Prima Pars
126. Aquinas on Love as the Name of the Holy Spirit (ST I, q.37, aa.1–2)
Class of 2008-04-03
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/126-aquinas-on-love-as-the-name-of-the-holy-spirit-st-i-q-37/

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

[0:24] So we're getting to the second name here of the Holy Spirit, which is love. This is question thirty-seven, Article 1. Then, one asks about the name of love,

[0:41] and about this, two things are asked: one, whether this is the proper name of the Holy Spirit; and secondly, whether the Father and the Son love each other by the Holy Spirit. I think that's often misunderstood what that second thing means. In what sense it is true that the Father and the Son love each other by the Holy Spirit? Let's look at the first article. To the first one goes forward.

[1:15] Thus, it seems that love is not the Holy Spirit's own name. For Augustine says in the fifteenth book about the Trinity, I know not why that just as wisdom is said what the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the three of them and all of them together, not three but one wisdom, not also one would say that charity or love is said to be the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, and all together are one what?

[1:56] As if this is something what essential, right? And they're pertaining to the one divine nature, the one common to the three, rather than being a name that's private to the Holy Spirit. But no name that is said of each person and about all of them in general is a name that is proper to one person or private to one person. Therefore, this name love is not the Holy Spirit's private or own name.

[2:30] huh? Now, of course, you know it's, hard to name the Holy Spirit, so we'll see what happens. But moreover, the Holy Spirit is a subsisting person, but love does not signify as a subsisting person, but as a action going forth from the one loving to the one what loved or into the one loved. Therefore, love is not the name of the Holy Spirit, who is obviously a person, right?

[3:00] A subsisting person. Moreover, love is the connection of the those loving, because according to Dionysius, it is a power that unifies or unites. When Thomas takes up love there in the prima Secundae, that's the first effect of love to unite.

[3:30] But a connection or connection is a middle between those whom it what unites, not something proceeding from them. Since, therefore, the Holy Spirit goes forward from the Father and the Son, as we saw in the previous question, it seems that he is not the love or the connection of the Father and the Son.

[3:59] Moreover, of any one loving, there is some love, but the Holy Spirit is loving. Therefore, he has some love; there is some love with him. If, therefore, the Holy Spirit is love, he would be the love of love, and spirit from his spirit, which is unfitting. Doesn't fit with the rest of these things. So, are you all convinced now that he should not be called love?

[4:33] But against this is what Gregory, I assume Gregory the Great, says in his homily in Pentecost that the Holy Spirit is love. huh? Ipse, "Spiritus Sanctus est amor."

[4:49] What's he going to do with this? I wonder. But Thomas begins with a distinction. I answer: It should be said that the name of love in God can be taken in two ways, both essentially and as person, personally.

[5:13] And according as it is taken personally, it is the Holy Spirit's own name, proper name, just as word is the private name of the Son, right? Well, Thomas will often say that verbum is never taken really essentially in God, but love is taken both essentially and personally.

[5:41] To the evidence of this, it should be known that in it's a funny way of speaking, in divinis, huh, in divine things, divine matter, shall we say, right? As has been shown above, there are two processions. two going forwards. One by way of the understanding, which is the going forward of the word, thought, huh? So just like when I imagine something, there goes forward in me an image, right, of what I imagine.

[6:18] So likewise, when I think of something, there goes forward from me a thought of what I am thinking about. And so there is something like this in God, the going forward of the word, the thought, the mental word. And another going forward by way of the will, which is the going forward of love.

[6:41] Now, because the first is more known to us, to signifying the things, particularly things that pertain to it, or which can be considered in it, we have found more what their own names. Not, however, in the going forward of the will, right? I am always going back to example of Aristotle there in the Nicomachean Ethics, right? Or even in philosophy, we find that some things don't have a name.

[7:12] And Aristotle is teaching in Nicomachean Ethics that moral virtue is a habit between two extremes, one of which is an excess, one of which is a defect. And so he talks about courage. He'll talk about foolhardiness, which is an excess, and then he'll talk about cowardice, which is falling short. And then he gets to temperance, right? And you have the excess of names like gluttony and lust and so on, but the defect doesn't seem to have any name.

[7:44] And Aristotle says this is because it's so rare, right? And so we have to, if we want to give it a name, we have to invent a name, right? And so he gives invents a name and says, you know, lacking in sensation, huh? Okay. So if you don't take any delight in candy or something, you know, it's because you don't have any sense of sense it seems, huh?

