Prima Pars
73. Summa I, Q.17, a.4: True and False as Contraries; Q.18 on the Life of God and the Grades of Life
Class of 2007-03-15
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/073-summa-i-q-17-a-4-true-and-false-as-contraries-q-18-on-the/

[0:00] Article four. To the fourth, one proceeds thus: It seems that true and false are not contraries, for true and false are opposed as what is and what is not. For the true is that which is, as Augustine says. But what is and what is not are not opposed as contraries. They're opposed as what?

[0:27] Contradictories, right? Therefore, true and false are not contraries. Moreover, one of two contraries is not in the other, but the false is in the true, because, as Augustine says in the book of the Soliloquies, the tragedian is a false actor. You would not be a false actor if you were not a true what? Tragedian, a true actor. Therefore, true and false are not contrary.

[1:02] Moreover, in God, there is not any contrariety, for nothing is contrary to the divine substance. God is not in the genus, right? As Augustine says in the twelfth book about the city of God.

[1:22] But to God falsehood is opposed. For the idol in Scripture is called a lie. And he quotes the text of Jeremiah they grasped the lie. That is idols, as the gloss says. Which is from Jerome. My book tells me. Therefore, true and false are not what? Contraries.

[1:54] But against this is what the philosopher says in the second book of the Peri Hermeneias. That's the book about statement, right? Second book of logic has come down from the so-called father of logic, right?

[2:08] He lays down that false opinion is contrary to the true opinion. I answer, it should be said, that true and false are opposed as contraries, right? And not as affirmation and negation. Now, when he says "and not as affirmation negation," that's another way of saying "and not as what? Contradictories." Because we express them in terms of affirmation negation, as some people say. Now, to the evidence of all this, it should be known that negation

[2:52] neither lays down something, right? Nothing real. Nor does it determine for itself some subject. And he's hinting upon what two kinds of opposition there. This is distinguishing negation from,

[3:19] yeah, and contrariety. When he says "neque ponit aliquid, he's thinking of what? Contraries, right? Because vice doesn't simply what? Negate, but it posits something, right? A real habit, right? Vice is a real habit. And privation, although it's not, it's an unbeing.

[3:52] It determines for itself some subject, right? So blindness is not simply negation, an unbeing of sight. It's an unbeing of sight in a subject, right? That's able to have sight and should have sight.

[4:09] Do you follow that? Okay, important to see. In account of this, it is able to be said both of being and of what? None being that's not seeing, right, and not seeing.

[4:31] Now privation or lack does not place something there, right? But it does determine for itself a what subject? He's saying the same thing with different words here. For it is a negation in a subject, as is said in the fourth book of the metaphysics, the book of wisdom. Okay, it's not an unbeing a subject. For blind is not said except of that which is naturally apt to see.

[5:05] So the chair is not blind, but if you don't see you're blind because you're naturally apt to see, right? Now the contrary does two things: it both posits something, right? It's not just it's not just an unbeing; it posits something, and also determines a subject, right? So the vice opposed to virtue is not simply negation or the non-being of virtue, right? But it's a real what habit that's being placed there in you, right?

[5:39] And it also has the same subject as the virtue. So if the virtue is in reason, the vice is in reason. If the virtue is in the will, the vice opposed to it is in the will. The virtue is in the irascible appetite, like courage, then the vice, cowardice, is in the same, but subject, right?

[6:05] And of course, linked with that is the fact then that the two contraries are in the same genus. They're species, huh? To go back to logic, huh? For black is some species of color.

[6:19] Okay. Now the false, he says, what? Posits something, right? For the false is, as the philosopher says in the fourth book metaphysics, from this that something is said or seems to be what it is not, or not to be what it is.

[6:42] And there he's taking more of good and bad. I mean, true and false there in things, right? Just as true has an adequate taking of the thing, so a false taking the thing is not adequate. Whence is manifest that true and false are what? Contraries, right? Okay.

[7:05] Okay. Now he's going to apply to the first objection, which is taken from Augustine, saying that the true is that which is, huh? To the first therefore, it should be said that that which is in things is called the what? Truth of the thing. But that which is grasped is the true of the understanding, huh? In which first is truth. That's where truth is primarily in the mind.

