Prima Pars
104. Summa I, Q.28, Art. 3: Why the Divine Relations Are Really Distinct from Each Other (Kinds of Opposition, Names Equivocal by Reason)
Class of 2007-11-15
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/104-summa-i-q-28-art-3-why-the-divine-relations-are-really-distinct/

[0:00] In The name of the Father and the Son and of 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. Pray for us and help us to understand all that you've written. and say no to the great. and Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.

[0:30] So we're up to the third article in question twenty-eight, and as you know, the what treatise on the Trinity is divided into three parts, and the first part was showing that there are proceedings or going forwards in God, right?

[0:54] But going forwards that remain within the doer, namely God's understanding Himself and loving Himself, and then the question we're in right now is relations that are based upon these going forwards, and then the persons who are distinguished by these relations will be in the question starting at 29, there are 15 questions. Now, last time we saw a couple of things in the first two articles, and the first article was showing that there are relations in God that are real.

[1:36] There are also relations in God that are not real, and that's a very subtle distinction between real relations and relations of reason. And of course, it's very important to see that these relations that are the basis of Trinity are in fact real relations; otherwise, the persons would not be really what distinct. But in the second article, we learned that these relations, compared to divine substance, are one and the same thing, and there's no real distinction between God the Father or the Fatherhood relation and the divine substance, and there's no real distinction between God the Son and Sonhood and the divine what?

[2:30] Of course, Saint John says this right. In the beginning was the Word, right? And the Word was toward God. That's a real relation towards the Father, and the Word was God, right? Same thing. So Thomas in the sense of going back upon what St. John taught us.

[2:49] Now the third article is going to talk about the relations now, not in comparison to the substance of God. But in comparison to each other, and there they are really distinct, because they're real relations, and it's a nature of relation, like any kind of opposite, to distinguish between it and its what, opposite then. Okay.

[3:14] So let's look at the third article here. You can kind of see how the second, third articles they'll kind of go together, right? Then, because one is saying, hey, these relations are real, and now, what about distinction, right? Are these relations really something distinct from the divine substance? No, because if they were, then there'd be composition in God, and we've learned before, back in the third question, that God is altogether simple, right?

[3:44] There's no accidents in God, nothing added to Him. But how about now the other side of this thing? How about in comparison to each other? Then they are really distinct. Otherwise, you'd be in the heresy of the Sabellians, right? Where we're just looking at one and the same person, calling Father and Son because of different things. Okay.

[4:10] Of course, Thomas always takes the opposite side of what he thinks. The third one proceeds thus: It seems that the relations which are in God are really not distinguished one from another. The first objection: For whatever things are the same to one and the same are the same to each other, right? But every relation in God existing is the same, really, secundum rem, with the divine essence, the divine substance.

[4:47] Therefore, the relations are not distinguished, really, or secundum rem, from each other. That's interesting objection, right? If the fatherhood is the same thing as the divine substance, and the sonhood is the same thing as divine substance, then how can they be distinct one from the other? Okay.

[5:15] Moreover, fatherhood, paternitas, and sonhood, according to what, the meaning of the name, are distinguished from the divine essence. There's a distinction of reason there, right? In the same way that goodness and the power of God, or the truth of God, or the understanding of God, and so on. But an account of a distinction of reason of this sort, there is not a real distinction between the divine goodness and the divine ability or power.

[5:53] Therefore, neither between the fatherhood and the sonhood, right? I notice there is something like the distinction between what the Father, the goodness of God, and the power of God. Take this example here, right? Because these are not really distinct from the divine substance, huh? They are the divine substance, and the fatherhood and the Sonhood are like that in that they are not really distinct from the divine substance, huh?

[6:19] So if the goodness of God and the power of God differ only in definition and not in reality, then why not the same thing for the Fatherhood and the Sonhood, right?

[6:37] Moreover, in divine things there is not a real distinction, except according to origin or according to proceeding, you could say, right? But one relation does not seem to arise from another. Therefore, the relations are not distinguished really from each other.

[7:01] I might say more at the The Son proceeds from the Father, right? Not Sonhood from Fatherhood. But against all this nonsense is what Boethius says, huh? In the book about the Trinity, huh? That substance in divine things contains the what unity of God, huh? But the relation multiplies the what Trinity, huh? Thomas says that theology is about two things: the divinity of the Trinity and the humanity of Christ.

