Prima Pars
119. Summa I, Q.33 a.1–3: Beginning vs. Cause, 'Father' as the Proper Name of the First Person, and Fatherhood Said of God Before Creatures
Class of 2008-02-14
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/119-summa-i-q-33-a-1-3-beginning-vs-cause-father-as-the-proper/

[0:00] So, let's look at the thing here. To the first one proceeds thus. It seems that the Father cannot be said to be the beginning of the Son or the Holy Spirit.

[0:20] For a beginning and a cause are the same thing, according to the philosopher. He often uses them kind of what interchangeably, right? This is one meaning. So, the word cause, right? This is the text of Aristotle.

[0:35] But I say that's a little bit like the word distinction, the word division, right? You'll see Thomas himself using sometimes the word division synonymously with what distinction. Other times you get very strict and say, "Well, no, you know, that's where you'll find beginning and cause. " Strictly speaking, Thomas would explain how one is more general than the other.

[0:59] We do not say that the Father is the cause of the Son, although Basil says that he calls it the idea. It has to be piously expounded, right? Therefore, we're not not to say that he is its what beginning, right? Then you'd be saying he's the cause of it, right?

[1:23] Moreover, a beginning is said with respect to what was begun. If, therefore, the Father is the beginning of the Son, it would follow that the Son what as a beginning. I don't know how to translate that exactly. And consequently, that he's created, right? Which would seem to be erroneous.

[1:47] I just read recently Thomas during the treatise on the Incarnation. You can't say that Christ is a creature. You can't say it's complete here. He says, "Right, you can say Christ, insofar as he's a man, right, is a creature, right. " But then, not saying Christ, without qualification is a creature is a creature, because Christ names a person, and the person is the yeah, so he's not a creature.

[2:21] That distinction is simply and not simply right. Aristotle spoke of as being involved in second kind of mistake, right? That kind of mistake is made all the time.

[2:35] I took the example there, you know, from the famous dialogue, the the you know, Plato, right. Where Meno makes a mistake in mixing up what is so simply and what is not so simply, and Socrates tries to reply to make the same kind of mistake. You wonder does Plato do this on purpose or is he just a natural genius, right?

[3:04] I used to say to students, they say, you know, it's kind of hard to get a grasp of what this kind of mistake is, but you're making it in your daily life all the time. You're always doing something bad because in some way it's good. Or you're not doing what is good because, yeah, yeah, okay. You're not doing what is good because in some way it's bad.

[3:28] So going to mass on Sunday keeps you from what? Yeah. Okay. Watching the ball. Yeah, or getting messed up. Or my my you know more obvious example was you know if someone annoys you should you kill him? Of course the students are like no no. So well yeah but it's good in some way isn't it? Removes an irritation from your life right?

[3:51] Yeah. So we're always doing something that is bad because in some ways good, right? Or not doing what is good to do because in some ways bad, right? There's nothing in this life that isn't doesn't prevent you from doing something else that is good, right? So no matter how good something is, you could say in some ways bad. So that's the kind of mistake that Meno makes in the dialogue, right?

[4:18] He says you can't investigate what you don't know. It's the action what you're investigating. So you can't you don't know the unknown so you can't investigate.

[4:32] Then Socrates tries to say well learning is really just recalling what you already know. He's making the same kind of mistake, right? Did the slave boy really know how to how to double square when Socrates asked him? He said you double the side. He doesn't know he's mistaken as to how to do it, right? But the way to double it comes out of the slave boy's answer eventually.

[4:55] But is that to know it before him? To be able to know something is is to actually know it. So I went to go to school then, you know. I think you're able to know by going to school. You already know.

[5:16] I didn't know the theorem. of Pythagoras. I already knew this. But you couldn't tell anybody because they already know too. They couldn't market it.

[5:36] Now the third objection. Moreover, the name of beginning is taken from? What? Priority, right? Which means from beforeness, right? Now, I think it's even more striking in a sense to me as a follower of Aristotle that when he gives that common notion of beginning, right, he says it's what's first in being or becoming or in knowing, right, and first is defined by what

[6:09] before, right? But in divine things, there is nothing before and after, because Athanasian says, or as the Athanasian Creed says, right. Therefore, in divine things, we ought not to use the name of what beginning, right?

[6:33] But against this is what Augustine says in the fourth book of the Trinity that the Father is the beginning of the whole deity, right? You got to understand that kind of carefully, right, then, right? Okay. Doesn't mean he's the beginning of the divine nature, right? But the whole Trinity might say he's the beginning, right? So we have the great Augustine. He's inspiring this article in a sense, huh?

