Prima Pars
130. Trinity, Question 39, Article 3: Why the Three Persons Are One God, Not Three Gods (Nouns vs. Adjectives, 'Thing', Theology as Defense of the Faith)
Class of 2008-04-17
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/130-trinity-question-39-article-3-why-the-three-persons-are-one/

[0:01] In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and help us to understand all that is written. Name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:29] So, what has today got in common with the treatise on the Trinity? Got in common with the treatise on the Trinity. What? Excuse me. Yeah who's used to I don't think it is.

[0:48] Oh, seventeen, seventeen questions. Yeah. Seventeen, seventeen. I want to recall that because I want to recall where we are here a bit, huh? As you know, the seventeen questions were divided by Thomas in its proemium into three parts, right? And he says, according to the order of teaching or the order of learning, the divine persons are distinguished by relations of origin, huh? By the relations based upon the proceeding of one person from another.

[1:27] What Augustine calls the ordo naturae, the order that is to say, the origin of one from another. So the Father generates the Son, and the Father and the Son breathe the Holy Spirit, right? So you had one question on the proceedings, the going forward in God, right? And then you had one question on the relations that are based on those ways of going forward, and then fifteen questions on the what?

[2:01] Persons, right? Okay. Now those fifteen questions were divided into two, and ten of the questions were dealing with the persons absolutely speaking, right? And five of them, the ones we're in right now, the comparative consideration of the persons.

[2:27] Now the comparative consideration of persons in these last five questions was divided into two, right? And in one, the first part, which is going to involve three questions, you're considering or comparing the persons to something other than the persons, which may turn out to be not so altogether different from them, but something at least in thought somewhat different from the persons.

[3:01] And then you have two questions comparing the persons to each other. One of them dealing with the quality or the likeness of the persons, and the other dealing with the missions, this one person sending another person, whatever that means. We'll find out. Okay. But now, in these first three questions that we're on, we're on the first of the first three. To what does Thomas compare the persons?

[3:29] Well, if you recall what we said here, right, that the persons are distinguished by relations of origin or proceeding, right? And when he begins that whole consideration by showing that there is a going forward in God, right, then you have the three things you're going to compare them to: God Himself, right? How do the persons compare to God? And then how do they compare to those relations we talked about?

[4:03] And then how do they compare to something pertaining in a way to the proceedings? How do they compare to the the notional acts, right? The generation and the breathing and so on. So you can see it's a very complete what, and very appropriate for a beginner because you look at it from every what angle, right? Huh? I was reminded there of the first book in philosophy.

[4:31] When I was at Laval, there we had Albert the Great's paraphrase of the first book in philosophy in the order of learning, which is the Isagoge of Porphyry. And Porphyry says at the beginning of the Isagoge, we're going to talk about genus, difference, species, property, and accident. And so he goes through and considers each one of those five. And then when he gets through with that, he does what you might call a comparative thing.

[5:00] And he makes exactly what ten comparisons, whereby he compares every one of the five to every one of the other four, as to in what way they're like and what way they're different. So he compares genus to the other four, and that's four comparisons. And then he takes the next one, like say difference or species, and of course it's already been compared to genus, so he compares it to the remaining three.

[5:30] And then he takes the next one and compares it to the remaining two, and then the next one to the last one. So you end up with four, three, two, and one, ten comparisons. But it's very good for a beginner, right? And Porphyry says he's writing for a beginner. And so you learn what each one of these is, but then you compare it to everything else that it should be compared to, and you see in what way it's like or different from everything.

[5:58] Else that you have in the treatise, we can see how thorough Thomas is here, right? You can say that the persons are distinguished by relations of origin or proceeding of one from another, and these proceedings are in God, right? So you compare the persons to God, you compare the persons to the relations, you compare the persons to the proceedings or to the processional acts, you might say, the acts of generation, so on.

[6:29] So he's comparing, in a sense, them complete, very complete the way he is. Nobody else would be this complete, but he reminded a little bit of Porphyria, lesser scale there, you know. Thank God Aristotle didn't do the categories, right? compare the ten to the other nine would have been would have exhausted the human mind, I suppose. So we're up to now the what third article, right? Of course, the fundamental article was the one that showed that the

[7:05] persons compared to to God, compared to the divine nature, where, by you have a God, are exactly the same thing, right? In reality, that there's no distinction in things in the things, between God the Father or the Father and God, right? Or between the Son and God, or between the Holy Spirit and God, huh? Even though there's some difference in our thought, huh? That there's only a real distinction, a distinction in things between the Father and the Son, and between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, huh?

[7:51] And then he spoke in the second article of how you can speak of these three persons being of one nature. Now, in the next article, article three, we're going to get into the idea of predication, which is the Latin for being said of, right? And seems to me you can say that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God. You can't say that they are three gods, huh?

