Prima Pars
88. Six Senses of Sleep, Tocqueville's Doubt, Providence and Contingency, and Whether Men Are Predestined (John 11–12; Summa I, Q.22 a.4 – Q.23 a.1)
Class of 2007-05-31
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/088-six-senses-of-sleep-tocquevilles-doubt-providence-and-contingency/

[0:00] Father, and the Son, the, Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, help us to understand all that you've written. In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the, Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:25] So in the lectura and the eleventh chapter of John, where our Lord says that He's asleep, right, Lazarus. This is the occasion for Thomas to distinguish a number of ways that sleep can be taken. So he says it should be known that sleep is taken in many ways. Then he distinguishes about six different ways. Sometimes for the sleep of nature, he quotes the Book of Kings there.

[0:59] Samuel slept until morning, right? He went to sleep. Sometimes for the sleep of death, and that's a quote from the Thessalonians. We do not want you to be ignorant about those sleeping, and that you'd not be sad as the others who have no hope. Of course, there they explain the use of the word sleep for death because of our belief in the resurrection, right? And it's as easy for God to raise us from the dead as it is for us to wake somebody up who's asleep.

[1:33] So it's kind of a Christian way of speaking that someone's fallen asleep in the Lord. Now the third one he says, quandoque pro negligencia. I don't think it's necessary to be taken in the negative sense here because he quotes the one that the in the Psalm 120 that God never sleeps, the one who guards Israel. So it's kind of at least the inactivity of the soul, right?

[2:02] That's a kind of sleep. Sometimes for the sleep of guilt, Ephesians chapter five, verse fourteen. Rise up, who sleep, and rise up from the dead. To sleep.

[2:21] Then the fifth sense. Sometimes for the rest of contemplation, he quotes canticle of Song of Songs chapter five. I slept and my heart was vigilant. That's kind of sleep. So when they say you're not doing anything, you say, "Well, I've contemplated.

[2:43] And then sometimes for the rest of future glory, Psalm four, verse nine. In peace I sleep in Him, and I rest. So now if you go back, it seems to me you could take this text and go back to that. Favorite psalm that was at one twenty six, where it says, "Unless the Lord build the house, they'd labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guard the city, in vain does a guard keep vigil.

[3:10] Is vain for you to rise early and go late to rest. You eat the bread of hardened toil bread, for he gives to his beloved in sleep." Just that one sentence, for he gives to his beloved in sleep, could take on perhaps all these six meanings. If you take sleep in the ordinary sense, well, Joseph was sleeping and he what? When he told him, you know, get him out of the country, right?

[3:37] Okay, so the he may speak to the prophets in a dream. Okay, that's in death. Gives his beloved in sleep in death. It gives you the vision of the beatific vision after your death, right? So you don't get it in this life, but you get it in the next. Then the sleep in the sense of inactivity. Well, I think there is the important truth that God is always before us, whatever we do, whatever we do that is good.

[4:10] So he's he gives to us in our sleep before we act, right? Moving us to act well. Then obviously for the sleep of guilt, God has to come first, and to because he loves us, nevertheless, he might lead us out of our guilt. Then he gives you in what you contemplating him. That's a time going to give it to you, and then of course the last one goes and says back to death one, right?

[4:40] The rest of future glory, he gives to his beloved in the most at that time. What's a beautiful text there? But you find no text like that that would you know illuminate another text like that psalm. I'm kind of familiar with the psalm one twenty six. Where's that again? That's on John. Yeah, it's it's Lectio 3 on the eleventh chapter. That's the one where Lazarus has fallen asleep, and they think he's why he's going to be better than he knows.

[5:11] He's resting, you know, and then he tells them plainly, you know, that then Jesus says to them, "Manifestly, Lazarus is dead." But they're misunderstanding what sense of sleep. So that's the occasion for Thomas to distinguish those six different senses of sleep. That's kind of a beautiful text.

[5:33] I was looking at the twelfth chapter of John now. Right, I'm on it right now. But in the twelfth chapter of John, of course, bonds it away to the twenty first and the twenty second and the twenty third chapters of Matthew. When Thomas is commenting on Matthew, he says in the twenty first and the twenty second and the twenty third chapters, Matthew is giving us the reasons why they want to put Christ to death.

[6:03] And in the twenty-first chapter, they were envious of his glory. That's the chapter where he comes into Jerusalem and hell Hosanna and so on. And then in the twenty-second chapter, they're bothered by his wisdom. That's the one where he says, "Whose son is David?" Or is Christ rather? They say David, but how can David call Lord and so on? So he shows their ignorance, right? So he overcomes them by his wisdom.