[8:11] So this is a problem with the what Holy Spirit, right? We saw that in talking about the name. Is there a name of the going forward of the Holy Spirit? No. But there is a name for the going forward of the of the Son, right? Generation and so on. Whence we use certain what Certain locutions, huh? To signify the person what going forward, right?

[8:45] And the relations which are taken according to this going forward, we name by the names of procession and of what breathing, right? Which nevertheless are more names of origin than of relation, according to what is proper to the vocabulary there.

[9:12] But nevertheless, in a like way, one is able to consider both processions. For just as from this that someone understands something, there goes forward a certain conception, understandable conception, the thing understood in the one understanding, which is called the what word, or the logos in Greek, right? But we have the word thought. So also from this that someone loves some things, there goes forward a certain impression, if I can speak so, of the thing loved in the affection of the one loving, according as the loved is said to be in the one loving. It's interesting that we use that word impression today, even in talking about romantic love, right?

[10:07] You know, so you say to somebody, you made a big impression on her, or she made a big impression on you, right? Okay, so somehow he or she who's loved has made an impression upon your heart, has been pressed into your heart, so to speak. And according to this, he says the loved is said to be in the one loving, just as the understood is in the one what understanding.

[10:34] And thus it is that when someone understands himself, right, and loves himself, there is in him not only the identity of the thing, the thing is itself, right, but also as the understood in the one understanding, and the loved in the one what loving, right? So when my reason understands what reason is and forms a definition or thought of reason, then not only is reason reason, but there's in reason a what thought of what reason is, and then there's going to be something loved there, right?

[11:14] When you realize what a wonderful thing reason is. But on the side of the understanding, there are words found to signifying they respect a relation of the one understanding to thing understood, as in this word that I use, and it is the Latin word there, intelligere, right?

[11:41] And there are other words found to signifying the going forward of the intellectual concept, namely to say and word, right? So notice he's saying there's a difference here between saying I understand something and I say something, right? Because when I say I understand something, then it notifies or names or signifies the relation of the one understanding to the thing understood, right? But when I say I said something, then there's a relation to the word that goes forward from me, the speaker, the one who's saying something, huh?

[12:23] And then he says, whence in divine things to understand is said only what essentially, because it does not imply a relation to the thought or word going forward,

[12:42] but word or verbum is said personally, because it signifies that which goes forward, huh? And to say dicere right, is said notionaliter that means it refers to the what relations of persons, yeah. Because it implies the relation of the beginning of the word, right? Meaning that from which the word proceeds to the word itself, right? So sometimes, and I don't know how reverent I am when I say this, but I call God the Father, the Speaker of the House.

[13:20] Far outside of our politics, he's the Speaker of the House, God. There, right? Okay, but now on the side of love, you don't have the same multiplicity of words, right? On the side of will, beside the word to love, right? Amare, I notice in Latin you get two words, there right, but he's talking about the same thing with these two words. But sometimes Amare is used more for the sense love, right?

[13:53] I love to use for the love of the will too, and deligere, and especially the word dilectio, right, which comes from the word for choice, for chosen love, right, the love of the of the will. But here he's using them kind of synonyms. On the side of the will, apart from to love,

[14:13] which implies the what relation of the one loving to the one to the thing loved, there are not some words laid down which imply the relation of the what impression or affection of the thing loved, which comes about in the one loving from the fact that he loves, but signifying its relation to its what beginning, right? Or the verse, and therefore, on account of the what the poverty you might say of words,

[14:49] these relations we signify by the words of love, and it's two words again in Latin. You've probably seen this book of C. S. Lewis's, The Four Loves, but he's talking about four different words in Greek and how the Greeks have more words maybe to name these things. So you have eros, which names a very sensual love, and then you have philia, which names what kind of love you have in friendship, maybe, and storge, the love you have for your children or something of that sort, and then agape, which you know we translate as charity, right?

[15:22] But we don't have like that variety in what English, right? Now in Latin at least they had amor, which in a way corresponds to eros, and that's why when you say amorous, you kind of think of that, and then dilectio, right? But in English we don't have those two, right? And so,

[15:42] so I just mentioned the text here, the Greek, the Latin text, You have these two words, amoris and dilectionis there in the genitive there.

