Prima Pars
102. Summa I, Q. 28, Art. 1: Are There Real Relations in God? Relations of Reason and the Sabellian Heresy
Class of 2007-11-08
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/102-summa-i-q-28-art-1-are-there-real-relations-in-god-relations/

[0:00] In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God our enlightenment. Guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, order to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Pray for us. And help us to understand the eligibility. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. amen. I got through rereading the compendium of theology of Thomas there, and I was looking at one of these little minor works that you have there in the Marietti.

[0:38] Reply to 108 questions of the Superior General there, the Dominicans, or Master General, and but they're taken from someone who was critical of Peter of Tarente. Huh? Do you know him? I said, I didn't know who Peter Tarentes was, I didn't really know. And his commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. There's 108 questions there, and generally Thomas is, you know, favorable to what Peter is saying there.

[1:10] So looked him up again, and he became pope, huh? Became Innocent V, the first Dominican to become a pope, but he had a very short reign, about half a year. But his dates correspond almost exactly with Thomas's. So it's 1225 to about 1276. Thomas died, 1274. But he also was famous for giving this eulogy on St. Bonaventure when he died. The council. Yeah. Or the council. The council, yeah.

[1:39] He was there at that time, Peter, so he became pope. So that's interesting. A Dominican singing the praises of Saint Bonaventure. Well, there was this friendship between the Dominicans and the Franciscans, huh? That

[1:52] you know, on each other's feast, they would tend to come together, you know, for a little bit refreshment. So, the treatise on the Trinity is divided into two or three parts. It's got to be one or the other.

[2:20] Three parts, yeah. And Thomas says, according to the order of teaching, right? Because the divine persons are distinguished by relations of origin, right? Of origin, or one proceeding from another. So, in the order of teaching, and also the order of learning, you could say, we have to talk about the processions first, and then about the relations based on them, and then finally about the what? processions. So the 17 questions that there are on the Trinity.

[2:57] The first question, which we looked at last time, we finished last time for our first meeting, Was on the what procession, right? And now the one we're going to be looking at today, the twenty-eighth question, is on the relations. And then the remaining fifteen questions will all be on the persons. Yeah. So the order there is is pretty clear, right? Okay.

[3:28] Now, just to recall what we saw last time, although there are five articles on in the question on the proceedings, of course you have to to understand it divided into either two or three, right? And you could divide those into three. First is whether there is a going forward in God, right? Then, secondly, what is that going forward? And finally, in the last article, how many going forwards are there?

[4:05] So the first article is about whether there is a going forward in God. The middle three ones are about what is that going forward? And there's one going forward that could be called a conceiving, a giving birth, a generation, and then there's another going forward besides that. That's the third article. And in the fourth article, that this is a different kind of going forward. It's not a generation.

[4:33] It's not producing a son. It's more like a breathing. And then, is any other going forward besides those two? And in the third or rather fifth article, the last article, no, because this going forward has to be by means of a what activity that remains within the doer. And there's just two of those. God understanding himself and God what loving himself, right? And since God's act of understanding his act of loving is the same as his being, God as understood in himself is God, and God as loved in himself is God.

[5:18] So now we're ready to consider the relations. So we're up to question twenty-eight now. Then we're not to consider about the divine relations, and about this four things are asked.

[5:38] First, whether in God there are some what real relations. Now Aristotle and Avicenna, right, have taught us that there are relations that are not real, that are a reason, and Thomas has brought together the teaching of Aristotle and. Avicenna, right, and distinguished many forms of these relations are not real.

[6:11] So this chair is on my right. That's not a real relation. In the chair, right? So if these relations in God were not real, then the distinction of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, would not be what real distinction, a distinction of things, but would be a what? Just a distinction of reason, right? You'd be back in the heresy of what famous heretic? Yeah, Sabellius, yeah.

[6:46] Who said that? Well, these are just three names for the same person. He's called Father because he's God, right? He's called you know the second person because he became man, because the Holy Spirit because he sanctifies us, right? As if these were not three what?