[8:24] And it is kind of unusual that although God can be said of the Father, the Father is God, the Son is God, as we've shown already, right? The Holy Spirit is God, that was shown primarily in the first article, the fundamental article. Someone might jump because of the way something is said of many in creatures. Well, then there must be three gods, and I guess the the Muslims, huh, Mohammedans, they think that we're what?

[8:53] Yeah, polytheists, you know. You see, as if you know, God is said of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, like man is said of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. So that Socrates and Aristotle are not one man, but there there are three men, right? Well, this is not the way God is said of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. But you can say that the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit are one God, and seems to me you could say also the reverse that the that God is three persons.

[9:29] Seems to both those are Orthodox. But let's get it from the master here, right? If I listen to Berquist and, we can get it from the master.

[9:46] To the third one goes forward. Thus, it seems that the essential names, like this fundamental name God, are not said singularly. Of the three persons, but plurally to be three gods, right? The first argument here: for just as man signifies what has humanity or human nature, so God signifies as one having what the divine nature, the deity. But the three persons are three things having what the divine nature.

[10:28] Therefore, the three persons are three gods. So you're speaking like Mohammedan here, right? Moreover, in Genesis chapter one, verse one, where it is said, "In the beginning, God created heaven and earth." The Hebrew Hebraic truth, the language there, which is what's written, I guess, has Elohim, which can be interpreted as what gods, huh, or judges, right, in the plural. And this is said an account of the plurality of persons, huh?

[11:11] Therefore, these three persons are what many gods and not one god, huh? And this is something about the Hebrew language, right? Moreover, this name thing,

[11:34] since it is said absolutely, seems to pertain to what the substance of a thing, what it is. But this name thing is said plurally of the three persons, for Augustine says in the book on the teaching or doctrine of Christ that the things which ought to to be enjoyed are three.

[12:05] The things that should be enjoyed are the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the other essential names can be said plurally of the three persons.

[12:18] I guess the Pope. What is doctoral thesis on Augustine? I think they said that yesterday on the theology of Augustine. You heard that? A couple of different ones. I think one of them was maybe the first one. Yeah. The one that got him in trouble, then he had to write another one. I don't know. It'd be interesting to see it. You know what he did on. We have.

[12:41] They wrote a later paper for some other degree or certification. That's when he wrote on Saint Bonaventure. You know, I think that was the one because, see, he started his first thesis, then when someone got on his case about it, they thought it was heterodox, and they really slammed him. So. He had to rewrite a new one. I think that was the Bonaventure one. I well, I understood that was for a separate type of something, degree or certification or something.

[13:11] It was a separate thing, but I I don't know the history of it. Because he said that that that experience formed him on how he said he was never going to treat anyone like he was treated. That's a kind of was the background to how he organized things in the CDF later in dealing with people. So Augustine is is kind of the greatest doctor in the church there on the Trinity, huh?

[13:38] So if he says there are three things, then there are three things, right? Moreover, just as this name God signifies one having the divine nature, so also this name Person signifies something subsisting in a understanding nature, right? But we say three persons. Therefore, for the same reason, we have to say three gods.

[14:13] But then Thomas says, "But against all this nonsense is what is said in Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four. Here, Israel, the Lord your God is one God.

[14:29] That's kind of striking there when you talked about the substance of God, and Thomas had that divided into five parts, right? But the last thing he shows is that God is one. So the last thing you learn from the consideration of the substance of God is that there's one God. So however you understand the Trinity, you can't go against there being what one God. It's like he arranged it in that in that order, huh?

[14:53] According to the Summa Contra Gentiles the last thing he talks about is the infinity, right? But in in the Summa Contra Gentiles it goes from the infinity to the understanding of God, right? Follows immediately upon that, and the Trinity is way back in the last book, right? Because of the order of that treatise, and of course, as you know from your study of Anaxagoras, that's the first thing said about the mind: it's infinite.

[15:22] So it's kind of interesting the order there. If there's an order there. So Thomas has got to teach us how to speak about these things here.

[15:39] I answer: It should be said that of essential names, some signify the essence, what in a substantial way, like a noun, I suppose, right? Others as what? Yeah.

[15:59] Now, those which signify the nature in a substantial way are said of the three persons only in a what singular way, like the name God, right? So God is said of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit, not as three gods, but only as one God.

[16:24] But the names which signify in an adjective way, right? They can be said of the three persons in what plural. So, got that distinction?

[16:42] So, can you see there are three divines? Three simple, ones? Yeah, so you have to know grammar, right? That's one of the liberal arts: Grammar, rhetoric, logic. Now, what's the reason for this distinction? That's a fundamental distinction Thomas makes at the beginning of this body. The reason for this is because these substantial names, what we might call what nouns, I suppose, signify something in the way of a substance.

[17:29] Why the adjective name signifies something by way of a what accident? And you find this in speculative grammar, these terms, the way Thomas speaks here, and by way of accident, meaning what inheres in some subject, right?

[17:51] But a substance, just as it has being or existence by itself, so through itself or by itself, it has what unity or multiplicity. Whence the singularity or the plurality of a substantial name is to be noted by the form signified through the name.