[7:05] That the Father should is a beginning, huh? The idea of beginning is that from which something what proceeds, right, in some way, huh? And that sense it fits in very well with the Trinity, huh? Because the Son proceeds from the Father, right? And the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son.

[7:30] I answer. It should be said that this name, beginning, signifies nothing other than that from which something was formed. Sounds like the idea origin, right? So he's giving a little different meaning than the one Aristotle did, right? Aristotle said his beginning is that which is what first in being or becoming or what knowing, huh? And practically Aristotle said is true about every beginning known by what? Yeah, yeah.

[8:04] And it's interesting that when Aristotle comes to talk about before and after, the word before, in the fifth book of wisdom, right, he's already given that common notion of beginning, and then he sees the connection between beginning and before and after, and so he uses the common notion of beginning to distinguish the various meanings of what before. So they're very much tied together, beginning and before and after.

[8:37] In the categories, which I like to use as a text for before, in the categories he gives the ordered meanings of before without reference to the word beginning. Then Thomas goes back to the order and categories and he shows there's nothing before and after in God, right? But in the fifth book of wisdom, the word beginning and the word before are tied together. But since he's explained the word beginning, that's where he begins the fifth book.

[9:05] He uses that to what break down the meanings of before. So it's that much tied together, right? But Thomas is saying no beginning means what the origin, right? That from which something goes forward in so whatever way. Since therefore the Father is that from which another goes forth, right? Proceeds. It follows that the Father is a what beginning, right?

[9:40] Now the first objection was saying, well, beginning and cause mean the same thing. almost used interchangeably by Aristotle. You can see that in the Physics and the books are natural.

[9:56] And you see, that even in scripture there, when you say what? I am the alpha and Omega, the beginning and the what? And the end. What does beginning mean there? Means he says what? Cause. In the sense of the maker.

[10:17] It's interesting, huh? Because you'll say sometimes just one of those, and sometimes have all three: the beginning and the end, the Alpha and omega, the first and the last, right? Well, last corresponds to end, and first to what? Beginning. We're back with Aristotle, bit right? But in comparison to the creature, God is a beginning that is before.

[10:43] Okay. But the Father is not a beginning that is before the Son. That's a very subtle thing, huh? Okay. And we can't criticize Aristotle too much because poor men didn't have the faith, huh? Yeah. And I didn't figure this out. Yeah, yeah. Nobody can

[11:09] figure out the Trinity unless it was revealed to us. Right, right. That's what Thomas said before in the chapter. on the knowing. Yeah. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the Greeks use in divine things indifferently the name of cause, just as the name of what? Beginning, right? But the Latin doctors do not use the name of cause, but only the name of what? Beginning.

[11:34] Now, he was referring to to the Greek fathers, right? And I was mentioning scandal when I first saw Basil using the word "aitia," right? It's the Greek word for cause. Arche is a Greek word for beginning. Aitia for what? Cause. Yeah. And he says that the Father is the idea, of the son. My gosh, you know? Well, I, I didn't understand it. That's what he understood, right?

[11:58] But I mean, I say, gee, has he ever read the fifth book of wisdom? I mean. Now the reason for this is because the beginning is more common than what? Cause. Just as cause is more common than what? Element. Right. So the first three words in Book Five of Wisdom are beginning, arche or principium cause, right? aitia in Greek, and then stoicheion, element, huh? Going from the more general to the particular, right?

[12:34] And that's been drummed into me because Aristotle begins, you know, the first book of Natural hearing there, the Premium. He says in every science in which there are beginnings, causes, or elements, right? And Thomas has to stop and explain how those words can be used, and all the way back to the fifth book. But I imitate that when I say that this is true about what distinction and what division division yeah

[13:02] distinction is more common than what division yeah every division is a is a distinction but not every distinction is a what division and division seems to be more a distinction of the parts of some kind of whole and so when Thomas is talking about the distinction of the Father Son Holy Spirit he won't speak of the division right because that would seem to imply that they somehow are composing parts of God or something right okay The same way here the reason for which is that beginning is more common than cause he got this from Aristotle just as cause is more common than element for the first limit or even the first part of the thing is called a beginning and not a what cause and

[13:55] the more common the name is the more suitably it is taken over in divine things that's the point Thomas made when he said that this name I He who is right is most appropriate to God it's the least limiting name right

[14:10] because names the more special they are more they determine the mode suitable to the what creature whence this name cause seems to imply a diversity of what substance right and the dependence of one thing upon another which the name beginning does not imply

[14:38] for in all genera of causes there's always found some distance between the cause and that of which it is a cause according to some perfection or some power right but the name of beginning we use even in those things which have no difference of this sort but only according to a certain order right as when we say the point is the beginning of a line right or even if we say that the first part of a line is the beginning of the line right okay the first or the first hour of the day is the beginning of the day right okay

[15:18] but as I say gotta be careful about the word order too so that first objection then is really dealing with the confusion of beginning and cause So, they're sometimes used synonymously right but they shouldn't be and you have to be careful sometimes to distinguish them right.