[6:28] And then in the twenty-third chapter, it's his justice, where he's reprimanding them for for being whitened sepulchres and so on, being very tough, you know. So in a sense, what you have is three reasons why they wanted to put Christ to to death, right? The envy of his glory, and then I suppose they're angry with his showing them that they don't know what they claim to know, and then angry at his correcting them for their bad morals and so on, their bad way of behaving.

[6:59] Well, now in the twelfth chapter of John, Thomas has that same matter, but he just gives two things there. John gives two things. And the first, of course, is their envy of his glory, the same thing that you have the first thing in in Matthew. But then, rather than the second and third thing in Matthew, the rest of the chapter there later on is about their having no belief in Christ, despite all the miracles that he had worked and so on had done.

[7:34] So one of the things in Matthew is found again in John, but two of the things in Matthew are not made explicit there. But then you have this other one, which is the lack of belief. So altogether, between the two gospels, you have have four things singled out.

[7:57] Now, in a way, you could say all three of those things in in John, or excuse me, in Matthew, come from pride, because pride is the source of envy. You know, reason why the devil envies us as a result of his pride first, and revolting from God. Then he envies us is still being able to be capable happiness. But in a sense, you're being angry to be shown not to know what you claim to know comes from pride, right?

[8:25] As Socrates says, what difference does it make whether I'm refuted or you're refuted? Either case, it leads to truth. But you have to have the humility of the slave boy, the middle, right? And usually people like Protagoras, who has a reputation, they get angry, you know, at Socrates because he's leading them into contradictions. But it's because of their own false claims.

[8:48] Likewise, I suppose you know, no one likes to have his faults pointed out to him. But does that, in a sense, come from pride, right? That you don't want to be corrected or you don't like to be these things pointed out? And in a way, this failure to believe comes from a kind of what pride.

[9:07] I just went on a little side note. Reading a biography, I can't even this book, by the way. This is a library book, a biography of Tocqueville. Right? The reason why they came out. I just happened to see it. I I like Tocqueville a lot. Yeah.

[9:21] But Tocqueville, as you know, was kind of, for a lot of his life, was kind of agnostic. You might say something like that. And

[9:36] he's quoting a letter from one of Tocqueville's friends to him from Kergorlay Of course Kergorlay is in doubt about everything, more or less. Unlike you, he says, I don't feel it impossible to live with doubt.

[9:55] I don't know if this is because my own nature or the consequence of my reasoning on the subject. But what does seem clear to me is that no man can have complete certainty on any subject. Does that include the Pythagorean theorem Does that include the whole is more than a part. It's just his statement. Yeah, and I don't see how that point can seem dubious to you or to any other man who knows how to think.

[10:25] All our faculties are limited. I agree with that. All our very imperfect instruments. I agree with that. How then could they arrive at some results, right? So he's kind of generalizing this, and probably most of what we say and think, we're not sure about, right? Yeah. But you can't go and say it. No certainty at all. I believe that life should be passed in discerning and classifying the different degrees of probability in our various branches of knowledge, and that our actions should be the same as they would be if the most probable contentions had been entirely proved.

[11:05] Now, um there's one one thing I want to emphasize here. Yeah. He goes on to write a panegyric on a philosophical doubt. I believe, mon cher ami that, it is necessary to live with our lack of certainty. You know, they're always accusing us of not being able to live with uncertainty, right? As if with guests who simply won't leave. And we must be patient with the drawbacks.

[11:42] We will never get back to blind belief. Okay. That's interesting. He uses that phrase, blind belief, because if you remember from Vatican One, there talking about the ascent of faith, that it's not a shapeless ascensus, right? It's not a blind ascent, right? But in a sense, he's saying either you got to live with this kind of complete doubt,

[12:04] or go back to an impossible thing, which only I suppose an, unthinking man can do, to blind belief, right? But it's very doubtful that we have lost by the change.

[12:18] So, de Tocqueville married a woman who was not a what? Catholic, right? Protestant. But she eventually became a Catholic, right? And so de Tocqueville, you know, he died fairly young. He he was in his middle fifties, about. Was born in eighteen o five and died in fifty nine. He had bad health, but he died from tuberculosis. which I suppose is a fairly common thing. You know. Of course, there's a lot of questions.

[12:48] I remember when I was first at Assumption, there, one of my colleagues here in history showed me this an account of Tocqueville's last days. You know. Written in the Catholic Historical Journal or something back in '64. I know it's in this guy's appendix here, but anyway, gives a little account of it here. Of course, this question of she wanted him to reconcile right to the church at the end there.