[7:34] While good is primarily in things. Yeah, that's the famous point Aristotle makes very briefly in the sixth book of Wisdom. You know, really does the commentary, isn't it? Listen, Thomas, huh? That's the point he makes.

[7:52] Whence the false is that which is not as it is apprehended. There's an apprehension there, right? As a thinking. Um, now to apprehend to be and not to be have what? Contrariety, as the philosopher proves in the second book of the Peri Hermeneias. Thomas is very much the student of Aristotle, as you can tell. That to this opinion that the good is good is contrary. The good is what?

[8:23] Not good. Now you got to be kind of careful what you're saying there, right? If I say in the Peri Hermeneias, we say that two is half of four,

[8:51] and two is not half of four. You take those two statements. In the Peri Hermeneias, Aristotle would say they're opposed contradictorily, okay? So the contradictory of two is half of four is that two is not half of four. Now it gets a little more complicated in there because if you have a universal subject, right, you can have every or some, right? And so Aristotle would say, you know, what's the contradictory of every man is an animal?

[9:30] Is it no man is an animal? No, because both of those could be false. Okay, in this case they happen to be one true and the other false. But if I say every man is, let's say, white, and no man is white, well, both could be what? False, right? And then some man is an animal. And some man is not an animal.

[10:11] Are they contradictories in the two particulars. They might both be true, huh? Like some man is white and some man is not white. But it's the diagonals here that are contradictories, huh? Okay.

[10:28] Now, why is he saying that they're contraries, right? Well, let's go back to some example up here. We would say, in logic, that two is half of four, and two is not half of four are contradictory statements, right? But if I think that two is half of four, and you think that two is not half of four, then we're both thinking something, aren't we? So it's not simply that you're not thinking that two is half of four, because you might be ignorant, not thinking that.

[11:05] Ah, not thinking period. But you wouldn't be mistaken, right? Mistaken. But if you think that two is not half of four, you are mistaken, right? But it's not simply that you're lacking the truth, but you're positing something. There's a real thinking in you, right? Mm-hmm. So they would seem to be then opposed as what? Contrary.

[11:32] And notice, it isn't necessary, you know, that you think one or the other, is it? If that's what contradictions are, right? You have to one or the other. And see, if I take contradictories, either you think that two is half of four, you don't think that. See? But strictly speaking, to say you're, if it ignores those contradictories, to not think that two is half of four is not to think that two is not half of four.

[11:58] Do you follow me? Yeah. Yeah. I think he's a good man. I don't think that. Well, you probably take that to mean I think he's what? He's not a bad man. But strictly speaking, what have I said? You say I think he's a good man, and I say I don't think that. What does that mean?

[12:37] You think he's not a bad man. But he is. But here, if you say, I don't think that, you could imply any help you or not take it to me. I think he is. a bad man. Yeah. Yeah. But have I actually said that? Say. Say. See, I might not know anything about the man, right? Say. So I don't think he's a good man. I don't think he's a bad man.

[13:03] I could say both, right? I don't think he's a good man. I don't think he's a bad man. I don't think but the man. Do. You see, it's like I used to get the students going. You know, I'd say if the professor says, you know, is asked by the students, "Did we pass?" and he answers, "Some of you passed."

[13:29] What do the students take that to mean? Meaning most failed. Yeah, yeah. They may have only corrected half the exams, and the ones they've corrected have all passed, right? The second half of the exams I haven't corrected, right? So all I know is that some have passed. I haven't said anything about the rest. Okay.

[13:56] If I say some women are beautiful. Yeah, you must understand me. You think I'm beautiful? But no, sometimes, because of custom and this sort, we take this to mean something more than it does mean, right? Okay. So I have to explain to them in logic that when we say some men are animals, right, we're saying some men are animals. We're not saying some are not. Now, someone might say, you know, why would he say that?

[14:37] He didn't think some are not. But the point is, what if I said, right? I said some men are animals. So either I think that two is half of four,

[15:08] or I don't think that two is half of four. They're actually opposed, to hell, those two. Well, you see, it's got to be one or the other, right? Because I'm either saying that you think this or you don't think this. Okay. So that's like contradictories, right? There's no. effect.

