Prima Secundae
21. Loving God as a Friend, Knowing God "Too Much," and Whether Souls Without Bodies Can Be Blessed (I-II, Q.4, a.5)
Class of 2011-04-15
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/021-loving-god-as-a-friend-knowing-god-too-much-and-whether-souls/

[0:00] In the name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo gratias God, our enlightenment. Guardian angels the lights of our minds, or to illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, Prepare for us. and help us to understand what you're written.

[0:40] Up to question five we'll be in Prima Secundae. here Question four, article five. Let's stop for a moment here, though, and ask something here. We're talking about the love of God, and

[1:02] remember the distinction between the amor concupiscentiae and the amor amicitiae, the titles, which you could translate as the love of wanting and the love of friendship or the love of wishing well.

[1:23] Now, if you love God for the good of your own mind, God's the only thing that can satisfy your mind. Is that the love of charity for God?

[1:46] Is that a love of amicitiae or a love of concupiscentiae? Is that a love of concupiscentiae or a love of of concupiscentiae Yeah. It's directed principally to yourself, but it wouldn't exclude charity No, It would be part of charity I'm not saying I'm not saying it's a bad love, right? Okay, but if all the love you have is to love God for the good of your mind, then you don't really have the love of charity, huh?

[2:24] Just as if I love the steak for myself, right? Huh? Again, it's a love of wanting. The same way, higher thing than the steak. But if I love God for the sake of satisfying my mind, right? It would be one hell of a vision! or interested in anything else I've done, right? Or seen, rather, I should say.

[2:46] Now, but then, what does it mean to to love God by the love of charity? See, now if I love you, people, huh? Not the human beings. By the love of charity, right? I really have to wish you to that you will someday see God as He is, face to face, right? If I don't wish that for you, I don't have the love of what? Charity for you, right?

[3:20] Now, does it mean something like that to love God by the love of the amor amicicentiae? That I wish God to see Himself. Forever. As much as he to know himself, as much as he's knowable, right? And to love himself as much as he's lovable. Not that he doesn't already have that, right? Huh? And not that my wishing him this anyway gives it to him, right? But is that what it means, huh?

[3:51] At least in part, that to love God by the love of charity is I must wish to God that He would know Himself as much as He's knowable and love Himself as much as He's lovable, which no creature can do, right? And therefore, that He would be what, in a unique way, huh, blessed, huh? Because God is blessed in knowing and loving Himself, right? In knowing and loving Himself completely, right?

[4:21] Is that what it means? You're you're wishing something that's got to be that way. I mean. Yeah, but can I w uh can I do it? I mean, can I wish it? Because what else would it mean, right? That's right. I can't wish something good for God that doesn't have, right?

[4:43] Can I? I wish this guy here. I assume Thomas sees God as He is face to face, right? Right now, right? And I'm sure Mary sees him face to face, right? Huh? If I love Mary by the love of what? Not what you can do for me. I do a lot of what you can do for me.

[5:03] But if I love her by the love of charity, I've got to wish that she sees God as much as the Mother of God should see God, right? And she loves God as much as the Mother of God should love God, right? Huh? Even though she already does this, yeah. Is that what it means? That's what. Yeah, that's Francis de Sales speaks of it as the love of benevolence.

[5:27] Yeah. I have good will towards God to sort of wish him the greatest good that he could possibly have, which is himself. Yeah. As if he says, as if he didn't already have it, which is absurd. Yeah, that's the love. That's what it is. Yeah. That's why I usually speak of the Amor Amicizia as the love of wishing well, which is what benevolence means, huh? Yeah. Romeo's friend there, Benvolio, right?

[5:48] True friend, Benvolio, as opposed to Melville in the comedy. That's interesting, huh? Okay. Now, another thing I was thinking about this here in beatitude.

