Prima Pars
83. Part 2: Whether God always loves the better more, and the justice of God (Q.20, a.4 – Q.21, a.1)
Class of 2007-05-03
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/083-part-2-whether-god-always-loves-the-better-more-and-the-justice/

[0:00] Now the fourth article, kind of connected with the third here, with that God always loves more the better. Okay. To the fourth, one proceeds thus: It seems that God is not does not always love more the better. For it is manifest that Christ is better than the whole human race, since he's both God and man. But God more loves the human race than Christ, because it is said in Romans chapter eight, he did not take what?

[0:38] Pity, you might say, on his own son, but he handed him over for all of us, right? Therefore, God does not always love more the what? Better. Of course, Thomas is not going to admit that. God, what?

[0:57] Yeah. Moreover, an angel is better than man. Whence in Psalm eight is said about man, you have made him little less than the angels, huh? It's one of my favorite psalms, huh? Thomas has a beautiful explanation of it there.

[1:21] He talks about both man and the son of man, then he speaks about how he's made him a little less than the angels, and it can be said one way of all of us, and in a different way about Christ because of his passion, especially and things of that sort. Then later on, it says he made us above the birds and the fish and the beasts. Well, for us, he's taking those things properly, and then the son of man gets over what?

[1:49] Metaphorically, where the the beasts are those who are taken up with the lust of the eyes, and the birds with the lust of the eye. I mean, with the pride of life, and then the fish who are tied up with the commerce of the sea, the lust of the eyes. That threefold distinction. You've got a beautiful text, huh? So,

[2:16] but he's taking that. He's quoting that beautiful psalm there because of he's saying, well, man is not quite as good an angel. He's a little bit less than an angel, quite a bit less, especially this whole thing. But God loves more man than the angel, because it is said in Hebrews two, never did he take hold of the angels, but he took hold of the seed of Abraham.

[2:42] Therefore, God does not always love more the better. It's a good objection. Yeah. Moreover, Peter was better than what John, because he loved Christ more. I was, you know, reading that in the in the golden chain there, you know, when Christ first says, "Do you love me?" What more than these? And when Peter replies, he doesn't say, "Yes, I do love you more than these." He just says, "You know, I love you."

[3:17] He doesn't assert that primacy, huh? Christ in the beginning, right? But nevertheless, Christ loves John more than Peter. By this sign, John is discerned or distinguished from the others, that not only him, but that he loved him more than what the others, right? Okay, so he's spoken of sometimes as a disciple whom God loved, right? Or Jesus loved. Therefore, he does not always love more than what Better.

[4:09] Moreover, better is the innocent than the one penitent, for penance is a second what plank after shipwreck, as says Jerome. But God more loves the penitent one than the innocent one, because He rejoices more about him, as is said in Luke fifteen. For I say to you that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner doing penance than over ninety-nine just ones who do not need penance.

[4:44] Therefore, God does not always love the better, or say objections, huh? Yeah. In my footnotes, you know, in the Marietta edition, if you have this, but they give you know, parallel readings, you know, to other parts of Thomas. But the only parallel reading they give, of course, by Article four, here's in the third sentences, third book of sentences, distinction thirty one, and distinction thirty two there. But this,

[5:19] moreover, better is a what just one preknown than a sinner predestined. But God more loves the sinner predestined because He wishes to him a greater good, to wit, eternal life. Therefore, God does not always love more the better. Okay. What a minus that was, yeah. But against this, each thing loves more what is like itself, right? Okay. So I was talking about the English word like, you know how it's kind of,

[6:00] can name love, kind of broad word for love, that is intensest love, and it can also mean likeness, similitude. So, Thomas in the question on the causes of love, the first cause it gives of love is the good, and then second cause it gives is knowledge, but it's kind of tied with the first one, the good is known, and then really kind of difference is likeness, right?

[6:26] That's kind of interesting to contrast those two, right? And I think I mentioned one time I was at the Passion Monastery one day on a Sunday and had a little book thing, and I picked up a copy of Wuthering Heights, right? And it was kind of interesting for teaching the love and friendship chorus because in Wuthering Heights this woman is drawn to two men, one man because he's good, the other man because he's like her.

[7:00] And it's kind of interesting because you have personified or concretized, you might say, these two causes of love, which is stronger, right? Of course, the way the novel goes, she's attracted more to the person who is what like her than to the person is good, right? But it kind of brings out that they're distinct causes of love. Monsignor Dionne was talking about that one time in terms of a teacher, right?

