Prima Secundae
10. Summa I-II, Q.1, Article 8 and Q.2, Articles 1–2: God as the end of all things, and why happiness is not in riches or honor
Class of 2011-03-03
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/010-summa-i-ii-q-1-article-8-and-q-2-articles-1-2-god-as-the/

[0:00] To the eighth, one proceeds thus: It seems that in the last end of man also, all other things come together, right? Like they come together at that same end. For the end corresponds to the beginning. But that which is the beginning of men, to wit, God, is also the beginning of all other things. Therefore, in the last end of man, all other things what communicate them So God is the end of the whole universe, right?

[0:36] Not just of man. Moreover, Dionysius says in the book about the divine names that God converts all things to Himself, as it were, to the last end. But he is also the last end of man, because he alone should be enjoyed, as Augustine says.

[1:01] Therefore, in the last end of man, also other things come together, right? They have God as their last end, just like we do. Moreover, the last end of man is the object of the what will. But the object of the will is universal good, which is the end of all things. Therefore, it is necessary that in the last end of man, all things what come together, right?

[1:36] But against this is that the last end of men is beatitude, which all that is to say, all men, right, desire, as Augustine says. But it does not fall in what animals that are lacking in reason, right, that they should be what blessed, as Augustine says in the book on the eighty-three questions.

[2:03] Therefore, in the last end of man, other things don't what come together, right? Thomas says: I answer, it should be said that as the philosopher says in the second book of the physics and in the fifth book, end is said in two ways, so distinguishing.

[2:28] Of whom, right? And I suppose by what or how, right? Then that is, and there's various ways that Thomas explains that distinction that Thomas. is making. That thing itself, in which the notion of the good is found, right? And then the use or the obtaining, I suppose, of that thing.

[2:54] Just as if we say now in the old physics that the motion of a heavy body, the end, is either the what lower place, right, as a thing, or this which is to be in the lower place, right, as the use, huh? Or at the end of the avarice, avaricious man, it's either money as a thing, right, or the possession of money as its use, right?

[3:29] So Romeo's end is what Juliet, right? Or the possession of Juliet. Let's see, Okay. If therefore we speak of the last end of man as regards the very thing which is the end, right? Thus, in the last end of man, all other things come together,

[3:53] which is God, right? Because God is both the last end of man and of all other what things, huh? If, however, we speak of the last end of man as regards the acquiring of this end, thus in this end of man, irrational creatures do not what come together, right? They do not communicate in this, but the angels would, right? That's what he says, irrational, irrational. For man and the other rational creatures, who are my friends, the angels here, they achieve the ultimate end by knowing and loving God.

[4:46] Here Thomas is speaking with less precision than you speak later on, right? Does it consist more in knowing God or in loving God, right? Huh? But it's more safe to say it consists in knowing and loving God than to be more precise, huh?

[5:03] Which does not belong to other creatures who cannot know God or cannot love God as He is in Himself, huh? Which obtain the last end in so far as they partake of some likeness of what God, huh? According as they are, or they what are alive, right? Which is even more so, like the trees out here, or even know, like even the what dog and the cat, know, huh?

[5:36] And to this is clear the response to the objections, for beatitude names not the thing that is our end, but the obtaining of that end, right? By knowing and loving that thing, right?

[5:52] Clear enough? So God is the end of the whole universe, as Aristotle himself had said. So on the tabernacle there in our parish, there he's got the Alpha and the Omega, right? Now sometimes in in the Apocalypse it says I am the Alpha and the Omega. Sometimes he says I am the first and the last, and then sometimes I am the beginning and the what? The end.

[6:24] Yeah. But I suppose it's said by antonomasia, right? He's the beginning of beginnings, right? He's the end of all ends, right? The Lord of Lords. Okay. So he's by antonomasia. He's the beginning and the end of all things.

[6:57] So for the tree than me, God is the end of both of us. Yeah. But I obtain this end at last by knowing and loving God, right? The tree can't know and love God, huh? But it does what obtain this end in some way by becoming like God, right?

