Prima Secundae
17. Aquinas on Beatitude I: Seeing God and Sinlessness, the Speculative Sciences, and Knowing the Angels (Prima Secundae q.3 a.6–7)
Class of 2011-03-31
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/017-aquinas-on-beatitude-i-seeing-god-and-sinlessness-the-speculative/

[0:00] Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, Guardian Angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo Gracias. God, our enlightenment. Guardian Angels, through the lights of our minds, ordain and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Amen. Help us to understand our eternity. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. I've been reading, rereading the Treatise on the Angels there in the Prima Pars, and happened this morning to arrive at the article on whether the angels who see God face to face, right, can they sin?

[0:54] And you might expect the answer is no. It's impossible for an angel or for any rational creature that sees God as He is face to face to sin anymore. Impossible. Now, how is Thomas going to show that, or help us to kind of understand why that's so, right?

[1:14] Well, what you often do with a proportion, once you see the proportion, you often reason from the ratio that is more known to us to the ratio that is less known, right? I was giving an example before he came in where our Lord is talking, and he says, "Now, which of you fathers, you know, if your son asked for a loaf of bread, would you give him a stone, huh?

[1:46] Or if he asked for a fish, would you give him a snake or something? Another. Yeah. And and he says, "Well, then, if you bad as you are, huh, know how to give your children good things, huh? How much more will your heavenly Father give you good things, right? " So notice our Lord is has in mind there a proportion, right? As I am to my children, right?

[2:14] So God is to us, right? Now, which is more known to us? How I am to my children, or how God is to us? What's more known? I am to my children, right? So if I bad as I am, give good things to my children, right? How much more so will God, right, give good things to what? Us, right? You see, how it's based on a proportion there, okay?

[2:42] And in some cases, you know, these proportions to our Lord uses they're continuous, right? And you give the example of the parable there, where the master forgave the servant who couldn't pay his debt, right? And then the servant went out and met the lesser servant who owed him some, and he.

[3:03] And then the master found out, right? You know what happened, right? But notice, in a sense, he's saying that the as the master is to the what, higher servant, so the higher servant is to the what, lower servant, huh? Okay, and this is again in the Our Father, right? Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those trespass against us, right? But you got three things there, but a proportion, right?

[3:31] Just like with four and six and nine, right? So you have proportion. Proportion is four terms, but sometimes you have one used at the end of one and the beginning of the next. They call that a continuous proportion, right? Okay. Now, what's the proportion that Thomas uses here?

[4:08] The goodness of God is to the one who sees God as He is, right? As the vision, right? Just as something else is one who does not see God as He is. Which is you and I, right now, huh?

[4:38] One who does not see God as He is. Maybe never. Maybe not yet. Okay. Now, what is that, huh? What's the fourth term? Truly happiness. They're close, yeah, but something we met before we even got into the definition of of happiness, huh? What is the fundamental definition in ethics. Yeah.

[5:10] And what is the definition of the good? But all. want Yeah, but all want Yeah, the good is what all want Now, somebody might object and say, "How can say the good is what all want, Right? Because some people want bad things. Okay. But the point is, as Aristotle points out, he talks about the good there. It might be a real good or a what? Apparent good, yeah.

[5:48] So we don't want the bad except under the appearance of what being good in some way, right? Okay, so we can't will the bad as bad. We've got to see, or think we see, the bad is in some way good, and then it's possible for us to what will it, right? If we don't see it as good anyway, we can't what will it. I used to use the example of the, and I'd say to students, if somebody annoys you, should you kill them?

[6:30] No. And hopefully the answer, no, it's not good. I say, but in some way it is good, huh? It gets rid of an annoyance in your life, right? Okay. And

[6:46] if David there is pursuing Bathsheba, another man's wife, right, huh? Is it good to get rid of that guy's husband if you want to enjoy his wife? In some way it is, right, huh? Okay. And now here is the deception going on, right? Because something can be good simply and without qualification, and not good simply, but in some very imperfect way, right? So even my killing Bathsheba's husband, right, huh?

[7:17] Can be seen as good in some way because it enables me to enjoy Bathsheba without the annoyance of this being around. Okay. In the same way, if you have some money in a box in your bedroom there, and I find out about it, and I wait till you're not there, and then I go in and get the money, right? Was that good? In some way, yeah. I now have more money in my pocket, right, huh?

