Prima Secundae
27. Summa I-II Q6 Art. 1: The Plan of the Treatise on Human Acts and Whether Human Acts Are Voluntary
Class of 2011-09-29
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/027-summa-i-ii-q6-art-1-the-plan-of-the-treatise-on-human-acts/

[0:01] Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God our enlightenment. Guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Help us to understand all that you've written.

[0:23] The Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. Did you have Michael Gabriel and Raphael today, or? No. That was our feast day. We do Saint Syriacus.

[0:37] We did the archangels, so we. You're way up there. If you recall, we were at the beginning of question six, huh? Okay, and let's just recall the division of the second part of the Summa, right? You might recall that the distinction that I've pointed out many times between the

[1:05] editorial and reference division, right? And the what? Yeah. So if you look at the proemium there to question one, just for a second, where he gives the division of the second part of the Summa, right?

[1:40] Ubi primo considerandum, where first should be considered, there occurs about the last end, right, of human life. And that's what we did before the the break, right? Questions one through five. Then about those things to which man is able to arrive at this end, right? Or to what deviate from it, huh? Reminds me a bit of the Our Father, right? Because the first two petitions, "Hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come," refer to the end, and then they will be done and the help.

[2:17] there give us this day, our daily bread to the, what? Second thing he mentions here. Those to which man arise at this end, right? Not everyone who says Lord, Lord, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven, right? Get into the kingdom of heaven, and then the last petitions, where you have to be forgiving your sins and avoid being led into temptation and so on, and into the power of the evil one, or from it to what deviate, right?

[2:47] Okay. So the first of those things, then we've taken up already, right? And now in question six, huh? You get the division. Of the what? Not only the rest of the prima secunda, but also the secunda secunda, right? So look at the proemium here to question six. Because therefore, to beatitude through some acts, it is necessary to what arrive, right? It is necessary, consequently, to consider about human acts that we might know by what acts one arrives at beatitude, huh?

[3:31] Or that one is impeded, huh? On the road to what beatitude, huh? Thomas sometimes says even ethics that virtue is the road to happiness and vice is the road to misery, right? And every time you read about some miserable guy in the newspaper, knowing them, it's some vice, right? That they've gone down the the road of some vice or vices, and they've predictably ended up in what misery, right?

[4:06] Okay. So that's what he's going to take up in the rest of the prima secunda and the secunda secunda, right? Huh? But now in the next sentence, he points out the distinction between the rest of the prima secunda here, starting with question six to the end, and the secunda secunda, right? But because operations and acts are about what singulars, huh? Therefore, every what practical science or doing science, right?

[4:40] Operativa scientia calls it, is perfected in a consideration in particular, right? It's interesting Aristotle there in the Politics, where he talks about, you know, Socrates is always talking about virtue in a very general way. It'd be much better if he talked about particular, you know, what's the virtue of a woman? What's the virtue of a man? You know, these are the particulars, huh? And this is what Thomas is making here, right?

[5:15] So he says moral consideration, which is about human acts, first, therefore, to be considered or treated in what universale, in the universal, and that's going to be the rest of what the prima secunda, right? Secondly, in particular, and that's going to be the whole what's, the thicker that's separate font, the thicker font for the second secunde, right? So you see that distinction, huh? Okay.

[5:49] Now, how does he divide the rest of the prima secunda here, beginning with question six? Well, about the universal consideration of human acts. First, we're not to consider about the acts themselves. Secondly, about their what principles, huh? Okay. Now, what does he mean by the principles? Well, if you look just very quickly at question forty-nine, you'll see the way he takes that up. The very beginning, the proemium to question forty-nine.

[6:31] After the acts and passions, we're not to consider about the principles, the causes, so to speak, of human acts, right? And first about the intrinsic principles, right? Secondly, about the extrinsic principles.

[6:50] And the intrinsic principle is the power and the habits, right? And because we spoke about the powers in the first part, right? That's more remote from what can speak about. It remains to treat about the what habits, right? Okay. And then the extrinsic ones, huh? Well, these are the ones that come from God, right? Namely, what grace and the law, right? And so, in question ninety, we'll talk about the extrinsic principles, huh?