[7:24] You know, Plato before his student Aristotle, but Aristotle says the same thing in the second book about the soul, that the plants in reproducing, right, are trying to be like God, right? Trying to be like the immortal, so far as possible, right? It's not possible for them to be immortal as individuals, but their kind can go on by reproduction, right? That's a beautiful thing that that Plato says, I guess, in the Symposium, right?

[8:00] And Aristotle says, and he's talking about the plant soul, right, and so on. And there you see that they are becoming like God. In the first book of the Physics, Aristotle says that form is something divine. This is common to him and Plato that he was arguing against. So he takes a opinion that's common to two of them. And when Thomas comments on that, he says the reason why we say that form is something divine is that form is act, right?

[8:35] Matter is ability, huh? Passive ability. God is pure act, right? So every form, insofar as it's an act, is like what God, huh? And so when

[8:52] when nature forms something, right, huh? It's in a way pursuing God, right? So far as possible for it, right? Because it's making something that is like God, right? So far as possible, because every form is like God.

[9:14] That's profound. Aristotle is arguing therewith that Plato should distinguish between matter and lack of form, right? But he argues against Plato from something that the two of them accepted: form is something godlike. Then he speaks of matter, desirous for form, right? Because perfected by form, but privation seems to be something bad, right? It's opposed to form, The lack of form. Therefore, Plato should distinguish these two, right?

[9:46] He doesn't do. So in this sense, all things share the same end with man, right? In one sense, they're all striving to be, to to to achieve what the godlike in some way, right? But of course, in scripture it says, you know, we shall know even as we are known. That's kind of a striking way of putting it, huh?

[10:18] When God knows us by knowing Himself, right? So, they're going to know God as He is, Himself. Question: So in this this first question, he's speaking of the the final end, and then then at the end here, he he brings in the term beatitude. happiness Yeah that's the name, though, that he he's using here for that's christened by the name blessed. Yeah. Then it's um, and then that's that's um, that

[11:02] that term would only be used as um, rational creatures, right? Yeah, I was thinking of that today. That you know the 133rd psalm, and that's the one comes after when I was quoting the day before. Uh, the one before is the one talking about unity, right? Huh. But the 132nd one is talking about, you know, blessing God, and then God blessing you, right? Well, you're blessing God in a sense is what.

[11:34] Praising Him, right? Huh. Yeah. But God's blessing you in a sense is making you what blessed, right? Yeah. And so we speak of the the heavenly saints and so on. as the blessed, right? Hmm. I think that's the word. That's related to beatitude. I think. I mean, the English word for for beatitude, huh?

[11:56] Priest gives the people a blessing, right? Huh. Okay. So I think beatitude is related to that, isn't it? Beatus. What do we say? Beat? They beatify somebody. What is that? I think it's they proclaim that he is among the blessed. Yeah. That he's in heaven, right? Yeah. It doesn't make him blessed. No, no, no. Declaration and sort of a judgment. Yeah, yeah. But that's the term we use it in beatified, right?

[12:25] Okay. We proclaim him in a sense blessed, right? Huh. He's possessing beatitude, right? But he has beatitude. And his term here, adeptionem adeptionem It's the attaining I guess, in a sense. Yeah. that's what it has Attaining attainment. Achievement,

[13:01] you see, somebody's adept at something. He's reached it in some way, right? He's achieved it, yeah. Okay, so now we get question two. Then we're not to consider about beatitude. Now we're going to get more what precise as to what this last end of man is.

[13:29] And first, in what things it is. Secondly, what it is. And that's in question what three, right? And four. And third, in what way we can what obtain it, right? That's going to set the stage for the rest of this second part, right? That's in question five. So notice how slowly Thomas goes, huh? Gradually, huh? Use the expression Latin there, paulatim huh, which we used to translate bit by bit the way the mind comes to see something, huh?

[14:11] But you start off from the general and the confused that's more known and certain, and then you gradually fill it in, huh? Now about the first, he asks eight things.

[14:28] First, whether beatitude consists in divitiis in what Riches, huh? Some things in the gospel there, the rich man is sometimes called Dives, right? Yeah. But it's from this this word, right? Huh? They're kind of giving him a name because we're not we told his name is right. It's called Dives, huh?