[15:37] So everybody in the world thinks there are nine hierarchies of angels, right, or nine choirs of angels, rather, or they don't think this. One of the two.

[15:52] But does everybody think either that there are nine choirs of angels or there are not nine choirs of angels? Do they? No, some have no opinion about this at all, right? Okay. How many chambers does a frog's heart have? How many chambers does a frog's heart have? Doesn't matter where I start. What?

[16:19] I guess it's three, isn't it, or something? But everyone either thinks that they have three chambers, right, or doesn't think that. They've got to be one or the other.

[16:34] But not everybody thinks either that they have three or they do not have three. See? Now, why is it that the one is it's got to be one or the other, but not the other? That's a sign that in the one case you're taking contradictories, huh? Okay. This is a dog, or it's not a dog. It's got to be one or the other. Okay. This is a virtue, or it's a vice.

[17:02] You can't say it about things, right? Everything is either justice or injustice, right? That makes sense, doesn't it? Because justice or injustice are not opposed as contradictories, are they? But if I say everything is either justice or it's not justice,

[17:24] yeah, who's speaking? Okay. That's what he says here in that reply to the first objection. To apprehend something to be and not be has contrariety, right? As the philosopher proves in the second book of the Peri Hermeneias, that to this opinion, you see, Thomas's opinion, right? You're thinking that good is good, right? It's contrary to this thinking that good is not good, right? Okay. But if you just took good is good and good is not good by themselves, they'd be as contradictories, right?

[18:08] As affirmation and negation, right? You see that? Or take a more concrete example: either a dog is a dog or a dog is not a dog, right? Okay. So they're contradictories. Okay. Either you think a dog is a dog, or you think a dog is not a dog. Well, maybe you don't think either one. Never thought about a dog. Okay. Now the second objection is one that comes up with all the most universal things, because one seems to be in the other, right?

[18:44] And Thomas says, when we talk about the good, often he has a chapter article, whether the subject of the bad is the good. Just like even the nature of the devil is good, so the subject of the bad is good. Well, Thomas is going to reply to that problem. To the second, it should be said that false is not founded in the true, which is contrary to it, just as neither bad in the good, which is contrary to it.

[19:21] So injustice is not injustice, right? The virtue is not in the vice, right? But the vice is in the will, and the will is something what good that God gave us, right? Okay.

[19:37] And this happens in both of these because true and good are what? Yeah, I mean the most common, right? Okay. And that's what he says they're convertible with being. Whence, just as every privation or lack is founded in some subject which is being. So blindness is in something that. is. like a man, right? Even though blindness itself is a non-being, right? See how the Sophists could play around with this, right?

[20:11] Okay, but blindness, which is a non-being of sight, is not in sight, which it's supposed to, right? But it's in the man, right? Who should have sight, huh? And he's not alike. Okay.

[20:32] Whence, just as every lack is founded in the subject that is being, so everything bad is founded in something good. That's one of the reasons why Thomas would say there's no bad itself. There's nothing that is badness itself, like God is goodness itself. You know, Manichaeans had badness itself. Bad can only be in the good, as in the subject. So something can't be totally bad.

[21:00] Get close to it, but can't be entirely so. So just as every lack is founded in the subject that is being, so everything bad is founded in something good, and everything false in something what? True. So the false Hector, right, is a true tragedian.

[21:28] Okay. Now the third objection is taken from God not having a contrary. To the third, it should be said that because contraries, right, and things that are opposed privatively, are apt to come about in the same thing, right? Therefore, God, considered in Himself, there is nothing contrary. To God, considered in Himself, there's nothing contrary. Neither by reason of His goodness nor by reason of His what? True.

[22:08] But in our understanding, there can be some what? Falsehood, right? Excuse me, but in His intellect, right, there's not able to be any falsehood, huh? But in our grasping,

[22:27] there has something contrary. For to the true opinion about something is contrary the what? False opinion. Okay. And thus the idols are called what? Lies opposed to divine truth. In so far as the false opinion about idols is contrary to the true opinion about the unity of God, right? The true and the false opinion are in us, right? Okay.

