Prima Pars
112. Aquinas on the Trinity (Summa I, q.30 a.3): Numbers in God, the Transcendental 'Many' and Two Kinds of 'One'
Class of 2008-01-24
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/112-aquinas-on-the-trinity-summa-i-q-30-a-3-numbers-in-god-the/

[0:02] Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. God our enlightenment. Guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, order luminous images, and rouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and help us to understand all that you've written. Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

[0:28] Well, the angels think and pray without words. And Thomas Aquinas, now the separated soul there, must think and pray without words. And so, in your soul or my soul, separated from the body, they'll think and pray without words. But now, if you ask the other question, can you in this life can you think without words?

[1:00] And the similar question, can you pray without words? huh? Yeah, that's possible. We should think before we put into words. Now, of course, I would not deny, you'd say, that you can to some extent think without words, right? Or I would not deny that you could maybe pray in some way without words, right?

[1:25] But when the apostles ask our Lord there in the Gospel of Luke, you know, teach us how to pray. He teaches them how to pray by giving them the words of the what, our Father, right? And Benedict XVI was talking about that in the Jesus of Nazareth, right? That that volume. There's a thing on there about the words, right? And I can the psalm says, May the words of my mouth and the thought of my heart to find favor with thee, right?

[1:54] But? It begins with the words, right? And likewise, when you get to to logic, right? Logic directs our thinking with words, huh? Not with words alone, right? Not without thoughts and so on. But logic doesn't really direct any thinking you might do without words, if you do. Of course, without words, you can't really know what you do think.

[2:22] I can't say in words what I think. Do I really know what I'm thinking? I just kind of touch upon that a bit here,

[2:35] because take some things like in the faith here. In the beginning of the creed, it says, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth." So you speak of the Father as being Almighty and the Creator of heaven and earth. Then later on, it says something about someone becoming man, right, for our sake. And Saint John says something like this: "And the Word was made flesh, right?

[3:09] " Now, we believe both of those things, right? That the Father is Almighty and the Creator of heaven and earth, and we believe that the Word was made flesh, right? But are those two ways of speaking the same?

[3:32] No. No. What's the difference? The Word was made flesh. it didn't become flesh as if there was no more Word, and and whereas if God is almighty, couldn't you say that? And then if you say that God is Almighty, don't you qualify it? Well, notice, notice, huh? Only the Word, only the Son of God became man. God the Father did not become man, huh? And God the Holy Spirit did not become man.

[4:02] Only the Son became man, huh? But when we say in the creed, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth," do we mean? No, it's not private. Yeah, that the Father alone created, and the Father alone is Almighty. See. Okay. Or is it that those two things that are common to all three members of the Trinity are appropriated, right, to the Father, for reasons that will be given later on in the text here, right?

[4:39] Okay. Later on, we get into comparisons and so on. And Thomas even had an article whether you should appropriate these things, right? Or when he say that you know the charity is diffused in our souls by the Holy Spirit, does it mean the Holy Spirit does this and the Father doesn't do this, so the Son doesn't do this, right? But when he say that the Word was made flesh, that's not an appropriation.

[5:03] It's that God as a whole somehow became flesh, and we appropriate the Son. No, the Son alone became man. The Father and the Holy Spirit did not become man. So we sometimes, you know, when we read these things and we believe them, you know, but what we believe is said in words, right? And it's a much different way of speaking when you say the Word was made flesh, or the Son of God became man, huh?

[5:34] And when we say that the Father is Almighty and He created heaven and earth, or the Holy Spirit diffuses charity, or even attributed to the Holy Spirit, you know, the overshadowing of the Blessed Virgin, right? Actually, the incarnation is a work of the whole of the Trinity, but it's appropriated to the Holy Spirit for the reason Thomas will give later on here. huh? And he would raise the question whether the appropriation is what proper or not to do that because someone could misunderstand it, right?

[6:06] So notice how kind of in professing our belief we have to use words and we have to know how we're using these words. And we're using them differently when we say I believe in God the Father Almighty Creator of Heaven Earth, and then later on we say about the Son that He became man for our sake, right? The Son alone became man, but the Father alone did not create.

