Prima Secundae
5. Prologue to the Second Part and Question 1, Article 1: Does Man Act for an End?
Class of 2011-02-17
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/005-prologue-to-the-second-part-and-question-1-article-1-does/

[0:00] In the Name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. God our enlightenment. Guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more quickly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and help us to understand knowledge we obtain, Holy Spirit, Amen. Now at the beginning here, there's a what? Prologus, huh? Prolog, huh? Just like there is for. Roman Juliet. Prologue, right? Okay.

[0:40] Now, is this a prologue to the prima secunda? No, it's prologue to the second part. Yeah, it's a prologue to the whole second part, right? Huh? Okay. Now you might recall the distinction that I gave a long time ago about the two kinds of division of a book.

[1:12] Just recall this for your. excuse me, dear. One I call the editorial and reference division. And the other, I would call the logical and

[1:39] understandable division, huh? Okay. So take my favorite example, right? It's customary, since it was made in the Middle Ages, to divide the Gospel of what Matthew into what twenty-eight chapters, right? And this is an editorial division, huh? And it's the reference division, and then each chapter is divided in verses. And this is handy to refer if I want to say, "Well, it's in chapter ten, the third verse," and then you and I can look it up together and we can look up what we're talking about, right?

[2:22] Okay. But what's the logical and understandable division of the Gospel of Matthew, huh? Well, in Thomas's commentary, it says Matthew emphasizes the humanity of Christ, huh? And that's why Matthew is usually represented as the man, right? And as man, he says Christ came into the world. He went through the world preaching, right, and then he left the world, right, through his passion and death and so on.

[2:52] So the gospel is divided into three parts, right? Okay, so that's the logical and understandable division, right? You can kind of understand the division. Twenty-eight—that's not understandable, right? But it's useful to refer to a particular passage if you want to, right? Okay.

[3:13] So that's a very important what distinction, right? And as I say, you know, the rule of two or three. In the logical and understandable division, usually it's into two or three, right? Why, you know, the editorial reference division would be into anything. Matthew happens to be twenty-eight. No particular reason for twenty-eight, right? Okay. But there's nothing to be understood there, right? No, no one could possibly understand the division into twenty-eight.

[3:45] All right, so that's another question, right? So, for example, Aristotle's Metaphysics, right? The editorial and what reference division is into fourteen books, right? And those fourteen books can be divided into chapters, and even down to numbers for the actual lines, right? Huh? Or into lectios like Thomas has, right? But is the logical and understandable division of the fourteen books of wisdom into fourteen? No. And when Thomas divides it, he divides it into two.

[4:27] The proemium, right, which occupies the beginning of book one, and that's divided against all the rest of it, the rest of book one, and all the way through fourteen, right? And he keeps on dividing and subdividing, right? So you have to realize that you can't base your understanding upon the what editorial and reference division. Although it's good to know that, so you can refer someone to a text if you want to, you can find that, you know.

[4:56] And if you can remember, you know, to think about who your memory is, right? But that's not going to be the basis of your understanding of the text, huh? Okay.

[5:06] So this prologue here is divided against the whole of the what second part, right? So he begins with Saint John Damascene, right? A quote from Damascene. Because, as Damascene says, on the Orthodox faith, man is said to be made to the image of God. I guess that's said in Genesis, isn't it? To the image and likeness of God.

[5:38] According as by image is signified, right? Something that is intellectual, right? And a free judgment, right? And what? Yeah, moving itself, powerful, huh? per se potestativum, right? To himself, huh? So he says. Then, after one has spoken about the exemplar, to wit, about God in the first parts, and those things which what go forth from the divine power according to His will, right? It remains that we consider about His what image, that is about man, according as He Himself is the beginning of His own what deeds, huh?

[6:27] As having free judgment and the power over His what works, huh? I notice that's quite different from what Aristotle is doing in Nicomachean Ethics, right? In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle is considering man not as what made to the image and likeness of God, although he sees something of that, right?

[6:51] But that's why when he takes up the virtues, Thomas will take up the virtues in a different order than Aristotle does, huh? So Thomas takes up the intellectual virtues in the secunda secundae, and then the virtues what of justice, and then the will, and then what fortitude, and last of all temperance, right? Well, Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics takes up fortitude and temperance first, then he goes to justice, and last of all to the virtues of what reason, huh?

