Prima Pars
110. Summa I, Q. 30, a. 1: Are There Many Persons in God? Subsistent Relations, and Numbering vs. Numbered Number
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/110-summa-i-q-30-a-1-are-there-many-persons-in-god-subsistent/

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

[0:28] We're up to now the start of question thirty, right? If you recall, in the four questions in this part here, the consideration of persons in general, right? So last time we learned what a we've learned what in general a person is, right? And then how the name person can be used in talking about God, right? What it means, right? And now Thomas is going to talk about his next two questions about the there being more than one person in God and how many persons are there in God, right?

[1:07] And some things that follow on it in the next question. We talk about our knowledge of such things in the thirty second. We'll get that far. We get to so we're in question thirty. Okay, then one asks about the plurality of persons. He says in the proemium here to question thirty, and about this four things are asked. First, whether there are many persons in God. That way, he says, in divinis, right, in divine things.

[1:40] Secondly, how many there are, right? That's really the question of whether there's three or what four, because there are relations as what subsistent subsistent and there's four relations, so there's many more than three. And then what these numerical terms signify in divine things.

[2:02] And fourth, then about the community of this name person. So if there are three persons in God, and or in general if there's many persons in God, right, then person seems to be said of these, right? And what kind community is that? Is it like man said of us,

[2:24] or animal said of dog and cat and horse, or what? You know, have to see that. Okay, to the first one proceeds thus. It seems that there should not be laid down many persons to be in divine things. And this first objection recounts the what definition. I recall is the definition of person, right? A person is an individual substance of a reasonable, right, or intellectual nature. If therefore there are many persons in divinis, you would follow that there are many substances, right?

[3:02] There's this poison that Jerome spoke of, which seems to be what heretical, right? Okay. It's like saying there's three natures, huh? It's moreover, a plurality of absolute properties. Now, what does he mean by absolute properties? Well, God is said to be what simple and good and perfect and knowing and so on, right? All these things. This makes no distinction of persons, right? Neither in God nor in us, right?

[3:46] Does my geometry and my logic two persons over here? One person is a geometry, the other person is a logician. Another person is a theologian. Another person is a Christian. Not even us, right? Even though they're more distinct in the senses than they are in God, much less therefore a plurality of relations, huh?

[4:16] But in God there is not any other plurality except of relations. This has been said above. Therefore, there cannot be said to be in God many what persons, huh? That's a nice objection. Moreover, Boethius says, speaking about God, that that is truly one in which there is no what number, huh? What plurality implies a number. Therefore, there are not many persons in divine things, huh? So you got to interpret what Boethius means, huh?

[4:53] Like he does Augustine. Moreover, wherever there is a number, there is whole and part. If therefore in God there be a number of persons, there will be in God what whole and part. So two is part of three, right? It's going to be a whole and part in God. It's contrary to the simplicity of God, huh? Which is repugnant to the divine simplicity, huh?

[5:27] You compare, you know, the Summa Theologiae with the sentences. The sentences, I think, there's a question in Thomas there whether there's any whole or part in God, right? And then he eliminates composing parts and subject parts, right? And here he doesn't really have an article like that. But he eliminates composing parts in the question on simplicity of God and subject parts on the unity of God, huh?

[5:53] There's no parts in God, so that's established now. If you get three and two and one in there, two is a part of three, right? Got whole and part. you've got one. problem right? So we've got four objections here.

[6:13] But against this is what Athanasius says. Other is the person of the Father, other that of the Son, and other that of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are what many persons. That's a reference to the so-called Athanasian Creed, right? Which whether may not be written by Athanasius and such, but goes back to his teaching and to the tradition of the Church.

[6:43] It's one of the standard what creeds, right? In my text, it gives the reference there to Denzinger, which is the official text. Are one place for there anyway.

[6:55] Okay. Now Thomas's response is much shorter than the reply to the objections. I answer. It should be said that there are many what persons in God, and this follows from what has been said before, right? Why? Because it's been shown before, and that, in fact, is just the last article we looked at, right? That the name "person" signifies divine things, a relation as a thing subsisting in the divine nature.

[7:35] That's where it's signifying relation per modum substantiae, as other way of speaking, right? So it signifies relation as a thing that subsists, right? Exists by itself, right? In the divine nature. Okay, that's what person means in God in particular, right? Doesn't mean that in us, right?

[7:58] Um, it's a subsisting thing in human nature, human person is, right? But it's not relation, right? But in God, it means what a relation as a thing subsisting in the divine nature.