[15:55] And this would be as if we didn't have the word "word" and we named what the word. Intelligentiam conceptam ah conceived understanding right or the generated wisdom right huh sapientia genita if we'd have a word for a word huh

[16:18] okay so we use no so Thomas is doing now is explaining the difference there that in the case of the going forward per modem intellectus and understanding you have a different name for what is relational and for what is essential but in the case of love you don't have this word especially for what is relational and so you borrow the essential word right so you got to know what you're doing right when you say this huh

[17:03] so insofar as we use these words to expressing the relation of the thing which goes forward by way of love to its beginning and the reverse thus that by love we understand love proceeding right and by to love to breathe a love proceeding right in this way love is the name of a person and to love is a what notional word just as to what to speak or to what generate right

[17:43] so this idea of because of the impression that that the thing loved is in the lover yeah we often speak of how the difference that love the lover is going out whereas the the knower is bringing something in. what's the little distinction there that

[18:05] in other words love yeah in some way the the loved is in the lover but not in the same way as it's in the knower right it's in the knower as a likeness of the thing known right that's right that's why the son is called the imago dei, right the likeness of God really in English we'd have to use the likeness but the beloved is in the heart not by way of a likeness but by way of a kind of what inclination towards the thing in itself okay

[18:44] so it's a different way in there and that's why you don't speak of that as generation or the Holy Spirit as being the Son right it doesn't proceed as the likeness of the Father right or the Son but as kind of an inclination towards them So it's hard, you know, it's hard to understand that, but it's less known to us, huh?

[19:08] But if you love somebody, then that person, in some ways, in your heart, right, impelling you towards that person. Okay. Doesn't follow in the case of the understanding, right? You have a likeness of it, huh? You may be like to some you don't even love, right? Doesn't impel you necessarily towards it, right? But it's expressing what you understand about that thing.

[19:42] Okay. Now the first text is taken from Augustine, and Thomas simply solves it by saying that Augustine is speaking about love, according as it is taken what, essentially, right, Pertaining to what God is. When Saint John says as it was in the epistles, right, that God is love, right? What's he talking about there? He's taking love there. Seems like he's taking essential, right? He's not thinking of the Holy Spirit so much in particular, right?

[20:16] He's saying God is love, right? Because you go back to the treatise on the operations of God, we find out that God's understanding and His being are the same thing, and God's loving and His being are the same thing, and that way you're taking understanding loving obviously is something essential. That's the way Augustine is taking in that particular text, huh? But I'm sure Augustine in some other text would say the Holy Spirit is love.

[20:51] You know, the second objection is saying, well, doesn't the word love signify more in action than a person? To the second, it should be said that to understand and to will and to love,

[21:13] although they are signified by way of actions going out to their objects, nevertheless they don't really go out to their objects outside the one loving. They are nevertheless actions remaining in the what doers, right? Okay. So grammatically, right, you know, to say I kick you and I love you, grammatically they seem to be the same thing, right? And the kicking ends up in you and outside me, and my loving ends up in you, but really love remains within me, right?

[21:46] Well, my kicking really goes out. But grammar reflects that first kind of activity that's more known to us, huh? It's interesting, you know, with the eye, especially they say, you know, my eyes fell upon something, looking for something, and then I fell upon it and I saw. You know, did the eyes really fall upon it? You know, the seeing remains within you.

[22:17] Yeah, that's right. Okay, but although they name actions remaining in the ones doing them, nevertheless in the one doing this there is implied a certain relation to the object, okay? Whence love, even in us, is something remaining in the one loving, right? And the word of the heart, oh, that's the thought, remains in the one what saying, okay? But nevertheless, with a relation to the thing expressed by the word or thought.

[23:03] Or the what? Yeah. Okay. Or the loved. But in God, in whom there is no accident. An accident is something what? It doesn't exist by itself; it exists in others as a subject. But in God, in whom there is no accident, that's one of the things we showed in the treatise on the simplicity of God, right? It has more, because both the word itself and the love is something what subsisting.

[23:33] And why is that? Well, because the understanding and the loving of God is His very being, His very substance. When, therefore, it is said that the Holy Spirit is the love of the Father in the Son or in something else, it is not signified something going outside of it into another, but only the relation of love to the thing what loved. Just as in the word is implied the relation of the word to the thing expressed by the word or by the the thought.

[24:09] That goes back to the more general thing about how these things are spoken of. Now the third one is saying, well, love is something that unites these two things. So is the Holy Spirit in between the Father and the Son? Then would He be the third person in the Blessed Trinity?

[24:52] To the third, it should be said that the Holy Spirit is said to be the nexus. I cannot translate that connection right. Of the Father and the Son. They use the word bond. Bond. Bond. Okay. You can say that I suppose.

[25:09] In so far as He is love, right? Because since the Father loves by one love Himself and the Son, and the reverse, there is implied in the Holy Spirit, in so far as He is love, the relation of the Father to the Son, and the reverse, but the relation of what the lover to the thing what loved.