[7:25] Sometimes you're drawn to a teacher as a person, one teacher more than another teacher, right? But the other teacher might be what better, right? Okay. And I always remember my mother talking about doctors, you know, sometimes you like a doctor's manner, you like the person of the doctor, but maybe he's not the best doctor, right? He's not the guy who's going to really cure you or find out what's wrong with you or whatever it is, you know.

[7:49] And so you can't exactly choose a doctor by by personality, huh? But some people do that, right, in a sense, huh? And maybe you shouldn't teach choose a teacher by personality or something, right? But who you think is is more knowing or something, you know?

[8:13] So, but against this, each one loves what is like itself, as is clear, and this is a famous text always quoted in Ecclesiastes,Because every animal loves what is like itself, but in so far as something is better, it is more like God. Therefore, they are more loved by God. Right? Okay.

[8:40] Thomas replies very briefly. I answer is necessary. It should be said that it is necessary to say, according to the things said before, that God more loves the better things.

[8:58] For it has been said that for God to love more something is nothing other than to will a greater good to it. For the will of God is the cause of goodness in things. And thus, from the fact that some things are better, God wills to them a what greater good. Whence it follows necessarily, might say that he loves more the better things. That's pretty simple, right?

[9:28] To the point, right? See, if you realize that God's it's not like us, you know, to say I might not love more what is better, and that might be because what is better is not so well known to me, right? Or it could be because it's not like me and something like that. But these are causes of my love, right? But in the case of God, God's love is the cause of whatever goodness there is in the creature.

[9:57] So, if one creature or thing is better than another, God must love it more in the sense that he what wills a greater good for it, right? That's what it means to say God loves this more than that. It doesn't mean he more intensely loves this than that, but he wills a greater good to this than to that. Do you see? That was a thing he made in the previous article.

[10:23] So, how are we going to put all the sinful people in hell? Since he loves everyone equal. he still loves them as far as they are in hell. Yeah.

[10:37] That's why he hates death. God, that's why he hates death. Well, I was meeting somebody the other day. So, a light reading there, and I forget where he was. Some place in Italy it was, and there was a last judgment scene, right? And there's many more people on the left going down, on the right, you know. The guy just kind of surmises what the painter must have thought, right?

[11:06] So, a little frightening, huh? So, it represents that way. Okay, now the first one is about which does he love more, Christ or the human race?

[11:21] To the first, it should be said that God loves Christ, not only more than the whole human race, but even more than the whole universe of what creatures, huh? Why does he say that? Because he willed to him a greater good, huh? For he gave to him the name which is above every name, Philippians two nine, that he would be what the true God.

[11:52] Nor to this excellence does it what diminish from the fact that God gave him in death for the salvation of the human race. Because from this he was made a glorious what. Conqueror. Victor, yeah.

[12:12] For he was made what. A prince over his what. Yeah. Okay. Now sometimes the question is raised there about loving yourself and so on, and you know, say greater love than this hath no man than he laid down his life for his friends, huh? So if I lay down my life for you, do I love you more than myself?

[12:41] See. More than a part of it. Yeah, yeah, but if the good of the body was the greatest good, then I'd love you more than myself, right? But if the good of the soul is the greater good, then I'm willing for me this noble act, right?

[13:02] I sacrificing myself for you. And willing to you bodily life, so I'm willing to get a greater good for myself than for you, right? Even though to the multitude it doesn't what appear that way, right? But you know we're used to the the paradoxes and Socrates' positions, right? Socrates says, "Is it worse to to rob or to be robbed? " See. And even if I raise up in class and as I'm teaching, college, I say, "Would you rather steal twenty dollars from some other student, or have twenty dollars stolen from you?

[13:43] " And well, if the students are you know honest, who they they probably say they'd rather you know steal twenty dollars from another person. What's he gonna say, right? But in the one case you're suffering in the loss of an exterior good, you're suffering loss of twenty dollars. Other case you're suffering injustice, right? Right. Okay. Then that's one of Socrates' positions, right? It's better to have injustice done to you than to do injustice, right?

[14:13] And. Then Socrates says, and if you've done something wrong, is it better to get caught, not to get caught? If you rob the bank, right? Better to get caught, not to get caught. Socrates says, better to get caught, because you're going to be punished in your body or freedom and so on, but your soul might get straightened out, right? If you don't get caught, your soul will just corrupt and have this money, but your soul will be corrupt.

