm, that's the truth that he sees? To the second, wouldn't you say this can be true? That the saying of Anselm has truth, according as things are said to be true in comparison to the divine understanding, right? That all things are true by one truth, which is the divine truth itself, right?

[48:43] Which is one and simple, right? But if you're talking about truth as it is in minds, then there's many minds, there's many truths, but these many truths are what diminished in the divine. mind huh

[48:57] So you see as you go down from God through the angels down to us, you require more and more thoughts, right? And more and more truths.

[49:09] And you know, I was reading in the Summa Contra Gentiles, there were these arguments against there being a composition and division in God, right? Because there had to be a different composition division of each truth you knew, right? And then you really have all this multiplication of thoughts in God; it wouldn't be simple anymore. That's what we are, right? So if I put together man and animal, and I put together two and half of four, these are different thoughts in me, right?

[49:44] And I can't express it by one. You heard my little poem, I'll give it again. You know, God the Father said it all with one word. No wonder when that word became a man, he spoke and wrote so few and said so much. He was the brevity and soul of wit. Not bad, huh? It's almost got a meter, you know, to it.

[50:10] Well, you might say, but we require what? You know, as you go down the angels, they have more thoughts, but they understand less. And as you go up the angels, they have fewer thoughts, but they understand more. As I was reading, Thomas was was one of the arguments he's giving in the chapter on does God know infinity of things, right? And he has seven arguments in that chapter in the Summa Contra Gentiles.

[50:42] One argument I think strikes me as kind of interesting in this regard. He says that the better a mind is, the more it sees from one thing. So you see it in all the sciences. I mean, Einstein might see something, right? And he sees many consequences of this one thing. Other people don't see all those consequences of the one thing. And so he says, the the greater the the power of the mind, the more it can see from one thing, right?

[51:12] Of course, the power of God's mind is infinite, and therefore, from one thing, his own substance, and through one thing, he can see an infinity of things, right? And

[51:27] Father Vauday used to like to talk about that, right? You know, to to to see a beginning in philosophy, and then to see it as a beginning. You know, and you can see a begin what is a beginning without seeing all the what consequences of it. Just like when you begin geometry, you know, you see these beginnings because you don't realize everything's going to follow from them.

[51:53] But but the greater mind is, the more it it sees. From one thing, many things, huh? But the divine power is is infinite, so I can see from one thing, infinite things. It's kind of interesting the way he did that particular argument. When I was first, starting the Summa Kahn Chantile, you know, I kind of read the chapter, and then I, you know, maybe a little later, I'd try to see if I could recall the arguments, you know, or kind of for a while.

[52:22] Maybe I require, you know, let's say six arguments. Maybe recall four of them, you know, and then go back and say, which one did I forget? You know, oh yeah, that's an interesting one. You know, huh? Each of them is something you know to savor, aren't they? They really makes these arguments, huh? Savor them.

[52:45] When I come back to the Summa Theologiae, usually I have less arguments, right? And even the Quaestiones Disputatae have less arguments than the than the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? A lot of times, Thomas would give like three is enough, you know. The idea to get three arguments in the in the disputed questions, or in the, you know, like for the infinite God or something like that. And here you didn't have, you know, nine or eleven arguments, you know.

[53:18] But in the Summa Contra Gentiles, you have more, you know. And and usually they're already in this; they're already there, you know. Gathered together, but occasionally you'll maybe find one somewhere else that isn't in the Summa Contra Gentiles and or it says it's still a little bit differently, you know. So it brings out something. The order is

[53:50] interesting, you know, because I notice here in the Summa Theologiae he takes up the life of God. Actually, takes up the understanding of God, right? And before he goes to the what will, right? But the Summa Contra Gentiles he takes up the life of God after he's done both the understanding and the will. And of course, what he's going to be bringing out there at the end there is that you know God's eternal life and and God is blessed in His life and His blessedness exceeds the blessedness of any creature and so on and and but it's kind of interesting the order there.

[54:25] I gave a talk one time at the PMR conference there on the on the order in which the substance of God is considered in the two works. And there's some differences, and then I didn't try to say one was better than the other, but I tried to show that

[54:49] you get something in both orders, right? And you get something one order didn't get in the other order, right? I know now. When I was talking about the the use of the first book of natural hearing in theology, I always go to Summa Theologiae to illustrate how important it is to showing that God is unchanging. But I can't do it quite as nicely. to the Summa Contra Gentiles because of the order in which it is, because in the Summa Contra Gentiles, he shows that God is unchanging, before he shows that God is simple.

[55:23] And and part of the reason for that is that the argument for the unmoved mover is much more developed in the Summa Contra Gentiles than in the Summa Theologiae. Two of the five arguments in the Summa Contra Gentiles are from motion. Only one of the five is from motion in the Summa. And in the Summa Theologiae, the one argument has like one middle term for each of the premises, right?