[8:16] But it has been had above when we talked about the relations that there are many real relations in God, right? Okay. Now he's not getting the problem of there's four relations but only three persons, right? But there are many real relations in God, so that's enough to see that the kind of general way that there's going to be what many persons in God, right?

[8:39] Um. Whence it follows that there are many things subsisting in the divine nature. Okay, that's what you mean by what a person in the divine nature. A thing that subsists, right? Now subsists means what exists by itself, not in another, is in the subject, right? And this is to be many persons in divine things. So you see the soliloquism there.

[9:11] When he uses that little expression of Hindu genies is there any significance to that or is it just a That's kind of colloquial, I think, you know, because I think it would be more natural to say it in English. You know, there are many what relations in God, right? Right. Yeah. Because I guess literally this would be what in divine things. Yeah, in divine things, yeah.

[9:37] Which you say is that the word things here enlighten? Because can you kind of follow up? I think you said that. Maybe something like with the attributes, we say the Lord's Prayer is called the many

[9:53] God. So the answer then to the question why there. are. Many persons in God, right? Involves what? An understanding that a divine person is a relation, understood as the things subsisting in the divine nature, and then the other thing that there are many relations, right? And you put those two together, and you say, well, it's got to be many persons then in God, okay? Now the next article will narrow this down.

[10:24] It's three rather than four, but we'll see why that is so, right? Okay. The first objection is taken from the word substantia there in the definition of person, right?

[10:39] And Thomas here he doesn't refer at this point here in the reply to the first objection to the text of Aristotle, but in many cases he does, and he takes up the same objection. And in the fifth book of wisdom, when Aristotle distinguishes the senses of the words,

[10:57] the two main meanings of the word substance are the what? Individual subsisting in some nature, and then the nature itself, what it is, right? And of course this is taken in the first of those two senses, huh? So Thomas refers doesn't refer to Aristotle, but refers to a distinction that Aristotle made in the fifth book of wisdom. To the first, therefore, it should be said that substance is not laid down in the definition of person according as it signifies the essence, the nature, the substance, as sometimes called in that sense of a thing, but according as it signifies the what?

[11:36] Individual standing under, might say, huh? Suppositum is Latin, right? Puts placed under there. And this is clear from the fact that there is added what? Individua, okay.

[11:51] Now he says to signifying substance said thus, the Greeks have a name hypostasis, right? I know hypostasis is almost the same etymologically the same as substantia, right? But it's also almost the same as suppositum, right? Because stasis means stands and hypo means under, right? And

[12:19] suppositum probably is under kind of and positum is placed under, right? Okay. But unlike the word hypostasis and unlike the word suppositum, the word substantia can mean both hypostasis and in Latin what a thing is, right? And therefore there's a equivocation there, right? And so the objection is taking substantia in the wrong sense and not the sense that's meant in the what? Definition, huh? Okay.

[12:56] Just like when I say that a genus is the name said. With one meaning of many things of different kinds, signifying what each is, right? Signifying what it is. What does the word "many" mean there? Well, the word "many" has two meanings. Many is opposed to few, and many is opposed to what? One. Is that the same sense of many?

[13:26] Because a two would be few, right? And therefore, many is opposed to few would be more than two. But you could have a genus that is said of just what two species, like number might be said of odd and even number, right? So if someone says, "Well I only got two," bini means more than two. So well, no, no, no. There's two meanings of the word many, right?

[13:50] And you've taken the what? The wrong one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So in understanding a definition, you've got to realize that a definition is composed of words, and many words, if not most words, if not all words, almost have what more than one meaning. So you have to know what sense you're using it. So the notice that Thomas makes you concentrate upon each word of the definition, as he did when he defined before, right?

[14:21] And now he's coming back to it, right? It's it's kind of starting with that, right? Because that's that's understanding the general definition of person, huh?

[14:32] Whence, as we say three persons, so they, the Greeks, say three what? Hypostases, huh? And we pick up that word in when we speak of the hypostatic what? Union. Yeah, I mentioned you the Hans article too, huh? The grace of Mary is of the hypostatic order. And what do you mean by that, right? Well, because she's the Mother of God, right? That she has a abundance of grace as a kind of what the mediatrix of grace, huh?