[14:43] So, Socrates' positions, paradoxical as they are, follow reasonably from his saying that the goods of the soul are much better than the goods of the body, and even those are better than the exterior goods, right?

[14:58] So it's better for me to suffer something in my body and a forfeiture in my exterior goods, a loss in them, diminution of those, if it's going to help my soul, right? The last words of Socrates in the court, you know, kind of strange, he says, but you know, my sons do wrong, punish them. He's asking that, right? He crazy? No, that's what you'd want if you realize that the good of the soul is so much better, right?

[15:29] That's what Democritus had a saying about the best sort of a precept, I guess, which is the father can leave to his children his own self-control. Yeah. Good example.

[15:50] Okay, so so there's a lot of objections. People seem to be loving something more than another, right? Second objection here: the angel is better than man, right? But he became a man.

[16:17] The second should be said that the human nature assumed by the what word of God in the person of Christ, God loves more than what all the angels, right? And it is better, most of all, by reason of the union.

[16:44] But that's kind of a special thing, right? But in speaking of human nature in general, even comparing it to the angel, right? According to the order to what grace and glory, there is found what equality. Equality. For since there is the same measure of man and the angel, as said in Apocalypse twenty-one seventeen. That's very interesting. A text. Thus, that some angels than some men, and also some men than some angels, as regards this, are found what more potent.

[17:27] But according as the condition of their nature is concerned, the angels better than the man. But not for that reason did God assume human nature, because he what loved absolutely more man, but because he was more what more need.

[17:55] Just as the good head of the family gives something more precious to the sick servant than he gives to the healthy son. Okay, that's kind of interesting. Interesting thing.

[18:12] Now there are other reasons too why he couldn't assume an angel, right? Because each angel is of its own kind. So you'd be eliminating, you know, that angel from the universe. But man, you could have many men of the same nature. There's reasons why man is more redeemable than the angels. When they go, the whole angel goes. That's it.

[18:41] But we're kind of, you know, back and forth. Yeah, we are. Now the next one is the famous thing about Peter and John. I'm always finding very interesting, you know, the friendship of Peter and John that you have in the scene in the Gospel of John. And

[19:06] the golden chain there. I'm gonna do some discussion. You know, why Peter says, "What about the other guy, though? " You know, you know, whether whether John is is too shy to ask, or Peter is so concerned about his friend, you know, and so on. But Thomas here is not going to be too definitive about finally saying that. To the third, it should be said that this doubt about Peter and John is solved in many ways.

[19:39] For Augustine refers this to a mystery, saying that the active life, which is signified by Peter, more loves God than the contemplative life, life, which is signified by John, because it more what feels the pressures of the present life, and it desires more heatedly, more to be liberated from them and to go to God.

[20:16] But God loves more the contemplative life because He more concerns it, for it does not come to an end with the life of the body as the active life does. So you know the famous words there. Mary has chosen the better part, meaning contemplative life. It shall not be taken away from her because it will continue and be perfected in its life by the active life that Martha has is going to be gone.

[20:42] Okay. I used to tell the students sometimes and they'd say, "Well, you better get the act of life. in while you're in this world, you get the contemplative life in the next world. "

[20:54] But he also says the better life. Um. Some say that Peter loved Christ more in the members, right, being in the church as a whole, and thus also he was more loved by what Christ. Whence he commended to him or put him in charge, you might say, of the church, right? But John loved Christ more in himself. And thus he was more loved by Christ, whence he commended to him his mother.

[21:31] Again, it's more personal. Others say it is uncertain which of these loved Christ more by the love of charity, and similarly which one God loved more in order to the greater glory of eternal life. But Peter is said to have loved more as regards his promptitude and fervor. John more loved as regards certain what signs of familiarity, which Christ more showed to him on account of his youth and what purity.

[22:11] Trying to figure out that text, Thomas says at the beginning of the Gospel of John, he has this text of Jerome, right, which he comments on the Proem John, and Jerome seems to be saying, you know, at the wedding feast of Cana, that's when John adhered to Christ, right? It's not clear whether Jerome is saying that he's the young man whose wedding day was supposed to be.

[22:36] Yeah, that's what Jerome seems to be saying, doesn't he? Which I find a little bit strange because if that was the day of the wedding, or the day, the week of the wedding, or ever was, the man would have been already married, right? And therefore he could very well go to Christ, right? Uh unless he could get his wife to agree to him abandoning her. But the emphasis upon the the purity of uh of him, right?

