Prima Pars
98. Order of Teaching About God, and Whether There Is Procession in God (Arius and Sabellius)
Class of 2007-10-18
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/098-order-of-teaching-about-god-and-whether-there-is-procession/

[0:00] Name of the Father and the Son and 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, and help us to understand all that you've written. Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

[0:26] So, since we haven't been together for a while, let's come back to something we were touching upon at the last class, if I remember. If you look at the proemium here, to the treatise on the Trinity, in the beginning of this question twenty-eight, if you have that, he says, having considered those things which pertain to the unity of the divine essence, it remains to consider about those things which pertain to the Trinity of persons in the divine.

[1:05] And then he says, and this is a very key thing now for us, and because the divine persons are distinguished by the relations of origin,

[1:20] by relations that understood from the origin of one person from another, like the origin of the Son from the Father, or the origin of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. Then Thomas says, and this is a very precise statement,

[1:42] because of that, because the divine persons are distinguished by the relations of origin, according to the order of teaching, the order doctrina but that's the Latin word for teaching. According to the order of teaching, we have to first consider about origin or about the going forward, the proceeding. Secondly, about the relations of what origin, and third about the what persons. So in this first question, he's going to be talking about the origin or processions, and then the next question about the relations, and then you have all these questions about the persons.

[2:28] But he calls that the order of what teaching. Now, if you leave one hand in that part and go back to the proemium at the very beginning of the Summa here, the prologue as it's called, which is etymologically the same as the word forward, but it's a more precise thing than what we call forward. A lot of Thomas's commentaries and scriptures have what they call a prologus.

[3:05] And Thomas says many things there about why he wrote this work, and in the maybe it's the second paragraph at least in my text of this prologue, we have considered, he says, that beginners in this doctrine, we call sacred doctrine, in those things which have been written by many are impeded a lot. Okay. Now, why are they impeded? Well, one thing is an account of the multiplying of useless questions, articles, and arguments.

[3:41] But then the second thing he says, partly because those things which are necessary for them to know are not treated, and the Latin says according to the order of learning, disciplinam. Now, here he speaks of the order of learning, and in the beginning of the treatise on the Trinity, the order of teaching. Now, the teacher and the learner are not the same person, but is there any difference really between the order of learning and the order of teaching?

[4:21] That is to say, is there any difference between the order in which the student should learn, right, and the order in which the teacher should teach? It

[4:35] seems to me that would be the same thing, right? That the teacher ought to teach things in the order in which the student can learn them, in the order in which the student can best learn them. And so, I take these two phrases, "order of learning" and "order of teaching," as really referring to the same thing. So it's interesting that Thomas repeats this emphasis upon the order of learning or the order of teaching, as he calls it here, at the beginning of this section, but he runs through the whole Summa.

[5:13] One thing I did on my vacation here these three weeks, I took along my copy of Augustine's work on the Trinity, and of course you're struck by the fact that Augustine will go into talking about, let's say, the incarnation, right, a great thing in the case. So it's not just about the Trinity; he's got all kinds of things mixed up in there, right? While here you hardly hear about the incarnation; you have to go to the Tertia Pars right?

[5:43] So Thomas's way of proceeding there is much more ordered than Augustine's, although you can see that he keeps on pulling things in from Augustine. I was thinking in comparison of someone I was talking to out there

[5:59] that Augustine is to Thomas a bit like Plato is to Aristotle. And the more you know Aristotle, and then the more you read Plato, the more you see. Oh, yeah. Here's something that Aristotle developed and used over here, and here's something else that he used here. But in Aristotle, they're ordered in a way they're not ordered in Plato. And Plato's works, of course, have come down to us in the form of a conversation.

[6:25] And a conversation we don't always stick to the subject, or stick to one subject. We tend to go from one thing to another. So now let's just stop a little bit and talk about the order of learning or the order of teaching about God. Okay.

[6:51] And what I think is pretty hard to avoid in things that are even Thomas sometimes in a little different order, right? Okay. I think what's pretty clear from the two Summas and from the Compendium of Theology is that you talk about the existence of God before you talk about the what substance of God.

[7:30] Now, when we talk about order, we mean before and after. So, what is exactly the before and after in learning about God or learning about God according to the order of learning? Well, you first learn about the existence of God, and then, secondly, about the substance of God. Third, about the operations of God, and fourth, about the Trinity.

[8:00] To some extent, the Trinity is before the Incarnation because it's a word made flesh, right? So, this word you're talking about. So, in a sense, the treatise about the Trinity is presupposed to the treatise about the Incarnation. And I see that very strikingly. I was thinking of again of the what we have in the Compendium of Theology and the Te Deum, right? In the Te Deum, you first praise the Trinity, then you go to the Incarnation, and then you kind of give the Our Father again.

