Prima Pars
136. Summa I, Q. 40, Art. 1: Is the Relation the Same as the Person? (Divine simplicity, two kinds of identity, and the senses of 'in')
Class of 2008-05-15
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/136-summa-i-q-40-art-1-is-the-relation-the-same-as-the-person/

[0:00] In the Son, the Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment, guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illuminate our images, and arouse us to consider more quickly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Pray for us and help us to understand all that you've written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Now, why did God make Thomas Aquinas so much more intelligent than us? So we would be more humble.

[0:30] The reason Thomas is himself, right, is is not not about this. Why he's made one creature better than the other, so we could be like God, not only in being good, but being the cause of goodness in others, right? And so the effort had to have inequality, for one is superior to the other, right, and can illuminate the other one. So Thomas illuminating us, right, imitates God, the Father of Lights, as Saint James calls him.

[0:58] And he said, I think he says in another place a similar thing. He says not only that a man can learn, but he can teach another man. Yeah, yeah, that's more like God, right?

[1:11] So we're at the fortieth question here now. Let's look at the premium. Then one asks about the persons in comparison to the relations or the properties.

[1:26] And four things are asked or sought. First, with the relation is the same thing as the person. Secondly, with the relations distinguish one from another, right? The persons and constitute the persons.

[1:45] Then, whether abstracting by the understanding the relations of the persons, do the hypostases remain distinct? And fourth, with the relations, according to the understanding, presuppose the act of the persons or the what? Reverse. There will be a mixed answer, as you'll see. Okay. So let's go to the first article. Whether the relation is the same as a person. To the first one goes forward. Thus, it seems that in God, the relation is not the same thing as the person.

[2:27] For whatever things are the same, when one is multiplied, the other is multiplied. But it happens that in one person there are many relations. It's in the person of the Father there is fatherhood and common breathing, right? And also there is one relation in two persons, as the common breathing is both in the Father and in the what son. Therefore, the relation is not the same thing as the what person.

[3:05] That's a very drastic objection, Thomas. Have a very long reply to that, as you can see. Moreover, nothing is in itself, according to the philosopher in the fourth book of physics.

[3:20] But the relation is in the person, and it cannot be said by reason of identity, because thus it would also be in the what essence, and the essence would be distinguished, right?

[3:38] Therefore, relation or propriety or property and person are not the same thing in God. Moreover, whatever things are the same have themselves such that whatever is said of one is said of the other. But not whatever is said of the person is said of the property, for we say, for example, that the father generates, but we do not say that the fatherhood is generating. So you seem to be affirming something of one that you deny of the other.

[4:15] That gives us solgism in the second figure, and therefore not the same thing, right? Therefore, the property is not the same thing as a person in God. And I would seem to settle the matter. That's all we had before us, right? The rest of Thomas's text had been lost. Ah, misled by Thomas.

[4:39] Against all this, in God, what is and that by which it is are the same thing, as you have from Boethius in the book De Hebdomadibus. But the father, by fatherhood, is father. That's coest, right? By which he is. That's the same as what he is, according to Boethius. Therefore, the father is the same thing as his what fatherhood, and for the same reason, the other properties are the same with the what person.

[5:18] Now, what's going to do with this? I answer: It should be said that about this some have opined diversely, right? Have thought in different ways, different things. For some said that the properties are neither the persons nor in the persons,

[5:44] who were moved from the way of signifying the relations at, which do not signify as in something, but more as towards something. This is the big difference between relation. Let's say. In quantity and quality, right? Because you try to understand in quantity, it's the what size of substance. So its particular notion or definition is in reference to its subject, right? And quality is the disposition of substance, right?

[6:21] Well, relation is not defined as something of what is supposed to be in, but towards something, right? Hence, they said that relations were assisting, as has been expounded above, Gilbert of Porretanus. But because relation, according as it is a thing in God, is the very essence, the essence, however, is the same thing as a person, as we saw.

