Prima Secundae
23. Aquinas on Beatitude: Whether Friends Are Needed in Heaven, and Whether Man Can Achieve Beatitude (I-II, Q.4 a.8 – Q.5 a.1)
Class of 2011-04-28
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[0:00] In the Name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Dios gracias. God, our enlightenment; guardian angels, to the knowledge of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor, pray for us and help us to understand what you have written. Holy Spirit. So we're down to Article Eight, I guess.

[0:34] Yes. Okay. This is the last one, I guess, in this question, right? It's required. Whether beatitude requires the society of friends. To the eighth, one precedes us. It seems that friends are necessary for beatitude. Aristotle speaks of it in the Ethics, right? I mean, no one wants to live without friends.

[1:08] For the future beatitude in scriptures is frequently designated by the name of glory. But glory consists in this: that the good of man is brought to the knowledge of many. Therefore, for beatitude, there is required the society of friends. That's a kind of strange argument, in a way. Moreover, Boethius says that there is not a joyful what possession of the of any good without consortium, right? Without a sharing, yeah.

[1:51] But for beatitude, there is required dilectatio. That's coming back to the word jucunda there, right? Therefore, also there is required the society of friends. How

[2:05] can you enjoy a joke if you can't tell it to anybody? Running around, by the way, find somebody, right? My cousin used to say that the history professor there at the College of Saint Thomas, he thinks he had his jokes with him in various places, you know, in his notes, you know, and tell the same joke year after year.

[2:33] It's okay if he's got new students, because then you don't. With somebody else, you kind of repeat yourself, right? It's kind of like the monks' recreation.

[2:45] Well, this one Dominican, I know, is quick, funny, and you know. But they say after about a year or so, many, you know, he ran out of his jokes, and then he started telling the same ones over again.

[3:00] Moreover, charity. Is perfected in beatitude, but charity, as Thomas himself says, is a kind of friendship. But charity extends to the love of God and neighbor. Therefore, it seems that for beatitude, it requires the society of friends. This just actually kind of strange, doesn't it? Thomas usually takes up as a side of what his objections are, right?

[3:29] What's he going to say, this man here? Had no friends, huh? I don't know. But against this is what is said in Wisdom, chapter seven. There came to me right with it, meaning what, divine wisdom, all what goods.

[3:54] And wisdom, of course, consists in contemplation of God. So if all goods come with this, then for beatitude nothing other is what required, unless you say friendship's one of those goods that comes with it.

[4:12] The answer should be said that if we speak of the felicity, right, of the present life, as the philosopher says in the ninth book of the Ethics, the happy man, right, the fruitful man, needs friends, huh? Not on account of what? Of being useful to him, right? Since he is sufficient to himself,

[4:43] nor even on account of what pleasure, right? Because he has in himself perfect pleasure in the operation of what virtue. But on account of good doing, huh? That to it he might do good to them, or and

[5:10] looking upon them, right, he might be delighted in what in doing good, and that also by them he is aided in doing what good, huh?

[5:25] Man needs for doing well the aid of friends, both in the works of the active life, huh? A politician, right? You have an awful lot of friends, huh? As well as in the works of the contemplative life, huh?

[5:48] But if we speak of the perfect beatitude, which will be in the fatherland, there is not required the society of friends of necessity, huh? For beatitude, huh? Because man has the whole fullness of his perfection in God,

[6:11] but ad bene esse, the well-being of beatitude. That's something that the society of friends does, huh? So I think we mentioned before. You know, we asked the question, imitating the master there, Aristotle. Is it necessary to understand the word necessary?

[6:37] If you say yes, then you better understand the word necessary. If you say no, you're going to have to understand the word necessary to show why it's not necessary, right? Well, among the four senses of necessary that Aristotle distinguishes, there's necessary without which something cannot be, right? And something else is necessary to what? To well, right? Okay. So is food necessary in this life? Yeah, you can't live without food, right?