[15:50] Because if you use beginning synonymously with cause, then the Father is not the beginning of the Son because he's not the cause of the Son, right? But if you understand beginning more generally, then you can,

[16:05] right? Because the Son does proceed from the Father, but he's not an effect of the of the Father, right? We saw the Greeks, you know, tend to use the word what hypostasis for what Persina Even though the name seemed to be more general really than what Persina strictly speaking. People get accustomed. to Using it for that,

[16:51] so we speak of hypostatic union. We're thinking of something very high on Monsignor's article, the grace of Mary's of the hypostatic order, you know. Okay.

[17:07] Now, to the second, this is a little more obscure to us because of the language here. To the second, it should be said that among the Greeks, it is found said about the Son and the Holy Spirit that they are what principientia, and how to translate exactly exactly that they have a beginning, right, and they have begun. But this is not in the what custom of our doctors, some of the Western doctors, because although we attribute to the Father something of what that word authority, right, doesn't have the sense of quite of our authority our word, right, but means it is the source, the origin of something, right, by reason of a beginning.

[17:51] Nevertheless, nothing pertaining to what subjection or lessening, right, to be in any way pertaining to be attributed to the Son or the Holy Spirit, right, that you might avoid all what occasion of error, right.

[18:09] Now, this is a very puzzling way that Hilary speaks, right? According to which way of speaking, Hilary says in the ninth Book of the Trinity that by the authority of the Giver, the Father is mayor.

[18:24] He's saying here not just the Father is greater than the Son by his human nature, but in his what? But the Son is not minor. That's like I want to say, you know, misuse of the words, right?

[18:38] To which one of the same being is given, right? The same nature, right? Okay. I would say I wouldn't. I wouldn't extend Hilary's way of speaking there, right? But you can see that little bit of he's not really mistaken. Doesn't really mean that the Father is greater than the Son, but he's trying to express the fact that he's the what? He's the origin.

[18:59] I guess you see sort of the struggle with the language. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If I'm more than you, you're less than me. There's a lot of pitfalls here, right? Driving up here, I was watching. You know, a lot of potholes now because of that rain here yesterday. And all of a sudden you got it, you got to watch out for the pothole, another pothole. I couldn't believe it today.

[19:41] I thought this morning the Same thing. Everywhere I went, I noticed potholes. Yeah, you eat back here, like your tires here. Yeah, I don't. Because of the rain. Yeah, the rain. Yeah, and then it freezes. The third

[20:04] objection, huh? Of course, I kind of restated, you know, but just giving Aristotle's definition of the common meaning of beginning, right? Beginning is what is first, and therefore, it involves the idea of being before, right? What is first in being or becoming or in knowing, right?

[20:33] To the third, it should be said that although this name beginning, as far as that from which it was placed upon things to signify something, seems to be taken from what beforeness, it does not, however, signify beforeness or priority, but what origin, right? That's almost the same as what he said in the body of the article that signifies that which something goes forth, right, or proceeds, right.

[21:00] Wait, what's happening? For that is not the same thing that a name signifies, and that from which the name is what taken from, yeah.

[21:17] So every time I teach that first reading in the fifth book of wisdom, I always say, you know, don't worry when you think of the Trinity, right? Whether we should understand beginning in the way Aristotle understands beginning, right? Because that would be making the Father before the Son, right?

[21:41] That's how respectful Thomas is of Aristotle, right? Can you take a break What? Yeah. Break. Yeah. Like a cloud card right What Thank you Okay, Article Two: Whether this name "Father" is a name properly of a divine person.

[22:23] The second one proceeds thus: It seems that this name "Father" is not properly the name of a divine person. Who's going to object to that? Sounds like a difficult thing to object to. For this name "Father" signifies relation, but a person is a what? Individual substance. Therefore, this name "Father" is not a properly a name that signifies a person. Not a particular objection, huh? Moreover, generons, generating, right, is more common than father.

[23:15] For every father is generating, but the reverse is not true. But the more common name is more properly said in divine things. Therefore, it's more a proper name of a divine person, generating or the generator, than the father, right?