[7:00] Is necessary that the relation be the same as the what person? It is what he's saying there. Relation is a certain thing in God, right? Now, so we'll see again in this article in the reply. Whatever is said to be in God is God, right? And you can also say whatever God is said to have in Himself, right, is God, right? Okay, this is not true about us, right?

[7:33] So logic is in me, but am I logic? Geometry is in me, right? Or some health, I guess, is in me. Still a little bit of health. Am I health though? See, so what I have, like health or geometry and so on, right, is not me, right? What is in me, right? But because God is altogether what simple, whatever he is said to have in Himself or whatever is said to be in Him is God, right?

[8:06] So he says relation, according as it is a certain thing in God, is the very divine essence. But the essence is the same thing as the person.

[8:17] Therefore, the relation is the same thing as the what person, right? Now he says some others, considering this identity, right, said that the properties are persons, but not in the persons, huh?

[8:40] Because they did not place properties in God except in the way of speaking, as has been said above. What is necessary to lay down properties in God, as we showed above, right? Relations in God. Which, however, signify in the abstract as that by which something is right—that's the way they signify—and therefore, certain forms of the what persons. So, just as I am said to be healthy by health, right?

[9:19] So the father is said to be a father by his fatherhood, and the son, the son by his what sonship—that's the way it signifies, right?

[9:34] Whence, since it is of the notion of a form that it be in that of which it is the form, like health is in the healthy, right? Geometry in the geometer, and so on—is necessary that the properties be in the person, and for them nevertheless to be the persons, right? Just as we say in the way of speaking, right? by signifying that the essence of divine nature is in God, right? Which nevertheless, what is God, right?

[10:04] Okay. It's like we could say there's wisdom in God too, right? But God is wisdom. There's truth in God, but He's truth itself, right? Okay.

[10:22] So let's look at the first objection again, right? It seems, you know, if you identify the relation with the person, right? Huh? Or that some persons have more than one relation, right? And vice versa, right? Sometimes one relation, like common spiration spiration belongs to two persons, right? Okay. So Thomas is going to explain now. Actually, it's one of the relations that constitutes the persons, but some other distinctions he's going to bring out here.

[10:57] To the first, therefore, it should be said that person and property are the same in the things themselves, right? In reality, but they differ in their thought,

[11:12] Whence, it is not necessary that one being multiplied need what other be multiplied, huh? But it should be considered. Now, Thomas is going to make a very subtle point, a very subtle distinction. It should be considered, however, that on account of the divine simplicity, there is considered a twofold real identity in God of those things which differ in what created things, huh? Because the divine simplicity excludes the composition of form and matter, and back in the question on simplicity, we had an article that there's no composition of matter and form in God, right?

[12:05] Now, because the divine simplicity excludes the composition of form and matter, it follows that in God the same is the what abstract and the concrete, as what? The God, yeah, the God deity, they mean the divine nature, right? Divine essence and God, right? That they're really the same, right?

[12:31] Because you, you know, the in me or you, human nature is like a what form, right? In this flesh and blood and bones, right? Huh? Okay. So there's a composition of form and matter, right? But there's not any of that in God, right? So I am not by human nature, although I have it. But God is His divine nature, huh? Okay.

[13:07] But now we had another article in the simplicity of God that there is no composition of what substance and what accident, right? I can mean there is a composition between this man and the science of geometry, right? And they're not the same thing, right? One is in the other because, obviously, the divine simplicity excludes the composition of substance and accident. It follows that whatever is attributed to God is His essence.

[13:43] And account to this, wisdom and virtue are or power are the same in God, right? Because both are in the divine what essence. So he's putting out two different compositions in us, right? The composition of my body and soul, right? And the composition of my substance and my what accidents. huh? And I used to have fun with Descartes there, right? Because Descartes identifies the substance of material things with their quantity, and so I joked that Descartes never grew up.

[14:25] It wouldn't be the same substance when he when he had different quantity, right? But if he grew up, he's something more basic than his various what sizes, right?