[7:41] And it's good to have more money, isn't it? But this is the second kind of mistake that Aristotle says is mistake of what, simply and not simply, right? Mixing up the two, huh? Okay. Mistake that Meno makes, right? The dialogue called the Meno. So as they tell the students, they say, you're making this kind of mistake all day long, right? Or all every week, you know. Because something that is bad simply, you're doing because it's good in some way.

[8:13] And something that is good simply, you're not doing because in some ways it's bad. Is it good to get up on a sudden going to mass. Oh no, you don't get your rest, right? So in some ways bad, right? Okay. But notice, huh? What Thomas sees about the definition of the good there, right? Why it's we say that the good is what everybody wants, because even those who want something bad, do so under some way in which it is seen to be good, right?

[8:46] So it's impossible for me to want to do something unless it's good or at least appears good to me in some way, right? Do you see that?

[8:58] Well, now the one who sees God, he sees what? Yeah, and he sees the good that God is goodness itself, right? And therefore, he sees that nothing else is good except in so far as it what partakes of God in some way and is ordered to what God in some way, right? So just as the man who does not see God cannot do something unless it what seems good to him, right?

[9:30] then? So the one who sees God as He is cannot choose anything except what in reference to God, and that's why he can't sin. Isn't that beautiful proportion, though, right? And he's reasoning from the ratio that's more known to us, right? It's more known to us that even the the thief, you know, or the murderer, whatever it is, right,

[9:57] can't do something. Unless it's good or appears at least good to him in some way, right? That's more known to us than that the man who, or the rational creature that sees God as he is, cannot what any more sin, right? But one illuminates the other, right? Thomas was brought up in New Plitvice. Everybody who had the liberal arts, right, and therefore they understand from an early age, when they were boys, even, right, ratios and proportions, right, and how you. Soda pop or something, Because you've got the obvious difference, right?

[10:41] But these wine tastings, sometimes people don't identify it right, right? I'm sure if you gave me Cabernet Sauvignon and Coke, I could tell the difference. So that was exercising my mind, right? And things are that close together. So we're up to the article six, was it?

[11:04] Okay. I've been pursuing these speculative sciences, and I'm going to see if I can expect the beatitude from these, right? So I don't know whether I've deceived all my life in seeking my Beatitudes this way. Maybe I should have become a monk or something, you know, instead of a philosopher. Okay, we'll see. We'll see what it is. To six, one proceeds thus. It seems that beatitude of man consists in the consideration of the speculative sciences.

[11:39] Speculative is the what? Latin word. Theoretical is the Greek word, right? And the English word is what? Looking, looking, looking before and after. It is so named because the word "looking" means you're trying to see, right? You're trying to understand, not trying to do something. So it's not a practical science, but you're trying to understand.

[12:11] For the philosopher says in the Nicomachean Ethics huh That felicitas huh? That's the way they usually translate the Greek word there, but the Greek word is eudaimonia that he uses there. That's an operation according to perfect what? Virtue. And that's what he terms already in the kind of the first book, right? But then he goes through all the virtues, the moral virtues, and all the virtues of reason, right?

[12:46] And then finally, he gets down. What is that perfect virtue? In distinguishing the virtues, he does not lay down speculative virtues except three: science or episteme in the Greek, scientia sapientia, right? Savory knowledge, as Thomas explains the etymology of that, sapientia and scientia and intellectus or natural understanding, as I call it sometimes,

[13:18] which all what pertain to the consideration of the looking sciences. Therefore, the last happiness of man, his beatitude, consists consideration of speculative sciences. Convincing. I find this pretty convincing. Moreover, that seems to be the what last beatitude of man, which is naturally desired by all for its own sake. But of this sort is consideration of the looking sciences, because and this is the famous first sentence of the premium to wisdom there at the beginning of the

[14:00] fourteen books of wisdom. All men by nature desire what, and they translate surei there, huh? It's the way it's in the commentary too, you know. But the Greek word is actually what, not epistasthai but eidenai, right? So to translate in English, you're saying all men by nature by birth want to understand, right?

[14:28] And a little bit after that, Aristotle shows that the looking sciences are sought for their own sake. Therefore, in the consideration of the looking sciences,

[14:42] consists what beatitude. Moreover, beatitude is the last perfection of man, the ultimate perfection. But each thing is perfected as it's reduced from potency to act. But the human understanding is reduced to act by the consideration of the speculative sciences: geometry, arithmetic, natural philosophy, first philosophy, wisdom. Therefore, it seems that in the consideration of these things, the ultimate beatitude of man consists, right?

