Prima Pars
101. Summa I, q.27, a.4-5: Why the Procession of Love Is Not Generation, and Why There Are Only Two Processions
Class of 2007-10-25
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/101-summa-i-q-27-a-4-5-why-the-procession-of-love-is-not-generation/

[0:00] Now, whether this procession of love in God should be called what generation, right? The first objection is saying, yeah, it should be. What goes forward in likeness of nature in living things, huh? Is said to be generated and born, right? But that which goes forward in divine things by way of love, right, proceeds in a likeness of nature, because the Holy Spirit also is God, right? And he goes forward, and therefore he's like the one he goes forward.

[0:37] Well, then, shouldn't this be called another generation? Okay. Otherwise, he would be it would be extraneous from the divine nature, and thus there would be a going forward to the what outside.

[0:54] It's kind of interesting the way the sentences that Thomas commented on in his first years there in Paris, I guess. You know, those four books to sentences, right? There's various ways you can divide those four books, but the first two books are about proceeding from God, anyway, and then the last two books are about returning to God, right? So everything proceeds from God in a way returns to God, right?

[1:20] So it's kind of like a circle. You know, what's the difference between the first and the second book, right? Well, the first book is more about the Trinity, and the second book about the creatures, right? So the first book is about what proceeds from God within God, and then the what he calls the procession out extra, right, is what the second book is about. That's kind of interesting.

[1:45] Okay. So, so he's saying that the one who proceeds by way of God, loving himself, proceeds having what the likeness to God, right? Of the same kind. In fact, it is God. It's the same individual God. Therefore, why shouldn't be called a what generation or a birth, right?

[2:14] Moreover, the second objection. Moreover, just as likeness is of the notion of the word, right? Because the thought or word is a what a likeness of something. So also it pertains to the notion of love, for it is said in Ecclesiasticus chapter 13 that every animal likes what is like itself. Remember my talking about the excellence of the English word like, right? I like you because you're like me.

[2:46] Okay, birds of a feather flock together, right? So the conviction there. If, therefore, by reason of likeness, to be generated or to be born belongs to the Word going forward, it seems also that to be generated belongs to the love proceeding. Now this was certainly another two sons and all easy. But what what does Augustine say there in the De Trinitate? You know that no place is more dangerous to think, you know, than about the Trinity, huh?

[3:25] But no place is more fruitful to find something. But he warns us. You know, I told you that phrase. I love Augustine there in the De Trinitate. He speaks of those who have an immature and perverse love of reason. And you can see them on TV talk shows all the time. You know, and you know it's a beautiful phrase. I've never seen it anywhere else, to anybody else.

[3:56] You know, they speak of a immature and perverse love of reason. Now I see Augustine say also, you know, intellectu valde ama, love very much the reason, right? You should love reason. It's it's you know very special part of it. But not everyone loves reason as good. There can be an immature and perverse love of reason. What does that mean? You know. Well,

[4:35] my old teacher there at the Seric there used to give us a little passage from Albert the Great, right? And Albert the Great said that if you study things for any reason other than to understand God,

[4:51] unless you be forced to it by you know practical necessity, right? You have a perverse attitude, right? Okay. So everything we think about, unless those things were forced to think about for practical reasons, to get this tire fixed or something like that, we should think about a little bit. Can eventually think about God, right? So he kind of says in a passage, I think about the body, he says, so I can think about the soul.

[5:26] I think about the soul, so I can think about the angels. I think about the angels, so I can think about God. That's it. I don't think about God, so I can think about something else. And and if you get to the vision right? that's what you'll be doing. You'll be a pillar of that temple and not go out any longer.

[5:52] So people use their reason to do all kinds of silly things and unimportant things and sometimes bad things too. But if they don't think about the lesser things for the sake of thinking ultimately about God, then their lower reason is perverse. They don't know what reason is for ultimately. It's ultimately for knowing the beginning of all things, the first cause.

[6:17] But what would be an immature lower reason, huh? Is it? Well, I think you have to realize how weak reason is, huh? How easily deceived reason is, huh? And the disagreement of opinion among thinkers and even scientists and so on, right? Historians, right? Remember when I was in history class and in college, and Francis says now he says if you're, you know, can't take criticism or you know disagreement, don't become a historian, right?

[6:59] You need to tell your story. You get some paper, you get your objections. This guy, that guy, that guy, that guy. And so there's disagreement, you know, which is a sign that that all of us or all but one of us at most are mistaken, right? And so you realize how weak reason is, right? And so when Thomas spoke here at the beginning of the treatise on the Trinity, he spoke, for example, of the order of what teaching, right?

[7:26] And in the proemium to this whole work, the order of learning, right? That's only part, right? Of avoiding an immature level of reason, right? Sure, you want to use your reason and you want to use your reason to think about things, but you have to think about things in a certain order to really understand them. And if you think about things out of order, your mind will be out of order.