[14:57] Rich man. Secondly, whether in what honors, huh? Third, whether in fame or in what glory, huh? What clear knowledge with praise, huh? We call that you're clearly known with praise. That's Gloria. Fourth, whether in what power, right? Huh?

[15:31] Fifth, whether in some good of the what body, like health or strength, you know. My boxing friend, my wife and I were visiting a former neighbor there is in the the rest home there, and they're trying to you know get her functioning again, you know. She had these two little you know bells, so nothing like see they do you know, and they turn us in a way and.

[16:08] Then six, whether in what pleasure, right? Huh? Seven wither in some good of the what soul, and eight wither in some created good. It's a very general questioner. Now the the first six articles almost correspond almost to this what false happiness that Boethius has in the first book of the

[16:42] Consolation of Philosophy, huh? Where Boethius is going to consider happiness, but he's going to consider false happiness before what true happiness on the grounds that false happiness is more known to us than true happiness, and to clear away the you know mistakes about it, huh? So it's kind of a beautiful order it seems to me that the great Boethius, huh? I often say you know you know in my experience you know Boethius is the greatest mind between Augustine and Thomas.

[17:16] I I don't know if that's true, but certainly is one of the greatest there between these two great minds, huh? And Thomas often refers to this. Now this fifth one is kind of stuck in there, right? You know, as an extra thing there. I suppose if you think of pleasure there, you're thinking of maybe the pleasures of the body. So we'll see how he handles that. But there are higher pleasures too.

[17:48] I think I mentioned that thing there about the English philosopher there. No Mill Mill, you know. He kind of sums up, you know, the that that line of thinking, you know, that the end is is pleasure, right? Huh? Of course, he has to reply to the objection. The objection is saying, "Well, you're reducing man to the level of a beast, you know, where he pursues pleasure." He says, "Kind of well," and he replies, "says Well, you're the beast," he says, "because you think the only pleasures that man can pursue are those between the ones that he shares with the beast, right?

[18:25] But there are higher pleasures, right? Huh? Okay. And I mentioned before, I think you know, thing I kind of liked an essay by Austerlitz, right? You know, among many things in the essay by Austerlitz on towards an evaluation of music, right? Huh? He makes the point that the the pleasures of the fine arts are too high for the beast and too low for the angels, huh? And so the angels, you know, because you don't have senses, right?

[18:56] You won't take the same interest in in paintings and statues and the music of Mozart that I will take, right? And but the the beasts don't take any interest in this, right? I used to play Mozart for the cat all the time, and I pretend that that she is enjoying the music, but she's curling up you know in front of the thing you know. But I don't think she's really paying attention to music, right?

[19:23] But if I left the sleepy living room and went out to the kitchen to get some sandwich meat or something, you know, the that crinkle, she's right there next to me.

[19:34] So, so kind of, I used to say, you know, you got to go from the pleasures of eating and drinking and reproducing to the pleasures of the fine arts, right? And then from those to the pleasures of what? Of Euclid and higher up things, right? So the pleasures of understanding, which is the pleasure of Euclid, the pleasure of understanding, pleasures of philosophy, those we share with the angels, right?

[20:05] But they have them more what? Fully than we do, right? The pleasures of eating we share with the beasts, although we have more refinement in our, you know, preparation of our food and so on, right? So it's kind of just the opposite there, right? We have those pleasures in a higher way than the beast has, right? And the pleasures of understanding we don't understand very much or very well, so we have that less than the angels, right?

[20:29] But in the middle, they have the pleasures of the fine arts, which seem to be the human pleasures, right? In the sense that they're, you know, Horace only says that, right? They're too high for the beast, but too low for the what? Angels, right? But as if you have to go through those, right? To get to the what? Be disposed for the higher ones, huh? And we used to say, you know, the people who go into the fine arts in that sense and enjoy them but go no further, right?

[21:00] Well, they're up above the beast, you know, but they haven't gone all the way, right? They don't realize this is to prepare, you know, something higher.

[21:12] Okay. To the first, it should proceed. It seems that beatitude of man consists in what? Riches. He's going to argue this way, huh? Amazing the value, sir.

