Prima Pars
145. Summa I q.42 a.3-4: Order of Origin without Before and After, and the Son's Equality with the Father
Class of 2008-06-19
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/145-summa-i-q-42-a-3-4-order-of-origin-without-before-and-after/

[0:00] But against all this nonsense, wherever there is plurality without order, there is confusion. Modern university. A pluribus confusion. Didn't the Warden tell you that story, Monsignor? He says you want to see a good example of confusion of modern mind. Just look at any college college But notice, in the beginning of the eight books of natural hearing, Aristotle reasons that the confused is before the distinct in our knowledge, and that the confused confused is more known and more certain for us.

[0:50] And this is a different meaning of the word confused here, right? Because confused can mean mixed up, right? And that's in sense we're saying here. So does Aristotle mean that we're more sure when we're mixed up?

[1:09] And perhaps you know part of Descartes' problem is mixing up these senses of of confused, right? He's confused about the word confused, and probably the first meaning of confused is the bad sense.

[1:28] Yeah, yeah. Now, you know, simple example: the two senses. You know, if you think a dog is a cat, then you're confused in the bad sense. You're mixed up. You're mistaken, right?

[1:46] If you think the dog is an animal, are you mistaken? Although animal does not distinguish between dog and cat, right? So that's confused in a different sense, right? But it's not false. You can say that's an incomplete knowledge of dog to know he's an animal, right? But it's not a. Yeah. So they give me a nice glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, let's say, and I say this is Chianti, and then I'm what mistaken?

[2:28] If I take the easy way out and say now this is a dry red wine, you can say my knowledge is not too distinct of what I'm drinking, but I'm quite certain, and I am not in fact what mistaken. Okay. So this is the the bad sense.

[2:53] Confusion actually etymologically means poured together, right? I'm mixed up. There is a little more discrete the parts, but somewhat the same thing, you know. I think mixed up, you know, doesn't have, hasn't moved to this neutral sense. But you can compare confusion there a little bit. The first sense is something bad, and the second sense is is indistinct but not, you know, mistaken. You can compare that to the way we move the word suffering or passio or undergoing, right?

[3:32] But the first meaning of undergoing is to be acted upon in a way that's harmful to you, right? And then later on, you drop off the idea of being harmful and just keep the idea of being acted upon and receiving something. That's a little bit like the way you move the word confusion, perhaps. Aristotle doesn't mean you know stop there and explain the equivocation of the word, but seems to me that there is, and I see them using you know this this word confusion there in the text sometimes, you know, this bad sense.

[4:12] Okay, answer should be said that order is always said in comparison to some what beginning. This is very much the way Aristotle proceeds in the fifth book of wisdom, because the first book, I mean, the first word he takes up there is the word beginning, right? Then later on, he takes up the words before and after, which pertain to order, but the way he proceeds there is to recall the common notion of beginning, what is first in in being or becoming or knowing, and then he divides the senses of before according to before in being, before in becoming, before in knowing, right?

[4:56] So by the categories, you just take the word before by itself, right? Without using the word beginning. Whence, just as beginning is said in many ways, the word beginning is equivocal by reason. According to what position as a point, that's kind of the first meaning Aristotle gives, right? According to what understanding, which is actually the fifth meaning Aristotle gives as beginning a demonstration, and according to what singular causes.

[5:42] So also order is said, huh? In many ways. Now, in divine things, there is a beginning by origin without what before. Whence is necessary that there be an order by origin without before? That might seem to be you know either contradiction if you think you know. Or meaning before and after, or else you might say that the order that involves before and after is just one sense of order, but not according to Thomas in the Sentences.

[6:25] And this is called the order of nature according to Augustine, not by which one is before the other, but by which one is from the other. Yeah, he has one like that in the in the De Potentia, you know, and that seems like he's distinguishing those two kinds of order. One be this is before that, the other from, and that's not the way he explains it in the in the Sentences.

[6:50] Explains before and after is the general meaning of order, right? And then there are differences, right, to contract order. Various kinds of order, and then we keep one of those differences, right? And we apply it to what? God, right?