[23:03] So, back a little bit to the Peripatetics here. Aristotle speaks. Every man is an animal, and no man is an animal, seem to be opposed, right? But Aristotle says they're not opposed as what contradictories.

[23:30] Now, if you had a singular, Socrates is an animal. Socrates is not an animal. They would be opposed as contradictories, right? Because one must be true, and the other must be what false, right? But every man is an animal, no man is an animal. They could both be what false, right? Universal affirmative, universal negative.

[24:09] Still, there's a kind of opposition between them, and Aristotle calls them contraries, right? And that's because they seem to be furthest apart, right? Okay. So if one man thinks that every man is an animal, and some man thinks that some man is and some man is not, and some man thinks that no man is an animal, the man who thinks every man is an animal and no man is an animal seem to be the furthest what apart, right?

[24:38] Okay. So if you think that every man is good, and I think that some men are good and some are bad, and you think that no man is good, the man who thinks that every man is good and no man is good are the furthest apart, right?

[25:00] And that's why they're like contraries, because black and white. Take a simple example of contraries seem to be the species furthest apart, right? Okay. Or drama, tragedy, and comedy are contraries, right? But there are some kinds of plays that are in between tragedy and comedy. So these seem to be the furthest apart, right? But in terms of truth and falsity, you gotta be more careful, right? Because they could both be false, right?

[25:37] Just like some men are good and some men are bad could both be true. But every man is good and some man is not good, and cannot both be true. Cannot both be false. One must be true, the other must be false. Okay.

[25:56] So, if you look at the statements by themselves, you might speak a certain way. But then, you talk about the man who thinks the statement is true, and the man who thinks some other statement is true, then you can say the contrariety in the two opinions.

[26:16] Okay. So, if one man thinks the soul is immortal, another man thinks the soul is not immortal, their thinking is what contrary, yeah, yeah, because they're both thinking something. Okay. So one is not just lacking the thinking of the other, but he's thinking something other, right?

[26:47] If you just took the statements by themselves, the soul is immortal, the soul is not immortal. Then we'd speak of those as being opposites, affirmation, negation, and that would be contradictions, right?

[27:02] Sometimes Aristotle calls the opposition of contradiction, affirmation, negation. Okay. So that's interesting, right? Being and non-being are opposed contradictorily, and perhaps something and nothing in the same way. But we look back at one and many, and they're opposed as what?

[27:34] Yeah. Yeah. And now he's saying the true and false are opposed as what? Contraries, right? And we talk a little bit about good and bad, right?

[27:49] But primarily, good and bad are opposed as what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I say when Augustine speaks, you know, a little bit hyperbolically, and he says, "Sin is nothing," and the man who sins becomes nothing, right? Thomas probably quotes that sometimes, but he doesn't wouldn't speak exactly that way, right? You know, because he's a little more careful than Augustine sometimes. But Augustine doesn't have the same background Aristotle that Thomas has.

[28:19] So, is sin nothing? Or is sin a real act that lacks something it shouldn't have? Yeah. My example in class was always, you know, the house is on fire, So I run in and get my books, and then I go back and get the baby.

[28:45] Is that good? You're self-pleasing. Well, what's wrong with that? Yeah, but why is it bad? Yeah, and the question would be before and after, right? You get the baby before you get the books, and so it's a disordered act.

[29:10] Now, if I paid myself in the corner. That's a bad act too, not as serious, but I should have begun in the corner and paid my way out to the doorway, you know. So I mean, it can be you know, you know, more important or less important order, but there's always some lack there. That's bad, right?

[29:32] And reason is, as we know from the definition of Shakespeare, there that reason is ability for large discourse, looking before and after. It's very much characterized for ordering things, right? But also characterized by what measuring things, huh? Actually, this word "mens" in Latin is to have a mensura, measure. So those two things seem to characterize reason: measuring things and ordering them. And so,

[30:01] for man, since he's an animal that has reason, that is good simply for man. That is what Reasonable, right? So what is pleasing to his senses is not good simply, but not simply, but in some imperfect way, right?