[15:00] She's kind of a salty, and therefore he says of the hypostatic order, not that only Christ and Mary have enough grace to save everybody. Other saints have enough to save. Yeah, and so just not save ourselves. We're the lost. It's not even enough to save ourselves. Isn't that you know borrow, you know, huh? But you know the warning, the the the oil lamps there, right? The fire that had and the fire that didn't, right?

[15:29] Well, you go buy, you know, because maybe we don't have enough for you, you know. Who said that after breakfast about the Mary being? Continue the Hans article in the theological and philosophical. The grace of Mary is a hypostatic order, right? What have we got that from St. Alphonsus? I read the recent letters of Mary something along that line. Could be. I have to look it up because that made me think of that article you mentioned.

[15:49] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we certainly pick up on that Greek word there, right? But we don't say three hypostases usually in English, right? Or in Latin, we'd say three persons. We are not accustomed, he says, to say three substances, right? Lest you understand in the other sense, other being three what? Yeah. On account of the equivocation of the name, the fact that it has two meanings.

[16:23] So usually we think of substance of a thing in the sense of what it is. I notice all the time when I'm talking about happiness is the end of human life, right? And I'm trying to get the students to avoid, you know, as I say, happiness is the end of human life. Then human life is death. Therefore, happiness is death.

[16:52] But when they think of the end of it, they probably think of in that sense first, right? So you have to almost see that, right? And I find when I'm speaking of these things, you say happiness is the end or purpose or the end or the goal. You know, just because that equivocation, right? And the fact that people are accustomed maybe to use the word end, not so much for purpose, but for the, you know, the limit of its existence or something, right?

[17:16] You see, and something like that happened with substance, right? God. The second objection was arguing kind of like a fortiori, right? That plurality of absolute things doesn't give you a what distinction of persons. So I should just displace it. The basic reason is that the absolute properties are not opposed one to the other, right?

[18:02] Now, to the second, it should be said that absolute, and absolute is always usually in Thomas is the opposite of what relativum, right? So absolute properties in God, as goodness and wisdom, are not opposed to each other, right? Now this goes back to the distinction that Aristotle makes, both in the twelfth chapter of the Categories, first book in logic, that has come down to us from the father of logic, and in the fifth book of Wisdom, right, that there are four kinds of what opposites, right?

[18:39] Contradictories like what being and non-being, right? Having and lacking, huh? Like sight and blindness, contraries like virtue and vice, and then relatives like father and son, double and half, and so on. And

[19:01] Distinction, other than what we call material distinction, right, is by some kind of what opposition, right? Okay. Now, in the in the continuous, you can have another kind of distinction, because the continuous has part outside of part, right? Okay. So if I draw a circle here and a circle here, right, they're not distinguished by any opposition, right? But because one is here and the other is what there, right?

[19:31] Okay. But when you don't have the continuous, you don't have the bodily nature anymore, right? Then the only kind of distinction that can be is one of opposites.

[19:46] And so, Aristotle saw relation as one kind of opposite, right? Okay. But goodness and wisdom, for example, are not what contraries, huh? They're not contradictories. One is not the lack of the other, right? And they're not towards each other, right? But father and son: the father is the father, of, the son, and the son is the son of the father, right?

[20:18] So he says these absolute properties in God, as goodness and wisdom and love and so on, are not opposed to each other. Whence neither are they really what distinguished. There's a distinction of that reason makes, right? But there's no real distinction. Not two things, in other words, in God, right? Reality there comes from res, meaning thing. So the divine goodness and the divine wisdom are not two different things.

[20:51] Whence, although it belongs to them to what subsist, right? Because God's goodness or his wisdom is not something really existing in him as something different from himself, right? Like my wisdom or my geometry might be something existing in me, really a distinct thing from him. Nevertheless, they are not many what subsisting things, right? Which would be to be many what Persons. Now, absolute properties in created things do not subsist, right?

[21:30] So my love and my knowledge don't subsist. Are not subsistent, right? It's something that exists in me, right? Okay. Although they are really and truly right distinguished from each other, so my knowledge and my love are not the same thing in me, They're two different things. But they're not what subsisting, right? So they're not two persons. As whiteness, he says, and what sweetness.

[22:01] But the relative properties in God both subsist, right? And they're really distinguished from each other by this opposition of relatives. Whence a plurality of such properties is enough for a plurality of persons in divine things.

[22:30] So notice what Thomas is doing that. He's pointing out that the absolute properties in God subsist, but they're not distinct, really. The absolute properties in us are really distinct, but they don't subsist. But the relations in God, right? They both but subsist, right? And are really what distinct. So one of those two really subsists, other subsists, is lacking in our absolute. Properties, although we have the other thing, distinction, right?