[25:38] And from this that the Father and the Son mutually love each other, it is necessary that the what mutual love, which is the Holy Spirit, proceed from what both of them.

[25:54] But so so. But according to His origin, right? The Holy Spirit is not middle, but what third in the divine person. But according to the foresaid relation of the lover to the loved, right? He's a middle medium of the two proceeding from what? Both.

[26:19] Why? Why does it say third and divine person singular surprised A third person. Yeah yeah Third person. It says. It says It's his because there's third in the divine. No, it says he's the third person in the Trinity, but the grammatical order is a little different there, right? Yeah. So tertia in trinitate persona trinitate persona. Okay.

[26:44] These grammarians know they have different orders. Because usually, you know, if you put the adjective before the noun and the adverb after the verb, right? I walked fast. I ran fast. But they call me a white man, not a man white. That Latin actually does this. It often put a little phrase stuck between the kind of split up something that goes together. Two words that go together.

[27:16] It's a modifier. You see the difference there between the grammarian and the logician, right? Now, if the grammarian looks at the definition of, say, square, an equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral, he sees two adjectives there, right, in a conjunction, and then a noun, right? And he sees, you know, that the adjectives are put before the noun, right? Now, the logician looks at what does he see? A definition, right?

[27:48] And the first part of a definition is the genus. So the logician sees the what quadrilateral as being said of square before you say equilateral and right-angled. And that's because the logician is interested in words insofar as they signify things through thoughts. And we know things in a confused way before we know them distinctly, and therefore we know them in general before we know them in particular.

[28:16] So the genus, which is more general, comes first. It doesn't come first in the order of the words as written. On Latin, you might be able to put the adjective after, right? And sometimes, like when I take the definition of reason there from Shakespeare, you know, he says it's the ability for large discourse, looking before and after. Then the grammatical order turns out to be what? The logical order, right?

[28:44] Okay. But if you, you know, if you're to define reason as a discursive power or something like that, right? Then grammatically the order would be different than the logical order, but still power would be, as far as logician's concern, is, the basic word in that complex of words, huh?

[29:05] Have a lot of fun contrasting those two, you know. For the grammarian, green triangle and equilateral triangle are identical, grammatically speaking. There's a noun being modified by an adjective. That's as far as it goes. For the logician, there's enormous difference, right? Because equilateral is a species-making difference of triangle, while green is an accident, huh?

[29:37] And then we get to largely the second act, right? From the point of view of grammar, I am a stone is better than I am a man. Magician would say, no, I as a man is better than I'm a stone. It's true I is a man, is it not See,

[29:57] But the grammarian remark I am a stone. correct and I as a man wrong. Doesn't care about truth and falsity. he's a grammarian. terrible, terrible, superficial.

[30:12] You get this sometimes in the in the Neo Platonists, you know, and they kind of put a guy down and say, he's a grammaticus, you know, he's

[30:38] a grammarian. Fourth objection of saying, well, if he's love, isn't going to be? If he loves the Holy Spirit, when he have a love, it be a love of love, so on. To the fourth, it should be said that just as to the Son, although he understands, nevertheless it does not belong to him to produce a word, right? Because it belongs to him to understand as the thought went forward.

[31:08] So also, although the Holy Spirit loves, taking love essentially, right? Nevertheless, it does not belong to him to breathe love, right? Which is to take love notionally or relationally taken, because

[31:33] because thus he loves essentially as love itself proceeding, right? Not as that from which proceeds what? Love. That's why it's hard to understand, but but you know if if he wasn't that, you'd be confusing the persons, huh? Multiplying the persons. This use of notionally here.

[32:01] Yeah. I think it's tied up. It's probably easy to say relational. He's talking about the notions, you know, that pertain to the our knowledge of the persons, right? That was kind of technical term we saw before, right? Back in question thirty-two, right? The knowledge. Instead of the Father, it's distinguishing the Fatherhood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's what gives rise to the relation. That was back in question thirty-two, the second, the third, especially articles, right?

[32:36] But there are some notions by which attributed the divine persons. A number of notions, but these are things by which you distinguish the persons, right? Yeah. Yeah. So sometimes instead of saying notionally, they say personally, right? Okay.

[32:54] So a lot to think about there, but the basic thing you want to see is that love can be taken in these two ways, huh? The word love, essentially, and what personally, right? You don't have that problem with the word son, or the word what word. Word is taken reading God only personally, right?

[33:23] But if you didn't have a word like word, right, you may have to say, "Well, he's the he's a generated wisdom you have to use some kind of circumlocution, right, to talk about the wisdom that is proceeding from another and related to it, and so on.