[15:27] Against all this nonsense, is what is said in Jeremiah, huh? Chapter nine, huh? Let the they were reading from Jeremiah this morning, huh? Our scripture reading this morning. I don't know what you had, but we had. Could be just this is bad. The deal of things, I mean.

[15:50] Let the wise man not glory in his what wisdom, huh? Ah, that's a put down for me. Supposing. I gotta, yeah, I gotta get straightened out here.

[16:07] And he's speaking about the wisdom of the speculative sciences. Therefore, it does not consist in consideration of these things. The ultimate beatitude of man, huh? What does Thomas say when he's gonna not just throw Aristotle a dump heap of history is? It does, Ben.

[16:29] Yeah. Answer. It should be said that as has been said above, twofold is the beatitude of man, right? One perfect and the other what? Imperfect, huh?

[16:48] Aristotle seems to have seen this in some way, you know, because when he gets through with his consideration of happiness, he'll say, you know, he's aware of what the Solon had said, you know, "Call no man happy till he be dead, " because of all the uncertainties of life, and so on. And so he says, he kind of modifies that and says, let's call them happy, but happy as men, happy as men can be, right?

[17:14] Their natural powers. So twofold is the beatitude of man: one perfect and the other imperfect. Is that contrary to what he said before that there could only be one last end?

[17:38] Why not? The last end is the perfect one. Okay, okay. But he calls them both nevertheless beatitude, right? In some way, he's saying both are kind of the last end. One partakes of the other. Yeah, or one really what perfects the other, right?

[17:59] You know, and again another reference to this treatise on the angels there, where Thomas talks about the the natural love of the angels, right, as well as their supernatural love, huh? And some people are kind of tempted to say, you know, that you love God above all things only by the supernatural love, right? You need caritas, charity, right? And Thomas says no. He says that even by his natural love, right, the angel loves God above all the things, huh?

[18:35] Because it's natural for the whole, I mean, for the part, to love the what whole more than itself, right? And then he goes on making an interesting objection to the people who think the other way around, that if the angel did not, by his natural love, love God above all things, then the supernatural love of charity would not be perfecting nature, but going against it.

[19:08] If the angels say naturally loved himself most of all, that was his natural love. Are the same thing for you and I, huh? If we naturally loved ourselves more than God, and then the supernatural love of charity, whereby you love God above all things, would not be perfecting, huh? The natural love. But grace would be contrary to to nature. It's kind of profound insight, you know. See, I think a lot of us are—we were brought up, and so on—would kind of, you know, think of of our love as naturally selfish.

[19:45] There's some truth to that. It's only our emotions, but but insofar as we are what a part of some greater whole, the part naturally loves the whole more than itself. Thomas gives example, you know, of how the when somebody you know aims at your head, you you spontaneously raise your hand to protect your head, right? Even though the hand may end up getting hurt, right? But it's sacrificing itself for the head, which is most necessary for the the common good of the what?

[20:15] Yeah, yeah, that's interesting. Francis de Sales makes the same point in treating on the love of God. Yeah. Natural love. Yeah. So when Aristotle, you know, if he was to be introduced to Christianity, he would not see that as what? you know, or unreasonable, right? But

[20:40] by charity, your loving God is the source of what the beauty of your vision, right? Not just the source of our natural good, right?

[20:59] It's necessary to understand perfect beatitude, which reaches or arrives at the true what definition of beatitude. But imperfect beatitude, what does not attain the true definition of beatitude, but partakes in a what particular way a likeness of beatitude, huh?

[21:23] Just as perfect foresight, huh? Now prudence is the Latin word, but the English word is what foresight. And Thomasine explains when he talks about prudence that comes from a contraction of providentia, which is etymologically the same as what foresight, right?

[21:48] Just as perfect foresight prudence is found in man, before whom there is what the reason for things to be done, right? Right reason about things to be done.

[22:06] But there is imperfect prudence in some of the what brute animals, huh? In which there are particular instincts to some deeds, right? Like the what deeds of prudence, huh? So the animals have in kind of the imperfect way, right? The virtue of what foresight, right? But kind of for particular things for their their things, huh? I always remember Tabitha, the cat there we had, and Tabitha got left in the house one day with the door closed down to her box, right?