[6:13] One thing that kind of puzzles us because of our our way of knowing in this life, which is always discursive, right? Which means both that we go from thinking about one thing to thinking about something else, right, all the time. And we also try to know what we don't know to what we do know, and succeed to some extent in coming to know, right? But this is not the way that the beatific vision will be, right?

[6:44] Beatific vision will be eternal life, huh? And it's called eternal life because you're partaking of God's eternity. There's no motion in the beatific vision, and there's no before and after in it, huh? So the thing kind of puzzles me is, of course, I know that no creature can know God as much as He is knowable, right?

[7:15] And no creature can love God as much as He's lovable, right? But in this life, we always are trying to know more the things that are worth knowing, right? So in this life, I'm always trying to know God better, right?

[7:33] I make a little bit of progress, you know, and so on. Now, when I try to transpose my way of knowing in this life to the beatific vision or to heaven, right, I say, well, granted, I will not see God as much as He's knowable, but He's more knowable than the extent to which I know Him. Would I want to know Him more, right? So that you know, you kind of imagine that in eternity, you'd be like in this life, where I keep an understanding in an imperfect way God more and more.

[8:05] Wouldn't heaven consist in always, you know, each century or so knowing God what more, right? But in that case, as Aristotle said, there wouldn't be any end, huh? Because it'd be endless, right? It's not a bad ending, but but it's kind of hard to understand why you wouldn't have this desire to know Him better, right? And yet that seems to be contrary to what it is, right?

[8:39] I think part of it is because you you imagine as if this was in time this seeing God, right? And therefore, there's some time left for you to know Him more, right? As a matter of fact, this is all at once, and that's it. Okay.

[8:58] But then I got thinking again about the the words of the seven wise men of Greece, huh? And according to the legend, huh, they put up on the oracle of Delphi two words: "Know thyself," and then "Nothing too much," huh? Nothing too much, huh?

[9:24] Now, I think those words are very wise, right? And I've often thought about them. But then you come to knowing God and loving God, right? It seemed ridiculous to say, "Can you know God too much?"

[9:45] Or can you say, you know, "You love God too much"? I mean, let's let's tone it down, right? That didn't make any sense, right? Okay. Um, but that doesn't mean you go against the thing because. You're saying, no matter how much you love God, it's never too much. No matter how much you know or or love, either, it's never too much, right? So you're not violating this, right?

[10:11] Okay. My wife thinks I know Shakespeare too much, but. But I quoted great lines for her talking, and says, write those down for me.

[10:34] But then I got thinking about this. You see, in this life, it seems to me we should always be trying to know God more. We should always be trying to love God more, right? We should never in this life say, Ah, now I know enough. Put away the psalms, you know, or put away the. Or now I I love him enough, right? That's a very dangerous thing.

[11:00] It seems to me to to say or do, huh? Ah, but that doesn't apply to heaven, right? And you might say that there is a too much if you look at this from the point of view of heaven now, right? Because I should what want to know God as much as God and His plan for me wants me to know Him, right? And I should love God as much as God wants me to love Him in the plan that He has for me, right?

[11:36] And He doesn't, in His plan, as far as I understand it, He doesn't want me to know and to love Him as much as the man Jesus knew and loved God, right? He doesn't want me to know and love Him as much as the Mother of God, right? Now you can't say how much the what Son of Man knew, knows, and loves God, right, as man. But he knows and loves the what God as much as the Son of Man, the the Son of God made flesh, should know and love Him, right?

[12:14] And Mary, huh, loves, knows, and loves God as much as the Mother of God should, which is incomparably more. But the angels should know and love God, right? Okay, and the apostles, right? I guess come next in place after Mary, right? And the apostles

[12:36] should know and love God as much as the apostle should do, right? Okay. And I should know and love God as much as God intends for me Breakfast, okay?

[12:50] So if in heaven I wanted to know God better or love Him even more, right? And God intends for me. I would be imitating the sin of the devil, right? At least the way Thomas explains that in the in the case of the angels, there that the devil sinned by wanting his what, beatitude, right, from his own powers, right? Huh? So if I want to know God more than God wants me to know Him, I'd be wanting a beatitude of which I was the source, rather than God, right?