[23:04] But I mean, like like we we do hear about Peter's what mother-in-law, right? Who's cured by Christ, so he must have been married at one time, Peter, right? Why there's no evidence that John was ever what married, no.

[23:21] Others say that Christ more loved Peter as regards the excellence of the gift of what charity, right? But John more as regards the gift of what understanding,

[23:36] whence simply Peter was better and more loved, but John secundum quid. But Thomas ends up the whole discussion by saying presumptuosum tamen videtur. It seems our presumptuous to judge this, right? Because this is said in the Book of Proverbs, chapter sixteen, verse two: "The way of the spirits is the Lord, and no no one else." What's Thomas's answer? It's presumptuous.

[24:09] It's interesting, though, how how Peter and Saint Paul are called by Antonomasia, the apostles, right? And you know how the Church of Rome, of course, is founded upon Peter and Paul, and they they're associated in the feast of Peter and Paul, right? But also, you know, John Paul II would call Peter and Paul the princes of the apostles, right? So, you've got to bring Paul into this discussion too.

[24:42] It's actually more complicated, right? But meaning Peter and Paul put at the top of the apostles, and then Peter's put ahead of John, yeah, yeah. So, what does it say? It's all said and done. I guess it says I don't want to judge if I do what I want to err, you know.

[25:06] But anyway, you could say you know that I think it's interesting to see, to me, the friendship of Peter and John, and the it continues into the Acts of the Apostles, right? That you have this association of the two of them.

[25:21] Yeah, that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah. But John is supposed to have gone to eventually to Ephesus and Mary there too. That's a thing aimed to show the house of Mary there.

[25:45] So objection disappears because you don't know who's loved more and who's better, so you can't argue from it. What about the more joy over the?

[26:01] To the fourth, it should be said that those penitent and those innocent have themselves as exceeding and exceeded. For whether they are innocent or penitents, those are better and more loved to have more grace.

[26:19] Now, other things being equal, innocence is of more dignity and more loved, right? Okay. Interesting, wasn't there a time when when Augustine appeared to Thomas Aquinas, and there was some question about their rank, you know? And in some sense, they were equals, but Augustine it was saying, you know, but you preserved your chastity and so on, and Augustine had this fling when he was young, right? So, chastity is Tom and Pari both, right?

[26:52] It's better to be Thomas than to be Augustine, right? Okay, that would not still said simply speaking that that Thomas is higher than Augustine in heaven. We don't know. But God is said to rejoice more about the penitent one than the innocent one, because many times the penitent are more cautious, and more humble, and more fervent when they what rise up again. Okay. I know that famous text of Augustine there.

[27:22] He's talking about some of the. Virgins in the early church, you know, who became proud, and he said it would be better for them to to fall into the sins of the flesh, right? It would, you know, maybe cure them of their pride, right? Well, this is something like that, right?

[27:42] Whence Gregory says that the what commander in battle loves that soldier more who, after flight, turns around, right, and strongly resists the the enemy, than the one who never flees but never fought very strongly. Okay.

[28:08] Remember the way Shakespeare plays with Henry V, right? Prince Hell. wild youth, but then turns out to be something different in battle. Um, or for another reason, because hey, what equal gift of grace is more compared to the what penitent who merited punishment than the innocent who does not merit punishment? Just to give what.

[28:40] Hundred marks. Yeah, is a greater gift if given to the pauper than if it is given to the what king? Yeah. Now, sometimes Thomas takes that text, I think, and explains in terms of completing the number of the blessed, right? And so it's not in terms of of by yourself, but in so far as you are completing the hundred, which is the perfect number.

[29:12] So if I need three men for a job and you two guys what volunteer, but I need a third guy, you know. Thank you. And the third guy comes along, and he's going to give me more, you know. See, but not in so far as he's, yeah, because he's completing now what I need, the three people, right? It's not that he's, you know, in himself rejoicing more to have him than to having you guys.

[29:39] Rejoicing more to have three the whole all I need than what's incomplete. That's why it's called fortune. Yeah. That's why they told you about fortune. God loves you. Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. Peter was. he stole my stone, Oh my God! He cursed me. And John didn't do nothing. He just wrote the gospel. and died in peace.