[7:10] Are Mozart's operas necessary? For many, yes. For many, I say, yeah, yeah, okay. Um. So he's saying here that friendship is what in for beatitude, which consists essentially in seeing God as He is, right? It's not necessary, right? But for the well-being of it, huh? It does. He's making that distinction there, huh?

[7:39] Ah, whence Augustine of all people, huh? Says in the eighth book on Genesis to the letter that the spiritual creature, in order that what you might be blessed, huh? Is not what except intrinsically aided by the eternity, the truth, and the what charity of the Creator, huh?

[8:12] Extrinsically, however, if he what should be said to be aided, right? Fortasse, perhaps, huh? In this only is he aided, right? That they what see each other and they rejoice in their society in what God.

[8:37] Okay. So are the are the saints inclined to pray for us down here, huh? I think they are, huh? We call upon them, right? It says the master, and the master, I hear anyway, that the you know depend upon them, right, huh? Always we depend upon the prayers of the. Church triumphant huh

[9:08] And so they'll rejoice rejoicing over one sinner repenting? Rejoicing that we are joining the what society? Right. I told you Thomas's definition there of of the kingdom. Right. It's the ordered society of those who what see God. Right.

[9:32] But they rejoice in each other seeing God. Right. So what we rejoice that Thomas sees a God more clearly than we will. No room for jealousy. Yeah. No jealousy. No envy up there. I think I've spoken about that how these two greatest poets there Homer and Shakespeare right huh they represent this true friendship as by likeness to the love of the father for his what son right huh okay I think you know it's kind of interesting that these two great poets should see that right because wicked as we are you bad as you are do good things for your your children right but I mean as bad as we are I don't think I really experienced a father being envious of his son if his son

[10:39] is more intelligent than him or he plays the sport that his father played better than the father did right but he what rejoices that his his son is even a better pitcher or a better batter or you know that he hits even more home runs than he did in his in his heyday right huh you know

[11:03] but you know the reason for this is that a friend is another what self ho philos estin allos autos right remember that from my Greek book on the simple sentences there ho philos estin allos autos a friend is another self right and sometimes Shakespeare says a second self right well it's most natural that the father looks upon his son as a what continuation of self another self we can hardly be envious of yourself right huh I envy myself understanding Euclid better today than I did last year

[11:44] so you rejoice in in in the one you love as another self right just as you rejoice in your own good right so you realize how excellent is the is the vision of God if it doesn't require friendship necessarily right huh

[12:10] there's some bene esse in there right to the first therefore which should be said that the glory which is essential to beatitude is that which man has not before man but before what God that's the way Thomas says at the end of the De Beatitudine, doesn't it he uses the word glory there at the end before God right in his glory right amen

[12:48] okay now the second objection here which is from the great Boethius without consortium right there's no joy He says those words of, or that word of Boethius, should be understood when in the good which is had there is not what plena, full sufficiency, right?

[13:20] I was remarking, you know, how the word plena there, right, is obviously taken from the senses, right? You know, my glass is full, right? Yeah, then we carry it over to these spiritual things. So full sufficiency, which in the thing proposed at hand here cannot be said, because every sufficiency of good a man has in what God? I was reading Thomas in the Summa Contra Gentiles today, and he was quoting there what God says to Moses, "I will show you every good," right, showing Himself, right?

[13:59] You will see every good, right? So it isn't necessary, right, for beatitude that you have friends, right? If you're the only guy in heaven, you'll still be blessed, right, huh?

[14:16] Now, what about the perfection of charity? That was kind of interesting. Thomas says here, to the third, it should be said that the perfection of charity that is essential. What was put in a little bit translation? The perfection of charity is essential to beatitude as regards the what love of God, not always regards the love of one's neighbor. Now, gotta be careful you don't quote this out of context, right?

[14:44] Because you might say, you know, in the sight it's sufficient to to love God, not to love your neighbor. Don't bother me. And so that you know, what did the apostle say there? That man who says he loves God but doesn't love his neighbor is a liar, right? So watch out, this this could be taken out of context, huh? Yeah.