[33:40] That's the problem we have with the Holy Spirit. huh? In these things. Now, Thomas takes up the Trinity. here in the Summa, Contragentiles, and so on. You always talk about the what Father and the Son before the Holy Spirit, right? It's almost like it's more known to us, son. There's probably more than one reason why he talks about them before, but in terms of being known. Now, I've often heard people say that the Father and the Son love each other by the Holy Spirit, or He's their love.

[34:22] What does that mean exactly? Well, we'll see some of the distinctions here if we can grasp them. To the second one proceeds thus: It seems that the Father and the Son do not love each other by the Holy Spirit.

[34:43] For Augustine says in the seventh book of the Trinity. For Augustine, in the seventh book of the Trinity, proves that the Father is not wise by this generated wisdom,

[34:58] but the Son is what generated wisdom, huh? So the Holy Spirit is love proceeding. Therefore, the Father and the Son do not love each other by the love going forward, which is the what Holy Spirit.

[35:22] So is the Father wise by the wisdom that is the Son? See, sometimes we we appropriate, as we talked about appropriation in the last questions. We appropriate power to the Father for a number of reasons, and then wisdom to the Son, right?

[35:41] And then mercy or love or goodness to the Holy Spirit, right? Does that mean that the Father is wise by the Son, or the Father and the Son are good by the Holy Spirit?

[36:00] Because wisdom and goodness, speaking properly, not by appropriation, are essential names, right? Okay. So, this seems to be a good objection, right? The Father is not wise by the Son.

[36:28] By wisdom, proceeding, or wisdom generated, right? Huh? He had to generate the Son before he's wise. And the Holy Spirit is like that, but in terms of love, he's love proceeding, right? Huh? So does the Father love by the Holy Spirit? That same thing as saying he's wise by the by the Son. You can argue from by likeness here, right? He's not wise by the Son, by wisdom proceeding.

[37:08] He's not loving by love proceeding. But then your pipe is smoking. Moreover, when it is said that the Father and the Son love each other by the Holy Spirit, this word "to love" is either taken essentially or what notionally.

[37:37] But it cannot be true, according as is taken essentially, because for a like reason one could say that the Father understands by the what Son.

[37:52] Nor also, as is taken notionally, because for a like reason one could say that the Father and the Son breathe by the what Holy Spirit, or that the Father generates by the Son. Therefore, in no ways is true that the Father and the Son love each other by the what Holy Spirit.

[38:20] Last night I was given the the love and friendship course. I had these two guys who come into the house there, and we've finished the treatise on love there, Thomas there, in the Prima Secundae. and now we're going to start the thing on friendship. And before we go to Aristotle's treatise on friendship there, especially in the eighth book in the Nicomachean Ethics, I give them a little bunch of readings on friendship, that loosen up their mind, from thinking about friendship.

[38:49] And one of the things is from Shakespeare there, where he speaks of godlike amity. So here he's praising friendship as being something godlike, right?

[39:02] Now of course Saint John says that God is love, and friendship is love, right? Ah, so in that way it's godlike, right? But friendship is also mutual love, right? And so is it also godlike insofar as it's mutual love? Well, if the Father and the Son love each other, ah, then there's mutual love in God, right? But there's only if God is just one person, right? Would there be mutual love in God?

[39:38] So in that respect, God friendship might be godlike insofar as it's love, right? But it wouldn't be godlike insofar as it's mutual love, because there'd be no mutual love in God. So when Shakespeare says that friendship is is godlike, right? Is he thinking of it as being mutual, connected with this particular passage?

[40:03] And it's interesting that when Aristotle takes up friendship, he distinguishes between friendship among equals. He takes up first, and then he talks about friendship among unequals.

[40:24] And the prime example of friendship among unequals is the friendship of the Father and the Son in human things, okay? Or the friendship of Hamlet and Horatio would be a friendship. Of equals or Bassanio and and the Merchant of Venice, right? Okay.

[40:43] But what's interesting, if there is mutual love here of the Father and the Son and God, you have a friendship of equals because God the Father and God the Son are equals. We'll see in the comparative consideration, persons, but it's also a friendship of Father and Son. So, what are two different kinds of friendship in the creature? Right.

[41:08] Are one in God, right? It's kind of interesting to see that, right? But all this depends upon seeing that in some way the Father and the Son have what mutual love, right? And in that regard, are they said to love each other by the Holy Spirit? Well, up to this point, it seems not, huh?