[7:53] And I used to say to the students, you know, the machine doesn't work. they hang up a sign that says out of order, right? Well, I say, you know, with the modern mind, especially, you know, many minds, I think of the same, out of order, right? I see. And

[8:12] you know, Albert the Great, down when he's when he's commenting on the logical works of Aristotle, it's called the father of logic, right? And he says that the early philosophers made many mistakes because they didn't, what, no logic, right? So you have to consider things in a certain order. You've got to know the the way of going forward, right? You got to spend time in logic and so on.

[8:37] Now, that's out of Laval, the two best teachers, know we teach what logic and natural philosophy, right? The fundamental things. Not even the highest things, right? But because you have to do those things first, and then you can go on to the more difficult things. So

[9:02] that's why metaphysics means: after natural things, after the books of natural philosophy. But logic teaches you how to think. So reason needs all these what helps, right?

[9:19] And you also need like great teachers like Thomas Aquinas and so on. And you know, you know, when I read Heisenberg a lot, the great physicist there. And some people say Heisenberg was probably next to Einstein is the greatest of the physicists in the 20th century. But in almost all his works it comes back to the influence that Niels Bohr had upon him as a teacher, and his first conversation with Bohr, and so on. I think there's a there's a book I saw recently too.

[9:57] I haven't don't have a copy of it though, but Encounters with Einstein. But the way you depend upon good teachers like that or good minds, so if you're thinking I don't need logic, I don't need to study things in particular order, I don't need any any minds that have thought better about these things or longer about these things than I have, you know, I'm Mr. Self-Sufficiency. I have immaturity, you know.

[10:35] Young man just says, you know, gee whiz, when a problem comes up, you know, I think what would the old guy have done, you know, how would he have approached this, you know? But that's that's having a somewhat immature view towards reason, huh?

[10:54] So that worrying about immaturity and perverse love of reason, though, is given by Augustine in the De Trinitante. So how easy it is to be mistaken about these things. The third objection.

[11:14] Moreover, that is not in the genus, that is not in one of its species. No, he doesn't know what logic is. No, what this objection is saying, right? Because the genus is is a general kind of thing, okay? Like quadrilateral, say in geometry, right? It's a general kind of thing, and under it has particular kinds of things like square, oblong, rhombus, rhomboid, trapezium, and so on. Or number is a general kind of thing, under it has odd number and even numbers, right?

[11:46] Or animals is a general kind of thing, and under it's got dog and cat and horse and so on. And government is a general kind of thing, and it's got monarchy and oligarchy and democracy and so on. So can you be in a genus without being one of the species? Can I be an animal and not be either a dog or a cat or some other particular kind of animal?

[12:05] No, obviously not. If therefore in divine things there is a going forward of love, it's necessary that apart from this common name it has some what special name. But there is no other name to give except generation.

[12:29] Therefore, it seems that the going forward of love in divine things is generation. There's no name for this going forward of the Holy Spirit. It's kind of a shocking thing, isn't it? Now, if you had studied, if you had studied Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, huh? He's talking about the moral virtues. He explains how a moral virtue is between two vices, one of which is in excess and one is in defect.

[13:08] So, for example, courage or fortitude is between cowardice and foolhardiness. So, in Coriolanus, Shakespeare touches upon that, right? But now, I mean, the Romans, you know, stand when they should stand and fight, and they'll retreat when they should retreat, right? They're neither foolhardy nor cowards in there. They're neither foolhardy in their stands nor coward in their what, drawing back. You know how Hitler lost the war against the Russians because the Germans get so far, and then the German generals realized they had to retreat a little bit to get a good place to to withhold the the Russians.

[14:00] And Hitler says, "No, we're not going to give up any land that we've gone forward to." So, you know, he was foolhardy, right? And then, of course, the Russians came in and started to turn the war around. That's where the end came. Well,

[14:17] but anyway, going back to what Aristotle says, when he gets to the virtue of temperance, right? He says, "Well, there's a name for the excess. The man who goes to excess in pursuing sense pleasures, like the glutton or the drunkard, or the,

[14:34] yeah. But there doesn't seem to be any name for the man who who doesn't pursue sense pleasure enough. And Aristotle says, well, there's a reason for that. It's so rare.

[14:54] You know, sometimes we, you know, find ways, like you know, you know, how women have this tend to have this disorder sometimes, not eating enough. You know, this emphasis upon being slim as rails or something. And I guess they have a name, bulimia. I don't know what they call these things. Yeah, yeah. But see, we don't have a name. We could invent a name, maybe for the man who doesn't pursue sense pleasure enough, and call him a puritan.

[15:17] But but there seems to be, you know, because the thing is so rare and unknown that people don't seem to have a name for it, right?

[15:28] So it may be that the reason why there is not a name for the kind of going forward that you have in the Holy Spirit is because it's less known that way of going forward, and it's does not

[15:47] like it in creature, right? Well, in even in animals, there's something that we could call generation, right? And going forward, the word is more known to us.