[13:36] Huh? It's interesting. So in in that sense, nothing much has a a different application to heaven than it does to us in this life, right? Huh? In this life, I don't think you can know God too much. You can never say you don't know. That's that's as far as you go, right? And however far you go, to be, you know,

[14:03] much less than what you'll see in the vision, obviously, right? In the same way, the love that you'll have after you see God as He is will be much greater, incomparably greater than the love you have for God in this life, huh? Okay. So these can always grow more in this life, huh? But in heaven, they won't, huh? Okay.

[14:31] Very interesting. But in terms of the you know the fact that the beatitude is above our nature, but not opposed to our nature, right? And might seem to be opposed to our nature because we always want to understand something worthwhile understanding better, right? And so why wouldn't I in heaven, you know, be frustrated because I want to understand God better, right?

[14:58] But part of it, as I say, is the fact that we're thinking of our understanding God as being in time, right? And there's still time left, you know, it's all eternity, right? But it's not really time. There's no before and after there, right? Okay.

[15:15] So when I see God face to face, I will always see Him face to face, and there won't be any what movement at all in this seeing God as He is, huh?

[15:29] I'm still trying to kind of figure out, but there is, in a way, there's a certain time in the sense that, or how do you understand the fact that they don't have their body now, and that'll come after. How does? Yeah, well, this is going to be in this article now we got today. Oh. Okay. So

[15:56] let's look now at this here. Article five. To the fifth, one proceeds thus: It seems that for beatitude is required the what body, right? Huh?

[16:11] For the perfection of virtue and grace presupposes the perfection of nature. But beatitude is the perfection of virtue and grace. But the soul without the body does not have the perfection of nature. The whole is more perfect than the what part? Part, you know, the soul is the better part, huh?

[16:45] That's why you always refer to your spouse as your better part. Okay. We'll be sure that Mrs. Berquist was there then. When I say that, I always get you know some kind of woman standing you know by you know you know nods with appreciation of my superiority. Okay. If she's the whole, that means worthy to heal. Since it is a part naturally of human nature, huh? But every part is imperfect, separated from its what whole.

[17:35] Therefore, the soul without the body is not able to be what blessed, right? Huh? Of course, this is kind of arguing behind the argument for the resurrection, right? Huh?

[17:53] Moreover, beatitude is a certain perfect operation, as has been said. But perfect operation follows upon perfect being. You got to be before you can do something, huh? And so you got to be. It seems that perfect in your being before you can be perfect in your operation. Since nothing does anything except according as it is a being in act. And

[18:29] I ran across a text there in the Summa Contra Gentiles there, Thomas, where he's saying he's talking about how creatures try to be like God in their operation, right? And then operation, he says that there's there's three kinds of operations. He says. Well, that's a nice example of three, right? And he says one kind of what operation is acting upon something. Another kind of operation—it's kind of strange to use the word here—is being acted upon, huh?

[19:18] And what's the third kind of operation? What's an operation that is not an operation of something imperfect, like the one I just mentioned was being acted upon, being moved, being in motion, and it doesn't what go out of you and act upon something else. So this is like the operation of understanding or willing or. So I was thinking too.

[19:50] Thomas's choice of words there—you know, operatio, huh? But operatio seems to have the sense of looking up in the dictionary in Latin, kind of, you know, working or something, right? But it's kind of interesting. He uses to cover these these what three right, and then he you know goes on to show how in different ways they become like God. These three operations,

[20:15] because when you're acting upon something else, you're like God as a cause. But when you're being acted upon in motion, then you're becoming like God because you're being perfected, right? And another way that you're like God when you understand the will, right? But interesting, interesting. He calls all three those operations, kind of kind of a stretch of the word, right? I often wonder how to how to translate that, because you get that in the in the ninth book of wisdom there, right?