[41:39] Moreover, by the same love that the Father loves the Son and himself, and what us, he can have three loves. But the Father doesn't love himself by the Holy Spirit,

[41:59] because no, notional act there's that word notional again. Reflects back upon the beginning of the action, right? For we do not see that the Father generates himself, or if the Father breathes himself, right?

[42:20] Therefore, it cannot be said that he loves himself by the Holy Spirit, according as to love is taken what notionally. Also, the love by which he loves us does not seem to be the Holy Spirit, because it implies a relation to the creature, and thus it pertains to the what essence, huh? And therefore, this is false that the Father loves the Son by the what Holy Spirit, huh?

[42:55] So, so I'll call this tying yourself into a knot, tying the mind into a knot, huh? But against this is what Augustine says in the sixth book about the Trinity that the Holy Spirit is that by which the one generated is loved by the one generating it, huh? And he loves his what the one generated loves the one generating him, huh? So Augustine seems to be saying that they do love each other, right?

[43:34] By the Holy Spirit, yeah. Now, I answer. It should be said that about this question, it brings out difficulty when it is said that the Father loves the Son by the Holy Spirit, because the ablative noun—that's that's the Latin grammar, right? Because the ablative is construed or constructed in the relation of some what cause.

[44:19] Now, incidentally, the some grammarian told me, you know, that the Latins goofed up on their cases, right? Because they were too Stupid to figure out the grammar of their own language, huh? And what they did was to what imitate the Greek grammarians, right? So the grammar of the Latins was learned from the Greek grammarians. The languages are not exactly the same, right? And the way he explained it, anyway, was that in Greek you have the you know the nominative, right?

[44:59] Then you have the genitive and the dative and the accusative, right, in that order. There's no ablative. And the distinction between the genitive, the dative, and the accusative is in the relation to the verb. That the genitive signifies that which, in a way, is before the action of the verb. So the what use the ablative in Latin for would be in Greek often from the what genitive, right?

[45:24] Okay. The dative goes with the what action of the verb, and the accusative is imagined to be after it, right? But the Latins came on the thing and said, "We got kind of a nominative case. We got a genitive case, right? We got something like the dative, right? Something like the accusative. Then that's other thing that couldn't fit in, so they just tacking on the end, the ablative.

[45:48] But the ablative is is like the Greek genitive insofar as it what signifies what is before the action of the verb, right? So it doesn't really come last, right? And you can see that here in a sense, huh? He says cum ablativus, right? The ablative is construed or understood in the relation habitudine of some cause, right? Okay. So if I

[46:18] so hit the nail by a hammer or something like that with a hammer, right? You know, then that's a cause in some way by doing this, right? Okay.

[46:29] So now a lot of times these these prepositions too have the sense of what a cause, huh? Through which, by which, so to speak, from which, okay.

[46:47] So if you say that the the father loves the son by the Holy Spirit, you might say that the Holy Spirit is the what beginning of their love, right? Okay.

[46:58] So since the ablative is understood in the relation of some cause, it seemed that the Holy Spirit is the beginning of loving for the father and the son, which is omnino impossibile, entirely and complete what impossible, right? That'd be like saying you know the Holy Spirit. I mean, excuse me, the father is wise by the son, right? It's the son in a sense makes him to be wise, right?

[47:25] That's altogether impossible, right? Okay, and some say therefore that this is false that the father and the son love each other by the Holy Spirit, and they say that this was drawn back, retracted, right by Augustine in the similar retraction he made, right when he retracted that that the father is wise by what generated wisdom, right? Okay.

[48:04] Now some say that this, so some people just simply reject it, therefore, right? Because this is you are saying that that the Holy Spirit is in some sense the source of their love, right?

[48:19] Some say that it's a what improper statement, huh? And thus they expounded that the father loves the Holy Spirit. Excuse me, the father loves the son by the Holy Spirit. That is, he loves the son by what essential love, right? Which is appropriate to the Holy Spirit, right? Okay, in that sense, would be by appropriation, but not properly speaking, right? Okay.

[48:57] That's the second opinion. Some say that this ablative, right, should be figured out in the relation of a sign that the sense would be that the Holy Spirit is a sign that the father loves the son.

[49:25] Insofar as he proceeds from them, is what love, right? That's the few opinions. Now some say that this ablative should be constructed, put together in the relation of a formal cause

[49:49] because the Holy Spirit is the love by which, formally speaking, the father and the son love each other. That's the fourth opinion, right? Just like if I say you are healthy by health, right? It's a formal cause, right? Okay. Finally, there are those who say that it should be constructed in the relation of a formal what effect, and these. Exceed more closely to the truth. So you can see how I heard, besides your people, you know, priests in the in the pulpit, you know, saying that the Father and the Son love each other by the Holy Spirit, or they'll say that the Holy Spirit is the love of the Father and the Son.