[13:15] Marie is that same to Tocqueville's wife. Marie had for some time been trying to induce Tocqueville to make his confession. At first, he refused on the grounds that there were too many dogmas in the Catholic Church in which he did not believe. But before Beaumont—that's his agnostic friend, you know, another friend that kind of made Tocqueville didn't go back to church, you know—but before Beaumont left Cannes, that's where he was at the inn there.

[13:45] He had consented and made his confession to Abbé Gabriel, right, which the curé deemed quite sufficient. He looked forward to receiving communion at Easter, but it was exceptionally late that year, and Gabriel doubted he would last that long.

[14:07] At this point, Edouard, according to himself, says, "Brother, took a hand, suggesting to the curé that, in view of his brother's increasingly rapid decline, the time would come for a final push.

[14:21] Perhaps this was why Marie asked if mass might be celebrated at the villa, as she was too unwell to get to the church. The curé turned to Alexis, and, you know, Monsieur le Comte, when will it be your turn?

[14:40] He said he was not yet ready and asked to be confessed again. He has. A little bit of the Jesuit in his background. But next day, 6 of April, as the ceremony went forward in his presence and Marie communicated, he accepted Gabriel at the priest's assurance that he was ready and received communion lying on his chaise long. Edouard and then some sisters taking care of him. Sarah Valerie and Sarah Hertford were also present.

[15:07] And according to the nuns, Alexis insisted to them he was acting of his own accord with full conviction, not just to, you know, please his wife. It has been difficult for many scholars and controversialists to accept this turn of event, given Tocqueville's lifelong skepticism and the mild anti-clericalism of later years. Nevertheless, the story which they tell is clear and certain.

[15:36] One point in which Beaumont, Gabriel, and the nuns all agree should perhaps be emphasized: Tocqueville did not and was not required to give his express consent to any of the church doctrines that he rejected for so long. It was enough that he now accepted the church's authority and discipline. He repented. He confessed. He received absolution and communion.

[16:01] So that's interesting. So that's kind of a common opinion of what Tocqueville has in the modern world, right? That you have to, you're a thinking man, you doubt everything, and and the only alternative to that is is a blind dissent Father Boulay, you know, he talked about. He of course, was showing that dissent is not blind. You know, there's various reasons why it's not, but that's another lecture in itself.

[16:29] You know. But you know, it also comes up in the Gospel of Saint John there, that 12th chapter, that they were envious of his glory, and they were couldn't believe him, right? And that pride becomes some pride too. Okay, we're up to question 20. Two, Article Four.

[16:54] Whether providence imposes necessity upon the things foreseen, right? So the fourth one proceeds thus: It seems that divine providence, divine foresight, places necessity upon the things foreseen.

[17:19] The first objection says: For every effect which has some cause as such, which already is or will be, to which a necessity it follows, happens in necessity, as the philosopher shows in the sixth book of the metaphysics. But the providence of God, since is eternal, pre-exists, and to it follows the effect of necessity, for the divine providence cannot be frustrated. Therefore, the divine providence places necessity upon the things foreseen.

[17:58] Moreover, second objection says: Every provider makes stable his work so far as he can, lest it fail. But God is the highest potent, most powerful, and therefore He gives the firmness, necessity to the things foreseen by Him.

[18:22] The third objection takes a text from Boethius. Moreover, Boethius says in the fourth book of the Consolation of Philosophy that fate, proceeding from the

[18:37] origins of immobile providence, constructs the acts and fortunes of men by an indissoluble connection of causes. Therefore, it seems that providence places necessity upon the things foreseen.

[19:00] But against all this is what Dionysius says in the fourth chapter of the Divine Names: That to corrupt nature does not belong to providence.

[19:12] But this has the nature of some things that they are contingent. Therefore, divine providence does not exclude contingency from things by placing necessity upon them.

[19:28] Thomas going to distinguish: Some things are necessary, and some things are contingent. But God's foresight makes what? What He foresees always take place, but some things take place necessarily, and some things take place. Contingently, some by chance, some by luck, and by free choice. I answer, he says that divine providence, divine foresight, places necessity, puts necessity upon some things, but not upon all, as some believe.

[20:08] For to providence it pertains to order things to their end. Now, after the divine what goodness, which is the end separated from things, the last end. After that, the chief good existing in things is the perfection of the universe. That's an old principle going back to Aristotle, right? And that the there's a distinction between two orders, and one is the order of things among themselves, and the other is the order of all these things to their end.