[7:23] To look at the prelude to question ninety. Consequently, we're not to consider about the exterior beginnings of human acts. Now, the principle inclining to evil, the extrinsic one, is the what devil, right? And that's at the end, maybe the our father, huh?

[7:52] About whose temptation, the temptation of which one was treated in the first part. But the exterior principle moving to the good is God, who instructs us through the law and aids us by grace. Whence first we ought to consider law, secondly grace, right? Okay. So we have getting a little bit ahead of ourselves there, but so that's going to be the second part of the what rest of prima secundae?

[8:20] We deal with the principles, right? Intrinsic, like the habits, mainly, and the extrinsic one, which is God and the devil, but the devil was taken up earlier, and then God through His grace and through His law and through His grace, huh? The famous treatise on law there? right? To? Find out what law is. Okay.

[8:47] So let's go back now to to the proemium of question six, huh? Notice he begins in question forty-nine, the consideration of principles. So he's dividing now six through forty-eight. Forty-nine is seven times seven, right? Last time I checked. Yes. Okay.

[9:22] Okay. Brought a mnemonic device to remember. He begins talking about the intellect and what the seventh reading of the third book of the De Anima. Okay.

[9:41] Now, of human acts, some are what? Private or proper to man, right? Some are common to man and to the other animals, right? So sometimes Thomas calls the first. Human acts, right? and the second, they'll call them acts of man, but radically is kind of the way he speaks of it. And because beatitude is the what private good of man, right? It's not shared by the other animals.

[10:17] Cat can't really be happy, right? You think you can on on the TV when they talk about this or that dog food or cat food or something, but

[10:33] so more nearly have themselves to beatitude the acts which are properly human, right? Than the acts which are common to man and other animals, right?

[10:46] First, therefore, one ought to consider about the acts which are proper to man or private to man. Secondly, about the acts which to men and to other animals are common, which are called the what passions of the soul, or you could call them the emotions, right?

[11:06] So the animals have anger and fear and desire and so on, right? Okay, so he's going to consider those two, huh? Thomas, you know his treatise on the on the passions, on the emotions. Now, I was first interested in in poetics of Aristotle and so on, and then the music of Mozart and so on. Reading his treatise on the passions is really a what foundation for understanding better emotions that Mozart is imitating.

[11:48] And I remember one time making a tape record with Warren Murray. You know, different emotions of Mozart. You know, just to show it to one of our friends, so he would know that Mozart is imitating the different emotions.

[12:05] Mozart even has a kind of a plot there in the emotions species and there's a change, and other thing may go from the major key to the minor key, and and hope is replaced by despair. Very interesting, he does.

[12:28] Now, about the first two things occur to be considered, huh? First, about the what condition of human acts, huh? Secondly, about the what distinction of them, huh? And according to my text here, it's not down till question 18 that you get to the distinction of them, right? But what the heck does he mean by the condition of human acts, huh? Explain yourself, Thomas.

[13:05] Since human acts are properly called what? Those which are voluntary, right? Huh? In that the will is the reasonable what? Desire, desiring power, which is proper to man, right? Not to the animals on the will.

[13:28] Is necessary to consider about these acts in so far as they are what? Voluntary, right? First, therefore, one ought to consider about the voluntary and the involuntary in common in general, right?

[13:48] Secondly, about the acts which are voluntary, as it were, elicited from the will itself, right? As being immediately existing of the will itself, an act of the will. Third, about the acts which are voluntary, as as it were, being commanded by the will,

[14:12] which are acts of the will by means of the other what? Power. So in charity, the act of love is what an act of the will itself, right? But it commands all the other what? Powers, right? So they can be acts of charity in a way too, right? Acts of love, but they're what? Commanded, yeah, yeah, because they're moved in sense by the will, okay.