[6:31] The Father alone is not Almighty. So if we think or believe without words, I'm not sure that we do much, right? But we have to, sometime think and believe in words, and we have to understand what those words mean.

[6:58] So a little bit of wordy things here in the third and fourth article, but it moves into a lot of places here. Article three. That's where we left off, I believe, right? I think. To the third one proceeds thus. It seems that numerical terms lay down something in God when divine things.

[7:28] For the divine unity is his very what essence or nature or substance. But every number is a unity. What? Repeat it, huh? Three ones, right? Therefore, every numerical term in divine things signifies the essence. Therefore, it places something in God.

[8:02] That sounds to be kind of dangerous, right? You don't have three natures there. Moreover, whatever is said of God and creatures belongs in a more eminent, a higher way to God than to creatures.

[8:21] But numerical terms do lay down something in creatures. If I say we've got three men here on this side of the table, right? Three men. That says something, right? Positive in us, huh? Well, if you speak of there being three persons in God, it must even more so, even more fully, same God, three, right, huh?

[8:47] Moreover, if the numerical terms in Do not lay down something or place something in divine things, but they are brought in to what negate something, to remove something only, so that through plurality as you move unity, and through unity what plurality it follows that there's a, what,

[9:10] circulation, okay, in reason, confounding the intellect, right, confusing the intellect, and making nothing certain, huh? Which is doesn't fit, it's unfitting. It remains therefore that numerical terms lay down something in divine things. Now, my old teacher, the shaper said, you know, the business of the teacher is to confuse the issue. He doesn't mean, you know, at the end, but in the beginning, confuse issues, right? That's what Thomas is doing, right?

[9:50] That you stop and think, right? But against all this nonsense is what Hilary says in the fourth book. About the Trinity. Now, Hilary's book on the Trinity, after of course the Augustine's work, is perhaps the most quoted work. If I remember right, here in the treatise on the Trinity, huh? So it's rather Hilary of Poitiers. Okay.

[10:23] The profession of what? Consortium, right? The three. Okay. Sustains the what? Understanding of singularity and solitude, whatever that that means exactly, huh? Which is a profession of plurality. And Ambrose says in his book about faith, when we say one God, unity excludes a what? Plurality of gods, right? For we do not place quantity in God. I've been reading, you know, books seven, eight, and nine of Euclid, and they're marvelous books about numbers, right?

[11:04] A number is one of the two species of quantity, right, in the category. So, and here's the great Ambrose, the teacher of Augustine to some extent, right? We don't place quantity in God, right? So is placing something in God?

[11:22] If I deny it, then I'm denying the central mystery of the thing. And you notice that Thomas, in the reply, now is going to reply a little bit to this said sed contra, which he doesn't usually do, right? Okay. But anyway, finishing the sed contra, from which it seems that names of this sort are brought into divine things to removing and not to what placing something, right?

[11:55] Well, now I got a problem, don't you? If they place something in God, and I got quantity in God, huh? Number, huh? They don't place anything in God, then there's no Trinity, huh? I don't know what to do. I don't know.

[12:13] Now Thomas has got a long body, right? So it must be hard to sort these things out. I answer: It should be said that the magister. Now this is what what figure of speech? In Thomas. Yeah, antonomasia, and who's called the magister in this time? Peter Lombard, I guess. Yeah, Peter Lombard. This is the book on the Sentences, huh? And you know, for several centuries, you could say Peter Lombard's Sentences after the Bible was kind of a key text, right?

[12:47] And to get your doctorate and called in theology, you had to comment on the what? Sentences, right? So Albert the Great commented on them. Thomas did, and Bonaventure did, right? And for you know, two or three centuries at least, there, and this was. A tremendous book, right? Now I don't know if you had a chance to read the sentences, but um, it's really mainly from Augustine, and he's bringing together the texts in Augustine in in a certain order, resolving problems and so on.

[13:21] And so Thomas will comment on the very text and divide the text like he does, and expand over the text of sentences. And then I have questions, you know, and articles dealing with the question that came up in that particular part of the sentences. You see, Thomas was going to write the Summa here. He was going to redo his main sentences. He decided to strike out on his own and proceed perhaps in a little better order.