[7:40] So the relation multiplies the Trinity, right? If therefore the relations are not distinguished from each other really, there would not be a real Trinity in God, huh? But a Trinity of reason only, huh? Which is the error of what? Sabelius, huh?

[8:03] The word error comes from what? To wander. Yeah. And that's kind of a sign that what error is a result of a disordered movement of reason, because wandering signifies that.

[8:20] You have the same word in Greek. We get the word planet, huh? The wandering stars. When Shakespeare talks about this in Comedy of Errors, we wander in illusions here, right? Okay.

[8:43] Now Thomas sees as the beginning of this thing. I answer: It should be said from this fact, huh, that something is attributed to something, right? It is necessary that there be attributed to it all things which pertain to its definition, to its, to what it is. Just as to whomever is attributed to man, right, is necessary that one attribute to him to be rational, to be an animal, and so on.

[9:18] But as of the definition of relation, the respect of one to another, right. But then you had that word ad aliquid right. I mentioned how when Aristotle talks about relation, he doesn't use the abstract word like relation, but he uses the preposition, right, and the pronoun, I should say, pros ti, right, which they translate in the text and logic as ad aliquid, right. I mentioned before that this is the word that Saint John uses in the beginning of the Gospel, right.

[9:54] The beginning was the word, and the Greek says the word was towards God, pros. tontheana It doesn't say, you know, with which you can't translate it by, but but Thomas here has got this more precise way of speaking about it here. So it's of the notion, you might say, of relation, the respect of one thing to another, right, which implies some kind of a what distinction there between, which words, according to which something is opposed to another, what relatively, huh?

[10:31] Okay. Now, when Aristotle takes up opposition, right, in the categories, he distinguishes four kinds of opposition: contradiction, lack and and having, contraries and relatives, okay.

[10:53] So if you have a a real opposition, then you have a real what distinction. Since therefore we showed in the first article, since in God really there is relation, as has been said in the first article, it is necessary that really there be there opposition,

[11:16] and relative opposition, like any kind of opposition, in its notion includes distinction. Whence it is necessary that there be in God a real what distinction, huh? Not according to an absolute thing. Now, when Thomas, you know, in Latin uses the word absolute, huh? In the squishy Washington media, people have it on. Is it absolutely so, so on? Is that the absolute truth?

[11:50] But absolute is always distinguished from what relative, right? Okay. So I'm absolutely a man. I'm absolutely white, huh? I guess so. And but but I'm absolutely a father or a teacher? No. Because I'm a a father towards someone, right? I'm a teacher towards someone, right? So relation is a different kind of thing than what substance or something absolute, huh? Whence he says it's necessary that in God there is a real distinction, not according to an absolute thing, which is the essence, because there's only one substance, one nature there, in which there is the what the highest, the greatest unity and what simplicity.

[12:42] Most of the time I put those two together, right, huh? To obey the rule of two or three, right? But according to a what relative thing, right? Okay. So I mentioned before I like to ask people sometimes, you know.

[12:59] Are God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit one thing or three things? What's the answer to that? That's what you mean by that Yeah. If you mean rem absoluta, res absoluta, then there's only one thing, right? Okay, they're one God. They're not three gods. They're one God. But are there three relations? Are there three relations there? Yeah, there's three things in relative thing, right?

[13:28] Okay. Secundum rem relativum, relative thing. It's important Aristotle is for this you know, pagan. huh I often wonder if Thomas, would ever you know, pray for him. He's our brother. He's a. He's an unbaptized, uncircumcised dog. He's lost. I don't know.

[13:57] Now, the first objection is a very hard one to answer, right? And of course, Thomas goes back to Aristotle and answers this, huh? To the first, therefore, it should be said that according to the philosopher, huh, in the third book of natural hearing, the third book of the so-called physics, huh, this is Lectio 5, huh, and incidentally, that's one of the two places where Thomas shows you how to distinguish the ten figures of predication, the ten categories as they're called.

[14:32] It's in this fifth reading here because Aristotle is comparing motion with acting upon and what undergoing, right? And it seems to be the same, but I can find undergoing aren't the same, are they?

[14:48] To the first, therefore, it should be said that according to the philosopher in the third book of the physics or the third book of natural hearing, that argument holds when things are the same to one and the same. The things which are the same to one and the same are the same to each other in those things which are the same in reality and in what definition.

