Prima Pars
75. Life in God (ST I q.18 a.3–4): Perfect Act, All Things as Life in God, and Moving On to the Divine Will
Class of 2007-03-22
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/075-life-in-god-st-i-q-18-a-3-4-perfect-act-all-things-as-life/

[0:00] Okay, let's look at the first objection here. God doesn't what move himself, right? Okay, now let's review a little bit here the the word act, right?

[0:20] In the ninth book of wisdom, where Aristotle takes up act and ability. He says act is first of all means motion, right? And you can see why that would be so for us, because our knowledge begins with our senses. And Shakespeare says, "Ulysses says, Ulysses says, in Troilus and Cressida things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs, huh? Okay. Now, in the middle part of the book on act and ability, Aristotle carries the word motion, or excuse me, the word act, over from motion to what form, right?

[1:17] And there he seems to do it by a proportion, right? So you can say that the wood is to the table before it's been formed, right? Something like the man is able to walk is to walking when he actually walks. So form is seems a kind of act, but a different kind of act than what motion, huh? Okay. Now Thomas, in one of the disputed questions, also points out another way of moving the word act here to form, and that is that form is the source of some motion or the end of some motion, right?

[2:02] Okay. So the word act is not purely equivocal, said of motion and of form. It can be said of form as well as motion, either like Aristotle does in the middle part of Book Nine by a likeness of ratios, right?

[2:28] Or as Thomas says in one disputed questions by the ratios of form to what motion. When you carry the word being over from say substance to quantity,

[2:45] well that's carried over by the ratio quantity to what substance? Quantity is the size of substance. Now perhaps you could later on carry the word act over to the being in the sense of the existence of something. Okay. But this is closer to motion, huh? In fact we, kind of no matter in form by taking a piece of clay and molding in different shapes, right? So you probably see form as act before we see being existence, but that would be a you know third extension, right?

[3:29] Now. for want of a better word, and Thomas often calls operatio right, But I can call simply. Doing is most like what motion, right? More so than like being, right? Okay. What's the difference between doing and motion, right? Partly a little problem here upon any of these things, right? But Aristotle, when he defines motion, he points out that motion is, is nature an imperfect act, right? Okay.

[4:19] So if you take walking home, right? Well, so long as you're walking home, your walking home is not complete yet, is it? And if your walking home is complete, you're at home now. Your walking home doesn't exist. So it's the very nature of walking home to be incomplete. And when I'm growing to be, you know, five foot ten, where my height is, probably shrinking now.

[4:57] I'm not yet that height, right? Okay. And when I have achieved that height, I'm not growing to be five foot ten, right? Okay. When I'm becoming hot, I'm not yet hot, right? And when I'm hot, I'm not becoming hot. So motion is essentially an imperfect act. And Aristotle, in the ninth book of Wisdom, contrasts that with an activity, right, that is complete or perfect, like sensing or understanding, right?

[5:34] So when I'm seeing you, have I seen you yet? Now, of course, our grammar kind of reflects motion more, right? That's why we speak of perfect, you know. so when I'm walking home, I haven't walked home yet. But when I'm seeing you, I have seen you, right? And when I understand what a triangle is, I have understood a triangle is. See? So it's a different kind of thing, right?

[6:01] But nevertheless, it's in some way like what motion, huh? Okay. And just as I can be sitting and then get up and walk home or something like that, right? So I can start what hearing Mozart's music or seeing the sunset or understanding something, right? So it's a kind of act, isn't it, right? But it differs from motion as being a kind of perfect act, right? Well, that's a kind of of activity that God does, right?

[6:33] Now, sometimes the word motion is given to that doing, right? Because of the proximity of this sense of act to motion. Why you wouldn't call form a motion? It's a little further removed, right? And Thomas will be talking about this, right?

[7:03] So let's look at the reply to the first objection here. The first, therefore, should be said that, as is said in the ninth book after the books in Natural Philosophy, there is a twofold what action or doing, right? One which Carries over into exterior matter, as to what heat something, to saw it, and so on, right?

[7:33] And another which remains in the doer, right? As to understand, to sense, and to will. Of which there is this difference: that the first action is not a what perfection of the agent that moves, but it's a perfecting of the moved, right? But the second action is a perfection of the agent.