[7:17] So I'm before some of you guys in time, right? Um, but I'm before my son also as what? Cause. Yeah, as father, origin, right? Mm-hmm. And so you keep the idea of what's specific to my being before my son, right? And drop the idea of my being before him, right? Mm-hmm.

[7:40] And you apply this word to God. Okay, we looked already to the reply to the first objection. How does fit into what we talk about in

[7:55] God? He says the order of nature signifies a notion of origin in general, but not in what? Particular, right? Mm-hmm. And the second objection. Second objection is saying, in whatever things there is an order of nature, one is before the other, right? Not necessarily in time, but according to nature and what? Understanding, right?

[8:31] Like two is before half a four, right? Not in time, right? Mm-hmm. It's not two in time, then it gradually becomes half of four, right? They're hama simo together, right? Mm-hmm. But yet you can say that it's half a four because it is two. It's not two because it's half a four. It has that relation, right? Because it's two.

[9:00] It's not the number two because it has that relation. Mm-hmm. They might recognize that that is so. Now, to the second, it should be said that in created things, even when that which is from the beginning is what? Coeval, right? At the same time, coeval co-duration to its beginning. Nevertheless, the beginning is before by nature and what? Tending. If one considers that which is the beginning, huh?

[9:41] Now. Come back upon in a moment, but but if we consider the relations of cause and cause, and beginning and begun, right? It is manifest that relatives are what, hama simo together. By nature and understanding, in so far as one is in the definition of the other. Okay. Now, come back a bit upon that, because it goes back to the categories, right? In the categories, Aristotle when he enumerates them, he does substance ousia, and then how much, quantity, and how quality, and then towards what, a relation, right?

[10:34] But when he takes them up, he takes up substance first, and then quantity, and then you expect him to take up quality, instead he takes up relation for quality. Why?

[10:48] Well, because the Platonic definition of relation, what is said towards another in any way whatsoever, right, is relation, huh? And Aristotle sees a distinction that Plato or the Platonists don't see. A distinction between something like double and half, which is said towards something, your double of something other than yourself, right, or your half of something, and then something like knowledge, which is said to be of something.

[11:25] And what's the difference between those two? Well, double is nothing in itself. It's only something towards another. Why knowledge is a certain quality of my mind,

[11:44] but upon this quality or following upon this quality is relation to the thing, known. So knowledge belongs fundamentally in the genus of quality, under habit or disposition,

[12:03] although it has this relation following upon it. Why double and half? The whole nature double and half is to be towards another, or shorter or taller, right? Well, how much is shorter? How much is taller, right? It could be anything, right? So

[12:27] he then modifies the definition of what relation is. It's one whose whole being, whose whole nature, being sense of nature, is to be towards another, right? But now, what about the word beginning?

[12:44] To say this is the beginning of that, well, seems to be said of something, right? Like, hey, say the axiom of beginning, nothing is the beginning of itself, right? So you're always the beginning of something in a way other than yourself, right? But is beginning. Purely relation, or is it something that has relation falling upon it? Is it like knowledge, or is it like double and half?

[13:13] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you just consider the relation in beginning, right? That would not be before in nature or definition, what it's, because relatives have to be understood in reference to each other. But that which is a beginning, but is not this relation, would be before in definition or before in nature. But in the case of the Trinity, they're constituted by what the relations. So if you just consider the relation, then they're hama simo?

[13:54] And therefore, one is not before the other. That's a very subtle thing, right? But notice how Thomas is the good student of Aristotle, huh? If you look at the the text, and once again, I was kind of fond of. If you look at the commendation and partition of sacred scripture, supposed to be Thomas's inaugural lectures, he's going to lecture on scripture. But there he talks about the good student, and he's got a scriptural text, and the good student is compared to the earth, right?

[14:33] And Thomas says, "Well, why this metaphor, right? Well, the earth is what lowly, humble, right? This is got to be humble, right? But the earth was thought to be stable, right? So you got to be humble to to learn from the teacher, right? To submit, you know, put your mind under somebody else. But you can't take everything, you know, at random that the teacher says, right? It has some discrimination, and it might be better than this than that, right?

[15:06] Now, and so that's the stability of the earth. But then the third thing is the what fertility of the earth. So a good student can take the idea he gets from the master and develop it or apply it and see consequences of it, right?