[15:12] And it takes two synonyms there for the cloak there in Latin, huh the tunica and the indumentum Not, however, in those things which differ in their what definition, right? Whence Aristotle says there that although acting upon, acting upon, is the same as motion, and likewise undergoing, it does not nevertheless follow that acting upon and undergoing are the same. Because in acting upon is implied in respect of that from which is the motion and mobile.

[15:47] In passion, that which is what from another, right? Okay. Now, take an example. What I mean there, right? Take a simple example. My kicking you, right? Is my kicking you something really different from your being kicked? In relation only, is it? Huh? Only in relation, I'm being kicked; you're kicking me. See? Is my kicking you something other than your being kicked? Hmm. Not in absolutely. No, no, no.

[16:22] See? But kicking is from me to you. While being kicked is in you from me. Okay. Or take another example. If I put water on the stove, there, right? The stove is warming the water, right? Is the warming the water something different from the water being warmed?

[16:49] Yet there's a difference in definition, there, right? Because warming is from the fire to the water, right? Huh? Right. Being warmed is in the water from the fire, right? This way, Thomas gets into a discussion of those two categories: acting upon, undergoing, right? And he gets into the fifth reading there of the third book, huh?

[17:13] And likewise, although fatherhood is the same secundum rem, right, with the divine essence, and likewise sonhood, right. Nevertheless, these two, in their own what definitions, right, imply opposite what respects. Because the father is the one from whom another proceeds, right? Or as Albert the Great says, "habens in se aliquid de se in alio We have something of himself. We have something of himself in another." And the son is what from another, right?

[17:47] Huh? So they differ in their definition, right? Huh? So they're not altogether the same, are they? Right? Hence, they are distinguished from each other, right? Okay. So when I kick you, right? I'm acting upon you, right? You're you're being acted upon or undergoing a kick from me, huh? Okay. That's a very subtle thing, right? But it's interesting. It goes back to to the third book, huh?

[18:20] When Charles de Koninck would lecture on the eight books of the physics, there, you know, he would you know explain the text and so on. Then he stopped and then he'd point out some difficulty some modern philosopher has or something, you know, and how you know if they read this, they would be able to escape their ignorance and so on. So it's impressive the way he goes back to Aristotle.

[18:42] That's a very difficult objection, right? If you think about that a lot. I've heard it every so. Maybe I don't know if it's the same objection, but it sounds insane when you just say two things are equal, a third thing is equal to each other. Hmm. That's it's just expressive in the mathematical term. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a very obvious objection, right? It's hard it is to understand the Trinity, though.

[19:08] Aristotle says, Is the road from Athens to Thebes the same as the road from Thebes to Athens?" In a way, it is the same road, isn't it? At least before they had these two-lane highways. He said, "And yet, is the same thing to go from Athens to what Thebes and to go from Thebes to Athens? What's it? Traveling the same roads? Why isn't it the same?

[19:31] It's a hard, hard distinction, but see a little bit of it there." And the second objection, in a way, in trying to understand something that's hard to understand, how can the divine substance be both the fatherhood and the sonhood, or the divine substance be both the father and the son? Right? Well, you go back to the treatise on the unity of God. You say, "How can the divine substance be both will and understanding, or how can?"the?"Divine substance be both truth and goodness, or how can it be both power and will and so on, huh?

[20:06] And if you understand that a bit, right? How God can, in a simple way, contain these these things, then it's not too difficult to say that He can contain what fatherhood and sonhood in one thing too, okay? But then, what's the difference here between the two, right? Well, Thomas points out that power and goodness do not imply in their definitions one some kind of opposition. That's why we have to understand that the categories of Aristotle, or the fifth book of wisdom too, where he distinguishes the four kinds of what opposites, right?

[20:51] Okay. Contradictories, like to be and not to be, that is the question, right? They sometimes quote those words of Hamlet, and they say, well, it's a question because you can't both be and not be, and you must either be or not be, right? Okay. And then you have lack and habit, right? Now, lack is like non-being, but it's non-being in a subject that is capable of having something.

[21:20] So strictly speaking, this glass is not blind, although it doesn't see. Now you can see about everything; it either sees or doesn't see. I see, and the chair doesn't see, right? But is everything either see or or is blind, strictly speaking? No, because blindness is the non-being of something you're able to have; it should have in this in this strict sense. So that's another kind of opposition, right?

