Prima Pars
87. Chance, Evil and Free Will Under Divine Providence; God Plans Everything Directly but Acts Through Other Causes (Summa I, Q.22 aa.2–3)
Class of 2007-05-24
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/087-chance-evil-and-free-will-under-divine-providence-god-plans/

[0:00] Now, the first objection was the one drawn from fortune or from chance, right? Incidentally, what is the fundamental text in chance and fortune? First one you should learn. Yeah, yeah, second book there. Yeah. After he's taken up the four kinds of causes, then he takes up these obscure ones and how they reduce to the four kinds of causes and takes them up. So, to the first, therefore, it should be said that it's otherwise for the universal cause and particular cause.

[0:36] For something can go outside of the order of the particular cause. Things are always going outside of my control, but that's fine with you.

[0:49] Not, however, the order of the what? Universal cause. For something is not subtracted from the order of the particular cause except through some other particular cause impeding it, as the wood is impeded from being burnt up through the action of the water. So the water gets in the way of the wood being burnt up. Whence, since all particular causes are contained in the universal cause, it is impossible that some effect escape the order of the universal cause.

[1:32] But in so far, therefore, as some effect escapes the order of some particular cause, it is said to be what? Chance or fortuitous with respect to particular cause, and that's truly fortuitous with respect to that cause. But with respect to universal causes, from whose order it cannot be subtracted, is said to be foreseen. And then Thomas's common example here, as the running together or coming together of two servants, although it is by chance regards them, is nevertheless foreseen by the Lord, who knowingly sends them to one place, so that one does not know about the what?

[2:18] The other, yeah. So my wife was first teaching after we were married there, and there was another woman teaching there, single young woman. And someone you know knew her, and he knew some guy thought they'd be just right for each other. So he arranged a party at which everybody was a married couple there, except for these two.

[2:43] So it's fortuitous that they met, huh? And then on a week or so they knew they were going to get married, and then they did manage to get married, children, and so on, right? So it was what by chance that they met?

[3:00] As far as they're concerned, right? Didn't go there for the sake of meeting another person, huh? And years ago there was a interesting thing in the Worcester paper there, huh? And I guess a guy ran into some woman's car. This is before you had all this no fault insurance and so on. So it's coming up in the court, huh? She's going to sue him, you know, for the damage to her car and so on.

[3:28] But it takes so long to go to the court they had to be going down the court all the time. They got to meet each other many times. They got to like each other, oh no! So the time the the suit came up, they decided to get married. Case dismissed, huh? That's a judge doing something else. Yeah, yeah. Now I say to kids, you know, if you want to, it's a nice girl, you know, in a car.

[3:48] Should you run into a car is that the way to make friends and fool people? No, no. But in this case it did, right? So it's by chance as far as they're concerned, right? But God's what foresight extends all the way down to these events happen by chance. Whereas God's causality is so strong that what he foresees takes place, but also takes place in the way that he foresaw.

[4:10] Some by necessity and some by chance, some by some by contingency of some sort. Still have to pay for your car now. After his lawsuit, let's get married. Then you have to pay for the car.

[4:27] Okay. Now the next second objection was taken from the bad that we find in scripture. huh. And of course, in other contexts, this is sometimes considered the strongest objection against God's providence that there's evil in the world, huh? So when Thomas is explaining the division of the books of the Bible and the sapiential books, right? Well, the book of Job, which is kind of the first book there, is ordered in a way to the defense of the theological virtue of faith by replying to the main objection against faith, which is the one drawn from the evil in the world, right?

[5:13] And of course you see this like you know like you know Jews who lost their faith after the Holocaust, right? Because it's a horrible thing, right? And there was one time they called me down to BC there, and they had one of these atheists down there who was arguing for the Holocaust, right? And of course it's kind of hard to argue with people, but I said, it seems to me your position is if I can't see why God allowed the Holocaust, then there can't be a reason for it.

[5:43] He didn't want to admit that. That's what since he is saying, right? Huh? You know, but but the book of Job is, in that sense, ordered to the virtue of faith, right? Like the book of Psalms is ordered primarily to hope, prayer, and then the Psalm of Songs and so on, and the one statement of the precepts is ordered to charity, right? Faith, hope, charity, sapiential books.

[6:11] Okay, but this is a little simpler here. To the second, it should be said that it is otherwise in the one who has the care of something particular and about the universal provider, because the particular provider excludes defect from that which is subject to his what care, so far as he is able to do so, right? But the universal foreseer permits some defect to happen in something particular, lest the good of the whole be what impeded.