[16:04] Okay. But against this, this should be called generation. Is that according to this, it would follow the Holy Spirit, who proceeds as love, that he would proceed as one what? Generated, yeah. Which is against that of Athanasius, as refers to the Athanasian Creed, which, whether it's by Athanasius immediately or in a more remote way, is a great defender of the Trinity and so on. Spiritus Sanctus. This is from the Athanasian Creed.

[16:41] A Patre et Filio fudio, right? The Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, right? Non factus, like a creature. nec creatus, right? Nor even genitus, right? Said what? Yeah. So he keeps the common what? Name, yeah. Okay. Now, that comes under this way of naming things, right? Aristotle and the, I was just talking against the house last night here a little bit about chance and luck.

[17:18] Aristotle says, well, we can speak of chance in nature as well as in human life, right? But now, chance in human life has its own name, which is luck,

[17:40] or Latin fortune, in Greek tuche, okay. But chance in nature doesn't have its own name. So what do they call it? They just call chance sometimes, huh? So chance is used in two meanings here, right? Now, perhaps there's a reason why chance in human affairs has its own name because it's something much more important to us in our life, right? But that one doesn't have its own name.

[18:16] It keeps the common name, right? Okay. So sometimes you might say, well, you got procession, the Latin word, procession. You have the procession of the Son, right? And procession of the Holy Spirit.

[18:41] Now, the procession of the Son has a name. Generation. Sometimes it's called birth, too, right? But the procession of Holy Spirit has no name.

[19:00] So keep the common name. We call this procession. Now you'll find another problem with this too, because in the order of learning, we speak of the processions and God first, and then the relations, based on these processions, and then the persons who are these stimulations, right? Well, again, the relations won't have a name here, so we have to kind of adapt words to rename something else to name this.

[19:43] Okay. I think I realize the problem, Jason has. Now Thomas says, "I answer. It should be said that the going forward of love in divine things, in God, what is that, Thomas? Ought not to be called generation, right?

[20:17] To the evidence, or for the evidence of this, it should be known that this is the difference. Now, this is a very subtle thing here. This is the difference between the understanding the will,

[20:31] that the understanding comes to be an act, right? Through this, that the thing understood is in the understanding by its likeness, Son. The will, however, comes to be an act, not by this that some likeness of the thing will is in the will,

[20:59] but from this that the will has a certain what inclination towards the what thing willed, yeah. This goes back to the difference that the philosopher Aristotle brings out in the sixth book of Wisdom, right? That the true is primarily in the mind, but the good is chiefly in things, and therefore

[21:31] understanding something is a matter of getting something into your mind, but willing is more a matter of what putting your heart into the thing,

[21:48] and so the basic act of the mind is sometimes called grasping, grasping what something is. In Latin they speak a simple apprehension, but apprehend is the Latin word for to grasp. Now, when I grasp something, it's what contained in my hand, right? And that's a perfection of your mind. You grasp what I'm saying now. See, you can grasp what I'm saying now. That's good as far as your mind is concerned, right?

[22:22] But now you use that word grasping, you know, to name the perfection of your love. Grasping, huh? That's the perfection of your mind, you see. The perfection of your of your will, huh? You know, there's a kind of a pop song, you know, love is in love until you give it away, right? Huh? See, or like the other song says, I left my heart in San Francisco, right?

[22:47] Okay. Just the heart is in the thing loved, right? And when someone doesn't want to do something, you know, they'll say, "My heart's not in it. I'll do it, but my heart's not in it. I don't want to do it." Same. And our Lord says that same way, right? He says, "You know, pile up treasures in heaven, you know, and so I'm not down here. And where your treasure is, there your heart shall be."

[23:11] Right. Okay. So there's a kind of contrariety between knowing and loving him. And that's why it's interesting if you talk about love and knowing in regard to opposites.

[23:28] There's the same knowledge of opposites. So in ethics, we learn both what virtue is and what vice is, right? And knowing one helps you know the other, right?

[23:45] In in the medical art, you learn both what healthy health is and what sickness is, right? And knowing one doesn't prevent you from knowing the other, but it helps you, right? And there couldn't be one medical art about health and one about sickness. Makes any sense? There's one logic about correct reasoning, and incorrect reasoning. And so when I was giving an exam in logic, I want to make things difficult for the students.

[24:13] I know it's going to be look to them to be a good argument, isn't it? You know, They say, "I know there's a logician, right? I knew about bad arguments. as well as good arguments, huh? " And you know, Aristotle in the famous fifth book of the Politics, right? It's a book about how to corrupt the government and how to preserve. So he's teaching you both, right?

[24:37] Because it's the same knowledge of what both, right? And that's because the thought of virtue is not really contrary to the thought of vice, but it helps to it.