[7:07] Yeah, really distinct, three things. huh? And notice the word "real" comes from the word for thing, right? And sometimes I like to ask people to know:

[7:23] Are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are they one thing or three things? And what would you answer to that question? In a way,

[7:37] depends on what you mean by thing. Yeah. Because if you mean you know relation, right, then there are three things, right? If you mean the substance, what God is, then they're one thing. So they're both what one thing and three things, and that's called contradiction because the word "thing" has more than one meaning. As Aristotle was the first to really point out,

[8:08] that takes you all the way back to the categories. So the first article is going to be: whether in God there are some real relations.

[8:21] Now the second article, assuming that they are real, which we'll be showing in the first one, whether those relations are the very divine what essence or substance or nature, or are they something attached as we're extrinsically, right? Of course the answer will be that they are the very divine what essence or nature. So if you compare these relations or these persons to divine substance, there's no real distinction

[8:57] between the Father and God. There's no real distinction. There's distinction in thought, but not a real distinction between the Fatherhood and the Divine Nature. They're one and the same thing. In the same way, the Son is. But if you compare them to each other, they're really distinct. Okay, interesting, huh?

[9:27] Then the third article: whether there can be in God what many relations, really distinct from each other. So you can see he's already answered in the first article that they're really distinct.

[9:49] And then finally about the number of these what relations. Of course, it turned out to be what four relations, right? But why is there only three persons?

[10:05] Because the persons are going to be constituted by these relations, right? But we'll find that out when we get there. But you should be looking ahead and saying, "gee yeah, there's a little question you know But that'll come up when you get to the thinking about persons.

[10:23] To the first, therefore, one proceeds. Thus, it seems that in God there are not real relations. For Boethius says, in the book about the Trinity,

[10:38] that when someone what turns right the predicaments into divine predication, all are changed into substance. Aristotle, for example, distinguishes between substance and quality, right? And quality is something other than substance. And so my knowledge of geometry is something other than what I am, namely a man, right? But in God, it's not an accident, but is the very substance of God, right?

[11:14] But aliquid altogether is not able to be said. This is kind of strange. Text there, Boethius. I was in a bookstore the other day, and they had an edition of Alfred the Great, the King of England, his translation of Boethius's work. And and one side they had the that Saxon or that thingy, as you can't read it, and then you know the English translation. That's kind of interesting.

[11:47] He's quite a man. I admire him a lot. But whatever is really in God is able to be said of Him, right? Therefore, relation is not really in God.

[12:06] So Boethius is a great authority, and Chris' objection to Chris is misunderstanding the text. Moreover, Boethius says in the same book that similar or like is relation in the Trinity of the Father to the Son and of both the Holy Spirit as of that which is the same to that which is the same.

[12:37] This is one example of a relation of reason, right? When I say that Socrates is Socrates, right? That's true. And I'm saying Socrates is the same thing as Socrates, right? But is this sameness Socrates of Socrates is that a relation? No, because that's really two two things there. Okay. So Boethius is saying the relation of the Father to the Son and of them to the Holy Spirit is like the relation of a thing to itself.

[13:15] If that's so, that's relation of reason only. That's one of the four that Aristotle and Avicenna had distinguished, right? Because every real relation requires two what extremes, really, huh? Okay.

[13:36] Therefore, the relations which are placed in divine things are not real relations, but of reason only, right? Now, as Thomas will explain, in reply to that objection, huh? You're misunderstanding what Boethius is saying there, right? Because you're exaggerating the likeness of this, right? But it's like relation of a thing to itself insofar as there's just one God, one substance, right? Okay, God from God, light from light, not another God, the same God, right?

[14:12] So, as the great teacher there, Plato said in the Sophist? Likeness is a slippery thing. So likeness is very important in knowing, but also it's very important in being deceived. And it's seeing exactly in which way these things are like each other, right? And not exaggerating the likeness between two things.

[14:55] Moreover, the relation of fatherhood is a relation of a beginning. But when it is said that God is the beginning of creatures, there is not implied here some real relation, but of reason only, huh?