[7:23] Well, why do you take up just take don't not take everything in there, but just take why does Aristotle take up courage and temperance before justice and and wisdom, let's say, right, or foresight? Why does he do that, right? Well, Thomas says it's because for two reasons: they're more known to us, and because by them we're disposed for the higher things.

[7:51] But why does Thomas take up the virtues of reason and and those that are in the will, like justice, and so on? Why does he take those up before the ones concerned with emotions?

[8:04] As the image of God, yeah, because God doesn't have any emotions; He's emotionless, right? But He does have the virtues of what the will, like justice, right, and the virtues of reason, like art and foresight and wisdom, and so on, right? So the order is what almost the reverse, right? So it's clear what Thomas is saying here. He's going to treat this, and this is because in ethic, I mean, in theology, as the name indicates, it's about God and other things only in so far as they're related to God in some way, and so man is being made to the image and likeness of God is taken up in theology more than the dog or the cat, huh?

[8:47] Although they might have a footprint of God in them too, right? But man is more, you know, worthy of being considered because he's made what the dog master. over there

[9:02] There's something in the paper today about the reading children reading stories to dogs. The dog is trained to listen to the story. Oh, and sometimes trained. I know. I didn't read the article. My wife's looking in what paper. She's like, showing me this, referring to this article. So I don't know. Maybe there's something to be said for that. huh? Now, how is the second part of Summa divided?

[9:48] Well, the art person would probably say it's divided into two parts: the prima secunda, right, and the secunda Secundae right. Now That would be the way it's divided by the editorial and what reference division, right? So if I want to refer you to any passage in the second part, I'd tell you whether it's in the what I'd say prima secunda or secunda secunda. I'd tell you that first, right?

[10:18] And then the question, and then the article, and maybe odd three is the third of reply to the third objection. But I would follow prima secunda, secunda secunda, right? And I'm like in my summa, this is the prima secunda, and I have another one, the thicker the secunda secunda, right? So that's the editorial division, right? That's the way they they print it, right? Okay. But is that the logical and understandable division, right?

[10:50] Well, you wouldn't know at first, you know. But if you look a little bit into what Thomas does, if you look at the beginning of the question one, where he has a premium, right? Where first one ought to consider about the what last end of human life, right?

[11:14] And then about those things through which man is able to arrive at this end, or to deviate from it. Now basically he's dividing there the whole second part, right? The prima secunda and the secunda secunda by into two here, right?

[11:40] Okay. And he gives a reason why he's dividing into those two parts, right? And why one of them comes before the other, right? Why the consideration of the last end of human life, the last end of man, right? Is before those things by which he arrives at the end, or he what deviates from the end? For he says, for from the end is necessary to take the reasons of those things which are what ordered to the end.

[12:15] That's fair, fair to see, right? But that's altogether basic. Now, if you look a little bit later on here at the premium to the what sixth question, right?

[12:45] Well, questions one through what five are concerned with the last end of man, and then question six of the prima secunda begins the second part, which is about those things by which man is what. Able to arrive at this end, or he deviates from this end, right? Okay. So, just look at the beginning of the premium at, the beginning of question six.

[13:15] Because, therefore, for beatitude, which is the name of the end of man, to some acts is necessary to arrive, right? Because, therefore, is necessary, right, to arrive at beatitude through some acts, right? Is necessary, consequently, through our consideration of what the end of man is, to consider about human acts, right? That's the second part, right?

[13:42] That we might know by what acts one arrives at beatitude, or is impeded the road to beatitude, huh? And now he is going to divide the rest of what prima secunda, started with question six, and the whole secunda secunda, right, into two.

[14:07] And because operations and acts are about what singulars, right? Therefore, every science, doing science, every operative science, is perfected in its consideration of the particular.

[14:30] So Aristotle says in the Politics, it would be better if Socrates had told us what is the virtue of a man and what is the virtue of a woman, than to just tell us what virtue is in general, right? That's kind of interesting, right?

[14:48] So, since action is in the singular, right, the closer you come to the singular, the more perfect is your what practical knowledge, right? And that's also the reason why Aristotle says this science is not so certain, right? Because as you descend to the singular, you get more and more particular. There is more and more things to take into what account, right? And becomes less and less certain, right, or more and more uncertain, right?