[13:47] But so it is a tremendous work, though the sentences, nevertheless. But it's mainly what Augustine, right? But there's some opinions of the magister that's maybe there. But he should have that Pilot the Magister, the teacher, right?

[14:04] Yeah, antonomasia Very important time. So I answer. It should be said that the magister in the sentences lays down that numerical terms do not place something in God, but they remove or negate something only, right? But others say the contrary. This is a problem, right?

[14:34] To the evidence of this, huh? It should be considered that all plurality follows upon some division, huh? Now, do you agree to that statement?

[14:52] Now, I've mentioned before how the word division and the word distinction are not exactly the same word, right? A lot of times in Thomas, they're used almost what? Yeah, it's a little bit like the word beginning and the word cause. You'll see in the text of Aristotle, since one meaning of beginning is cause, you often use beginning and cause kind of interchangeable. interchangeably, right? Okay. But sometimes Aristotle, like in the fifth book of Wisdom, when he's being very precise about these words, he will see a distinction between the word beginning and the word cause, and he'll point out that the word beginning is more general than the word cause.

[15:40] Every cause is a beginning in some way, but not every beginning is a what? Cause. So this typical example of a beginning that is not a cause is the point that's the beginning of the line, but it's not the cause of the line, right? Okay. Well,

[15:59] the same thing could be said, I think, about the word distinction and the word division. That every division is a distinction, but not every distinction may be as a what division, right? Because I see a lot of times they use kind of interchangeably. But division, in the strict sense, is the distinction of the parts of some whole. It can be a composed whole, can be a universal whole, right?

[16:31] It can be a potestative whole and so on, right? But maybe the strict sense is the distinction of the parts of some whole. Why distinction is broader than that, right? Things are distinct, as Thomas says, sometimes when one is not the other. So that's a very broad thing, right? So when Thomas is talking about the Trinity, and he'll say that in God there's a real distinction between the Father and the Son, and between the Holy Spirit and the Father and the Son, but he won't speak there of a division of God into the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, because division would imply that these are like parts of God, right?

[17:18] And God has no parts, right? So when Thomas says the word division here, I think he's using the word division as a synonym for distinction, right? Okay. So I just want to be careful about those words, huh? I remember the shock when I first, you know, looking at the Greeks there, and I think it was Saint Basil, you know, who's speaking of the God the Father's being the aitia of the Son.

[17:44] We say arche is the word for beginning, aitia is the word for cause. Doesn't he know the distinction between the two? You know, but Thomas never, you know, speak that way, right? But he will understand Basil is not meaning, but but Basil is not using the words maybe in the best what possible way, right? Okay. Slippery Greek words. Yeah, yeah, but it's the same problem with the computer.

[18:12] So now Thomas is going to give a twofold what distinction of division, right? This is kind of the fundamental one. One which we call material distinction, which is according to the division of the what continuous, right? Now, as we mentioned before, in the sixth book of Natural Hearing, Aristotle shows that the continuous is divisible forever, right? And that's why numbers can increase forever, right? You may recall in our study of the great Anaxagoras, right?

[18:49] We spoke of, you know, there's no smallest of the small, which is true about the continuous, and then there's no greatest to the great. So if I can divide a line forever, so that the lines get smaller and smaller and smaller without any smallest line, right? Then the number of lines can get greater and greater and greater, right? So this is one kind of division, right? The division of the continuous, and this underlies the distinction, you know, the fact you can have, you know, many chairs exactly the same thing because you have enough wood.

[19:22] So wood, as having a certain continuous quantity, can be divided, and then you can make many chairs. In the same way with many windows of exactly the same, you know, if you have enough glass, right? But this kind of distinction is found only in what material things, huh?

[19:43] Whence such a number, the number that arises from the division of the continuous, is not found except in material things having what quantity? So the philosopher says that the number, in that sense, arises from the division of the continuous. And so it's kind of good in the way that Euclid takes up continuous quantity first, geometry first, in the first six books of the Elements, and then he goes to number in the seventh, eighth, and ninth books.

[20:12] It's also more proportionate, some, because quantity is more sensible. Now, the other kind of division or distinction is what we call what a formal distinction,

[20:27] and this comes about through opposed or diverse forms. And this division, upon this division, follows the multitude, which is not in any one genus.