[14:39] His size is not what he is, and even the man in the street, you know, if he asked him, is is what a dog is and the size of a dog the same thing? Aristotle enumerates categories in the book called the Categories. He calls the first category "ousia," right, which we translate "substance." But in the book about places, the topics as we call it in English, he gives the same list of categories.

[15:08] But the first one he calls "to ti esti," what is? So what a dog is is not the same as the size of the dog, is it? And even the man in the street would kind of recognize that distinction between substance and what quantity.

[15:30] He is a man of substance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I used to make use of that because when Aristotle talks about the virtues, right, the first two virtues he talks about are courage and temperance, right? And these are very basic because they regard your very what substance, your body, right? So courage is about things that could destroy your body. And therefore, things you kind of naturally flee—you might flee when you should stay and fight, right?

[16:01] Temperance is about things that are pleasing to your body and preserve your body, right? And therefore, you have to be more attached to them than you should be, right? But then the next virtues takes up is what liberality and what munificence, which are concerned with wealth and material goods. And we speak of a man as substance, right? As if you know these things are very close related to your what bodily well-being, not in the same way that you know as much as courage and temperance are, but because these things are what you use to buy what you need and so on, right?

[16:42] Okay. So, and according to this twofold definition of identity, a property in God is the same with the person. For the personal properties, these are the properties that what constitute the person. I said constitute the person, like fatherhood is said to constitute the father, not innascibility, and not what common breathing, right?

[17:17] And sonhood is said to, or sonship is said to constitute the what son and not breathing, right? Okay. Ah, for he says personal properties like fatherhood and sonship are the same with the persons for the same reason by which the abstract is the same with the what concrete.

[17:41] For they are those very subsisting persons, so that fatherhood is the father himself, and sonhood or sonship is the son himself, right? If we want a better name procession, right, is the Holy Spirit himself, right? But the properties that are not personal are the same with the persons according to another reason of identity, huh?

[18:10] By which everything that is attributed to God is his what essence, huh? Okay. And that's denying the composition of what substance and accident in creatures. Thus, therefore, common breathing is the same with the person of the father and with the person of the son, not that it be the one person subsisting per se, but just as there's one what essence in two persons, so there's one what property.

[18:44] That's a very subtle distinction Thomas is making, huh? You didn't think about that back in the question on the simplicity of God, right? But there was a separate article. To deny that there's a composition of form and matter in God, unlike us, where there's a composition of body and soul, right? In death, Socrates says, the separation of the soul from the body. And there's another composition in us, which is out of substance and what?

[19:16] Yeah. And that doesn't make something as per se one. So white man is not one thing, really, right? In the way that man is one thing, right? So that's a different kind of composition, right? But both of those compositions are denied in God. We understand his simplicity, right? And so you say that the Father is his fatherhood, essentially denying the composition of matter and form. Just like when you say that God is what, God and divine nature the same thing, right?

[19:55] But the other relation, another thing, when you say that what? There's no that the common reading says the same thing as the Father and the Son. That's like denying the accident and what substance that distinction. That's a very subtle thing, right? See, I got no philosophy. Yeah. Aristotle already distinguished between these two kinds of composition, right? And he knew that in God they were what. Not that distinction was not found, right?

[20:30] We were reading the the gospel. I mean, the Epistle Saint James in the Mass now, and the text there were every perfect giving and gift. You know, comes down from the Father of lights, right? Now the lights there is is plural. I remember correctly. So how would you divide the lights that he's the father of? Would you divide them into two or three? Two. Yeah. The light for the eye of the body, huh?

[21:09] If that light from the eye of the from the eye of the body, we wouldn't see it, right? Would be kind of bad, right? And then the light for the eye of the soul. Okay. But then the light for the eye of the soul is divided into two or three.

