Prima Secundae
20. Comprehension and Rectitude of Will in Beatitude (Summa I-II, Q.4, A.3–4)
Class of 2011-04-07
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/020-comprehension-and-rectitude-of-will-in-beatitude-summa-i/

[0:00] Here before our break Now, whether for beatitude is required comprehension? For Augustine says to Paulinus, about seeing God, to attain by the mind, to attain God by the mind, magna es beatitudo, right, it's a great beatitude. To comprehend, right? To comprehend, however, is impossible. We'll never see God or understand God as much as He is what understandable, right? And we'll never love God as much as He is what loveable, right?

[0:48] That's what St. Augustine said. Therefore, without comprehension, there is what beatitude. Moreover, beatitude is the perfection of man according to his understanding part, in which there are not any other powers than that of the understanding and the will. This has been said in the first part.

[1:15] But the understanding is sufficiently perfected by the vision of God, the will by the what pleasure in it. Therefore, there's not required comprehension as something third. I suspect there's some equivocation here in the word comprehension here, right?

[1:39] Moreover, beatitude consists in operation, but operations are determined according to objects. That's the old principle that Aristotle has in the Ethics, right? You know the abilities by their acts, and the acts by their what object. So you know the difference between seeing and hearing by the difference between color and sound, and you know the difference between the powers by the difference between seeing and what hearing.

[2:15] But the general objects are two: the good, the true, and the good. Now, the true corresponds to vision, and the good corresponds to what pleasure. Therefore, there's not required comprehension as some third thing.

[2:37] But against all this is what the Apostle says, First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapter nine: "Thus run that you might what comprehend, but spiritual running. " It's like a race, right? I mean, Paul says. Ends at what beatitude, when he himself says in the second epistle to Timothy, I have fought the what, fight battle, yeah good battle, good fight. I have completed the running right. I have kept the faith, and the rest is set forth for me a crown of what justice, huh?

[3:25] Therefore, comprehension is required for beatitude. Okay. I answer it should be said that since beatitude consists in the what achievement of the last end, those things that are required for beatitude should be considered from the what order of men to what the end. I'd say Thomas is looking before and after here as far as I can see.

[4:00] But to this understandable end, man is ordered in part by his understanding, or through his understanding, and partly through his what will, huh? Through his understanding, in so far as in the understanding there preexists some knowledge, some imperfect knowledge of the end, huh? So what's the definition of faith there that that Saint Paul gives in the Hebrews epistle? Hebrews, so we don't say Saint Paul, but we'll say it's Saint Paul.

[4:42] Substance of things hoped for, the conviction of what is not seen, right? Well, Thomas says substance means they're, what the foundation in a sense, huh? So it's kind of a foretaste of the things ever going to what see, yeah? We hope to see, right? Okay.

[5:04] Um. So he says through the understanding, in so far as in the understanding there preexists some imperfect knowledge of the end, huh? So when I study the the Trinity, and especially you know I think hey this is the way it's going to be, even though I don't know how it's going to be, but yeah I mean but you know I said you know there's nothing more to seek than this, huh?

[5:37] It's like Thomas says I study the body so I can understand the soul, and I study the soul so I can understand where an angel is, and I study the angels so I can understand where God is. That's it. Nothing else.

[5:59] Through the will, first through what love, huh? Which is the first motion of the will towards something, right? Secondly, through a real what relation, I guess, habitudinem. It's kind of hard to translate that exactly. Having yourself towards of the lover towards the what love, huh? Which can be threefold, huh? This guy is really subtle.

[6:38] Father Paul used to talk about mental indigestion, you know. So I mean, you could just what get slow down, you know, and kind of savor what Thomas says and think about it. Now we tend to go too fast. I think. Slow down. Think about what he said. And Brother Mark and Aridori say, "We're going to strain this professor's head out, you know, because he's all over the place.

[7:08] " He says, "Well, what we're going to do is going to lock him in a little prison cell and going to drop just one page of Thomas in each day. "

[7:18] Well, the guy starved for some kind of mental nourishment by this time. He wanted to read something, you know, and but just enough, you know, to not too much so that he runs over the place. But he just got that little one page of Thomas.