[20:55] You get the distinction of these three, and but what should you call? commodum of act there, but you know one sense of act is what motion, another sense of act is form, right? And then like motion is any kind of doing or something, right? And I wonder what the best word to use in English is.

[21:22] I mean, operation seems to be more active in meaning, doesn't it? It's like, but I suppose you could take the English word. I'm I'm tempted, but I don't know if it's a word to use. Doing, right? Okay. But again, doing has a kind of more active sense. But when I'm making a chair, I'm doing something, right? But I insist that when I'm thinking, I'm doing something too, right?

[21:51] Although the average man might think you're not doing anything all day long. You're just sitting there in a chair, right? My old teacher, Kasurik, says the man sitting becomes wise. That's Thomas, Homo sedens fit sapiens, right? The man of the moving things is making things, right? But both of those are doing, right? I'm listening to the music of Mozart. Am I doing something? Yeah. Okay. But these are different kinds of doing: making a chair, making making dinner or something, right?

[22:27] And thinking and hearing and so on, right? But then, what about growing? Is that doing something? Little grandchildren doing anything when they're growing? Huh? It's kind of doing, isn't it?

[22:48] What do the trees do out there? Don't they? Yeah. They grow and eventually reproduce, right? Reproducing is the one I can make any better. Growing is kind of doing something, right?

[23:04] Nourishing yourself, of course, and you are eating a lot of food, but but is falling doing something? See, I can stretch the word, but I don't know if we if we don't have to stretch some kind of word. And Thomas stretches the word "operatio," right? There, the text which distinguishes those three, right? But you got to have some name you you distinguish act, right? The first meaning of the word "act" is is motion, and then the kind of second meaning is is form is called act by a certain analogy to to motion.

[23:42] But then we distinguish from motion these other activities, right? You want to kind of have a name to cover all three of them as opposed to form.

[23:58] But anyway, the perfect operation follows esse perfectum, right? To be perfect, because nothing acts except insofar as it is being an act. Since, therefore, the soul does not have perfect being when it is separated from the what body, just as neither any part, when separated from the whole, right? It seems that the soul without the body cannot be what blessed.

[24:38] Moreover, beatitude is the perfection of man, but the soul without the body is not man. Therefore, beatitude cannot be in the soul without the body.

[24:56] Well, Thomas, are you blessed now or not? Because the man, Thomas, is not there, right? The soul is. Moreover, according to the philosopher in the seventh book of the Nicomachean Ethics, the operation of happiness, in which beatitude consists, is not what impeded, huh? But the operation of the separated soul is impeded, because, as Augustine says in the twelfth book on Genesis to the letter, there is in it a certain natural desire of administering the body, huh?

[25:44] From which desire it is what retarded or held back in a way, Lest by its whole intention. It what? Pergat. Tends toward that highest heaven, right? That is in the vision of the divine essence. If the soul doesn't want to go there, huh?

[26:12] Therefore, the soul without the body cannot be what blessed, huh? That's kind of you know Socrates' approach is a little different view of the soul, right? It's more the whole man, but but it's interesting even Socrates there.

[26:28] He argues that the soul will be better off separated from the body than in the body. But then he says, "But you shouldn't commit suicide."

[26:37] And as if the soul was in the body by the command of the gods, and it can't leave the body until. So he figures he's got to put that caution in there, and because they say some people reading about how better off the soul be, contemplated suicide if not committing it, huh? Fifth, beatitude fifth beatitude is a sufficient good, right? And quiet desire, right? But this does not belong to separated soul because it still desires the union of the what body, as Augustine says, huh?

[27:22] Therefore, the soul separated from the body is not what Blessed. Moreover, man in beatitude is equal to the angels, but the soul without the body is not equal to the angels, as Augustine says.