[21:46] Between lack and and having. Of course, there's many senses of lack that Aristotle distinguishes, but we don't want to go into those now. And the third kind of opposition is contraries, and like between virtue and vice, son, or health and sickness, or black and white. Now you see, as you go down, you have more in common there, right? Because the lack and the having have a common subject.

[22:11] While the contraries not only have a common subject, but you have what the same genus. So both virtue and vice are habits, right? And vice is not simply the lack of virtue; it's a real habit, real inclination, right? Okay.

[22:29] To eat too much or something, right? Okay. Real thing to run away at battle, right? And so on. But then Aristotle distinguishes a fourth kind of opposition, which is relatives, right? So potentia and bonitas here, power and goodness, are they contraries or contraries? Or lack and having, No. Are they relatives, no. So, God can be truly powerful, right, and be really good without His power and His goodness being two really distinct things.

[23:15] But can God be what God the Father and be God the Son without there being a real distinction between God the Father and God the Son? No, because there is something relative in the very definition of Father, and something relative in the very definition of Son, and this is one kind of opposite. So, in fact Aristotle saw that, right? Is a kind of opposite, right? So, in going down those opposites, what is it that the relatives have in addition to say?

[23:57] Well, they have a common, yeah, in ordinary opposites like say double and half and so on, right? They have a common genus too, right? Okay. And of course, when Thomas explains it, you know he follows the rule of two or three, right? And and sometimes when you have four, you distinguish

[24:19] them into two twos, But sometimes you distinguish them into one in what three, right? Like I notice when Thomas talks about the four species of pride, and this goes back to Gregory the Great, right? He gets the Moralia, and Gregory the Great says, "Well, you're proud if you think you have some excellence that you don't have. Okay, think you're better than you are, right? Okay. But you, even if you are, if you do have this excellence, you can still be proud another way, huh?

[24:56] Okay. For example, you can think that you have this excellence from yourself, right, huh? Okay. For example, am I proud when I say I know the Pythagorean theorem?

[25:14] No, well, if I don't really know it, I tell I tell you an assumption. I was sitting in a math class, some kind of calculus class, and professor was getting in calculus, and he uses the Pythagorean theorem, right? And so he's a very good mathematician. So I asked him after class. I said, "Now, I know she used the Pythagorean theorem, " and I said, "Could you teach the calculus without the Pythagorean theorem?

[25:37] " He says, "No. " I said, "Now, how many of your students could demonstrate the Pythagorean theorem? " It's very few, right? He says, "It's easy for me. " But I mean, the point is, somebody might claim to know that the interior angles. I mean, the the square and the side opposite the right angle is equal to the squares of the ones, without really knowing it, right?

[25:57] Okay. Then he pretended to have an excellence he doesn't have, right? But now I have gained virtuous. When I say I can demonstrate here on the board the Pythagorean theorem, I can claim it's a lot that I don't forget, but I really do know it. You see, so I'm not being proud in saying I know it, right? But now I can be proud and I wouldn't say, you know, I discovered that by myself.

[26:24] And actually, Euclid taught me, right? That's another kind of pride, right? Okay. Now take something like grace, though, right? Maybe I have some grace, right? And I know I didn't give myself this grace, right? But I deserve it, right? That's

[26:49] a nice guy. Or I know that God created me, you know, but He saw an excellent person I'd be, you know, and He was kind of obligated, you know. I really deserve to be created, and all the other people who, you know, were not created, you know, they didn't deserve to be like I did, right? Okay. Or another kind of pride would be what? You know,

[27:17] I know the Pythagorean theorem. I'm the only guy in the world who knows it, you know. Or I I'm unique, you know. I have an excellence that nobody else has, and maybe I do have that excellence. I'm not the only guy that has it. Not the fairest thing, you know. There's only two or three people in the world who understand the general theory of relativity, and Einstein is not one of them.

[27:42] So some some other mathematicians said, you know, but first we say I'm the person, you know, who understands this thing, you know. Well, Thomas, you know, when he divides those three, right, those four rather, he divides them into what? Three.

[28:04] Because I can be proud in thinking I have something, right, that I don't have, right, or in the way I have it, right, or in uniqueness of my having it, right. And then you can subdivide one of them, the way of having it, have my own what? Discovery or invention or my own power or from my own merits, right? Okay. So he divides four into three, and then one of the three divides into two, right?