[23:42] I don't know why he says generons is more common than father, except he's taking maybe for even non-living things, right? Moreover, nothing that is said by metaphor can be what the proper name of something.

[24:06] But word or thought metaphorically among us is said to be what generated or son, and consequently, that of which it is the word or thought is metaphorically called a what? Father, right? If I called my mind the father of my thoughts, my thoughts are my children. I'd be speaking metaphorically, huh?

[24:37] Therefore, the beginning of the word in divine things is not properly a what? Father, right? Of course, that which is what. In God, the operation and the being are the same thing, right? So the one that proceeds by way of thought is the being of God. Moreover, everything that is properly said in divine things is said of God before what creatures. But generation before would seem to be said of creatures than of God,

[25:22] because it seemed generation to be more what true there, where something proceeds from another distinct, not by relation only, but also by its essence. Therefore, the name of Father that is taken from generation does not seem to be proper to what any divine person.

[25:46] But against all this nonsense is what is said in Psalm eighty-eight. He what? Shall follow upon me Yeah, you are my father. I answer: It should be said that the proper name of each person or any person signifies that to which that person is distinguished from others. Now, just as it is of the notion of man, both the soul and the body, so it is of the understanding of this man, this soul, and this body, as is said in the seventh book of wisdom.

[26:29] But and by these, this man is distinguished from all men. Now, that by which the person of the Father is distinguished from others is fatherhood. Whence the proper name of the person of the Father is this name, Father, which signifies what? Paternity, right?

[27:03] And why does he say that to which the person of the Father is distinguished from all others is fatherhood? Is not just distinguishing from the Son? Does it distinguish him from the Holy Spirit?

[27:18] It doesn't explain that here, does it? He's quicker than mine. Well, I guess didn't he say that the paternity is a notion? Yeah. That's what makes no. Well, as he's told me, the word is in the name. Has something to do with the fact that this is what a personal notion, right? The one that constitutes the Father, right? Some more things to be understood about that, because someone might object and say, "Why is it distinguished from the Holy Spirit by common breathing, right?

[28:14] By the relation?" Gets us back now to the first objection here: that the name Father signifies relation, but person and individual substance, right? Okay. To the first, it should be said that among us, a relation is not a subsisting person.

[28:46] So my being a father or husband is not this person. Relation that falls upon subjectivity, right? And therefore, this name Father among us does not signify a person, but the relation of a person.

[29:03] But is not thus in divine things, as some have falsely what thought? For the relation which this name Father signifies is a what subsisting person. Whence above it has been said that this name person in God signifies a relation as subsisting in the what divine nature.

[29:36] So it signifies a relation per modum substantiae right Per modum personae yeah It signifies a relation as something subsisting in the divine nature. It's not what it signifies in us.

[29:58] So my fatherhood is quite different from his. What subsists here in human nature? Not my what relation of being a father or a son, for that matter.

[30:21] Now the second objection: wouldn't it be better to call him the generator? To the second, it should be said that according to the philosopher, now he's back quoting Aristotle with authority here, that according to the philosopher in the second book about the soul. The naming of a thing, most of all, ought to come about from what its perfection and from its end. Now, generation signifies as what in coming to be, but fatherhood signifies the completion of the generation,

[31:07] and therefore more is it a name of a divine person, father, than the one what? Yeah. In Syria, they use often use the name the begatter or generation. Yeah, it's not it's not false. No. We say it's better because begatter signifies more in manner of coming to be, right? And fatherhood signifies the completion of the act, right? So we ought to name things from their perfection and from their end.

[31:47] Well. I will, but just let's just do this again and back up. Well, could you say that a plant can generate another plant, but it's not? Yeah. But here you point out a different thing yeah, that you name something from what? Perfection. Yeah. Yeah. Now what am I?

[32:15] Am I a lover of logic? What's that? Am I a lover of logic? Am I a lover of um rhythmedique? I've been reading Euclid there, in books seven, eight, and nine, much to my delight. Or am I a lover of natural philosophy? Lover of ethics? What do you call me?

[32:44] Lover of wisdom. Yeah. So why do you call me a lover of wisdom? Yeah, that's the most perfect and the end of it all, right? Okay. So it's better to call me a lover of wisdom than a lover of natural philosophy. It would be better to call me a lover of natural philosophy than a lover of logic. if that's just a tool?