[15:08] They're giving a thing on TV the other day. There, I guess some people going around maintained that Obama is a is a is a Muslim, right? Huh? And they give this quote from his own words, right? Huh? And then give the full text. It's obviously he's not saying he's a Muslim, right? He says he's a Christian, you know. I don't want to, you know. Yeah. At least what he's saying, and so so they just quoted, you know, by itself, you know.

[15:40] Okay. Whence, if there is only one soul enjoying what God? It would be what blessed right? Huh? Not having a what neighbor proximate, whom we could love, right? Okay.

[16:06] So we're not studying charity here, but in heaven they'd say, "Can you have charity for the damned souls or for the the demons? Huh? Can you you love the devil by charity? You can't wish any good because he can't have it. No, yeah. Yeah. So if everybody else was lost, right? Huh? Could have no charity for them. They're lost, right? But you would still have what's most essential, the love of God, right?

[16:38] Huh? But supposing that one does have a neighbor, right? Huh? There follows the love of him, I guess, right? From the perfect love of what God, huh? Whence, as it were, concomitant, right? Not as being of the very essence of beatitude, right?

[17:06] Friendship has itself to what perfect beatitude, huh? Okay. So quite an article there of Thomas, huh? And Augustine seems to be the same, you know.

[17:26] So when Augustine and Thomas agree, I just what can you say? Okay. Now we come to another question here. Question five, right? Now let's just recall a bit the the way he divided the text here, right?

[18:16] Look at the premium at the beginning of question one. Where first we're not to consider about the last end of human life, and then about those things through which man is able to what arrive at this end, or to what depart from it or deviate from it. For from the end is necessary to take the reasons of those things which are ordered to the end.

[18:46] And because the last end of human life is laid down to be beatitude, it is necessary first to consider about the last end in general, and secondly about what beatitude itself. So question one was about the last end of man, right, kind of general way, and then beatitude started to be considered in chapter in question two. Now look at the proemium in what? Yeah.

[19:20] Then we're not to consider about beatitude, huh? And first about those things in which it is, right? Okay, that was question two. Secondly, what it is, and that was question three, and what four, right? Because question three was a very what is beatitude, right? And then question four was kind of things falling upon that is this and that, this or that required for beatitude, right? And then the third part was question what five?

[19:54] In what way we are able to what? Obtain it. Yeah. And in general, right? Okay, but then in starting question six, you'll go into great detail about that, right? But not as much as in the Secunda Secundae. Not as much as in Alphonsus That's right. Yeah. Monsignor Dionne used to say you know that in Summa even the Secunda Secundae you've got the common principles of ethics, right?

[20:18] But you've got to go to Alphonsus for the proper principles, right? Down to the you know particular, right? Sort of perfection there to get down to, and the practical there down to particular, right? Okay, so let's go to question five now.

[20:38] Then we're not to consider about the attaining, I guess, of beatitude, huh? About the getting of it, you wish. Okay. About this fourth, eight things are what asked, right?

[20:59] First, whether man is able to what obtain or arrive at beatitude, huh? Secondly, whether one man is able to be what more or less than another, right? Huh? I was thinking about that in the Summa Contra Gentiles this morning, and Thomas eventually comes down to these two texts, you know. One, my father's house, there are many mansions, and that's inequality of beatitude, right? But then in the parable about what everybody gets paid the same thing, everybody's beatitude is in the same thing, seeing God, but one person sees him more clearly than another, and that's the different what mansions, huh?

[21:40] So Thomas gives reasons for that. Some people have a front row seat, and some people go further back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No glasses. Some people have to be on the porch.

[21:59] So take take the lowest seat, and maybe you're still saying, "Go up a couple more seats." And I take the big seat, take all the first. Third, whether

[22:19] someone is able to be blessed in this life, huh? So it is a vanity fair there, huh? For who in this life ever gets what he wants, or having gotten it, is satisfied? That's kind of the last motto of the whole.

[22:42] Vanity fair by Thackeray's novel. That's a novel, I guess it is. That was a paraphrase of that was unlikely source. Was I read this a number of years ago? Share, you know. She says, "You never get what you want. You just get what you get."