[30:08] Okay, now the fifth one I think is a little different objection. Better is the what just man foreknown than the sinner predestined, right? But God loves more the sinner predestined because He wishes to immerse him in greater good, namely eternal life, right? Therefore, God does not always love more the better, right? But God's not looking at just the present, is He? To the fifth, therefore, it should be said that since the will of God is the cause of goodness in things, according to that time should be weighed the goodness of the one who is what loved by God, according as there is going to be given to him from the divine goodness some good.

[30:57] According, therefore, to that time in which the predestined sinner is going to be given from the divine will greater good, he is what better, although according to that time he is what worse, because according to some time he is neither what good nor bad, huh?

[31:21] Okay. so we take a little break here now before we go into the justice and mercy of God. Okay. So we take a little break here now before we go into the justice and mercy of God. The premium here. After the consideration of the divine love, when ought to consider the what? Justice and mercy. of him. And about this, four things are sought. Right. Whether in God there be justice, right?

[31:48] Secondly, whether his justice is able to be called truth, huh? Third, whether in God there be what? And fourth, whether in every work of God there is both justice and mercy.

[32:10] So those four articles it kind of falls into what three parts, right? The first two articles are about justice, and the third article about mercy, and then the third part in the fourth article is about the two of them being found in every work of God. Perhaps we'll find out when we get there.

[32:31] Okay. Now, wonder why he talks about the justice of God before the mercy of God. It's interesting, aren't because justice in us is a virtue in the will, right? While mercy, more

[32:57] name from pity, which is the name of a passion or emotion, right? So you'd be more apt to speak of there being justice in God than mercy or pity, because the one is a virtue of the will, and the other seems to be a passion or emotion. That's going to be understood differently in God, but you know, but in some senses the mercy of God may be more primary than its justice.

[33:25] Maybe it's more clear that God is just. To the first, therefore, one proceeds. It seems that in God there is not justice, for justice is divided against temperance, huh? But temperance is not found in God, therefore neither justice. Okay. But there you can probably kind of anticipate, you know, that temperance is concerned with the what is pleasing to the body and so on, right? And of course God doesn't have a body, right?

[33:54] And is concerned with the passions that are about these things. Whereas we say justice is in the what the will, right? So if we look at the order in which the philosopher considers the virtues in the ethics, he begins with the virtues of courage and temperance, moderation, which are concerned with emotions, passions, and then he goes. That's already in Book Three, and then the other passions in Book Four, and then he goes to the will in Book Five, and finally to reason in Book Six, right?

[34:28] Now Thomas reverses the order in the Secunda Secundae to take prudence up first, then justice, and then courage, and last of all temperance. But it's different between us and God, right? The virtues that are in reason itself or the will are more like what's in God than those that are in the emotions. And so the order is one case theological, in the other case is philosophical. Those orders are sometimes just the what reverse, huh?

[35:04] As Thomas explains at the beginning of the second book of the Summa Contra Gentiles, God is the first thing you talk about in theology. In philosophy, it's what you talk about in the last part, the last part of philosophy. Okay,

[35:19] so the order is just contrary. Which surprises having seen the contrariety in the good and love there and God and in us, Moreover, whoever does such things at the what his own will, right, does not operate according to justice, right? But God, but as the apostle says, meaning Saint Paul in the Epistle to the Ephesians, God does all things according to the counsel of His will. Therefore, that not to be attributed to what justice, huh?

[36:01] He's a willful guy, I guess, huh? I don't know if I could think such an objection, but he's always bad living. Yeah, yeah. Moreover, the act of justice is to render what is owed to another, right? But God is owes nobody anything. God is a debtor of no one. Therefore, it doesn't belong to God to have justice, right?

[36:28] That's good, yeah. Moreover, whatever is in God is His very essence, His very nature, very substance. But this does not belong to justice, for as Boethius says in the book on the days de De Hebdomadibus, good regards the essence or nature; just regards the act, right? Therefore, justice does not belong to God, right? Of course, we see here in the Summa, right? You take up the existence of God first, right?

[37:05] Then you take up the what substance of God, the essence of God, right? Where you consider His goodness among other things, and now we're in the what God does, right?

[37:17] But that distinction may not be corresponding to a real distinction in God, right? But in us. But against all this is what is said in the tenth psalm. The just Lord, and He loves what? Yeah. The Lord is just, and He loves just things. I answer: It should be said that there is a twofold species or kind or forms of justice, right? One which consists in the mutual giving and receiving, as that which consists in buying and selling, right?