[8:39] It sounds the same order there. The prayer is at the end. Um, but when the transition takes place from the Trinity to the Incarnation, it comes back upon the fact that He really is the Son of God and He became man, and so on. Now, I think that order is pretty what necessary, right? As Thomas would say, if God doesn't exist, the whole theology is removed, right?

[9:11] So, in a sense, the first thing you have to consider is the existence of God. Now, is there a reason, though, why you consider the substance of God

[9:24] before its being what is understanding and willing? Is there a reason to do that? You wouldn't know what was understanding and willing if you know the substance of God is hungry. Okay. Now, I think if you went through like we did the understanding and willing of God, you can see that He borrows things, right, from the consideration of substance of God.

[9:55] Now that you have to consider the the operations. Of God, what God does, His understanding and His willing, before the Trinity will become clearly clear for the Trinity, because the Son proceeds from the Father by way of God understanding Himself, so that God is in Himself as understood. And because we learn in the treatise on the doing of God that the understanding of God is not something added to God, but it is His very being, His very substance, then God as understood must also be God.

[10:36] And then you take up the what? You see the Holy Spirit, and He proceeds by way of God's what? Loving Himself, so God is in Himself as loved. So you really have to understand the doing of God, right? The operations of God is understanding and His willing before He can understand the what? Trinity, right? And it come up in all kinds of ways, particular things. When you learn and you take up God's understanding that He's not like us, where my understanding of a triangle, my understanding of a dog, my understanding of justice, there are three different understandings in me,

[11:19] but God has only one act of understanding that's shown in the treatise on the understanding of God, and that's why there can be only one word of God, right? Only one thought of God, huh? You heard my little poem I always begin, you know? God the Father said it all in one word. No wonder when that word became a man, He spoke in words so few and said so much.

[11:44] He was the riveting soul of it. a little borrowed there from Shakespeare. So unless you understand God's understanding, you wouldn't be able to understand why there's only one word, right? Only one Son, and likewise that God's loving or God's willing, there's only one act, right? Why my love of wisdom and my love of wine and my love of candy and my love of Shakespeare, my love of Mozart, these are all different loves in Duane Berquist.

[12:17] I don't have one love of which I love Mozart. I have all these. My love is very divided, right? I love my grandchildren, my wife, and everything, and my brothers, and so on, right? But you have to understand that there's only one act of will in God, only one love. So I think that order, that before and after, the existence of God before the substance of God, the substance of God before the what?

[12:49] Yeah. And when you study the substance of God, you study like the simplicity of God, right? And there's nothing added to God's substance, right? And then. When you come to talk about God's understanding, we realize, well, it must be simple, right? And you can't have many. You can't be thinking from one thing to another, and so on, right? Okay. Or you realize, for example, when you talk about the substance of God, that God is pure act, and therefore there can't be something unknown to him, because then he'd be in potency, able to know something.

[13:23] It can't be any reasoning in God, right? Although he understands reasoning, and so on. Now, in the study of the doing of God, in both Sumas and in the Compendium, and so on, God or not God. Thomas will take up the understanding of God before his willing,

[13:50] and of course are coming to know the understanding, the willing of God from our own understanding, willing. You have to realize what an understanding has to be understood before the willing can be understood, and that's going to be reflected again in the treatise on the Trinity that we know the proceeding of the Son before we know the proceeding of the Holy Spirit. And in fact, in the case of the Holy Spirit, we don't have names, right?

[14:24] In the same way that we have for the Father and the Son, it's kind of appropriate the name Holy Spirit, but the Father and the Son are spirits and they're holy, right? And so you have to kind of invent words, right, to talk about the Holy Spirit, but that's because this proceeding by way of love is in some ways less known to us. But it goes back to the fact that in the treatise on the operations of God, you have to take up the understanding before the willing.

[14:56] There's no way to get around that, unless you know that what God primarily understands is himself. You wouldn't be able to see why what he primarily loves is himself, because it's the good that is understood that is the object of the will.

[15:16] Now, is there before and after in the consideration of the substance of God? Well, as you have been with me going through that part of the prima Pars, in the consideration of the substance of God in the Summa Theologiae, and also in the Summa Contra Gentiles that consideration of the substance of God is divided into five parts,

[15:50] and the order of those five parts in the Summa Theologiae is you consider firstly simplicity of God. And secondly, the perfection of God, which is attached to consideration of His goodness, and then the infinity of God, and then the unchangeableness of God, which is attached to consideration of His eternity, and so on, and finally the unity of God, right? Okay. Now, is that order of those five?