[23:05] Fourth, whether beatitude, when it's had, is able to be what lost. Could not be had. Five, whether man, through his natural powers, I guess, is able to acquire beatitude, and the answer is no.

[23:30] Six, whether man can achieve beatitude through the action of some higher creature? Well, I could be helped a little bit, but he can't get beatitude through that. No creature can make me blessed.

[23:48] Seven whether they're required but some doings of man, in order that man might achieve beatitude from God? And we wonder sometimes, you know, why didn't God just create all of us blessed?

[24:09] And we don't sin because we want to see God. But it's something against, you know, the way in which man is by nature to achieve his end, right? By what he does, kind of contrary to the nature of man. Yeah. That's the way God's blessed, right? God didn't do anything to deserve his beatitude. Golden spoon, yeah Golden spoon Platinum Yeah.

[24:46] I was looking at thinking about these texts about beatitude in there. The three ones that they quote is one, I guess, is in I was in

[24:59] Luke, I think, but one of the Gospels, you know, where We'll sit at the table and eat the same thing, right? That's a kind of metaphorical way of speaking that we will what have the same life that God Himself has, huh? And God's life consists primarily in contemplating Himself, right, and loving Himself, and so we're going to have the same food, right? And then you have in St.

[25:23] Paul in was it one Corinthians thirteen chapter I think it is twelfth verse, where he speaks of it. And now we're seeing in a mirror darkly, right? But then we'll see him face to face. And Thomas, you know, says that's referring to the vision, right? And then finally, have the ones in First Epistle John, chapter three, verse two, where we'll be like him because we will see him as he is.

[25:55] So as you go from those three ones, the first one is more metaphorical than the second one, right? But face to face still is a little bit metaphorical because God doesn't have a face, and we won't see him with this face, you know. But you know, but but the meaning of that, if you see the whole context there with the mirror, right? You would not be seeing God in something else, but God in Himself, right?

[26:18] And that's what means to see him face to face, but still expressed a bit metaphorically, right? So I see you, and I see you and yourself, but if I have a mirror over here, I'm seeing you not in yourself, but in the mirror, right? And in the mirror, of course, God is going to be perfect too. But then the last one, you see him as he is.

[26:38] There didn't seem to be any metaphorical way of speaking there, you know. And so it's kind of interesting with those three texts. Come up, the order should come up, right? The first one is most proportionate to us, right? Sitting down, eating the same thing, you know, you know, and you know, you read this in the in the in the Old Testament. Sometimes, you know, where you are taken in by the king, and you will sit at his table and eat from his table or from his his kitchen, right?

[27:09] That's going to be the best food around, right? That's good, right? And so, it's very proportionate to us, and and face to faces, still more proportionate to us than we are speaking, you know, than the last way. It's kind of interesting the way those three are are ordered in scripture. There,

[27:34] if you want to explain what it was, you might follow that same order that scripture has. Beautiful, beautiful order. And the eighth thing, whether every man desires, beatitude. Can't say to raise that. It's kind of interesting that he should make that the last article. Too. That'd be the first one he should. Whether man can achieve Beatitude or write it beatitude. To the first, therefore, one proceeds. Thus, it seems that man is not able to what obtain beatitude.

[28:37] For just as the reasonable nature is above the sensible nature, so the intellectual nature is above the what rational, as is clear through Dionysius in the book about the divine names in many places.

[28:59] But the brute animals can't say that. But the brute animals, which have only the sensible nature, right, cannot arrive at the end of the rational nature.

[29:24] Therefore, neither can man, who is of a rational nature or reasonable nature, he would not for the same reason or by analogy there be able to arrive at the end of the what intellectual nature, which is beatitude, right? Okay. And I just stop to hum it and recall this little bit about naming, just so we know what it is.

[29:53] We have a ability called reason, right? And sometimes this ability called reason is called understanding, right? So John Locke is in the essay of human understanding, right? Well, it's about reason, right? But it's also called understanding.