[20:47] Why the multitude that is number, in the strict sense, is in the genus of quantity and limited to that. But it's one of the what transcendentibus. Now, what do they mean by transcendentibus? It means those most universal terms, right? That transcend any one of the ten categories: substance, quantity, quality, and so on. And they're basically being and thing, and one and something, and true and what good, right?

[21:32] According as being is divided through the one and the many, right? Now, a lot of people have heard, you know, that wisdom is about being as being, but in the fourth book of wisdom, when Aristotle shows what wisdom is about. He first shows us about being as being, right? And then he shows us about the one and the many. And so both of them are the subject, right?

[21:56] So he considers the subject of wisdom in books six through ten, right? He considers being as being, and then the one and the many in book ten.

[22:09] And such a multitude only can be found in what immaterial things. And my old teacher Kasurik is saying, you encounter the angels after your soul leaves your body, you won't be counting them, right? Because each one would be so unique, you would say, oh, here's another one No, this is something totally different.

[22:32] So no two angels are the same kind of thing. Got the same kind of thing before you count them, huh? That's what you have material things. How many dogs do you have? How many cats do you have? Right? How many men do you have? How many trees do you have? Right?

[22:52] Okay, so do you see that distinction? That's a very fundamental one. And Thomas will come back to that, right? And sometimes he'll point out that the formal distinction is by some kind of opposition. And so he's talking about the distinction of the persons in God, right? He'll say, "Well, is it a material distinction or a formal distinction? Well it can't be a material distinction because God is immaterial.

[23:19] Therefore, it must be a formal distinction. " And then he says, "But formal distinction is by opposites. " Then he'll go to the chapter there in the categories of Aristotle, right? That there are four kinds of opposites, right? And then eliminate three of them, and the only one possible is the one left, which is relatives, father and son, right? It can't be opposed as contradictories, being an unbeing, because God is I am, who am.

[23:45] And they can't be what privation or lack, because that would be unbeing too, right? And even contrariety, one contrary lacks something that one has. So the only possible distinction that there could be in God would be a formal distinction by relatives, huh? And that's why I say it's so interesting that Saint John says in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was towards God, right, huh?

[24:13] Okay. Notice that passage there? How God is standing out for the Father, right? And Thomas will talk about how that can be done, right?

[24:30] So anyway, he's distinguishing now then between the multitude that is a number in the strict sense, any species of quantity, and the multitude that is a transcendental, right? That's not tied to quantity or any other particular genus, huh? And which can be found therefore in immaterial things. Now he says some therefore, not considering except the multitude which is a species of discrete quantity. They're stuck on that what that kind of multitude, right?

[25:03] And that's the kind of multitude that we first know. And the only one we know at first, right? Understand, huh? And so we tend to fall back upon that as if that was the only kind. So some he says not considering except the multitude which is a species of discrete quantity. Aristotle divides quantity into discrete and continuous, right, in the categories. And he says discrete quantity has parts that don't meet, and continuous quantity has parts that meet at a common boundary.

[25:35] Then he divides discrete quantity into number and speech. Kind of strange division, but anyway. So some considering only that multitude, because they saw that discrete quantity has no place in divine things, huh? Because that's tied up with the division of the continuous. The continuous is found only in material things, in bodies, right? Um. They lay down then that numerical terms do not place anything in God, right?

[26:09] Therefore, they must simply what negate, huh? Others, however, considering the same multitude, right, said that just as scientia, science is placed in God by reason of what is proper to science, huh, namely the what the difference, huh, not by reason of its what genus, right? Quality. Because in God there is no what. Quality I mean, it should be that should be quantity, right? No quality, because I think knowledge is in terms.

[26:53] Oh, oh, yeah. Okay, I'm thinking of quantity. Yeah, I meant that. So also number in God is laid down by the proper notion of number, not by reason of its genus, which is quantity. Okay. This is the kind of thing that Father Boulet used to hammer into us, right? How when names are carried over from creatures to God, right? And in the meaning of the word for creature, there's a genus and the differences, right?

[27:23] Often the what genus drops out of the meaning, and the difference is what kept, right? Okay. If you understand, like even you know Porphyry says in Isagoge, right, that genus is to difference as matter is to what form. Well, matter is something in ability; form is something in act. Well, God is pure act, so the difference is more able to be kept when you carry a word over to God than the genus, right?