[21:35] Since beatitude is the last end of man, it consists in that which most of all dominates in the affections of man. But of this sort are wealth, for it is said in Ecclesiasticus, all things obey money.

[21:55] So the devil can quote scripture even now. Therefore, in wealth, the beatitude of man consists. That's pretty convincing, huh? Moreover, according to Boethius in the third book of the Consolation, beatitude is a state made perfect by the bringing together of all goods. But in monies, all things seem to be possessed. But it isn't. It'll buy.

[22:35] Because, as the philosopher says in the fifth book of the Ethics, for this coins are invented, right? That there might be more what trust, right? For whatever men want to what buy, you might say, right? Therefore, in which is beatitude consists.

[22:59] Moreover, the desire of the highest good, since it never fails, would seem to be what infinite, right? But this, most of all, is found in wealth. For the avaricious man is not filled by money, right? He always wants more. As is said in Ecclesiasticus 5: 9 Therefore in riches beatitude consists. That's what that guy, Sam Walton, wherever there was, invented Walmart. Came up with Walmart in his old age.

[23:32] They said to him, Sam Walton, they said, you know, you've made umpteen bazillion dollars. What do you want now? I want more. That's what he said. Wow. That's a commentary right there. That was in a company of poor trustees, you know. This one guy had a lot of money, you know. He was trying to pull off another thing there, and someone else was opposing him. Right, he had the guy in tears.

[23:59] I went home and I said, Wow, what is he in tears for? He doesn't need this, you know. One more killing, you know. But against this, the good of man consists more in keeping beatitude than in what sending it out. Sending, keeping up. But as Boethius says in the second book of the Consolation, there that by what spending or flowing out our wealth more than in conserving it, we are what we are better, right?

[24:48] You might say the good of money consists in being used, right, and therefore given up, right. So if that were the best thing, you wouldn't want to give it up, right?

[25:00] Okay. But avarice always makes men what odious, right? But largitas, largitas makes them what illustrious, huh? Okay. So if wealth was was what beatitude, it wouldn't what be most praiseworthy than being given up, right? The answer should be said that it's impossible that the beatitude of man consists in riches, huh?

[25:42] For there are twofold riches, as the philosopher says in the first book of the Politics. Some natural and some what artificial. For natural riches are those by which what men are aided, right, to taking away natural defects, huh? Just as what food, drink, vestments, vehicles, habitations, and others of this sort, huh?

[26:19] Okay, so no, you got to be careful. You say natural there because what sense they vestimenta, vehicula, and habitacula, but they're serving a what? A natural what need, right? Okay, that's what he means here, but it doesn't mean that they're all natural, right? Because clothing is not natural. In some sense, it is natural, right? Especially in the winter. Okay, and vehicula, right?

[26:51] Artificial wealths are those which, by their nature, do not aid, like the denarius, huh? the dollar bill, right? So when they had that inflation there in Germany, you know, and they were using it the wallpaper, that's all worth. That's all worth. Like

[27:13] the stone. But human art invented them, you might say, right, or found them for the what easing of exchange, right? Huh? So the denars were a measure of what? Common things. Common things. Okay.

[27:39] Now it's manifest that in natural riches the beatitude of man cannot be, because these riches are what sought on account of something other, right?

[27:55] To wit, to sustaining the nature of man, right? So they're ordered to something else. How can they be the last end? So the food and the drink, preserving the life of the man, right? Distinct. And the clothing, you know, preserving him from the cold and so on. And therefore they are not able to be the last end of man, but rather they are more ordered to man himself as to a what end.

[28:25] Whence, in the order of nature, all things of this sort are what below man, and made for the sake of man, huh? According to that of Psalm eight, that all these things are subject unto your feet, huh?

[28:45] Now artificial riches are not sought except on account of the natural ones. So I want money so I can buy food, clothing, a house, my car out there.

[28:59] For they are not sought except because through them one buys things necessary for the use of what life. Whence much more do they what? Much less Much less do they have the a notion of a last end. It is impossible, therefore, the beatitude which is the last end of man to be in what? What?