[30:21] Now, what do the angels have? What they call not reason, because reason is the ability for discourse, right? And the knowledge of the angels is not discursive, right? But they understand things right away, right? So we call their thing understanding, right? And that's how Shakespeare defined reason. you know, as looking. you know? It doesn't say necessarily understanding, but you're trying to see, trying to understand, right? And we've come to understand a bit, you know, discourse, right?

[31:00] And so, the word understanding then is sometimes said of reason, and sometimes it's divided into reason, right? So, what way of being equivocal by reason is this?

[31:20] Why does why does the ability of the angel to understand, right? Why does that keep the name understanding? Why our ability to understand is given a new name. That's the that's the. This is an example of what way of of a name becoming equivocal by reason. Something added. Yes, something significant added. Meaning our discourse. Does the ability of discourse or something? Well, yeah, but there's two ways.

[31:55] First of all, in which a name can become equivocal, instead of one of two things which you just said, right? And one of them keeps the name, right? And we mentioned one way, right? But is that what's going on here?

[32:17] Or does one of them have fully the common meaning, right? Okay. And the other has imperfectly. And Thomas often quotes. Isidore Isaiah You know some medieval writer there You know Isaiah? You know, some medieval writer there. You know, he speaks of. This is intellectus umbratus You know, the overshadowed kind of thing. Imperfect, right? Okay. So because it's imperfect, right? Then it gets the what? New name, and the one who has is fully right.

[32:53] Okay. So look at the example of the cat divided into the kitten and the cat, and the cat keeps the common name because he has fully what a cat is, right? And the same way, if you say man, and you divide man into the man and the boy, right?

[33:18] Okay. But now, when they divide, say, episteme or scientia Latin into scientia and sapiencia, right? Well, then sapiencia gets a new name because it adds something not

[33:45] because it's. less sciencia than the geometry or you know natural philosophy, but because sciencia means you know certain knowledge of things through their causes. But this is through the very first causes of all things, so this is an excellence that seems to deserve a way its own name, right? So, is this like this or like this? You know, that seems to be like these two, right? Because you say, what is the common meaning of understanding?

[34:18] The ability to understand, right? What does man have that ability to understand? You know, you know this this ethics this this journal journal. I don't know if you heard you know before you came in the journal of animal ethics, right? Then, is to say, we cannot call animals beasts anymore, right? This is an insult to them, right? And we can't you know things like slay the fox and you know pig out and so on, you know, because this isn't giving us a bad attitude towards these things.

[34:49] You know, It's hate speech, you know, to fly down, right? So hate speech. Yeah, so, man doesn't have much ability to understand, right? And so, you know, we give him a new name and call it reason, right?

[35:08] Man has ability to reason, but he may be reasoning very badly, and he hardly gets anything out of his reasoning, right? Just a bit of understanding, right? Okay.

[35:23] And I would ask my students, you know, about the Pythagorean theorem, and they can't even state the theorem, you know. They'll say x squared plus y squared equals. You know, they can't even do it, but but but the thing is, let alone what prove it, right?

[35:41] So I don't really understand it very much, right? And we're talking to a guy who was running for a gubernatorial candidate in the state, or you know, he's off of the stage, you know, and he says people don't know at all what the candidate stands for, you know, and sometimes they're supporting the candidate who's the opposite of what they really want to know and so on. He just calls England's off of the stage, you know.

[36:09] I'd say now people go in gonna elect their their people and. Yeah. How could the Germans this great intelligent thing? How could they vote for Hitler? You know. How could we avoid from bombing? Six one five seven. That's what one of my friends

[36:30] said about one of his relatives was in Austria as a child when Hitler came to power. Yeah. Yeah. there was euphoria Yeah. And she said, "There's something curiously like that with the four-year-old bomb. " Yeah. She said it was similar, similar experience. You know, Churchill says, in democracy, he says, the worst form of government except for all the rest.