[6:49] Whence the corruptions and defects in natural things are said to be against the particular nature, but nevertheless they are the intention of the universal nature, in so far as the defect or failure of one seeds to the good of the other, gives way to the good of the other, or to the good of the whole what universe.

[7:15] For the corruption of one is the generation of another, to which the species is what conserved. Since, therefore, God is the universal foreseer of the whole being, to his providence it pertains that he permits or allows certain defects to be in some particular things, lest there be impeded the perfect good of the what universe. For if all bad things were impeded, many goods would be lacking to the what universe.

[7:52] For there would not be the life of a lion, if there was not the killing of what animals. Huh? Right. No dinner for the lion. Does this imply that they were eating meat in paradise?

[8:13] Yeah, but it's the same way. There'd be no cows without the you know killing of the grass, right? Nor would there be the patience of the martyrs if there was not the persecution of the tyrants. Huh? Reminds a little bit of Heraclitus saying it's not good for men to get all that they want, right? Because hunger makes food. pleasant and goes on, like that, huh?

[8:42] And even Augustine said, right, huh? You know, quoting Saint Paul there, it's necessary that there be heresies, right? You see, and this was the when when a heretic denied this article of the faith, and sometimes reasoned from misunderstandings of Scripture or reasoned from bad philosophy and so on. The Church Fathers were forced, right, to consider that article of the faith and to answer to those objections, right, and therefore they came to understand that article of the faith much better than they did before, and that's very important, right?

[9:21] The same way in in philosophy, you know, huh? Sometimes somebody's mistake is what, and the refutation of that mistake is the way that the human mind goes forward very much, huh? I remember when I first heard De Koninck lecturing on the first reading there, the premium there to the natural hearing. Physics um uh and explaining, you know, making asides to Descartes, and his problem, right? Because Descartes thinks that the what distinct is more certain for us than the confused, and when you realize Descartes' error, you understand much better Aristotle's text, huh?

[10:02] When you refute Descartes' mistake, huh? Whence Augustine says in the Enchiridion that's the Enchiridion on faith, hope, and what charity, huh? And incidentally, that's that's a third way that they divide sacred doctrine.

[10:28] One way you divide sacred doctrine in the Summas, There's some differences between the two Sumas, but there's a basic order in which you consider these things, and there's an order in Scripture, right? But then in the Enchiridion of Augustine, you follow faith, hope, and charity, in the same way Thomas's Naples Sermons, huh? And in the incomplete work there, Compendium of Theology, right? But that's very appropriate, very appropriate to us, huh?

[11:01] As coming down there with with God's justice and mercy down to hope and fear, right? Down to us. So Augustine was asked by an educated layman, you know, for a brief exposition of the faith, you know, and he chose this what order, right, huh? And Thomas follows him in the Naples Sermons, huh? And then when when Reginald asked him to give him kind of a thing he'd carry around and consult frequently, he was following the same order.

[11:38] He only got up to the beginning of the Our Father, right, huh? Same order. Okay. Whence Augustine says in the Enchiridion that the omnipotent God in no way would allow there to be something bad in His works unless He was so omnipotent and good that He could make good even out of what evil.

[12:10] So Thomas then talking about these first objections. From these two reasons, which now we saw, were seen to be moved those who subtracted divine providence from corruptible things, because in them there are found things that are by luck or by chance, and there are found bad things, right? So

[12:37] he's answering in particular the difficulties of those who maybe don't deny providence entirely, but who deny providence over corruptible things, huh? Because of the evil or the Chance character of these things. Now the third objection was a little different. I was talking about necessity, right?

[13:01] The things that happen to necessity don't require what foresight, because it seems that foresight, as Aristotle speaks about it, at least in the sixth book of the Ethics, is about contingent things, things that can be or not be, right? I can have steak tonight or not have steak tonight, right? I can get up at six o'clock tomorrow or not get up at six o'clock tomorrow, right? Well, what should I do?

[13:26] No, it's Thursday. It's Thursday. We can have meal. You can eat or not eat. That's your choice. Okay. Thomas says, "I'm going to see a difference in the lesson." God. To the third, it should be said that man is not the institutor of nature, right? But he uses in the works of art and of virtue for his own use natural things, right? Okay.

[14:04] Whence human foresight does not extend to necessary things which come about by nature, but to these nevertheless extends the foresight of God who is the author of nature. Okay. I

[14:24] notice this third objection is going to say in a little footnote here, kind of, is eliminating the other part from divine providence, right? The objection is right. The first two objections are eliminating corruptible things from divine providence, right? Because of the evil in them and because of the chance fortuitous events. This one here is taking away the incorruptible necessary things, but it's based upon misunderstanding the difference between God's providence and ours, yeah.