[18:17] But accidents, huh? Just as they have being in a subject, so from the subject they receive their unity and what multitude, right? So you take the shape of this chair, right, and what this shape is in this wood, and that shape in the chair next to it is in that wood. So there's a multiplicity there, right? Because of the that in which they are, right? Even though the shape might be the same, not exactly those two chairs, but you could take chairs that are closer.

[18:57] So who knows the Pythagorean theorem there? Well, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Say, a number of us have the knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem. Well, then, is there one knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem in this room? If several of us know it, no. But it's multiplied because the knowledge is in my head and the knowledge is in your head, right? This is the way the adjective is like an accident, right?

[19:29] And it's multiplied according to that which it is, right? So he says, accidents, just as they have being in a subject, so from that subject they receive either unity or what, multiplicity, right? And therefore, in adjectives, one notes singularity or plurality according to the individual what? Subject or suppositum is the Latin word there. Now he's going to point out the difference between creatures and God. In creatures, there is not found one form in many what individual subjects, except that of the unity of order, right?

[20:23] As the form of an ordered multitude, like the order of the army, right? Okay. Whence names signifying such a form, if they are substantial, are said of the many in the singular, not over at the adjectives. For we say that many men are what a college or a army, right, or a people, right. But we say that many men are collegial right, okay.

[21:03] But in divine things, in God, the divine essence, the divine nature, is signified by way of a form, which is simple and most what one. That's why Thomas kind of puts those two together: simple and one. And if you want to divide those five attributes and substances of God into three instead of five, he puts simple and one together. When he talks about the infinity of God, he always talks about the his perfection being unlimited.

[21:40] So it kind of goes with the perfection. Whence names signifying the divine essence substantially are said singularly and not in a plural way of the three what persons. And this is the reason wherefore Socrates and Plato and Cicero, I think there's Aristotle out there.

[22:11] We called them three men, right? But the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, we do not call three gods, but what one God.

[22:24] Why? Because in the three individual subjects of human nature there are three human natures, huh? But in the three persons there is only what one divine nature, one substance, huh? But those things which signify the essence or the nature by way of adjective, right, are said in the plural of the three, on account of the what plurality of the individual what subjects of these things. For we say there are three existing, or three wise, right?

[23:02] Three eternals, three uncreated, three immense ones. Immense means what? Immeasurable, infinite. If they are taken what? Adjectively, right? But if they are taken substantially, then we'd say there's one uncreated thing, one immense thing, one eternal thing, and that's why he's got it in the what the neuter there, right? As Athanasius says, that's reference to the Athanasian Creed, right?

[23:43] So can we say there are three wise men? Three wise ones. When the angel says holy, holy, holy, right? Some days still says we reference the Trinity, right? So it's holy there like an adjective. Yes. Yeah. So you can say there's three holies there, right?

[24:15] But you wouldn't you wouldn't say God, God, God unless you're referring to Trinity, right? You might say God, you know, if he dies, you know, speaking of God, but you wouldn't say praise Trinity that way.

[24:34] Okay. Now the first objection, huh? Says, just as man signifies having the human nature, so God signifies having the divine nature. But the three persons are three having the divine nature, right? Therefore, the three persons are three gods, huh? Well, Thomas says, points out the distinction. He replies the distinction he has in the body of the article. To the first, therefore, should be said that although God does signify, right, having deitatem huh, having the divine nature, there is nevertheless another way of signifying, grammatically, right?

[25:20] For God signifies substantively, substantially, God is a what? We'd say is an noun, right? But having the divine nature, having deity, is said adjectively. Whence, although there are three having the divine nature,

[25:44] it does not follow that there are three what? Gods, huh? See how very important that distinction, right? Um. Have been mixed up. Yes. Yeah. And mixed up is almost a synonym for being mistaken, right?

[26:10] But mixed up brings out that you don't what possess some distinction. You don't see some distinction, right? So in that first objection, which is drawing a false conclusion, saying that because there are three having the divine nature, right, and to be God is to have the divine nature, the same thing, right? Therefore, there are three gods. But that proceeds from what ignorance? Carry mistake does, but more precisely from ignorance of a what distinction, and the importance of that distinction, right?

[26:54] The distinction between what is said substantially, as he said, right, and we might say in the matter of a noun, and what is said in manner of an accident, adjectively, right? And having the divine nature is like what an adjective, right? Why God is a noun, and so it makes a great deal of importance, huh?

[27:19] And Aristotle says, "Men are not good at seeing distinctions, especially things that are close together, right? " If you study dialectic, there Aristotle's book on dialectic, the third tool of dialectic is a tool of difference, son. And Aristotle says, "Now,

[27:41] the mind is exercised in seeing the difference between things, right? But the closer things are, the more it's exercised in seeing their difference. "

[27:55] And when he talks about the the fourth tool of likeness, in a way it's the reverse, son. So the likeness of genus or the likeness of species, seeing that doesn't exercise the mind as seeing a likeness of ratios, son, which is more what?