[7:33] The only way to. Sometimes he says the loved is present to the one what loving, and then no longer is he sought, right? Sometimes he is not present, or is not present, but it is impossible to what attain it, and then also it is not what sought, huh?

[8:12] Sometimes, however, it is possible to obtain it, but it is elevated above his the ability, you might say, of the one what. Yeah, so that at once or immediately he is not able to be had, and this is the relation of the one hoping to the what, yeah, which is the.

[8:43] Only relation that makes one investigate the end. You don't have the end, and you judge it thought to be possible in some way, right?

[8:57] And to these three, there corresponds something in the beatitude itself. This is the three theological virtues he's talking about, in a sense, because those are the virtues that have God Himself as their object. So we're directed by these three.

[9:20] And to these three, there corresponds something in beatitude itself. For the perfect knowledge of the end corresponds to the what? Imperfect. The presence, however, of the end itself corresponds to the relation of what? Hope. But pleasure in the end, already present, there follows upon this pleasure delight. And therefore, it is necessary for beatitude that these three things what? Run together.

[9:59] Three is enough, right? But? Two is not enough. Aristotle was right, and therefore it's necessary. Okay, to wit, the vision, which is the perfect knowledge of the understandable in comprehension, which implies the what presence of the in.

[10:28] I'm kind of brought out when you say you're seeing him face to face, right? He's present, right? It's not brought out so much, so clearly when you say you're seeing him as he is, but

[10:40] you say seeing him face to face, pleasure or enjoyment, which implies the resting of the. uh one who is loved. The thing loving in the loved, okay.

[11:09] So the lover is said to be in the thing loved. I left my heart in San Francisco, right? Okay. So the heart is in that. Okay, now it's not down until ad primum that we get the two meanings of comprehension, right? At least two meanings.

[11:29] To the first, therefore, should be said that comprehension is said in two ways. In one way, the including of the one comprehended in the one comprehending it,

[11:45] and thus everything that is comprehended by something limited is what limited. Hence, in this way, God is not able to be comprehended by some what created intellect. You never know God as much as he is knowable.

[12:09] I wonder sometimes if you can hear Mozart as much as he is hearable. To keep on hearing more in him, as I. Or sometimes you know, if you have a painting, you know, uh you you could actually have a famous painting on your wall or something like that, and you see, you notice something you didn't notice before. When I first came to Worcester, and I went down, I was down the bookstore, and they had some of these prints, you know, and some of the count other ones there, the the canals there, and said, "Okay, I'll put that in my shabby little room."

[12:39] And well, one day I was, you know, I said, "I'd get dressed in this bedroom or something over here," you know, put my stockings on, and gee, wherever I am, it looks like I'm looking right down the canal, right? How can that be? You know. But this one of those paintings interesting, right? And I don't know how the paintings do it, but you just follow right across like that.

[13:03] And there's some paintings, you know, of people, you know, where the eyes seem to follow you right around. And Washington Irving talks about these, you know, the servants there in the great houses of England. There, you know, there's something strange about that painting because he does follow you right around, you know. It is a kind of amazing thing to see that, right? But I hadn't noticed it, you know, and now someone says, "See, where I go, I'm looking straight down the the thing, you know.

[13:32] " It's something strange going on there, you know. So I mean, you know, a lot of times you don't see something as much as it is seeable, right? You don't hear something, you know. And

[13:46] I think God will have your full attention, but even so, I don't think you're going to see everything that is seeable, there, right? Okay. So in this way, God cannot be comprehended by some great intellect.

[14:02] In another way, comprehension names nothing other than the what holding, you might say, right? Of something that has had what? In the present. In the present, yeah. Just as someone what getting to somebody is said to comprehend them when he holds them, right? Huh? So please catch you, right?

[14:30] And comprehension in this way is required for beatitude, right? So Aristotle said the most common mistake is mistake for mixing up the senses of a word, right? So here you have a distinction of two meanings of comprehend, right? So don't confuse the two, right? Otherwise, you will be mistaken.