[30:23] But what pursuing what is pleasing to my senses is not good simply unless it's reasonable. And sometimes it might be reasonable for me to pursue something pleasing to my senses. In another case, this extra drink, you know, even though it's pleasing me, is going to interfere with what I should be doing, right? And so it's too much.

[30:48] Have too much of a good thing. Too much of that causes a lot. of things, yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Cinnal plug. Okay. got a little time left here. We'll go on to the question 18. De Vita Dei, right?

[31:09] Now, I love the two summas, and there are a little differences in the two summas in the order in which things are considered a bit,

[31:21] and sometimes you see something in one you don't see in the other, right? I think I mentioned that in the Summa Contra Gentiles, he takes up the life of God, not right away after the mind of God, the understanding of God, but after he takes up the understanding of God and the willing of God, the will of God. As you know, if you look for a second there at question nineteen, the will of God is starting to be taken up in question nineteen.

[31:56] So the life of God is here in the eighteenth. Okay. Now, should is there a reason to do both? See. Now, why? What reason could you give why the life of God should be taken up after both a consideration of his understanding and his willing? And what is the reason for taking up the life of God after his understanding and before his willing? You know. See. Because as I mentioned before, I went and gave a paper on the five attributes of God and the order of them in the two summas, right?

[32:43] And I thought it would be presumptuous and false to say that one order is correct and the other is incorrect, right? Or even maybe to say that one is better simply than the other than the other, right? That because one was later in time, he was you know saying this is a better order. But as I studied it, I saw that you can see something in one that you don't see in the other, but vice versa, right?

[33:11] Okay. Um. So can you see any reason why he might take up the life of God in a different place here? In one case before the willing of God, in another case after. Can you see anything for that? to that.

[33:35] Going back to your profound study of the third book, the second book about the soul, right? I've seen one way to take up life after both understanding would be to consider the whole of, might say, to consider the parts of what a might say the fullness of a living thing. with understanding a will. Yeah, Yeah. That strike me as the most obvious. So you can say in the Summa Contra Gentiles, because the life of God consists not only in understanding Himself and other things, but also in loving Himself and loving other things, right?

[34:13] Then makes some sense to take up the life of God after that, right? Okay. Well then, what about the Summa Theologiae? Why does he do this?

[34:31] Going back to now the the three books about the soul, which are supposed to all of this issue, undoubtedly not. Well, let's go back to something we learned in our profound study of the three books about the soul.

[34:50] I told you how the kind of you could do with one of these books and say, "Now, it says, you think you've understood everything, that's a sign you understood nothing."

[35:03] And you know these are the kind of books that you you read over and over again throughout your life. You never you never stop reading these books. You know, like like C. S. Lewis said about the great works of fiction. You know, Yeah, so maybe you read that. Oh, yeah, I read that. You know, like once been there, done that. I need an expression. You know, and he said, "what do you do with such a person?

[35:28] " I mean he's just? " He's lost. I mean, as far as the higher things are concerned, huh? Um. So you may recall in the 3, 4, 5 we talked about in the study of the soul. He talks about five genera of powers. Remember that. He talks about four grades of life. He talks about three kinds of soul. Remember that. The question is, why this discrepancy in the numbers, right?

[36:21] Because we know the soul through its powers, right? But there are five genera of powers. Why are there only three kinds of soul, or even why is there only four grades of life, right? Isn't there life for each kind of power?

[36:44] Okay. Well, let's go and talk about those five genera, right? You have the let's call them the vegetable powers, right You have. The power to what? Digest food, right? The power to grow, the power to reproduce yourself. These are the three powers. Thomas goes back to that when he talks about the what sacraments. Because baptism is like generation, right? And and Eucharist is nourishing, and confirmation is growth, right?

[37:27] Okay. So likeness. We have vegetable powers which are shared by the plants and the animals too, and even man, right? And then you have the what?

[37:42] Sense powers, yeah. Okay. And then you have the powers of what? Understanding, right? Okay. And then you have the powers of desiring. Desiring powers.