[27:55] Aristotle says in the first book of Natural Hearing, as you may recall, that form is something godlike because it's something actual, and God is pure act, right? While matter seems much more remote from God, huh? Not being an act, but only something in ability.

[28:12] So some are saying, hey, just as we carry over, not the idea of habit of knowing causes, let's say, let's say science is that. Well, it's not a habit in God, right? But He knows causes, and He knows so much better than we do, right? So you keep the difference and you drop the what the genus, right? Okay. So they try to say we can do the same thing then maybe with number, right?

[28:37] Drop the genus and keep the what difference, yeah. Now what do we say, me Thomas? We'll allow Thomas to use the editorial week. It's a pretty pretty big guy.

[28:55] We, however, say right that numerical terms. As they come into what divine predication, being said predication comes the word too for being said, right?

[29:09] Are not taken from number, which is a species of what Quantity. quantity? Because thus they would not be said of God except metaphorically. And most people probably understand that in a metaphorical sense. sense, right? Just as the other properties of bodies, right, as length and width and others of this sort. You may recall that text that they had in the beginning of the Summa, there, you know, where someone's trying to say God is a body, and wider than the skies and you know deeper than this.

[29:43] These are being said metaphorically, right? But they are taken from multitude according as it is what transcending, right? And so That's why I say that in wisdom. To some extent, you proceed in a order that is contrary to the way natural philosophy and natural science proceed, because Aristotle points out in the beginning of the proemium to natural philosophy, natural science, you go from the general towards the particular, and you go towards matter, right?

[30:20] He says those two things there, and in wisdom you go towards the immaterial, and to some extent you go from the particular, that is to say the less universal, to the more universal, and the clearest example of this is in the ninth book of wisdom, where Aristotle is going to talk about being as divided into act and ability, and there are three parts to that book, but the first part talks about act and ability as they are found in motion and things that move, and then it's not to the second part that he ascends to a completely universal consideration of act and ability, where act can be found even in things that do not move, so in a sense he's ascending from the what less

[31:09] universal to the what more universal, right? In a way he's doing this with a consideration of substance, because in the beginning the only substances known to us are bodies, right? And you kind of ascend from a consideration of material substance to a kind of general understanding of substance that you can eventually keep in mind when you go to talk about the separated substances, huh? Well something happens like that with the one the many, or with the multitude, right?

[31:38] We tend to think of the multitude that is a number a species of discrete quantity, right? In the genus there, and limited to the genus of quantity, right? And we have to rise from that multitude to the multitude that's transcendental, so in a way we're going from the less universal to the what more universal, okay?

[32:01] And you know Aristotle is very careful there, you know, in the proemium to wisdom where he says that he's putting out how wisdom is the most universal knowledge, and since the senses know the singular, in a way it's the furthest from the senses, and therefore perhaps it's the most difficult, right? And he says perhaps because it's even more difficult to know the first causes than what's most universal, but I know from my you know years of teaching philosophy, we talk to students about the difficulty they have, you know, and for want of a better word they'll say it's so abstract philosophy, right?

[32:35] I can't I can't, and I think what they mean is that it's so what universal, and that's the difficulty, right? To to understand something that's universal, and a fortiori something that's most universal, and so we tend to come down to something or or to not come down to to to stick with something less universal like the multitude that is a number. And a species

[33:05] restricted to the genus of quantity, right? You know the Latin word for the categories was predicament. That's where we get this saying, "I'm in a predicament. Can't get out of it. " A predicament means you can't get out of it In a predicament doesn't mean you can't get out of it, right? And so you're kind of limited, right, to something less universal. So you have to rise to this understanding of what it means to say that there are many, right, persons in God.

[33:29] Right? There are many persons, but is that many a number in the sense of this discrete quantity, the species of discrete quantity? No, it's the many that is opposed to the one that is more universal than the continuous, right?

[33:48] Okay, so we say that numerical terms, according as they come into what divine predication, insofar as they come to be said of God, right? Okay, are not taken from the number which is the species of quantity, because thus they would not be said of God except metaphorically, just as other properties of bodies, right, as length and width and so on, right?