[14:56] Okay. And because the acts of the will have certain what? Circumstances, by which they are to be what? Judged, huh? First, one ought to consider about the voluntary and the involuntary, and consequently about the circumstances of the acts in which the voluntary or involuntary is what? Found, huh? So that's going to be starting question seven. That second thing, huh? Okay. So so question six then is about the voluntary and the involuntary, huh?

[15:39] And about the first eight things are asked, huh? Maybe not by you, but by Thomas here, huh? Okay. First, whether in human acts is found the voluntary, huh? The honest.

[15:59] Secondly, in contrast with it is found in the brute animals. Some people think that they are. We had these two cats in the house, you know, and after breakfast they both, you know, ate their breakfast. But then Tabitha would go right out, you know, and go out the door anyway and go down the block and into this wooded area there to go hunting. And Moppet would want to go to the window and sit in the window there and watch the world go by.

[16:27] Mark philosophically, so not not a doer, right? What is that? Is that a choice that they made? Those two cats. It was like losing that one

[16:43] Third, whether the voluntary is able to be without any act, sins of omission, you know, I don't know. If there are sins, it must be voluntary, right? But there's no act there. If it's a sin of omission, right?

[17:07] Fourth, whether violence can be inferred to the will, right, or imposed upon the will. You do a violence to the will. You force the will.

[17:25] I'll give somebody enough beer. and I was reading Aristotle in the De Anima there. where. He's talking about the imagination, right? Huh? And he's distinguishing between imagination opinion and so on, right? And then he's talking about what the imagination is and how it comes from the senses in a way, but the senses move something inside us and so on. And then how sometimes man and other animals act through imagination, right?

[18:00] Rather than through reason, right? Some because they don't have any reason, like the dog or the cat, right? I was like men because the reason is is covered over, right? Huh? Either by what some passion he says, right? Or by some disease, like you know the madman, right? Or by sleep, huh? Then the imagination kind of dominates, you know. He gives those three things, huh? And Thomas, you know, says a bit more fully, but Aristotle gives those three reasons why the man is moved by the imagination.

[18:33] And what this guy was moved by, wanting to blow up the Pentagon again, I don't know, but they you know read about these people all the time, you know, that madman, they do. They take their gun and they go and they shoot a bunch of people. No particular reason. It seems they could do this. They're doing this.

[18:55] Whether violence causes the involuntary, right? That's related to the fourth article, right? Whether metus, I guess that's a kind of fear, huh? Causes the involuntary, right? Huh? Whether concupiscence causes the involuntary, right?

[19:21] And whether ignorance causes them to be involuntary. Didn't know the gun was loaded, right? Yes, and so sorry, you know. The old song, isn't it? The old song about that. Probably yeah.

[19:53] So let's look at Article One here now. Within human acts, there's found the voluntary. To the first, one goes forward. Thus, it seems that in human acts is not found the what voluntary, huh? I was talking to a young lady the other day who had gone to TAC, right, huh? And of course, they have kind of the policy there, you know, let the author speak for himself, right, huh?

[20:21] So they get thrown some of the Summa or something at them, right? And no one is explaining the way Thomas proceeds, right? He seems all mixed up with this. First, he's saying it isn't so, and now it's so. It took a while to realize his style, you know. It's kind of funny, though, you know. It's kind of a

[20:43] sometimes you know they they kind of throw these things too much at you, you know, and you're supposed to figure out. Yeah. But the author's trying to do on your own, yeah. Yeah.

[20:57] For the voluntary is that whose what beginning is in oneself, right? As is clear through Gregory of Nyssa and Damascene, right? And even Aristotle, even he got into that paganism, right, huh? Okay. And Aristotle discusses the voluntary in the beginning of the what third book, right? Because in the second book he's defining virtue as involving choice, right? It's a habit with choice, huh? Existing in the middle towards us is determined by reason, right?

[21:33] But so that the choice and the voluntary is in there. So in the beginning of the third book, before he takes up the virtues, he takes up choice and the voluntary and so on. But Gregory of Nyssa, my text refers to the De Natura Hominis, the work of his, and of course the one of Damascene, the famous one, huh? On the Orthodox faith.