[16:20] Is that infallible? You must consider this before that, and the order in which he does in the Summa Theologiae But Thomas says you can't do otherwise. Yeah, because he himself does otherwise wouldn't he, yeah. And

[16:40] one time I gave a talk on the order of the consideration of the substance of God in the two summas. And I was going to bring in the compendium too, but got a little too complicated. I just limited myself to the two summas. And

[17:00] but now with my further reading of the compendium and so on, what seems to be necessary, right, is that you consider the simplicity of God before the perfection of God. He does that in both summas and in the compendium, right? Okay.

[17:30] But the place of the other three in the Summa Contra gentiles and in the compendium, he considers the unchangeableness and eternity of God as being eternal before even his what simplicity. Or in the Summa Theologiae, he considers it not only after the simplicity, but after the perfection and after the what infinity, right? Okay.

[18:08] Now in my paper, what I tried to show is not that one way is correct and the other order is incorrect, right? I tried to show that something is brought out in one order that is not brought out in the other order.

[18:30] Now you've heard me with my famous rule of two or three, right? And you say, well, what is Thomas doing here? I mean, here in the treatise and the Trinity, you just saw he divides that treatise into three parts, right? And yet in both summas he divides the consideration of the divine substance into what five?

[18:59] Well. It's interesting, huh? Because in the Compendium of Theology, the consideration of the unity of God is part of the consideration of the simplicity of God.

[19:20] And so you realize those two kind of go together, right? And in the when you consider the infinity of God, you know the first thing you have to learn is not infinite in the way in which quantity is said to be infinite, right?

[19:38] But as Augustine says, this is where more means what? Better. So you realize that the infinity of God, in a sense, refers to the fact that there's no limit to his perfection. He's universally perfect. So the infinity of God actually in the Summa in the Compendium of Theology is taken up before his. Perfection, so those two kind of run together, right? The

[20:09] unchangeableness of God, right, is not changing in any way whatsoever. In the Summa Contra Gentiles, when you go back to the arguments for the existence of God, there's two arguments for the existence of God, and they're much more developed than in the Summa Theologiae. And he'll give, you know, the basic argument and the two premises, and then there's three arguments here for this premise and three arguments for that premise.

[20:38] is that you don't get into that development there. So you spend so much time on the argument for the unmoved mover, the first mover, and then he's unmoved. that it seems kind of appropriate to take up God's being unchanging and eternal before anything else. And in that consideration, you bring out more naturally I think that God is pure act.

[21:10] And that kind of helps you understand the whole substance of God and his simplicity and his perfection and so on. Now Thomas in the Summa Contra Gentiles, though he takes up the infinity of God last. In fact, he's taken up the simplicity of God and the unity of God, right? Of course, having done it in that order, he says, "Well, God is not infinite in the sense that he goes on forever like a big body, right?

[21:47] Because we've already seen that he's altogether simple. And he's not infinite in the sense that there's an infinite multitude here, because he's one. So he eliminates any sense of infinite tied to quantity in the strict sense, huh? And then he goes into the sense in which God is infinite. And so it's kind of natural to put that last. Okay. So

[22:17] someone says to you, now, does it make any difference in what order you consider God? I mean, Thomas is very insistent upon what things have not been taught in the order of what learning, right? And here again, things have to be taught in the order of teaching, right? Okay, there is an order there, right? But maybe there's something necessary about considering this before that. But then you get down to some of the smaller points, so to speak, more particular things.

[22:56] There can be somewhat. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So I say in all these three works that I've mentioned, the two Summas and the Compendium of Theology,

[23:13] I think I was mentioning before class, by the way, that the Compendium of Theology they have an English translation of it. You have it, yeah, yeah. But in all three, in all three works that I mentioned here, Thomas will take up, for example, the understanding of God before His will, right? In all three, he'll take up the simplicity of God before His perfection. So I'd be very hesitant not to proceed in that order, right?

[23:42] But as far as the other three, there seems to be a little variation in the order in which Thomas does these. And the paper I gave on the two Summas, I try to bring out that there's something shown by one, not by the other, right? And sometimes, you know, if you show one thing before the other, then you use that to reason to the other. But sometimes we show the reverse; we might reason the reverse order.

[24:11] So you know, so the order of learning, the order of teaching, is very important, as you can see for for Thomas here, right? But since order means before and after, you've got to be careful as to how strict you make that before and after. So I say the existence of God before the substance of God, the substance of God before the operations of God, the operations of God before the Trinity.

[24:43] That to me seems kind of necessary in the order of learning, in the order of teaching. But now you descend into the parts, right?