[34:15] But they're taken from the multitude according as it is something transcending. Now the multitude thus taken, right, in this way has itself to the many of which it is said, just as the one that is convertible with being, as opposed to the one that's the beginning of number, is convertible with being to being, right? Now this one, as we said above, when we treated of unity of God, does not add something what positive over being, but a negation of division only.

[34:59] It's undivided being, right? For one signifies undivided being, undivided by even a formal division, right? And therefore, about whatever one is said, it signifies that thing being undivided, right? So in that sense, one includes being or thing and adds negation, and therefore adds nothing real. That's why it's convertible, right? If it adds something real, like white adds something to man, real, right? Every man's not going to be white, listen, okay?

[35:39] But this adds only negation, and therefore it's as universal as being. And therefore, about whatever one is said, it signifies that thing undivided, right? Just as one said of man signifies the nature or the substance of man, right? Forby is a thing, right? But not divided, huh? Okay. So unguillotined and so on, right? Okay. And for the same reason, when we say things are many, right? Multitude thus taken signifies those things, right?

[36:23] With indivision in each of them, right? Okay. Or about each one of them. But the number which is a species of quantity lays down a certain what accident added above being, huh? And likewise the one which is a beginning of what number, right? You can see that even the great Euclid, right, huh? Who studied with the Platonists in Athens before he went to Alexandria and wrote the masterpiece, the Elements, right?

[36:56] When he comes to define the one, right? He hasn't really separated the one that's the beginning of number from the one that's convertible with being, huh? And this this confusion goes back to his master, what Plato, right, huh? That's why Plato thought that the natures of things were numbers, right? Because he confused the unity, right, that every substance has, with the one that is the beginning of number, right?

[37:22] And even the great Avicenna had a confusion about this, huh? He confused those two. So then the guys get really straight as Aristotle and Thomas, and he said, you know, these guys were not minor minds, Plato and as Thomas says, and Albert the Great says, Plato and, Aristotle are the chief philosophers, right? And Avicenna certainly one of the greatest ones, right? And when Thomas, you know, talks of the beginning of the De Veritate about the transcendentals and distinguishes them, he's explicitly following Avicenna.

[37:54] I think I mentioned how when Thomas distinguishes four different kinds of relations of reason, right, a very difficult matter, he points to texts of Aristotle where he distinguishes two of them, and texts of Avicenna where he distinguishes two of them, right? So you know Avicenna is a great mind, but even he's doing stuff about this distinction, huh?

[38:16] So what do the numerical terms signify then, huh? The numerical terms signify the divine then, right? Those things which they are said, they signify those things themselves, and over this they add nothing except what a negation, right? As has been said. And as far as this is concerned, the master, right, said the truth in the sentences, huh?

[38:49] So when we say the essence is one, one signifies the undivided essence or nature, right? When we say the person is one, it signifies the undivided person. When you say the persons are many, it signifies those same persons, and indivision about each one of them, because it's of the very notion of multitude that it be constituted from what units, Units, huh? That's something that

[39:24] you see how dependent Thomas is upon his teacher Aristotle, right? Because Aristotle had first seen this, huh? and he saw it when he was, you know, diverging from mistakes of his master Plato, right? But Plato was some pretty great mind, huh? But yet he had not separated the one that is the beginning of number with this one that is convertible to being. and that's why he thought that the substances of things were what numbers, right?

[39:56] Aristotle said, "There's something wrong here, right?" And that led Aristotle eventually. To separate the two, right? And so the one that's beginning of number belongs to arithmetic, right? And the category of quantity, and the one that is convertible with being belongs to the tenth book of wisdom, and to Trinity, and to the study of Trinity, right? Okay.

[40:25] Something, huh? Okay. Would you mind if we backtrack again on the the idea that number that is quantity means that so some accident had to be. Yeah, at least I'll point out that it adds the idea of measure, right? Huh? So that probably the best definition of number is the multitude measured by the one, right? Or measured by the unit, we sometimes call that one. Okay. Yeah.

[40:59] Okay. You're not going to have that idea of measured here in the transcendental, huh? No. Okay. Except in a kind of analogous way, right? Yeah. Okay.