[23:06] And distinction, a real distinction, as to say, is lacking in the absolute properties of God, but not subsistence. Okay, so you got to have both of these things, right? To have many persons in God, you have to have many really distinct subsistent things. That's what you have, right? With these relations, huh? Because the relations are opposed to each other, so they're really distinct, one from the other.

[23:38] And because they are the same thing as God, they're really what subsistent. Therefore, they're really different persons. So in us the relation, of father to son, or son to father, is not subsistent, but is really distinct. Yeah, but it's also something that follows upon the real distinction too to individuals, right? See, but I'm a different person than you because my flesh and blood and bone is cut off from your flesh and blood and bone, right?

[24:14] And so you and I are different persons by something absolute in us, right? And I'm a different person from my son because his flesh, even though it's like my flesh in a sense, his flesh is not my flesh, right? Okay, so we're not distinct persons because I'm a father and he's a son, but because of something absolute, right? But because this absolute thing generated that absolute thing, then we have as a consequence of that that I'm father and he's the what son.

[24:53] Was that also the separation because your souls are distinct too? Is that? You know what I'm thinking too is that like my sister just recently told me the story about his two nieces or something about this two samey's twins are now like teenagers now, but they're two girls. Yeah. And of course they had really one flesh, but there are two persons. Yeah. So they're having a distinction as two souls.

[25:22] Yeah. Yeah. there's that principle about matter being the individualizing Well, this is the question that Thomas raised. You know, when our souls are separated from our bodies, right? They seem to be like angels in the sense that they're totally immaterial now, right? Oh. And therefore, it might seem the only kind of distinction you could have would be by opposites, right? Because you can't say that one is here and one is there, right?

[25:54] But the way Thomas solves that is to say that my soul fits my body, right? My soul is made from my body, right? That's why God would not have created my soul unless my parents had made a body that that soul fits, right? Okay. And so it still goes back to the distinction in bodies, right? In matter, that my soul is different from what your soul, right?

[26:26] Okay. Yeah. See, because my soul remains the soul that is apt to be what the form of this body here, right? Yeah. Okay. So that's why we say there can't be this transmigration of souls, right? So the soul one person can enter into the. In Aporcior, I mean, it's more manifest, you know, that the, you know, the soul of a man cannot become the soul of a dog.

[26:55] Say, you know, the whole story told about Pythagoras, right? You know, where somebody's beating a dog and he says, "Stop beating him! Recognize the soul in the whelping of the dog. The soul, of my friend, is supposed to die, right? " See. But you know, as Aristotle, when the argument Aristotle uses there is that the the body corresponding to the soul is a body composed of what tools, right?

[27:22] And can the medical art use the tools of the carpenter, or can the carpenter use the tools of the tailor? No. So there's a combination. There's a connection between an art and the tools that it what uses, right? Huh? And that's the same way with the body and the soul, right? But just as this kind of soul can only be in this kind of body, right? So an individual soul of this kind, right, is proportional to this individual body with its peculiarities, right?

[27:58] I guess some of these twins. At least they have some of the principal organs. Aristotle, some of the principal organs multiplied, though. See. Yeah. Yeah, they might be sharing some organ, but they're going to have some organs separated. So they can sort of two bodies sort of put together. You wouldn't necessarily see Sammy's twins, even though they might be joined at the head, but they wouldn't have one head.

[28:20] Yeah. It's the thing that principle about form and matter, you know. Aristotle is arguing there in the second book of of natural hearing that the same natural philosophy considers matter and form, right? One of the reasons he gives is they're relative to each other, huh? And it's the same knowledge of opposites. But then Aristotle has something like that when he gets into the politics, right? That there's a between this form of government and this kind of people with this kind of customs and education, so on.

[29:00] There's a correspondence, so you can't realize just any kind of government in any kind of what people, okay? Something the State Department might see or something, right?

[29:14] Yeah, yeah. But before it's very, you couldn't make the, you know, have the soul of a dog be human soul, right? Or vice versa. But it's like that with the also the individual soul. So my soul fits my body. I don't know. But what is your trick? Is to say, how do you tell, you know, recognize somebody else's soul? Some guys, they always mix up everything before they see.