[28:18] No, further away, right? Okay. So why in the case of difference it's the reverse, right? To see the difference between things that are very close together exercises the mind more than seeing the difference between things that are far apart, right? To see the difference between a dog, say, and a chair doesn't exercise the mind very much, but see the difference between a dog and a cat more so, right?

[28:50] And then see the difference between different kinds of cats, right? I was in the supermarket, not supermarket, in the in the shopping mall with my wife there, and you know they they go on and on and things. So I went into a little pet shop there, right? And they always little dogs are there for sale, right? And they're labeled the kind of dog they are, right? So I was you know learning the differences between the dogs a bit, right?

[29:13] So my mind is being exercised in seeing the difference between dogs, more so than in seeing the difference between a dog and and the cage, let's say. You know, there's a difference to great, right? But a likeness, it's reverse, right? To see a likeness between things that are far apart

[29:36] exercises the mind more, right? Than seeing a likeness between things that are close together. Yeah. We have a kind of sliding scale of ability to distinguish between objects. Meaning, kind of hard to explain, but if you are seeing a state of nature, you don't have any sort of education or anything like that. Yeah. the Distinctions that you'd be able to make would be maybe much more crude. Yeah.

[30:05] Than if you were, say, highly educated in scholasticism or something like that. That could depend, though. I mean, if your livelihood depended on making those distinctions, you'd get it in a hurry. Whereas somebody more educated, how would we? Isn't? I mean, just. Yeah, if you just concentrate on one narrow thing, you might see differences that people wouldn't see. You know. Apparently, I've been told that this is not.

[30:33] I grew up with this understanding that there's like something like 20 different names for snow among the. Yeah. Yeah. Eskimos, and then somebody later has said that's not true. So I don't know actually what's right, but it seems reasonable that they would. They could be many more names than what we have. We sort of one name for snow, where we make a few distinctions like it's crusty or whatever.

[30:55] But whereas with them, it would seem like there would be more distinctions. So. So maybe I mean, it was probably kind of an inane comment, but so Thomas Aquinas, he's sort of helping us through the things that we wouldn't necessarily even notice. Yeah. The distinctions. Yeah. They see, you know, if you take the distinction between, let's say, wine and beer, that's easier to see, right? Than the distinction between various wines.

[31:24] I told you, you know, that Ron McCarthy, the former president Thomas Aquinas, had the faculty over for dinner, right? And it's kind of a jokey. He served a different wine in a different bottle, right? And everybody was deceived, thinking they're drinking what the label is, right? Except for Brother mark. He says, "This is not that."

[31:46] But I'm sure I would have been deceived, right? You see, and the some people make a purpose of this, you know, to kind of, you know, reveal imposters and so on, right? You know, they keep a expensive, you know, bottle and the thing, and they fill it with a cheap wine, and they kind of rave about how great the wine this is, and everybody's amused by this, and where

[32:12] Socrates says we, you know, what we tend to do, claim to know we don't know. Maybe your brother knew Ron McCarthy very well too.

[32:28] So the mind is more exercised in trying to find the difference between different wines and wine and beer, right? So, but I think what's interesting is that we have this word for. We have two words actually mixed up in mistake, you know, and mixed up very clearly kind of brings out the connection between a mistake and distinction, right? That you mixed up, you don't really see a distinction.

[32:54] Mix up two things, but mistake is somewhat the same thing, you know. Plato describes mistake as reaching the box, of, one thing you get the wrong thing. And it's kind of because you don't distinguish between the two, huh?

[33:13] Okay. Now the second one here is one we can't deal with too much here, unless we know Hebrew better, but it's an important thing that Thomas points out here. An occasion it comes up even sometimes in Thomas's comment in the text of Aristotle, and doesn't come out exactly right in Latin, right? And Thomas sometimes will say, "Perhaps this is more according to the Greek idiom, right? " He says, "To the second, then it should be said that diverse tongues, diverse languages.

[33:43] I guess language comes from lingua, right? Diverse tongues have a diverse way of speaking, right? Whence, just as an account of the plurality of individual subjects, the Greeks say three hypostases, so also in Hebrew they are said plurally, Elohim, right?

[34:05] We, however, do not say plurally, neither God nor substances, lest the plurality be referred to the substance, the very nature of the thing. You're chuffing the Hebrew language now, huh? I think that Richiadi, his book about the history of Israel, talks about this word and says that all the peoples around that area used that word for God, so they just they were in the same practice. Yeah.

[34:37] Okay. Now the third objection is based upon the word "thing," and No less a man than Augustine speaks of three things well, how's this? Thomas says, "To the third, it should be said that this named thing is among the transcendentals huh Now let's stop on that, because maybe you're not too familiar with that? What do they call the transcendentals Transcend what? Categories. Yeah, yeah. And more precisely, there are something that is said of all ten, right?