[14:56] Now to the second objection. What about why should it just be two? Because you got the intellect and the will, right? The second should be said that just as to the will pertains both hope and love, right? Because it belongs to the same to love something and to tend towards it when it is not what had, huh? So also to the will pertains both comprehension, sense that we indicated in article one,

[15:41] and and pleasure, right? Because it belongs to the same one to have something and to what rest in it, huh? That's interesting, huh? That's prior beatitude having God, and it sounds kind of strange, right?

[16:10] You think the comprehension might be more in part of intellect than will, but intellects. But comprehension is being denied, you know, in the first reply to the first objection. That's in intellect, right?

[16:27] But it seems to catch the comprehension, like the police catching somebody. Yeah. Cashed on with their intellect, right? That's what I'm thinking. Yeah, yeah. But you're seeking God by your will, right? And you want to have Him, right? Kind of interesting.

[17:00] Interesting in the fifth book of wisdom, there, when Aristotle takes up the word "perfect," right? And I think I mentioned before how he gives three basic senses of the word "perfect," right?

[17:19] Perfect or complete. First sense is if you have all your parts. Okay. So my favorite example is the French restaurants here in Quebec. You know, see the menu: repas complet. complete meal. Meant you had some kind of an appetizer, a main course, and some kind of a dessert. It might be nothing more than jello, but it's a complete meal, right? It's got all the parts of a meal, right?

[17:45] And in the second sense of perfect is what has all the ability of its kind. So Homer is the what perfect poet, huh? Or Mozart is a perfect musician, huh? Aristotle is the perfect what philosopher, right, huh?

[18:05] Um. And then the third sense is what has reached its what end, right? And then he distinguishes these senses to the sense in which God is perfect, huh? As even Averroes saw, and Thomas also agrees with Averroes there, right? That the creature is perfect in its kind; it's lacking nothing that pertains to its kind, right? But the what God is perfect, lacking nothing. He's universally perfect, right, huh?

[18:46] So it's kind of good that Aristotle sees that, right? But then he takes up some other words, which Thomas says are kind of attached to the word "perfect," right?

[19:00] And one of the words is "habere," to have, huh? Interesting. He sees that as another one is "through itself," huh? And the other one is is limit, huh? Okay.

[19:22] You know what Sherlock Holmes says, huh? There's that famous story. that I think It's called the Norwood Builder, right? Where this guy has a an in for this woman, you know, she murdered her life, and so he's trying to make it appear as if her son has killed him, and he and burnt his body, right? And it's very convincing. The evidence that he's glad he's got into hiding, right?

[19:50] Sherlock Holmes is called in, you know, by the woman, and he's almost convinced, you know, and almost fooled himself, right? And then the guy adds one more. What piece of evidence which wasn't there before? And so he's caught, right? Huh? And it's kind of funny because Sherlock Holmes realizes he's hiding somewhere. It must be some kind of a way to hide in the house, and he's seen that the building's there, the way the walls are, and so on, where it might be.

[20:20] So he has some stuff brought in, you know? And has people yell, "Fire! Fire!" And the smoke is there, and the guy comes running out. He's supposed to be dead, you know, and so on. But anyway, kind of the aftermath there when when Sherlock Holmes is talking about the case with with

[20:38] what Doctor Watson. Doctor Watson yeah and he's says he lacked the what supreme gift of the artist. He says knowing when to stop. I've seen this said, you know, about Titian. You know, I have this book at home there about the Italian paintings there, and they talk about knowing when to stop always, huh? And you hear the same thing, you know, people who listen to the music of Mozart.

[21:01] He always knows. He always arrives at his goal and never goes beyond it. He knows exactly when to stop. You know, in the same way Shakespeare knows just when to stop. It's just it's something most people, you know, if they think they got a good thing going, they they go, you know, they can't stop. Like supreme gift, the artist. But it's kind of a little hint there.

[21:23] This idea of limit, right? Huh? And sometimes too, you're trying to convince somebody or persuade a crowd, or it is. You got to know when to stop, right? Just the right measure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like you know, when Mark Antony's talking to the crowd there, he knows when to stop and so on. So, so that's one of the words Aristotle gives us limit, right? And of course, that's very close to the word end.

[21:51] As you get the word end, right? So that's very close to the word the third sense of perfect, right? But then he has through itself, and then to have, right? Interesting.