[24:54] I mean, in in the arguments for the existence of God, Thomas always gives the argument from motion first, and in the Compendium, that's the only one he does because he's he's saying briefly for this man. So I think there's a reason why that argument comes first, and it's because motion is most known to us. You know, you always heard me quote Shakespeare there, right? Things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs.

[25:26] And so, if you want to get somebody's attention, you you wave or something like that, right? You don't want somebody to notice you. Very quiet and very still, and they won't notice you, right? And

[25:41] so I think, at least as far as that argument from motion, would you make one or more than one, right? But that I think naturally comes before the other ones, huh?

[25:57] And then the argument from that God is the first maker, the first efficient cause, the unmade maker. Put that way, that naturally comes after motion, because the mover and maker are very similar. And Aristotle reduces them to the third kind of cause. He begins with the mover, though, and then he talks about the maker, right? So the mover or the maker is the third kind of cause, but Aristotle always begins with defining the third kind of cause as once there is first a beginning of motion or rest, right?

[26:32] But then he kind of brings in the maker. So there's something about that order, right? So I would say in the arguments of the existence of God, the argument for motion comes first. The argument for the unmoved mover, whether you develop it more or less, right? And the argument from for the first maker, first efficient cause, naturally comes second, and then the other ones come, right? In the substance of God, what seems to be most determinate is that the simplicity of God is considered before the what Perfect perfection of God, right?

[27:15] Of course, you go back to the first thinkers, right? They thought that the beginning of all things was matter, right? Which isn't perfect, but they took a matter that they thought was simple, like Thales took water, right? Or Anaximenes took air, Heraclitus took fire, right? They took a matter that at least to our senses appears to be homogeneous of the same kind. So it's the idea the beginning of things is the simplest of all, right?

[27:46] It's kind of more known to us, and even the modern scientists. I mean, you know, they'll see, you know, the proton, electron, neutron, or something is before the atoms, right? The atoms before the molecules and so on. So they they'll look for the simplest thing, the principle simplicity they call it in modern science sometimes. So maybe you know it makes sense to consider the simplicity of God before his what perfection, right?

[28:14] Because people think of the beginning of things as being what simpler, right? And but those who think of the beginning of things as being matter don't really see the perfection. They're trying to get everything from the least perfect. Okay. So I think that that's that's followed in both Sumas and the Compendium, right? But then, as far as the other three are concerned, there seems to be a certain what variation, right?

[28:43] And as I mentioned before in my paper, I didn't try to say this is the correct order, and that is the wrong order. I tried to show that something is brought out in the one, not by the other, right?

[29:10] Now, what about this order here in the treatise on the Trinity? Thomas is very explicit. Because the divine persons are distinguished according to relations of origin, according to the order of teaching and the order of learning, right? You ought to learn first about the origin or the proceeding, the going forward, from one person from another person in the Trinity, huh? And then, secondly, you ought to understand the relations that are understood according to its origin.

[29:49] So, if one person generates another, right? Then we seem to have relation of father and what son, right? Okay. And if the father and son breathe. The Holy Spirit, then you have another relation, right? Them to that third person, and that third person to them, right? And then finally, you talk about the persons, huh?

[30:16] Now, of course Augustine, I think it was in the fifth book of the De Trinitate, where he talks about the persons and how they're really subsisting relations, and so on. We will come to that.

[30:34] But also, I might, you know, as a teacher of the categories, I sometimes ask people this question: Are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are they one thing or three things? Do you mean, you deny a real distinction between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

[31:06] Is that fair to say Yeah, yeah. Well, if you go back to categories, we distinguish between the substance of a thing, meaning what it is, right? And relation, right? And what Aristotle actually saw is that the word "being" or the word "thing," right, has more than one meaning.

[31:31] So, in one meaning of thing, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one thing. They're one God, right? One substance, huh? Consubstantial.

[31:46] But in another sense of thing, relation, there are what three subsisting relations? Yeah. So there's one thing there, and three things, and there's no contradiction because the word "thing" doesn't mean one thing. Okay. Just to review that a bit for you, if you're a little bit hazy on that. If I asked a man in the street, you know, is the nose and the ear one thing? What would he say?

[32:25] Two things, huh? Or is a man and a dog one thing? No. So if you have a man and a dog in a room, and you take the dog out, how many things do you have left in the room?

[32:41] One thing, right? Okay. And then if I come back and say, "No, you got two things. You got the man and his shape." Well, he'd say you're playing with words or something, right?