[8:04] Whence, because motion is the act of the mobile, the second action, in so far as is an act of the one doing, is called as motion. From this likeness, that just as motion is the act of the mobile, so this kind of action is the act of the agent, right? Although motion is the act of the imperfect, right? Namely, it's the act of what exists in potency huh Well first of all its full definition in the third book of the

[8:42] natural hearing, the physics, is that it's the act of what is able to be, in so far as it's able to be. Bring that imperfection

[8:52] in. But this other action is the act of the perfect, right? That is, something existing in act, as is said in the third book about the soul.

[9:08] Now, in this way, in which intelligere is a motion, that's kind of a different use of the word. What understands itself is said to what move itself, right? And this is the way Plato spoke. Aristotle also often points this out. And in this way, also Plato laid down that God loves himself, because he what understands and loves himself, right? Okay. Now, notice, huh? To say that God understands himself or loves himself, or even to say that I understand myself or I love myself, understand and love are what grammatically speaking verbs, right?

[9:54] And verbs signify with time, and time is the measure of the before and after, the number of the before and after in motion. So grammatically, right? You can see a certain connection between saying I moved the book and understood myself. In both cases, you have a verb that signifies with time. And therefore, it's like motion, right? But strictly speaking, the activity of understanding something might not be spread out in time, right?

[10:33] And therefore, you have this kind of an odd situation where you say that when I'm understanding what a triangle is, I have understood already what a triangle is. When I'm loving somebody, I have already loved him, right?

[10:49] Why the first is a more perfect verb, right? Because when I'm walking home, I haven't yet walked home. When I'm building a house, I haven't built the house yet, right? Okay.

[11:04] So, in this way, Plato lays down that God moves Himself, not in that way in which motion is an act of the what imperfect, right?

[11:16] So you see, kind of, you know, you know, in the fact that we do signify my let's take me, my understanding myself or loving myself, that we signify the act of understanding and the act of loving by a verb, right? And a verb, as we were saying earlier in the class, you know, in the Peri Hermeneias, is a name that signifies with time, and time is a measure of motion.

[11:46] And see how he can speak sometimes of understanding and loving, therefore, as being what? Yeah, like motion, but you're kind of extending the word, okay? And you wouldn't be apt to do that with with form.

[12:07] Wouldn't signify the form with a a verb so much, would you? You might speak of I'm forming the matter, right? But then that's the motion, right? You see, I wouldn't speak of the form in the verb, right?

[12:23] That kind of shows the proximity of understanding and loving and sensing to motion, right? But yet the difference that the motion is a what in the strict sense is an imperfect act, right? And this other is a perfect act,

[12:42] but less known to us, right? So be sitting there thinking about something deeply, you know. Now that you're not doing anything, could you give me a hand with this?

[12:55] I told you the joke about the one professor was saying, you know, his wife kind of understands he's a professor, so I'm going to refer to this reading or thinking, you know. So as long as he's reading and going up, you know, like that, Then when he stops and he thinks about what he's read, you know. Then she doesn't see any outward sign of activity. So now is the time to come in with her small talk or something.

[13:22] It's kind of a funny situation, a parental situation, But it's hidden, right? You see, but he's doing maybe his most important stuff now. He's absorbing what he's read and thinking about it, right?

[13:44] So you know, Thomas will say in other places when Plato says that God moves Himself and what moves itself moves other things, right? He doesn't say something really different from Aristotle, who says that God is the unmoved mover, right? Because when God, Aristotle says God is unmoved mover, he's using motion in the strict sense as the act of the imperfect, right? Well, when Plato says God moves Himself, he means he what understands and loves Himself.

[14:24] Now, the second thing here, notice in the bodies that we know that are alive, there's a beginning or cause of their life. But God is his very what existence and his very act of understanding, and so it's his own what to live, right?

[14:48] And in account of this, he lives thus that he does not have a what source or cause of his life. Then he have a source or cause of himself. So God's life is much different than our life, right? Our life, even our natural life, right? For sure our supernatural life has a beginning or cause, right? Even the even the beatific vision there, right? There's a light of glory, it's called, right?