[15:34] Like when Max Planck discovered the quantum, right? And then later on comes Niels Bohr. Five years later, Einstein uses it to explain the photoelectric effect. And then 13 years later, Bohr uses to explain the atom, right? The stability of the atom, and so on. So it becomes very fruitful in the mind of someone who. Gets this idea, but he sees consequences of it and applications, but no one else has seen before.

[16:07] That's that's the culminating quality of the student, right? He's got to be humble to to listen to the master, as Thomas says. He's got to read the master or listen to him carefully, frequently, and with reverence. And he's got to have stability, right? And then finally, he's got to what? Not stop with what the master's given him. But you know, the idea of of seminar, right, comes from the word for seed, right?

[16:34] So in a sense, what the teacher is doing is planting a seed in your mind. And like Empedicus says, if you press this down from it in your mind, you'll get many things from it, right? And this is what happened, you know. So Thomas is is taking what Aristotle did in the what? Categories, right? And I think I mentioned Kajetan is good in that, right? He's you don't have a commentary on the Categories by Thomas, right?

[16:57] But Kajetan, you know, reflecting this understanding Thomas has from the Categories. That distinction, right, between something whose whole nature is to be towards something, right, and then one whose what, you know, has a certain relation followed upon it, but it's something other than that relation, like knowledge. And this is, and beginning is like knowledge. It's that kind of a relative, secundum dici right? as opposed to right, as opposed to relative secundum esse But you've got to be careful about those words, what they mean.

[17:33] That's a distinction Aristotle's making, from the relative secundum dici which is at the beginning. Whatever is said to be of another, right, to something whose essay or nature is, yeah.

[17:51] So he says, going back, look at this whole second objection. To the second, it should be said that in created things, even when that which is from the beginning is what coeval, right, together in what duration to its beginning. Nevertheless, the beginning is before by nature and intellect. If one considers that which is the beginning, right, okay,

[18:23] just like if I say if you consider that which is knowledge, it's a quality, not a relation, right? But if one considers the relations of cause and cause, and of beginning and the begun, it is manifest that relatives are what simul together. hama in Greek Aristotle had already taught this. The relatives as such are simul I don't become taller than you, and while you become shorter than me, right?

[18:54] And one of these can't really be understood without the other. In so far as one is in the definition of another, right? But then we find out this strange thing in God: the relations themselves are subsisting persons in one nature, right? Whence neither on the side of the nature nor on the side of the relations can one person be what before another, Neither by nature nor understanding, right?

[19:29] So from the categories to question forty-two, article three, ad two. huh So put that in your pipe and smoke it for a while. Now, the third objection is misunderstanding, right? We speak of an order of nature. We don't mean what an order of what. That there's a distinction in the nature itself of God. To third, it should be said that order nature is said not by which the nature itself is ordered, right?

[20:11] Because then there would be distinction in the nature itself. But that the order in divine persons is to be noted according to a natural what origin. We talked about that in the previous article again, right? But that the Father what naturally generates the Son. He doesn't choose to generate him, right? He chooses to create you and me.

[20:37] And the priest there in the parish there, you know, he says, "God loved you before anyone else loved you." You know how we're loved by our mothers, you know, especially the son. But God loved you even before your mother loved you, right? And it's because God loved you and chose you to be that He arranged, among other things, your mother and father would meet.

[21:01] That's kind of interesting thought, I think. But this is not the way the Father generated the Son, right? He didn't choose to generate him. And the Father and the Son didn't what choose to breathe the Holy to breathe the Holy Spirit. To breathe the Holy Spirit.

[21:31] So Augustine I guess he uses the phrase order naturae right? He means the what order, the origin of one person and the other, but that it's a what natural proceeding, not a voluntary in the sense of a chosen one, right? Although it's in harmony with their their will, right?

[21:54] Now the last objection was saying why not say ordo essentiae Why say ordo naturae The fourth, it should be said that nature, in a way, implies the notion of a beginning. So Aristotle in the second book of Natural Hearing, defines nature as beginning and cause of motion and rest. So it has the idea of a beginning, but the word essence doesn't have that idea.

[22:24] And therefore, the order of origin is better named, huh? The order of nature as Augustine names it, huh? Than the order of what Essence, huh?

[22:40] So he's defending Augustine's way of speaking, right? Take a little break here before you do the fourth article. Article four here. It seems that the son is not equal to the father in what magnitude, right? For it says in John fourteen verse twenty eight, the father is what greater than me, and the apostle, meaning Saint Paul, one Corinthians fifteen, for the son himself will be what subject to him who subjects to himself all things.

[23:31] Moreover, fatherhood belongs to the dignity of the father, right? But fatherhood does not belong to the son. Therefore, not whatever dignity the father has does the son also have. Therefore, he's not equal to the father in what In magnitude or greatness. It's not as great as the father.

[23:59] I guess magnus means great, huh? Magnus, magnitude, means great greatness. Moreover, wherever there is whole and part, many parts are something more than one only or fewer parts. Just as three men are something more than two or what one, but in God there seems to be what a universal whole and part. For under relation or notion, there are contained many what notions. Since therefore in the father there are three notions and the son only two, it seems that the son is not equal to the father.

[24:42] The Holy Spirit is going to come in third because he's got only one notion. But against all this nonsense is what is said by Saint Paul in Philippians two six. He did not consider it what theft, right? To be what equal to the father, right?

[25:13] Okay, I answer. It should be said that it is necessary to say that the son is equal to the father in greatness. For the greatness of God is nothing other than the perfection of His what nature.

[25:31] But this is of the notion, the definition of fatherhood and sonship, that the son through generation arises at having the perfection of the nature that is in the father, just as the father.

[25:48] But because in men generation is a changing over, right? It's a changing over of the one going forth from ability to act. Not at once from the beginning does the man who is a son be equal to the what father generating, but through a suitable what increase or growth he's led to what equality with the father,

[26:19] unless it happens otherwise in account of some defect in the beginning, the principal generation. Now it is manifest from what has been said before that in God there is properly and truly fatherhood and sonship. Nor is it possible that the power of God the Father was defective in generating, nor that the Son of God successively and by changing over arrives at what perfection. Whence it is necessary to say that from eternity he was equal to the Father in what greatness, huh?

[27:04] Whence also Hilary says in the book about the synods, the councils, take away infirmities of the body, right? Take away a beginning of the conception. Take away pains, huh? Was a mother's pains, huh? And all human necessity.

[27:26] Every son by natural birth is what Equal to the father because he is also what like to his nature. Now, as first reply to the first objection, Thomas gives two solutions, right? And in the second solution, you've got to be careful of the words, huh? To the first therefore, it should be said that those words are understood to be said about Christ according to his what human nature, in which he is less than the Father and subject to him, right?

[28:08] That's just the way Thomas replied to the objection, right? But according to his divine nature, he is equal to the Father, right? And this is what Athanasius says, and that's again the Athanasian Creed: equal to the Father by his divinity, less than the Father by his humanity. And you could say by his humanity he's less than himself as God too, right? Okay. But he emphasizes the Father because of the the text, right?

[28:44] Say the father is greater than me, right? But now this second way here, or according to Hilary in the ninth book about the Trinity, by the authority of giving, the father is what greater, but he is not less. To whom what one in the same being and nature is given, right?

[29:11] I always find that you know way of speaking a little bit difficult, right? Because maior seems to imply minor, right? Just like double implies half, right? So he's saying that the father is greater because he gave the divine nature to the son, right? But the Son is not less because we see it's one and the same. Yeah, It, seems like a little bit strained, huh? But notice Thomas quotes the synod here, and in the book about the synods, about the councils, it says that the subjection of the son, right, is the piety of what nature birth.

[29:58] That is the recognition of the paternal authority, but authority meaning you know he's the origin of the son. But the subjection of the others is the infirmity of creation, right? Okay. Now again, the word subjection there seems strange to apply to the son in his what divine nature because he has the divine nature from the father, right? Should you really use the word subject there? You know, but you have to determine what how it's to be understood here, right?

[30:35] He said the recognition. It's kind of stretching. It seems to be the word. subjection. I heard a priest the other day, and not our parish, but another place, was talking about the humility of Christ, right? And and he was

[30:58] attributing humility to Christ not only in his human nature, but in his divine nature because he receives his divine nature from the father, right? Again, I would say that's like the word subjection, you know. Because when Thomas talks about humility, he'll say, "Well, God cannot really be humble because no one can subject himself to, right? " And but Christ as man can be humble because he puts his human nature under his divine nature.

[31:28] But now I don't accuse the priest of you know of false thing, you know. It seems to be kind of using the word humility, like the word using the word subjection. I mean. But again, you have a synod doing that, right? And you might even find popes, you know, saying something like this, you know. But I think you've got to

[31:51] interpret those ways of speaking benignly, right? But maybe not extend them because they can be misunderstood, right? Is the son in any way under the father? I don't think, according to his divine nature, as man he is. But even as man, he's under himself as God. But but as God, is he under the Father? No. So, but subjection has it comes from that.

[32:25] This book of the synods is a collection of the councils. Is that what it is? Yeah, or a book about synodia. So that was an authoritative text. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[32:39] But recognitio, you know, that the Father is the is the beginning, at whom he proceeds. Call it subjection. It's kind of a stretching of the the word, kind of contrary to it. Well, you got to be careful because you remember back in the substance of God, you had the word perfect, right? And the word perfect etymologically comes the word made, right? So if you say God is perfect, you're saying He's made.

[33:13] No, you got to be careful because the the etymology of a word is not the meaning of the word. Now, and Thomas is often pointing out, right? I kind of criticize people who say that the word philosophy means a lover of wisdom. And at least in Aristotle, he doesn't use the word philosophy to mean the love of wisdom. That's in the etymology of the word. Now, for Aristotle philosophy is naming the knowledge that a lover of wisdom would pursue.

[33:47] And that's how he got the name philosophy, but he doesn't use the word philosophy to name the love of wisdom itself. So I think the word, the meaning of the word philosopher, is a lover of wisdom. So the philosopher is. But the meaning of philosophy is not the love of wisdom that he has, but the knowledge he pursues because he has this love of wisdom. So the primary meaning of philosophy is what wisdom.

[34:17] And Thomas, in his commentary in the ninth book, I think it is, of the wisdom there, he's talking about how a definition is never one word, right? But sometimes he says we use a synonym that's more known,

[34:36] and that helps the student, but it's still not a definition, the synonym, right? Like he says the synonym for philosophy, he says sapientia. It doesn't say, you know, amor sapientia. See, but he calls it wisdom, right? So, as soon as the way Aristotle and Thomas uses the word philosophy, it doesn't mean the love of wisdom, but that's its etymology, right?

[35:04] And you say, you know, etymology of perfect is made. That's not the meaning of the word perfect. And certainly not the meaning of the word perfect is said of God, right? So I mean, I suppose you could defend this way, but you know, you know, you could attack purposely say, well, you're you're you're confusing brick with the the etymology of the word subjection, you know. But still, there's no need to use such a word.

[35:33] Kind of funny, funny way of naming, you know. So we can admire it that we shouldn't imitate it. Well, I'd be careful about it, you know.

[35:49] Just like Thomas, that earlier thing didn't seem to reject entirely. origin's way of speaking, he is always what, yeah? Or we say, or we said that the Father and the Son are always breathing the Holy Spirit, right? As you can breathe into that, you know, much better say you know they've always breathed the Holy Spirit, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So

[36:28] like that that face off there with the prophet and the prophet's a ball, you know, or whatever. Maybe he doesn't hear. Maybe he's taking a nap. No, you know they're yelling louder you know they're God.

[36:43] So funny. Okay, the second objection is arguing from the the great authority of fatherhood, right? Great dignity of father. It's got Father's Day. It's tough for my old grandchildren there because their fathers in Afghanistan, right? So all these references to father, this almost I'm crying a little bit. Church, you know, because that's the service on Father's Day, being a father, and they hear the word father over and over again.

[37:15] So to second, should be said that equality is noted according to what the magnitude, the greatness of. But greatness in God signifies the perfection of the nature, as has been said, and pertains the essence of God. And therefore, equality in God and likeness is to be noted according to the essential what attributes, huh?

[37:51] Nor is it possible by the distinction of relations to speak of what inequality or unlikeness, huh? I said, no, goes back in a sense to categories in a sense, huh? Because greatness is what

[38:11] if you take greatness in the quantity sense, it would be something absolute and not something what relative, right? And but if you take greatness as referring to the excellence of the nature, right? Again, it's not the relation, right? Once Augustine says against Maximinus that the question of origin is what from what, right?

[38:41] But that of equality is. qualis au quantis, right? Those are the concrete words for the second and the third what categories. Now Aristotle distinguishes the categories; those three, you know, quantity, quality, relation. Thomas does. He says it signifies something absolute, and then he subdivides into quantity, quality, or something not absolute, but towards another way. So the word magnitude then seems to signify something what absolute.

[39:18] Now fatherhood, therefore, is what the dignity of the father, right? Just as the what? Yeah, just as the essence of the father. For dignity is absolute and pertains to the what essence.

[39:40] Thus, therefore, just as the same essence, which in the father is fatherhood, right, in the son is sonship, and therefore the same is the dignity, which in the father is what fatherhood, and in the son is sonship.

[40:01] Truly, therefore, it is said that whatever a dignity the father has, the son has also. Nor does it follow the father has fatherhood; therefore, the son has what fatherhood, right? Because quid or what is changed into another category, right? ad aliquid? For the same is the essence, and therefore the dignity or worth of the father and the son, but it's in the father according to relation of giving, and the son according to relation of what?

[40:43] What does he humbly acknowledge receiving divine nature from him? Said this priest is trying to do almost serving, you know. Yeah, be very careful about that.

[41:05] Now, to the third, it should be said that relation in God is not a what universal whole. Although it is said of many what relations, so likeness here is going to deceive into thinking that there is a what universal whole, just like when you say God or the Father and Son Holy Spirit. It seems like God is a universal whole, right? But then universal whole is said of things that differ in their what their being.

[41:36] These guys don't differ in their being. Each one is I am who am. So the father says, "I am who am." The son says, "I am who am." A real God stand up,

[41:56] because all the relations are one according to their what essence and being, which is repugnant to the notice universal, whose parts are distinguished secundum esse. Right. That goes back the reason why we didn't say that God is in a genus, right, or that God is or a species, right. That God is really a universal whole, instead of these many, because then they'd have to differ by their being.

[42:32] And likewise, the name person, as has been said above, is not a universal in God. Whence neither all the relations are something more than one of all. This is a very subtle thing. Nor all the persons more than one only. Why? Because the whole perfection of divine nature is in each of the persons. I heard Thomas saying, you know, another text:

[43:07] an angel is his own nature, right? There's only one angel of each kind. Why we human beings we partake of human nature, right? We can't identify human nature with me because I'm not the only man. So I was making a joke. I said, "I partake of human nature." I said, "I always knew I wasn't fully human." That's kind of

[43:37] like Mother Teresa's when she was told that the Hindus, because they worship all kinds of things, yeah, and they used to set up shrines and have her picture and they burn incense to her, yeah. And so somebody asked her, "What do you think of that?" She says, "After all the work I've done, they treat me as if I weren't human."

[44:02] So we can't really say that the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit partake of one nature, because then that one nature would be something more than one of them.

[44:19] But there's no distinction between the Father and the divine nature. There's no distinction between the Son and the divine nature, or the Holy Spirit and the divine nature. So the Father and the Son together are not more than the Holy Spirit. But the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit together are not more than the Holy Spirit.

[44:44] That's why they use the word communicate. They communicate divine nature. You can say that divine nature is common to them, but not common in the sense of universal, said of them.

[45:05] It's not something they all partake of, but something they all are. One of them considered by himself is this, right? Now, is it say anywhere in Scripture, you know, that God is three persons, explicit, or that

[45:36] the Father, these three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God, right? You don't have those things as. Explicitly stated, as it might be stated in theology,

[45:51] you can see that very explicit way of stating it can be come out, but you you find in scripture, you know. But you don't find it spelled out quite that way, you know.

[46:05] I think that was one of the objections to the use of the word "person" being used about God in scripture. Therefore we shouldn't have it.

[46:18] So, I guess we're going to have to stop here, right? What do you say? Seek it none. Seek it none.