[41:12] Now, let's look at the first objection again. The divine unity is his essence, but every number is a unity repeated. Therefore, every numerical term in divine things signifies the essence. Huh?

[41:30] Thomas first of all points out a very important thing. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the one, that one, since it is among the transcendentials, right, is more common than substance, and what? Than relation, right? Okay. And likewise multitude, right? Now remember how I point out something similar to that. You know, someone asked you, "Are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit one thing?

[42:10] " Depends on your definition. Yeah. You see, you might be tempted to say, "Yeah, they're one thing because they are one God, right? " Huh? And God is one thing, right? Okay. Well, if the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit are one thing, then they're not really distinct, because really, you know, it comes to the word "res." It's not really diverse things, right? Now, what's the solution to that kind of sophistical argument I'm giving you there, right?

[42:41] Sometimes "thing" refers to the first. the substance of the thing. Yeah. Sometimes it refers to the more universal. Yeah, yeah. You see, maybe the first meaning of "thing" is substance, right? Now, you know, my some examples used to put in class, and I say you got a a man and a dog in a room, right? Nothing else. Okay, so how many things you got in the room?

[43:07] Two things, right? Now the dog leaves the room. How many things you got left? So we got one thing left. I say no, you got the man and the shape of the man. You see, and is really the shape of the man the same thing as a man?

[43:26] Or you got the man and the health of the man? Or you got the man and his knowledge of Euclid? Are they the same thing?

[43:38] But is the man and the shape two things in the same way that the man and the dog are two things? Okay. So if you ask a man in the street, is is your nose and your ear two things? What would they say? Yeah, but now is your nose the shape of your nose two things?

[43:58] Make kind of, you know, see. But then if he said no, they're not two things. I say and I say none to you. then if I fatten your nose, right? Point across. So in a way, a woman is concerned about her shape, right? A man is concerned about his health or something, right? So the word thing then means first of all substance, right? But then you have to admit that things like a shape or health, right, and so on, are a thing in some secondary sense, right?

[44:32] Okay. So when you say are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit one thing? If we're using thing to name something absolute, namely the nature of God, then they are one thing. But if you're thinking of thing in the sense of relation, then they are three things. There's no contradiction in saying they are one thing in one sense of the word thing, right? And they are three things in another sense of the word.

[45:07] Now, as the father of logic, there Aristotle, said, right? The most common mistake in thinking is the mistake of mixing up different senses of the same what word, right? Just like in this whole text here, there's a difficulty of people mixing up the one that is the beginning of number with the one that is a transcendental, right? And mixing up the multitude that is a number and in a species of discrete quantity with the multitude that is a transcendental, right?

[45:40] Okay. And let's come back then to this reply then. So Thomas is putting on something like that. The one, since it is among the transcendental, son, just like the word thing in my example, right? Is more common than substance and than relation. Just this thing is more common than. Substance and relation, and being is right, and likewise then multitude, right? Whence it is able to stand in divine things, both for substance and for what Relation.

[46:22] according as it belongs to those things to which it is what Joined. huh? And nevertheless, through names of this sort, above the essence of God or the relation, as the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, is added over their proper signification a certain negation of division, right? The more negation of formal division, right? Then, then continuous.

[46:58] So the mistake in that first objection is like the mistake I was putting out the word thing, right? Okay. Now the second objection is saying whatever is found in God and creatures is found more eminently in God, right?

[47:16] Well, Thomas says, yeah, but it's not the same thing being said of both here, right? So you said that Socrates is wise and God is wise, right? God is wise in a much fuller sense, infinitely fuller sense than Socrates, right? But when you say three, right, of these three guys here, and of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, it's not what the same three you are talking about, huh?

[47:43] The three that's said of you guys is a species of quantity, right? And it's because you got a lot of flesh over there, right? At least at least one. of you. Yeah. Okay. So he says the multitude which is placed in created things is a species of quantity, and this is not carried over, right? Taken across transumitur, right? Okay. To being said of God to divine predication, but only the what other multitude, the transcendent one, right?

[48:20] And this transcendent multitude does not add, right, over those things to which it is said anything except the what each one of them is undivided, right? And such multitude is said of God. So you see that?