[29:24] And the Summa Contra Gentiles and Tilos Tamils who are you know, will not disdain to argue against wealth. Now, to the first, it should be said that all bodily things obey money, as regards the multitude of the stupid,

[29:47] who know only bodily goods, right? Which are able to be acquired by what money? But the judgment about human goods ought not to be taken from the stupid, but from the what wise.

[30:06] And then he goes back to his comparison, just as a judgment about flavors, right, by those who have a tongue well what disposed, right? Huh? Okay. So my mother told me, you know, eat your orange before you eat your candy, right? So if you eat your candy, the orange might taste what bitter, right? So I'd have a tongue, you know, disposed, right, to taste the fruit, huh?

[30:37] And you can find that, you know, you take some strong foods, you know, that's I mean, hot sausages or you know, things that sort of interfere with the taste of other things, right? So not disposed.

[30:57] The number of fools is infinite, scripture says, right? So, so true to say pecuniae oboediunt omnia, right? Somebody's talking to me about the canonization of saints, you know, and money has something to do with this, right? You know, to organize this, you know, that your your saint considered, right? Yeah.

[31:22] I guess Dominicans are known for not bothering you this most of the time, you know. So they don't have any more than they say, so they do, but.

[31:32] That's what they say. You want to get the money? The OFM stands out for money. But you see, there's kind of corruption in the church there, you know, where you get bishops, you know, who are more concerned about raising money, you know. Yeah. And they get into that kind of a situation. I suppose it's got some necessity too, you know, but. But. One bishop and that the priest that was here, Edmund Klein, Edmund Klein, was from Can, Wichita, Kansas.

[32:01] Yeah. Was a former bishop. Yeah. I think he's dead now. But he had enough savvy with money that he set up the whole diocese so that all the county schools would be paid for, so that nobody has to pay tuition anywhere in the diocese, and it's still true today. Anybody can go in and not pay tuition. Somehow he was able to do that. I don't know how he did it, but he did it.

[32:26] Wow. But if you say God has lots of money Yeah yeah yeah. The second should be said that by money one is able to have all what? That means I can sell viable things. Yeah, but not spiritual things, which are not able to be what? Sold or bought.

[32:55] Once it is said, Proverbs seventeen verse sixteen, what does it benefit the stupid man to have wealth, since he is not able to buy what? Wisdom That's that's That's a beautiful quote, isn't it? Yeah.

[33:14] Nice to say there's a kind of distinction between."The ability to make money, right, and then to know what to what spend it for, right. And so some people who know how to make money don't know what to spend it for, right? Those are the pleasure seekers, not the pleasure finders. Yeah, yeah. But things they're just simply foolish with their money, right? They don't even know how to preserve it, huh?

[33:39] Anyway, to the third, it should be said that the desire for natural riches is not infinite, right? Because according to the certain measure of nature, they suffice, huh? So you don't want to eat food

[34:02] forever, right? But the desire of artificial riches is infinite, huh? Because it serves disordered concupiscence, huh? Which is not what modified, as is clear to the philosopher in the first book of Politics, right? Aristotle talks about this, right? The art of making money, right? The infinity right there. Just print more. But other nevertheless is the infinite desire of riches and the desire of the highest good, huh?

[34:47] For the highest good, the more perfectly it is possessed, the more it itself is what loved, and other things are what despised. Yeah, as Saint Paul says, some kind of strong language, right? About other things. Um.

[35:09] Because the more it is had, the more it is known, right? And therefore it is said in Ecclesiasticus chapter twenty-four, "Who eat me will still what hunger, right?"

[35:25] But in the desire of wealth, riches, and of other temporal goods, it is reversed, huh? Because when they are had, then they are what condemned, huh? And others are desired, according as it was signified in John four, when the Lord says, "Who drinks from this water, by which I signified what temporal things, to the lady at the thing at the fountain, will thirst again, right?" And this is because their insufficiency is more known when they are what had, huh?

[36:09] So Romeo might not have been perfectly happy, even marrying Juliet. And this shows their imperfection that, and that in them, the highest goodness does not consist.