[15:17] So this is an example of the kind of relation Aristotle speaks of in the fifth book of Wisdom, right? He says that the knower is

[15:36] really related to what it knows, but it's known really related to the knower. Now he says we understand the known as related to the knower just because the knower is related to him, right? Well, God is like the what the measure of things, huh? And so they are really related to him, but he's not really related to them, okay?

[16:07] So what's the difference between saying the father is the beginning of the son and the father and God is the beginning of the children? one case beginning is got a real relation other case it doesn't.

[16:22] Moreover, now I notice in the second and third one there, there's two different kinds of relation of reason that are touched upon the objections, right?

[16:35] Moreover, generation divine things is according to the what proceeding or going forward of the understandable word or thought. But the relations which follow upon the operation of understanding are relations of reason. This is what we study in logic, like genus and species, huh?

[16:58] Therefore, fatherhood and sonhood, which are said in divine things by generation, are relations of reason what only, right? So you got three different kinds of relations of reason that touched upon in the second and the third and the fourth objections, huh?

[17:23] But against all this nonsense, huh? Is it the father is not said except by fatherhood, right? And the son by sonhood. If therefore fatherhood and sonhood are not in God really, it would follow that God is not really the father of the son, but according to what understanding only, which is the heresy of what? Sabellian heresy.

[17:53] Got an adjective there, right? Okay. So Thomas is going to reply to this now. I answer: It should be said that some relations are in God really, right? Not the relations of God to creature, but there are some other relations that are really in God.

[18:20] To the evidence of this, it should be considered that only in those things which are said, and the Latin says ad aliquem. That's exactly the way they translate Aristotle's category there. In Greek, it's pros ti, right? Okay. So in Latin,

[18:41] they translate that aliquem. In other words, Aristotle doesn't use the abstract word relation, right? And when we translate Aristotle's text there, we we translate as concretes Aristotle does, huh? So he translates toward something or toward another, right? Okay. And I was mentioning that, knowing that from my study of Aristotle, I'm struck by the Greek, the Greek of our friend Saint John, the Apostle evangelist, right? Because he says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was, yeah, you see."

[19:30] And there, the Latin translation is not as clear as they do in logic, right? As they say, "apud," right, instead of "pros," right. But

[19:43] the text, the Greek text of Saint John, gives weight, right, to what Augustine and Hilary and Boethius and Thomas and so on, and the Church say about how it is that the persons are distinguished. They are distinguished by being What towards someone right? Okay. So here in this texture, you've got the exact word. Notice why it's much better that way because we use the word relation in English, maybe other languages too.

[20:21] And I hate this other word that's used all the time now here, in the sermons all the time, relationship, right? It's an abstraction of an abstraction. But you know, we speak of there being a relation between us, right? It gives you kind of a false idea of what relation is. Is there a relation between me and my father, let's say? Is there something between me and my father?

[20:51] Or is it more clear to say my father is something towards me, to me, he's a father to me, and I'm to him a what, son, right? And being a father and being a son is not the same thing. There's not some third thing. My father, me, and between us out here is a relation, right? Like between you and me is this water container or something like this, right?

[21:18] Relation between us. You don't have to misunderstand relation that way, but you tend to do it that way, right? Something between us, in between us.

[21:30] But now I am something towards you as a teacher, maybe, and you are towards me a student or something like that, right? Okay. Or four is to two double, and two is to four half, but two is to six three a third, right? And so on.

[21:52] Now relations are one of the most difficult things in the world to understand. It takes a long, long time to understand all the subtleties of relations.

[22:05] Now, to the evidence of this, he says it should be considered that only in those things which are said ad aliquid, towards something is there found some things by reason only and not by a reality, according to thing, which is not so in the other highest genera,

[22:32] because the other genera as quantity and quality signify, right, according to their proper definition, something adhering in something, right? So quantity is the measure of substance, right? Now, notice, in Aristotle he distinguishes the categories

[22:57] in the two places where he does most typically. Sometimes he uses the word substance from ti estin see in Greek. Other times you just say ti esti what it is, right? And then instead of quantity, they use the concrete. How much? And in quality, how how it is. But now even the man in the street uses the right words. He will recognize this, right? If I say, you know, using the Latin words, is the substance of a thing and its quantity the same thing?