[33:12] Right. You see. So you name something by what? The most complete thing in it, right? Okay. The most perfect thing, and what's most the end, right? Um. That's why we're rational animals. The only animals which are rational. That's the most perfect part of us. Yeah. The girl says, "Do you love me or are my money? " I say, "Well, to be honest, I love you for your money.

[33:39] " I think you see more that that well then you love yourself rather than me. You see me? That that's the end, right? You know. Or you love money. You're a lover of money, not a lover of me. As you could say, right? Okay. So I'm a lover of wisdom because that's the end. That's the most perfect area in the series, huh? Okay.

[34:05] But generating is the process. is not the the end. it's not the perfection. Yeah. And when you're a father. it's the proof. Okay. That's the way you name things. So, to better name God the father and the generator. You could say is the generator.

[34:27] Okay. Now the third one is saying, well, in us to say that my thought is my what? My son, right? Seems to be kind of speaking metaphorically, right? He says, "Well, the verbum or the thought is not something subsisting in human nature, huh? " Whence, it cannot properly be said to be generated or to be a what? Son, right?

[34:57] But the divine word or thought is something subsisting in the what? Yeah. Whence properly and not metaphorically, it is said to be a what son, right? And his beginning a what father, That's the same nature there, right?

[35:19] For my reason and my thoughts don't have the same nature. Even a thought that I have about my what my reason is, Shakespeare's definition of reason, right? That's not reason. Definition of reason.

[35:46] Now, what about which comes first, right? And the objection is saying that isn't fatherhood and sonhood, sonship found more in creatures, right? Because they're distinct not by relation only, but also by their substance or nature.

[36:11] To the fourth, it should be said that the name of generation and of fatherhood, just as other names which are properly said in divine things, are said before about God than they are of what creatures, as regards the thing signified, right? Although not as far as the way of signifying, right? Whence the apostle says to the Ephesians chapter three, I bend my knee, right, to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom all fatherhood in heaven and on earth is what named.

[36:51] Thomas comes back to that now because in caelo refers to the angels, right? In terra, to us, and so on. And well, there's no fatherhood in the angels. But Thomas says, well, yeah, but this, the higher angel illuminates the lower angel, right? Okay. And

[37:09] he says it is manifest that generation takes its species, its form from the what end, which is the form of the thing generated. And as this is closer to the form of the one generating, so more truly and more perfect is the what generation.

[37:32] Just as univocal generation is more perfect than a what univocal. For it is of the notion of one generating that he generates another, like himself in form.

[37:47] Whence this very thing that in the divine generation. There is the same in number, right? Not just the same in kind or species. The form of the one generating and the one generated. In created things, there is not the same in number, but the same in kind only. It shows that generation, and consequently fatherhood, is more found in God and found in God before it's found in creatures.

[38:20] So me and my son share the same nature, not individually, but in kind and species. But the father and the son in God, right, have the same nature individually, not two divine natures, right?

[38:42] Whence the fact that in divine things there is a distinction of the one generated from the one generating by relation only pertains to the truth of divine generation and fatherhood. Everything that is the father's is mine, right? Grace says, huh? That's not quite true about the human son and the human father, right?

[39:08] Yeah, had the same mind, the same you know, heart and so on. I mean, it's similar mind or heart, but not the same mind or heart, right? But God has the same mind and will, right? The son that the father has. So it belongs to the idea of generation that you make another one like yourself, right? What's more like yourself than yourself? That's why you're that thing where Augustine, I mean, that quote from Boethius, that in a way it's like the relation of a thing to itself in God.

[39:42] It's not really the same thing exactly because there's a distinction there, right? But it's like saying, you know, I am myself. Socrates is Socrates.

[39:58] So in Dionysius wrote those books, right, huh? You wrote one book about what metaphorical names, huh? Symbolic theology, right? But symbol meaning metaphor. And there the name is properly said of the creature and carried over to God metaphorically, right? So God is Lord is a rock or something like that, right? Or a lion or something like that. But then you wrote another book, the De Divinis Nominibus they call it in Latin, right?

[40:24] Which is about those names, which, as far as the thing signified, is found most fully in God, and then in some lesser way in what creatures, right? So just the reverse order of those two, huh? The symbolic theology book and then the book on proper names, you might say, of God, huh?

[40:51] So we might, you know, place these names first. You know, the word wise or knowing upon something we find in creatures, right? Yet, yet the thing signified by the word knowing is found much more in God than us. We're practically what dead intellectually could say we're practically nothing going on. That's the best. Yeah, yeah.