[28:33] Okay. That's one way of following the rule two or three, right? But with the opposites, Thomas will not do that. You divide into two. So you'll put the contradictories

[28:51] and then lack and, having, and contraries, because one of these removes the other, right? So to be or not to be, right? Well, one of those eliminates the other, right? To have sight or blindness, right? Okay, if I have sight, I can't be blind. If I'm blind, I don't have sight. Now, if I have virtue, I don't have the opposite vice, or if I have the vice, I don't have the virtue, right?

[29:23] That's very discouraging. to. Go through the list of Aristotle's virtues there and say that. I heard that one. I don't think I ever heard that one. No, yeah, I don't either. So in these opposites, one eliminates the other, right? But in the case of relatives, like say double and half, one requires you to have the other, right? Okay. So something can't be double without something else being what half.

[29:53] But the what the double can't be what is double up, and the half can't be what is half of right? So four is Is double of two, and therefore it can't be two. Two is half of four, so it can't be four. So in a way, one posits the other, right? But there's still one that can't be the other, right? So he distinguishes it into two, and then he subdivides it into three.

[30:20] So he followed the purpose of the rule, two and three, which is purpose discovered, right? No, no, it's kind of a rule that I've come to from reading accounts over the years, right? In seeing that at least for the most part, he'll divide into two or three, and then you know, subdivide or crisscross two and threes to get more than than three, right? So he divides the Gospel of Saint John into two parts, Gospel Matthew into three parts, and it comes to the Psalms, right?

[30:56] There's 150 Psalms. Well, the mind can understand it. Division in 150. And so Thomas follows a suggestion of Augustine there in the 150th Psalm, I guess, that the Psalms are divided into three parts. Of course, divided three stages of charity, right? And

[31:18] Augustine notices the correct number, and I've got to go back to the correct numbering. The 50th Psalm the Psalm of Repentance. 100th Psalm of good deeds, and the 151 of resting in God, right? So the three things. And then when Thomas will subdivide them, he will divide into two and three all the way down, all the way to one. We saw the treatise on the Trinity here.

[31:44] 17 questions, but divided into three parts. Now the 15 questions will be divided into two parts, right? And so on. So this is one kind of opposites relatives, but it's different from other kinds. And that would be important for understanding Trinity and why the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit one is not before after the other, why they're together.

[32:15] So in the 50th Psalm objection, he says, "there's a likeness here. Remember how he said likeness is a slippery thing, or the great Plato said that. He didn't say that. There's a likeness here in

[32:32] power and goodness. sake, as an example, right? Being the same thing as the divine substance, right? And fatherhood and sonhood being the same thing as the divine substance, right? But there's a difference in that, right? Because although God is truly powerful, He's truly good, what belongs to power, what belongs to goodness, belongs most of all to God, right? Yet there's no opposition here between the two, right?

[32:59] As you can see they're going through the opposite, so. I remember reading a doctoral thesis when I was at Laval. There, we used to sometimes go to the library and read doctoral theses just to see how people did them. If you're interested in the topic, you can see what he did with this.

[33:18] Of course, back in the in the 50s and so on, 60s, there was more interest in refuting the communists or the Marxist philosophers and so on. And I remember reading this one thesis on Marx and so on. And of course, the Marx make a big deal about opposites, right? But they never they never distinguish the various kinds of opposites, huh? And they lump them together. They don't really have that distinct knowledge Aristotle has, huh?

[33:50] So the guy towards the end of the thesis right, is bringing in, the teaching about the various kinds of opposites and trying to make a little bit of clarity about what the Marxists are saying or trying to say, right?

[34:08] I was thinking of imitating the great Porphyry, right, huh? This great father of the church, right? And of course, his books against the church were burned by one of the emperors, huh? And Augustine speculates as to why Porphyry was so anti-Christian, right? But despite that, huh, his book called the Isagoge has a great deal of respect, huh, among the later philosophers, whether they be Greeks, even pagan Greeks, or whether they be Mohammedans, right, or whether they be Christians, right.

[34:52] And as I say, the first book I read by Albert the Great there in in Laval there was his paraphrase of the Isagoge of Porphyry. And Cajetan is a commentary. Cajetan, the cardinal there, who Pope sent up to refute Luther. Here's a commentary on the Isagoge, right? But the Isagoge, actually, the original title was the Isagoge to the Categories of Aristotle, right? Isagoge is a Greek word for introduction, same etymological thing.

