Prima Secundae
37. Aquinas, Summa I-II Q.10, Articles 3–4: Is the Will Moved by Necessity by the Passions or by God?
Class of 2011-11-03
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/037-aquinas-summa-i-ii-q-10-articles-3-4-is-the-will-moved-by/

[0:00] In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the, Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, Guardian Angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo gratias.

[0:13] God, our enlightenment, Guardian Angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, broaden the room in our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, help us to understand all that you have written. Father, Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. I'll give you a little example of an apt quote from scripture. Right, this is back in the earlier days of our country here,

[0:46] and not to be concerned with the legal thing he was involved with, but the law moves very slowly. Right, he was very annoyed at the court and so on. Right, to win his case was not enough for this excitable person, however. he had suffered a good deal in mind and purse by the law's delay, and his keen wits starting about for an effective way of making Chief Justice Dudley and his associate Lynd smart for their failure to unite with judges Saltonstall Sewell, and Cushing.

[1:13] He hit upon the idea of caricaturing the court. Accordingly, he had painted and hung in front of his inn a sign which cost him forty pounds and some subsequent trouble, for the sign represented the whole court sitting in state in big wigs before an open book entitled Province Laws. The dissenting judges are shown with their backs to the book. Of course, the learned gentleman heard of the sign, and of course they sent a sheriff to bring it before them.

[1:44] But Doctor Ames, this is the guy who put the sign up, who happened to be in Boston at the time, also heard of the sheriff's errand, and he rode out to us where his inn was and did him in all haste. Now, this is supposed to get the quote. You have to realize people know the scriptures in those days, and I assume you guys will be able to appreciate those like I did because of knowledge of scripture.

[2:06] When the officer of the law arrived, he found on the pole where the lampoon had hung, right, only this legend. This is the quote: "A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, but there shall no sign be given it."

[2:26] Oh, effective today, but they're doing scripture, you know. Sort of book about the old inns of New England, you know. But all these little anecdotes, huh? The one inn there where you know the different inns that George Washington stopped at when he was coming through and so on, and the one inn there when George Washington was leaving, the owner of the place had his little daughter, you know, open the door for Washington to go out, right?

[2:57] And Washington, you know, very liked and said, "said There's a better office for you than this, you know, better, you know." And oh yes, she says, letting you in. Isn't that clever? Yeah. You know, like a better office would be to let him in than to let him out, right? Then he would want the great man to be in there. But another one where the little girl fixed something for him, you know, his glove or something, you know, and sewed up, and she gave her a little kiss, you know, and she wouldn't allow her face to be wiped a whole week afterwards by George Washington.

[3:33] Marvelous little stories, you know. You don't know about other things. He described, you know, the return of Lafayette and all these inns he stopped at. He's coming up the one street there. I guess I think in Boston, Tremont, you know, Tremont. And this woman who had who had been the wife of some man who knew him forty years before, she'd seen him, right? So she's up there on the balcony, right?

[3:54] And of course, he comes down the road there, and he looks up and he sees her. He recognizes her, right? Gets all these gracious bow and so on. And she just, I've lived long enough, she said. I made Lafayette, too. So he finds wonderful little things about these inns and taverns. Who else? Revolutionary plots there. It reminds me of Mayor Washington of Chicago when when he was running for mayor, and he had spent some time in Cook County Jail, so the inmates of the jail hung a sign outside that said Washington slept here.

[4:34] That was really about another place they're talking about Louisiana, you know, and corruption there, you know, and I guess Jindal has you know fixed places up a lot, but anyway, someone was describing you know before the the corruption, he says, and the problems there with the you know rains and so on. Half the state is under water, and the other half is underwater And tap it.

[5:04] Okay, so Article three here in Question ten, huh? To the third one proceeds thus: It seems that the will is moved of necessity by the passion, the emotion, the feeling of the what? Yeah. Lower appetite, right?

[5:28] For the apostle himself says, huh, in Romans chapter seven verse fifteen, not the good that I what will do I do that, but the evil that I hate, that's what I do, right? So even Saint Paul, it seems, is pretty pretty good, you know, argument,

[5:51] which is said in account of what concupiscence, which is a certain what passion, right? Looking at Summa Contra Gentiles this morning, he's denying, you know, that God has the passiones, but that has many meanings. The word passio is applied to many things. So he calls them the the passiones affectionum, you know. Yeah, that's kind of the way to to signify it. Here he calls it a passione, a pity to its inferiority, right?

[6:27] Moreover, as is said in the third book of the Ethics, that's the famous Nicomachean Ethics. Some people think Nicomachus was what the name both of the father and the son of Aristotle, right? So it could be the Ethics he wrote for his son, but even Ethics written for the the student,

[6:53] but could also be the Ethics that he got from his father. So Aristotle says in the third book of the Nicomachean Ethics, "Qualis unusquisque est, such as a man is, so does the end seem to him, right?

[7:14] But it is not in the power of the will that at once one get rid of the passions, right? So what is it that the Jefferson said? You know, you know, if you're very angry, you know, count to a hundred or something, you know. So even the man who's resisting this, it takes time, right, for his anger to what calm down, right, huh? Okay.