[20:50] And the more fundamental order is the order of things to their their last end. So the end of the chair is sitting. So the chair and all its parts are ordered to sitting as an end. But then, because they're ordered to that end, then they have a certain order to each other. So one part comes in at this angle to that part, and so on. So it's like that universe, except the the ultimate end is God, and then the order of the parts, of the universe, the perfection of the universe, is an account of the order of the whole universe to God.

[21:27] So Thomas is calling that. So he's saying after the divine goodness, which is the end separated from things, and the chief end, you can say the first end, the last end. After that comes the chief good in things existing is the perfection universe, which would not be if not all grades of being were found in things.

[21:57] Whence it belongs to divine foresight to produce all the grades of being, all the variety. Now, of course, this is a a division of being as such into necessary and what contingent, right?

[22:17] And therefore, for some effects, he prepares necessary causes, so that they could come about necessarily. To some, for some things, he prepares contingent causes, so that they might happen contingently, according to the condition of the proximate causes.

[22:43] So God's providence is going to be infallible. Everything that He foresees is going to take place will take place, right? But some things he foresees will take place necessarily. Other things will take place contingently. And among those that take place contingently, some will be taking place by luck or by chance. Some by free will. Right? But God's causality extends, right? Not only that something will be, but how it will be, right?

[23:15] Necessarily or contingently, huh? So in reply to the first objection, to the first, it should be said that the effect of the divine foresight is not only that something come about in any way, right? But that something come about either contingently or necessarily.

[23:44] And therefore, it comes about infallibly necessarily. What divine providence disposes will come about infallibly necessarily. And it comes about contingently what divine providence what has and will come about contingently. I'm saying that quote from Aristotle. that's in the chapter or the place of the sixth book of wisdom on metaphysics, where he's showing that not everything happens by necessity.

[24:17] And he's saying, if everything happened by necessity, everything would have a cause as such, and that cause cannot fail. And then he goes to show that neither one of those is true. That everything has a cause as such,

[24:41] and that every cause can never fail. So sometimes nature, just like human art, sometimes fails. Sometimes the cook over cooks the meat, right? Sometimes a child is born without an arm or a leg or something, right? So these are causes can be impeded, huh? As you know, the seeds you plant in the garden they don't know how to germinate, right? So you have causes that can be impeded, and therefore their effects take place only for the most part and not always.

[25:17] But he also attacks the other proposition that everything has a cause as such. And there he goes back to the fact that you have accidental being.

[25:30] Now, you take example of accidental being. I am a Christian geometer. Now, is there really such a thing as a Christian geometer? Yeah, because there's something by which I'm a geometer, and that is by a certain knowledge of the theorems of geometry. There's something by which I am a Christian, by baptism and grace and so on, right? But is there anything by which I'm a Christian geometer?

[26:09] See, there's no such thing as Christian geometry, is there? So I'm hardly a Christian geometer because there's nothing by which I could be such a thing. Now, there's a way in which I became a geometer by studying Euclid, right? There's a way I became a Christian by being taken into the Nativity Church and baptized, right? But is there a way of becoming a Christian geometer? For accidental causes.

[26:37] Yeah, it's something you might say that happened, right? Okay. There's no cause as such. There's a cause as such of being a Christian. There's a cause as such as being a geometer. But there's no cause as such of. geometry. Yeah. yeah. So the world is full of the accidentalness, sort of, right?

[26:59] I might, you know. Driving up here to see you guys and give a class and so on. Someone else is roaring along the highway there, you know, trying to escape the police and runs into me, right?

[27:11] Bad luck. So, does that happen necessarily, right? That if you're going up to give a class, as such, you're going to get an accident. No, but it could happen, right? So,

[27:35] before you could say that everything happens by necessity, you'd have to say that everything has a cause as such, and that cause cannot fail. And both of those statements are shown not to be true by Aristotle in that sixth book, right?

[27:56] Now, the second one here about stability, right? Well, this doesn't really interfere with the stability of divine foresight, huh? In this, the order of divine providence is unchangeable and certain. That those things which are foreseen by him, they all come to be in that way which he foresees they'll come about, whether it be necessarily or contingently. So, really, realize the excellence of God's causality, right? Extends down to not just that something will be, but how it will be, right?

[28:36] Whether by necessity or by contingency. And that's we understand the text from the great Boethius, huh? That the immutability and the immutability which Boethius is touching upon pertains to the certitude of providence, right? Which cannot fail from its effect, nor from the way of coming about which he provides, right? That's either one of those ways that he provides, huh? Not, however, to the necessity of the effects, huh?

[29:14] And it comes back to this more general thing we were touching upon before, and should be considered that necessary and contingent properly follow upon being as such, huh? Just like odd and even follow upon number.