[15:01] Remember that beautiful difference you have between God's love and our love, right? My love of others is aroused by the goodness I find in them, right? I think I find in them. You know, while God's love is the cause of the goodness in that, right? You know, so God doesn't love me because I'm good, but if I'm good, it's because He loves me, and it's about time you realize that.

[15:29] As they say, you thank God for the good that is in you, and you ask forgiveness for the bad is in you. You're responsible for the bad in you, not the good. It sounds unfair to a democratic mind. If I take responsibility for the bad in me, you know, don't can I take responsibility for the good in me too? That's the big mistake, right?

[15:56] Some people don't think they're responsible for the bad either, right? They're they're really lost, but I know I'm I'm responsible for the bad in me, right? I take full responsibility for all the bad things about me, huh? Or being overweight, to be much worse things in me, huh? But I shouldn't take any credit for good in me.

[16:24] So, and from this reason, he says, would seem to be moved those who subtracted the what course of natural things from divine providence, attributing them to the necessity of what matter, as Democritus and other ancient natural philosophers, right? Democritus, among other things, said that where there's necessity, says, don't look for a cause.

[17:01] Correct or not? If something must be, don't look for a cause for it. That's incorrect. That's incorrect. Yeah, yeah. And one way they sometimes approach it, Aristotle does, is to point out the logic in a demonstration, right? In a demonstration, this took sense that concludes is necessary, but there's a cause in its necessity.

[17:37] So there's a necessary that has a cause, and so that's another mistake of Democritus that's pointed out. But it might seem at first that if something's necessary, that's that's the end, right? That's kind of marvelous that Aristotle saw that.

[18:02] What about when God is necessary? He's per se necessary, right? Right. Necessary to himself, but other things are necessary to another. Okay. So that's you know developed a lot, even more so in the first book of the Summa Contra Gentiles than the first book of the Summa Theologiae. But it's there too, you know. You go back to the argument from contingency necessity, right? If you just go back for a second here.

[18:29] Question 2, Article 3, right? The third way is taken from the possible and necessary, right? Which is such we find in things the third article, third article, third way there in article three. For we find in things some things are able to be and not be, right? Since some things are found to be generated and corrupted, and consequently they are able to be and not be, right?

[19:04] But it is impossible that all things are such, and goes on so on. It is impossible, however, for all things to be such to always be, because what is possible to be not be at some time is not. If therefore all things were able not to be at some time, nothing would be in things. But if this is true even now, nothing would be, because what is not could not not begin to be except through something that already is.

[19:37] If therefore nothing was being, it would be impossible that something began to be, and thus nothing would be now. Which is clearly. false Therefore, not all beings are possible. It is necessary that there be something necessary in things, and then he makes a distinction. Everything necessary either has a cause of its necessity, right, elsewhere, or it does not, and it's not possible to proceed forever in necessaries which have a cause of necessity, either any more than in efficient causes, as has been shown before.

[20:09] Therefore, it is necessary to lay down something that is per se necessary, right, not having a cause of its necessity elsewhere, but which is the cause of necessity to other things, which all call God, right? But that goes back to Aristotle, It's there in Aristotle too Aristotle too. And but Aristotle saw that some necessary things have a cause of necessity, right? And as I say, you know, the clearest example for that is in demonstration, right, where the conclusion is necessary, but there's a cause, right, the premises are cause of conclusion being true, right?

[20:48] Okay. So it's nice the way Thomas has got this. The first two objections are trying to take away divine providence from corruptible things, the third one from incorruptible things, right, and then eventually from everything, yeah. But the response to the second objection, doesn't it remain for for Thomas to prove that the goods that are brought about by permitting evil outweigh, given the proper calculus, outweigh the the goods that would have obtained had not evil existed?

[21:19] Well, you can't take it up in the sense of going down to everything particular, right? You know, that comes out in the Book of Job, I think, that you can't possibly see all the reasons why God allows this or that evil, right? Okay.

[21:38] You can't say I'm going to consider all the evils in the world and show that the world is better off with those evils than without them. You know, our mind can't do that, right? But we can see that that must be the way things are. Okay, and the reasons why it must be this way, right?

[21:56] Well, when when Job or somebody wants to penetrate more, you know, he's put down, right? But by God, they're in the Book of Job.