[22:01] But the beginning of human acts is not in man himself, but is what outside of man, right? For the desire and the appetite of man is moved to doing something from the desirable, huh? Which is outside, which is like a mover not moved, right?

[22:28] So dinner on the table there, huh? Not moving, right? Moves me, you know, to sit down and stay here and chop, yeah, yeah. So I'm not really free, huh? The source of what I'm doing is that the meal on the table there, right? You know, it's outside of me.

[22:48] Aristotle talks about in the third book of the Soul. He talks about the moving power, right? The desirable moves both the what the knowing power, which knows the desirable, and the what desiring power itself, which is moved by that, huh? Therefore, human acts is not found the voluntary. That's pretty convincing, huh? Yeah. Moreover, the philosopher in the eighth book of the Physics proves that there is not found in animals any what new motion, right?

[23:31] Which is not preceded by some other what exterior motion, huh? But all human acts are what new, huh? For no act of man is eternal.

[23:47] Therefore, the beginning of all human acts is from the outside. Therefore, there is not found in them the voluntary. This is serious, isn't it? That sounds right. Bunch of animals. Yeah, obviously instinctual. Yeah. This is Thomas's pessimistic period.

[24:15] Moreover, who acts voluntarily to himself is able to act, right? But this does not belong to man, for he said in the Gospel of John, chapter fifteen, without me, you are not able to do anything, right? Nothing are you able to do? If you don't, have it's not within your power then to do something and not do it, right? Mm-hmm. God, that's where Calvin would conclude: God is the author of sin, right?

[24:46] Mm-hmm. Therefore, the voluntary is not found in human acts, huh? But against this is what Damascene says in the second book that the voluntary is the act which is a what reasonable operation, right? But such argument acts, therefore, in these reasonable acts is found the what voluntary. So, sorry, Damascene standing against this. Apparently, Gregory would say that too. Aristotle, right? So there are some pretty big big minds there, huh?

[25:35] I assume he would say this too, and many others, right? But it's interesting he takes these guys. Now, how Thomas is going to get out of this? Not that he's tied himself into.

[25:49] He must have had all the answers to this before he wrote it. He had teachers, editions. Well, there is great times sometimes of being, you know, stumped, you know, and. Falling on the ground and praying, you know, and then getting up and ah. I should have done that when I was in grade school.

[26:21] Okay, I answer. It should be said that it is necessary for there to be the voluntary in human acts. That's a conclusion, right? It's not a reason. To the evidence of this order, huh? It should be considered, huh? That as some acts or motions, the beginning, their source, that beginning means, right, origin, is in the agent, right? Or in that which is what moved, huh? But as some motions or acts, the beginning is what outside, huh?

[27:04] For when the stone is moved, what? Up. The beginning or source or the origin of this motion is outside the what? Stone. So the man throwing this on up.

[27:22] Left to itself, it wouldn't go up probably, huh? Um. But when it is moved downward, right? The beginning or source of this motion is in the what? Stone. Okay. Left to itself.

[27:44] But now of those which are moved by a beginning or source or origin that's inside them, right, intrinsic. Some move themselves, and some what? Do not. Do not, huh? For since every agent

[28:05] or thing moved, right, acts or is moved on account of some what? End. As is had above, right. Those are perfectly moved by a inward source or origin or beginning. In which what? There is some intrinsic beginning, not only that they might be moved, but that they might be moved towards an end.

[28:37] And in order that something come about for the sake of an end, there is required in some way knowledge of that what? End. So whatever is thus acts or is moved from an intrinsic beginning. Whatever, therefore, thus acts or is moved by an intrinsic beginning that has somewhat knowledge of the end, has in itself a beginning of its act, not only that it act, but also that it act on account of that what end.

[29:13] But what has no knowledge of the end has in itself a beginning of an action or a motion, right? But not, over, of what it is to act or to move on account of an end is the beginning in it, but it's in another right who knows the end and directs it, from whom or by whom there is impressed upon it a beginning of its motion towards the end.