[41:19] I mean, you know. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, Socrates gets gets to be this kind of model, you know, all. He's a guy who knows what he doesn't know, right? That's how our knowing is. You want more of that? Einstein, you know, went to England and praised Newton for knowing what he didn't know. He had very good more for knowing what he didn't know. That that's that's kind of knowing in a lesser sense, isn't it?

[41:44] Knowing that you don't know. Yeah. As opposed to knowing everything, right? See, wisdom is a knowledge of all things. The wise man knows everything, but in some way. Why God knows everything simply without qualification, all things are naked, open to His eyes.

[42:12] My students would say, "I'm going to run home and tell my dad that I know everything now." Well, you do in some way, right? But but not simply, right? That's the first attribute of the wise man. He knows all things. But then Aristotle shows later on then that either God alone is wise or God in the full sense.

[42:36] Knowing, you know, I know what a thing is. Something is. Something includes everything, right? Just something that isn't something. You know, so I know what is said of everything. So in some way, everything. But simply speaking, you don't know that. I'd always take a girl in class and say, "Do you know my brother Mark?" And she'd say, "No." Says, "Well, do you know what a man is?

[43:01] You know what a brother is? Yeah. So what's my brother Mark is? So you do know him. In some way, you know every man. You don't know what a man is, right? You know every brother. You know what a brother is. So in some way, everybody knows my brother Mark, but you wouldn't say simply, "You know my brother Mark."

[43:23] Does our Lord speak that way? And says, "Go preach the gospel, every preacher." He speaks what is something of every creature in man, in the spirit, in matter. Yeah, yeah. I think that's how the Bible explains. So he's kind of speaking that way. Yeah, yeah. He doesn't mean God preached to the frogs in the pond. That's given as a reason then why he became man, because the way he's taking the whole creation into him, material as well as spiritual.

[43:54] Okay, so now we got this question. of, still, we'll deal with the word "father," right? Because it's a name now that's proper to the one person in the Trinity. But we also use the word "father" sometimes in the name God, right? God is our Father. Even Homer has that, right? Zeus is the father of mortals and immortals, right?

[44:25] Now, which do you think is more fundamental? Well, let's see what the objections are, right? To the third, one proceeds thus: It seems that this name "father" is not said in God before, according as it is what taken personally. For the common, by understanding, according to the understanding, is before the proper. That goes back to the beginning of Aristotle's Physics, right? We know things in a confused way before we know them what distinctly, right?

[45:03] And therefore, the general is known before the particular by the understanding because it's more confused, right? But this name "father," according as it is taken personally, is proper to the person of the Father. According as it is taken essentially, it's common to the whole Trinity. For to the whole Trinity, we say "our Father," right?

[45:30] He seems to be touching upon their fatherhood. Therefore, before Father said essentially, then before it said what personally? That's a good objection. However, in those things which are of the same reason, there is not a predication of before and after.

[46:00] But fatherhood and sonship would seem to be according to one reason, one one meaning. According as what a divine person is the father of the son, and according as the whole Trinity is our Father, or of what even the creature,

[46:22] since according to Basil, to what take or receive is common to the creature and to the son. So the father, what the son gets from the father, and we get from God, right? Same thing, huh? Therefore, it's univocal, right? And that that's the difference, huh? Because in an equivocal word, by reason, there's a before and after in the meaning, right? But here, it seems to be saying that's univocal, huh?

[47:05] Now, among those things which are not said by one reason, there can be no comparison. Okay, so you can't say which is sharper, the knife or the the flavor of this, because they don't mean the same meaning, right? Okay, you can say which is sharper of these two knives, right?

[47:31] Because sharp means the same thing in in both, huh? But the But the the son is compared to the creature by reason of what? Sonship or generation, according to the text of the Epistle to the Colossians, who is the what? Image of the invisible God, the firstborn of what? All creatures, right? Therefore, fatherhood is not said what? Before in creatures, taken personally, then essentially, but according to the same what?

[48:08] Reason, huh? Okay. So the second and the third arguments are trying to argue that what? When you say that the first person is the father, the son, and we say God is our father, the word father has the same meaning.

[48:29] Okay. And that second is saying that very explicitly, and the third one is saying, hey, we can compare these and say, well, he's kind of the he's more a son, right? So it must be a son in the same sense, right?

[48:53] So if I'm more a philosopher than you are, it's because I love wisdom more than you, right? But then we're both being called a philosopher for the same reason that we love wisdom wisdom, right? Okay.

[49:12] But against this is that the eternal is before the temporal. But from eternity, God is the father of the what? Son. In time, he's the father of the what? Creature. Therefore, fatherhood is said before in God with respect to the son, with respect to the creature, son. So what do you think?