[22:09] But how does that satisfy, say, the Jew or or you know, a modern atheist who's argued very extensively for the problem of evil? Yeah, yeah. As I say, I was saying to this atheist one time, the Boston College said, your argument is based upon this if then statement. If I can't see the reason for the Holocaust, right, prime examples, right, then there is no reason for it, right.

[22:39] Well, in a sense, his vision was based upon that, and yet once was put that boldly to him, he didn't want to quite agree that that's what he was doing. But in a sense, he's doing that, right? He couldn't see why God would allow the Holocaust. Therefore, there can't be any reason Does that follow? You know,

[23:02] you know, when when Heisenberg and Niels Bohr were trying to understand quantum theory, and if you ever read the accounts of this, they said we go have conversations all day, you know, and still couldn't understand it. And I go for a walk afterwards, and he said, "Can nature be as absurd as it seems to us in these experiments? " The experiments seem to be contradict each other, right?

[23:27] Now, did did Heisenberg say or Bohr say, "Well, if we can't understand quantum theory, then it can't be understood"? That they said, no. What happened was they got each other's nerves. And Niels Bohr said, "Okay," he said, "I'm going to go off and go skiing." And Heisenberg stayed in Copenhagen, and Niels Bohr went off to Norway, he said it was to go skiing, to go skiing. And both, independently of the other guy, worked out a kind of solution to it.

[24:02] And they came back, of course, they saw the compatibility of their solutions. But Heisenberg's account of his own thing there, right? He was thinking about it, and then he recalled his his conversation with Einstein, right? He put two and two together, right? And he thought he had the solution. He got so excited, he came back to the to the lab and started to calculate, and he was making all kinds of stupid mistakes.

[24:26] He was so thinking that finally he calmed down. He started, the memories came out just perfectly. You see, but I mean, you could have given up and said, "What? This cannot be what understood," you know. Remember somebody saying years ago, you know, talking about the the church, especially in the early days, where the mysteries of the faith were not understood very well, right? And there's something commendable in the fathers and so on holding on to the articles of faith, even though they don't understand understand them, right?

[25:02] You know, or they didn't say this cannot be understood because I don't understand it. See, and and that you'd have that kind of an attitude, right?

[25:15] In in anything, right? I always tell that little funny story. I was in high school in a French class, right? This one kid was having a heck of a time learning French. One day in class, he said, "How do the French kids ever learn this?" Well, we all broke. everybody broke out laughing, you know, Huh? There's probably some little French boy trying to learn English, right? Same thing, right?

[25:41] You see. But it seems like you know, it can't be what learn French, right? At least to this guy, right? But it would be ridiculous to say if I can't learn French, right, then nobody can learn French, right?

[25:58] Because many things in life, you know, you you kind of think that I'll never do, you know, I'll never be able to dance, right, or something, or well, or something, you know, I'll never be able to to

[26:10] to parachute or something. you know I never script the courage to parachute. Never, no one can script that, you know. Doesn't follow, does it? So I mean, you can't argue and say because if I don't understand why God allows this evil, right, therefore there can't be reason why He does so, right? So a lot of times when bad things happen to people, you know, they sometimes you know have the attitude, right, why did God let this happen to me or to my family or to my child or you know, but it is.

[26:46] But you can't say that because I can't understand why He allows this. Therefore, you can't have a good reason because then you're trying to measure God by by your. And that's that's something that Job will find out that he can't do. Somebody wrote a book. I'll just say his name is Joe Smith or something. Joe Smith wrote a book entitled "What I Think About God." Yeah. And Chesterton wrote a little response that says, "I think it'd be much more interesting to read a book called 'What I Think of Joe Smith' by God."

[27:27] Now the fourth objection was taken from the fact that God has left man in the hand of His own what counsel, right? Now to the fourth, it should be said that in this that God is said to leave man to himself. Man is not to be excluded from divine providence. But it is shown that there's not what fixed ahead of time, right? For him, a operating power that is determined to what, as is in the case of natural things.

[28:06] This is the distinction that Aristotle points out in the ninth book of Wisdom, right? Where he says that the natural power is determined to one, right, and the what rational power is open to what opposites, right? So you put the paper in the fire, and the fire what can't cool the paper as well as heat it; can only heat it and burn it, right? But you put a patient before the doctor; he can heal him or make him what sick, right?

[28:36] He can deliver the baby or abort it, right? I'm not saying he should do both, but his art enables him to do both, right? You give me a steak, I can cook you a nice pink steak, or I can burn it for you too if you want me to. In my art, you know, I know how to do it, right? You know, you want a nice mug of tea?