[15:18] Which is the source of that. God doesn't have any source of himself, no beginning of himself, no cause of himself. Now, life as we know it in living bodies always presupposes this fundamental life that even the plants have, right? Why doesn't God have this here? To the third, it should be said that life in these lower things in these bodies that we know is received in a what corruptible nature, right?

[15:57] Which needs both what generation for the conservation of the species and food for the conservation of the individual. And account to this, in these lower things, there has never found life without the what?

[16:18] Yeah, living soul, right? But this does not have place, of course, in incorruptible things. Little break here now. Yeah. That's Isidore. Isidore, get him right now.

[16:35] Or is Isidore? Let's look at Article Four here, huh? Whether all things are life in God. This sounds a little strange, but the way they punctuate the text, right, of Saint John.

[17:01] And if you look at the sed contra there, that's where that thing arose. Quod factum est, right? What was made? In ipso vita erat, right? Okay. And of course, we have a little note in mind. Maybe your text there too, right? A different place you punctuate there, you know. It says, thus Thomas reads with the Latin Fathers Augustine, Jerome, and others, Chrysostom and the other Greek Fathers read sine sine ipso factum est, nihil factum est, at ibi puncto posito, right?

[17:43] Okay. This is a thing that arises because of the text, but that's not so much important as to whether it's true or not, right? Okay. Is being said in that particular text or not? Okay. To the fourth one proceeds thus, It seems that all things are not life in what God. For it is said in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter seventeen, in Him we live and move and are.

[18:11] It's always a very interesting text. But not all things in God are what motion. Therefore, not all things in Him are what life. Moreover, all things are in God as in the first exemplar. But the things exemplified ought to conform to the exemplar, right?

[18:42] Since, therefore, not all things live in themselves, it seems that not all things in God are life. How can a stone be life in God and not be life in itself?

[18:58] Moreover, Augustine says in the book about true religion that the living substance is better than any non-living substance. So a tree is better than a stone. If, therefore, those things which in themselves do not live in God are life, it seems that they are what. More truly, things in God, right?

[19:29] It seems that more truly are things in God than in themselves, which nevertheless seems to be false, since in themselves they are in act, right? In God only in ability, act of ability.

[19:47] More, just as good things are what known by God, and those things which come to be in some time, so also bad things and those things which God is able to do but never come about. If therefore all things are life in God in so far as they are known by Him, it seems that also bad things and things which never come to be are life in God in so far as they are known by Him, which seems unsuitable, unfitting.

[20:27] But against this is the text that Latin fathers read it: that what was made in Him was what life. But all things apart from God are made; therefore, all things in God are life. Quod erat demonstrandum. I answer: It should be said, as has been said above, that the to live of God or the life of God is His what to understand. For in God are the same the understanding and what is understood and the understanding itself.

[21:09] Whence whatever is in God is understood is His very what to live in His or His very life. Since therefore all things which are made by God are in Him as understood, it follows that all things in Him are the divine life itself.

[21:31] Divine life in God. Okay. Now the first text is an interesting one from the Acts. To the first, therefore, it should be said that creatures are said to be in God in two ways.

[21:54] Now there we get back to the different meanings of being in, right? What two senses is he going to distinguish here? In one way, in so far as they are contained and conserved in the divine what power, just as we say those things are in us which are in our power, right? And that is the what seventh seventh sense of in in the fourth book of natural here.

[22:36] And in this way, creatures are said to be in God, even in so far as they are in their own what natures, because they still depend upon things. Yeah. I know, nature. We sometimes say, you know,

[22:52] it's out of my hands. It's no longer in my what power, right? Yeah. And in this way should be understood the word of the apostle. Now he calls what Saint Paul by antonomasia the apostle. So I guess Saint Paul has the rank of what apostle, you know. So think of that, but he wasn't the twelfth guy elected, Matthias, But Thomas will say that Saint Paul and Saint Peter are called the apostles by antonomasia I noticed that John Paul II used to call them the princes of the apostles, right?