[32:59] Or to take an example of the nose and the ear, right? You got a nose and an ear. You got two things, it seems, huh? Now, if you take away the ear, you got one thing left, right? He'd say, yeah, I've only got one thing left. I say yeah. No, you got two things. You got the nose and the shape of the nose, right? If he denies that, and I say, well, then it's nothing to me if I flatten your nose.

[33:28] So, or a man and his shape, right? People worry about their shape, right? Kinda funny I was reading spear, you know, was the associate of Hitler, right there in the industry, and Hitler was always worrying about his shape, huh? And he had a liking for little sweets and things. He says, take these away, I like them too much. He says, if I get potbelly, he says, it'll destroy my image, right?

[33:54] You know, he can't go out there, potbelly, right? Like Goring was. So people do worry about their shape, but the shape then is something other than them, right? But notice you say that a man and a dog are two things, and when you say that a man and the shape of a man are two things, you're not using the word thing in the same sense, are you?

[34:23] And so the substance is one thing, and the accident is something else, right? Okay. Now you don't have accidents in God, right? But you do have relations in God. And so what you learn in a sense in the categories is that the word thing is equivocal, not by chance, huh? But by reason. But there's more than one meaning of the word thing.

[34:51] A lot of times, you know, people don't realize that they know these things because of the words. Charles Dickens stories take that Moliere play, where this guy, you know, runs into somebody and he says, "Are you speaking prose rather than poetry? " All my life I've been saying prose. I didn't know it. What's the problem with the word, right? And you say, you know, well, does a man know the difference between substance and quantity?

[35:22] He might say, I'm not sure if I know the difference, right? But if you go back to something like the original Greek and so on, you'd say, well, is what a thing is and its shape and its size rather the same thing? Is a dog what a dog is and the size of a dog the same thing? Even the man who speaks would hesitate to say the same thing, right?

[35:47] There's different dogs of different sizes, but they're still what a dog is, right? Or different men of different sizes, right? But they're still what a man is. So they're making a distinction between the first two kinds of things.

[36:02] But the size of the dog or the shape of the dog is not a thing in the way which the dog is. It's something of another, Aristotle says, rather than something by itself.

[36:20] So you can see in the order of learning, the categories comes even before. which is the only work that Augustine knew, right? I noticed in reading the De Trinitatis, Augustine would use exactly the Latin words that correspond to the Greek words. You won't say relation, but you'll say ad aliquid. which is exactly what we do in logic. You know, we translate Aristotle's name for that category, pros ti, towards something, Ad aliquid.

[36:55] So let's look now at the first question here. Now about the procession. Now procession, procession, is the Latin for what? Sometimes we transliterate. Proceeding means going forward, right? Okay. About the procession of going forward, five things are asked. First, this actually comes first: whether there is a going forward, a proceeding in God. In other words, not only does the creature proceed from God, right, as something outside of God, right, but is there a proceeding within God, right?

[37:39] That seems kind of surprising, you know, that there would be. But if there is no proceeding within God, there'd be no relations within God and no persons within God.

[37:56] That's kind of a question of does it exist, right, such a thing as God? And then whether some going forward, some proceeding in divine things, can be called generation.

[38:18] That's the what going forward that will give rise to the relations of Father and what Son. And then whether, besides generation, there is some other procession in divine things. But notice Thomas doesn't have a word for it, right?

[38:41] Love is more obscure, right? And then whether that other procession can be called generation. If it could be, then the Holy Spirit would be another Son, right? Could be the grandson, right? See all these grandchildren. So I'm very much aware of that. One of my grandnephews, too, when I was out there. A couple of my grandnephews, yeah. So trying to figure out what I was to them.

[39:13] Finding his father finding his grand uncle. So notice there's two articles there dealing with this other procession, right? The one is whether there is some other one, right? That's kind of more hidden, right? And there were what heretics, right, who admitted the divinity of the Word, the Son that denied it of the Holy Spirit.

[39:48] And then the final question: whether in divine things there are more proceedings or more going forwards than two. Now the answer to that question is going to depend upon seeing that there's only two kinds of operations of God, understanding and what willing or understanding and loving, and therefore there can be only two proceedings. So you'll see in many ways how this presupposes the understanding of the divine understanding and willing.

[40:23] Now let's look at the first article here. Now as Thomas often explains, we name things as we what know them, right? And what do we know first? Sensible things, right? So the word proceeding or going forward first names something sensible. I open the door and I go forward, right? And so, but then the same word is often carried over, right?

[41:13] And if you can't follow that carrying over, you'll be like Monsignor Diane used to say, you know, you can't move the word. And most people are like that, and they will fall back upon an earlier what more sensible meaning, right? And not see the one that we're trying to get them to.