[38:00] And other communications of this sort, or commutations, right? Exchanges, like exchange. Yeah, yeah. And this is called by the philosopher, meaning Aristotle, in the fifth book of the Nicomachean Ethics, justitia commutativa, commutativa, okay, which is directive of what exchanges or communications. And this does not belong to God. That's one of the objections. Was talking about him.

[38:32] Because, as the Apostle says in Romans eleven, who before gave to him, and it's returned to him, right? Let's. It's kind of funny how kids are little. You know, they're going to give up something, you know, and demand something returned from God, right? A little bit like the way Euthyphro does, you know, where it's kind of quid pro quo, you know, you give this, and I'll give you that, and as if we're dealing with another human being.

[39:04] And another which consists in what distributing, right? And is called distributive justice, huh? So you'll you'll find this if you get into the English commutative justice and what distributive justice, huh?

[39:22] According to which some governor, right, or dispensator, gives to each one according to his what? Yeah. Thus, therefore, the what suitable order of the family or any multitude that is being governed, right, shows this kind of justice in the one governing, right?

[39:51] Thus, that the order, so that the order of the universe, which appears both in natural things as well as in voluntary things, shows the what justice of God, huh?

[40:05] Whence Dionysius says in the eighth chapter about the divine names, is necessary to see in this the true justice of God, right? That to all He distributes, right, what it belongs to Him, what suitable to Him, according to the worth or dignity. Of each of those things existing, right? And each what? Yeah, nature. He saves, right? Reserves in its own order and power, right? Okay. So this is a this is a fundamental distinction that Aristotle makes in the fifth book of Nicomachean Ethics between commutated justice and what?

[40:52] Distributed justice, right? And commutated is kind of exchange between people, right? I'll paint your house for a thousand dollars, and you agree, and then I'm going to paint your house, and now you owe me a thousand dollars, right? But then it's distributive justice, right? Where I'm the head of the family, right, or head of some community, and I've got to distribute things to my different children, right?

[41:24] You heard this thing there where where my my daughter's oldest, you know, Kate, was overheard. Her father overheard her saying, you know, now in this. house mommy and daddy and I make the rules.

[41:40] Daddy says, "No, that's not exactly right, Kate." She's trying to socialize herself with the authority of the "authority of me always in me that's important to big sister. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, so that's picture with it. They're all there, you know, and the two youngest ones. She's got, you know, two. Like she's the mother of us, you know, as you get them around there, and it's it's funny.

[42:02] It's funny when them and the little, I think it was Cecilia there, yeah, like the the younger one, the newborn baby, and had to be brought to every night to be kissed before I went to bed, you know. So you find the maternal instinct coming out, especially the little little girls when they regard their younger sister or brother, that matter, as as their own in a sense.

[42:23] It's good to see. Aristotle's example, you know, if you got a musical instrument, to whom do you give the violin, right, or the piano, right? Well, if a guy's got some musical talent, you give him the violin or the piano. Don't give it to somebody like me who can't take a notice on thing, you know. You waste it on them, you know.

[42:52] So, what's in the body article then is you call the Aristotle's distinction between these two kinds of justice, right? And so you might give more food to one child than another because this child is what bigger, or yeah, or you might give medicine to one you don't get another one because this one's got a cough and someone doesn't have a cough or something, right? Huh? So you're you're distributing, right?

[43:20] Okay, it's not a quid pro quo like the other kind of commutative justice. And so one of those kind of justices is being attributed to God in a distributive way because he's doing this not just for the family but for the whole universe, right? He's giving to each one what is suitable to give to them, and the other justice is being denied of God, right? Huh? Now, regarding

[43:48] the first thing there, why is justice applied to God but not other virtues like temperance, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that of moral virtues, some are about passions or emotions or feelings, and these emotions or passions or feelings are something bodily, bodily change, and so on. But those aren't found properly speaking in God. As temperance is about what sense desires, and

[44:18] courage or fortitude is about fears and boldnesses, right? Mildness, meekness is about what anger, right? Huh? So Aristotle takes up the moral virtues, beginning in Book Three there in the Nicomachean Ethics. Halfway through Book Three, he first takes up courage, and then what, temperance? Those two first, and then in the fourth book he takes up, among other ones, this mansuetudo right, anger. But Thomas singles those those out because they're very clear.

[44:53] He also has magnanimity, which is about hope and despair, right, and philotimia, the love of honor. Okay, and virtues of this sort are not able to be attributed to God, right, except by what, a metaphor, right? Because in God, neither are there passions, emotions, feelings. There's no undergoings there, right? Nor the sense desire in which these virtues are, as in a subject, as the philosopher says in the third book of the Nicomachean Ethics, right?