[29:46] Okay, so does the tree produces what acorns or something, right? And reproduces itself, right? Is it acting for an end? not an end that it knows. right, But it's impressed upon it, right, huh? Okay. Maybe this is true about the animals too, huh? Whence things of this sort are not said to move themselves, but to be moved by others, right? But the things that have a knowledge of the end are said to move themselves, because in them there is a beginning or source, not only that they act or do, but also that they act on account of a what?

[30:38] End. And therefore, since both are from a intrinsic source, to wit, that they act and that they act on account of an end, the motion and acts of these things are said to be voluntary, huh? Voluntary. For this, the name of voluntary implies that the motion and the act is from one's own what? Inclination.

[31:10] And hence it is that the voluntary is said to be, according to the definition of these three guys, the same three guys we met in the beginning of the article, but now comes first.

[31:23] Yeah. And then Gregory is second, and Damascene is what? Third. Yeah, he put Aristotle first, all right. What's the significance of that? Not only whose beginning or source is within, but with the the addition of what? Knowledge, right, huh?

[31:49] Whence, since man most of all knows the end of his what? Doing or work. And moves himself. In his acts, most of all, the voluntary is what? Found, huh? So what do you think about that? Body of the article, right, huh? You dissect that body. Yeah.

[32:16] He said that most perfectly moves itself that also knows the what? End for which it is acting, right, huh? By that which moves itself, not knowing the end for which it acts, huh?

[33:04] It's so much less voluntary, right? But doesn't this mean that the animals are voluntary? Voluntary because they have knowledge. Well, what do you mean by voluntary, right? If by voluntary that has its source within itself, then they have something of the voluntary, right? But to say something is fully voluntary only if it has the element, not only that, but knows the end for which it acts, right?

[33:30] Yeah. But but a dog knowing the end, in the sense of he he knows the food, which is what's the end of the trip? What's the end of eating though? Does he know that? No, he doesn't know that.

[33:49] He knows he's hungry. Yeah, he knows. But that is hunger the end of food, and he. He doesn't have knowledge of the end. He knows he's hungry. He knows that's food. Okay. So in other words, there's knowledge. Yeah, that's knowledge, but it's not knowledge of the end. That's just. Does he know it as an end, right? No, not as an end, but he knows the end. See, so.

[34:10] Yeah. But there's still a knowledge of the end, even though he doesn't know it as an end. Yeah. So animals have knowledge. of the end. He doesn't know it as an end. No. Yeah. But he doesn't doesn't make that distinction here, right? Well, maybe that's implied in what he's saying about knowing the end, huh? Still being. There's probably a distinction there.

[34:34] But you know, you know, is voluntary here in a somewhat broader meaning than the idea of being free, right? Because Thomas saying, you know, it's man free. Is that is that the the meaning of the the article? Doesn't seem to be right. And you know, he usually goes speaking of man as liberum arbitrium. That's free judgment, right? But he doesn't seem to be, you know, taking voluntary in that sense of being free.

[35:02] That's what you might say. Okay. Let's see how he answers the objections, because sometimes that casts some light upon these things. Huh? Or many times it does. Most often it does. Huh?

[35:24] The first objection was that one is moved by something outside of oneself, right? Namely, the desirable, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that not every beginning is a first beginning.

[35:49] Thus, although is of the what meaning of the voluntary, and that the beginning of it be what within is not over against. The notion of voluntary, that the intrinsic beginning be caused or moved by some what extrinsic beginning, exterior beginning. Because it is not of the notion of the voluntary that the inward beginning be the first beginning, okay.

[36:28] But nevertheless, it should be known that it can happen that some beginning of some motion to be first in its own what genus, huh? Which is nevertheless not first simply right. Just as in the genera of alterable things, the first thing that alters things is the heavenly what body. I'm speaking there kind of in the old understanding, which nevertheless is not the first what mover simply, but is moved by a local motion, by a superior what mover, right?