[37:01] Okay. So it seems then that man is not able to what obtain beatitude. Okay. And the first argument there is saying that what you've got the sensible nature right in the reasonable nature and then the understanding nature, and the sensible nature can't get up to the reasonable level, despite this journal, and

[37:40] therefore the next one couldn't get up to what the next right. Two is to three is three is to four, and two can't get up to three, and three can't get up to four, right? Okay. Moreover, beatitude, true beatitude. Second objection here: true beatitude consists in the vision of God, who is pure what? Truth. But to man, it's connatural, huh? That he look upon truth in material things, huh?

[38:15] Whence he understands the understandable forms in the images, huh? In the phantasms, to use the Greek word for images, as Aristotle says in the third book about the soul. Therefore, he cannot arrive at what beatitude, huh? Okay. So what Aristotle teaches there is that the reason's own object is the what it is of something sensed or imagined, huh? Natural thing or a mathematical thing.

[38:46] Moreover, beatitude consists in the obtaining of the highest good, right? Huh? But one cannot arrive at the highest unless he goes through all the media, huh? Since therefore between God and human nature, in the middle is the angelic nature, which man cannot transcend, huh? It seems then that he cannot what? Obtain beatitude, huh? He can't get up to the middle. He can't be angelic, huh? My son Marcus, the little boy, he says, "what can we be born knowing all that we need to know?"

[39:26] I said, "You want to be an angel." So he can't get up to the level, right? How can we get up to the level of God?

[39:37] Against all this is what is said in the ninety-third psalm: "Blessed the man whom you instruct," right, Lord. It's a nice, nice little. bit by Thomas said all the psalms memorized, huh?

[40:02] Answer: It should be said that beatitude names the obtaining of the perfect what? Good, huh? Whoever is capable of the perfect good is able to arrive at beatitude, huh? That seems to be us out, right?

[40:26] Now that man is capable of the perfect good appears from this, because his what? Understanding is able to what? Grasp the universal and perfect good, huh? And his will to what? Desire. Desire it.

[40:56] And so even when the poet says or the novelist says, "who in this life forgets what he wants? " you're having God and you're satisfied, huh? It's kind of a witness though that man is is desiring a perfect good, right? And he has some notion of a perfect good, huh?

[41:13] It's kind of interesting when when Plato, you know, where Socrates and the dialogues there, he argues, you know, sometimes very simply. He argues that how do you get the idea of equality? He'd say, you know, say, well, aren't all these pages what equal? You know, he says, well, if you examined this with your microscope or something, would you see that these pages are in fact equal? No, they're much closer than say this and my briefcase, right?

[41:49] But they're still not really equal, are they? Well, how can you say that? Get your idea of equality from things that are not equal, but which you judge to be what not equal? Well, then Socrates gives a very simple comparison, beautiful, beautiful. He says, suppose you'd never seen a man, right? And then somebody shows you a portrait of this man. Could you say that's a portrait of so and so?

[42:25] Or could you say, you know, that that's not exactly what he was. His nose was longer or shorter than that, or his eyes were brown instead of blue or something, right? Could you say those things?

[42:38] No. But if you already had knowledge of this man, right, somewhere else, and then someone, you know, comes and shows you a portrait, right, then you can make some judgment as to how close it was. My favorite example is that when Lafayette came back to the United States, you know, after Washington had died, right? But there are all kinds of statues of Washington and things, and he'd see these and say, "That's not exactly what he was," you know.

[43:08] But then he saw, I guess, that one statue down Virginia, you know, it was close, and ah, that's that's the man, you know. But how can you make that judgment unless you had a knowledge of Washington, not derived from these things that are imperfect likenesses of Washington, huh? Okay, so he takes example there of the equality, right? That the things in this life are not really equal, and so how do we make the judgment that they approach equality but fall short of it?

[43:35] Unless we have any knowledge of equality, not derived from these things, right? Well, couldn't the same thing be said about happiness, huh? That you know, it's because someone is being happy or someone else is being miserable, right? Huh. But we judge this happiness that even those we call happy, to be in some way imperfect, right? Like, like fact me saying, right? Well, how could we make such judgment unless we had some apprehension of what happiness, perfect happiness, true happiness, right?