[15:28] I always remember that time I was driving the car with my teacher there, professor there, when I was in college, and I said, "I wish I knew what was going on in Washington." I said something about what was going on, you know. And he said, "Oh, that's a laugh." He says, "They don't know themselves." So,

[15:51] so because of this, huh? Moral consideration, which is of what. Human acts. Of human acts, first ought to be treated in universale, in general, right? Secondly, in what, In particular, right? Okay. And that's kind of the what distinction between the rest of the prima secundae and second part, right? Okay. So, if you want to say what is the logical and understandable division of the second part, it's not the prima secundae and the secunda secundae.

[16:33] That's that's the editorial division, right? It's useful for referring to particular passages. But it's into the consideration of what is the end or purpose of man, the last end or purpose of man, which is in the editorial division the first five questions of the prima secundae, and then that whereby you arrive at that end or deviate from it, the virtues and vices and so on, in general and particular, which is the rest of what the prima secundae and the second part of the second part, right?

[17:11] Okay. Now, in a way, Aristotle does that in the Nicomachean Ethics, because he considers in the first book the end of man, right? Before he takes up the what virtues and vices, huh? And it's at the end of the first book that he kind of touches upon the division of the human virtue, right, into the moral virtues and the virtues of reason itself, huh? But he has the same order that Thomas says here that you have to consider the end before you consider that which is what, The sake of the end, huh?

[17:58] Okay. And that makes sense, huh? Now, if you know a little bit of the history of Greek philosophy, the two great minds are Plato and Aristotle. You could stick in Socrates there, but we don't know where Socrates leads off and Plato begins sometimes, right? But kind of a common thing said about Socrates was that he kind of turned philosophy from looking philosophy, which dominated up to that point, to what emphasis upon practical philosophy.

[18:34] Now, if you look at Plato's dialogues, perhaps the most common topic is some virtue or other, right? So you could go through the the things and find this is not the only thing considered, but what's usually considered. So, in say the Laches, Socrates talks to an old general. They talk about his courage, right? And in the Theaetetus, he talks to a young geometer, right? What science is, right?

[19:00] The great knowledge, huh? And he talks about piety with the Euthyphro, right, and so on. But you're kind of thrown into a discussion about some virtue without any consideration of what the end of man is, right? Although Socrates, you know, would touch upon that too, you know, in some places, right? But you don't see the order there, right? But Aristotle puts it together and say, yeah, we should talk about the end of man and about the virtues and the vices, right?

[19:34] Or by your help towards that end, or impeded from that end. Virtue is the road to happiness, and vice is the road to misery, right? And you see all the newspaper all the time, right? You are in misery because of following the road. vice, right? It's the road to misery, wretchedness. Um. So Aristotle says, but you got to Consider what the end of man before you consider what the virtues right okay and the reason is given by Thomas here but he's following that order right

[20:13] now another thing that's kind of interesting here if you look at these words of Thomas huh and then about those things going back to proemium here at the beginning of question one now

[20:27] where first we ought to consider about the last end of human life and then about those things through which man is able to arrive at this end or to deviate from it huh those three things that he mentions there the second and the third are kind of put together but they correspond to the three parts of the what our Father right because when you say Hallowed be Thy name Thy kingdom come the first two of the seven petitions is about the end itself right you're asking for God to bring you to the what the end right huh but then we say Thy will be done and give us this day our daily bread we're talking about those things through which one is able to arrive

[21:17] at this end huh and then in the last part forgive us our trespasses and lead us not into temptation but deliver us those things by which we would deviate from that end huh

[21:33] I know in one of the one of the offertories or one of the the masses there they'll say you know in the main part there about being united with the saints and so on those who've done His will throughout the ages right I'm always struck by that you know huh I don't know if you have that in your particular liturgy but but it's it kind of strikes me you know huh it's kind of the saints are those who've done the will of God huh that's all they got to be saints huh okay but that's Thy will be done the first thing right so those three things correspond huh it's kind of interesting because with the virtue of hope which is tied up with prayer right

[22:23] hope primarily is aiming at the end right and then at the means whereby you can arrive at that end so it's kind of interesting that the petitions of the Our Father can be divided into those three things that Thomas what mentions here

[22:49] okay so now we've seen the division into two of the whole second part right the logical division right Consideration of what the last end of man is in these first five questions, and then consideration of that whereby we are able to arrive at that end, or that we deviate from that end, and that's the rest of the prima paras and the whole secunde secunde, right? Okay. Fair enough.