[41:37] Shakespeare likes to pun on the word understanding, right? And so one guy says to the other guy, "I don't understand you." And he says, "Well, my cane understands me." And they start well, it's kind of a lousy joke in a sense, but it does call your attention to the fact that the original meaning of understand is to stand under, right? And then how does that come to name this thing that is an act of reason?

[42:03] Huh? How's it come to do that? So you have to be able to follow that along. So Thomas will often, you know, go back to the first meaning of a word in some of these objections, but that's where you have to begin and then move the word slowly from there. For proceeding or going forward would be the English for proceeding, huh? Signifies a motion to the outside.

[42:37] You go forth from your room in the morning, don't you? See But then you're going out extra, right? Well, this proceeding that's going to be underlying your understanding of there being relations in God that are real, and therefore persons in God that are real, this is going to be a going forward that remains within God, huh? And it's hard to see, huh? But say when I imagine something, right?

[43:12] There proceeds from my imagination an image of that thing, but that image remains within my what? Imagination, right? Unlike when I make a chair or a table, then that's a procession ad extra, right, huh? What's more known to us, than, making chocolate chip cookies, which even my my oldest grandchild is making, you know, piles of chocolate chip cookies and and the other things that she's she's learning.

[43:42] That's more known than the proceeding of an image, right? But the proceeding of an image from the imagination is more like proceeding in God because it's a proceeding that remains within God,

[44:01] and because whatever is in God is God, then what proceeds remaining within God will be God. It's beautiful. that Thomas begins there, right? Because he forces your mind to see this first distinction, okay? And as you know, I've often talked about the English word for error, which is what mistake, huh? But we often say when somebody's mistaken, you're mixed up.

[44:35] And I'll be mixed up people, right? Mixed up their names at least. And forgive me, but anyway, that's my life, starting my life. I'm mixed up very often, but mixed up is the opposite of what distinguishing, right? So in order to learn, the first thing you have to be able to see is distinctions, right? Like the distinction between what a thing is and its size, or now the distinction between a going forward that remains within, like the going forth of the image from my imagination, right?

[45:16] And a proceeding which is more known to us than to the outside, huh? But notice the objection. But in God there is nothing mobile, nothing changeable, movable. So proceeding seems to imply motion, right? And the proceeding that's most known to us is to the outside. So there's two reasons to say there's no proceeding in God. Therefore, neither is any going forward in God. There's nothing extraneous in God.

[45:53] There's no motion, guys. How can there be a proceeding or going forward? Now, what's important to realize is that these things you cannot sense or imagine. You can't name them except by taking words that you've used for things you can sense and imagine. You take these words and you what? Carry them over, right? But in carrying them over, you change their meanings. But the new meaning has some likeness to or some connection with the earlier meaning.

[46:35] I take the word to see, right? What does the word to see first name? The act of the eye. Yeah. Yeah. Now, what's the second meaning of the word to see? Understand, imagination. Yeah. Now, most people will say, you know, the second meaning of to see is to understand. When I was a little boy, my mother would say, you know, I see," said the blind man, but he couldn't see at all.

[47:12] So you're kind of playing in that those two meanings, right? But is there a meaning of to see between the act of the eye and understanding? Is there a meaning of the word to see which is more like the act of the eye than understanding is, and therefore should be placed second?

[47:38] Well, again, I'd like to take Hamlet there because the friends of Hamlet have seen with their eyes, right, the ghost of Hamlet's father, and they decided to come and tell Hamlet about this, huh? And before they're able to tell Hamlet about it, right? Hamlet says, "I see my father now." And looking around for the ghost, the ghost is there again, right? You see. And Shakespeare says, "In my mind's eye," right?

[48:15] He can picture, he can imagine, remember, right? His father and what he looked, right? You see, they're thinking of the original sense of to see, right?

[48:27] But a sign that you know to imagine something is more like seeing in the original sense than understanding is, is that in a dream, right? We often think we're seeing with our eyes, and we're actually not, but imagining. But even in a dream, we don't confuse understanding with seeing.

[48:53] So the second meaning of to see is to re-imagine, to picture the imagination. Now that second meaning is more like the first meaning than understanding, but at the same time, it's more like understanding than the act of the eye is. And so, when I imagine something, I form an image of it. And when I think about something, I form a what thought about it, right? And in English, people tend to call what either an image or a thought an idea.

[49:33] Okay. But that kind of shows the likeness of the two, huh? You see. So imagining is more like thinking than seeing with the eye is. But vice versa, imagining is more like seeing with the eye than understanding. So you have to gradually develop that, right?

[50:03] Now, if I could always, if I had always imagined something, right, there'd always be an image in me of that thing, right? Would there have been any change in me if I'd always imagined it?