[23:37] He wouldn't be too sure what to say, right? But now I'm stating it more correctly. Is what a thing is and its size the same thing?

[23:49] What a dog is and size of a dog the same thing? And you and I can have the same what it is, right? And not have the same size. Like say John the cross, he has what a man is. He is what a man is. But he doesn't have the same size as the taller brother, right? Okay.

[24:18] So in a sense, quantity is the size of a thing, right? How much of it there is, and quality is how it is, right? Healthy or sick, wise or foolish, and so on.

[24:35] But those things which are said towards something, they signify by their proper definition only a respect towards some other thing. Which respect is sometimes in the what very nature of things? As when some things, by their very nature, are ordered to each other, and have an inclination towards each other.

[25:08] And these relations are necessarily real. He takes the example from the ancient science. Just as in the heavy body, there's an inclination ordered to the what place which is the middle of the universe. Whence the respect is in the heavy body. Once

[25:31] once there's a certain respect, huh? In the heavy body with respect to the what middle place of the universe. And similar about other things of the sort.

[25:45] Sometimes though the respect signified through those things which are said towards something is only in the what grasping a reason conferring one to another. And then it is relation of reason only. Just as when he compares the what notion of man to animal as species to what genus, and those are the kinds of relations of reason that I study in logic.

[26:21] Am I a subject or a predicate? In reality, why am I a subject or predicate. See, it's only in reason that I'm a subject or a predicate, right? And when I say Berquist is Berquist, I'm both a subject and a predicate.

[26:54] Now, when I say that the dog is a quadruped, right? And the dog is an animal. Am I saying two different things of the dog?

[27:13] Yeah. Or if I say that three is a number and three is an odd number, right? What is more specific than that? One is more specific than the other Yeah, yeah. You can tell a relation of those two, right? But is that relation in things?

[27:42] Universal is only in reason. So Boethius, when he's commenting on Porphyry, the first book of logic, he says, "The thing is singular when sensed, but universal when understood." So these relations among universals are relations that don't belong to things by themselves, but in what reason, huh?

[28:13] Now it's kind of strange, huh? But another kind of relation of reason is today is before tomorrow. And the reason why they say that's a relation of reason is that tomorrow doesn't exist.

[28:28] Okay. So the relation of what exists to what does not exist, or before zero, you know, tomorrow is before the day after that. Relation between two things, neither of which exists, is that a real relation? No. It's kind of strange, huh? The time there,

[28:47] where we first think of before and after relations, huh? It's not real relations. So. But when something goes forward from a beginning of the same nature, it is necessary that both, to wit, the one going forward and that from which it goes forward, are found in the same what order, and thus it is necessary that they have what real respects or relations to each other.

[29:25] Since, therefore, these going forwards in God we spoke about in the previous question are in what an identity of nature, this has been shown. This going back to the fact that what God's understanding Himself, God's understanding is God's being. That's something we learned back in the treatise on what the understanding of God, right? And God's loving is God, right? So Saint John can say God is love, right?

[29:56] Okay. You can't say I love or I am understanding, right? No, I am a man who understands a few things, who loves some things, right, and so on. But I'm not understanding. And for me to be is not to understand, is it?

[30:15] For me to be is not to love. Okay. But for God to be and for God to understand are the same thing. And for God to be and to love are the same thing.

[30:31] So God is understood. You could say has being in God's understanding, but that's the same as His being. So it is God. And God is loved,

[30:44] as being in God's love. But God's loving is His being. Therefore, it has the same being that God has. Therefore, it is God. It's an amazing thing, right? Okay.

[30:59] As opposed to as we're saying in the image of the Trinity, us when my reason understands what reason is, when my reason defines itself as the ability for large discourse, looking before and after, right?