[36:29] Vanity Fair, there by Thackeray, the novel. At the time when Thackeray and Dickens, you know, are competing for being the most popular novelist, right? Thackeray came out with, you know, Vanity Fair, you know, and Dickens has came out with, you know, David Copperfield. But anyway, seeing one could excel the other, right? Because there's a funny story told of Thackeray's daughter, you know, saying to him, "Daddy, why don't you write more like Mister Dickens?"

[37:06] Probably not innocent, you say. But how could you? You know, out of the mouths of babes. I mean. Oh yeah. But anyway, you know, Vanity Fair is about the vanity of men pursuing wealth and other things. But at the end of it, but who in this world gets ever gets what he wants? Or having got it, it is satisfied, right? So you find out that these things that you think satisfy you, they don't. Okay, we got ten minutes.

[37:37] Article. To the second one proceeds thus. It seems that the beatitude of man consists in honors, right? For beatitude or happiness is the reward of virtue, right? And also use the word felicitas there, right? Because he's he's talking about felicitas comes from what fruitful, right? So, and fruit is the end of a natural process, right? And so, in human affairs, to say it's like the natural result of what virtuous behavior, right?

[38:16] Felicitas. It's the reward of virtue, as the philosopher says in the first book of ethics. Used to say when I was little, you know, virtue is its own reward. Well, some say it's only reward, but the reward is happiness, right? So I'm thinking something else for that. But honor, most of all, seems to be what is the reward of what virtue, as the philosopher says in the fourth book of the ethics.

[38:43] So we call the man officer, your honor, the judge, your honor. Therefore, beatitude consists most of all in what honor, right? So when Aristotle talks about virtue at the end of the first book of the Nicomachean Ethics, he kind of has the idea that virtue is a praiseworthy quality, right?

[39:13] And so that's kind of how you recognize a virtue, huh? It's a kind of an honored thing, right? So when the coward is not praised, huh? But the foolhardy man is not praised either, right? And so it's the man the mean who's praised, right? Okay. The man who won't touch wine like that, you know. Puritan is not praised, right? He's criticized, but the drunkard is even more criticized, right?

[39:40] Okay. So it's kind of like you think of this as a praiseworthy or honorable thing, right? That seems to be the thing. Moreover, that which belongs to God and to the most excellent, most of all, seems to be beatitude, which is the perfect good. But of this sort is honor, as the philosopher says in the fourth book of the ethics. So you have two virtues there concerned with honor, huh?

[40:08] Magnanimity, right? Does great things in all the virtues. So Mozart, his last symphony is a representation of magnanimity. And the thirty-sixth symphony too, the Jupiter, symphony a representation of magnanimity. Do earlier symphonies represent other virtues? Yeah, yeah. So, thirty-eighth and the fortieth, there, courage, huh? Quintet's two acts.

[40:48] Now, you know the first virtue Aristotle talks about is courage, right? And courage especially seems to be known as a virtue, right? And to be honorable, right? So as I always say, you know, there is a medal of honor, right, which is a great honor. And but don't get the medal of honor for being just and paying your bills all your life, or for eating moderately all your life, right?

[41:13] You know. But for one glorious afternoon on the battlefield, you can get the medal of honor, right? It's being an account there today of the soldiers, the Marine Corps fighting there in Afghanistan, you know, video, close-up, you know, presentation of it, right? You know, and the guys saying, you know, and some of the guys end up going back without an arm or a leg, you know, and so on, but God, which you get through this, you know.

[41:42] But you just just throughout tough, you know, these guys really amazing, amazing to see that, you know, willing to put up with that kind of a thing, you know. So this is most honorable, right? Now when a man does these things, huh? Not courageous things.

[42:02] More that which is most of all desired by men is beatitude, huh? But nothing seems to be more desirable by men, desired by men than honor, right? Now, because men will what?

[42:18] What's that? No other things, unless they what? Suffer some detriment of their honor, right? Some loss. Yeah. Therefore, in honor, beatitude consists, right? Yes,

[42:39] a friend of mine put my yearbook when I was a sophomore. I said, "Death before dishonor," which I think quote from one of the great poets or one of the great classical authors. They pledge their sacred honor, right, our forefathers here. But against this, beatitude is in the one who is blessed, right? But honor is not in the one who is honored, but more in the one honoring you, who shows reverence to the one honored, right?