[48:42] So if the multitude that was a species of quantity was said of God, I mean properly as opposed to metaphorically, right? Then it belonged more to him than to us, right? But it's not really said of him properly at all. But this other multitude, which is not a multitude measured by the unit, right? But it's what those many things, with indivision, understood about each one of them, right?

[49:10] Or being undivided, being understood about each one of them. So as I see, as I was growing up and reading this text, you know, you never discuss without the text in front of you. But what a good thing the German poet says: you know, you never discuss a work of art without having it in front of you, right? Ah, truth that, right? And but if I see or you you never discuss the Trinity without having the text on the manuscript or the text in front of you?

[49:44] Okay. Next one is talking about this circularity that would take place here if you had just negations, right? This is a something that comes up if you recall in the distinction. Of one and many, back in the earlier part there, Thomas, Unity of God, and he did some things about the transcendentals, right? And he said, because Aristotle speaks as if one, the transcendental one, involves the negation of the many, see?

[50:20] And then people say, well, yeah, but the many is composed of the ones. they've got a circularity there, right? And Thomas says, well, strictly speaking, what Aristotle means is that you're negating in the one the division that's understood in the many, right? And so division comes first in your thinking, right? Then the meaning of one, and then the meaning of many, huh? Because the many is made up of many ones, huh?

[50:46] Okay, that's the distinction Thomas is going to make here. To the third, it should be said that the one does not negate or remove the multitude, but what? Division, right? Which is before, right? You got to look before and after here, Thomas. Thomas does, huh? Which is before by reason, then either one or multitude, huh? Multitude does not remove unity, but it removes division about each one of those things from which the multitude is what constituted, huh?

[51:21] And these things were exposed or laid out, huh? Above, when we treated of the divine unity, huh? So you go back there when Thomas talking about the divine goodness, the divine unity, out of the goodness of the teaching, you know, he gave a little explanation of good. Let's mention one, you know, It says you've got to understand the application of these things to God, right? And so he's referring it back to there, right?

[51:46] That's that's the thing, the point he makes, right? Proper understanding of Aristotle. Now, what about the authorities on this side here, from Ambrose and Hilary and so on? It should be known, however, that the authorities brought in on the opposite side, right, do not prove sufficiently the thing proposed, right? For although by plurality is excluded solitude, right? And by unity, a plurality of gods, right? It does not nevertheless follow that by these names this alone is signified, right?

[52:31] For by whiteness is excluded blackness, right? But not by the name of whiteness is signified only the exclusion of But? Blackness, right? Okay. So, little caution there about the subcontrary. right So shall we? um

[52:53] take a little break here Let me just go back a little bit to the thing I began with, though. Take another example here. How carefully you've got to speak about these things. It's in the Gospel of St. John, I remember. I think was it Philip? You know, Christ says, you know, something about the Father, right? And I think it's Philip says, "Show us the Father; it's enough."

[53:15] Christ said, "Where you been all this time?" Father and I are one, right? Okay. Now, suppose someone says, "Well, Christ Himself said the Father and I are one." Therefore, he's saying God the Father is God the Son, right? And therefore, you're back in the heresy of Sabellius, right? Who denied the distinction of person, right? Or if I say that the father, the father is not his son, the son is not his father, so I'm not my son Marcus or my son Paul.

[53:52] I'm not my father Victor Berquist, right? You see. So God the Father is not God the Son, God the Son is not God the Father. Therefore, the Father and Son are not one. See. So if someone asked me the question this way, "Is God the Father God the Son?" What would you say?

[54:20] Then what does Christ mean when he says the Father and I are one? In essence. Yeah, because the Father is the same as God, right? There's no real distinction between the Father and God, and there's no real distinction between the Son and God, right? So the Father is the same God that the Son is, right? And that way you could say that the Father and Son are one, right?

[54:44] If you ask me, you know, is the Father the Son? I'd say, well, no, no, Father is the Son, no, Son is his Father, right? That's true in us and it's true in God. You see. So you got to be very careful, huh? You can see how person could get kind of mixed up with that text, right? You can get into one here, and see another one?

[55:04] It's very difficult, huh, to avoid these these things. So take a little break here before we do the fourth article.