[24:52] But now, what about love? Is there the same love of opposites? If I love health, can I love sickness? Is the same love of health and sickness? No. The love of one contrary excludes the love of the opposite, right? If I love virtue, I can't love vice, right? If I love beauty, I can't love ugliness, right? Because love goes out to the thing in itself, and in the thing itself, one contrary excludes the other, right?

[25:32] But the mind takes contraries into the mind according to the way of the mind, and there the thought of one is not contrary to the thought of the other. So that's a very important thing here, right? So Thomas is going back to the fact that knowing takes place. By as Empedocles first saw, right? Or spoke about this, by the thing known being in the know, right? Not in its real being necessarily, but at least in its likeness, huh?

[26:04] Why love is more about inclination towards the thing in itself, so it doesn't have the idea of of producing a likeness in the thing.

[26:22] So the going forward then, which is to be noted according to the notion of the understanding, is according to the notion of likeness, right? And to that extent, it can have the notion of what generation, because everything, everyone generating generates something like itself, huh?

[26:45] But the going forward, which is to be noted according to the will, is not considered by reason of a likeness, but more by reason of something what impelling, right, and moving, right, towards something.

[27:03] And therefore, what proceeds in divine things by way of love does not proceed as generated or as a son, right? But it proceeds more as what breath, which has the idea of what impelling and moving you towards something, when the spirit wills and moves. By which name is is what designated a living motion and impulse, huh? In so far as someone from love is said to be moved or impelled to what to doing something, right?

[27:40] That's a very subtle thing to see, huh? That's the reason why what proceeds according to love doesn't have the idea of being a what generation, even though the Holy Spirit is like the Father and the Son, right? Love doesn't proceed by way of what receiving a likeness of the thing, but more by being what impressed by the thing and therefore being inclined towards it, huh? It's a very subtle thing.

[28:11] Takes a long time, you know, to see that. But notice even going back to to what we're talking about is more known than the understanding, of the imagination, right? When I imagine something, there proceeds from my imagination an image of that. Well, image is just a Latin word for what likeness, huh? Okay.

[28:39] And so it's proceeding as a likeness of the thing what known, the thing imagined, huh? But now when I get all shook up emotionally about something, right? Um, I like wine or I like candy or. Something like that. Is that a likeness of candy proceeding in my emotions? See, I might imagine the candy, but that's that's knowing again, right? See, I imagine the candy, and ah, I want some of that.

[29:13] So then I have this what inclination towards it, right? But that's not the idea of like having likeness of it. The likeness of it is in my sensing, right? In my imagining this can be.

[29:32] Yeah. Yeah. It's an enormous difference between the two. But notice, in some way, the thing loved or liked is in the what? One like you're loving it, and we use in daily speeches not. a bad way of speaking, really, the guy goes to the party, and you made a big impression upon her. She made a big impression upon you, right? Okay, there's something there, in some way, that person has made an impression upon your heart.

[30:09] They're stuck in your heart, right? Okay, that's something different than you know making a likeness of that person. That's something doing your imagination or your or your memory, right? Do you remember this person, right?

[30:26] Okay. Now, the first objection was saying, "Well, isn't what goes forward in likeness of nature in living things isn't that to be said to be generated, right? " Okay. Well, Thomas says this is because whatever is in God is God, right? Not because the Holy Spirit proceeds as a likeness of the Father or the Son or something like that, right? But because God's love is also His being.

[30:56] To the first, therefore, it should be said that whatever is in divine things is one with the divine nature, right? That's what I was saying earlier there today. Whatever God has is God.

[31:13] Now, what is Thomas saying? Whatever is in God is God. Okay. Aristotle, in talking about the word to have there in the fifth book of wisdom, says that for every sense of have is a corresponding sense that seems in, right? Okay. So if I have knowledge, right, you can say there's knowledge in me. If my body has has some health, there's health in my body, right? But now in me, the haver and the had are not the same thing.

[31:56] And what is in something and that in which it is is not the same thing, right? But in God, they're the same thing. And we use the words have and in talking about God, even though they fit the creature in some ways better than God, because we don't have another words, right? But then we have to realize that whatever God is said to have is God, and whatever is said to be in God is God, because God is altogether simple.

[32:30] So I was reading Thomas this morning there in my favorite book there, the Summa Contra Gentiles, and he's talking about the virtues that are in God, right? And there's among the intellectual virtues there's art and foresight and providence, and there's wisdom and so on, right? All these virtues are in God, and and among the moral virtues is justice in God, right? And there is truthfulness in God, and there is liberality, right?

[32:58] Thomas, he always quotes Avicenna, and he gives him the credit, right? Avicenna says, you know, God alone is liberal, right? But when Aristotle talks about liberality, you give somebody something, right? Not in order to get something back from him, but just because the goodness of giving somebody something. And God gets nothing out of giving us all these things, huh? And not even a good act, right? Which we get out of giving somebody something, right?