[23:21] Now, how does you divide that first part? Well, again into what two? Huh? And because the last end of human life is laid down to be beatitude, that's the word used in theology, right? And beatitude comes from the word for blessed, right? So, kind of the that from which the name is taken refers to what the divine help, right? Huh? The word blessed by God, right? Huh?

[23:52] Um. I mentioned how the the word happiness comes from the word hap, right? Huh? If you want to get kind of a sense of the connection between the word happiness and hap, go to Shakespeare's the Two Gentlemen of Verona, right? Huh? Where in the first scene of the first act. There to give you the editorial division of the work. Valentine's going off to the court, right? To get his finishing up as a man, right?

[24:21] And Proteus is saying goodbye to him, but he says, you know, when you meet good hap, which we, you know, partaker of your happiness, there's a reference to this again at the end of the play, right? So it's the idea that hap or luck, right? Huh? Is what leads to happiness, right? And we sometimes say, you know, about someone he's been lucky in life, or he's been what?

[24:47] Use the Latin word he's been fortunate, right? Okay. Or someone else has been unfortunate because this and that has happened, right? Huh? As if it's sort of out of your what control, yeah? See. Now it's interesting when Aristotle talks about luck or fortune. Luck is English word, fortune the Latin word. fortuna there in Greek tyche the second book of the Physics, right? Huh? This is the consideration of the obscure causes, luck or fortune, and when he takes it up, he gives three opinions about luck or fortune, and one opinion is that it's what

[25:32] doesn't exist. There's no such thing. Just a name for ignorance, right? Huh? Okay. And another opinion is no, no, it's a cause of the universe, right? I mean, you know, you know, the the just like the modern biologists, you know, think that it happened that you and I, you know, were here. Nature could have gone a different way, you know. Sort of stuff, but then he gives a third opinion, which is that it's something divine about it.

[26:04] And this, of course, comes up a lot in works of what fiction, right? Where something seems to be by luck or by chance, and yet there's some reason behind this, right? I think Aristotle gives it in the Poetics there the example of the man who was murdered, and they couldn't find the murderer, but the man was famous, and they put up a statue to him in the plaza and so on.

[26:33] And there's a big festival in the plaza, and the crowd, you know, is there, and the statue got knocked over and fell upon a man and killed him. Yeah. And who was that man? Yeah, yeah. Or I can Julius Caesar, you know, where Caesar is assassinated, and that's the statue of what Pompey, right? Pompey is getting his revenge now, right? Okay. So there seems, or like at the end of Romeo and Juliet, you know, where at the end there, you know, the head of the city there, you know, is taking the two fathers, you know, and say God has found a way to punish you for your your hatred and your your fighting and so on by the death of your only children, right?

[27:13] You know. So you kind of you see or or suspect that there's something divine behind it, right? Okay. But the word hap doesn't you know signify really the divine, but it signifies luck or fortune, right? And some people think that would be responsible for it, right? I noticed myself when I first started to read these things in in say Aristotle's work, you had the word happiness, huh?

[27:43] And then I saw in Latin they would use the word what felicitas, right? And felicitas has got a different etymology than what happiness. You could have in Latin something like happiness, bona fortuna, that would be the same thing, more or less, as happiness, right, in terms of its etymology. But felicitas comes from the word for fruitful, right? And that's interesting, huh? Yeah, felix means fruitful. So it's like saying that felicitas is the fruit of your what?

[28:23] labors, yeah, yeah. And that's closer to what Aristotle is getting at in a way, right, than the word happiness, huh? But then you have in the Greek in Aristotle there in Poetics, I mean not Poetics in Nicomachean Ethics, you have the word what eudaimonia, right? Which means that you're well-demoned, right? The demon doesn't have the negative sense it has now. And there it's closer to beatitude, right, because there you're talking about it as having what a divine influence there, right?

[28:59] But in a way, you could say, you know, as a starting point for dialectic, you'd say, well, one opinion is that happiness is result of good luck or chance. Another is that it's the fruit of what we do, right? And I suppose our misery, right? In the one opinion would be due to bad luck. I went into the crossed the street at the wrong time and I got hit and who knows, you know, crippled the rest of my life and that was bad luck, right?

[29:28] Okay. Or I invested in this company and went broke, and you invested that company and it went up, and so you're happy and I'm miserable. You know, it's outside of our control. But in the second opinion, you could say, hey, no, you're miserable because of the choices you made in life, right? You see, you didn't have to choose this and this and this and this, right? You chose to get drunk.