[22:45] And she had to go wee wee. Now Mabel would have, you know, taken the next the nearest rug, right? Yeah. Tabitha jumped in the bathtub and went over the drain. Oh, smart cat! Smart cat. Because she knows who's going to get it if she gets caught. That's a little bit of foresight, right? Very considerate thought of her part. I was extremely impressed with that. We went there and put her in our trailer to go to the bathroom.

[23:17] We always went down to her box, right? But she came up that night. If she did it more than once, there's something more going on.

[23:33] Yeah, we put Tabitha downstairs, you know, at nighttime, and. You pick her up, you know, you know, kind of pet her, and she'd be nice. And then the minute she took the first step to go downstairs, ah! She didn't want to go downstairs.

[23:48] So I'd say to my son Marcus, "Yeah, you put Tabitha downstairs now, but you had to hold her, you know, to avoid damage to yourself."

[23:58] But she had foresight. You know what it was, right? The minute I just took that first step, you know, first step to go downstairs, that was it. Up to that point, she was nice and didn't mind being in your arms, but you were there Yeah I think don't fool me, you know, as to what you got in your arms were.

[24:20] But there are marvelous things that the animals do sometimes, right? They seem to partake, right, of something like foresight, huh? I guess the biologists are all mixed up about differences between man and the beast, right? Just matter of degree, no? But one has in a particular way, right, partakes of what the other one has in its perfect sense, huh?

[24:44] But perfect beatitude in the consideration of the speculative sciences cannot consist, what, essentially, right? Put in a proper word, aren't there? Beatitude is not able to consist essentially in the consideration of the looking sciences,

[25:07] for the evidence of which it should be considered that the consideration of speculative science does not extend or go beyond the power of the what beginnings of that knowledge, huh? Because in the beginnings of science is contained in virtue, right, in power, the whole what science. So that's why you know Thomas and Aristotle and Albert the Great and so on. They'll speak of those principles of science.

[25:39] It's like a seed, right? That's a very common comparison, right? Something small in size but great in its power, right? If you look at that great oak tree out there, you know, and you pick up an acorn, you say, "Now that came from this," you say.

[25:57] I don't believe that, but it does, right? So I often translate the Greek word for scientia, their episteme, as reasoned out knowledge, right, or reasoned out understanding. But this reasoned out understanding comes from natural understanding.

[26:20] But the first beginnings of the looking sciences are taken through what the senses, as is clear through the philosopher in the beginning of the metaphysics, and also at the end of the posterior analytics. And that's the book about episteme, right? And demonstration that results in it. Whence the whole consideration of the looking sciences cannot extend beyond what?

[26:51] Yeah, can't go farther than the knowledge of the sensible things is able to what lead one, right? But in the knowledge of sensible things cannot consist the last what beatitude of man, which is his what last perfection.

[27:11] For something is not perfected by something lower than itself, except according as in that lower thing there is some partaking of the what higher.

[27:28] Now it is clear that the form of the stone or of any sensible thing, even Tabitha, is lower than man, right? Whence also through the form of the stone the intellect is not perfected in so far as it is such a form, right? But in so far as in it is partaken some likeness of something that is above the human what understanding, as the understandable light or something of this sort.

[28:04] Interesting, Aristotle is talking about the form of sensible things there in the first book of the Physics. He says that it's something divine, I mean it's something like God, because God is pure act, right? And so form is a kind of act, right? But not a pure act, and therefore, in so far as it's an act, it's like what God, huh?

[28:30] And both Plato and Aristotle say that when the animals reproduce or the plants reproduce, right, they're trying to be immortal like God is, so far as it's possible for them, right? They can't be immortal as individuals, but the their kind can have a kind of immortality.

[28:51] This will be new made when thou art old, and see thy blood warm when thou feelest it cold, For thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee calls back the lovely April of her prime.

[29:05] That's what the word reproduction means, right? You say, ask in class, you know, who's who's reproduced? You or your parents? Yeah, you're not reproduce. You reproduce the first time, but your parents are reproduce. So why do we use that word? They don't stop and think. You know that what re means there, right? The prefix there, reproduce. What? We can speak of production there too, as well as reproduction, right?

[29:33] What we call the whole thing reproduction. Because you are being what produced again, right? That's important because you're not going to last too long. Not as long as a tree. I know.

[29:54] Whom the gods love dies young, the Greek proverb. Because trees are legally protected nowadays. Okay. Now, everything that is what through another, huh, is led back to that which is through itself, huh? Okay, that's kind of a axiom, huh? But it's very important to understand through itself and through another, right? Huh? Through itself is one of the words that. Aristotle takes up in the fifth book of wisdom, right?