[23:31] This and so we have a feast there. You know, that was a married day, June 29th. Right, feast of Peter and Paul, right in Rome, you know. And of course you see the prominence of those two of the other four of the basilicas, right? Saint Peter's and Saint Paul's. So this is the way we should understand: in Him we what live and move and are, right? Seventh sense of in.

[24:00] Because are to live and are to be and are, you know, our motion is caused by what God. But in another way, things are said to be in God, as in a what nowhere.

[24:19] That's not one of the eight senses the Aristotle distinguishes, right? But it might be you know run off one of them, right? Maybe the form and matter or something. Sorry, that's a different sense, nevertheless. And thus things are in God through their proper reasons, which are not other in God from His very what divine nature. Whence things, in so far as they are in God, thus are the divine essence.

[24:53] And because the divine essence is life, not our motion. Hence it is that things, in this way of speaking, are in God not motion but what life. Okay. Now, if you look at that first argument as an objection, right, to things being in God, right. What kind of mistake is being made in that if you try to take it as an objection to the truth of the body of the article?

[25:26] Yeah, which the philosopher says is the most common mistake. This is in the book, and it says reputation, is, the most common mistake made in men's thinking. Huh? So that's nice, huh?

[25:46] How about you have a commentary? Thomas has just done that for us, you know. In particular, I mean, there's all hints about it, you know, but I'd like to see it. This in him we live and live, and have our being? Yeah, yeah. Because you know we were talking before in the earlier article about to be and to live are the same thing, there, right? In the living thing, right?

[26:09] Or that to live is, you know. But how's this to be taken? This text, if it's distinguished from sumus, right? He doesn't have anything on his commentaries. He doesn't have a commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. Oh, I see. Yeah, St. Chrysostom's got a homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, but Thomas doesn't have a commentary on that. That's funny. If you look at this, would show some. Well, I mean, it does.

[26:38] It shows up here. I mean, it shows up many places, but I mean, I mean, it's just I don't think I got a full explanation of it yet.

[26:54] Without me, you can do nothing. Okay. The second objection that all things are in God is in the first exemplar, and the things exemplared should be conformed to exemplar, right?

[27:20] Now, to the second, it should be said that the exemplata, the things exemplared, ought to be conformed to the exemplar according to the what notion of their form, not according to their way of what being.

[27:40] For sometimes a form has other being in the exemplar and in the exemplared, just as the form of the house in the mind of the artist has immaterial and understandable being, right? But in the house which is outside the soul, it has sensible and material being. Whence the reasons of things which in themselves do not live

[28:13] are life in the divine mind, because in the divine mind they have the divine what being, which is the divine life. So. On the third objection, moreover, as Augustine says in the book on True Religion, the living substance is better than the non-living one. If therefore those things in themselves are not living, are life in God, it seems that truer are things in God than in themselves.

[28:52] Okay. To the third, it should be said that if the meaning or the definition of natural things matter was not a part, but only form, in all ways, in a more true way, natural things would be in the divine mind through their forms than in themselves,

[29:19] on account of which Plato laid down that the separated man was a true man, but the material man is man by what partaking, right? That's kind of assuming that the matter is something outside what a man is. And it's Aristotle's taxonomy for this in the seventh book of Wisdom, right? But because it is of the definition of natural things, matter is of the definition of matter, material things, it should be said, huh, that natural things have truer being simply in the divine mind than in themselves, because in the divine mind they have uncreated being, huh, in themselves they have what created being, huh.

[30:12] So we have more being in God than in ourselves. But to be this, as for example a man or a horse, has itself more truly in its own nature than in the divine mind, huh? Because to the truth of man pertains the material which it doesn't have in the divine mind. Just as a house has more noble being in the mind of the artist than in matter, but nevertheless more truly, is the house said to be, which is in matter, than that which is in the mind, because this is a house in act, that is a house in what potency, huh?

[31:04] Okay. So I'm more truly a man in myself than I am truly a man in God, right? Nevertheless, I have in God more being than I have in myself. Saint Saint Ignatius of Antioch,

[31:28] and I don't know you have to look me near the Greek and see where it is exactly, but it's translated something like that. He's longings for martyrdom, yeah, because he wants to get to the the light of God. Because when I get there, then I'll truly be a man. Yeah. When I get there. Just strange. Gotta be careful about that. Yeah.