[29:38] Some guys' minds work. They recognize that that mind, yeah, yeah, that mind worked in this back-assward way, you know. And I recognize them by that. It was kind of a joke, but

[29:54] okay. So that was the second objection, right? Yes. That's the way Thomas brings in those distinction between absolute properties in God and in us to bring out these two different points, right? Because the absolute properties in God have one thing that's required for a distinction of persons, and that is that it has something that's subsistent, right? And that's something that our absolute properties lack, right? But vice versa, our absolute properties are really distinct.

[30:35] That's something that the divine absolute properties are not really distinct. But the divine relations, these relations that we talked about inside God, they are both really distinct and subsistent. Therefore, there are many but distinct persons in God, because a divine person is nothing other than a relation as a subsisting thing in the divine nature, as something subsisting in the divine nature.

[31:09] Whiteness and sweetness are absolute properties in us. Yeah, not like father or shorter or taller, you know. Oh, I see. Right. Okay. Not as you say in the relative there. Aristotle in the categories, and he takes it out. He doesn't have the abstract word. He has pros ti, right? Okay. And in Albert and so on they'll call that ad aliquid, right? Pros towards something, right? Okay. So in English, might translate it as towards something, right?

[31:48] Okay, or toward another. He said, right? Um. And that's not really brought out when you use the word relation or the word relative. That's not as concrete as to what the thing is. And you know, people are talking about relation and relationship, which is an abstraction, abstraction kind of right. But you see, strictly speaking, you might say, "Is there a relation between me and my son?" God,

[32:22] not between you know. Yeah, yeah. That's the way it is. Because I am to him a father, and he is towards me a son. I am towards you maybe taller or shorter, right? Yeah. And you are, you know, so this idea that these words of Aristotle they give more the idea of what it is, right? And I was mentioning, I think, before that in the Gospel of Saint John,

[32:51] in the beginning there, we translated the beginning was the word, and the word was, you know, we say with God, but the Greek, the Greek says pros. pros, towards. So if you know, you know, if you are a student of Aristotle and it would strike you, you know, and it would be more clear, right? The distinction between the word and the one towards whom he is is a distinction by what?

[33:24] Yes. That's kind of struck. Okay, good. I don't get pointed out that I know of, but someone else must have seen it besides me. But it's funny. Then you don't say in Thomas, you know, he just has the word ad aliquid and ours comes comes the Latin. But I must see somebody along the line who who's seen the connection between relation as pros ti and Saint John saying that.

[33:51] but I don't know, I can't be, can't be, can't start with me. But I read them without anybody else pointing it out to me, just to read the text of Saint John there, and knowing Aristotle. My old teacher, Kasurik you know, he used to didn't talk about Saint John, but talked about Aristotle's way of speaking here, right? He says prosti, ad aliquid, He doesn't say relation, right?

[34:20] Okay. A lot of times Thomas will talk about relation, you know, and but it's not as good a word to get across what it is, huh? Okay.

[34:33] That's important. Later on, we get to the specifics of a whole part. Now the third one is for the text of the great Boethius there, right? To the third, it should be said that from God, on account of his what, highest or supreme, right, unity and simplicity, is excluded every plurality of what? Things said absolutely. It means every what? Real plurality, right? Okay.

[35:10] But not, however, a plurality of what relations? Because relations are said about something as now he's got something like pros ti right? Ad alterum, right? Okay, usually say ad aliquid, but it's towards another, right? Ad alterum. And thus they do not say or speak of any composition in the thing which they are said,

[35:39] as Boethius himself, in the same book, teaches. Okay. So in other words, the Father is this towards the Son, and the Son is that towards the Father. But do those two opposing relations signify something put together in God?

[35:59] No. Okay. They're distinct, though, from each other, right? I was thinking, in the son, we were talking about with relation in us, father and son. There is no relationship between you and me. And this is jumping ahead, maybe, but with the Trinity, is there actually a relationship between them? And that's the Holy Spirit, or is that crazy? No, no, no. But but Thomas is going to insist, you know, that the the father and the son, the son as well as the father, has to be towards the Holy Spirit, right?

[36:33] Yes. And the Holy Spirit is towards them, right? Yeah. Okay. Okay. But as as he points out, or has pointed out before and again here, the relations here are not.

[36:50] We don't have names for them, right? In the case of Holy Spirit, because this is something so different from the creature, right? Well, we have father and son, you know. It does the exact same thing, but but if there is some some something creatures which you can name these things, right?