[30:41] So, when Thomas is talking about how the angels, right, are created, right, sometimes use the word per se, because to be belongs to God per se, He's being itself. Sometimes he'll say God's essentially being. So sometimes he'll say that what is so by participation presupposes what is so essentially, right? Or what is through another presupposes what is so through what itself. He takes up through itself as one of the words attached to perfect.

[31:26] That's why I admire Aristotle, right? Or you could, they know something through themselves, right? By the rest of us who learn from them, we're per aliud right? Yeah, I'm not as perfect as they have it.

[31:46] But the applications of that principle, right, gives rise to all kinds of things. Everything that is through another is reduced to what is so through itself.

[31:57] Knowing the arguments for the unmoved mover, right? I mean, the movers we know are moved movers, right? They move other things insofar as they are themselves moved, yeah. So, is a moved mover a mover per se or per aliud Yeah, that's what it means, a moved mover, right? So, if what is through another presupposes something to itself, there must be a mover that is what.

[32:30] That's the first argument for God, right? The unmoved mover is a mover to itself. Every move mover. Is it moving to a to another? Yeah. So, if the coffee is not s sweet to itself, it's gotta be sweet to something that is sweet to itself, like the sugar or something of this sort. Or if the dishcloth is wet but not through being a dishcloth, it must be wet to something that is wet to itself or essentially, like the water.

[33:06] So. Now it has been shown, however, that through sensible things one cannot arrive at a knowledge of what the separated substances, the material substances, which are above the human what understanding,

[33:29] whence it remains that the last happiness or beatitude of man. Cannot be in the consideration of the what speculative sciences, huh? So Aristotle said, "To knowing these immaterial substances, man's mind is like that of the back to the light of day, huh? " And Plato compares us to those who are what in a cave, huh? And just see the shadows of things, huh?

[34:01] So you can see how the next article is going to follow upon this, right? Well, then maybe it's seeing those those angels that I'm studying, right? I'm seeking happiness there in the treatise on the angels, but maybe even that's not going to be my beatitude.

[34:18] Once it remains that the last happiness or beatitude of man cannot be in the consideration of the looking sciences, we don't really know what the angels are, but you know what something what they are not, and they're above what you know, and they're

[34:38] something else that's something like them, but very short of what they are. But just as in sensible things, huh, forms sensible forms partake, huh, some likeness of the superior substances. So the consideration of the speculative sciences is a certain partaking of true and perfect what beatitude.

[35:13] So I wasn't pursuing true and perfect beatitude all my life, but I've been pursuing what a partaking of that, a likeness of that, right?

[35:30] To the first, therefore, it should be said that the philosopher speaks in the book of the ethics about imperfect what, Happiness. yeah. Because you know, after even he gets that first definition of happiness, and he comes into what Solon said the very famous things: "Call no man happy till he be dead," right? And of course, what you see in the great great Greek tragedies, you know, a man is, you know, presumably very happy, and all of a sudden, Oedipus, the king, right?

[35:58] You know, the great greatest play maybe, and so that was well known, huh? So Aristotle can say, this is not true and perfect happiness now, but it has some likeness to it. Let's call him happy, as as men are.

[36:16] That's such a famous saying, you know. You heard my paraphrase of that, you know? Well, my brother Mark and one of my good friends, they both got married late in life, and they said, "Call no man a bachelor till he be dead."

[36:34] Unless he's a monk. I can't even trust those guys. That is a consecrated bachelor. Remember, we're recording this. Now, to, the second it should be said, huh? It's about all men are what?

[37:20] Yeah. The second it should be said, that naturally desired not only perfect beatitude, but also what? Whatever likeness or partaking of it that there can be, huh? And about being reduced to act. Well, that's true, but not to what? The ultimate and complete act.

[37:48] So, in some way, one is reduced to to act. We require those sciences, huh? You do know about what numbers are proportional and so on, right? And when you can have a third proportional and so on, but that's not the ultimate and complete reduction to act. Okay. Now,

[38:13] Article Seven here. Take them back before we take our break. To the seventh one proceeds thus: It seems that the beatitude of man consists in the knowledge of separated substances, that is of the what? Angels. They call them separated substances because they're what? Separate from what? Matter.