[31:16] Is reason's understanding what reason is? The being of reason. So that definition of reason is not simply speaking reason itself, is it? Although in a way it is. Okay. But because my understanding of reason is is not the existence or being of my reason, right? Then this is not exactly like the Trinity, is it? Okay. But there's a likeness there. Because it's proceeding from a thing it thought of itself.

[31:54] But the thinking is not the being of the thing in this case. The first thing my reason thought about was obviously not what reason is.

[32:10] Yeah, yeah, quite a bit after. Even though, as I fond of putting out, my first teacher was Aquinas. My kindergarten teacher was a nun named Aquinas. Sister Aquinas. Looking back upon it, said there's some deep, you know, meaning in this. Yeah, yeah, realized it. My first advice teacher. What? Your first teacher was your mother and your dad.

[32:41] That's true. That's true. And then your grandma. Even your kindergarten teacher came later. Okay, so he says, since therefore the going forwards in God are in identity of nature, who've been manifesting a bit here for that reason. That the understanding, the loving of God is his being, right? It's necessary that relations which are taken according to these going forwards in God are real what relations? are. Okay, That's something you can chew upon for a while.

[33:16] But just like the relation of me to my father and my father to me are real relations, right? Because I proceed from him in this what in the same nature, not the same nature numerically, but the same nature specifically.

[33:48] Okay. Now, how does he explain this text of Boethius here? Right. A little difficult this way. Where Boethius seems to be saying that towards something is not said in divine things. To the first, therefore, it should be said that ad aliquid towards something is said not altogether to be said in God, right? According to what proper notion of what is said to be towards something.

[34:23] In so far as the proper notion of what is said towards something is not taken by comparison to that to which the relation is existing in, but with respect to what another.

[34:40] Not therefore through this does Boethius wish to exclude that relation is not in God, but that is not predicated by way of what existing within according to the proper notion of relation, but more in the way of what having itself towards another, right? It's not an accident of God, right?

[35:12] In fact, these relations will be the same as the substance of God. Now, the second objection is taken from the likeness of the relation of the Father to the Son and of the Father and the Son to the Holy Spirit, and that of something to itself, right? Okay. And that likeness that it has to a relation that is not real—that's kind of interesting, right? Okay. To the second, it should be said that the relation which is implied by this name or noun or word same is a relation of reason only.

[36:02] If it be taken as what, simply the same. Because this relation cannot be what considered except in a certain order which reason introduces of something to itself, according to what its two considerations.

[36:30] But it is otherwise when some things are said to be the same, not in number, right, but in the nature of the genus or species. But Boethius therefore

[36:46] assimilates the relations which are in divine things to the relation of identity or sameness, not regard all things, but only in this respect, that through these relations the substance is not what diversified, just as neither through the relation of what identity.

[37:14] So when you say God from God, light from light, true God from true God, is a different God you're talking about there? In that respect, you know, we say Socrates is Socrates. Is there a different Socrates in the subject and in the predicate? No, it's numerically the same, right? Okay. And so when we say that Socrates and Plato are the same, we mean the same in what not numerically, but the same in species or kind, right?

[37:55] And that's not the way the Father and Son, that they're just the same kind of thing. They are the same thing, okay, substantially, huh? And therefore that's the way to which they are like. See what a dangerous thing likeness is. How true Plato is in the Sophist when he says it's a slippery thing.

[38:19] When I was studying the four tools of dialectic, dialectic is reasoning from probable opinions, right? Sometimes even the contradictory conclusions. And the first tool of dialectic is the tool of selecting probable premises, huh? And the second tool is a tool of distinguishing the meanings of the words that are in these statements. The third tool is the tool of difference. See the difference of things. The fourth tool is a tool of likeness, huh?

[38:56] I was struck by the fact that Aristotle puts the tool of difference before the tool of likeness, right? Because likeness is a cause of deception when you don't see the difference between these things, huh? Okay.