[37:13] Now, the fourth objection says, wherever there is number, there is a whole and part, right? If therefore in God there is number of persons, there will be in God whole and part, which is repugnant to the divine simplicity. Now, though Thomas doesn't mention it here, he goes back to the distinction Aristotle makes in the fourth book of Natural Hearing among other places. In fact, having been looking at the fourth book of Natural Hearing again this morning, and Aristotle is talking about time, and time is the number of motion according to before and after in motion.

[37:51] And Aristotle is explaining how it's a number. He says it's not the numbering number, but the numbered number, right? Huh? Okay. I think as people follow it up sometimes, see, because the the distinction between say geometry and arithmetic, huh? Or the distinction before that that you have in the categories, distinction between continuous

[38:26] and discrete quantities. Now, now this is in the category there of quantity. Now, distinction Aristotle gives between these two. They both have have parts, right? But in the case continuous quantity, the parts meet at a common what boundary, right? So, first, continuous quantity of a line, where this part and that part they meet or are continuous at this point. And we had a surface. You take this side, this side, they meet at a what?

[39:11] Boundary. And in the case of a solid, the common boundary would be a surface, right? Two-dimensional. But in the number seven, let's say, the three and the four meet nowhere. Okay. So this is the distinction that he makes in the chapter on on quantity, there, the categories. But then, especially in the sixth book of Natural Hearing, he gives another definition of the continuous. And he said the continuous is that which is divisible forever.

[39:51] And so you can bisect the line and bisect that and go on forever. But can you do that with a number? You divide five into three and two, let's say. You divide two into one and one. Can you divide that one? No, because that one is even simpler than a point. So

[40:17] you have this distinction between the continuous and the what, the discrete, right? Okay. But now number, say, would be a considerably discrete quantity, and line and surface and solid or body and so on, and so on would be a continuous quantity. Now what about time?

[40:43] Because time is defined as the number of motion according to before and after motion, and especially the first motion, right? And for the Greeks, the first motion seemed to be the sky revolving around us, right? Okay. So if you take the sun, let's say, going around the earth, right, or seems to go around the earth, and you say, well, there's before and after that motion, right? And so when you number days or number hours, right, you speak of three days or three hours, you're numbering the before and after in that motion of the sun around the earth.

[41:21] Okay. So time is the number of motion according to before and after motion. Okay. But Aristotle, in explaining that definition, he says, "Is time a number in the sense of numbering number, this abstract number, right? Or is it a numbered number, right? Is it like the number ten, or is it like ten men? Or is it like the number fourteen and fourteen grandchildren? Well, fourteen

[41:57] grandchildren is what you call a numbered number, right? But fourteen is a numbering number, right? And arithmetic, the science that's basic science of math, along with geometry, geometry is about continuous quantity, shape, and arithmetic is about number, but that numbering number, right? Okay. So is time a continuous or discrete quantity? Well, someone might say, well, it's a discrete quantity. It's called a number, right? It's just a minute now.

[42:33] We're looking at the distinction between what? Numbering number and A numbered number. A numbered number, right? Just like if I said three yards, right? Is that a discrete or continuous quantity? Continuous. Yeah, it's the number of a continuous thing, right? Okay. So Thomas is going to recall that distinction, right? And

[43:02] when you speak of there are three persons in God, is that three a numbering number or a numbered number? Is there three in God or three persons in God? Yeah. And as he's going to point out here now, it'll come out explicitly there on anything. Is God more than God the Father?

[43:38] Well, we're going to find out later on. There is no distinction between God and God the Father. No real distinction, right? And therefore, God the Father and God the Son is no more than what God the Father alone.

[44:04] And of course, in, the relations: one person is not what more or less than the other is not more or less wise by something relative, based on something absolute, right? But the absolute is always one thing in God, and there is absolutely no distinction between God himself and the Father. So the Father is not less than the Father and the Son. That's a very subtle thing to see, right?

[44:31] Let's look at Thomas's words, but to consider a little bit of the idea. here. To the fourth, it should be said that number is twofold. Mr. Aristotle teaches in the fourth book of Natural Hearing right. To wit, simple number or absolute number as two or three or four, right? And the number which is in things numbered as two men and two what horses, right? Okay.

[45:01] If therefore in divine things is taken number absolutely or abstractly, in other way putting it, nothing prevents their being in hyp whole and part, right?

[45:16] And in this way, is not except in the taking of our what understanding, because that what absolute number is not what existing separate from things numbered except in the mind, huh? Okay. So if we take, that's why these moderns get confused between arithmetic and math and and logic, right? Because there is something fundamental about both, right?