[55:51] Why in the Summa Contra Gentiles? three reasons, three reasons, you know, so it's much more developed, right? So it's kind of natural when Thomas gets through with the existence of God to go to his being what unchanging, right? Unchanging and eternal in the Summa Contra Gentiles. But in the Summa Theologiae, where this is not developed so much, the unmoved mover, he doesn't bring out that God is unchanging until after he's talked about the simplicity of God.

[56:18] So he can reason from the simplicity of God to his being unchanging among other arguments, right? But in the Summa Contra Gentiles, he can't reason that way because he hasn't shown that God is simple yet. And so,

[56:34] I always make use of the Summa Theologiae when I was teaching the first book of natural hearing because there Aristotle brings out that whatever changes is composed. And once you know that, I say, well, then if you show in theology that God is not composed, then you can see he can't change, right? And that's one of the ways he argues in the Summa Contra Gentiles, Summa Theologiae, because of the order, right?

[57:18] So there there are subtle differences, you know. And and then in the Compendium Theology the order is a little different, right? And he actually takes up the infinity of God and then goes into the perfection of God. Kind of strange, huh? But you know, following the old rule of two or three, right? If you wanted to reduce the five parts of the consideration of divine substance, the five basic attributes.

[57:51] To three, how would you do it? In Summa Theologiae, there are simplicity, perfection, unchangeable. Excuse me, excuse me, infinite, unchangeable, and then one, right? Okay.

[58:16] What? Simplicity and one. Yeah, simplicity and one would go together, right? And then, which other ones you put with which one? Yeah, yeah, and and it's very clear, you know, especially in the Summa Contra Gentiles, it takes up the infinity of God that it's what based on his what perfection, right? You see, and you have a famous quote from Augustine: "Those things that are not mole magnus sunt."Uh To be meos means to be melios Mhm To be more means to be better, yeah.

[58:58] So it's obviously tied up with the perfect, right? And what's interesting in the compendium, the unity of God comes right in the middle of the simplicity. So it's just kind of a sign that makes some sense, you know. But those and the infinity is taken up with the, you know, perfection of God to be the afterwards, you know. But one naturally kind of leads into the other, right?

[59:28] And in the Summa Theologiae, he takes up the perfection of God, then his infinity, right? So yeah, Thomas, you know, will you know always divide this into two summas, you know, which kind of major works into those five, you know. I apologize for interrupting your train of thought, but while I had the chance, I wanted to ask you if you knew about this God delusion book that is supposedly a bestseller.

[1:00:04] What is the basis of that? What is this argument? Yeah, I just know from the reviews, you know. What's the name? Ah, but by the English scientist was it? God delusion. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, you know, he's not a guy who knows much about theology, so I, I told you know, I just see that in the latest issue, of First Things they're talking about it, you know.

[1:00:33] I noticed how Neuhaus has quoted my my colleague there, Mahoney, the political scientist, and that whole thing he has in the back. He's got a nice thing there. Yeah, Mahoney's done a thing on Solzhenitsyn too, you know. Oh. He's he has a book on Solzhenitsyn, and then he he has another book that's come out recently. Another guy that's Solzhenitsyn reader, you know. Really. But it's got kind of stamp of approval Mahoney's interpretation of Solzhenitsyn from the Solzhenitsyn family, you know, from the man himself.

[1:01:04] So he's worked with him for some time. By the way, he's being quoted for this is talking about the neocons and so on in this latest issue of First Things. Don't know if you get that here, but they're talking about his poverty of knowledge of theology, right? You know, and he compared to somebody who would be talking about science, knowing the guide to British birds only.

[1:01:39] I think this guy's British, isn't he? Or something? I think it's from England, and so. You know these things come and go. You know, I mean, nobody talks about the Da Vinci Code too much anymore. You know, the books are coming out. on this, you know, you got to, you know, the, something infinite about air, you know?

[1:02:08] but no perfection. Yeah, yeah. Kind just a joke, you know. He teaches how to, how to, how to, you know, air producing machine, you know. How to make it, you know. But it's basically we're overlooking the distinction, you know, the simple you know, the per se and the per accidens and, and in a sense, that's what what Marx is doing, right? And

[1:02:36] kind of starts with, you know, Kant saying that we know only by making, you know, only what we make, and so on. I kind of, you know, once you say that, then

[1:02:51] there can't really be any life of the mind apart from making, right? He didn't take too good care of his family, you know. They say he liked Shakespeare, though. So I don't know. His kids read Shakespeare and so on.

[1:03:26] He's buried in London, isn't he? In Hyde Park, there or something. It's a monument there, yeah. Yeah, he used to work in the in the British Museum, right? The reading room there.