[50:45] What I don't know what they understand by this, right? Which of these opinions? Yeah, I never put them down. I've been kind to do that.

[51:02] Okay. What is why is this last one approach the truth more? Whence to the evidence of this, it should be known that things are in general denominated from their what forms, as white from whiteness, right, and man from humanity, right.

[51:29] Whence that by which something is denominated, as far as this is concerned, seems to have the what relation of a form, right? Even though it's not always in fact a form, right? So if you say that I am healthy by health, right? Health is a what form in me, right? And by this form of health, I am denominated healthy. Or I am a geometer by this form of the science of geometry, right?

[52:06] Okay. But now the example Thomas is about to give here. In a similar way, I am said to be clothed by what clothing? Although my clothing is not really like my health or science of geometry, right? But it kind of is imagined, so to speak, to be like a form, right? That just as I am healthy by my health, so I am clothed by my clothing. I am shod by my shoes, right?

[52:35] Okay. I am armored by my armor, right? Okay. Aristotle talks about this denomination there in the beginning of the categories, first chapter, right? So it's talked about a lot of the categories.

[52:57] As if I say this man is clothed by his clothing or his vest. This ablative is, as it were, construed in the relation of a formal cause, although it is not a what form, right? Okay. This distinction he's making there, right? Likewise, it happens that something is denominated. Through that which proceeds from it, not only as an agent by his action, right?

[53:40] So I am what? Teaching. Yeah, yeah. Or the the fire is warming the air, right? By something proceeding from it, right? That's different, right? Rather than a form by which it has its activity, right? Okay.

[54:05] Um. Am I a teacher by my knowledge, or am I a teacher by my teaching? You might say might say both, right? But if you say I'm a teacher by my knowledge, that's the form existing in me. By which I am able to perform this activity of teaching. But if you say I am a teacher by teaching,

[54:43] one sense this teaching is is posterior to my. Yes, not the source of my being a teacher, right? Am I a teacher because I teach, or do I teach because I am a teacher?

[55:03] What would you say? If you say both, it's not in the same way, right? Okay. Now you make another distinction here, though. It happens that something is denominated through that which proceeds from it, not only as an agent is denominated from its action, right?

[55:32] So you might say that the fire is a heater, and it's being named from the fact that it's what heating other things, right? But then he says it can also be denominated from the end or the limit of the action, which is the effect of it.

[55:52] For we say that fire is heating by what? It's heating. By its ability to heat, or its action. By the action, heating. Although the heating is not heat, which is the form of the fire, right?

[56:13] But it's an action proceeding from the fire, right? Okay. You see the difference there, right? See, by is the fire a heater by its heat, or is it a heater by its what heating the air? Well, maybe we might say both, right? But when you say the fire is a heater by its heat, you are giving the quality and the form in it, or by it being able to perform this act, right?

[56:55] But when you say the fire is a heater by its heating the air, then you are denominated it from an action that's actually proceeding from it, right? Okay.

[57:10] Now. And we say that the tree is flowering by its what? Yeah, but they're actually proceeding from it, right? They're not the form intrinsic whereby it's able to perform this activity. Although the flowers are not the form of the tree, but a certain effect proceeding from it. St. Thomas saying, you know that Michelangelo is a sculptor by the statues he's made. I mean, you might say, is Michelangelo a sculptor if he had made no statues?

[58:00] He had no statues, is it? But this is actually something proceeding from him, and the end of his action, is sculpting. huh? Well, we do denominate something that way, right? Okay.

[58:20] Okay. Now he's going to apply all these distinctions to the matter at hand. According to this, therefore, it should be said that to love is taken in divine matters in two ways, right? Essentially, that's perhaps what Saint John has in mind. He says God is love, right? He's taking it essentially there. And what? Notionally or relatively, right?

[58:51] Now, according as it is taken essentially, in that way, the Father and the Son do not love each other by the Holy Spirit, but by the essence itself, the nature, because God's essence is love. Okay. When Augustine says in the fifteenth book of the Trinity,

[59:25] "Who dares to say that the Father, neither himself nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit loves except through the Holy Spirit? Who dares to say this, right? "

[59:36] And according to this, proceed the first what? Opinions. He's saying an element of truth in them, right? According as it is taken notionally, then to love is nothing other than to what? Breathe love, right? Just as to say or to speak is to produce a what word? And to flower is to produce flowers.