[38:41] For Gregory says in a certain homily, right? Nothing is what? Yeah. To be what? Mashed up with the feasts of men. If one cannot what? Be among the feast of the angels. Yeah. To which our final beatitude is designed. But the feasts how are they translated? Feast or what? Feast. Yeah, feast. Okay. These beautiful pictures are you know after the final judgment there you know where the men and the angels are kind of in a dance there you know together you know and Fra Angelico right he's kind of the the supreme painter of these things.

[39:29] I told you what I saw there. I think I told you that, but was it Saint Teresa of Avila there? You know where at one point Christ says to her, you know, I would have you converse with angels and not with men. Angel of God, my guardian dear, enlighten and guard, rule and guide me. Okay.

[40:03] Therefore, it seems in the contemplation of the angels the last what beatitude of man consists, right? Moreover, the last perfection of each thing is that it be joined to its what? Beginning. Whence the circle is said to be the perfect figure, because it has the same beginning and end.

[40:28] But the beginning of the knowledge of man is from the angels through which men are what enlightened. As Dionysius teaches us in the fourth chapter of the celestial hierarchy. Therefore, the perfection of the human what understanding is in the contemplation of the what? Angels.

[40:55] Moreover, each nature is perfect when it's joined to a higher nature. Just as the last perfection of the body is that it be joined to a spiritual nature, like in the human soul. But above the human understanding and the order of nature are the angels. Therefore, the last perfection of human mind is to be joined by contemplation to the angels. Well, I'm convinced now I'm on the right track here.

[41:27] This, to get to the angels, but he's probably thinking here about the soul after it's separated from the body, right, where it knows the angels directly.

[41:37] But against all this nonsense is what is said in, hey, Jeremiah. Yeah. In this, let him glory who glories in knowing me, right? And he's God.

[42:00] Therefore, the last glory of man or beatitude does not consist except in the what knowledge of God. I answer: It should be said that as has been said, the perfect beatitude of man does not consist in that which is a perfection of his understanding, according to the partaking of something, but in that which is such to its very essence, its very nature, substance.

[42:36] For it is manifest that each thing that each thing so much as a perfection of some power, in so far as it what pertains to the definition of the what object of that power. Now the proper object of the intellect is what the truth. I guess he's going to end up to that thing in John there, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

[43:10] Whatever, therefore, has what partaking truth. Yeah. It does not contemplated make the intellect perfect by its ultimate perfection. So every truth other than God Himself, I suppose, he's going to go on to say, is only a partaking of what truth. It's not truth itself.

[43:41] Now, since there is the same disposition of things in being as in truth, as is said in the second book of what wisdom and metaphysics.

[43:52] Whatever things are beings by participation are also true by what participation. Now the angels have being that is a partaken, right? Because of God alone is what His essence, His own what being. I am who am. That's the meaning of that, huh? God alone is. I am who am. Right.

[44:25] Okay, that goes back to the prima pars. So we study things in the proper order here, right? Okay. Whence it remains that just as God is only being itself, so God is only what God alone is truth, what essentially His essence, and therefore the contemplation of Him makes one perfectly what blessed, huh?

[44:53] But some imperfect beatitude, right? Nothing prevents to be observed in the contemplation of the angels, and also what higher than in the consideration of the what speculative sciences. So he's not talking here about the knowledge of the angels that we can get in this life, like Percus is getting from reading questions fifty through sixty-four, the prima pars. But the kind of knowledge you have the angels after our soul is separated from our what body.

[45:23] My old teacher Kasurik says, "Now, when you meet your guardian angel, you're going to say, 'This is God. This this most magnificent. That's the most

[45:32] creature, but it's a creature, right? It's going to be something, right? You're going to be impressed with your guardian angel. " So he's not he's the highest angel. Somebody use the example of a mirror. Take a mirror and you put toward the sun into your eyes. Can you tell the difference between the sun and the mirror, the sun itself? That's what it's like looking at an angel or the Blessed Mother, or something compared to God We're so overwhelmed that one looks like the other.

[46:01] So an angel say, "No, I'm not God. " Meet the devil. He may say, "I'm God. " Down, down with you. I hope it won't be him.

[46:19] Okay. That's interesting use of that text here in the second book of metaphysics. Aristotle, you know, was arguing there usually from cause and effect, right? And he's saying that

[46:42] the effect is true because of the cause, and then he invokes the axiom, I guess you'd say that the same belongs to two things, right? But to one of them because of the other, it belongs more to the cause, which I used to always exemplify. I'm sure you do that before, but. If hot is said of the fire and of the air around the fire, of the air around the fire because of the fire, right, which is hotter.