[31:49] Now the fourth one is arguing from the questions of the bad, right? To the fourth, it should be said that although bad things are in the knowledge of God, in so far as they are comprehended by the divine knowledge, they are not, however, in God as created by God, right? Or as preserved by Him, nor as things having a what definition or reason in God, for they are known by God through the notions of the good things, huh?

[32:27] Whence it cannot be said that bad things are life in God. Okay, so that's important thing to be said, huh? Sin is not life in God. Better get up, okay?

[32:49] But this goes back to what Thomas said about, you know, how the bad things are known by God, right? And it's due to their defect that they're known through good things, rather than through themselves. It's due to the defect of blindness that's known through sight, but sight can be known without blindness. But blindness cannot be known without sight, right? So the bad is known through the good.

[33:16] Now those things which are not in any time can be said to be life in God, according as to live names to understand only, right? In so far as they understood by God, not in so far as what to live implies in principle of operation, right? Okay.

[33:43] So now we can understand I am the way, the truth, and the life, right? What would you say is the dark? Would you explain that? I am the way, the truth, and the life.

[34:02] No. The way refers to the humanity and the truth and the life of through the divinity. Yeah. And they're tied together because of close relation between life and truth. Yeah, that you can see right here, right? Because if you look at this whole section here, you can see that the life here is part of the consideration of the divine what knowledge, right?

[34:54] If you go back to the the prooemium there at the beginning of question fourteen, right? After consideration of those things which pertain to the divine substance, it remains to consider about those things which pertain to the operation of Him, right? So I sometimes call, you know, the questions we read before the ones about knowing and naming God, right? That's the treatise on the substance of God, right?

[35:20] From what he says here, and then he takes up the operations of God, even though they're the same thing, right? But starting from creatures, the different things. And because the operation,

[35:33] because there's a certain operation which remains in the one doing, right? Certain that proceed in exterior effect. First we ought to consider about what. His knowledge and his will, for to understand is in the one understanding, and to will in the one willing. And afterwards, we'll talk about the potency of God, right? So he's dividing these two against the potency of God, right? Which is considered as the beginning of the divine operation proceeding to an exterior effect.

[36:09] But then, quia vero intelligere, right? Because to understand is a certain what to live. After the consideration of the divine knowledge, we're not to consider about the divine life, right? He's kind of tying the two together, right?

[36:27] But then you can add that what. The second person is said to be truth itself and life itself. There's a kind of appropriation there, right? Yeah. Because everything that you have before you get the Trinity here is common to the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Yeah. So God, the Father, would say, "I am life itself. I am truth itself," and the Holy Spirit could say that too.

[36:58] But when we appropriate something essential to one person, right, it's because of a certain likeness between what is prior to that person, right, and that essential attribute. So because the Son proceeds by way of God understanding Himself, He proceeds as the Word of God, right, the thought of God, right.

[37:30] Then truth, which is tied up with knowing and thought, right, and life, which is tied up with thought. If you link those two together, right, then they can be appropriated to what the Word of God, the Son of God, okay. There's also by way the example you could

[37:54] speak of the Father as life, as our Lord says in the fifth chapter of John's Gospel: "it belongs to the Father, he has life in Himself." Yeah. So also. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it shows it not being, you know, said privately him, but by appropriation, right? Okay. Now it's kind of interesting when I grew up, you know, that text was often used by the popes, I think, and in the catechisms they were divided into three rather than two.

[38:29] And then they would teach, you know, with him as truth, they would teach the catechism. I mean, teach the the creed and so on, right? What you believe. And then as life, they would teach the the sacraments and that sort of thing, right? And then as way, they would teach the commandments, right, and so on, so that it's kind of the three attributes of God. He's King, right, and therefore commanding us to do certain things and not to do some things.

[39:02] He's priest, you know, and then he's what giving us life, you know, the sacraments, and then he's what a teacher, right, or prophet or teacher, right, and and then he's giving us the truth, right. See. So that's kind of interesting, right? And I see them used, you know, over and over again. Did you, when you were little, in catechisms and so on? It's kind of a textual quote, right?