[49:50] So he says, "I answer it should be said that before a name is said of that in which the whole meaning of the name, right, the whole definition of the name, is found what? Perfectly or completely, right? Then of that in which it is saved by something, right, but not by the whole.

[50:17] So that's why in logic when you define property, that full meaning of property, right? Then we say we can use property in a lesser sense for something that is always, but not only, and so on.

[50:32] And about this latter, it is said, as it were, by likeness to that in which it is perfectly found, because all imperfect things take their origin from perfect things. Go back to ninth book of wisdom for the reason for that, huh? Because the actual is more perfect than what? Potentially, the potential becomes actual if what is already actual. And hence it is that this name lion is said before of the animal in which there is saved the whole meaning of lion, right?

[51:11] But it's properly called a lion? Then of some man, right, which is the lion-hearted, right, and which is found something of the meaning of lion as audacity or fortitude, right, or something of this sort, huh? And about this, he is said to what? Likeness, huh? But is manifest from what has been said before that the perfect definition of fatherhood and sonhood is found in God the Father and God the Son.

[51:43] Why? Because of the Father and the Son, there is one nature and one what? Nature huh? But in the creature, sonship is found with respect to God, not by a perfect what definition, right, or complete definition, since there is not one nature of the creature of the Creator and the creature, but according to some kind of what? Likeness, huh? The likeness we have to God by nature makes us, in some sense, a son of God, right?

[52:19] The likeness we have through grace makes us even more like Him, right? The likeness that we have when we get the light of glory makes us even more like Him, right? Okay.

[52:32] Which the more perfect it is, the more closely it exceeds to the true notion of what? Sonhood, right? Now he starts to give the whole breakdown of this, of more and less. For God is said to be the father of some creature on account of a likeness of what? The footprint only, huh? As of irrational creatures, according to that of Job 38: 28, who is the father of the rain, right?

[53:00] Or who generated the what? Yeah yeah yeah yeah. This sounds like the way Saint Francis spoke, right? Okay, brother or sister, right? Okay, because we're all sons and daughters, right, of God. But this is taking into account this very distant likeness of the footprint. Another is that of the what rational creature, right? Which is the likeness of the image, right? According to that Deuteronomy thirty-two verse six, is he not your father who possesses and made and created you, right?

[53:46] Of others, he is the father according to the likeness of grace, which is a kind of what sharing the divine nature, right? That's they use that text sometimes from Saint Peter's epistle, right? Consortes

[54:01] Divine nature. Who are also can be called adopted sons, right? According as they are ordered to the inheritance of eternal glory, taken through the what received through the gift of grace. According to that of Romans eight verse sixteen seventeen, for the Spirit renders testimony to our spirit that we are the sons of God, and if sons also Heirs. And finally, this is the most one of some according to the likeness of what glory, in so far as they now already possess the inheritance of glory.

[54:41] According to that of Romans five two, let us glory in the hope of the glory of the sons of men, right? Sons of God, Sons of God yeah. Do you think that's why he mentioned glory earlier when he said that the yeah perfect meaning of eternity of sonhood in God the Father and the Son nature and glory yeah yeah but nevertheless our glory is not the glory of God right thus therefore before fatherhood is said in God according as it regards the the relation of person to person then according as it implies the respect or relation of God to what creature son

[55:29] so the father is more the father of the son right than he is our father right now what about the first objection though it says the common is before the what particular right to the first therefore it should be said that the general things absolutely said according to the order of our understanding right are before the things that are what more particular because they are included in the understanding of the what properly

[56:10] more particular but the reverse is not true now in the understanding of the person of the father is understood what God but it's not convertible right okay so you can't understand the father unless you understand God but you can understand God to some extent without understanding the father right like even the philosophers did right okay

[56:42] but those common things which imply a regard to the creature are what said afterwards right than those proper things which import or regard personal relations right respectus

[57:02] Because the person proceeding in God proceeds also as a beginning of the production of creatures. For just as through the what thought conceived in the mind of the artist is understood to what proceed before, there proceeds from the artist the thing that is what artificial, which is produced to the likeness of the thought conceived in the mind, right?

[57:37] Thus, proprius before the son proceeds from the father in the creature, of whom the name of sonship is said, according as he partakes something of a likeness to the son, as is clear through that which is said Romans eight twenty nine, whom he foreknew and predestined to become conformed to the image of his what son. So just as the artist now has an idea of what he's going to make, right, and he makes something like what he conceived, right, so God makes something like what he has conceived, huh, in his what thought, huh, but of course what he makes is falls far short of what he understands, right, but in some way like it, huh.