[38:11] Then you have the power to move from one place to another, locomotion. Let's call that. This is actually the order which Aristotle, considers it right? The beginning of the second book after he defines the soul, he takes up the vegetable powers, right? He takes up the sense powers, then the powers of understanding, and then he takes up the desiring powers and the powers of locomotion. Because knowing and desiring are involved in locomotion.

[38:42] Now there are five general powers. Why are there only four grades of life? Well, everyone who has sense powers also has vegetable powers, but not vice versa. Okay, so that's obviously a discrepancy right? Um, Different grades, right? Now everyone who has sense powers doesn't have understanding, but everyone who has understanding, like you and I, has got sense powers. That is another thing, right? Okay. Now, desiring powers follow upon sense powers in what?

[39:24] In understanding, right? So if you have sense powers, you have sense desire, right? Emotions or feelings. Because The animals have as well as us, right? But if you have understanding, you have will. It's not. So desiring powers don't give you a separate grade of life, do they? See, so the grades of life are tied up with these first kinds, right? Okay. Now the locomotive powers. Well, that's kind of in between here because the lowest animals are almost like plants.

[39:55] They don't move from one place to another. Aristotle was a marine biologist, right? So, on the floor of the ocean, there are animals that have sensation. If you prick them, you know they react. Right, but they don't move from place to place. Their food comes to them in the oceans of the ocean, right? And they seem to have only the sense of what touches, or maybe taste of some sort, but not the senses of distance, sight, and hearing, smell, and so on, because their food comes right to them, right?

[40:27] Okay. So there is only four grades of life, right? So you can say there are those who have the vegetable powers, but not the sense powers, right? There are those who have the sense powers, but not the locomotive powers. There are those who have the vegetable powers, the sense powers, the locomotive powers, but not the understanding powers. It's their four grades, but there is no grade corresponding to the what?

[40:56] Desiring powers, right? They follow upon the knowing powers, right? You see. Now, why does Aristotle speak of just basically three kinds of soul? Well, the soul you are starting to what? Rise above matter a bit, right? Okay.

[41:24] And so the plant, to some extent, is rising above matter, right? When you get to the senses, they're very significant, rising above matter, because even the senses have a kind of immateriality. They receive the what? Shapes of other things in their environment, right? And the the colors of other things, but in a kind of immaterial way, right? Okay. My eye takes on your shape, or the shape of the chair, but my eye doesn't become like a chair, right?

[41:55] Okay. And the understanding is even more immaterial, right? So that's why there is three kinds of soul, but not what? Four kinds of soul. Okay.

[42:08] So a little refresher course there. Does that suggest any reason why you might talk about the life of God after you consider the understanding of God and before you consider the willing of God?

[42:45] The understanding is greater and more basic. Yeah, more fundamental than the willing, right? The willing proceeds from it, huh? It's because, as we'll see when you dig up the willing, it's because God is understanding His will. Okay. And it's more clear in us, right? It's because we have understanding that we have will. It's because the animals don't have understanding; that they don't have will, right? Okay, so understanding is more fundamental in understanding this kind of what of life, right?

[43:17] Okay, so that's a little bit of a reason, maybe, why it makes sense to talk about the what life of God, right? See, you've got a grade of life you want to use that, right? But not really a grade of life, but much higher life, right? Because understanding is much higher than ours, right? And so, just as you in distinguishing the grades of life might not bring in the emotions or the desiring powers at all, because they don't constitute a grade of life, right?

[43:52] Okay. But now the thing that kind delights me is to think about the words of our Lord now, right? Because in the famous passage in St. John, where he's asked, "Is it by Philip? " I think it is. "Where are you going? " and "How do we get there? " He said, "You know. " See, What do you mean. I am the way, the truth, and the life, right?

[44:17] Now, when Thomas comments on those words, right, Christ is answering two questions: one is where you're going, what the goal is, right? And how you get there.

[44:36] And as Thomas will explain, Christ as God is the ultimate goal. And as God, He's truth itself and life itself, right? But as man, He's the road to Himself as God.