[39:24] And so he puts the two of difference before the two of likeness. Maybe for that reason. I mean, that's one reason. Okay. So Grecius is assimilating, right? Relation of the father to the son to the relation of Socrates to Socrates, in that when I say Socrates is Socrates, the Socrates in the subject of that statement, the Socrates in the predicate, are numerically the same person, right? Okay. And when I say uh speak of the relation of the Father to the Son, they're one and the same God, numerically, but not one and the same person, because the persons will be distinguished by relations, and there's a fatherhood and sonhood not the same relation, okay?

[40:21] But as far as what God is, as far as the substance of God, they are the same substance, so not just in kind, but numerically. You know, the the I think Mohammedans think we that we're we're what? Yeah, that we think there's three gods or something, right? And we're kind of confused, you know. We say we say one has one God, and other times we we say there's Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

[40:47] So we think there's one God, we think there's three gods, right? No, we think there's only one God. Right. That's interesting, you know, in Thomas' way in the Summa here, the questions on the substance of God are arranged because the last question is on the unity of God. So, have in your mind before you go to Trinity, that's one God, right? And however, the Father and the Son, Holy Spirit, are distinguished.

[41:16] It's not a distinction that's going to be give rise to many gods, to more than one God. So in that respect, the relation of the Father to the Son is like the relation of Socrates to Socrates, right?

[41:37] But in another way, it's unlike that relation because the Socrates of the subject and the Socrates of the predicate are not really related, but the Father and the Son are really what related.

[42:01] That's probably why why the imagination is the big cause of deception, huh? Because the imagination delights in likenesses of things and doesn't take into account their differences.

[42:18] So the figure of speech that the poet loves the most is the metaphor, right? Metaphor and then the simile and so on, based upon likeness, huh?

[42:36] Okay, now the third objection is taken from another relation of reason. Now let's look at the reply to this. To the third, it should be said that since the creature proceeds from God in diversity of nature. God is outside the order of the whole creatures.

[43:15] Nor is it from his nature that he has a what relation towards creatures, huh? For he does not produce creatures from the necessity of his nature, but through his understanding and through his what will. And therefore, in God, there is not a real relation to creatures,

[43:40] but in creatures there is a real relation to what to God, because creatures are contained under the divine order, and it is in their very nature that they depend upon God, huh? But it's not in the very nature of God that he has creatures; that depends upon the free act of his will.

[44:03] But the processions, the divine proceedings, there in God, are in the same nature, right? Therefore, non est similis ratio, And I like that. Okay. So notice, huh? You're seeing

[44:24] the word beginning there, right? So what is the beginning? It's not a real relation, so maybe this beginning is not a real relation either. But Thomas is seeing the difference between the two, huh? That's interesting that this kind of relation of reason is one that Aristotle talks about in the fifth book of Wisdom, and

[44:50] if I see you, right, huh? Does my seeing you have some relation to you? It's the seeing of you, right? And my seeing depends upon you being there, right, to see you, right, and so on, huh? But is your being seen by me? Is that a real relation to you?

[45:24] this is the kind of thing Aristotle talks about, where one thing is said to be related to another because something else is related to it, but it's not really related to it, huh? But I can't speak of of my seeing you without saying that you're you are seen by me, or my knowing, you know. Um. Let's say I know what the moon is, right? Ah, it's not green cheese, I guess.

[45:55] Ah, if I know what the moon is, I am related in some way to the moon, right? But is the moon related to me by its being known by me?

[46:08] Well, Thomas says that the relation of God to creatures is like the relation of the known to the knower, but the relation of creatures to God is like the relation of the knower to the knower, To go back to Aristotle's example, that's a very strange thing, right?

[46:29] If you compare that with the relation that will come up in the third one, there, relation of genus to species or species to genus, there it's the relation of reason on both sides,

[46:43] but in this point I just talked about, one thing is really related to another, but not vice versa. And Aristotle speaks you know sometimes as the the known is the measure of the knower, right, or the knowing, like in the categories he talks about that.

[47:08] You are sitting. Is that true or false? Yeah. Now, are you? Is it true that you are sitting because of that statement, or is that statement true because you are sitting? Yeah. So you are sitting or not sitting is the measure of the truth or falsity of my statement that you are sitting, right?