[1:00:11] Thus, therefore, as the tree is said to be flowering by its flowers, right? So the Father is saying by the Word or the Son himself and what creatures? And the Father and the Son are said to be loving by the Holy Spirit. Or by the love proceeding from them, themselves and others, right? Okay.

[1:00:46] So, am I saying something by my words? What does that mean? Am I saying something by my knowledge and ability to make words? Kierkegaard says, "No doubt that woman can talk." Idasti says, "verba facile Okay. So, am I able to talk by my knowledge and my ability to

[1:01:29] form words, right? Or do I talk by words? Talk by words is different. Yeah. And so he is the Father and the Son loving each other by the Holy Spirit. Is that like my talking by my knowledge and my ability to make words, or is it like my talking by words? Talking by words. Yeah, yeah, and that's why he says, "In habitudine effectus formalis," right? Okay, because you kind of construe that as a form, but this is a kind of formal effect, right?

[1:02:21] So I speak, I talk by words, right? So you shouldn't think of the Holy Spirit as it were being the source of the beginning of the love of the Father and the Holy Spirit. I mean, Father and Son, rather, right? But from them, right, loving each other, there proceeds the what? The Holy Spirit, right? Okay. So the love, in a sense, is like my speaking by words, right?

[1:03:01] I don't know if that's what they understand when they say that in church. How do you walk? Yeah. Is it walking that enables me to walk? No.

[1:03:36] If you say I walk by, I don't know muscles and other things like that, right? Then you're talking about that from which this activity of walking, in a sense, proceeds, right? But if you say I walk by walking,

[1:03:55] that's like a circumlocation. Well, no, no, no, that's that's an action proceeding. You name something, right? From that, right then, from an action proceeding from it, and you can also name it or denominate as he says, right? Name it from a effect of the action activity, right?

[1:04:23] You know any authors? It's a man an author by his books, or whatever. he huh what do you say It's a man an author by his books, by his articles and whatever else he's written. What would you say? You might say, wouldn't you? Huh? Yeah, but

[1:04:51] see, yeah. But if he's writing something worthwhile, you see, he's an author by his knowledge in some way, right? Huh? In diligence and so on, right? See,

[1:05:03] so when you say the Father and the Son love each other by the Holy Spirit, which way are you speaking? Yeah, yeah. See, because you say he's an author by his books, you're denominating him from what proceeds from him, right? And when you say the the Father and the Son love each other by the Holy Spirit, you're denominating them by what proceeds from them. See, that's not false, is it?

[1:05:42] See, is it false to say that I'm I'm an author by my books? See, but you have to realize that's that by we use the preposition there, but it's like the ablative, and that's what the ablative in Latin. We have to use the article or mean the preposition because you don't have all these cases and so on. That that's different than when you say I'm an author by my knowledge, right?

[1:06:09] Diligence. Some of these guys are there so many words a day, you know. You can turn out, you know, some of these novelists especially, right? They hold themselves to so many words, you know, a day, and eventually get they're written, right? By hit or miss. So so so by knowledge and by diligence, right?

[1:06:32] They're an author, right? In a different way than they're an author by their books. We might say you don't have any books, you're not an author. Okay.

[1:06:48] You see. So now you know what it means to say the I love it. Yeah. So, but it was the Second Vatican Council saying, you know, to you know penetrate and to illuminate these mysteries as much as possible. You should take Thomas as a teacher.

[1:07:20] You know, passage there in the yeah. Yeah, of course, and the official Latin text there has the reference there to to. Paul the sixth, there you know, he's speaking about Thomas, and he's being highly reverent to all the doctors of the church, right? But among them, especially, especially Thomas, you know. But

[1:07:46] kind of used to joke, you know, he says some people say, "You il faut dépasser Saint Thomas," right? Kind of, well, fine if you can do it. But as I say, you know, you got to catch up with him before you can get ahead of him, right?

[1:08:01] And I don't think I've caught up with the man, you know. I mean, you're kind of, you know, teaching the physics, the books of natural hearing, and you know, since nineteen thirty five, and so I haven't, you know, been teaching these. He says he still sees something new when he goes through them, you know. So there's a guy that's been teaching.

[1:08:23] So, one could probably teach this treatise on the Trinity for twenty five thirty years and say I still see something new when I go through it, right? So I haven't quite caught up with Thomas, but as soon as I catch up with them I'm gonna spread ahead of them.

[1:08:43] But I've never met anybody, you know, who's really caught up with, like, say, Thomas in theology, or even with Aristotle in philosophy, right? There are things that you know I catch up with Aristotle. I mean, I know I've never really caught up with him, and I keep on reading him and studying him, but still not caught up with him.