[22:05] So he sees this as pertains to perfection, right? I can't be perfect if I haven't reached my end, what? What is my end? What to see God as He is, right? So that's going to be required for my beatitude, right? I reach my end to see God as He is, huh?

[22:29] But then I've got to have Him, right? Does he have me? But yeah, that's what we always are told about that, especially about grace. Yeah, even though it's imperfect in this life, but it's it's the gift by which we possess and are possessed by God. Yeah, yeah. That possession, you know, possession is something you have, right? Huh? You know, the has and the have nots.

[23:00] The two ways. Yeah. But you know, you know, you can kind of understand the importance the word "have" there because the the opposite of to have is to lack, right? And that's kind of the meaning of the bad, right? The bad is lacking, which you are able to have and should have, but don't have, right? Okay. So we can see kind of the idea of how have pertains to what perfection, right?

[23:27] Now, you know, if the professor says to the students, you know, you're sadly lacking, that's sort of imperfection in those students, right? Huh? You know. So.

[23:51] So what does he say there? Christ did. He says, "God so loved the world that he what? Sent, so we sent Mm-hmm. He sent his only son. Yeah, yeah. Since he gave us his only son, right? So someone gives us something, I suppose we what? Yeah. Yeah.

[24:22] So hope is a virtue that some ways understood as well as not talked about as much. Really, you know, exactly what it is, as much as faith and charity.

[24:38] Now, as I thought of all there, you know, I kept thinking, you know, well, everybody knows the text of St. Paul. You know, it remains faith, hope, and charity, but the greatest of these is charity. Well, then, looking before and after that, I was doing even then, without having a mind shaken with agitation. I was looking and saying, what is the charity is the greatest? So then, what comes next?

[24:59] Is it faith or hope? Right? And some people kind of thinking faith. You know, not much talked about it, but then Warren Murray's found out there in the disputed questions on hope, right? Where Thomas is saying the hope is what higher even than faith. It's kind of interesting, and I I can kind of see it when Thomas says a kind of a simple distinction of the three.

[25:23] You know, he says by faith we know the end in some way. By hope we tend towards the end. By charity we're in a way joined to the end, right? Well, there you can see how charity is is the greatest. But if by hope you're what tending towards the end, right? So,

[25:44] both Augustine and Thomas, you know, they'll take up what prayer with hope, right? Huh? So you better talk about God or pray to God, huh? You might say, well, in talking about God, you in some way know the end, huh? How wonderful He is. But when you pray to God, you are in a sense what? Tending towards God, yeah. So, Thomas speaks in the disputed questions on hope there.

[26:16] That hope is greater, you know. So, I hear a lot of times people, you know, speak of church as being the greatest because everybody's heard that text of Paul on us you know, but the one about before and after, right? That's the fourth sense of before and after, right? Which is which is better, right?

[26:37] Okay. Because it's of the same to have something and to rest in it, huh? To the third should be said that comprehension is not some operation. What?

[27:10] Division, huh? Yeah. But is a certain what relation to the end? Oh yeah. Now had, huh? Whence also that vision, or the thing what seen, according as it is what. I mean present again Yeah, is the object of comprehension, huh? Not to be thought about, there, right? Now,

[27:45] the in the beatific vision, you see God, but you see God through God being joined to your mind. Is that by which you see Him?

[27:59] Now there, there is an aspect there of having God, right? Huh. God is joined to your mind, what? Forever, right? It's like marriage in a sense, right? Huh.

[28:16] Better. Yeah. But metaphorically, it's compared to marriage, right? Huh. So he says the prophet will see I have betrothed you, right, and by faith, huh? And so,

[28:34] if God is inside your mind, is that by which you see as well as what you see? Then don't you have God? Should we

[28:49] take a little break now? Sure. Do you think so? Article four here, right? This is going to straighten me out, I guess, this this article. To the fourth, one proceeds thus: It seems that rightness or rectitude of the will is not required for what beatitude, huh? Makes things sound easy. It's to say, "Papa and Brother Marcus, the most rectified is to call him." For beatitude essentially consists in the operation of the understanding.