[29:30] Whence the way of contingency and of necessity falls under the foresight of God, which is who is the universal provider of the whole being, not under the foresight of some what particular foreseen.

[29:50] So often things happen by chance, right? No, Dr. Merkwas, what were you saying about um the Christian geometry. Um, Would that be the same? As when we speak, or I wonder if this might be different when we talk about a Christian philosopher. Yeah, same thing basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Be careful about that. Would there be a little maybe an argument to say though that because with talking about Christian philosopher, the one benefit might be that reason is strengthened.

[30:26] Yeah. Yeah. Though. Yeah. For him, because of the grace, just even the baptism or revelation too, or that kind of. Yeah, you can say that faith and and reason help each other, right? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe geometry helps Christian too. Yeah. I've got to go to the the graduation there on Trivial School, right? Oh, good. I'm going to have to kind of start the the ceremony, right? And so and so the former head there was telling me, he thinks there were 17 students, right?

[31:04] 17 graduates this year. Wow, that reminds me of what John, what Augustine brother says about 153 fish that caught. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And because the fish in the last chapter, John, their the net doesn't break, right? Right. While in the earlier nets they do break. So the earlier net refers to the catch of fish in this world, where some people are kept in the church and some fall out.

[31:37] But the one in the last chapter, John, they're pulled up on the shore of eternity. But what's amazing is that John mentions there's a hundred and fifty three fish. So Augustine has to figure out exercises mind with the symbolism 153, right? Well, he tries to explain it by the number what 17.

[32:07] Now, what's connection between the number 17 and 153 on the one hand, and then between 17 and being saved on the other hand, right? Well, now if you know what kind of number 17 is, it's a prime number, not a composite number. So you can't explain 17 by its sides. Like sometimes when they talk about the twelve apostles, they take the sides of twelve, what we call factors today, but the ancient geometers who call sides mathematicians three and four, right?

[32:46] And they say, well, they're going to preach the Trinity to the four corners of the world. So four times three. Well, 17 is not a composite number, so it doesn't have any sides. But those are parts, right? And clearly the parts of seventeen kind of stand out as ten and seven. So seventeen represents those who obey the ten commandments, fulfill the ten commandments through the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.

[33:14] That's a beautiful way of saying you're going to be saved, right? Those who abundantly, you might say, right, fulfill the ten commandments through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, of which there are seven. Well now I detect seventeen with one fifty-three. Well, if you take everything that is in seventeen,

[33:37] all the way down to what? Seventeen plus sixteen plus fifteen plus fourteen. I got these up many times, but they add up to exactly one fifty-three. So that's.

[33:51] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, I was thinking about that and and how the contemporary, you know, scriptural scholars don't like that sort of thing, right? But you find this all the time, you know, in Augustine and Thomas repeating themselves. And

[34:05] I always remember this one time when when Father Boulay was lecturing about these things, and he says some things are appropriate in theology to not be appropriate elsewhere, right? And in theology, you know, ultimately you have what what Dionysius calls the via negativa, right? Because the ultimate thing is to realize that after all your thoughts about God and all the things you've shown about God, like we do in the Summa, you still don't know what God is.

[34:38] And in some ways, metaphors are closer to negative theology than than the Summa, because the Summa you might think you understand more than you do. And as Socrates warns us, we often think we understand things we don't understand, right? But if we make that mistake, we often make the mistake of thinking we know more than we do, right? But when things are said metaphorically, there you have a great distance between things.

[35:08] And take a very simple example: the Lord is my rock, right? Well, everybody knows that God is not really a rock. He's not going to think I really understand God now that I call him a rock. But there's an extremely what extremely distance, you know, between God and rock. If I say God is is an understanding, a will, that's how much like I'm getting into it more, right?

[35:32] So it's very appropriate for Scripture to use metaphors, and as Thomas points out, taking metaphors from things that are lowly, like a rock, more often than taking, you know, God is a soul or something like that. Because you might think that's really what he is. He's not a soul, but you know, you might think he's really a soul, but you make the mistake of thinking he's really a rock.

[35:55] And so. You know, if you know the the Plato, right? The Platonists were trying to make everything out to be numbers, right? And of course, it's kind of funny sometimes. You know, the soul is a self-moving number, and so on. And but they'd see some kind of a very distant likeness between numbers and

[36:18] something else, like they'd say, "Well, justice is an even number, right?" There's some there's some reason to think of justice as an even number rather than, you know, at least socially financially, as they were even now, you know. And maybe liberality would be an odd number or something, right? Something, and

[36:44] we find odd people kind of humorous, right? And so you can see a certain likeness is a kind of a distant thing, you know. It's not really so appropriate for philosophy to do that, huh? And uh uh is the soul, really a number, I mean, that's not right. Know the soul better than that, but these likenesses between numbers and and those who are saved, right, are kind of distant, right?