[33:27] So God is the only one who is perfectly liberal, right? God's generosity is amazing, right? And it makes you kind of got thinking again about Shakespeare's famous play there, the Timon of Athens, a man who's kind of foolish in his giving to people, but you know he's so generous, you know. There, there is, Thomas says at the end of this business about the divine virtues, that all the divine virtues that are properly in God, not as far as what is defective in them, but what's perfect in them, that these virtues are the exemplars of our virtues, right?

[34:04] So in some sense, Timon of Athens, there, you see, in being over generous to people, you know, you know, you're all coming to dinner tonight, you know, and not only get a wonderful meal, but you know, little present for you, even a little present, little present for you, you know. Of course, the steward, oh my God, the books, you know, and what do you mean he ran out, you know?

[34:23] And of course, what happens in the play is that eventually he goes broke, you might say, and what's no problem, I can borrow from any of these good friends I have. But you're kind of a fair weather friend, and they all have some excuse, you know. You know, one guy says, you know, oh, why did you come sooner? You know, I, you know, I just, you know, they all make some excuse without giving him money now, and then he becomes a great, misanthrope, you know.

[34:47] But, but the first part he's trying to be like God in a way, maybe that's, you know, got to admire in some ways. Not other ways, he's, he's, he's foolish, but. I had to think about that. God is exemplar. Gets through talking about, you know, Avicenna quoting Avicenna and saying, my gosh, that's the exemplar for the virtue of, of Timon there. But trouble was, it wasn't with any wisdom, you see.

[35:21] So, whatever is in God is one with the divine nature, right? Whence, on the side of this unity, that whatever is in God is God, right? One cannot take the what, private or particular definition of this or that procession particular, according as one is distinguished from the other. So

[35:47] they both, as both processions give rise to something in God, right? The Son and the Holy Spirit, right? And whatever is in God is God, right?

[36:00] More than like God, right? Is God, and so that's not going to be the basis for distinguishing these two ones, okay? But it's necessary that the what particular definition of this or of that going forward be taken according to the order, right? Of one procession to the other, and this order should be noted according to the what notion of will and understanding. Whence, according to what the proper notion of each of these, each procession in divine things gets its what name?

[36:48] The one that gets named. That is placed upon it to signify its what particular notion, proper notion. And hence it is that the one proceeding by way of love both gets the divine nature, right? Takes the divine nature, and nevertheless it is not said to be what born because he doesn't proceed in particular as a likeness of the one from which he proceeds, but as a kind of what breath and inclination towards it.

[37:29] And us, as I say, in the way we speak, and this is good, I think. And I say one of my grandchildren, she makes a real impression upon me, right? And her name is Isabella Rose. Well, I call her Isabella the Rose. And Isabella says, "No, I'm Isabella Rose." I call her Isabella the Rose, right? So she makes a great impression upon my heart, right? Okay. Now, if someone or something makes a big impression upon your heart, in a way they're in your heart, I think.

[38:10] See. But are in there as a likeness? No. Because they made impression upon your heart, then your heart goes out to them, inclined towards them, right? Huh? So their being in your heart

[38:37] in particular is different from the way in which they are in your memory, right? They go forward in your memory as an image, right? As a likeness of them, right? They don't go forward in your heart as an image or likeness of them, but in different ways, kind of obscure, but it's not the same way. And therefore, it shouldn't be called a generation or birth, because that's to go forward by way of a likeness of that in which it is born, right?

[39:14] Now, the second objection is saying, but likeness doesn't have anything to do with love, right? I like you because you're like me. To the second, it should be said that likeness pertains in a different way to the word or thought, and another way to love. For it pertains to the word, in so far as it itself is a certain likeness of the thing what understood.

[39:46] Just as the one generated is a likeness of the one what generated. Incidentally, when you get to take up the Second person of the blessed Trinity, right? Thomas will say, I'll speak of three names of the second person, and one is he's called the Son of God, right? Another word is he's called the Word of God, right? And then the third one, he's the Imago Dei, the image of God, right?

[40:14] We see how those things tie together, right? Because both as Son and as Word, he's what? Proceeding as a likeness of the one of which he is the Son, or a likeness of the one of whom he is the thought, right? And therefore, the third name, Imago, kind of fits the first two, both of them, right? But none of those are said properly of the Holy Spirit.

[40:45] But likeness pertains to love, not that love itself is a likeness, huh? But insofar as likeness is the beginning or cause of loving, right? Now I was mentioning how Thomas in the questions in the Prima Secundae the questions on love, right? The nature of love, the kinds of love, the causes of love, the effects of love. Well, the first article on the causes of love is whether good is a cause of love.

[41:16] Second one is whether knowledge is. Third one is whether likeness is a cause of love, huh? And I think I mentioned how when I taught love and friendship, I would sometimes take this Wuthering heights, right? But the woman is attracted to two men, right? But

[41:39] one man because of his good qualities, the other man because he's like her. And it's kind of interesting fictional example to use to illustrate this, right? Because obviously you could like someone both because of good qualities and because in some way they resemble you, right? But here it's divided among two people, right? And the question is that kind of interest that she raises there, those that men think after is, which of those causes is stronger, right?