[21:29] No three. Yeah. So you have the natural light of reason, right? Whereby we can know a lot about God, though it's very difficult. But a philosopher like Aristotle got to know a lot about God, and what we learned about God before we got to the Trinity, Aristotle knew about God. Then you have the light of faith, where you see more than you did by just the light of reason, and so all this truth in the Trinity is seen because of the light of faith.

[22:06] But most of all, we know God through the light of what glory. Although, as Thomas points out, the light of glory is light in a different sense. It's not to illuminate God as if he, because he draws them lightly accessible, but it's to what dispose our reason so it can receive God as the form by which it sees God. So that in the beatific vision, God is both what we see as He is, and that by which our reason sees Him as He is.

[22:38] Because we can't see Him as He is except by Him as the form of our mind, and that's something quite above the nature of our mind to have God as the form by which we see or understand, and therefore we have to be raised up, and this supernatural disposition is called the light of what glory, right? So he's the father of lights. I was going to say at the beginning of my prayer, you know, father of lights, light enough, you know.

[23:08] I'm very impressed with that, right? But what's what's marvelous about it too is, you know, I mean, although light can sometimes be used for something other than the mind, you know, it's most of all used for the mind when you talk about the soul, the reason rather. And so it says every perfect gift coming down right, from the father of lights. It emphasizes how great a gift is the natural light of reason, and the light of faith, and ultimately the light of what glory, where it says in the Psalms, in your light we shall see light, don't.

[23:44] Okay, so Thomas says illuminated us, right? What did you say in God the likeness to the substance and accident? Well, Thomas is saying that there's there's many, but he emphasizes two compositions in creatures, the composition of matter and form in substance, like the composition of body and soul in you and me, and then the composition of substance and some accident, right? And both of these compositions are denied about God.

[24:25] We had separate articles for them, remember? In in the question was it three? I guess it was right. The simplicity of God. And now he's saying by reason of the first denial, right? We say, for example, in God that God and the divine nature are the same thing, right? And likewise, we say that the father and the relation that constitutes him as his person, fatherhood, are the same thing, right?

[24:53] There's no distinction between the abstract and the concrete. But then, by reason of the second negation, the negation of the second composition, we say that the what God, let's say, and his wisdom are the same thing, right? Or God and his understanding are the same thing, right? Or his being and his thinking are the same thing, right? The reason why we say that the thought of God is God is because his being and his thinking are the same thing.

[25:25] So the thought that he has in his thinking, also is the same as his being, right? And therefore, it is God, right? That thought.

[25:38] And likewise, these other right relations that don't constitute the person, like common breathing, right? They are the same as the persons, right? By denial, in a sense, of a what composition of substance and accident, right? You liken it to that, huh? Because. The relation that constitutes a person, like your substance, so to speak, right? And this other one is something that belongs to you in addition to that, right?

[26:13] But because there's no distinction between substance and accident, God, so there's no real distinction between the Father and common breathing of the Son not one person because they have one relation, because that relation is not the one that constitutes that particular person, right? That's a very subtle reply. I didn't see it's longer than the reply to the objections.

[26:43] I was noticing that it's only that first page here in the Ignatius catalogue has something from Benedict, right, before he's pope, right? But lectures on the Trinity, right, among other things. Yeah. So I can just see what he what he says there. I know how much it's on the Trinity, but it says a lot about the Trinity. So this is before he's pope, though, basically. They've got here two or three pages of just when he was still fallible.

[27:11] I know. I've traced the you know the same Carter Singer, who is now yeah yeah. So they're careful when they present it in the catalog itself. I don't see why they didn't read it. Now the second objection says nothing is in itself, right?

[27:41] That seems to be like the axiom, right? Just like the axiom that I'm always quoting, nothing is before or after itself, right? So in Thomas, you know, is talking about

[27:56] if a thing doesn't exist, it can't bring itself into existence. Because then it'd be a cause of itself, and it'd be before itself. But nothing is before itself, right? Okay. This is a similar axiom. Nothing is in itself, right?