[28:56] I'll make you a nice mug of tea. But I know when to remove the what tea from the leaves, the leaves from the tea. But I know how to ruin a cup of tea too. How long to leave the leaves in there to ruin a cup of tea? You know why it's ruined? Not because it gets too strong, but I guess there are different chemicals released after, say, seven minutes, especially, so you get undesirable ones.

[29:23] It's not the same things. If it's just you know stronger, you could dilute it and it'd be okay, right? Yeah. But it's actually different chemicals that are released in the first four or five minutes, and then you know, ten minutes, especially seven, ten minutes, you start to get chemicals released. So I know how to make a good cup of tea and a bad cup of tea. I know how to make a nice steak and. and. ruin a steak for you.

[29:47] Okay. Um. So, art is an ability for opposites, right? Reason enables you to do that. So that's the difference Aristotle points out in the Ninth book of wisdom. After he talks about the difference between an active ability and a passive ability, and Shakespeare talks about that too. Nature not being able to be more than one thing, he says, in the Coriolanus. So you need that point there.

[30:16] to get going. Okay. So he says, going back here to the fourth, it should be said that in this God is said to have left man to himself. He does not exclude man from divine providence, but he shows that there is not what given to him a power that is determined to one, as in actual things, which are led only as it were, directed by another to the end, but do not lead themselves in their actions, as it were, directing themselves to the end, as rational creatures through free what judgment, free will, who take counsel and choose, right?

[31:04] Whence, significantly, it says in the hand of his what counsel. But because the act of free choice is reduced in God as as in a cause, it is necessary that those things that come about from free judgment be subject to the divine providence. For the providence of man is contained under the providence of God as a particular cause under the universal cause.

[31:36] But God has providence over just men in a more excellent way than over the impious, in so far as he does not permit something to happen against them, right? Something that is to say they would finally impede their salvation, for to those loving God, that's the the just, right? All things cooperate in the good, as is said in Romans eight twenty eight.

[32:03] But from this that he does not withdraw the impious from the evil of guilt, he is said to dismiss them, right? Not, however, that he totally excludes them from his providence; otherwise, they would fall into nothing, unless they were conserved through his what providence So the conservation, like in the Summa contra Gentiles, in the third book that he takes up, divine providence, then conservation is taken up there, part of divine, providence It's opposed to divine creation.

[32:39] And from this reason was moved none other than Tullius, that means the great Cicero, who subtracted from divine. Providence, human things about which we take counsel. So, as we said before, God's causality extends not only to all things that are, right, but to the way they are, right. Whether it be by chance or by luck, or by free choice, or by necessity, right. It extends. It's that powerful that God's causality not only will things come about that He wants to come about, but in the way He wants them to come about.

[33:18] Some by necessity, some by chance, some contingently, some freely, right? So this plan will be quite interesting to see what you get to. the heaven that you get there, huh? See, and the role that this or that event or this or that person played in your life, right? Huh? That's really

[33:39] something to be seen, huh? When Saint Thérèse of Lisieux you know, says there's some obscure person been praying for me, and I won't find out. I get to the side, and that's why I'm having the luck I'm having in life, right?

[33:55] Yeah, yeah, the luck, there. So all these people being mistaken about divine providence are an occasion for Thomas to understand divine providence better, right? And hence, in all these people, he sees much more profoundly how great divine providence is.

[34:17] What is always the Saint Catherine of Siena, right? The thing on divine providence, you know, and see how Dominican she is, right? You know.

[34:27] Okay. What about there being no care now for the oxen? Was it boum? To the fifth, it should be said, because the rational creature has, through free will, dominion over his act. In a special way, he is subject to divine providence, right?

[34:57] That there be not imputed to him something. Oh, excuse me. That there be applied to him something for what guilt or merit, right? And that be read into him something as a punishment or as a reward. And in this respect, the apostle, meaning Saint Paul, removes from God care about the things.

[35:26] Not, however, that the individuals of what rational creatures do not pertain to divine providence, as Rabbi Moses, what? Yeah, so that's all coming in there to get whacked, you know. If a just man strikes a reproachful.

[35:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, if you look at the third part of the Summa Contra Gentiles, it's got three parts, already. The first part is to show fully that God is the end of the whole universe

[36:12] of everything in the universe, but especially of us, right? Then the second part of the second, which is about chapter sixty-four to one ten, something like that,

[36:29] is about divine providence in general, right? And then the last chapters are about his providence over rational creatures in particular, right? And how, because of the nobility of their end and the nobility of their nature, they require special what providence, right? And that is what's denied of what the the the cat, and the dog, and the ox, and even the tree. Okay. So we have time to go into our coffee here.