[35:28] And Chrysostom had asked Porphyry, "I'm having difficulty reading Aristotle's Categories, and what do these words genus, species, difference, property, and accident mean that Aristotle's using? " So Porphyry has a beautiful proemium, right? Where he says it's necessary to know what genus is, what difference is, what species is, what property is, what accident is. Not only, he says, to understand the Categories of Aristotle, but to understand.

[36:02] Definition, he says, because we define a species by genus and difference, right? To understand division, he says, because one of the most important divisions is out of the genus into its species by differences. And to understand demonstration, where you prove a property of its species by its definition. That's magnificent, huh? You realize how important the Isagoge is, huh? And I was saying to my colleagues in philosophy, how many of you guys have read the Isagoge?

[36:40] Well, none of them had. And some didn't even know what it was. Okay. Of course, eventually it got kind of contracted just to being called the Isagoge, right? And it's kind of antonomasia It's introduction to logic, it's introduction to the what? To the whole of philosophy in a sense. Logic is a tool. Now,

[37:09] in my favorite book by Thomas, the Summa Contra Gentiles, Thomas, when he's arguing and trying to show that no name is said univocally, right, of God and creatures, one of his arguments says that every name said univocally of many things is a genus or a difference or a species or a property or an accident. And then he goes through and eliminates all five of those in terms of God and man, right?

[37:42] And therefore concludes that there's no name said univocally of God. Well, that was a clue, right? That in a way the book that Porphyry has written is a what? Complete distinction, you might say, of names said univocally of many things. And that univocally means what? Said with one and the same exact meaning of all, right? Okay. But there's also names that are said with with what? Many meanings of many things.

[38:15] And then we distinguish between two kinds of those. We use the term equivocal for a name that has many meanings, right? We distinguish between a name that is equivocal by chance and one that's equivocal by reason, right? Now, why am I saying all this? Well, I think it's very important and necessary to consider name equivocal by reason. But to imitate now, the term imitation, imitate the brevity of Porphyry, right?

[38:52] We could say, why is it necessary to understand names equivocal by reason? This is an example of a name equivocal by reason, right? Okay. But what Aristotle discovered is that the names that are said of all things, like names like being and one and so on, and the names that are said of very many things, like act and ability and so on, that all of these names are equivocal by reason.

[39:27] So to understand the names said of all things, the names said of very many things, right? You have to understand names equivocal by reason.

[39:44] But then a second reason why it's necessary to understand these names is that the statements that all thinking and reasoning are based on, the so-called axioms. To understand those axioms, you have to understand Names equivocal by reason, because the words in the axioms are all what? Yeah, yeah. And then the third reason, right? Why it's important to understand the names equivocal by reason, as Aristotle points out in the book on sophistic refutations, the most common mistake in thinking is from mixing up the different senses of a word.

[40:26] Now we're not apt to mix up the senses of a word that's equivocal by chance. Roger Maris hit 61 home runs with the bat. The bat is a flying rodent. Therefore, you just laugh at that, right? It's obvious the the equivocation there. But words that are equivocal by reason, is a likeness, a connection between the meanings, and it's easy to mix them up. You've heard me talk about one of the most common axioms, the common example: the whole is more than a part, right?

[40:58] And how I get my students, you know, to temporarily deny it by sophistic argument, right? You heard my argument. Say, well, I'd say man is an animal, right? Okay. My mother didn't like me to say man is an animal, right? I said, well, Mama, I don't mean just an animal. He's an animal that has reason, right? Okay, well, that's better, she said. Okay. So I'd say animal then is is is a part of what man is, right?

[41:31] Okay, they agree to that. Then I'd say, but animal includes besides man, dog, cat, horse, elephant. So sometimes what's only a part includes more than the whole. Oh, yeah.

[41:48] Now here they are thinking that it's not always true that the whole is more than a part, huh? But I deceived them, right? By the most common mistake. I can deceive them about something as obvious as the whole is more than one of its parts because they're mixing up two different meanings of the word whole and part. When I say that animal is a part of man, I mean he's a composing part, one of the parts that's put together to define man, right?

[42:20] But when I say that man or dog or cat is a part of what animal, I mean universal whole, right? Aristotle will distinguish those two senses, whole and part, in the fifth book of wisdom, right? And you say so. In one sense, you know, animal is a part of man. In another sense, man is a part of animal. Right? There's no contradiction there, right? So that's the third reason you have to understand names equivocal by reason.

[42:49] The most common mistake in thinking is mixing up the different senses of a word, right? And this is a danger mainly with names equivocal by what? Reason.