[45:48] Now, if we take number in so far as it is in things numbered. Thus, in created things, one is a part of two, and two of what? Three, right?

[46:07] So when you have one child, it's only a part of what you have. When you have two children, right? When you have three children, two is only a part of what you don't have, right? And so on. As one man of two, and two of three. But it is not thus in God, right? Because the Father is just as much as the what? Whole Trinity. The Father, in other words, is not a part of God, is he?

[46:39] No. The Father and God are exactly the same. There's no real distinction. So the Father is just as much as the whole Trinity, namely God. Did you see that? That's a very subtle thing, you know. Thomas will come back upon that point as as he says later on when you get into the comparative thing, question forty two, the reference there. But that's the key thing, right? You got to stop and realize what it is you're numbering, right?

[47:10] And that's why I make this comparison to to what we're doing here in the fourth book of Wisdom that you're hearing, right? Where Thomas or Aristotle, before Thomas, is saying, hey, what kind of a number is time, right? Well, it's not the abstract number, huh? Which exists maybe only in the mind, right? But it's a numbered number, right? And it's a number of something what? Continuous, right?

[47:39] The before and after in motion. And motion is continuous because it's over a distance that is continuous, huh? So because the line is continuous, then the motion down the line is continuous. And then you're numbering the before and after in that motion, right? So you're numbering a continuous thing. So time, in that same chapter, in the in quantity, time is given by Aristotle as a continuous quantity.

[48:09] Okay. So you got to be careful there, right? What kind of number you're dealing with, huh? Now, when you get into the Trinity, if you take the numbering number, right, that's only in our mind, so that doesn't put whole and part in God, right? Okay. In that numbering number that's only in our mind, then you have part and whole, right? So two is a part or parts, as you could say, of three, right?

[48:36] But two is a part, it's a four, right? It measures four. But if you take the numbered number, right, then is the Father and the Son more than the Father alone? Are the father two heads better than one? They say. No, father and the son have only one head. They only have one wisdom, right? Okay.

[49:07] Or the father and the son more of God than the father alone? Huh? Father and son more than Holy Spirit. No, no, no. Because the Holy Spirit is God, right?

[49:31] So it's not more wisdom or goodness in the father and the son than in the Holy Spirit. Even the father and the son together, you wouldn't speak that way, right?

[49:50] Now this goes back to the Athanasian Creed, which says you know they're all equal, right? This come up in the comparative consideration of the last five questions, right? There's ten, fifteen questions on persons, right? And ten about the persons absolutely, and then five comparative. So there's not going to be more wisdom in in the three persons than in one of them.

[50:20] Used to be annoyed at this expression you hear at faculty meetings: "Our collective wisdom." Just hate that that phrase. But there's some truth, right? You know, you know, if if we sit around and and and discuss, maybe we come with something better than one of us. You know, each of us might contribute a little, but you know, to understanding something, right, or deciding a course of action, something like that.

[50:45] And but nothing like that, Trinity. Not much. Your hands are. Then you've got something else. Can you just review again the comparison of your terms: number, number, and number, number? It's not mine, there. Aristotle's terms. What's that? Aristotle's terms in the. Okay, good. In the fourth book of the Natural. How about what what what again goes with Saint Thomas's understanding of that absolute number? Well, the numbering number he calls absolute, or he calls it simplex, right?

[51:28] Simplex. Yeah. And that's the one in the mind. Yeah. And so he makes a distinction between what Aristotle calls numbering number, right? This absolute or simple number, which is only in the mind, right? Yeah. And then the what? The numbered number, right? Okay. And.

[51:53] Which is like the fourteen children and the three yards. Yeah, yeah. So so he rejects the idea that you can say that there's whole and part in God, because there's whole and part in the abstract number. Okay. Because the abstract number is in our mind only, right? I can start remembering in grade school, you know, going from one to the other. Did you have that? There'd be ten little sticks.

[52:22] Remember that. What's that? When I was in grade school, when you first starting out with this, you had ten little sticks, and then you know you one you count them, you know, the teacher you count them, and then you take away maybe three, and then how many you got left? You count the seven, right? You do that for a while, you know, and then all of a sudden you forget that, right?