[47:34] So the measure does the measure depend upon the measured? No. But the measured depends upon the what? Measure. Yeah. Whereas the godlike Plato says in his last work, the Laws, he says Protagoras says man is the measure of all things. That's not true. He says God is the measure of all things. Okay.

[48:02] God is the measure of the creatures. So the creature is really related to God as the measured is to the measure, right? But the measure is only said by reason, right? To be the measure of the measure. Okay. Think about that a lot. That's a difficult thing.

[48:29] But it's interesting that the the distinction of the relations of reason, as far as I know, in Thomas, the ones that he distinguishes in the De Trinitate in the De Potentia and so on. In other places, he says, well, two of these kinds are explicitly talked about by Aristotle, and they give those, and then Avicenna points out a couple too. So there, Thomas follows Avicenna, right? Avicenna says some wonderful things, you know.

[48:59] You know, he always. Quoted by Thomas, you know, but God alone is liberal. God alone gets nothing out of His giving, huh? It's pure generosity, right? I mean, just you know,

[49:14] just incredible. But in this regard of there being relations of reason, Avicenna adds, you know, it's just two kinds that Aristotle doesn't talk about, right? And Thomas brings it together and so on. But they say at least three of these four kinds come up here in in these.

[49:38] Okay, now the fourth objection was saying, hey, this going forward of the word and so on is is in reason, right? But the relations of reason are relations of reason and not real relations.

[49:55] To the fourth, it should be said that the relations which follow upon. Only the operation of understanding in things understood are relations of reason only, because reason introduces them between two things understood, right?

[50:18] But the relations which follow upon the operation of understanding, which are between the word or thought proceeding intellectually and that which it perceives, are not relations of reason what only, right? But of the thing, because the understanding and reason is itself a thing, right? And is compared really to that which proceeds from it in an understandable way, right? Just as a bodily thing to that which proceeds from it in a bodily way, right?

[50:54] So when there proceeds from my reason the definition of reason, then there's a real relation there between those two. But when I talk about animals a genus, said a dog, cat, horse, elephant, right? I'm talking about the relation of this universal to those universals, right? Well, nothing outside the mind is universal. To be universal, something that happens to things only in my mind.

[51:25] I used to say when I started reading this out in class I'd say you know class, I'd say, you know, I'm reading the list: John, Mary, man, woman. I never had a man sitting in my class. It was always John or Tom or some other individual man, right? Never had women sitting there, you know. I never got, I never got a class that said John, Mary, man, woman, boy, girl.

[51:50] Nothing universal there, right? I never had a universal in my class. Talking about universals, right? That's in the mind, right? For the things universal. Now maybe some, you know, remote foundation of these things outside the mind, right?

[52:12] That's that's the the problem there that you have with the other philosophers, right? Because they thought that the way you know had to be the way what things are, right? And therefore the Platonists thought that there were really universals out there, right? Outside the mind, the world of forms, man himself, and dog himself, and cat himself, right? And then other men, the skeptics, and said, well, there aren't universals out there.

[52:48] Therefore, our knowledge is false, right? Aristotle says nothing false in the mind, considering what's common to you two guys, right? Unless they say that what's common to you exists outside my mind, apart from you guys, then I'm making a mistake.

[53:08] So this fourth objection, there, just saying, well, these are relations of reason, right, and not seeing what do you mean exactly by relation of reason? That is not a real relation. What's these relations that are based upon universal, you know? And what happens to things in the mind, huh? Like becoming a subject or a predicate of a statement, huh? Becoming a middle term or a minor term or a major term, right, huh?

[53:36] But these are things that happen to you only in reason, right? But when I imagine something, right, and there proceeds from my imagination an image of this thing that I'm imagining, right, then that's one thing proceeding from another thing, right? And when I think about something, and there proceeds from my mind a thought of this thing, then there's a relation between me and the thought.

[54:07] So the second, third, and fourth objections are reasoning from two different kinds of relations of reason, right, and mixing them up, right, with the real relation of the Father to the Son in the face of reason, and the other real relations in God.

[54:31] Now the second article.