[27:50] Therefore, it is not blessed. Against all this is what is most. There are six objections here, right? Large number for the beginner's book here. I have pity on it. But against this is what is said in the fourteenth chapter of Apocalypse. Blessed are the dead who have died in the Lord, right? Well, they don't have their souls, but they're blessed, right? There we go. That's interesting question.

[28:30] Now Thomas is standing back. I answer. It should be said that twofold is beatitude: one imperfect, which is had in this life. If you haven't read the Summa, right? Understanding it, and another perfect, which consists in the vision of God, vision of God as He is. Now it is manifest that for the beatitude of this life, of necessity is required the body, right?

[29:08] For the beatitude of this life, for the beatitude of this life, is the operation of the understanding, either of the what, looking, up intellect, or the what, doing, the practical, right? Aristotle says the speculative intellect, the theoretical intellect, the looking intellect, and the practical or doing intellect, right? They differ by their end, right? And so, in the tenth book of the Nicomachean Ethics, he speaks of two beatitudes or two happinesses: one which is more divine, which is the act of the virtue of what, wisdom, right?

[29:50] And the other one, which is the act of what, political foresight, Okay. But anyway, it's an act of the intellect, right? Okay. But the operation of the understanding in this life cannot be without the what? Image.

[30:17] And the image is not found except in a bodily organ, as is had in the first in the treatise on, the soul, right? And thus the beatitude which is in this life, which can be had in this life, depends in some way upon the what? Body, right?

[30:38] So I could lose my beatitude, not lose my mind, as they say, right? Okay. We visit this neighbor there. It's in the rest home there, you know. Sometimes she's clear, and other times, you know, she thinks she's working there or something, you know,

[31:00] So. Euclid said, gee, I'm slower than I used to be. It's a lot long to go through this whole theorem, you know. It's a long theorem. I got to save that for tomorrow or something. So I say I'm going to lose my my beatitude of this life, right? They say I guess Albert the Great must have had one of these kind of photographic memories, you know. But towards the end of his life, they just kind of lost it, you know, and you know, it's all signs gone, or he can't recall things.

[31:39] Okay. So he's saying, in terms of imperfect beatitude, which is in this life, the body is necessary, right? And the point of connection there is the fact that you don't think without imagining, and the image is in the is in the body.

[32:01] But about perfect beatitude, which consists in the vision of God, some lay down that it cannot come to the soul without the what? Body existing, right?

[32:20] Saying that the souls of the saints, separated from the bodies, do not come to that beatitude until the day of judgment, right? When they resume their bodies. I think this in the Greek Church. Sometimes they had that idea, don't they? Yeah. They have it the Orthodox or not, but

[32:41] which appears to be what false, huh? Both by authority and by reason, right? Which is stronger, the argument by authority or by reason? By authority. Yeah.

[32:58] That's why I couldn't point out how Thomas speaks of theology as sacra doctrina, right? And doctrina is named from what the teacher, right? By mathematics is named from the the learner, right? So the learner is more sufficient, self sufficient, you might say, in geometry than any other science, huh? Mathematics. But the teacher is most necessary, right? The authority of the teacher in theology, right, more than any other what science, huh?

[33:38] Aristotle's physics, actually, in the Greek, is called natural hearing. Why is it called that, huh? By authority, because the apostle says Second to Corinthians chapter five, so long as we are in the body, huh, we wander from what? From the Lord, huh?

[34:03] And what is the reason of this wandering? He shows, adding, through we walk through faith, right, and not through sight, you might say, species.

[34:19] From which it appears that as long as someone walks through faith and not through sight, lacking the vision of the divine essence, he is not yet present to what God, huh? But the souls of the saints, separated from the bodies, are present to God, to God. Whence there is added, we dare over, and we have a what? Good will to wander from the body and to be present to the Lord.

[34:50] So when we wander from the body, yeah. I know, since some of the English novels there, you have a character called Peregrine, right? And they wander over the the place. I can't help think of them. Whence it is manifest that the souls of the saints, separated from the body, walk through species through sight, huh? Seeing the essence of God, huh? The nature of God, in which is found true beatitude, huh?