[52:41] And then you you you're really abstracted, you know. Number, you've got number now, but where is this number that isn't ten sticks? Where is what is this ten that isn't ten sticks? In mind. Or where is this five that isn't five fingers or something, right? So we've got counted because. But but eventually you you you know talk about five and you develop fingers or anything else right toes or whatever else yes sir so then you got the abstract number right but that's just only in your mind right okay so the fact that there's a whole and part in the science of arithmetic right is referring to a number that is only in our mind right okay

[53:29] but then if you take the other number the numbered number right huh okay then you got some surprises right this is easier to see here but you can see that we also number continuous things right and so if you speak of you know football field is what hundred yards huh okay was a hundred yards a number a discrete quantity or continuous quantity continuous yeah because you've numbered now something that is in fact continuous right okay so you really have a continuous quantity say sounds strange right say I want three yards of this material right say I want something continuous not not something discrete right but yet I use number right and so then you have to look at God and say well what is going

[54:23] on here right and He makes distinction there well if you're numbering men right I get some flesh and bones that you don't have right and you so you so you and I together got more flesh and more bones than one of us alone right huh okay uh and since there's more humanity in both of us than just one of us but is there more divinity in in two persons than in one no because God the Father is not a part of God right God the Father and God are identical there's no distinction real distinction between the Father and God and there's no real distinction between the Son and God right okay

[55:13] so the Father and the Son together if we can speak that way don't have more wisdom or goodness or love than the Father alone right

[55:30] you and I might have more more wisdom than one of us alone right there's something you see I don't see and vice versa maybe right so on and and he saw the same thing we both know the Pythagorean theorem or something right uh my knowledge of that is not this individually the same as your knowledge of it right but the Father doesn't have some wisdom that the Son doesn't have right or some love that the Son doesn't have right

[56:04] No, you know, I get a little confused about um time again. We say time is numbering number. Is that correct? No, no, no, no, no. I said that when Aristotle was explaining the definition of time, right? Yeah. You know, you speak of time now. You got to be careful here. Um, when we ask what time is it, I look at my watch and I say it was three o five.

[56:29] Ah, that's not what we mean by time there in the fourth book of Natural Hearing, right? Yeah. Okay. But you mean something like three years or three days or three hours or three minutes, you see? So number is somehow involved in what time is, right? Yeah. But three days or three hours is what a numbered number, right? Yeah. Yeah. What you're numbering is the before and after in the first motion, which seems to be that of the sun around the earth, right?

[57:06] So you know when when Christopher not Christopher Columbus but Robinson Crusoe, right? When he got on that island, right? He wanted to keep track of how long he was shipwrecked on the island, right? Oh. So one way you could do it is say every time the every sunrise or every sunset take take let's say every sunrise we'll make a little mark in here, right? And so there's a before and after in this, right?

[57:31] And who's around here? And then that's before this next time, right? And so on. And so you're numbering the before and after in the motion, right? But you're numbering a before and after in something what continuous, right? Okay. Now, simple example of that is to say when I'm you know my wife gets some material to store and she wants three yards of this material, right, to make a dress or something.

[57:54] And then they they kind of you know you see, but now you have not the abstract number, right? But the number of something continuous, this cloth, right? And so although it makes it seem kind of paradoxical, right? But you have a number here, a number of yards or a number, right? Mm-hmm. It's it's not a discrete quantity, is it? Yeah. It's continuous quantity, right? Yeah. So you have to look at at what's being numbered, huh?

[58:25] See? Okay. Now what's being numbered here are these what relations, right? Okay. But what's absolute is one and the same, right? Mm-hmm. And each of these persons

[58:45] is the same thing as God. I think it's interesting. I think you could say that God is three persons, and you could say these three persons are one God, right?

[59:03] But none, no one of these persons is a part of God. So if you compare the Father with God, they're exactly the same thing. There's no distinction. There's no opposition between them, right? But if you compare the Father to Son, then they are opposed, and there is a distinction. One from the other. Now you talk about more or less. You're talking about something absolute, right?

[59:44] So the Father and the Son are not something more absolute than the Father alone. So that's a very subtle thing, right? You see, most people, and I'm sure the Mohammedans and people like that, they never think we're polytheist or something, right? Yeah. But either that or else that that we're that's even in a sense worse, right? But even to think that you know we think that these are three parts of God or something, right?

[1:00:20] See, they're not parts of God. God has no parts. Okay. So now we'll see this again when we get back to the comparative questions, you know, and talk about eventually the equality of the Father and the Son, right? I said, real equality. A little break now before we do the next article.