[28:13] But the relation is in the person, and it cannot be said there is an identity because if that was so, you could say for the same reason that it's in the essence, huh? Then it has this essence being distinguished, right? Therefore, relation or property, the person, not the same in God.

[28:37] Well, he's putting out to the second. It should be said that properties are said to be in the divine essence by way of identity only.

[28:52] But in the persons, they are said to be by way of identity, not only by being what the same secundum rem in the thing itself, but also as regards the what. Way of signifying, which is that of being a form in a what? Suppositum, right the underlying subject.

[29:18] So you can say that the properties or relations are in the persons in a somewhat different way, right? Or in a way which they are not in the what divine essence. They're not in the divine essence as a form in the what In the subject or underlying subject. Yeah, right. Okay.

[29:46] But they are in the persons not only as being the same secundum rem in the thing, but they are said to be in them as a form and it's what underlying subject. And therefore the properties both determine and distinguish the persons, but not, however, the what. Yeah. So it's a different way in which it's in both. Okay, now that's not a overwhelming or you know, say, this sudden invention to get out of difficulty right.

[30:18] And as I said, Aristotle in the fourth book of Natural Hearing, the Physics, distinguishes eight senses of what? In, right. And having learned those eight senses and knowing the order of them, the Thomas's commentary where he orders them, I've seen you know other philosophers right constantly mix up these senses. And it's got a lot of mileage out of those eight senses. So I'm very used to the idea of distinguishing between the way in which this is in that and that is in that.

[30:53] And it's a different way of being in. You know, the the first philosophers like Anaxagoras, they said you can't get something out of nothing. So if you get something out of something, it's got to be in there. I know we say in class, you know, can you get money out of my pocket? Well, if there's money in my pocket, you can get money out of my pocket.

[31:19] Because there's no money in my pocket, you can't get any money out of it, right? So everything that comes to be out of matter must be in there.

[31:29] Okay, if it's in there, right? How do you fit all these things in there? Or make them, you know, small. And actually has to eventually make them infinitely small in there, right? Okay, but no, in a way, he's confusing the way something is actually in something, and the way something is in something only in what potentiality right? And the first three senses of in.

[31:57] In this room, right. A part in the whole, teeth in my mouth. And the third sense of in genus and species, something is actually in something, right? But then the next sense, species in the genus, form in matter, right? These are only in their potentiality in their passive ability. And then later on, I've got you in my power, right? See. Well, that's another sense of in, but again, power rather than actuality.

[32:30] So. It's very important to know the senses of in, but here Thomas is giving a distinction, right, between the way in which these relations are in God and the way they're in a what person. And they're in both of them by way of identity, right? But they're in the persons only as a form is said to be in its underlying what subject, right?

[33:00] So, different what senses of in, right? But Thomas is a master of in, as I mentioned. Aristotle doesn't order the eight senses he gives that are in the fourth book, but Thomas says we'll order them in the way Aristotle taught us in the fifth book of wisdom, and he orders them perfectly, right? Absolutely marvelous what he does, right? And and there's some real surprising things that he does in there,

[33:31] and you're kind of surprised by the fact that he puts species in genus before form and matter, because you say form and matter is not more sensible than species in genus. Well, of course, if you follow the order, since species in genus is more like the third sense than form and matter, because it's like what part and whole. But apart from that, I always say to people, you know,

[34:04] suppose you have a piece of clay in the shape of a sphere, and you mold it into a cube. What has changed, the clay or the shape? What would the average person say? Shape. Yeah.

[34:19] Actually, it's not true. See, but the clay, the shape is the genus, the sphere and cube. And so he's imagining as if the genus is changing from one species to the other. When it's actually clay losing one form and acquiring another one, it's matter losing one form and acquiring another form. So it's really form and matter rather than genus and species. But the guy is falling back upon the earlier sense.