[42:10] Are you drawn to somebody more because you know the goodness you see in them, or because they are what, like you, right? And of course she concludes that she'll be more drawn to the man who's like her. I think that's interesting. Maybe it may be true, right? you might see the on there you know talking about teacher one time say you know how you're sometimes drawn to a teacher because he's like you, right?

[42:37] That means in maybe things other than what he actually knows, right? But the teacher is good because you know something. Nothing, you know. And it's a little bit like you know my mother's always warned me about doctors, you know, don't go to the doctor because. Like his personality, right? Which like the doctor's personality, in some ways maybe like you in some ways, or something like that. And but he's not what?

[43:04] Yeah, yeah. Nice guy. Yeah. Kind of my teachers, I started from Kasurik to De Koninck to Dion, right? And probably I was most like Kasurik, and then more like De Koninck than Dion, you know. But but each guy was was wiser than the guy before him, right? Yeah. So you gotta, you know.

[43:29] Okay. But anyway, that's kind of getting a little more into detail of that. But Thomas is saying, and the second objection is saying, well, likeness pertains to love, right? Thomas says not in the same way as it does to thought. The thought is a likeness of the thing thought about. But love is not a likeness, or perceiving as a likeness of the thing that you love, but your likeness to that thing you love is a cause of your loving it.

[44:00] Okay. That's interesting. You talk about the love of God. Um, why, in a sense, um, why should one love God? Well, one reason is he's good, and and you know he's good, right? Okay, so that's one reason to love him, right? But another reason is that you're made in the image and likeness of God, right? And those are really not exactly the same reason, right? Although they may be connected, right?

[44:41] So the more we become like God, the more we love Him, right? Okay. Now they say, you know, if I understand that passage right, you know, Christ says, you know, no one greater born than John the Baptist, right? But he who's lowest in heaven is greater. Well, maybe the meaning of that is that once you see God as He is, the known, you know, way that's so much better than the way you know Him by faith, that if the good is known as a cause of love, you're going to love God more in heaven than you ever loved Him on earth.

[45:21] Okay. But also you'll be more like Him, right? You know, Saint John says in the, epistle there. When he appears, we shall be like him, right? For we shall see him as he is. Well, then we'll also love him more than we did in this life, because we'll be more like him than we were in this life.

[45:48] So why should you love God? Yeah, because he's good, and you know you've got to know he's good in a sense, and because you're like him.

[46:02] It's interesting. They're not the same reason, are they? No. So they're they're united in this now, right? Her attraction to these two men is is is divided, right? It's kind of interesting. I know how often that happens in in life, but something like that.

[46:25] People sometimes hang around people they don't recognize as being so good, because they're they fit their own thing, you know. We also see an opposite attract Yeah, yeah but that's uh you got to be careful about that. That's per per se or per accidens, you know. But you know, Aristotle's talking about the highest kind of friendship is between those who are somewhat equal in virtue, right? So they have two reasons for loving each other, right?

[47:00] And that is virtue, which is something good, and because they are like in virtue, because they're like each other, right? Right, two bad men, so to speak, right? They are like in their badness, so they have reasons to like each other, right? But they are like in something that is is bad, so there's a certain contrariety there. They can't love each other as as well as the as the two virtuous people can can love each other.

[47:31] Okay. The likeness from generation is sort of the result of generation affecting generation in a certain way. Yeah. Whereas the love is just the opposite.

[47:49] You might seek to be more like some of your like, you know. Okay. Let's get the. Yeah. Yeah. But did you finish that second? I guess the last part there.

[48:14] That the thing generated is a likeness of the one generating, right? But it pertains to love, not that the love itself be a likeness of the thing, but in so far as likeness is a principle, meaning a cause of loving, right? Okay. They gave you a reference there to the to the first on love there at the in this edition,

[48:41] which I think is kind of the most basic, fundamental treatise on love. you know whence it does not follow that love be generated, but that the one generated is the beginning of love, right?

[48:56] Because likeness is the cause of love, right? And the one generated is a likeness of something. Now, the third objection was more drawn from the name, right? There's no name for this thing. To the third, therefore, it should be said that we are not able to name God except from creatures. We learned that before, he says. And because in creatures the communication of nature, of these living things, is not except by way of what generation, right?

[49:32] The going forward in God does not have its own or a special name except that of what generation. Whence the going forward, which is not a generation, the second one we're talking about, right, remains without its own what name? You see how Thomas is following the order of learning, right? You have to talk about the going forward of the word. first before the Holy Spirit, but it could be named, right?

[50:00] You can invent a name for it, like Aristotle, you know. He's going to give a name to the vice that doesn't pursue sense pleasure enough, right? He calls it a Greek kind of compound Greek word there, meaning lacking sensation.