[45:34] I made mention, you know, that Thomas other places goes further and says only some of them could be applied metaphorically to God, right? And you couldn't apply temperance to God even metaphorically because there's no likeness there to that. But you might speak of God as being what, you know, strong or something, you know, because there's some likeness there to, you know, strong man and to God's strength, right?

[46:04] But he isn't going to those distinctions here. But he's putting out that none of them can be said properly about God, right? I can see why why maybe he takes up mercy after justice, right? Because mercy seems to be named. Mercy is the Latin word in a sense for pity, and you know we say in in Mass that we still keep the Latin, so I mean the Greek, Kyrie eleison, right?

[46:29] Well, if you look at Aristotle's book on the poetic art and on tragedy and how tragedy moves us to the emotions of what, pity and fear, and purges these pity and fear, right? The same word that you have there, Kyrie eleison right? let's say now that thing said metaphorically of God, or did we borrow a word which, properly speaking, would be said of God metaphorically? We wouldn't have another word, right?

[46:54] You can see why maybe he doesn't as clearly, right, as the fact that justice is applied to God. But some moral virtues are about what, operations, doings, huh? As about the giving and and taking, and he gives the example here, justice and liberality and magnificence, right? Which are not in the sense part, but in the what, will? God has a will, as we have learned, right? Whence nothing prevents these virtues to be placed in God, not in this narrow sense about civil actions in the city, right, but about actions suitable to God, right?

[47:41] For it's laughable to praise God according to political virtues, as the philosopher says in the tenth book of the Ethics. huh? Pretty smart guy, that does tell, huh?

[47:57] Now, um, incidentally, in terms of liberality, generosity, Thomas often quotes the Arab philosopher, the great Avicenna, right, who says God alone is liberal, right, because the liberal man gives, huh, not expecting anything in return. And

[48:22] you know that's what God does. He gives, getting nothing in return, really. So um it says God, especially or God alone, really is liberal, because if I'm liberal, I get at least my good act out of this, right? But God doesn't get even a good act. In addition to what he is, right, he doesn't get something.

[48:46] You know, there's not a good act added to God by his giving us something, right? Why is something added to me a good act that I didn't have before when I gave. give money to the poor or something like that, right? Even though they can't return to me what I've given to them, so it's well said by Avicenna.

[49:09] Okay. So you can see that's the reply to the first objection then, right? In false understanding of virtues. You know, Aristotle begins with the virtues concerned with the emotions or passions because they're more known than the acts of the will.

[49:37] And I know it myself. You teach about love, let's say. I come in the first day of class and say, "What is love? " And everybody's, you know, but usually get some woman to say, "It's what's a very special emotion. " And

[49:55] I say, "Well, so's anger, emotion, " but they can't really see what love is. But I mean, they think of it right away as being an emotion, right? And

[50:06] you know, if you see there's no emotions in God, well, then there'd be love in God, huh? And I remember as a little boy sitting in church there at Nativity Church there in Saint Paul, Minnesota, there, you know, and the priest talking about the love of God, and and thinking about girls or something, you know, and and and something not quite right about this, you know. I mean, you're trying to think of God's love in terms of an emotion, right?

[50:30] And even you have, you know. Even some contemporary theologians don't want emotions back into God, you know, because if he's. He's not emotional. he's not very appealing, you know. And you know, we expect our politicians to show emotions, you know, and even our priests and our our popes to show emotion, you know, and so and so God is no emotions, you know. What a cold fellow he must be, you know.

[50:59] I mentioned before how how C. S. Lewis who does try and correct us, you know, talking about the the love of the angels, you know, they're ferocious, you know. I mean, they talk about burning love. There's nothing you know, it's another weak milksop thing, you know, compared to the love of the angels, right? But the love of the angels is not an emotion. It's more intense than anything we could possibly imagine.

[51:27] Um. Okay. Now the second objection. I don't know if I got the thing there. Is God's willful, right? And so on. To the second, it should be said that the good understood is the object of the will. Since the good understood is object of the will, it is impossible for God to will something except what has what the thought of His wisdom has,

[52:01] which is as the law of justice, right? By which His will is correct and just. Whence, what He does by His will, He does what? Yeah. Just as what we do according to the law, we do justly, right? But we, according to the law, are someone above us. But God is to Himself a law, right? Again, how different we are. If the king is a law unto himself, we probably say he's being willful in the bad sense, right?