[37:12] But it's appropriate for theology to see that connection between things that are very far apart, right? Just like saying the Lord is is a rock, okay? Fire.

[37:27] Maybe that's maybe it's appropriate for theology to do that, and and that people who who are amused by us in doing that because it seems kind of far fetched, right? Don't realize it's very far fetched that God is a stone too. It's very appropriate in Scripture. We often say that the Lord is my rock and my you know my salvation.

[37:47] So. So. I'm not sure if I can jump back to question three, four, or yeah, the five, three, though. Yeah, yeah. That I understand, especially like the the reply what Boethius said, so that God foresees a the destination of a certain soul and he provides for it. If provido, I don't know if that's still foreseen or there's provisio and provideo or whatever, but anyway, he foresees what's going to happen with the soul, and yet and it's certain and it's you know definitive that whatever's going to happen is going to happen, but somehow there's not any necessity imposed upon the outcome because of free will.

[38:34] I guess is that where contingency comes. Yeah. God moves our will to choose, right? Yeah. He's not forcing our will to choose, right? Right. He's respecting the nature of our will, right? That's hard for us to understand, but that's yes. What's the truth is about this? Okay. And he said something like that that nature is going to be respected, and our natures include free will. Yes. Yeah.

[38:56] So he works with. But yet he gives to his beloved in sleep, right? Yes. And you know it's interesting that even that pagan philosopher Aristotle, right? You know, in *Eudemian Ethics*, it's a very interesting text in *Eudemian Ethics*, which speaks of God moving our will. It first comes from the outside. right Yeah. He's got a very good reason why he does that, but but Thomas was saying it's free what Aristotle says, so it's kind of amazing, you know, that you know without the faith, the man can arrive at understanding of that, huh?

[39:30] So God is the unmoved not only of the motions that we think of as being natural, but even of the the will. There's another place. Sometimes I forget exactly where it's in this. I don't think it's in here. I don't remember reading it, but another place he talks about providence, how it doesn't impose necessities, because providence is foreseeing. So if I see you sit down, doesn't make you sit down.

[39:59] He chose, but I saw you, and that's kind of Providence. He sees now what you're going to do. It doesn't impose an incessant; he sees you. Yeah, and he said somewhere else, I don't know where, somewhere. I just read Saint Thomas yesterday that there's a difference between foreseeing and and your and what happens in your salvation. That it's more, you know, because he causes it to be too, in the sense that he moves your will.

[40:22] God's even in your will, so it's not simply foreseeing. He also says that. Yeah, he's directing us. Yeah. This is mysterious to man. I got this mysterious every line. Yeah, it's interesting, you know, when Aristotle takes up luck and chance in the second book of the natural hearing, the so-called Physics, and he's first, you know, talked about the four kinds of causes: matter, form, mover, and end, and then he talks about these obscure things, luck or chance, huh?

[40:56] And when he begins his discussion of them, he gives three opinions that people have about them, and one opinion is that there's no such thing as luck or chance. It's just a name for our ignorance, huh?

[41:15] Then there's another opinion that's kind of, in a sense, the opposite of that, which attributes even the origin of the sun, the moon, the stars, the universe to luck or chance, right?

[41:29] Aristotle is going to be in between those, right? He's going to admit that there really is luck or chance, and show what they are, right? But they're not responsible for the universe as a whole, right?

[41:42] But then he gets a third opinion about. The third opinion is that there's something divine about luck or chance, huh? Well, that first two opinions, I say he refutes. His first two opinions, he refutes, right? The third opinion, he's silent about, because Thomas notes that, right? See, as if that transcends the limits of the natural philosopher to to see this, huh?

[42:14] And of course, when you go to the book on the poetic art, and Aristotle's talking about how a play represents a change in your fortunes, huh? If it didn't represent a change in your fortunes for the characters, right, would not be of any interest to us, to speak of, right? And basically, there's two changes in fortune. One is from good fortune to bad fortune, and that's more appropriate to tragedy, and the other is the reverse, from bad fortune to good fortune, right?

[42:50] And he uses the word eutuchia, right? You know, good fortune, good luck, and but he's talking at one point there in the book on the poetic art.

[43:03] Where how a chance event arouses our wonder, which the poet wants to arouse our wonder, it seems to have some hidden purpose to it. And if I recall, one of the examples he gives is the one where a man killed some famous man, murdered him, and he was not discovered who had done it. But the man was great and famous, so they put up a statue to him in the marketplace in his honor, right?