[39:28] Kind to back up. This division of Christian doctrine into what three? And when I got older, and I was reading Thomas, as we saw in the beginning here, and he's following Augustine, says the same thing, huh? You distinguish the sense of the letter and the spiritual sense, right?

[39:54] And but then both Thomas and Augustine say that there can be more than one sense of the letter. I don't know if it's talked that much now. Is you know, but this seems to be the example of it, right? Yeah. Now, when I come back to the the context in the Gospel of of Saint John where this is said, right? And I believe it's when Philip or somebody is asking, you know, Christ, says, you know, you know where I am going and how to get there and so on.

[40:29] Well, you don't know, and so he's answering two questions, right? And when he says I am the road, he's telling us how to get there, but where he's trying to get is to what truth itself and life, right? So to divide it into two, right, according to human nature, Christ and divine nature of Christ, right? Maybe fits the context more, right? But still, you have this other one that is used a lot.

[40:58] I think it's more interesting, kind of the one in the context itself, and this cast light upon that. So you could, at this point, you know, stop and quote that, and then talk about how these two things are appropriated to the second person. And then when you get to the tertia part, you know Thomas will quote the idea that you know this is about Christ, who as man is the road to to God, the Father Okay.

[41:33] So now we've got to go on to the what divine will. I don't know if we should do that today, but let's just look at the little proemium here. Of course, interesting, huh? I think when you study the Trinity, huh? As you'll see, Thomas will be saying this.

[41:57] We have more names for the procession of the Son than we have for the procession of the Holy Spirit. We don't have a name for it, and we have more proper names for the Son than for the Holy Spirit, right? And this is we name things as we know them, right? So that the, in some sense, the procession of the Son seems to be more known, right?

[42:22] Yeah. But I suppose here, you know, the fact you take up the mind first before the will, maybe it's more. No right, huh? No. That would be kind of analogous doesn't it So after the consideration of those things which pertain to the divine knowledge, we're not to consider about those things which pertain to the divine will. So that first there would be a consideration about the divine will itself.

[42:53] Secondly, about those things which what pertain to the will absolutely, right? And then third, those things which pertain to the intellect in order to the what? Will now, what the heck does that mean? Okay.

[43:17] Well, nineteen here is about the will of God, right? And twenty is about what? Love of God. The love of God, right? Okay. And this is look at the premium there to twenty. Then we're not to consider about those things which absolutely pertain to the will of God, huh? Okay, so this is the second of the three parts he gave in the first premium, right? Now he says, in the desiring power there is found in us both the passions of the soul as joy, love, and so on, and the habits of the moral virtues.

[44:10] Whence first we're not to consider about the love of God. These things that went out, out. Secondly, about the justice of God and the mercy of God, like the the virtues of God, right? Huh? Okay.

[44:28] So twenty and twenty-one are dealing with the absolute, right? What pertains to the will absolutely? Okay. Now, question what twenty-two? Okay, now this is the third part of the original distinction, right? Having considered those things which absolutely pertain to the will, we're not to proceed to those things which regard at once or together the understanding and the will, right?

[45:10] And of this sort is what providence, right? With respect to all things, predestination and reprobation, and the things which follow upon these with respect to man, especially in order to eternal life.

[45:30] So, okay. Takes him down again to twenty-four, and then he takes up the divine power after that, huh? But the divine power looks back to the original division, right? Where he divided understanding and willing against the making of the divine power, right? Because the one is a is a doing that remains in the doer, right? And the other one goes out, right? Okay. Now,

[46:17] let's go back to that that first distinction a little bit. How do How do you express this in English, right? Well, fuckin' monkeys. Okay.

[46:43] What I would say in English is I would divide doing into doing and making. Want to be a bit wordy. Okay. Now, how can you divide something into itself? What's the What's the principle naming here that we have? Something that keeps its name because nothing's added. Nothing's added. Yeah. Now,

[47:26] although this act is more perfect than that, huh? Yet there's something that stands out about making, right? Yeah. And that is that you have a product apart from the making, right? Yeah. Okay. While in the doing, remaining the doer, there's no product, right? Okay.