[36:59] I guess a little bit, so okay. More water here. Get some. Don't go off. Get some. We keep our cabin well stocked. Oh boy! What else we got in there?

[37:22] That's a one. It's funny, you know. We had this text last time about the wine of wisdom, and then I saw this one thing about the aqua sapientiae, you know, the water. So I don't know, that's a come down or not.

[37:37] You heard that famous thing? Someone said that Thomas was diluting the wine of theology with the water of philosophy. You heard that? And Thomas says, "No, I'm changing water into wine."To the third, one proceeds thus: It seems that God does not immediately provide for all. Right? Now Thomas here is going to give the same distinction he gives in the Summa contra Gentiles. Right? He's going to distinguish between God's foreknowledge of things, right, and all the way down to the details and singular ones, right?

[38:17] He's not like us, you know, where you know I'm the head of this department, so I kind of give some general direction, and I leave you guys to fill in all the details because I can't foresee everything, right? I was mentioning about the the German army there, you know, they were better than the other armies' part because they expected the subordinate officers to make decisions given the conditions right here and now on the battlefield that the generals themselves, the higher generals, couldn't foresee, right?

[38:46] But God is not in that position that he's got to, you know, leave some things to us because he can't take into account everything. But as far as carrying out the divine providence, he's going to use not because he needs them, but to share his what causality with them, and to give an order that wouldn't be otherwise. To the third, thus one proceeds: It seems that God does not immediately provide for all things, for whatever is of dignity and worth ought to be attributed to God, but to the dignity and the of some king it pertains that he has what ministers, huh?

[39:31] By means of which he provides for those under him. Therefore, much more God does not immediately provide for all. Moreover, to providence it pertains to order things to the end, but the end of each thing is its perfection and good, huh?

[39:54] For to each cause it belongs to lead its effect to the good. But each agent cause is in a cause of effective providence. If therefore God provided for all immediately, there would be subtracted all second what causes. We can see how this is leading up to pointing out that you're overlooking a distinction, right? Okay, it's one thing for God's knowledge to extend all the way down here, right?

[40:23] It's another thing for him to use or not to use, right, other causes to carry out these things if he foresees. Moreover, Augustine says in the Enchiridion that it is better not to know some things than to know them as vile things, and the philosopher says the same thing in the twelfth book of Wisdom.

[40:50] But everything that is better ought to be attributed to God. Therefore, God does not have immediate providence of vile things and evil things. Puts them out of his mind, right?

[41:05] Okay. Some people misunderstand that text of Aristotle. but in the metaphysics he's talking about God's knowledge, right? And he's talking about what God knows what chiefly, right? And like Thomas teaches himself, what God knows chiefly is himself, right? And it's only by knowing himself he knows other things. But some people think that Aristotle didn't think that God knew all these bad things, right? Well, he's always arguing against Empedocles, right?

[41:36] The Empedocles position, you know, about how knowledge takes place, would mean that we know some things God doesn't know, and that's absurd for Aristotle. So,

[41:49] Empedocles' position would say that what God doesn't know bad things. Aristotle says, "What? That's that's a impossibility to which the position of Empedocles leads, right? " And he does it more than one place, you know. So Thomas, being a wit, understands what Aristotle is saying. He's talking about what God knows chiefly, right?

[42:15] But knowing himself, who is the cause of all things, he knows all the things. But against this is what is said, Job 34: Who constituted one over the earth, right? Or who placed him over the earth? Who made him?

[42:41] About which Gregory says he rules the universe or the world to himself, who constituted it through himself. Okay. Now, does it mean to be mixed up?

[43:02] You're mixed up. Let's state your mind if you're mixed up. You don't have a board. Not out of order. Yeah. Yeah. Are you knowing the truth when you're mixed up? Are you mistaken?

[43:20] Yeah. If you're mixed up, you're either mistaken or close to being mistaken, right? Yeah. Okay. Um. So very often that those very words mixed up suggest that you're mixed up because you don't see a distinction. Okay. And I know a lot of times it's very hard to understand the distinction. And there's something very amusing that I notice as a college professor. You're trying to explain a difficult distinction.

[43:59] And invariably students will say this is very confusing. And I say this is a little bit like this and against the Holy Spirit. Because the only way out of your confusion is to see the distinction. So if the distinction itself is confusing, you've really got problems.