[34:46] Okay. See. And sometimes you speak, you know, the the temperature going up or going down, right? As if the genus is going from one species to the other. You know. So you realize Thomas is. I don't think anybody could have done that except maybe Aristotle himself, obviously. But but I mean Thomas is just a master of the word in, right? Where did he do that? In the fourth book of physics, the natural.

[35:14] Oh, in St. Thomas's commentary. Yeah, yeah. Aristotle, it takes a place, right? Things are in place, and so on. Aristotle, you know, wants to take up the word in there because of that. He distinguishes the eight senses of in, right? But he doesn't order them the way he does senses of these words that are equivocal by reason in the fifth book of wisdom, of the metaphysics. So Thomas says we'll order them in the way Aristotle taught us in the fifth book.

[35:42] And this is actually marvelous what he does. I mentioned how when I was first teaching logic, and I got thinking about this expression to think out, right? It's important to think things out, right? But then I realized you could distinguish the senses of thinking out by the senses of in and out in the.

[36:08] So to think out, say, a division of a genus into species, and to think out a definition, have different senses of in and out. Aristotle, to think out a conclusion, is another sense, right?

[36:24] To think out a conclusion goes back to the seventh sense of in or out. I bet you in my power. And then to think out what the division of a genus into species goes back to what, the fourth sense, the genus, the species, and the genus. But to think out definition goes back to the third sense.

[36:49] So. Thing I admire about Aristotle and Thomas, among other things, is that they take the words we all use like in and out, and they what realize that these words are equivocal by reason, and they distinguish the central senses, and they even what order the senses, right? There, therefore, they're very helpful to us in philosophy and in what theology, right?

[37:23] So Thomas is distinguishing two different ways that something is in something, right? Now the third objection. Whatever things are the same have themselves such that whatever is said of one is said of the other, right? But we say that the father generates, but we don't say that fatherhood generates, right? We say the son is generated, we don't say that sonship is generated, right? But Thomas is going to solve this by going back to the way these words signify, right?

[37:59] Because father signifies as a person, right? And fatherhood signifies as a form by which you are father, right? So it's the person who does something, right? You might do it by that forming as, but is not strictly speaking the form that does it, but the what person. So the reason the way it's signifying, right? You say the father generates, you don't say that the fatherhood generates. So he says the third should be said that participles and notional verbs signify notional acts, right, relative acts.

[38:37] But acts are of what underlying substances, right, individual substances. But properties do not signify as supposita individual substances, but as the forms of such, right? And therefore the way it's signifying is repugnant. That it part that participles and notional verbs be predicated of the what makes sense.

[39:14] So does a geometry teach you, or does geometry teach you? Do the Pythagorean theorem now? Would it be a geometry teaching you, or geometry teaching? What would you say? What do you say?

[39:29] Is it would a geometry teach you, or a geometry teach you? Does geometry teach you, or geometry teach you? Geometry. Geometry. Geometer. Okay. Or geometry. Trying to distinguish here. Yeah. Geometer. Yeah, and we'd say the geometry teaches you, right? Not geometry. You could say maybe the geometry teaches you by geometry by having that form, right? But you wouldn't speak of the geometry as teaching you, would you? Would strength beat you up, or the strong man beat you up?

[40:09] You'd say the strong man beats you up, right? but maybe you could say by strength, right? But because of the way it signifies. So although there isn't this real distinction, like there is an us between the strength and the strong one, right, a form and matter, there is nevertheless the way of signifying in God, this distinction, right? So by reason of the way of signifying, the one signifies as a individual substance, and the other signifies as a what form, right?

[40:41] Something can be said of one that cannot be said of the what other, right? Even though they are in the thing the same, right? As we're reading there, the third book of Natural Hearing. That's where in the first part Aristotle defines motion, right? And then after defining motion, he gets into acting upon and undergoing, right? And what is the act in both cases? And the act is the same.

[41:13] And the objection, of course, is acting upon is not undergoing. I don't act upon myself, right? Okay. So it's my kicking you, and you're being kicked. Are they two different realities? What'd you say? So Aristotle says it's the same thing. But it's called kicking insofar as it's from me, the kicker. And it's called being kicked because it's in you, as a subject from me. Or not?