[35:19] So they do have true beatitude. And this also appears by reason, by argument. For the understanding does not need for its operation the body, except an account of what? The images in which it looks upon the what understandable truth, as has been said in the first book, huh? So Aristotle says in the natural knowledge of our understanding, the natural object of our mind is the what it is of something sensed or imagined, huh?

[35:55] And so we understand drawing something from. The senses and the imagination, and when we consider it, it's the what it is of something sensed or imagined, So we imagine something. So when I think about what a triangle is, I'm thinking about the what it is of this thing I imagine. And so I don't think about what a triangle is without imagining that which it is, the what it is.

[36:23] That's why I'm tied to the, to the, to the images, huh, in my thinking. Of course, that is shown by experience, right? I can't remember the image.

[36:41] Get that solid geometry, right? Can't get the image. I told you I had these little cardboard things to make a hedron and so on, you know. So I can try to help my imagination a bit, right? Maybe someone should hang them above your bed and you'd like to return to your childhood. Yeah, yeah. Just hang them above your bed and go to sleep. My son-in-law sent me these these little metal things, you know, made up of the five regular salads.

[37:10] So, and each one of them named after one of the grandchildren. So. To aid in memory. They also informed me that something I'm ready now for Euclid, that I should bring my Euclid. So I'm going to have to start teaching Euclid out there in Maine. Actually, I'm running out of wisdom. I got to go out there and get tanked up with seeing Sophia there, you know, and get some more wisdom.

[37:33] So he says the understanding for its operation does not need the body except in account the images in which it what looks upon the understandable truth. But is manifest, however, that the divine essence cannot be seen through images, huh? The image of God, as has been shown in the first book. Whence, since in the vision of the divine essence, the divine substance, the divine nature, the perfect beatitude of man consists.

[38:15] The perfect beatitude of man does not depend upon the what body. Whence, without the body, the soul is able to be what blessed, huh? But now, Thomas, in the last paragraph here, he's going to point out a little distinction. now, nevertheless. But it should be know that for the perfection of something, something pertains in two ways. In one way, for the constituting of the very essence, the very what it is of that thing, right?

[38:52] Just as the soul is required for the perfection of what man. In another way, there's required for the perfection of a thing what pertains to its well-being. As the beauty of the body, huh, and the what quickness of genius, huh, pertain to perfection of, of man, huh. Is that what Thomas says? Lucitas ingenii. Probably Aristotle talks about that. Yeah.

[39:26] So, although, therefore, the body in the first way does not pertain to the what perfection of human beatitude is not essential to it. It pertains nevertheless in the what second way, right?

[39:44] Since, therefore, the operation depends on the nature of the thing or from the nature of the thing. When the soul will be more perfect in its nature, right? Then it will have more perfectly its own what operation. In which happiness what consists? Huh. When St. Augustine says in the twelfth book, upon Genesis to the letter, when he what asks, huh, whether to the spirits of the what dead, right, without bodies, right, is possible for that summa, that highest beatitude, to be what bestowed upon them?

[40:30] He answers that not thus are they able to see, right, that unchangeable substance as the holy angels see it, huh, whether from some more hidden cause, or because in them there remains the natural desire of administering the what body, huh. So you're not going to get free of that enemy, this body.

[41:03] So he's saying they're essentially blessed, right, huh, but there's a certain added perfection there, right, which is not to see God more clearly, but because the

[41:20] complete perfection of the operation of the soul depends upon the complete perfection of the one who's operating, right, and we're not complete without our body.

[41:33] So Aristotle, but it would be believed to know this, right? If he's Aristotle, supposed to have died of what overwork, right? He's trying to get as much into his head before he died. So he had more and more things to think about.

[41:59] Okay, the first objection, though. Those objections are all saying that no, you're not blessed, right? So essentially, you are.