[44:57] And the Greek word is very concrete. the same word Aristotle uses "for "road." Hodos I am the Hodos. So if you look at the Tertia Pars there, the Summa, where Thomas takes up the human nature of Christ, he says, "De Christo qui secundum quod homo is the via, right? " Is the Latin word for Hodos road, the road to God, right? Okay. Now coming back to those words of our Lord, I am the road, the truth, and the life.

[45:30] As man is the road, as God is the truth and the life. But now, our truth and life, private or peculiar to the second person of the Blessed Trinity? No.

[45:47] A truth and life, as we see in here, we'll find out that it's life itself as well as truth itself. We've seen already is truth itself. But this is in the treatise on, the unity of God, right? So this is common to the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Each of them is truth itself and life itself.

[46:06] But could you say that what we'll see in the treatise in the Trinity, what is called appropriation, right? Could truth and life be appropriated to the Son, just like goodness or love?

[46:27] I mean, is the Holy Spirit alone goodness itself? No, because God is goodness itself, and and the Father is God, and the Son is God, so the Father and Son are goodness itself, and as we'll find out, the God Himself is love. Saint John tells us God is love, so the Father is love, the Son is love. But there's our reason for appropriating goodness, which is the object of love, and love to the Holy Spirit, and truth, which is the object of understanding, right, and life, to the to the Son, because he proceeds by way of what?

[47:10] God understanding Himself. What? God to God. Yeah, but he proceeds as the Word of God, right? Huh? Okay. Beginning was the Word, and it was towards God, and in that same text, Saint John says, "This was the light that enlightens every man that comes into this world. " But it's like the Logos is the light that enlightens every man into the world. But does that mean that the Father doesn't enlighten us?

[47:38] Does mean the Holy Spirit doesn't enlighten us? No, but these are appropriate to the Son because he proceeds by way of understanding and light. refers to understanding, right? Do you see? So the fact that truth and life are coupled here together helps us to understand the appropriation of those two to the what? Second person, when he says, "I am the way or the road, and the truth and the what?

[48:10] Life, right? Okay, makes sense. So I kind of get that out of this, right? That life is coupled with understanding here, right? Okay, just as in the books on the soul, right? So understanding gives you a new kind of life that the animals don't have, and a fortiori that then the animals don't have, and the plants, a fortiori, don't have. Do you see? Okay, so I love this.

[48:47] The other is good for the other reason, right? Yeah, you know, and okay, and so he says because to understand is of living things. Right. After the consideration of the knowledge and divine understanding, we ought to consider about his life.

[49:13] And about this, four things are sought. And notice the first two are about life in general, and the last two are about what? The life of God, right? So, though it's a distinction of four articles,

[49:30] yeah, to understand what he's doing there, right? Did the same thing, you know, with things like the good or or one, sometimes in the same questions, sometimes different questions, but kind of a general consideration, right? He's very considerate to his students, right? You know, instead of saying, you know, well, go to the De Anima, go to the metaphysics to get this. I'll give you a little bit of this again, you know.

[49:54] Okay, nice, nice guy that way. The first, then, he proceeds thus. It seems that it belongs to all natural things to be alive. That's kind of strange. How's he going to argue this? For the philosopher, that's Aristotle by antonomasia named by antonomasia. For as the philosopher says in the eighth book of Natural Hearing, the so-called Physics, that motion is as a certain life, right, by nature existing in all things.

[50:33] But all natural things partake motion. Nature is defined by motion, right? Nature is the what? Beginning and cause of motion and rest, and that which it is, for as that such not by happening. Recall the definition. So, if motion is a kind of life, right? Then all natural things partake of life, right? Sometimes when I ask students in class what is life, they'll say motion. Well, motion is common to all natural things, you know.

[51:05] You know the the restless universe to take Max Born's book, right? Moreover, plants are said to live in so far as they have in themselves a beginning or cause of the motion of growth and decrease. But local motion is more perfect and prior by nature than the motion of growth and decrease, as is proven the eighth book of Physics. Aristotle will show when he takes up the different kinds of motion that change of place is presupposed to change of quality.

[51:48] Because you have to bring bodies together to have a change of quality. Okay, but you can have change of place without changing your quality. But when the sun changes its place, if it does, you have a change here from what cold to warm, right? Or when it goes further down, you change this back to cold or something. And you have to have a change of quality before you can have a change of what growth and so on.