[35:14] Names that are said of all ten, and even more precisely, you can say they are the most universal names, right? Okay. And let's just recall a bit some of those names. We'll go through them all here, but

[35:32] you have the word "being" and the word "thing" or "something," which combine a couple of them. Then you have the word "one," and we'll leave it the way they suddenly speak of it. And then, strange as it may seem, the word "true" and the word "what good," right? Okay. Now.

[36:03] These names are most universal. They're said of all, right? And it's kind of obvious if you stop and take these first names, which is easier to see. Can there be something that isn't a being?

[36:27] See, being means what is, so whatever can be said to be in any way whatsoever can be said in some way to be a being. So, can there be anything that isn't a being?

[36:44] Being is completely universal, right? Now, how about thing or or something? Can it be something of which something cannot be said? Can it be something that isn't something? No. So all there is besides being is what is not, and all there is besides something is nothing. Okay. And to some extent, we know everything, right? Because we know the difference between something and nothing, don't you know that?

[37:21] You have the famous statement of the early Greeks: "You can't get something from nothing," right? Something is not nothing, right? And so we know something that is said of everything. That's extremely indistinct knowledge. This is something, okay? But everything is something. So, in some way, we know everything. That's how we understand the word everything. My students would say, "I'll go home and tell my dad I know everything."

[37:52] Then you tell it the parents. But you'd say you know everything in some way, in some perfect way, right? Because you know what is said? of? Everything, right? Well, then the fourth book of wisdom, Aristotle shows that there is a one, not the one that's a bigger number now, but there is a one that is as universal as being and thing. And one means what? Undivided being, okay.

[38:25] So every being is either what simple or composed, right? And if it's composed, it can't be without being put together, and that's to be one. And if the composed is one, a fortiori the simple is one, right? So every being is in some way what one, right? And then later on, I look somewhere in book two, but but more so in the ninth book, you find out that true and good are convertible.

[39:00] I don't think I can show that right now right now, right? So Thomas is saying the word thing or the word something. Is among the transcendentals the most what universal, right? But because they're said of everything, that's why they're very what equivocal. It was Aristotle's discovery that these words are equivocal by reason and not by chance.

[39:25] So, to look at the beginning, the first question of the the Quaestiones Disputatae De Veritate, right, Thomas, will talk about this starting with what the great Avicenna said about these things, right? Okay, so he's calling it. This is among the transcendental.

[39:45] So, thing or something is said both of substance and quantity and quality and even what relation, right? So, to be a man is to be something, right? To be five foot ten is something. Right, to be a geometer or something, right? To be a father or a teacher or something, right? But not exactly in the same sense, right?

[40:12] Whence according as the name thing pertains to relation, it can be said in a plural way in God, right? There are three relations, right, or four relations actually, and three persons, right? Remember how Thomas points out that there are four relations there, but only three persons, right? So some distinction between relation and person, right? So you have to compare the two, right? Okay, and we'll be doing that in another question, right?

[40:44] Whence, according as it pertains relation, it is said plurally in God, right? So the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father, and fatherhood is not sonhood, and then they're not so well named in the Holy Spirit, but the same principle, right? The breather and the breath, right? Not the same. But according as thing pertains to the substance of the thing, what it is, right, it is said singular.

[41:17] So I often ask you, and I say, "Well wait, Augustine, let's take Augustine here, because he's the master. " Whence Augustine says there that the same Trinity is the highest and the greatest thing, so he says both that is one highest thing, and that's going to be singular, right? And then there are three things here: the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. So sometimes I ask this question: Are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit one thing or three things?

[41:50] And what is the answer? Yeah, yeah. See, because you have to realize that thing is said of substance and relation, but with somewhat different what meaning, right? So if by thing you mean the substance of God, the nature of God, what God is, God, then they're one thing, they're one God, right? But if by thing you mean what relations, and therefore the persons, right, then they are what three, three,

[42:32] not four. It's only where the relations what are opposed, right? That you have a real distinction. So if the Father is a generator and a breather, that doesn't make them two. There's no opposition between being a generator and a breather, but between being a generator and generated, there's a real opposition. Between being a breather and being the breath, that's a real opposition, relation. But those things will be cleared up and get to the next question.

[43:16] So Thomas quotes Augustine right now. A little learning is a dangerous thing. They say Augustine will say in one place that there are these are three things: the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Other place he'll say the one highest, greatest thing, right? I just looked at it. Actually, that's the same sentence, the beginning, the end. of the same sentence.

[43:40] So that's a beautiful example there, right now. It goes back to the categories in sense of Aristotle, right? An understanding that being or thing there is said of all ten of them, but not not the same way exactly. Said primarily substance, as he points out in the fourth book of wisdom.

[44:10] Okay, now the fourth objection is saying, "Well, we speak of three persons. Why not of three what gods?" Well, he says God signifies what the divine nature there, right? But the form signified by this name person is not the essence or nature of God that signified by the word God, but the personality. Whence, since there are three personalities, that is to say, three personal properties, right? In the Father, in the Son, the Holy Spirit, it is they are said of the three not singularly but what plural.