[50:19] If you don't like wine, it's a lacking sensation. If you don't like Mozart, the way the Holy Father does, right? You're lacking in what sensation, right? Okay.

[50:31] But it could be named what breathing, huh? Okay. So you can speak of the Holy Spirit. The Father and the Son is breathing the Holy Spirit. Huh? Trying to make a word, you know. Aristotle sometimes, you know, invents a word because there is no word for this thing he's talking about.

[50:53] Um, you know, in studying drama there, I used to have a book there and had the some of the Renaissance writers about plays and so on. It seemed to be a kind of play in between tragedy and comedy. Aristotle had written the book on poetic art, which was supposed to be on tragedy and comedy, huh? But the part in comedy has been lost, huh? Although he has some general remarks about comedy at the beginning there.

[51:24] Well, here's a new kind of play, or a play that seems to be between tragedy and comedy. What are you going to call it? And so, in the Renaissance, they invented a name. They called it tragedy comedy. Okay. And people, we do that. You see people do it in sometimes articles and so on, right? They they run two words together like that. Um, now, in in the complete editions of Shakespeare now, the last plays, like Pericles, maybe, and Cymbeline and Tempest and so on, they call those the romances, huh?

[52:04] Now, in the original edition of Shakespeare's plays, you know, the First Folio in 1623, he had the tragedies and the comedies and the histories, right? And these plays they now call the romances, right? Some of them were at the tragedies, some among the comedies, right? But now they they founded a new name, right? Okay. Um, how well that name is chosen, you know, the romance has more than one sense, huh?

[52:33] Now, when I name Shakespeare's plays, I see two kinds of plays in between tragedy and comedies. And one of them is called I call the mercy and forgiveness romances, which are called romances in these editions. And the other, the love and friendship romances, huh? The love and friendship romances are closer to the comedies. And the

[53:02] mercy and forgiveness are close to the tragedies. Mercy is like pity, right? And if you want to see a good way of comparing things very close together, right? Just take something that appears in each of these four kinds in one play, at least, where a man thinks his wife has been unfaithful, but he's mistaken. And and in the Merry Wives of Windsor, right, it's comic, the effect of this, right?

[53:35] And in in Othello, it's extremely tragic, right? In the mercy and forgiveness ones, he makes a great mistake, but it's not entirely unredeemable, right? I mean, you know, eventually reconciled, is why. And and in the love and friendship ones, it doesn't get that far, but there's a mistake and it's partly picked up. So if you read the Merry Wives of Windsor and Much Ado About Nothing, and then Cymbeline or Winter's Tale, and then Othello, right?

[54:06] In all four kinds of plays, you have a similar similar situation where a husband thinks his wife is unfaithful, but wait, handling is quite different, right? You see the difference in the four kinds of plays. Kind of interesting to see that.

[54:25] But anyway, it's a problem about how would you name these plays in between, right? So this is something that arises in ethics there when you're naming this vice, and it comes up when when you're trying to name the kind of play, right? Comes up in other sciences too, I'm sure, but must come to mind. So this is going to pursue us, you know, through the study here, right?

[54:51] What do you name the relations, you know? You name the father and the son the breather or something. Well, you couldn't couldn't invent a word, but it's a little more, you know, inventive, you know, it doesn't have the same tradition.

[55:10] You call the Holy Spirit the breathed one or something, you know. Yeah, yeah. Do you get a chance to the fifth act, please? So now this is kind of the third part here, right, of this question. So whether there is a going forward within God, right? What is the going forward within God, right? How many going forwards are there? Is any more besides these two we've seen?

[55:46] To the fifth one proceeds thus. I read proceed goes has a lot of Newton Thomson. It's progressive. Yeah, proceeding of our mind, mind is going forward and considering the divine going forwards. to the fifth, fifth one proceeds thus. It seems that there are more going forwards in God than two.

[56:14] For just as knowledge and will are attributed to God, so also power, right? If there, if therefore by understanding and will we take in God two going forwards, it seems that there should be a third one taken according to what divine power. Yeah.

[56:38] Moreover, goodness most of all seems to be a beginning of going forward, since the good is what the great Dionysius says, huh? Is diffusivum sui esse, right?

[56:54] Therefore, it seems that according to the goodness there ought to be what taken some procession in God. More, greater is the fecundity, right? The fruitfulness, the power, fruitfulness in God than us.

[57:15] But in God, but in us, there's not only one going forward of the word or thought, right? But many. I get many thoughts, right? What's the matter with this guy? He's fixer, you know. This thing we say about somebody—it's very fixer about a guy. He doesn't change it. Because from one thought in us there proceeds another thought, right? This goes back to Shakespeare's definition of reason, the ability for a large discourse looking before and after.

[57:47] And the meaning of discourse that especially defines reason is what coming to know one thing to another, right? Okay. So through the thought of the genus, through the thought of differences, you come to the thought of the species, right? And through the thought of the major premiss and the minor premiss, you come to the conclusion, and so on.