[44:22] Well, Thomas is going to solve this by a distinction, which these objections do not take into account, right? And they're mixed up or mistaken in the objections because they don't see a what? A distinction.

[44:44] I answer it should be said that two things pertain to providence. One is the reason or knowledge of the order of the things foreseen towards their end, right? And secondly, the execution, the carrying out of this order, which is sometimes called gubernatio, governing, right?

[45:09] Now, having seen that distinction, as regards the first of these, God immediately provides for all things. His plan goes all the way down to the hair I lost this morning, combing my hair, right? Okay, all the way down to the singular individual things. Because in His understanding there is the reason and knowledge of all things, even the least of these, and many more.

[45:37] And whatever causes He sets before some effects, He gives to them the power of producing those effects. Whence is necessary that He have beforehand the order of those effects in His reason. But as regards the second things, there are some media, something in the middle, right? Of divine providence, because He governs the lower through the higher, not because of the defect of His power, but an account of the abundance of His goodness, that He might communicate the dignity of causality to what?

[46:22] Creatures. Okay. So the end of God's providence is that creatures become like Him, right? And part of this becoming like Him is to become like Him even as being a cause. So He's giving a full participation of His goodness by having these secondary causes. Now, in the more complete Summa Contra Gentiles. Thomas will point out also that this enables him to have an order among causes, not just an order among effects.

[46:54] And since a cause is better than the effect, the order among causes is better than the order among effects, and so is a higher and greater order in the natural world than he would otherwise. Okay.

[47:14] And according to this, is excluded the opinion of Plato, right? Which Gregory of Nyssa narrates, right? Laying down a threefold providence, right? This is opinion of Plato. which the first is of the highest God, right? Who first and chiefly provides for spiritual things, and consequently to the whole world as regards the genera, species, and universal causes. The second providence is by which is provided for the individuals of a generable and corruptible kind, And this attributes to the gods who run around the heavens, right?

[47:55] That is to separated substances which move the celestial bodies in a circular way. The third providence is of human things, which attributes to the what demons? Doesn't have necessarily the bad sense it has for us. Which Plato lays down as being middle between us and the gods, as Augustine narrates in the ninth book of the City of God.

[48:21] You know Socrates speaks of his daemon, right? And in the this is a common thing about Socrates, and in the Phaedo, you know, he's consulting his friends, right? Because the the daemon would warn him when he was in some danger or something bad. Right. He got no warning from the daemon when he went to court, and yet he was what? This is an apology, should say. And yet he was going to be sentenced to death, right?

[48:51] So maybe death is not the evil we think it is. He didn't get the warning from the daemon. I remember seeing a speech by Paul VI, right, where he refers to Socrates, right, the daemon, right. And doesn't go into a lot, but he just speaks highly respectfully of it, right?

[49:12] But it's something a little bit like our idea of the guardian angel, right? No. It's interesting that the Greek word, you know, if you look at the Nicomachean Ethics, in English they'll say happiness, right? In Latin they'll say felicitas, and in Greek they'll say eudaimonia. Get a good demon, huh? And felicitas, I mean, happiness comes from hap or luck, as if happiness is a result of luck, good luck. We're fortunate in life.

[49:44] We say that sometimes, right? Well, Eutychia has got the idea of being fruitful, but Eudaimonia maybe depends upon a higher cause, right? What's interesting Aristotle uses that word, right? He used the word eutuchia in the book on the poetic art. There you emphasize good luck, right?

[50:05] If you're supposed to be unlucky. But in the the book on happiness, the Nicomachean Ethics and Virtues, Eudaimonia uses that word. Now, sometimes they understood the word daimon was referring to the soul, good soul. That's very interesting. Because that's what ethics is about: having a good soul. You need to the medical doctor having a good body, I guess, or somebody else, right?

[50:36] Because stock market killing, we leave that to somebody else. But you're concerned about having a good soul, then you need the Nicomachean Ethics. Okay, now the first objection was talking about the dignity of God. He's got to have the ministers, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that to have ministers carrying out one's providence pertains to the dignity, right, of the king.

[51:06] But that he does not have the reason of those things which are going to be done by them, right, is from the defect of him, is from his knowledge, right? For every operative science is, to that extent, more perfect as it more considers what particular things in which there is act, right? So Aristotle says in the Prooemium to the Metaphysics Wisdom that the man of experience may succeed better than the man of art or science in healing somebody, right?

[51:36] Because you don't heal man; you heal this man with his peculiar things. I always tell the story when I was a freshman in college. I was taking a kind of general psychology course, and the professor used to work at the mental home, right? And he would come in to talk kind of honestly about his work, and he says that there's not enough psychologists to get to know the patients well.