[29:28] This has been said. But for the perfect operation of the understanding, there is not required the rectitude of the will, to which men are called whom mundo corde. For Augustine says in the book of Retractions, "Huh, I do not approve of what I have said in prayer, that

[29:56] that God does not what wish except to the clean for them to know the truth." Right? We're not clean. I answer that it is possible for many also who are not clean to what know many what True things, huh?

[30:16] So, therefore, the rectitude of the will is not required for what beatitude seems to be. Quoting Augustine, "What does he say? Blessed are the pure in spirit, for they shall see God." Right. Okay. So Augustine seems to be saying at one at a time, "Got to be pure to see God," or you know. Now he seems to be retracting this, right? Okay.

[30:47] The first is not, more, the before does not depend on the what after. But the operation of the understanding is before the operation of the what will. Therefore, beatitude, which is the perfect operation of the understanding, does not depend upon the rectitude of the what will.

[31:14] Moreover, what is ordered to something as to an end is not necessary when the end has been what attained. Just as the boat is no longer after one has arrived at port.

[31:31] But the rectitude of the will, which is through what virtue, is ordered to beatitude as an end. Therefore, beatitude being obtained is not necessary anymore to have the rectitude of the will.

[31:48] But against this is what is said in Matthew five. Blessed are the what pure in heart, because they will see God. And Hebrews twelve verse fourteen, let us what pursue peace with all, and nothing. sanctimonia this could take a different sense. Holiness, yeah, but words are degraded the meaning, right? Without which no one sees what God.

[32:21] Now, what does Thomas say? Huh. I answer. It should be said that the rectitude of the will is required to beatitude both before and what concomitant there, following upon right.

[32:39] Antecedently, because the rectitude of the will is right through a suitable order to the last end. But the end is compared to that which is ordered to the end as a form is to what matter.

[32:59] Whence, just as matter is not able to achieve form unless it be in a what suitable way disposed. Yes, we're going to lose our soul, right? When our body gets too corrupt, right? So nothing achieves the end unless it be in a suitable way ordered to that end, huh? And therefore, no one is able to arrive at beatitude unless they have the rectitude of the what will, huh?

[33:35] Now, for another reason, I suppose concomitant right, following upon upon or going along with, because as has been said, the last beatitude, the ultimate beatitude of man, consists in the vision of the divine essence, huh? Which is the very substance or essence of goodness. God is not only good, but goodness itself. And therefore, the will of the one seeing the essence of God, of necessity, loves whatever he loves under order to what God.

[34:16] Just as the will, this is the kind of portion saw before. Just as the will of someone not seeing the essence of God, of necessity, loves whatever he loves under the common thought of the good which he he knows, right? So we talked before how the good is what all want, right? Huh? You say, well, what do you mean? People want bad things, don't they? You say, well, yeah, but they want them under the what common notion of good.

[34:44] It's got to be good in some way, right? So if you annoy me, then what? Yeah, yeah, but I desire it as a way of getting rid of an annoyance, and it's good to be free of an annoyance, isn't it? So why not? eliminate you, right? So I can't really will even that bad thing without doing so under the aspect of being good in some way, right?

[35:08] If I should get up to Mass, you know, on Sunday? You know, it's going to interfere with my sleep, you know. So let's skip, you know. You don't sleep with anomaly So notice that proportion there, again huh, that the will of the one seeing God, from necessity loves whatever he loves under what order to God, just as the will of the one not seeing the essence of God of necessity wills whatever loves whatever he loves under the common notion of the good, which he does know, right?

[35:54] And this is what makes the will right that it loves things under their order to God. Whence is manifest that beatitude cannot be without what? a right will.

[36:14] Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord who stand in the house of the Lord during the hours of night, And then it speaks of God blessing you, right? You got to bless Him first, right? Let's say you got to, you know, you know, hallow him. That would be His name first, right?

[36:35] It's hard to understand the sin of the angels, you know, the the devils, you know, but the way Thomas explains it there in the Summa is that the angels wanted their what the bad ones wanted their beatitude from themselves, as it were, right, rather than to receive as a gift from God, huh? And kind of hard to understand how evil that is, but that's what led to their fall, right?

[37:04] Or was their fall? In between you saw the angels, there in questions. 50 through 64, but sixty-three and sixty-four about the the guilt of them and then their punishment in the 64. That's why it's kind of interesting that on the 33rd Psalm, with the correct number, right? Come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord who stand in the house of the Lord during the hours at night, right?