[44:07] Would be right? Huh. If we judge no one is truly happy, right? Though some, you know, have some likeness to it, right? Then we must have some knowledge of true happiness, right? So Thomas is kind of pointing to this, right?

[44:30] And therefore, man is able to what? Achieve beatitude, right? This appears. The same thing appears from this that man is capable of the vision of the divine substance or essence, right? As has been had in the what first part,

[44:51] in which vision we say consists the perfect beatitude of man. Because as Thomas explains, one can only see God as He is if God is not only what He sees, but that by which He sees God. That He be the form by which my mind is what informed to see God, right? Huh. So that God is joined to our mind as the as that by which we see Him, right?

[45:23] As well as what we see. It's interesting. Terribly, terribly profound. So you know, this comparison that you know that they compare this to marriage, right? Huh. You know, I have espoused you in faith, huh? In the prophecy of Osea, I guess it is Osea. so that kind of the division is kind of the consummation. of. This marriage, you know, speaking metaphorically, and so instead of being two in one flesh, you are two in one mind, so to speak, right?

[46:00] Because God is joined to your mind as that by which you see Him. Okay. Now the the first part of the of the thing here is what

[46:24] showing that man is what naturally ordered to what wanting this beatitude, right? So that the natural desire cannot be in vain, huh? But the second part is alluding to other places where he talks about how man is capable of what seeing God as He is, huh?

[46:49] Okay, now see, Dion always quoted there from Plato. There, likeness is a slippery thing, and when you see two things as being like, you may exaggerate their likeness, huh? Okay, especially when you have a likeness of what? Ratios, huh? Proportions.

[47:14] So the proportion was that the what sensible nature is to the reasonable nature as the reasonable nature is to the what? Yeah, like two is to four as four is to eight, right? But it's not that exact, right?

[47:39] Now Thomas brings out the difference, huh? Now I remember, you know, when I was studying the four tools of dialectic. The fourth tool of dialectic is the tool of likeness, and the third tool of dialectic is the tool of what difference, huh? And what's special in the fourth tool of dialectic is seeing the likeness of things that are far apart, and therefore seeing a likeness that is proportional.

[48:12] And so I said to Monsignor, I said, maybe he puts the the tool of difference before the tool of likeness because the tool of likeness is dangerous if you don't see the what difference, right? Okay.

[48:28] And so you can say, you know, that a man is somewhere between the animal and the angel, right? He's kind of on the horizon of the material world and the spiritual world, right? And that makes some sense, right?

[48:45] But maybe there's some difference there too, right? But the two ratios, right? I said, so I was saying, you know, that even in the most exact ratios, we say that, see, two is to three is four is to six. Well, two and that's true, I guess. But exactly how are they alike, right? Because two and three are what prime numbers, and four and six are what. Yeah.

[49:13] And four and six are both even, and two and three are both even. You know, so there's differences, right? So exactly in what does the likeness consist? Well, most of my students can't say what the likeness consists. But probably the best way of saying it is that two is the same parts of three that four is of what six, right? Okay. So when Aristotle gives the fourth tool, he says, you know, the the consideration of likeness, right?

[49:47] Rather than just seeing the likeness, when he says difference, it's seeing the difference, right? But you know, so you have to consider, okay, they're alike, but exactly what way are they alike, right?

[50:02] Four and six are not the ratio of two prime numbers, not the ratio of a even number to an odd number. Okay, we consider a bit, you know, to see exactly where are they alike. So in another way, the rational nature exceeds the sensitive, right? And in another way, the intellectual nature exceeds the what rational. For the rational nature, the reasonable nature, right, exceeds the sensing nature as regards the object of knowledge, huh?

[50:42] Because the sense, in no way, is able to know the what, universal. Of which reason is knowing it, but the intellectual or understanding nature exceeds the reasonable one as regards the way of knowing the same what, understandable truth.

[51:12] Now, what's the difference? For the understanding nature, the angelic nature, statim at once. We used to love that word Thomas describing the human mind. You know, it precedes paulatim, which we tell in English kind of bit by bit the truth, right? Not statim at once, right?