[43:40] So one day there's a festival in the in the city, and huge crowds there, right? And the crowds push against the pedestal, whatever it is, and the statue falls over and falls upon somebody and kills them. And whom do you think it happens to fall? But the murder, right? Well, it's happened by chance, right? But there seems to be some what?

[44:06] Yeah, some purpose to this, right? See, that's kind of hinting at something divine, right? Okay. Now, if you take Shakespeare's play there, which is very much dealing with luck and fortune, there, Romeo and Juliet, right? And like Romeo says, "I'm fortune's fool," right? So on. But at the end there, when Romeo and Juliet are dead, you know the story and everything, huh? And the the head of the city there, right?

[44:32] The prince there is, you know, got these two men, right? Romeo's father and Juliet's father, who've been fighting, you know, and so on, huh? And he says, "God has found a way to punish you," right? So they seem to be punished for their hate and fighting each other, right? By the love of their own only children, right? So it seems to be heaven has found a way to punish you, huh?

[44:58] Because they put up a statue to Romeo and Juliet, so. But it's kind of another aspect of what Aristotle that opinion, right? That there seems to be something what hidden, right? Or when when Caesar is assassinated, right? There's behind him there the statue of what Pompey, who is eliminated, right? And so, think Pompey is directing, you know, so. So, but interesting, Aristotle would give that opinion, and then respectfully, in natural philosophy, not talk about it, right?

[45:45] But when you get to wisdom, then, and you see God as the cause of being as being, then he his causality extends to what the division of being as being, right? And the distinction between necessary and contingent. Is a division of being as such, so the divine causality extends to the contingent as well as necessary. How is that maybe for us to understand? And so belongs to the wise man to see that, right?

[46:15] And even more so to the to the theologian. As I say, it's interesting that in the Eudemian Ethics, that Aristotle sees that the beginning of our deliberation can't come from us, and has to come from the outside, from God. To see, he says.

[46:38] And so God, in His providence, arranges that some things will happen necessarily, and some by chance, and some by free will, and so on. Kind of amazing divine providence. Sometimes they compare it too, you know, a little bit to the playwright, you know, the dramatist. The dramatist arranges what chance events in a way that is very pleasing to to us, right, to watch, and and God does something like that. Okay.

[47:16] Now, this is controversial enough we're at the end of predestination, and then you've got up here in the reprobation, so. So, after the consideration, proemium here, after the consideration of divine providence,

[47:38] one should consider about predestination, and under that, we're going to consider reprobation, as you'll see, and about the book of what life, huh? And about predestination, eight things are asked.

[48:00] First, whether predestination belongs to God, huh? It's called predestination. Secondly, what is predestination, and whether it places something in the one predestined, and then third, whether reprobation

[48:30] belongs to God. Reprobation of some men belongs to God, huh? Then fourth, about the comparison of predestination to choice, whether those predestined are chosen.

[48:57] Fifth, whether merits are the cause or the reason for predestination, or reprobation, or choice, huh? Well, if he gets to those who are asleep, right, he might suspect that they're not going to be here.

[49:24] Sixth, about the certitude of predestination, whether those predestined are infallibly saved. Seventh article, whether the number of the predestined is certain. I'm not going to learn what number is. If it is certain, not certain to us. And the eighth one, whether predestination can be aided by the prayers of saints.

[49:58] So let's go with the first article here: whether men are predestined by God. To the first one proceeds thus: it seems that men are not predestined by God,

[50:14] for Damascene says in the second book. the Orthodox faith it is necessary to know that God foreknows all things, right? But He does not predetermine all things.

[50:32] He foreknows those things which are in us, but He does not predetermine them. And what does that mean exactly, right? He certainly doesn't what go against free will. Does that mean that He's not in some way a cause of our good choices?

[50:54] But He's not a cause of them in such a way that we're not free to choosing, not choosing as such. But the merits and human merits and demerits are in us, in so far as we are lords of our acts through free judgment or free will. Therefore, those things which pertain to merit and demerit are not predestined by God, and thus predestination of men is taken away.

[51:30] Moreover, all creatures are ordered to their ends through divine providence, divine foresight. But other creatures are not predestined by God. Therefore, neither men, right?

[51:47] Moreover, angels are capable of beatitude just as men. But to angels it does not belong to be predestined, so it seems, since in them there never was misery. But predestination is the proposal of taking mercy, as Augustine says. Therefore, men are not what predestined. Now we made some distinctions before about mercy, right? Are You miserable when you are nothing.