[44:51] Okay, so he's pointing out the distinction there between the name person and the name what God. That's beautiful the way he's doing it there, right? Because you stop and think of you know well, the the name the word God can be said of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. The word person can be said of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. But you can say there are three persons.

[45:16] Well, why? Because person is said of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit. Well, if God is said of the three, why aren't there three gods, right? But he's pointing out the difference, right? That the person is really signifying the relation. Okay, and the the God is signifying the nature, right? So if you said there are three gods, you'd have three divine natures, and that's not true. There can only be one divine nature, only one God, but there can be three persons if the persons are these relations.

[45:49] Okay, that wasn't too hard, was it? I have to bring in a text from the Second Vatican Council about you know following Thomas, it's very strong actually.

[46:10] No, it's talking about in the Vatican too to cast light upon the mysteries of the faith as much as is possible, right? And to penetrate these mysteries, right? And see their connection. They should take Thomas as a teacher.

[46:27] Yeah, sometimes people say that they can figure out what they're doing wrong, and they'll say, "Oh, Saint Thomas, he's trying to pry into God." Or so you know they'll say that. But but the thing is, is that what he's really doing is he's he's he's as we're prying into how we speak of God. That's you know that that's what he's really. Yeah, but no. So I was going back to the definition of to believe, you know, believe in the supernatural sense, not the theological virtue of to believe.

[46:57] And Thomas will talk about this in the Secunda Secundae, right? But he'll defend what Augustine says, right? And Augustine will define the act of believing as to assent while thinking about it. Yeah. Or thinking about something while assenting to it. See, we don't do that in philosophy, right? We're thinking about we don't assent to it yet. Yeah. And once we think it out, the thinking thinking about is over.

[47:26] Now we assent to it. But in the act of belief, we're assenting while thinking about it, by not really comprehending it, right? So the idea of thinking about what we believe is something that is natural to reason, right? And you see that even in human belief, you know, if you believe your teacher, but you don't really understand the thing, right? You think about what you believe, right?

[47:56] It's natural to do that, right? So in that sense, it's natural for reason to think about what you believe. And faith doesn't, and grace in general doesn't go against nature. That would be something God would be contradicting himself because he gave us this nature. But you could also say, you know, that that because the difficulty of thinking about these things, and the fact that you can easily be what mistaken in thinking about these things, one should not be too ready to think about these things, right?

[48:37] But the point was that in the development of the theology, there are people called heretics, right, which is a Greek word meaning choosers. They choose to believe some things and not other things, right? And sometimes they give some kind of a reason for their heresy. And this reason can be drawn from philosophy, and sometimes it's drawn even from scripture, right? Or it can be drawn even from Augustine or some church father.

[49:13] And this confuses people, and some church father is called upon them to defend this article of the faith against this heretic, or against these heretics. He's got followers, right? Because every heretic wants to have followers. And so it kind of forces to what defend this, right? So Augustine can say that heresy is necessary for the development of what theology. So the Pelagian heresy is about grace, right?

[49:51] Forced Augustine to think more deeply about grace, huh? And so the church, you know, says you know the Mind of Augustine on grace is the mind of the church on grace. You know, really a strong thing when the pope said. And Thomas says, you know, Augustine spoke later better about grace than he did earlier, as he's forced, you know, forced to face his heresies. They go back to the great church councils, you know, and the first four church councils, especially, were kind of laying the foundation of faith, and they were what?

[50:28] When the pope said, you know, he venerates the first four councils as much as the four gospels, right? You know, so you've, got the tradition of the church as well as the the written word, but they were reacting to heresies of Arius and people like that who were denying the divinity of Christ and sometimes denying the divinity of the Holy Spirit at least, right? So you have to try to understand how it's possible in some way for there to be three persons and one God and yet only one God, right?

[51:01] And so you're kind of forced by necessity, right? You see, you know, we have these couple of definitions, kind of interesting, of theology. There's one that is quoted a lot,

[51:19] belief seeking understanding, right? And this is attributed to Saint Anselm, "Fides quaerens intellectum," but it's really substantially what in Augustine, right? Augustine saying just the sort of man would want to understand what he believes. And so when you define theology that way, then you're thinking simply of the fact that our mind naturally wonders about what it believes but doesn't understand. It naturally does that, see? And just like I wondered about the Pythagorean theorem before I understood it, right?

[51:55] I still do, kind of. So belief seeking understanding is sort of in between belief and the beatific vision, right? And just as you know the definition of belief there in the in the epistle to the Hebrews, right? You know, the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of what is not seen, huh? But the substance of things hoped for, meaning the foundation in some way of things hoped for, right?

[52:28] That you're in a way believing what you hope to see eventually one day in the beatific vision. And this belief seeking understanding is kind of a consolation before we get to see God as He is, huh? But they say it corresponds a little bit to that definition of to believe in Augustine, but as they say, it shows the connection and the harmony between belief and the nature of our reason, right?