[29:53] You chose, you know, choose this. You chose that. But then the word, as I say, daimonia, right? Perhaps the word beatitude a bit um, has a sense of being blessed by some superior thing, right? Aristotle talks about that in the first book of Nicomachean Ethics, right? If anything comes to us from God, what more so than is what happiness is in, right? But

[30:22] in Nicomachean Ethics the emphasis is upon you following the road to happiness, which is virtue, and avoiding the road to misery, which is vice, right? Aristotle is emphasizing what you can do or avoid to become happy, right? Because what is by luck you have no control over, any right? Aristotle is not denying the role that luck might have in making us happy or miserable, right? And but he can't really what teach you how to have good luck.

[31:02] And again, if our happiness does depend upon some higher being, some daemon or some god, we can't really control what that daemon or god does, right? Okay. And of course, in the Greek great plays and so on, I mean, you'd be on the right side of the gods for some reason or other, you know, and then they have kind of unaccountable antagonism to some people, you know, and so they lead them to misery or happiness, right?

[31:32] So Odysseus has you know Athena guiding him and so on, and someone else, you know, is acting on the wrong side of the gods and they're angry with him and they're going to destroy him now, you know, or he's gotten too elevated or something like that. So

[31:50] the attitude has a little bit of that sense of eudaimonia, right? But it's used especially for the happiness of a rational creature, the emphasis upon a rational creature. So it's a little more precise than just saying it's the end. So he divides it into two parts. He's going to consider about the last end in general, and then about beatitude, And that'll be starting in the second what question.

[32:17] Okay, we'll see how he subdivides that, right? Okay. I think I mentioned before how in the poetics, though, when Aristotle is talking about tragedy and comedy and how you represent men going from happiness to misery or from misery to happiness, right? Then for happiness, he doesn't use the word eudaimonia that he has in the Ethics; uses the word eutuchia, good fortune, right? Because that's kind of the way you would you would see it presented in the plays, right?

[32:48] So it's interesting the word with a different etymology, right? Is used there, right? But at the same time, it shows that the greatest fiction, right, is really about happiness and misery, right? So it's something very what appropriate to ethics, right? Because that's the fundamental thing to talk about in ethics. My student there in Rome that asked me questions sometimes, at time. But just the last email he sent me, he sent me a little thing: Aristotle and Shakespeare.

[33:19] I don't know where he picked it up, you know, but somebody you know going through Shakespeare and finding things that Shakespeare says about human beings and how they act and how it fits what Aristotle said about them, right? So he had little passages, one or two passages in Greek there from Aristotle, and then these passages of Shakespeare.

[33:39] So, so about the last end now in general, which is question one, right? And about this, eight things are asked. Aristotle says, and the first is whether it belongs to man to act for the sake of some what end.

[34:02] Secondly, whether this is private to the rational nature, right? There's only something that has mind and reason will act for an end, or does the dog and the cat, and even the what plant, huh? Do they act for an end? Or is it only us rational creatures that act for an end?

[34:28] Third, whether the acts of men receive their specific nature, right? Their species from the what end? Your intention, right? Then whether there is some last end of what human life? We saw Aristotle arguing that there was right in the proemium to Nicomachean Ethics, right?

[34:59] But then, whether of one man there can be many last ends? Well, no, but you see the reason why that there can't be many last ends; The; only one.

[35:14] Six, whether man orders everything to the last end. That's Interesting, huh? Remember how Aristotle said there about the last end that there must be something that is desired for its own sake and not for the sake of anything else, but everything else for the sake of it.

[35:35] The average person would say, "oh, I'm not aware of ordering everything I do to my end." If you ask them, you know, why are you doing this? And what for the sake of that? Why that? Maybe it's going to come back to the last end, right? I think I'll be happy if I do this ultimately, right?

[35:56] If I don't do that, going to be miserable rest of my life. I'm going to slip out of my hands, whatever it is, right?

[36:08] Seven. Whether there is the same last end for all men, you know the famous Declaration of Independence, right? Pursuit of happiness, right? But most people, you know, you talk about that, they think that everybody pursues his or her own happiness, and it's not the same for everybody, right? Whatever floats your boat. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[36:35] So is there the same last end for all men? I saw a bumper sticker that said, "Music is my life." Must be must be musician, right? Mozart is good, you know, and as Aristotle says, there in the, the eighth book of the Politics, you know, we ought to listen to music sometime, you know, relax and has a certain moral effect too if it's good music and so on.