[50:19] Not as far as the image goes. Yeah, yeah. So if God always understands Himself, right, He always has in Himself a thought of Himself, right? There's no change there, right? And because this going forward is like imagining, remains within God, then you eliminate both of those parts of the objection, right?

[50:54] Moreover, everything going forward is diverse or other from that from which it what goes forward, right? But in God there is no diversity, huh? But the summa, the highest simplicity, right? Therefore, in God there is not any what procession, right?

[51:25] I think I mentioned before to some of you that these words, distinct or distinction, and division and definition, are in a certain order, right?

[51:47] When you define something, right? Like I define a square as an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral. When I define something, in a way, I divide, right?

[52:07] I'm dividing, in a sense, the definition into its parts. But not every division is a definition, is it? When I divide number into odd and even, that's not a definition. So division is more general than what? Definition, right? But distinction is even more general than division, because when I divide, I distinguish things, huh? But division, in the strict sense, implies that you have some kind of a whole there and some kind of parts into which you divided the whole, right?

[52:51] Why a distinction means simply that this is not that, okay? Not that this and that are parts of some whole. So when Thomas he'll sometimes, you know, use division and distinction kind of interchangeably, right? when he gets precise about it, and especially in the Trinity, he will not ever say that God is divided into the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, because that would seem to imply that they're distinct as parts of God, right?

[53:25] And that's impossible because God has no parts; he's all together, what? Simple. But he will always say that there is a real distinction between the Father and the Son on the one hand, and a real distinction between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And to deny that is to be like Sabellius right? To is to be heretic, right? Okay. So you got to be careful here, right?

[54:00] In God there is no diversity. That's. But would Thomas say in God there is no distinction? In a sense, the distinction of the three persons of the Trinity is the first distinction, and distinction there would be even if God had not created anything.

[54:32] But this is where the problem is. How do you reconcile the summa simplicitas, right, of God with the real distinction of the persons? That's a hard thing to understand, huh?

[54:51] But as Augustine has taught us, and Thomas teaches us, and so on, it has to be understood in terms of the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit being subsisting relations. But that's getting into the game a little bit there.

[55:10] Moreover, to go forward from another seems to be repugnant to the notion of a first beginning. But God is the first beginning, as has been shown above. It goes back to the very arguments of God. It's the first beginning of all things. He's the Alpha and the Omega, right? The first and the last, the beginning and the end. Therefore, in God, going forward has no place.

[55:52] Against all this nonsense, is what the Lord says, in the eighth chapter of John. I have what proceeded from God have come forward from God.

[56:11] Okay, let's see how Thomas answers this in the body, and then we'll see how he replies to the objections. Notice the way Thomas begins here. I answer. It should be said that divine scripture in divine things uses names pertaining to proceeding or going forward.

[56:36] So notice, divina scriptura is presupposed to what Thomas is doing here, right? And sometimes, you know, I say people should read maybe the Summa Contra Gentiles first, right? About the Trinity before this, if they're not familiar with the scriptural passages a little up here. But there he begins from scriptural passages and kind of establishes that this is what Scripture is saying, right? And then you'll say, now how can we understand that, right?

[57:07] But having done that already, and also done in his commentaries on Scripture, then here he's trying to come down to understanding it, right? But nevertheless, the point is, this divine scripture comes first.

[57:22] But given that Scripture does use words like in the said contrary, that pertain to proceeding or going forward, different thinkers in diverse ways take this going forward. They understand in diverse ways.

[57:40] For some, take this going forward according as an effect proceeds from a cause, and thus takes it. Arius, who's a very famous, influential heretic, right? Saying that the Son goes forward from the Father as his first creature.

[58:07] Who was a great opponent of that? Athanasius, I guess. I was in some religion class in college. There, I'd take some church fathers. I took Athanasius, so I've always been attached to him. You know, I think he is one of the you know chief, chief. Fighters of this heresy, but not the only one by any means. And Hillary's very much concerned that too. And the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as the creature of both, and this is clearly right.

[58:43] And against this, and according to this, then neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit would be true God, which is against what just said about the Son in the first epistle of John, right?

[59:05] That we are in His what true Son. This is the true God. And about the Holy Spirit, it is said in one Corinthians six nineteen. Do you not know that your members, I mean your body, are the temple of the Holy Spirit? But only God has a what temple, right? Okay. There are many other passages in Scripture, but these are two that he brings in here, right?

[59:35] Sometimes he's more. Fifteen passages, you know, Augustine will do that, right? Augustine. Okay. But to have a temple belongs only to God, right? So that's the first thing you don't want to you don't understand this. The proceeding of the Son from the Father is not a proceeding of a effect from a cause, but it's a real diversity, right? A substance between the cause and the effect.