[37:14] Thus, therefore, the intrinsic beginning of a voluntary act, which is the knowing power and the appetite, both of them, right? Is the first beginning in the genus of the what? Petitive motion, right? Although it is moved by something outside, according to other what kinds of motion? Kinds of motion, right?

[37:47] Does that satisfy you? Fine. Now, what about the second objection here? About the motion of the animals, there is always what preceded by some exterior motion, right? Wasn't the same thing for man? He's an animal too, right? To the second, it should be said that the new motion of an animal is preceded by some outside motion, as regards two things there. In one way, in so far as through some outside motion is presented to the sense of the animal something what sensible, which apprehended grasped by its knowing power moves the what desire, right?

[38:44] Just as the lion seeing the stag, I guess, um, that's one they have in the Psalms there, the one that's thirsty. Yeah. The one that's thirsty. Just as the lion seeing the stag approaching through its motion, right, begins to what be moved towards it, right.

[39:18] Another way, in so far as through some outside motion, he begins in some way to be changed by a natural change, right. The body of the animal being changed by natural motion, as through cold or through what hot, huh?

[39:37] So sometimes animals get out of the hot heat, don't they, under the tree? And sometimes they go in and out of the cold, getting to warm place, huh? Okay. First cat we had would always go the old the old stove and had the open space underneath rather than all these tall drawers. That's why the cat liked to go and lay under the stove and get. The warmth from the thing, in the

[40:10] okay. So sometimes, it's like to, it says cold or hot, right? But the body being changed through the motion of an exterior body that's eating it or cooling it, then also accidentally the sense desire is what changed, okay? Which is a power of a body organ, right? Just as from some alteration of the body, the desire is moved to the desire of somewhat thing, huh? But this is not against the notion of voluntary, as has been said, huh?

[40:49] For these motions from the outside source are of another what genus, huh? Of motion, huh? So is is is the the desire to go into the warm place, right? Out of the cold, that's a different kind of activity than the what chilling of the body, right? That's what he's saying, right?

[41:26] So that desire to go in is still from being intrinsic, but beginning, yeah, yeah, yeah. What about this God here? Third objection. To the third, it should be said that God moves man to acting, not only as proposing something desirable to the sense, right? Or as what changing the body, right? These two ways that the animal is being influenced, but also as moving the will itself.

[42:11] Thomas would deny that the angel, even Michael and Gabriel and Raphael, can move the will immediately. They can move it, you know, by way of persuasion, right? And even the devil can try to persuade, right? That's not to move the will intrinsically. But God is that small that he can move the will intrinsically, right? Because he's a source of the will.

[42:40] Because every motion, both of the will and of nature, proceeds from him as from the first what mover, right? Thomas develops that at some length there in the third part of the Summa Contra Gentiles right? In the first part of the Summa.

[43:02] And just as it is not against the notion of nature that the motion of nature be from what God is from a first what mover, in so far as nature is a certain tool of God what moving, so it is not against the notion of an act of the will that it be from God in so far as the will is moved by what God.

[43:31] It is, however, commonly of the notion of the natural and voluntary motion that they are from a what intrinsic principle, right? So, what's the definition of nature in natural philosophy? Anybody know that? Remember it?

[43:48] Principle of motion and change, moisture change. Yeah, but tied to it's intrinsic, right? It's the beginning and cause of motion, rest, in that in which it is, right? Okay. First, as such, and not by happening, right? But tied to being an intrinsic what principle.

[44:14] It's interesting that the word nature comes from what the word birth, right? Because birth is from what within. It's tied to that the source of the baby is within the woman, right? Within the animal that gives birth.

[44:40] Every time you get your medicine, they say what's your date of birth? I guess the way they have checking. I can't even tell you. January eighteenth, nineteen thirty-six. But actually, I existed before January eighteenth, nineteen thirty-six, in my mother's womb, right? Yes, I came from within. So nature, as well as the will, voluntary, its source is what within, right? Even though in both cases they are what dependent upon God.

[45:10] It's hard to understand, but that's something that's taken up in the other parts of theology, huh?