[52:29] Yeah, but in another way you weren't, you know. But you have to see how broadly we understand the divine mercy, right? There's sort of defect in you if you don't exist.

[52:44] Moreover, benefits are bestowed upon men by God. Or excuse me, the benefits bestowed upon men by God are revealed through the Holy Spirit according to saintly men, according to the words of the Apostle First Corinthians two. We, however, have taken not the spirit of this world, but the spirit which is from God, that we might know those things that are given to us by God.

[53:20] If therefore men are predestined by God, since predestination is a benefit of God, predestination would be known to those predestined, which is clearly what false. So none of us here knows whether he's predestined.

[53:43] God make this known to us. But against this is what is said in the Epistle to the Romans, chapter eight: those whom He has predestined, these He has what called. So the Scripture itself speaks of God having predestined.

[54:07] Now we've got to try to understand what this means, and then see how the objections can be what replied to. Yeah. I answer: It should be said that suitable to God to predestine men, for all things are subject to divine providence. I only showed before that divine providence extends to all things.

[54:34] But to providence it pertains to order things to their end. But the end to which created things are ordered by God is twofold. One of which excels the proportion and the ability of the created nature, and this end is eternal life, which consists in the divine vision, which is above the nature of any creature, as has been shown above.

[55:08] Another end is proportioned to the created nature, which the created thing can attain to according to the power of its own nature. Now to that to which something is not able to arrive through the power of its own nature, it is necessary that it be transmitted by another, sent over.

[55:40] Just as the arrow is sent by the arrowist to the target, to the sign, to the archer by the archer. That's not the second.

[55:59] The archer. Whence, properly speaking, the rational creature, who is capable of eternal life, is led to it, as it were, being what. Sent over by God,

[56:20] and the reason of this sending over preexists in God, just as in Him is the reason of the order of all things to their end, which we have said to be providence.

[56:36] But the reason of something coming about existing in the mind of the one who is doing it is a certain preexistence of the thing coming about, and

[56:48] whence the reason of the foresaid sending over the rational creature to the end of eternal life is called predestination, for destinare to destine is to send. And thus it is clear that predestination, as regards its object, is a certain part of providence, right? But that part of providence that's dealing with what? The rational creature, who's ordered to an end that surpasses his what? Capacity of his nature, right?

[57:27] Okay. Now, the first objection was taken from the authority of St. John Damascene, and Thomas interprets his words in this way. To the first, therefore, it should be said that Damascene names predetermination, the imposing of necessity, right,

[57:56] as in natural things which are predetermined to one of two opposites, which is clear from what he adds, right? For he does not will wickedness, nor does he compel virtue, right? But he respects, in other words, the freedom of the will, right? Whence predestination is not what? Excluded, yeah. So he's taking Damascene as excluding necessity being imposed upon us in these things, right? It's not a sufficient says of predestination, right?

[58:33] Because even providence itself extends to contingent things, right? Okay. Now, what about the second and third ones? The second one is saying that the irrational creatures don't have predestination. Why? it seems so special for us? To the second, it should be said that irrational creatures are not capable of that end which excels the faculty of human nature, not capable of seeing God as He is. Whence not properly are they said to be what?

[59:10] Predestined, right? Although sometimes abusively, predestination is named with respect to some other what? End. Okay. Now the third objection was saying, well, the angels—they're rational, okay—and Thomas is not going to correct in a sense the objection, saying, well, they really are predestined too. To the third, it should be said that to be predestined belongs to the angels, just as to men, even though they were never what?

[59:44] Miserable, huh? For motion gets its form or species from the limit, not from the limit from which, but the limit to which, right? For nothing does it differ as far as becoming white, whether the one who becomes white was black or what? Red or pale, pale, okay?

[1:00:15] And similarly, nothing—it pertains no way to the definition of predestination. Whether the one predestined to eternal life is from is predestined to eternal life from the state of misery or not, right? Okay, it's from the term to which you're being directed.

[1:00:36] Although it can be said that every bestowing of good beyond the debt of the one to whom it is, or what is owed to the one to whom it is conferred, pertains to mercy, right? The broader sense we're talking about.

[1:00:51] Now, the fourth one is well. This is a great gift, obviously, being given to us. Why aren't we told about it? To the fourth, it should be said that even if to some from a special privilege, right, their predestination is revealed. it does not ever belong to be revealed to all, because thus those who are not predestined would despair, right? And security in the predestined would bear.

[1:01:23] Yeah So Shakespeare talks about that. in Macbeth Security is mortals greatest danger. you know Okay Go on, take a break now. Take a break now. Okay.