[52:59] Because it's natural for our reason, right, to want to understand. What it believes, even what it guesses in some cases, you know, in philosophy, before you know, it understands it. It tries to understand, right? But then Thomas, you know, has another definition of theology in the beginning of the book here, right? The one from Augustine that theology is a science by which belief is engendered, not in you but in others, nourished, strengthened, and what, defended, right?

[53:36] So you could say theology is a defense of belief, right? That's what it should be, right? And that's even more necessary, you might say, right? Than to satisfy the wonder you have about what you believe, right? But you don't deny that trying to satisfy, so far as is possible in this life, one's wonder, because to deny that would be to deny the nature of your mind or reason, right?

[54:09] But the idea that that theology develops there to defend the faith is seen in the history of the church, right? Where you go to Augustine and people like that, you have all these books that said contra maximum, contra, contra, contra, you know, but they're against some heretic who's denied some article of the faith with some faulty reasons, right? And you have to defend the article of the faith and answer those reasons, and you're developing, you know, in your defense here the the faith, right?

[54:49] And you know something like that takes place in in philosophy, you know. I say, you know, if somebody agrees with you, well, then you kind of, you know, don't think about it much more, right? But if somebody disagrees with you, right? That's good because either you're mistaken or not, right? And if you're mistaken, it's good that he disagrees with you because you might possibly discover your mistake.

[55:15] But even if you're correct and he disagrees with you, right? You're forced to kind of defend what you think, and even if it is a truth, you come to understand it what better in the reasons for it, right? So there's kind of two different definitions of belief. I mean, excuse me, of theology, and they bring out two different things, right?

[55:41] Is there any sort of common ground between, say, Christianity, Western tradition, and Islam as far as using reason and theology to have a common sort of starting point for discussion? Well, that's what Regensburg talk, you know. That's what security you're saying, folk, you know. Well, is yeah, sorry. Yeah, I mean there are there are. You know, great thinkers among Mohammedans like Avicenna, right, and the Averroes and so on.

[56:09] They made some mistakes, but you know they discovered a lot of things too. And and Thomas, although he's critical where they made a mistake, I mean he often quotes them with approval, right? I don't know how many times. Every time he talks about the liberality of God, right, he quotes Avicenna, right? Avicenna said, "God alone is liberal, truly liberal, right? He gives, you know, gets nothing in return, and we get, you know, the merit of a good act, you know, and we're liberal and generous, right?

[56:36] But God gets nothing, and he he alone is liberal. He's always quoting, you know, Avicenna, and you know if you look at that beginning of the the Veritatis, quoting Avicenna there, right? Now, I mean, there's some things Avicenna doesn't understand, and Thomas will sometimes correct Avicenna. Avicenna makes some great mistakes, and Averroes does too, right? But you know, there's some question. You know, are these men,

[57:02] you know, yeah, yeah, they're carried that way, you see, and and might be, you know, some were even in time they were, you know, criticized, right? So it's not that kind of openness and sense to to reason that there is in the church, you know.

[57:26] Is I'm sorry if these are like way off off out of left field, and in which case I'll stop asking questions. But I'm curious if I mean it seems like reason has developed into a very fine art almost in science in the West, and it's certainly part of the gifts that God has given all of us people that He's created, whether we're from the West or not.

[57:49] But this ability to make distinctions and stuff, would you say that it has been developed to uniquely high degree in the West, and would Thomas Aquinas be a great exemplar of it? Or do you see other traditions elsewhere with a sort of comparable? Well, I was saying, you know, these men like Avicenna, you know, they arrived at the idea, you know, that God is I and who am, right?

[58:17] Then God is being, is His nature, right? You know, in fact, I think they attributed especially to Alfarabi, right? You know, but you find Avicenna, I've seen it in Averroes and so on. So I mean, they got pretty far, those guys. They went, you know, now they made some very serious mistakes too. I mean, you know, Thomas will, you know, he's got the books against the Averroists and so on, but

[58:43] there's a a real buildup there, you know, but but the Mohammedans did contribute something, yeah, definitely. You read you read Albert the Great, you see this very much so too. Albert the Great. I was curious only because Western civilization is sort of considered to be a bad thing in the West these days, you know, in the professional world and academic world. And so this seems to be a tremendous achievement, as far as being able to fine-tune our ability, our gift, reason, and yet it's something which is under attack, is being a Western, sort of Eurocentric kind of thing.

[59:24] And but I'm curious. I mean, since reason is a gift from God to all of us, as children, are there other traditions even outside of the West, Islam, like? Well, you see, you got to realize that the Arabs came in contact with the Greeks, right? Right. No, exactly. No. And just like with science, there, you know, Schrödinger says, "there's a book. He's a famous physicist, Schrödinger right?

[59:51] The guy who perfected the mathematics of wave mechanics and so on. But Schrodinger has a book called Nature and the Greeks, and so on. He says, 'Science is the Greek way of looking. at Things now, it's obviously not a definition of science, right? But it's a compliment that has never been paid to anybody but the Greeks, the ancient Greeks, right? And he says, and no one has ever had science, he says, who has not come in contact with the Greeks.