[37:41] And then may the Lord bless you from Zion, right? That's beatitude, right? But you have to first, in a sense, bless God, right? Let's say honor and glorify, yeah, right. Before he's going to give give you the vision, right? But contrary, went went to the devils, right? They wanted to have it from themselves and be added to.

[38:06] It's frightening, frightening to read about their fall. You know, they're magnificent creatures. You know, you know, naturally much more magnificent than us. Like Falstaff says, "you know, what? I got more flesh than the man you're the flesh this week. What am I supposed to do? "

[38:32] But you see, I mean, compared to the angels, were flesh, right? You know, and and if they fall, you know, can't we fall? Now, to the first, he says it should be said that Augustine speaks of the knowledge of the true, which is not the very what essence of goodness, right?

[39:11] To the second, it should be said that every act of the will proceeds from some act of the understanding. Now, someone, but some act of the will is before some act of the what understanding. Not every act of the will is after every act of the understanding. Absolutely, you can say some act of the understanding comes before any act of the will, right? But not every act of the will comes after every act of the understanding.

[39:45] Now, the will tends towards the what last act of the understanding, which is what beatitude, right? And therefore, the right inclination of the will is presupposed to beatitude, just as the right motion of the arrow to the what target. Yeah, I've been watching these Robin Hood movies. Got it for about ten dollars. It's about a hundred and seventy-four episodes, you know. And the grandchildren just love it.

[40:19] We take it out to the grandchildren go out there, and they're just get crazy about these things. But you know, the way they shoot the arrows, you know, just right at the target.

[40:39] So the the straight motion of the arrow to the what hitting of the target, we'd say, huh? What Signy says here, right? So you're not going to get to beatitude unless you. Yeah. Aristotle uses the example of the arrow a lot too, right?

[41:05] Now, what about this objection that what's ordered to the end ceases when you get there? You don't need anymore. To the third, it should be said that not everything that is ordered to the end ceases to be when the end has come about, huh? But only that which has itself under the aspect of what imperfection has motion, right, huh? Whence the instruments or tools of motion are not necessary after one has arrived at the end, but the suitable order to the end is what necessary, right?

[41:48] So the philosopher is a lover of a wisdom, right, huh? Is it necessary to love wisdom to get to wisdom? Yeah, but now once you get wisdom, do you need to love wisdom anymore?

[42:10] Thomas argues, you know, you're distinguishing between love and wanting and pleasure, right? Wanting is in the absence of the good, right? Pleasure is in the what? Presence of the good, yeah. Presence of it. Which is love? What about love then? Right? Is that in the presence or in the absence of the good? Both. Both, Thomas says, right? But he says it's more in the what? Presence of the what?

[42:37] Good, right? Okay. So the philosopher in the beginning, the philosophical life, he's got to love wisdom, right? Otherwise, he's not going to persist in the pursuit of wisdom, right? He never arrives at wisdom. But when he possesses some wisdom, right? Does he love it more or less than he did in the beginning? More. More, yeah. It becomes more connatural to you, right? More fitting, huh? Maybe in some way, at the beginning, he has to exercise his love in removing obstacles.

[43:13] Yeah, yeah. Thomas says, if you find something in the loved that is not lovable, then you don't love it more when you get it than you did before, right? Huh? Okay. But if there's nothing, you know, repugnant to love, right? Then you love it more when you what? Arrive, right? In possessing it, right? So we'll love God more when we see Him as He is than we ever love Him in this life, huh?

[43:49] Much more. You won't find anything repugnant to love, yeah. Okay. So he'll be more. Your heart will be more conformed to Him, right? Um, you know that's kind of what love is, huh? Conformity of the heart with the what? Object, right?

[44:23] And the heart is more conformed to the good once it's in possession of it, huh? Unless there's nothing in it that's repugnant to love, huh?

[44:35] So not only will we not cease to love God when we see Him as He is, but we will love Him more than we did before we saw Him as He is.

[44:58] Okay. I need my body to dust it. Huh? Well, probably the soccer teacher don't, but I think according to Thomas you will. Thank you. Thank you.