[41:45] Yes, yes. So kicking and being kicked different definition, even though it's the same what reality. I was looking at Plato's dialogue. It's a terrible dialogue, I wouldn't recommend it to, you. At least I don't know where to begin. The Parmenides, right? And in the Parmenides, Parmenides and Zeno have come to Athens, and they talk to to this young guy, Socrates. And Socrates kind of contradicts himself sometimes.

[42:14] And in some of my articles, I've used this passage, but uh They're talking about being and one, right? And the way Parmenides and Zeno speak as if being partakes of the one, and the one partakes of being, as if they're two different things, being and one. Well, are they two different things? Now they actually differ in definition, huh? But they're really the same thing. And in the fourth book of Wisdom, when Aristotle shows the wisdom about being and the one, he shows that they're the same, but they nevertheless what different definition.

[42:52] So the one really means undivided being. But every being, in order to be, must be in some way undivided. and so when you divide, you know, you chop your head off, and so on, you cease to be.

[43:07] And if I broke up, if I separated the parts of this chair, if I broke up the chair, you wouldn't have a chair anymore. So, in a sense, the being of the chair and the unity of the chair are the same thing. But unity adds the idea of negation. That's negation of reason, negation of division, right? Negation is a being of reason. So, Parmenus and Zeno in the dialogue have not yet seen this, right?

[43:34] Whether Plato saw, it, we don't know, right? A lot of times, you see the the problem in Plato's dialogues, and then you pick up Aristotle. It's in solving this, right? Now, Plato gave lectures besides the dialogues, which you don't have. We've lost Plato's lectures. So, whether in his lectures he got any further than the dialogue, we don't know, right? See, we see a problem in the dialogue, and then we see the solution Aristotle, and was Aristotle helped in some way in the lectures of Plato?

[44:05] Did Plato get no further than the what? The dialogue, you know. And sometimes, in some of the dialogues, there's a little suspicion that Aristotle's objections to the teaching of Plato are already being incorporated by Plato in the dialogues. It should be a very subtle thing, you know.

[44:30] Incidentally though. it's a nice thing about Plato. though So when Aristotle was talking about the infinite there in the third book of natural hearing, and he's asking, "Does the infinite exist?" He's going back and forth, right? And one reason he gives why people think the infinite exists is because they think time is infinite. Time seems to have what always been. I guess Zeno said this, right? Someone asked him, "What is?

[44:59] Can you give me something that's always been?" And he said, "Time." And if you say that there was a time before time was, you contradict yourself, right? So it seems that time always was, right? And Thomas in the commentary says, and this was the common opinion of the Greeks, right? And only Plato, as Aristotle points out later on, said that time had a beginning. That's interesting, right?

[45:31] Now, whether Plato knew that is another question, but he had the idea that time could have a beginning, right? And Aristotle, you know, in the book on probable reasoning, says that one of the things we long to know is whether the universe is eternal or not. And Thomas will maintain that by natural reason you can't really know whether the universe was eternal or not, right? But it's interesting that you know.

[45:57] For most Greek philosophers and for most men, would seem kind of you know obvious that time always was. And Plato said, "No, it could have a beginning." And so, in the beginning, God created heaven and earth. At the same time, he created time, right? It does the beginning of time.

[46:17] So you have to admire this guy, Plato. huh? Aristotle, or Thomas really, says that Plato and Aristotle are the chief philosophers, as the Proemium says, the sophie. So, although he puts Aristotle higher, calling him the philosopher, right? He puts these two guys as the chief.

[46:37] Just like I might say that Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas are the chief theologians of the Church, are the greatest minds. You can see that even the Catechism of the Catholic Church, right? Most of the quotes are from, except for Scripture obviously, are from Augustine and then after Augustine, Thomas. You know. So. great minds. So. I'm ready. to go.