[47:48] I remember seeing an advertisement years ago on U. S. News. You know, production-minded men, you know, production-minded, right? You know. So it's kind of interesting example of this, right? Because the imperfect one, in a sense, has something in addition to the the doing itself, and therefore it gets a new name because there's something made, huh? Right. But the doing doesn't, right? Okay. So, as far as God is concerned, under this, we consider his what?

[48:31] Understanding. And his willing and loving, right? The word he's going to emphasize there, right? But then he gets down to I think it's Article, I mean, Question twenty four. I think it is the power of God, right? Then he's going to be talking about this activity, right? Okay. Now, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? He takes up the understanding and the willing of God in the first book, right?

[49:07] And then the second book, he goes back and points out this distinction and says, for a full knowledge of God, you have to go about this doing as well as that doing. And then he takes up this doing and talks about God making the universe and all those things, right? But it's this is in the second book. This is in the first book, right? But here it's all in the what?

[49:33] First book, right? Okay. And the way Thomas speaks there too, he's going to talk about the divine providence in the what? The third book, right? Okay. Well, here he seems to be taking up the providence with the understanding and the willing as kind of involving both of them, right? I suppose you could look at providence in a couple ways. Maybe you could you could think of you know God's plan in His mind and so on, and that remains within God.

[50:07] But if you take God as what guiding us, then providence seems to be what having an exterior effect, right? He's leading us, right? You know. So

[50:22] Thomas will talk in the second book of the Summa Contra Gentiles about God making the universe, and then the third book about His conserving us in existence and ordering things, right? Okay. But you'll see that as being kind of having an exterior effect, right? So a little subtle differences here, you know. A little puzzling, but divine providence is very interesting. Let's see. You you looked at St.

[50:50] Catherine of Siena's book, you know, it's on divine providence, or one of the parts is on divine providence. I've often, you know, wondered why the Dominicans down there in what island they call Providence College Was that from the town or because of the the order, you know, they have some emphasis upon that. The Dominicans, you know, used to be known for for putting their men in the right spot.

[51:18] You know, they know what you're best at, what you're best at. You know, that's providence. That's the practical foresight. When you read the treatise on providence,

[51:37] there in the secunda secunda, and Thomas talks about the integral parts of prudence, and one of them is called providencia, right? And I guess the Latin word prudencia is contraction of providence. So one of the objections is, well, this is this is the whole thing; it can't be a part, right? And Thomas says, well, we name it from the what principal part.

[52:07] So you might translate, you know, prudencia instead of prudence, which is kind of Latin word, by foresight, huh? Now you know some of the better writers, even you know, Winston Churchill will speak of foresight, you know, more than prudence, and it kind of describes this, huh? So divine foresight.

[52:30] That's kind of what Abraham indicates when he goes to take up his son Isaac. Yeah. And Isaac says, "Where's the land? God will God will provide." But they said that's why they named the mountain. Yeah. God will see. I forget. I don't know exactly how to translate the Hebrew, but it has to do with God seeing, yeah, because He will provide the land. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of amazing God's foresight, you know.

[52:59] Arranges things for us, you know. Somebody, I saw somebody the other day was saying, you know, so he's got an urge to do to do this or that, you know, that you know, to learn this, you know, and then all of a sudden he sees that yeah, I needed to do this, right? He was brushing up on his Spanish or something, you know. And all of a sudden he's he's called upon, you know, to be in a context where he had to be using Spanish.

[53:25] But what moved him to to take up Spanish, right? You see, you know, it's not the most pleasant thing in the world to do, maybe.

[53:36] But all of a sudden, you know, he he needs this, you know, and so you know, God is arranging these things, maybe, huh? Maybe guardian angel, you know. I mean, Thomas talks about how sometimes, you know, you're illuminated as to why you should do this, other time just that you should do it, and you can't say why. I just I just know I should do it. It's kind of interesting, huh?

[53:58] God works these things out. They used to make the proportion, you know, that God is to our events, like the dramatist is to the events of the characters, right? He arranges them so they make a interesting thing, you know. But it's beyond anybody in the play to see the whole thing, right?