[37:03] But does Mozart have the same end as Aristotle, or Shakespeare have the same end as Mozart, you know? Or the famous chef, you know, who lives for food.

[37:23] The alcoholic looks to drink or something. They all got their own end, huh? And eight. Whether in that last end, all other creatures what come together, right? No,

[37:48] you can sit down and see if these eight, you know, divided into two or three, right? You can see a little bit now. Those things will go together, right?

[38:01] Whether there is some last end of human life, and whether one man there can be many ends, they kind of go together. Those two questions, right?

[38:13] And whether man orders all things to the last end, whether the same end is last for all men, right? Well, like I say, the first two articles kind of go together, right? Whether belongs to man to act for an end, and whether this is something that is what peculiar to man or to the rational creature, anyway, right?

[38:49] Those first two would probably go together. The third one kind of stands by itself, right? And then the last group could go as a group together, right? Subdivided, huh?

[39:05] Okay, to the first end, one proceeds thus. It seems that it does not belong to man to act on account of an end, for the cause it's naturally what before

[39:22] we saw before in the categories, right? That one sense of before is the cause of before the effect, right? But the end has the ratio, the thought of the definition of last, as the name itself what sounds, right?

[39:47] Therefore, the end does not have the ratio of a cause, but on account of that, man acts. That is the cause of his action, since this Preposition proter signifies the relation of what cause. Therefore, it does not belong to man to act on account of an end. So you see the carpenter, right? Huh? The carpenter

[40:18] making a chair, right? Huh? So the chair is the end here, right? His activity of making a chair, but the chair doesn't exist until he gets through making. So how can what doesn't exist be a cause of what's going on now?

[40:44] How can the chair be a cause of the making of the chair when the chair comes after the making of the chair? It's not before it, right?

[40:59] And it's interesting, you know, in the fifth book of wisdom when Aristotle is considering these words that are used in wisdom and in the axioms and everywhere to some extent because they're so common. He begins with the words that refer to causes, huh? He has beginning, cause, element, and nature, and then necessary, huh? Those words in that order. But when Thomas explains that order, as he does many times, he says the word beginning is taken up before the word cause because it's more general, right?

[41:35] Just like here, the end is taken up before beatitude because it's more general, right? Huh? So and then when he talks about the word beginning, he says every cause is a beginning, but not every beginning is a cause. So the point is the beginning of the line without a cause, right? And then he says later on that the common notion of beginning is what is first, right?

[42:00] So it's before other things, huh? In being or knowing or motion, so on. So how can the end be a cause, right? When it's not the beginning, it's the end. It's the absolute beginning, right? It's not before as a cause is before the effect, right? Okay.

[42:24] And you know when Aristotle distinguishes the four kinds of causes, like he does in the second book of the physics and in the fifth book of wisdom, and he says what?

[42:38] He gives matter, form, mover, and end. When he gets to end, he kind of stops because it's not so clear that this is a cause, huh? And he has to kind of stop and manifest it, right? So it's the least known cause, huh? This is the objection, right?

[42:59] Moreover, that which is the last end is not for the sake of some what. End, but in some things the actions are the last end, as is clear through the philosopher in the first of ethics. You saw that in the proemium right Huh?

[43:20] So why do you want to understand God? Understand, to understand. Yeah, but but the understanding is not for the sake of anything further, is it? Right. Okay.

[43:37] What does Latimer say there in his translation of the Iliad? You ask me if I want to translate the Iliad. Well, my talk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just you know.

[43:50] Yes, that's just you. He's definitely experienced Homer, right? Huh? You might really experienced Homer, and and new Greek would want to you know translate it into his own language for.

[44:01] Okay. Therefore, not all things that man does does he do for an end, right? Sometimes what he does is the end, huh? Okay. What do you want to see God for?

[44:18] Well, my marker's like that. Not for the sake of anything, right? It's the end itself, yeah. So that's interesting. Moreover, then man seems to act on account of an end when he deliberates, right? How can I achieve this end and so on? But many thing man does without deliberation, about which, right? Sometimes doesn't think at all, right? Okay. Just so when someone moves his foot or his hand, right?

[44:55] Content upon other things or his spirit does. See, that's did you guys in mind? Therefore, man does not what do all things for the sake of an end, huh?