[43:04] The fourth reason why it's important to understand such names is to know what wisdom is about and what political philosophy is about. To take the two highest kinds of philosophy, looking philosophy, wisdom, and doing philosophy, political philosophy, is political. Political philosophy is about political things, right? But the word political there is equivocal by reason. So you can't understand what political philosophy is about without understanding names equivocal by reason.

[43:39] Wisdom is about being and one, but they are equivocal by reason. Being and thing and one. And we saw the word res here, Something equivocation, the word res, huh? Okay. Now the fifth, the last, and not quite the least reason I would give why it's important to understand names equivocal by reason is that to name and to talk about and even to understand a bit things you can't sense or imagine, right?

[44:13] Like that, you have to understand names equivocal by reason, right? We got an example right here, right? Because opposite is a name equivocal by reason.

[44:33] And when I say that virtue and vice are opposed, and when I say that blindness and sight are opposed, it's not exactly opposed in the same way, right? And then for sure, you say double and half are opposed, right? Now, of course, Thomas talked about this. If you go back to the treatise on substance of God, right, Because there he talked about how the fact that the names we use in talking about God are analogous, which is another way of saying equivocal by reason, okay?

[45:03] So this is very important, right? So Thomas would apply the second objection here, is going back to his understanding that he had from Aristotle, right,

[45:15] of the name equivocal by reason called opposites, right? And this is part of the understanding, right? And then, say, potentia and bonitas, power and goodness, are not what? One of these kinds of opposites, but father and son are, right? Okay.

[45:40] Okay. Now, the third objection. In divine things, there is not a real distinction except by origin, but one relation does not seem to proceed from another, right? So you wouldn't say that sonhood proceeds from fatherhood. You'd say the son proceeds from the father, right?

[46:01] Now of course when Aristotle talks about relations there in the fifth book of wisdom. He says they're based either upon quantity, right, including the one not the quantity, or upon what action, doing, right? Okay. Well, the origins and is what they're going to be the foundation for understanding what these relations here, but it's not going to be the same thing, right? Okay. So I am a father because I generated my son.

[46:34] Okay. But the relation now of fatherhood and sonhood is based upon this act of generation, right? Okay. In the same way, in our way of understanding the relations in God, right, we see them, we understand them as being based upon one member generating another one, right, and then two of them breathing another one. Okay. So he says although the relations, properly speaking, do not arise or proceed from each other, nevertheless they are taken by opposition according to the procession of one from another, right?

[47:11] So the father is the one from whom another proceeds, right? And the son is the one who proceeds from another, right? Okay. So they are distinguished ultimately by what procession, right?

[47:27] As I say, if you know that, if you understand relations in just as you are creatures, you realize that, right? Okay. Give relations based on quantity, right? Double and half, right? Was four double or half?

[47:50] Well, that's not something absolutely said of four, right? Okay. You can say take something absolutely said of four. Is it an odd number and even number? Yeah, and it's never going to be an odd number, right? But four can be both double and half, but towards different things, right?

[48:11] So the relation is not the same thing as the quantity, but it's based on the quantity, right? Because four is four; it's double of two, and because four is four, it's half of what eight.

[48:32] So because I generated my son, because it's in a relation to me and it's in a relation to him, but that's not the relation is generated, right? It's based upon that. Okay. So. Now, so we're sitting here now, ready to go to the fourth article. We want a little break, or it's going to be natural to take a break here, but just. Let's see where we are, as Lincoln would say.

[49:01] Where we're going. The first article was saying that there are what real relations in God, right? Okay. Um. Then what did he do? He compared these real relations to the divine substance, right, and to each other, right. So that's kind of the second part, right? But you could subdivide that into two comparisons, right? Okay. And there we discovered that in comparison to the divine substance, there's a distinction and definition, right?

[49:36] But no distinction secundum rem to use Thomas's words Right? Okay. But when you compare them to each other, there is not just a distinction in meaning, but a real what distinction, not according to a rem absolutum, but a relative thing, right? Okay.

[49:59] Now what remains, the third part, right, is well, how many of these relations are there, right? Okay. And of course, I guess we're going to find out that there's going to be four relations, right? And we have to wait till the treatise on the persons before we find out why four relations doesn't give you four persons. Okay. So let's take a little break before we do that.

[50:22] So let's take a little break here before we find out why four relations don't give you four persons right.