[47:15] Or sweet is said of coffee and of the sugar, but of the coffee because of the sugar, which is sweeter. And if wet is said of water and of the dishcloth, but the dishcloth because of the water, which is wetter. So if true is said of the cause and the effect, but of the effect because of the cause, which is truer. Yeah, and therefore, the cause of the cause, right, and ultimately the first cause would be what most true, right.

[47:49] So, if Aristotle, you know, saw in the Old Testament that God says, "I am who am," right, and then the New Testament says, "I am truth itself," he'd say, "Well, that makes sense," you know, because the position or something in truth and in being is the what same. Okay, and then Thomas is just going another step further, saying, "But God is."Being what essentially I am, who am, right?

[48:19] And therefore, he's truth itself. So, how can you be what satisfied if your object is is the true with what is true by participation and not what is true, what truth itself?

[48:37] Thomas, you know, I think about that as when his communion prayers there, he uses the term what lux severa. That's kind of interesting, but this is even more explicit in some ways.

[48:52] Follows that is what perfect satiety or something. Mm-hmm. Gaudium sempiternum quiditas consummata so on. It's beautiful. He's talking there about the angels. You know, once they had the beatitude vision, will they ever have any more beatitude? Right? And Thomas says, "Well, no, not now. Essentially, that's it. And you won't keep on, you know, getting higher and higher to enjoy the beatitude vision. That's really contrary to the notion of end to be endless.

[49:44] So Aristotle points out in the second book of of wisdom, right? But he says the accidental reward, right? That will increase till the day of final judgment. And so, if I turn away from my wicked ways, my guardian angel will what rejoice in that, right? His beatitude doesn't consist essentially in that joy that he has over my turning away from wicked ways, but it's kind of an accidental what reward, right?

[50:16] And that will increase, but until the day of judgment, that's all. No one knows when we convert after that day. Then you're you're really finished. Yeah. Finished. He says to the

[50:35] first, it should be said that the festa, that's the feast of the angels. We partake not only in contemplating the angels, but at the same time with them, contemplating what God and chiefly contemplating God, I didn't want to say it, but okay, So we've got the festival of the angels.

[50:59] But have you speak with angels or not with men? That's that's marvelous. What Christ would think of saying that? To the second, it should be said. Thomas is always, you know, pointing this out that when he talks about how the human soul is created, right? You know, in contrast to some of the thinking, like Avicent and so on, we think of the human soul as being created by the angels, right?

[51:30] But if it really was created by the angels, then we'd be made in the image and likeness of the angels, and that would be our end, right? To the second, it should be said that according to those who lay down the human souls to be what created by the angels, it seems what suitably appropriate that the beatitude of man should be in the contemplation of the angels, as it were, being joined to their what beginning.

[51:58] Ah, but this is erroneous, huh? Okay, Thomas spends a lot of time refuting those notions in the Summa, both Summas. Whence the last perfection of the human mind is by conjunction to God, who is the creator of the soul, right? Who is the first beginning

[52:20] of the creation of the soul and also of its illumination. Enlightens every man, right, who comes into this world. The angel enlightens only as a what servant or minister, right? As has been pointed out in the first book. Whence, by his service, he aids man that he might arrive at beatitude, right?

[52:47] But he is not the object of human beatitude, right? He's pointing that way to God. So my teacher Kasurik used to say, if you make a prayer, open up your thought and your mind to your guardian angel, right? Give him more access to you, right? Because he's going to direct you, rule and guide me. I go talking to human beings. You can talk to your angel. Got Christ's advice there or command to, be civilized.

[53:23] That's marvelous. To the third, it should be said, huh? That to attain the higher nature by by the lower one happens in two ways, right? Huh? In one way, according to the grade of what the power participating, and thus the last perfection of man will be in this that man attains to contemplating, just as the angels contemplate, huh? God, huh? Another way, as the object is attained by the power, and in this way, the last perfection of each power is it attained that in which plene, huh, fully is found the what notion of its object, right?

[54:12] Notice they used the word plene, right? It comes from the class is full, right? Huh? You know, you can see how we we are led by these senses, huh? We've been talking about these things.

[54:26] So we've got to wait until the article, I guess, to find out what it does consist in. Okay. Should we take a little break? Is there more to get there?