[52:40] Yeah. Okay. Now the third thing is, the act of justice is to render a debt, but God is a debtor of no one, right? Therefore, to God does not belong to be just.

[53:04] To the third, it should be said that to each one, maybe the best way to translate it there should be owed, right? Answer: It should be to third. Should be said that to each one is owed what is his own. Okay.

[53:22] But that is said to be what what someone's own, which is owed to him, just as the what servant of the Lord, and not to the reverse. For the free is what is for its own sake.

[53:42] In the name, therefore, of debt is implied a certain order of what? Need, yeah, or necessity of that to which it is ordered. Now there is a twofold order to be considered in things.

[54:02] One by which something created is ordered to another thing created, just as parts of a thing are ordered to the whole, and accidents are ordered to substances,

[54:19] and each thing to its own end. And then there is another order by which all created things are ordered to God. Thus, therefore, debt or owe can be noted in two ways in what God does. Either according as something is owed to God, right, or according as something is ordered is owed to a created thing. And in both ways, God renders what is owed, right?

[55:00] For that is owed to God that there be fulfilled in things what His wisdom and will has, and what makes known His goodness, right?

[55:18] And in this way, according to this, the justice of God regards the suitability of Himself, according as there is rendered to Him what is owed to Him, right?

[55:36] Now that is owed to some created thing that it has that it have that which is ordered, as to man that he have hands, right, which is a part that is owed man, and that to him other animals serve.

[55:56] And thus also God does what is just, or does justice when He gives to each thing what is owed to it by reason of its very nature and what condition. But this debt or owing depends upon the first, because to each thing is owed what is ordered to it by the order of divine wisdom.

[56:29] And thus, although God gives to each thing what is owed to it, nevertheless He is not a debtor, because He is not ordered to other things. But rather, other things ordered to him,

[56:49] and therefore, in God, justice sometimes is said, the what condignum will be the best way to translate that, what is fitting to his goodness.

[57:06] Sometimes what is given for merits, and both modes are touched upon by Anselm, saying that he what, when he punishes the bad, it is just because it is suitable to their merits. When he, punishes the wicked, it is just because it is suitable to his goodness.

[57:36] So, does God owe anybody anything? Not strictly speaking, no. But we all owe God something. But then something can be said to be owed by one of us to another, or something can be said to be owed to me by reason of my what, parts or my acts. Yeah, yeah, proper reason of my merits or the opposite of that. Yeah. Yeah. Let's apply to the third objection, right?

[58:24] So God, can say, does something just, when he gives to things what is owed to them, right? But not by him, from him, or when he sees that what is owed to him is what

[58:41] done. It's not that he owes anybody anything. The fourth one was talking about the act. To the fourth, it should be said that although justice regards the act, nevertheless, through this is not excluded, but that it be the essence of God, because also that which is of the essence of the thing can be a source of its what action.

[59:20] But good does not always regard an act, because something is said to be good not only according as it does or acts, but also according as in its very what nature it is perfect.

[59:37] And account of this, it is said there, I guess, by the great Boethius. That the good is compared to the just as the general to the what, special right. Okay, he takes up good, the goodness of God, when he takes up the what substance of God, right? So you might also say, you know, that the substance of God and the doing of God are the same thing, but there is a what distinction in our thoughts, because we're knowing God from creatures, where the substance of things and what they do are not the same, right?

[1:00:19] And it's a little bit like if I would say, you know, that my favorite math map example that comes down to everything about the continuous, right?

[1:00:30] You say these two points at the end of these two lines, we'll call them A and B. A and B, this point here where the two meet. Well, A and B are really different points, right? Now you could say C is what the source of A and the source of B, so we call C those two things, right? Are there really two things in C? You could say C is the beginning of the line CA, going from God to creatures, and C is the beginning of the line CB.

[1:01:10] So C is the beginning of two lines. It's the beginning of CA. It's also beginning of CB, but it's really one and the same point, right? A is the end of line CA, and B is the end of line CB, but it's really not the same what point. But

[1:01:31] because we're knowing C starting with A and B, then we have two things to say about C, even though it's one, right? Two thoughts about C,

[1:01:47] but that distinction of those two thoughts does not correspond to a distinction of two points. While the two thoughts I have down here correspond to two things, or to two points, A and B.

[1:02:06] So. Okay.