[45:14] But against this, all those things which are in some genus are derived from the beginning of that genus, but the end is a beginning in the things doable by man, as is clear through the philosopher in the second book of the physics. Therefore, it belongs to man to do all things on account of a what end, huh? So, now you see, you should. I have the rest of the text there.

[45:46] You should have to think about this, right? How How can the end be first? When the end is last, it's not first. It's not a beginning, let alone a cause, right?

[46:08] Let's see what Thomas says. Illuminate us, enlighten us, I should say. I answer it should be said that of the actions which are done by man, those alone are properly called what human, right? Which are proper to man in so far as he is man.

[46:35] Now, man differs from the other creatures that are without reason, right? In this, that he is the lord of his own what actions, whence those actions alone are called properly human, of which man himself is the what lord.

[47:03] But man is the lord of his own acts by reason and what will, whence also free judgment is said to be a faculty of will and what reason.

[47:23] And my text has a reference there to what the master says in the second book of sentences. Those actions therefore are properly called human, which proceed from the what deliberate will. And Thomas made this distinction in his premium, if you remember, to the Nicomachean Ethics, huh? He's explaining that ethics is about human action, right? Well, what do you mean by human action, right? I mean digesting your your food.

[47:54] No, no. But those actions that are what which you are the lord by your reason and by your will, right? If, however, there are other actions which belong to man, they can be called actions of man, right? But not properly what human acts, huh? Since they are not of man in so far as he is what man.

[48:29] Now it is manifest that all actions which proceed from some power are caused from it according to the definition of its what object, right?

[48:45] So, is your seeing without color or light? Okay. Or is your hearing without sound? Without the object, huh? No. But the object of the will is the end and the good. Ergo, so if those are human acts that proceed from the will, and the will's object is what, the good and the end, which are basically the same as we've seen before, right? Well, then everything has to be for some end, right?

[49:19] For some good. Whence it is necessary that all human acts are for the sake of some what, end? Okay. Now, how does Thomas reply to the first?

[49:39] Well, he sees a distinction of two orders, right? And one is the order in which something is done or carried out, right? And the other is the order in which something is what, intended, right? Okay. Which comes first? Do I marry the woman, or or do I ask her?

[50:12] Which comes first, right? Do I ask her to marry me, or do I marry her? Which comes first? Yeah, but I wouldn't ask her unless I intended to marry her, right? Okay, so one is before in intention, and the other is what? Execution. Yes, is before carrying out. Yeah.

[50:47] Okay. It's fun. It's fun. Some people think of marriage. That's right. My wife and I joke. We were out talking about marriage with, some other couple, and some, we've got marriage at a dead end, right?

[51:12] And the guy would say, I wonder what they're suffering from. And all he means is that we've got to say there's no way out. There's no way out. Okay.

[51:21] So he says to the first therefore it should be said at the end, although it is what last in execution being carried out, right? So the the chair is at the end, right? Of the making, right? But it's nevertheless first in the intention of the agent. So in some way it's first, right?

[51:47] Which comes first? Eating my dinner or going to the restaurant? Let's say. I'm not Around home. Or going to McDonald's. I guess that's a restaurant, isn't it? In terms of health, that kind of title.

[52:06] I go to the restaurant before I eat my dinner. But I intend to eat my dinner before I intend to go to a restaurant, right? And I wouldn't go to the restaurant unless I intend to eat a dinner.

[52:27] And he says, and in this way, insofar as it's what first in intention, right? It has the notion of a what cause. So the chair is a cause of what the carpenter does, right? Because he intended a chair, right? And because he intends a chair, he makes him this way, right? Okay.

[52:55] But the existence of the chair is not a what. In itself, is not a cause of making it, right? What he's having in mind right now mind, right now?

[53:21] So Aristotle often says, you know, what's last in thought is the beginning of action, right? And what is first in thought is last in what in things, yeah, yeah.

[53:40] We talked about that a little bit. The the order there of the Our Father and the order that Thomas gives there or Augustine too, I guess, originally gives for the Psalms, right?

[53:54] Because the first fifty Psalms are dealing with what penance, huh? Okay, turning away from your sinful life, right? And then the second is about good deeds, huh? And then the third is resting in God as your end, right? So the order of the Psalms is the reverse of the order of the what Our Father, right? Huh? But Our Father is in the order of what intention, right?