[1:00:08] Others take this going forward. According as the cause is said to proceed in the effect, in so far as it either moves it or impresses upon it its likeness, and thus Sabellius Sabellius takes it, saying that God the Father can be called the Son, according as He took flesh from the Virgin, right?

[1:00:43] And likewise, the Father would be called the Holy Spirit, according as He what makes holy or sanctifies the reasonable creature, right? And moves him towards life. So Sabellius was what? Not denying that the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit were one God, but they were denying what?

[1:01:10] Yeah, yeah, that one and the same person is called the Father for one reason, and Son for another reason, and Holy Spirit for another reason, right? A time called a husband and a father and a Grandfather and a brother, you know, same man here. But for different reason, right? Okay.

[1:01:30] Now, now when Aristotle takes up the moral virtues, he says that moral virtue is a mean between two extremes, even though it might be closer to one than the other. So, courage is between cowardice and foolhardiness. Intemperance or moderation is between intemperance or tyrannism or something, right? But to some extent, this is also true about the mind.

[1:02:05] So, the the truth and the virtues that concern with truth, truth is a kind of mean between two extremes. So, in King Lear, a character says, "All my reports go with Kent says, all my reports go with the modest truth, nor more, nor clipped, but so."

[1:02:34] Now, or Falstaff says, you know, if they say more or less than the truth, they are villains and the sons of darkness. He's the big liar himself. Takes one to know one. Yeah, yeah. What does it mean to say more or less than the truth? And then, in a less clear way, the formula we have in court, right? I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, right?

[1:03:08] Now, some people don't understand that, and they think that the second and the third phrases are just emphasizing again, "You're going to tell the truth." But they're actually excluding the two ways of departing from the truth: to say less than the truth or more than the truth.

[1:03:30] So, if I said I went up to the monastery, you know, today, and I taught thirty brothers, I'd be saying more than the truth, right? If I say I taught just two brothers, I'd be saying what less than the truth. To say more than the truth is to say that what is not is,

[1:03:58] or what was not was, right? Okay. To say less than the truth is to say that what is or what was is not or was not done. Okay.

[1:04:14] So, when you come to Trinity, right? What you have is one substance, one nature, one divinity, but three persons, right? And some, like in a sense, areas, right? Is saying you've got three substances here, right? Because you got three persons.

[1:04:43] So he's saying what? More than the truth, right? Okay. Others, like Sabellius, is saying because you have one substance here, we do only have one person. So he's saying that what is is not. So in a way, there's two ways of departing from the truth, right? And he had the same thing with the incarnation, right? Incarnation was in a sense reverse, right? Incarnation you have one person but two natures.

[1:05:17] So some heretics say that because you have two natures, you have two persons here, like Nestorius, right? Others say, you know, like Monophysites, because you have one person, there's only one nature. So the truth is between two extremes. The man who says there are two persons as there are two natures is saying more than the truth. There could be false. He's saying what is not, namely that second person, is.

[1:05:48] And the person who says that because there's only one person, there's only one nature, he's saying less than the truth because he's saying what is the two natures, is not. Okay. So it's kind of significant that Thomas takes these two guys, Arius and Sabellius, right? But

[1:06:10] at the same time, you know, as the philosopher says, Aristotle, the truth also explains error, right? So if there's only one nature and one person in Christ, why would anybody think that there were two persons and two natures? Or if there are two persons and two natures, why would anybody think there's one person and one nature? But if there's one person, you might make the mistake of thinking there's one nature too.

[1:06:44] Or if there's two natures, you might make the mistake of thinking there's two persons. So both of the errors have a part of the truth. But the two errors can't explain each other. And only the middle position, which has the whole truth, can explain. it. Yeah, but why he thought this was because he saw this part of the truth, but he couldn't see the whole truth, and he saw another part of the truth, right?

[1:07:08] Like the great Greek philosopher Pythagoras says, you know, having seen only a part, they boast of having seen the whole. I see the whole truth about the Trinity, or I see the whole truth about the incarnation. But they saw some part of the truth. They thought that was the whole truth.

[1:07:34] But to this taking, he says, "Sabellius, are repugnant the words of our Lord saying about Himself that the Son is not able to do anything by Himself, right? From Himself, and many other things through which it is shown that the Father is not the same as the Son, right? As I mentioned, the Summa Contra Gentiles, Thomas will go much more in the Scripture to show these more briefly, right?

[1:08:06] As it fits a beginner, right? As a beginner, but Augustine of course will go through, you know, all these scriptural passages too before Thomas, as well as the other great defenders.