[43:12] As the philosopher says in the first book of the Ethics. Therefore, beatitude does not consist in what honor. That reminds me of the thing there about this. Friendship consists more in loving or being loved, right? Well, being loved does not mean something in you; it's something the one is loving you. May be a sign of something good in you, but loving is what perfection of you. So honor is something extrinsic, right?

[43:42] So how can that be the end? I answer: It should be said that it is impossible that beatitude consists in what honor, for honor is shown to someone on account of some excellence of that person, and thus it is a sign and a test and a sort of testimony of that excellence which is in the one honored.

[44:11] But the excellence of man is most of all to be noted in his beatitude, which is the perfect good of what of man, and according to the parts of this beatitude, that is according to those goods by which something of beatitude is partaken of, and therefore honor can what follow upon beatitude, but it can't be that chiefly in what beatitude what consists, right? It's like you can't be your chief good can't be that you are loved, but if anything, what you are loved for, and what you are loved for is your chief good, right?

[44:57] And this is something kind of secondary, right? The fact that you are loved for for your good. Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that as the philosopher says there, in the first book of the Ethics, honor is not the reward of virtue on account of which the virtuous act, right?

[45:22] But they take honor from what men in place of reward, right? As it were, they're not having something better to give, right? That's kind of marvelous, right? So I I used to take the example there in class there when you say the the you get the medal of honor, you know, and sometimes given to the parents because the son has died, right? It's not the equivalent of what they lost, but what can we do?

[45:50] We figure we we should honor them, right? But we realize that getting that medal of honor is not replacing their son; it's not equal, right? What can we do?

[46:03] The true reward of virtue is beatitude itself, on account of which the virtuous what act. If for an account of honor one acted, it would not not be virtue, but more ambition in the name of a vice, right? You

[46:25] know, if if you read Shakespeare's Henry the Fourth play, you get a real good sense of these men who are after honor. You know, Hotspur, you know.

[46:34] He more is pained by by his honor being lost now to Prince Hal, right? Than he is with his death, right? And of course, Prince Hal later on, he's over there in France, you know, getting the great glory, right? You know, he admits that he's, you know, his love of honor is the sin that's all he has, you know. And he just It's a beautiful beautiful representation of this son.

[47:07] Heraclitus, you know, says, you know, most men are like beasts, you know, pursuing the pleasures of the thing, but the best of men they seek honor right Okay. And what's what's the motive? Not the motive, but the the motto of the West Point.

[47:28] Hm Yeah. Yes, you get honor there, right? Mm hmm? So honor ought to is owed to God and to the most excellent, as a sign or testimony of a what pre-existing excellence, right? Not that the honor itself makes stuff, but excellent, right? Okay. So what politicians think? Yeah, yeah, that's fun. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes,

[48:06] like when you play that hail to the chief, you know, and they come in, you know, and make them feel good. It must make you feel pretty good, having that. What's a march? Or the ten? There's twenty-one guns saluting over there.

[48:21] Of course, the man of honor has made sure that he gets the full quota of attention. Yet honor makes people, you know, do pursue higher things to some extent. It's not entirely bad; it's affecting men.

[48:46] To the third, it should be said that from the natural desire of beatitude, which honor what follows, it happens that men most of all desire what honor, right? Huh?

[49:01] Whence men seek most of all to be honored by the wise, in whose judgment they believe themselves to be what confirmed that they're excellent or what happy, right? Okay. Aristotle says that you want to be honored by someone you think is what

[49:20] knows what he's saying, right? You know, to be honored by the by the you know ignorant multitude, right? You know, there's no confirmation of any excellence in you, right?

[49:39] Like a priest told me, he's, he does a lot of mission work in the Sudan. He's with the community; he's very popular. And he said, "He said, 'Well, you guys, you guys are doing important work. The church, we're like rock stars. You know, whoop, whoop! but you guys are the real. you're the real deal So I guess we've got to stop now here, right? Yeah.