[52:12] So in that sense, change of place is the fundamental one, right? Since therefore all natural bodies have some beginning or cause to change of place, local motion, It seems that all bodies naturally what live, huh?

[52:32] Moreover, among natural bodies, the more imperfect ones are the elements. But to them is attributed life, for we speak of living waters. Therefore, much more other natural bodies have life that are even higher than these simple bodies of what they thought were simple. But against all this is what Dionysius says in the sixth chapter about the divine means that plants, according to the last what resounding or echoing right of life, have life.

[53:11] From which it can be taken that the last grade of life is obtained by the plants. So my wife is looking at these plants, you know, and trying to decide what plants to buy. Each one of these, I tell her, has got a soul.

[53:31] And they do. But inanimate bodies are below soul or plants. Therefore, of them there is not what to live. Now Thomas replies here. Answer: It should be said that from those things which are manifestly alive, we are able to take of what things there is life, and of whom there is not life, right? Now this is the key thing. You got to be very careful here. To live belongs manifestly to what animals, huh?

[54:12] So it is said sometimes that life is hidden in the plants, right? Okay. And sometimes you're not sure whether a plant that hasn't been watered for a while or something is still alive or not, right? You say, "Oh, it's revived." You know, we forgot to water it. But sometimes it doesn't revive. Is that it's lost its life, right? But life in the animals is what manifest, right?

[54:40] That's interesting because the the word for soul in Latin is what anima, right? And the meaning of the word soul is that it's the first cause of life within a living body, right? So the fact that animal is named from anima, right, is a sign that life is more manifest in animals than in what plants. Even though we might use the term here, animate matter, you hear sometimes said even of the plants, right, which means literally matter has a soul.

[55:21] Okay. People talk about animals today without thinking of the fact that the word actually rose from anima, right? That's you know in harmony with what he's saying here, right?

[55:35] And therefore, in the first book of about the soul, Aristotle goes through all the opinions of his predecessors about what the soul is. And some of them investigated what the soul was through the fact of locomotion, going from one place to another. Others investigated what the soul was through what sensation, right? But those two things belong to the animals, not to the what plants, right? And that's because that's what's where life is manifest, right?

[56:08] You can see in the very history of Greece, right? What's marvelous about reading the Greeks is because they're the first philosophers, and so they're more apt to begin with what is more known to us. And we're we're lost because we begin by whoever professor we happen to have when we go to college, or whatever book we happen to pick up, and they could be talking about anything, right?

[56:32] And not beginning with what is most known. But those who first philosophize were apt to begin with what was more known to us. And so when they begin to investigate soul and life, they begin more with those things that pertain to the animals, right?

[56:51] Which is a sign now, but it's what's more known here. I'm going to stop pretty soon, I. Yeah, yeah, man. You could go to the body. Body, but with objections, okay. Um, once, um, according to that,

[57:12] once it's necessary to distinguish living things from non-living things, according as animals are said to what be alive, right? But this is that in which life is first manifested, and in which it last remains. For we first say that the animals live when it begins to move from itself, right? Quickening, they call it. And so long an animal is judged to live, so long as such motion appears in it.

[57:42] When it does not have from itself any motion, but is moved only by another, then the animal is said to be what dead, to the defect or failure of life. From which it is clear that those are properly living which move themselves according to some species of motion. Right. Now he's going to make a distinction here, right? Whether we take motion properly, and this is the definition of motion in the third book, Natural Hearing, that motion is the act of the imperfect, right?

[58:18] The act of what exists in potency, or whether we take motion more loosely, in so far as motion is said, even for the act of the what, perfect, in so far as what, to understand and to sense, they said to move. As you said, the third book of the Soul.

[58:40] And thus those things are called living which what act themselves, you might say, to motion or to some what operation like understanding or sensing. Those in whose nature it is not that they bring themselves to some motion operation cannot be called living except through some kind of what metaphorical likeness. So we'll come back to that body of of that article a little bit next time, and then go to the reply to the objections.