[1:00:16] And you could say the same thing about philosophy, right? No one's had real philosophy who has not come in contact with the Greeks. Well, the Arabs came in contact with the Greeks, you know, before the medievals, in some respects, right? Because they were Exposed to the texts out there, and I guess you know some of the Christians actually helped them, you know, in the Middle East there.

[1:00:37] And so they developed things in medicine and things of this sort. So they, but then they went into a decay, you might say, right? And you you wonder now whether there's anybody's reading Avicenna or Averroes over there, You know? see, I doubt it, you know. But I don't, you know. I've never been to the universities or whatever they have there. Yeah. But

[1:01:12] you know, when you compare even the Greeks say the Romans, I can mention how this grammarian was telling me how the Greeks figured out the grammar of the Greek language, and the Romans couldn't figure out the grammar of their own language, so they copied the grammar of the Greek language, which to some extent fitted the Latin language, but not perfectly. And that's why he says the cases that we learn them in Latin, the order is mistaken, right?

[1:01:46] And it's because what they did was take the order of the Greek cases, which don't correspond exactly to the Latin cases, and the Latins have a case that the Greeks don't have, so it just got attached on the end there. And he says he says in Greek, you know, the noun, nominative case, as it's called, underlies the whole sentence, right? And then the other three cases, the genitive, the dative, and the accusative, come in that order because of their order to the verb.

[1:02:18] So the genitive signifies something that is imagined to be before the action of the verb. Okay, so I hit you with a tool. I got the tool if I can hit you, right? So that might be signified in the what genitive, right? And then the dative goes along with the action of the verb, and then the accusative is imagined to be something after the thing. So I hit you.

[1:02:45] You're after the the the action of the verb, right? So, but in Latin, say the abdative. Does some of the functions of the what the genitive in in Greek, but it's put last because there's nothing like the ablative in Greek. And the dative I guess in Latin is is kind of understood as after the accusative. So I gave the book to you. That's the data, you know.

[1:03:17] Doc libro me, you know, something like that. And so that should be put after the accusative, but they put it before because the Greeks had this, you know. So the the Romans were too dumb to figure out the grammar of their own language. And then he tells me that the English grammarians imitate the Roman grammarians. So you know, then you see the same thing in fiction, right?

[1:03:44] You go back to the Greeks, and you see especially the Roman comedies; they're imitations of the Greek comedians, and they imitate the tragedians and so on. And of course, Shakespeare's comedy of errors is imitating the Latin comedy, which takes the Greek comedy. So I didn't realize it's like the standard book, you know, in geometry, the one I still study, Euclid's Elements, right? That's written what 300 B.

[1:04:13] Yeah, 300 B. C. In Alexandria, about that time. So that was the standard textbook, right? And so Einstein says, you know, if Euclid didn't arouse your youthful enthusiasm, you were not born to be a scientist, right?

[1:04:29] And Heisenberg says, you know, we're still trying to answer the questions the Greeks asked, you know. And so now, of course, the modern Greeks may not be at all the you know, but the ancient Greeks were right. I mean, the ancient Greeks were kind of the sources of philosophy and science and grammar and geometry and

[1:04:57] grammar must come from the Greek word, right? Rame, yeah, yeah, and then geometry, Greek word, right? Arithmetic, yeah, philosophy, not by chance, these are Greek words, right? And each kind take more and try to make a Latin English word out of them. Philosophia, philosophy. So I mean, the nations are not equal in their contributions to the life of the mind.

[1:05:38] One thing that we might you know be very proud of is our music right, huh? the music of the Baroque period, and then up to Mozart. You know, I was quoting. I don't know if you heard that. Gemin, you know, Father Newhouse starts talking about. Having dinner with a meal with Cardinal Ratzinger, and Ratzinger says he ends up the day, you know, with a half hour mostly Mozart, plays mostly Mozart for half an hour, sometimes thirty seven minutes.

[1:06:08] But I don't think Greek music got the same development, you know. I suppose part of the fact that the modern world was characterized by this mathematical knowledge and something mathematical about music. music, huh?

[1:06:24] I suspect Mozart. would have found nuclear rather easy. So I don't know how open they are to reason over there anymore, you know. Yeah Well you see in the modern world, and even in the West, Yeah, Reason, you know, emotion, Yeah, We see in these elections? You know, people. Why are you supporting so and so? I remember a friend of my my brother-in-law was working one of the gubernatorial campaigns years ago now, and he was traveling all over the state of Massachusetts.

[1:07:03] You know, working for this this guy who's running for governor, and the thing that struck me was that people don't really know the issues, you know, and they're often supporting the candidate who's opposed to their own issues, and they don't even know that, right? You just see this ignorance all over the state, you know. I mean, it's the white people.

[1:07:30] So go on to the next article here now. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay.