Prima Pars
146. Summa I, Q. 42, Articles 5–6: The Father and Son in each other and equal in power (with a digression on dividing things in two or three)
Class of 2008-06-26
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/10-prima-pars/146-summa-i-q-42-articles-5-6-the-father-and-son-in-each-other/

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

[0:29] So the six articles of question forty-two would be divided into two or three parts if you want to divide them. So you said for forty-two? Yeah, we're in forty-two now, up to Article Five, of Forty-Two. Maybe the first one against the others. Yeah. So the first article could be divided against the last five, right? Because the first one's asking kind of, in general, can you speak of equality in God?

[1:11] And obviously, there's a question about equality because it first of all suggests quantity, and we have to see what equality means here, right? And then you could say the other five articles would be divided into three, according to three kinds of equality. And one would be equal in duration or eternity, right? One in greatness or magnitude, right? And one in what? Power. Okay. And you say, okay, that's three, and you got five articles, right?

[1:44] Okay. Now, why the fifth article should be attached to the fourth, right? Is pretty clear from the by the articles we'll see, because perhaps one of the main reasons for saying the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son is because the Father is the same as the divine nature, and the divine nature is the same in numbers in the Son, and vice versa.

[2:08] The Son is the divine nature, right? And that nature is in the Father, right? So in that sense, although the other reasons too will give why one is in the other, but you can see it's tied up immediately with the idea that they're being equal in magnitude, right? Because they have the same what? Divine nature in number, right? Okay. So

[2:31] in the second of those three parts, in the second part of the five, I mean, of the six, right? You attach five to what? Four, right? Okay. And that's easier to see, perhaps, why he should attach whether there's order of nature in God or in the divine persons to what? It being eternal, right? Okay. But if you think perhaps of the contrast here between.

[3:02] The order of this before that, which he's going to reject in God, right? But the order of this from that, right? Which we explained last time more at length is taking over one of the what differences, but dropping the what genius, huh? Um,

[3:25] if you think you're this an opposition to before and after, and you go back to the categories of Aristotle, and the first sense of before and after is what time, right? And so eternity is going to negate that before and after of time, right? And that's occasion maybe to say there's no other before and after, but that's where the word before and after begins in the time duration.

[3:50] And so if the Son is co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son, then we begin to see there's no before and after, right? Starting with the first meaning of before and after, which is where one is before in in time another, right? Okay, or where one could be without the other and be without the other. Do you see that? Okay.

[4:15] So you see we could divide these six articles then into two, right? The first one, talking about equality in general, against a particular consideration of three kinds of equality. But to the first and the second, there is a another article attached, right? Because it a special connection, which is especially clear here, but I think you can see a little bit if you look at the other one too.

[4:41] Okay. It had um, so yeah, it's one and then two, two through six go together, and then five and six. No, four four and five go together, and two and three go together, right? Oh, okay. And then six stands by itself, but that's in power, right? Okay. Okay.

[5:10] Yeah. Now Thomas doesn't bother to do that because he's as he uses in the commentary in the Peri Hermeneias Aristotle, he says studens brevitate, right?

[5:27] He's studious to be brief, right? And so Thomas has to unfold a little bit the master there, right? Okay. So let's look now at the fifth article here.

[5:42] To the fifth one goes forward thus. It seems that the Son is not in the Father, and the reverse is not so. Father and Son, for the philosopher that's Aristotle, right, in the fourth book of Natural Hearing Physics. Lays down eight ways of being something in another, right?

[6:05] Of course, as Aristotle points out there in the fourth book, that's when he's talking about place in first and then time. And the first meaning of en is to be in place, to be in this room. Then there are seven other senses of it that he gives there, right? And we mentioned before how Thomas orders the eight senses, in the way Aristotle shows us in the fifth book of wisdom.

[6:33] But Aristotle himself doesn't order them there. And by none of these is the son in the father or the reverse, as is clear to one running through each of those ways, right?

[6:50] Therefore, the son is not in the father nor the reverse, huh? So we can run through those eight meanings now if we want to. So the first meaning of en is to be in place, to be in this room. Whereas the father in the son is in the place, or the son in the father? Now that's something that pertains to natural bodies, right? Second meaning of en is what?

[7:17] Part and whole, right? And so is the father in the son as a part of the son, or is the son in the father as a part of him, right? The third meaning of what? In is like the genus is in the what? Species, and you can reduce to that the difference in the species. Was the father like the genus of the son, like animal is in man?

[7:46] No. And then the fourth meaning of in is the species in the what? Genus. So is the son in the father as man is an animal, or seven is a number, or? Okay. And the fifth sense is what? Form in matter. Is one of these the form and the other the matter? Obviously, this is not so. God is pure act. Is one in the other as a whole is said to be his parts?

[8:19] Can't be. God has no parts. Okay. Is one in the other as what is in the power of the other? One is the what? The mover or the maker of the other. And in the last sentence I left my heart in San Francisco, is one in the other as its purpose? No. God doesn't have any purpose, huh? But he is the purpose of all the things. So discurrenti Thomas says, right?

[8:51] Running through, right, all of these, huh? This is the broad sense of discourse, to go from one thing to another. So you go through all of them; it doesn't seem to be any one that applies, right? So therefore, there can't be the father and the son, the son and the father. That's pretty convincing, right?

[9:14] Moreover, second objection: nothing that goes forward from something is in it. But the son, from eternity, goes forth from the what? Father, according to that of the prophet Processus ejus a principio, going forth is from the beginning. The beginning was the word, right? From the days of eternity. From the days of eternity That's a way of speaking of the days of eternity, because you're starting from creatures, right?

[9:49] Therefore, the son is not in the what? Father, if you went forth from him, it's like you went forth from your mother, and you're no longer in your mother, right? So he went forth from the father, and he's no. Longer in the Father. That's that's pretty convincing, right?

[10:07] Moreover, one of two opposites is not in the other. So it's virtue and vice, or vice and virtue, huh? One opposite the other. But the Father and the Son are opposed relatively. Therefore, one cannot be in the what other.

[10:26] But now, against all this nonsense, is what I said in the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of Saint John: "I am in the Father, and the Father is in me."

[10:39] Okay. Now Thomas, before he's going to reply to his objections, he's going to indicate about three ways that the Father is in the Son and the Son and the Father, right? I answer: It should be said that the that in the Father and the Son there are what three things to be considered, to wit, the essence, right, the divine nature. That's when he mentions first, right? That's why I was saying that it's kind of attached to this one on there being the same in what magnitude, right?

[11:16] Because they have the same nature. So he says there are three things to be considered: the essence, divine nature, the relation, and the what origin of one from the other, the proceeding of one from the other. And according to each of these, the Son is in the Father, and the reverse is so. For according to the essence, the Father is in the Son. Why? Because the Father is his own what essence.

[11:49] That was an article earlier that we saw, right? You compared it to consideration, right? You compared the three persons to the divine nature, and we said, is there any real distinction between the divine nature and the Father? No, they're the same. Is there any real distinction between the Son and the divine nature? No, because then there'd be composition in God, huh? And God is altogether simple, right?

[12:14] I'm just reading Aristotle's chapter on the word "necessary," the fifth book of wisdom this morning, and at the end he has kind of three little corollaries after he shows what necessary means and so on, and then he talks about the first thing, which is God being what necessary to itself, and therefore he reasons that it must be what altogether simple.

[12:42] So it's interesting, a nice little tidbit there in Aristotle. Just explain the word "necessary," but then show you how this is involved in understanding the first being, the first cause,

[12:55] the one who's necessary to be through himself, and then. That such a thing could not be composed, therefore, must be altogether simple. It's marvelous, right? Yeah. Thomas usually begins, you know, the consideration of divine substance by talking about his simplicity, even before his what perfection.

[13:17] So when Aristotle gets down to the chapter on perfect. He'll explain the things which God is perfect, Which is different from all the ways that the pictures are perfect.

[13:33] So he says, according to the essence, the Father is in the Son. Why? First of all, you've got to realize that the Father is his own what essence, right? He's a divine nature itself, and he communicates his what essence or divine nature to the Son, not through any what transformation of himself, he changeover. It's transmutatio. Whence it follows that since the essence of the Father is in the Son, that the Father is in the Son, right?

[14:05] Because the Father is the same thing as divine nature. But likewise, since the Son is also the same thing as the divine nature, it follows that he is in the Father, in whom is his nature, right? And this is what the great Hilary says in the fifth book about the Trinity.

[14:33] The unchangeable God follows his own what nature, if I could so speak, right? Generating a unchangeable God, right? Giving him the same nature. We understand therefore him to be subsisting in what? In him the nature of God, huh? Since in God, God is inside, inside, inside.

[15:04] Now he comes to the second thing the relations. According to relation, it is manifest that one of the opposites relatively is in the other. According to what understanding, right? So you can't understand double without half, right? Half without double, right?

[15:25] So you know, when somebody says, you know, four is double of two because two is half of four, is that really an argument? Because you really know one without the same time knowing the other.

[15:47] Or I'm taller than you, right? Therefore, you're shorter than me. Yeah. Aristotle had said this before, of course, huh? These guys really understood relatives.

[16:05] And in the third comparison, according to Origin, right? These are the three things we compare the persons to, right? The divine nature, the notions themselves, and then the section of Origin. According to Origin, it is manifest that the going forward of the understandable word is not to something outside, but it remains the one saying it. That, in a sense, is true. When I what produce a thought, it stays in my what mind, right?

[16:40] And when I imagine, it stays; the image stays in my what imagination, right? So it's not like we're making a chair or a table, right?

[16:54] So the word is in the one who what has the word, right? Who thinks the word, if you want to put it that way. That's one way they understand the first words. There, in the beginning was the what word? Yeah. Sometimes they understand beginning mean to mean in the beginning of time as the word beginning of duration, right? Signifying the eternity of the what the word, right?

[17:19] But sometimes they apply beginning to the Father, especially. And so, in the beginning was the word. In the Father was the word. That's what he's talking about, right? And in the same reason to be given about the what Holy Spirit.

[17:42] So we can say there are three ways, right, in which the Father is in the Son or the Son is in the what Father, right?

[17:55] Now he's going to reply to the objection there drawn from the eight senses of in there. To the first, therefore, should it be said that those things which are in creatures do not sufficiently represent those things which are of God, right?

[18:21] And therefore, according to no one of those ways which the philosopher enumerates, is the Son in the Father, right, or the reverse? It proceeds nevertheless, or it approaches nevertheless more to that mode, according to which something is said to be in the what principio originante, and that's the what the seventh meaning, right, of in.

[18:53] We tend to think of that as just being a cause, or an equivalent beginning principle in the beginning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Now, because the sense of it is that Basil uses the word, speaking of the Father's being the. Idea, to be extended the way we're speaking, right? But it resembles that, right?

[19:12] So just as you know, when Aristotle defines the mover cause, he says, "whence first there is the beginning of motion," right? So that's similar to saying that the father is the beginning of the son, right? Okay. So the way in which something is in its maker or its source, right, that kind of approaches that, right?

[19:44] Nevertheless, this falls short because there is lacking a unity of nature in created things. So I don't have the same nature and number that my father had. I have the same in species, but not individually. In the case of God. The son has the same nature numerically that the father has.

[20:09] When created things, there is lacking this unity of nature between the beginning and that which is from the beginning. Incidentally, Aristotle doesn't give in his famous distinction of the senses of these common words in the order of them. He doesn't give all the senses.

[20:40] What he does is to give the, I call them the central senses, right? And so, when Thomas goes through the eight senses there in the fourth book of Natural Hearing, he says, "What about in time? " Because Aristotle, even in that same book, he takes up time, will talk about what is in time, right? What does it mean to be in time, right? And Thomas says, "Well, this is led back to the first sense to be in place, because place is an extrinsic measure of the body, right?

[21:16] Like we might take a, you know, glass or something, you know, and you need two cups and you fill it up and you, right? So it measures that, and time measures most of all motion, but things are subject to motion. So time, like place, is a kind of extrinsic measure of things. And so to be in time is like to be in place, and so it's led back to that sense.

[21:45] Why would you go to the second sense, part and whole? That's really what, kind of what, quite different sense, and you go forward like that. The same way when Aristotle gives the meaning of beginning, right, in the fifth book of Wisdom, the first meaning of beginning is the beginning of the road, the beginning of the table, beginning of your property, right? And if I come in to your property and drive or walk down to the beginning of your property, the beginning of my motion will kind of correspond to the beginning of your property, and the time it takes me to get from the beginning of your property to here, the beginning of that time corresponds that, right?

[22:34] So the beginning in magnitude, the beginning in the motion over that magnitude, and the beginning in time kind of correspond. And it's even more clear if we talk about before and after. If I drive from here, let's say, to Boston, right, the before and after the road correspond to that, obviously, before and after in my motion. So just as Framingham comes before Boston, so the trip from Worcester to Framingham will come before the trip for that part of the motion from Framingham to Boston.

[23:09] The time it takes me to get from Worcester to Framingham will come before the time from Framingham to Boston, right? So they're very close, right? And Aristotle would give what I call the central sense, be the before and after the road, and to that you lead back these what? Other senses. Attached to them, yeah, yeah. So there are other senses that attached to the central senses. It's very clear in in the what Thomas says about the word in and about the word what.

[23:42] What? Yeah, yeah, and the word beginning, right? Okay. And yeah, so the first sense of before that Aristotle gives in the categories is before and time, It's a very explicit definition. But before in motion, before in the magnitude, is reduced to that first what sense, right? Okay. So you lead back these other senses.

[24:20] So you kind of join other senses to the side of these ones, huh? There's a forward movement from the first to the eighth sense.

[24:31] So it's very subtle what Aristotle does. So essentially you could leave this back to the seventh sense a bit, but it's not the same exactly, right? Okay. Now

[24:47] the second one said, well, second objection said, well, the son goes forward from the father, isn't he? Therefore, outside of him, right? He says, well, the going forward of the son from the father is not like the going forward of the creature from God, right? But it's according to the way of a going forward that's inside, right? As the thought goes forward from the heart, right, and remains in it, huh?

[25:15] Or like the image goes forward from the imagination, but remains in the imagination and doesn't go to the outside, huh? When I think about something, there proceeds from my reason a thought, but that thought is not outside my reason; it remains in my reason.

[25:36] Whence this going forward in God is by what only a distinction of what relations, not according to some essential what distance, huh That's what Bud Balzar likes to speak about Distance between elements huh?

[26:05] Now the third one, he says, that the Father and the Son are opposed according to relations, huh? But not according to their essence or substance, right? And that's the main reason why we said that they are one and the other, right? That's why this is attached to the the fourth article. But nevertheless, he says, of those things opposed relatively, one is in the other. You can't really understand double without understanding half, or Father without understanding Son, right?

[26:40] And incidentally, that's that's the reason why I divide the articles of faith, say about the humanity, not about the divinity, of different the two ways Thomas proceeds, right? Thomas has two explanations of the division of the articles, and one of them you have three articles, one for the Father, one for the Son, one for the Holy Spirit. And then the other division, you have one article because of the what unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, right?

[27:09] Well, I take the middle position and have two articles, right? Because one would be the distinction of the Father and the Son, because you can't really understand the Father without the Son, and so without the Father. And that's why when Thomas you know took up the names of the second person, he says, you don't have to take up the name Son because why take up the name Father, right?

[27:31] So they kind of belong together like one knowledge, Father and Son, right? Just like double and half. And then the breather, and and the breathe, right? The distinction of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. So I make two articles, huh? So,

[27:50] I think that's better than saying three or just one, right? In between, but that's my. And how many articles do you have within total? Well, Thomas says two ways of doing it, but the one that was the best is you divide the articles on the divinity of Christ and on the humanity of Christ, each of them into six. You end up with twelve, the name of the apostles, right?

[28:15] There's a playful attachment of one of each of the articles to one of the apostles. And I think I should take that too, you know, rigorously, but it's kind of beautiful, I mean it is. So you have one article on the divinity of God, right? Two on the what? On the twin on the distinction of the Father and the Son, the distinction of the Holy Spirit from them.

[28:40] And just in case, you have two processions in God, right? To the basis of his relations. And then you have three according to the three effects, right? The creation and sanctification and glorification. And then you get to Christ. You can divide the six. There's two ways of doing them. One from Psalm eight, there, where you divide them according to the psalms of, I mean, the articles of descent and the ones of ascent.

[29:08] And so you have his becoming man, emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave, right? And then his what? Death, and then descent, and then his what? Resurrection, and then his what? Ascension, and then his what? Second coming, right? So in a sense, he merits the ones of ascent by the by the ones of what? Descent. Yeah. So there, I divide it into two, and each of the two into three, right?

[29:43] But he who humbles himself should be exalted, right? That's the principle. But then, in the great prayer of the Te Deum, right, you have another one, right, where you have it divided into three. You have his becoming man, right? And then the main thing he did in his life. as far as redeeming us, his death in the cross, and then the things that follow upon that were the meritorious merits of the cross.

[30:12] He now obtains actually for us, right? And that's what the descent into hell, where he gives us the beatific vision, and then the resurrection, where he perfects our body, and then gives us a good place, the the in the ascension, right? According to the old division, the goods of the soul, the goods of the body, the exterior goods, and then the what third part is the second coming, right?

[30:38] He's going to come to judge us, right? So if you look if you look at the Te Deum, you can see that implicit there that division, right? It's dividing them into three. So you can divide them into two or three, but nothing else is allowed. You see, when you talk about the creeds, in the Nicene Constantinople Creed, you divide everything into three, according to the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and you attach certain other things to the Father, like creation, you know, appropriate them.

[31:11] But then in the Athanasian Creed that is quoted a lot here, you divide it into what two, according to the divinity of Christ and the humanity of Christ.

[31:22] Thomas uses that, you know, usually he's dividing articles. He uses that when he gives the compendium of theology, right? You'll go back to the text there in Saint John chapter what chapter there? It's a chapter that? He takes up what eternal life is, right? Seventeen, yeah. How does eternal life? You know, you Father and Him whom you have sent, right? And so he says belief, in a way, is a what praelibatio foretaste of the eternal life, right?

[31:59] In eternal life, you have these two things: the humanity, the divinity of Christ, and he divides it according to those two, and that's the way the Athanasian Creed has it, right? I don't think you can say one is correct and was incorrect. They're both good.

[32:17] That's why the rule that I give or teach, I call it the rule of two or three or both, because sometimes it's useful to divide both, like the example there of Aristotle dividing the plot. He praises Homer for teaching the Greeks how to make a good plot. A course of action has a beginning, middle, and end, right? That makes sense. That's into three, but then later on he gives the division of the plot into the tying of the knots and the untying of the knots, and that illuminates the plot as too.

[32:53] So sometimes you should divide by two, sometimes by three, sometimes by what both, yeah. So, I was noticing, you know, I was reading the fifth book of Natural Hearing there, and Aristotle is dividing up change or motion. Now, in the categories, if you look at the chapter of motion, he distinguishes six kinds of motion or change. Well, obviously, doesn't make any sense, right? It's absolutely incredible. right?

[33:34] But in the fifth book of Natural Hearing, he divides change into three, and then one of the three he subdivides into three, and one of those three into two, and that gives you six.

[33:57] But if you knew just that chapter in the categories, you wouldn't see that to really see why there are six, you have to what divide by three or two. That's what he does. But in the categories, when he gives the ten highest genera—substance, quantity, quality, and so on—he just enumerates the ten and illustrates them. And if you don't have a text Aristotle approaches those ten through two and three, right?

[34:25] But Thomas, the two places where he does do it, in the third book of Natural Hearing, the commentary, where action and passion come up there, he has to expand the categories, and then the fifth book of Wisdom, where he takes up being according to the figure of predication. then Thomas, in both texts, always divides into two or three until he gets to ten. So, you know, the Gospel of Saint John is divided into two, the Gospel of Matthew into three, right?

[34:58] So, what Mark and Luke is, we never know. because Thomas, the rest is silence, as heaven says, right? But I'm sure it's two or three. You know the Psalms, there's about 150 of them. and Thomas, you know, in the commentary there, he talks about the different divisions of them, and he rejects them for one reason or another, and finally adapts the ones suggested by Augustine, right? And Augustine divides the 150 into what?

[35:30] 150 into three, right? It's a beautiful, beautiful division. It corresponds to the division of the petitions of the Our Father into three. Absolutely perfect. You get them married right? But

[35:50] so I still have a little reticence. I say, you know, the rule of two or three or or both, for the most part, I say, you know, just covers a little in case,

[36:03] but you know. I think there's a reason on the side of things, and there's a reason on the side of our mind. We just can't, can't. That's why we need two

[36:16] or three, or or or other. Okay. So ready to go on to article. Six, I guess, huh? Easy, easy. I would go forward here. This is the third kind of equality, particular equality of what? Power, right?

[36:43] To six, one goes forward. Thus, it seems that the son is not equal to the father by power or ability. For it is said in the Gospel of Saint John, chapter five, that the son cannot do anything or make anything, a se, from himself, right? Except for what he sees the father doing. Sounds like he's the the uh subordinate artist, right? Uh he's gotta look at what the master is doing and and imitate him.

[37:20] But the father is able to do something from himself, right? Did they translate a se from what? Text. What? Father can act of himself.

[37:35] Yeah, but it's from himself, right? A se from himself is what they. Yeah. Moreover, greater is the power of the one who what commands and teaches than of the one who obeys and hears. But the father commands the son according to that of John chapter fourteen. Just as the father has given a command to me, so I do. And the father also teaches the son, according to that of John five, that the father loves the son, and shows him everything that he does.

[38:18] Nice guy, huh? Okay. Likewise, the son hears, right? According to that of John five, as I hear, so I what? Judge. huh? My teaching is not my own, he says, right? That's really true about me, but is it true about him too?

[38:45] Therefore, the father is obviously of greater power than the son. Pretty convincing, huh? Yeah. Moreover, this is the extended one now. It pertains to the power of the father that is able to what generate a son equal to himself. For Augustine says in the book against Maximinus, if he is not able to generate one equal to himself, where is the omnipotent power of the father? But the son is not able to generate a son, right?

[39:21] Therefore, where is the omnipotence of the son, right? Therefore, now whatever pertains to the omnipotence of the father is the son able to do, right? And thus he's not equal in what power. I'm convinced, aren't you? Yeah, it's just. Take a nap.

[39:50] See, if you don't have this little dialectic first, then your mind will run forward too fast, right? Contrary to what Farland says, wisely and slow they stumbled and run fast.

[40:08] But against this is what is said in John five nineteen. This is a very important thing. Whatever things the Father does, these the Son does likewise, right? In the same way, right? Now, if the Son was just kind of a tool of the Father, you know, he wouldn't say whatever Michelangelo does in the same way his chisel and hammer do, right? No, in some way what he does his hammer and chisel do, right?

[40:37] But not equally, right? Not in the same way, right? But is being moved by Michelangelo, right? Okay. But here the Son similiter does it in the same way.

[40:53] Now Thomas argues. Answer should be said. That it is necessary to say. That the Son is equal to the Father in what power. Why? Because the power of doing. Follows the perfection of the nature.

[41:16] For we see in creatures. That the extent that something has a more perfect nature, so is it of more what. Power and activity, right? I can see the reason why the or another reason I should say, why. The equal magnitude of the Father and the Son was considered before what. The equal power of them, right? Because he's reasoning from what. They're having the same perfection of nature.

[41:48] They're both having, the divine nature perfectly, right? That they must be equal in their power, despite all these strange objections that have to be answered, right? Huh.

[42:04] For he's been shown above. That the very notion of the divine fatherhood and sonhood, right. Requires that the Son be equal to the Father, in what magnitude. That is, in the perfection of his nature. Hence,

[42:24] it follows as a night the day, right? That the Son is equal to the Father in power, right? The same reason. Is about the Holy Spirit with respect to both. There is

[42:39] still a little bit of you know reluctance in your mind because you'd hear those objections first, right? So Thomas is not going to leave the what cistern open to you fall down. He's going to close it up here now, right? By replying to these objections.

[43:00] Now, in the first part of the first objection, it's going to tie up that text, right? From the said contra, right? If you look at at the first objection, it's the same place, right? Five nineteen, right? In John,

[43:18] to the first, therefore, it should be said that in this that the Son is not able a se, right, from himself, as it were, to do anything. There is not subtracted from the Son any power which the Father has. Why? Because at once, Doctor, right? There is joined under that right that whatever the Father does, the Son what does likewise, right? But what is shown here is that the father, that the Son has his power from the Father, right?

[43:54] From whom also he has the what nature, yeah. Whence Hilary says in the ninth book about the Trinity that this is the unity of the divine nature. That thus the Son acts per se, he's Latin, right, to himself. That he does not act a se from himself. That's a very subtle distinction you have to what see, right? He's not the tool of the father; then he wouldn't be acting per se, right?

[44:30] But he's not acting a se because he doesn't have from himself his own nature or power, but from the Father. That's kind of beautiful that Thomas can see that distinction, right?

[44:46] And it's in Scripture, you know, and he's in the Latin text there, right? The Son cannot do anything like it says in the first objection a se, right? So Thomas has to hold on to that, right? But if he didn't act per se, he wouldn't be acting similiter like the what? Yeah, in the same way the Father does.

[45:11] Because God, I mean, the Father and the Son act through their what nature, right? Through the same nature, right? So whatever the Father does, likewise the Son does, right? But not from himself.

[45:28] That's something to think about. It's interesting, guys, aren't they? I think I'd like to know them better, but you know, it's what little bit I know about them I find interesting.

[45:41] I find myself kind of boring, you know, but in this case I find this very interesting. Now, second objection is talking about things like God, the Father said, do what? Give a command to the Son, right? Or to show him something, right? The Son hears the Father, right?

[46:06] To second should be said that in the demonstration or showing of the Father and the hearing of the Son is not to be understood anything except that the Father what communicates knowledge to the Son just as he communicates the divine nature, which is the same thing as divine knowledge. And to the same one can refer the command. of The father, right?

[46:34] To this, that from eternity, he gave him the knowledge and the will of things to be done in generating him. I can also refer this to Christ, to Christ's human nature, but that's the easy way out, right? See, okay.

[46:54] And so the the son is said to hear from the father because what? He's the word that proceeds from the father, right? So you know the father spoke, and the son heard, meaning that he is the word of the father. Yeah. So these are these are beautiful ways that scripture has touching upon this mystery of the generation of the son. Now the third objection is taken from the famous one that, what?

[47:28] Isn't the father got the power to generate his son, and the son doesn't have that power, right? This is confusing. Ad tertium he says, and ad aliquid right? To the third, it should be said that just as the same divine nature, the same essence, which in the father is fatherhood, right, in the son is what? Sonship. So the same is the power by which the father generates, and by which the son what?

[48:02] Is generated. Whence it is manifest that whatever the father is able to do, the son is able. It does not, however, follow that he can generate, because this would be changing quid, right? In ad aliquid. For generations signifies only what a relation in God, but in the manner of an act, right? The son therefore has the same omnipotence as the father, but but it by a relation, because the father has it as giving it, and this is signified when it's said that he's able to generate.

[48:47] The son has it as receiving, and this is signified when it's said that he can be generated. We saw before that those notional acts are not really different from the what relations, huh? Although they signified in the manner of an act, huh? They have the same power with a different relation in the father and the son. Sorry. He had the same power in the father and the son, but with a different what relation?

[49:24] And power is not in the same category as relation, is it? So a difference in relation is not a difference in power, is it?

[49:35] So that involves a lot of what we've seen before, very subtle. Let's take a little break before we go on to the last question.