[58:07] And likewise, from one love there arises a what another love, huh? Okay. Therefore, since God is more fruitful than we are, in God there are more going forwards than just. These two, huh? Got to have like the Buddhists or something, and all these generations after generations, and so on. Yeah, yeah. They have people who think that way, right?

[58:33] But against all this is the fact that in God there are only two ones going forward, to wit, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, there must be only two what going forwards.

[58:49] Now, Thomas recalls at the beginning of the response that these going forwards have to be ones that what remain within the doer, right? I answer: It should be said that the going forwards in God cannot be taken except by those actions or doings which remain in the one doing them, right? Okay.

[59:18] This is the distinction we saw in in man, right? Between this this table went forward from somebody, right? And this image goes forward, and the image goes forward, remains within the one. Imagine it, right? But the one building a house that goes forward from him, something outside of him, maybe the house or the table, wherever it is, he's building. But actions of this sort in the intellectual nature and the divine one are only two kinds, to wit, to understand and to what will, right?

[59:55] For the one that was gave there, imagining, right? Which also seems to be an operation in the one sensing, right? Is outside the intellectual what nature, right? So the imagination is a bodily thing, right? It's an internal sense we call right. So God doesn't have that; doesn't have a body; doesn't have senses.

[1:00:20] Nor is sensing, if you take the exterior senses we call exterior senses, wholly remote from the genus of actions which are to the outside. For to sense is perfected through the acting upon and the sensible upon the senses, right? Okay. So since there's only two actions that remain within the doer, right? Understanding and willing, it remains that what there's no other going forward possible in God except that of the Word and what love.

[1:00:52] And also he names the second one of love, but love really names the the action, right? Right. Okay. Don't have a name for what goes forward there.

[1:01:04] So this is why he rejects the first objection there, that there should be a third going forward from power, right? To the first, it should be said that power is the beginning of acting in another. Going back to Aristotle's definition in the ninth book of wisdom. Whence, by God's power, one takes an action to the outside, outside of God,

[1:01:30] and thus, according to the attribute of power, one does not take a going forward of the divine person, but only a going forward of the creatures. We can say to God, "Hey, I went forward from you to the Holy Spirit and the Son. I went forward from God just like you did. Yeah, but then the difference was I went forward on the outside, and he went forward inside.

[1:01:58] And what's in God is God, so I'm not God. But I didn't go forward from Him, right? Now, the second objection is saying, 'Well, goodness is diffusive of itself, ' as the great Dionysius says. Now, to the second, it should be said that the good, as Boethius says in the book De Hebdomadibus great mind that Boethius, it pertains to the what? The essence, the nature, the substance of God, and not to his operation, except as perhaps as an object of the what?

[1:02:39] The will, right? Whence, since the divine processions must be taken according to some actions, then according to goodness and other attributes of this sort, one does not take other processions in addition to what? That of the word or love,

[1:03:04] because all those are according as God what? Understands and loves his essence, his truth, and his what? Goodness. So notice the essence of God and the goodness of God are taken up in the consideration of what? His substance, right? And then you take up the operation of God, whereby he loves and knows his essence, and you take up the Trinity, right? This is an order of learning these things.

[1:03:33] But goodness or truth may more the object of activities than activities themselves, right? I don't give you another activity from which there could be another proceeding, and therefore another person, and so on.

[1:03:57] Now, what about this lack of fertility in God? To the third, it should be said that has been had above in the treatise on the what? Operations of God, that God by one simple act understands all things.

[1:04:20] So how how he comes puts one and simple together there right very similar right God understands all things in similarity by one simple act He wills all things right whence in Him there cannot be what a procession of a thought from a thought right

[1:04:44] nor of love from love right because then He wouldn't understand everything by one activity right and or and love everything by one love but there is in Him only one perfect what thought and one perfect love and in that His perfect fertility is manifested

[1:05:11] I could keep on multiplying my thoughts because of the imperfection of my thoughts right if I could think one thought or by I would know everything and express everything that would be nice right but I can't a lot of times yeah yeah you have something like that to be a vision right you see in seeing God as He is

[1:05:35] you will what know everything you naturally want to know right same all at once huh you'd be partaking of eternal life right there'd be no before and after

[1:05:46] that's why it's always thought of as that's why as human beings we need male and female to to get the gender because human becomes these perfect these fishy you know I was thinking too about something less of this but still comparable in some you know how they had this heresy you know that when Scripture says that Christ was or or firstborn right you know that this implies that you had other other children afterwards right but because of periphanous having had that child right you see you say well I know a woman's got you know twelve children or something right you know you know and and but since Mary's fertility is greater than when she has twelve children because that one child is is more lovable

[1:06:40] than all children together right not just the twelve but all but even for its glory you know in God Himself you know in His dimension His Son did you pray I said there's another reason she didn't want to go back and mess with him too painful oh that that reminds me of