[58:34] So just as in the artist his thought precedes the exterior thing he makes, right, so in God, right, you have to understand the thought proceeding before something is being made according to that thought. So the word has in some sense a relation to what creatures, right? Because God, in understanding himself, understands all the things, understands principally himself, right?

[59:05] Now, because you have one word here, a word take, yeah. It's said to be common to the creature and to the son, not by one meaning, right, but according to a certain remote likeness, huh? By reason of which he is said to be the first born of what creatures, huh? Whence in the authority induced, there is subjoined that he is the first born in many brothers, right?

[59:44] After he said that they would become conformed to the image of his what of the son of God, but the son naturally has something singular before others, namely to have by nature that which he what accepts accepts as the same. Basil says, and according to this, he is said to be the unigenitus, the only begotten.

[1:00:18] As is said in John one eighteen, the only born who was in the what? bosom right. And Thomas says, well the same thing can be said of the third. We can probably expand upon that a bit, right? Can you say more or less when things are not of the same kind?

[1:00:46] What do you think? You say, for example, that the end is better than the means, but are the end and the means good in the same way?

[1:01:03] So that the end is better because it has more. No, they differ in what kind. Yeah, but sometimes you can compare things that sort, right? Okay.

[1:01:19] Can you say that substance has more being than accidents? Yeah, but you still say it has more more being, even though it's a being of a different kind. It's not purely equivocal, is it? It's purely equivocal. You couldn't say you couldn't say that that the cheese is sharper than the knife or something, right? Because that would be purely equivocal, right? Yeah, yeah.

[1:02:02] But if one is like the other, right? Even though they're different in kind, huh? You say the one. You know, they say that that statue of George Washington down in the Virginia Assembly or something down there, House of Bridges, is what they call it now. You know, I guess when when Lafayette came back to the states many years after his misfortunes in Europe, and and he saw these you know paintings and statues of Washington, you know, and he'd say, you know, well, this one is more like Washington than that one.

[1:02:37] You know, this that's that's a man, right? You see. So could you say that one statue is more like Washington than another? If you'd known the real man.

[1:02:50] They are the same. But is the statue, you know, kind of Washington in the same sense? But you still say that it's. It's made as a likeness to Washington, right? The man makes a statue trying to make a likeness of him. It's a likeness, you know, quite different from the sun.

[1:03:16] So you can speak of more or less, even though things are what, not the same in kind. There is some what likeness of one to the other, right? There is some order among them, right?

[1:03:38] Let me say, for example, that the inside goods of man are better than the outside goods of man. So you can say one thing is better than another, even though it's not good in the same way.

[1:03:58] It's ordered together. It's not purely equivocal, right? So there is something in between being purely equivocal, where no comparison is possible, right? And being univocal where there can be a strict comparison.

[1:04:33] Who's better, Shakespeare and Mozart? So if you are comparing, you know, you know, you know, one time we used to have Beaumont and Fletcher, you know, their plays were being performed as much as Shakespeare's, or even more so, right? And now, now it's come about that nobody hardly ever sees a play of Beaumont and Fletcher, right? I had a colleague who did his doctoral thesis on Fletcher, you know.

[1:05:09] Someone asked him, "How come you don't see Fletcher's plays very often?" Well, I said, "Maybe not very good." But Dryden said, "You know, as you start to see these plays more and more, he realized how much better Shakespeare was." And then he said that Fletcher was just a limb of Shakespeare, right? Like an arm or a leg of Shakespeare, you know.

[1:05:38] But now, could you compare a Mozart symphony and a Shakespeare play and say which is better? Kind of hard to do, right? In Aristotle, in the book on the poetic art, though he argues that tragedy is better than epic, huh? Because it produces the same effect of pity and fear, but with what? Fewer, more briefly. Yeah.

[1:06:17] Syllogism is better than what induction, right? Because it more forces the mind right to accept the conclusion. It's going to be tricky there, right? But you got to be careful there, you know. To see that when it's when somewhat compare things that are of the same kind, right? Because there's some order and likeness between them, nevertheless.

[1:07:06] So I don't know if these are. It's like this, but I'm not that symphony, you know. Is dessert better than the main course? My mother thought so. Monks do too.

[1:07:26] You know, most of the things you know, waking up for dinner tonight and thinking you know it's going to be chicken or what it's going to be, you know. Mother's going to have for dessert tonight, you know. And then they work back to the rest of the meal. That's what she said to you. I didn't know. Now what we're going? I won't be preparing.

[1:07:52] Okay.