[52:03] So what happens is, when somebody comes in, he he's classified a certain type. Sit around and classify a certain type, and then he gets the stereotype treatment for that type. He says it often makes them worse. See, so you've got, in a sense, know the individual and what would work with him, and then this is more perfect your knowledge.

[52:27] So as they say, you might know more how to get your little boy or girl or your friend out of a depression than the psychologist would, because you know what kind of turns them on or what gets them excited or something, you know. And so this is the point he's making, huh?

[52:47] So to not have a reason of those things are going to be done by them is from its defect. For every operative science is more perfect, the more it considers particulars in which there is act.

[53:00] Aristotle talks about this in the Politics. He's going to be talking about human virtue, about the virtue of a woman, the virtue of a man. He says, I mean, he's talking about both, maybe, but better talking about the particular than the general. If you're going to talk about one of them,

[53:24] okay. Now the second objection was saying that yeah, it's eliminated, yeah. The second should be said that to the fact that God has immediately providence about all things does not exclude second causes, which are ones that carry out His orders. So again, that is confusing in saying that the the not seeing the distinction between the two, right, and thinking that the one is the same as the other, and therefore one eliminates the other, right?

[53:59] That if God immediately foresees everything in particular, that He must immediately, not through any secondary causes, carry out what He foresees. That is so. Now the third argument is, what about God getting down there and rubbing his nose at the To the third, it should be said that for us it is better not to know bad things and vile things, in so far as through them we are impeded from the consideration of better things, because we are not able to at the same time understand many things, right?

[54:37] And secondly, in so far as the knowledge of bad things sometimes perverts the will to the bad, but neither these has place in God, who at once knows all things by one insight, and whose will cannot be bent to the to the bad, right? Okay. So you know Aristotle points out there in the beginning of the De Anima that all knowledge as such is good, right? Now sometimes I'd say to students, you know, which is better, knowledge or love?

[55:16] And a lot of them, especially girls, would say, "Love is better than knowledge," right? Okay. But this interesting difference between knowledge and love that all knowledge as such is good. So not only the knowledge of the good is good, right, but even the knowledge of the bad is good as such, right? Is a perfection of the mind to know what sickness is as well as to know what health is, right?

[55:46] But not all love is good, right? The love of the good is good, but the love of the bad is bad, right? So isn't knowledge better than? that? For one time somebody in a question period, you know, bringing up sex education, right? And you know, it's hard for them to see sometimes distinction, right? The reason why the sex education is bad is because of the second thing he says here, right?

[56:20] It makes them get thinking about things they shouldn't be thinking about this time, and therefore makes them want to experiment and go and things they shouldn't do. So it's not the knowledge as such that is bad, but it's because their will is, as he says, perverted sometimes to the evil by this. Okay. So to say you're opposed to sex education, at least what they call sex education now, is in no way contrary to saying that all knowledge as such is good.

[56:52] You know, somebody wants to shoot his wife and he can't, doesn't know where his gun is. Who would you tell him where his gun is? His knowledge is good. Yeah, all knowledge as such is good, right? Therefore, I should tell him where his gun is, and then I'm going to shoot his wife. That's ridiculous, right? You see, but still, the knowledge as such is good, right?

[57:20] Like Saint Alphonsus and the old manuals of moral theology would always have the treatment of the sixth and ninth commandments. If they had translated everything else into English, they would leave that in Latin because it was prudential, of course. Yeah, yeah. I'm curious. what the. It's too tough. It's not worth it. It's a funny thing, you know, when I was at the College, of St. Thomas there in Saint Paul, Minnesota, not the Minnesota University, but even a private college, and we had gotten some works of Albert the Great, right?

[57:58] And there was the the De Praedicabilibus right? The they've done Porphyry's work and the De Praedicamentis on the Categories of Aristotle. And then I guess Gilbert, you know, wrote something on the last six categories that Aristotle didn't talk about too much. So the last six beginnings, right? Well, Chris, in Latin, it says De Sex Principiis Yeah. So I'm rocking around with a book called De Sex Principiis, and this is still when people, you know, are familiar with the idea that things about sex were kept in Latin, so the young are not exposed to this stuff before they're mature, you know.

[58:35] And Spurk has got to these six, and we just joke or else, you know, but they found out there would be. Where, when, it shows the importance of of uh you know not giving them all this knowledge, right? The way the mind, the way the minds work. Yeah. Okay, so we'll start with Article Four next time, huh?