[54:23] Huh? You intend to honor God and to and to be blessed in heaven, right? Therefore, you are going to do God's will, right? And then avoid these other things that are opposed to His will, right? Now, but when you try to carry these things out, you've got to first stop sinning, and then you turn towards the good, right? And ultimately, you get to heaven, right? Okay.

[54:57] Of course, purgatory. I mean, you are still in that first stage, more or less. You are being purged from sin, right? Huh? That's a very important distinction between those two orders, right? But the way it involved in this is in seeing in what way the end is what first, right? And before what else you do, and before as a cause in the sense of what you do, right?

[55:28] Okay. So you go to college or some place to to learn, maybe, right? Or you buy a book to learn, right? Or you borrow a book to learn, right? Yeah. So knowing comes after learning, right?

[55:52] In one way, but in another way, knowing comes before learning, right? That's the reason why you went to get that book. You wanted to know about this or that, right?

[56:07] Now, what about the second objection? There are some actions that are not right for the sake of some end. To the second, it should be said: If some what human action is the last end, right, is necessary for it to be what voluntary, right? Otherwise, it would not be human, as has been said in the body of the article.

[56:35] But some action is said to be voluntary in one way because it is what commanded by the will, as to walk or to speak, right?

[56:49] Another way because it is what right out by the will itself. It's an act of the will itself, right? As to will itself. It's interesting he makes that distinction there. It's like the distinction Aristotle makes about an act of reason itself and an act that is what commanded or guided or directed or by by reason, right?

[57:17] Um. Now it's impossible that the act elicited by the will be the last what end. Now, why is that so? For the object of the will is the end, just as the object of sight is what color. Whence, just as it is impossible that the first thing visible is to see itself,

[57:50] because everything every seeing is of some visible object, so it is impossible that the first thing desirable, which is the end, should be what the will itself.

[58:04] Whence it remains that if some human act is the last end, that it is what commanded by the will. And therefore, and thus, if there is what some action of man, at least, right, the willing is an account of an end, huh? Because the willing is not on its own sake, right?

[58:34] Whatever, therefore, man does, it is true to say that man does an account of an end, even in doing the action which is the what last end, huh? Because the will is doing it for the sake of itself, right? So it's doing it for the sake of what end, huh? And it's not the own the will's own act, huh? This is a question Thomas takes up more length, you know.

[59:00] But it's like saying you know. In the case of reason itself, you see also that the first thing we understand is that our understanding.

[59:12] You got to understand something before you have something to understand. I actually try to get across this point with a kind of a homely example, right? I'd say now, can you write a letter that's about what's in a letter?

[59:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always take the example of my mother, right? My brothers and I, you know, we were too lazy to write each other, but we felt obligated to write mama, you know, and tell mama what's going on. So mama would get a letter from one of us and tell us what's going on in our life or whatever it is, and She in writing another brother would recount what so and so had said in his letter to her, right?

[1:00:07] Okay, so she's kind of you know tearing out stuff for for our letters, huh? But can the first letter written be about what is in the letter?

[1:00:30] The first letter has got to be about something that is not in the letter, and then once you have you know a letter with something in it, then you could write about what's in the letter, right? Same with the will the will, right? The first thing willed cannot be the what act of the will itself, right? It's like the first thing understood cannot be the understanding itself, right?

[1:01:02] And so the act of the will is for something other than itself, right? Namely, for the end. And every human act has to be one kind of commanded by the will, right? That's kind of a subtle point that Thomas is making. So the act of the will is for the sake of the sake of contemplating God or something. Yeah. For contemplating God, not for the sake of something.

[1:01:30] No. So you do have an action that is an end in itself. Yeah, but but the willing is not the end in itself. Right. Because the end, the first act of the will must be for the end, right? But it can't be for itself. Just as the first act of the understanding, has to be something other than understanding itself, right?

[1:02:00] It's like the first act, the senses can't be memory. Okay. But the first thing you see can't be seen. Now the third objection is that these actions that you do without thinking about they're not properly human, right? Because they do not proceed from the deliberation of reason, which is the proper beginning of human acts, and therefore they have a imagined end, right? But not an end that is what set forth by reason, huh?

[1:02:45] Okay. So without thinking, you scratch yourself, or something like that, right? Okay. Not a fully human act. St. Francis de Sales says animals and so forth. he says they seem to cast themselves towards an end, but man. forecasts. his end. He sees it before. So should we take a little break now?