[51:33] For the understanding nature, statim at once, Grasps the truth, right? To which the reasonable nature, through the what, investigation of reason arrives, and that's what is meant by discourse, right? As is clear from those things which are said in the first and in Shakespeare's agitation, right?

[51:57] If only Thomas had known Shakespeare, right? He does quote Terence, you know, some of the other poets, huh? It's an ethic, yeah. But Shakespeare, yeah. I showed a little thing on Shakespeare's ethics that I brought together texts of Shakespeare. Make sure, yeah. That's that we know and do these things.

[52:25] And therefore, for this, that the what? Understanding apprehends, grasps. Yeah, and by grasp or understand, reason arrives to a certain what motion. Of course, the word discourse comes from the idea of running from one thing to another, right?

[52:44] Sometimes I see Thomas say, you know, intelligere hominis right? est per modum motus, right? The understanding of man is by way of motion, right? Huh? You have to go from one thing to another and see one thing to another, right? Let me come to understand a little bit, right?

[53:04] Whence the reasonable nature is able to achieve beatitude, which is the perfection of the understanding nature, but nevertheless in another way than the what, angels, huh?

[53:19] For the angels achieve it at once after the beginning, right, of their condition, right. But men, through time, arrive at it, huh? Aristotle speaks of man as the animal that has a sense of time,

[53:41] because your life is spread out in time, right, huh? That's why you're hardly alive, because most of the time is the past, and the rest of your life is in the future, right? But how much of your life is is here now, right now? You know, we're almost dead. You might say, you know. That's why I feel. Depends where you look, sometimes. It spends a lot.

[54:10] But the sensing nature, right, in no way is able to arrive at the end, right? Not even by discourse, huh? Not even after a long time Yeah Not even by the efforts of the of the contributors to the journal of Animal Ethics, right? They esteemed. They probably made a mistake because of likeness. Yeah. yeah. They just you know, they just didn't see what they did. They just.

[54:36] Write a letter to the editor. But it was likeness and I didn't see what can be then you have this other group, you know, that thinks that the computer, right, is going to become more intelligent than man, and they give you various estimates as how many years it would be. But very long. I told you I saw one time. Charlie Rose, you know, interviews these guys and so on, and he had this computer expert here was, and he's actually telling you know, by what year the the the computer would would overtake the human mind, right, and go beyond it.

[55:09] And he's very polite, so that's why he gets there. Oh, you're supposed to come on, you know. So between those people and the animal ethics people, I mean, well, we got wonderful, wonderful. If this is the general run of the crowd, it shouldn't be hard for us to take over the world. It shouldn't be hard. I don't think so. Showed you how you can be fooled by that.

[55:37] Yeah. There's more movies about computers taking over the world than than dogs. Well, there was a plan to do the AFC. That's what he's waiting for. That's a long time to do the AFC. For Animal Farm. Why? Move why? Animal why? That was why. Well, but he couldn't. Okay. To the second, it should be said that to man, in the what, according to the status of the present life, connatural is the way of knowing truth.

[56:13] Understands truth through images, right? As long as the soul is joined to the body, it's naturally turned towards the images. But after the status of this life, it has another way of knowing that's connatural, said in the first. So when my soul leaves my body, it understands itself through itself, right? And. It's quite a transition, huh? It is, yeah, yeah. I'm going to leave the material world and go to the immaterial world.

[56:46] And if I get back to the material world, I'll be entirely dominated by my immaterial side. So I know a little bit the way the angels know, right? The lowest of the angels.

[57:10] I always sit in the tenth pew there in church there, daily mass there. So. You need nine pews, yeah. What about not getting up to angelic nature? To the third, it should be said that man is not able to transcend the angels. What? By the grade of nature, right? That naturally he be what? Spirit to them, right? He is, however, able to transcend them through the operation of the understanding when he understands something to be above the angels, right?

[57:56] That man that beatifies or makes blessed man, and when he perfectly what achieves this, he will be perfectly what blessed.