[7:43] So when one is under the passion, he can't get rid of it right away if it's a strong one. And then what? Such as he is, so does the end seem to him, right? I should hit you because that's way seems proper now for me in the in this when I'm angry, right? When the anger calms down, I don't think I have to hit you, but as long as I'm under the feeling of anger, I can hit you, right?

[8:06] Get even with you. Therefore, it is not in the power of the will that it does not will that to which the passion inclines itself.

[8:21] We have the words in English that we have about emotion, and sometimes use the word feeling in the sense of emotion too. You hurt my feelings. That means emotions, huh?

[8:37] Those are both interesting arguments, huh? Moreover, the universal cause is not applied to a particular effect except through the medium of a particular what cause, huh?

[8:53] Whence the universal reason does not move except by means of a particular estimation, as is said in the third book about the soul. So reason, you know, knows something universal, but doing is in the singular, right? So you have to apply universal down to the singular, to something singular that brings in the senses and so on. But just as universal reason has itself to the particular estimation, huh, back to the senses, so the will to the sense appetite.

[9:30] Therefore, for willing something particular, the will is not moved except by means of the what, sense appetite. Therefore, if the sense appetite is disposed to some passion to something, right, huh, the will is not able to move in the contrary.

[9:52] I'd like to see Thomas there in in the uh disputatio, you know the public disputatio. Handling these objections, right? And I always tell the story of Thomas Cobigny. You know, this young guy, their objections, you know, and everybody scandalized that they would object to the great pastor, you know. Thomas sits down very quietly, explains the matter, you know, and handles his objections, right? Takes them seriously, you know.

[10:22] But against this is what is said in Genesis chapter four: Under you will be your what desire, right? And you will dominate it. Therefore, the will of man is not moved necessity by the lower what appetite. I blacked out. For the fear, I answer: It should be said that has has been said before or above the what passion of the sense desire moves the will, right? In that, on that side, by which the will is moved by its what object, not by a what efficient cause, like that.

[11:18] In so far as a man, in some way disposed through emotion, judges something to be suitable and good, that he would not judge so existing outside of the passion, right?

[11:38] Now, this change of a man through passion happens in what two ways? I didn't know that. Did you? In one way, thus that reason is wholly what bound, so much so that the man does not have the use of what reason, huh? Just as happens in those who, on account of vehement anger or concupiscent, are what mad, mindless. They come to be

[12:20] Orlando Furioso, is that the name of the Italian classic? Just as an account of what some bodily disturbance, how they can lose the use of their what reason, huh? Fever. For these passions do not happen without a change that is bodily, right?

[12:47] And about such cases, there is the same reason as in the case of the brute animals, right? Who, from necessity, follow the impetus of their what passion, right? So man is kind of reduced to an animal, in a sense.

[13:07] Down boys, the woman's supposed to say down from you. In these things, however, there is not any motion of reason itself, and consequently, there is no motion of the what, the will, huh?

[13:31] But sometimes reason is not wholly absorbed by passion, but there remains, to some extent, the judgment of reason to be still free from the passion to some extent, and by this there remains something of the motion of the what, will. For in so far as reason remains free and not subject to the passion, to that extent the motion of the will also, what, which remains, is not does not of necessity tend towards that to which the passion inclines.

[14:13] And thus, either the motion of the will is not in man, this is the case now he's gone mad, right? But only the what, passion dominates. Or if there is a motion of the will, of necessity it does not follow what, the passion, huh?

[14:37] He's a good guy to go to confession to, this Thomas maybe huh? So Thomas is saying that that the motion can be so intense that it what

[14:57] takes away the reason. Yeah. Like fear, I don't think fear like that. Somebody, you know, bombs are going off all around. You just people go crazy. Yeah.

[15:11] Now what about this text of Saint Paul? I see how he's going to handle this. That's a pretty hard thing to face up to. To the first, therefore, it should be said that although the will is not able to what act, but that the what motions of gibberisms will arise about which the apostle says in Romans seven that the evil that I hate, right, that I do, right, that is I what, desire.

[15:41] Yeah. Nevertheless, the will is able to not will to what desire, or at least not to consent to the what Desire, right, huh? Was it St. Bernard that? or St. Benedict right? Did you put in the bramble bush or something. Saint Francis did too. Yeah, yeah. So I'd say that's not consenting, right? They're doing what's in their power, not. Yeah.

[16:21] So remember that when you're hearing confession too. Now, did you jump in the bramble bush? And there wasn't in the bramble bush, Father. And thus, not from necessity follows what, and therefore, from necessity it doesn't follow the motion of concupiscence, huh?

[16:49] So, you satisfy that answer? To the second, it should be said that since in man there are two natures, and it's interesting, Thomas just speaks that way, right? What my colleagues say, Thomas would never say that man has two natures, but

[17:18] Because I think that's because only one nature, right, except for Christ. But notice what he speaks here. huh Of course Aristotle sometimes speaks of what matter and form as being two what senses of nature, right? This is something like that, intellectual and sensitive, huh?

[17:44] Sometimes a man is aliqualis he's of some sort, right? Uniformly, according to his whole soul, right? Because either the sensitive part is wholly subject to reason, as happens in the virtuous people, right? Or e converso, reason is totally absorbed by the passion, as happens in the mindless, right?

[18:15] But sometimes, although reason is clouded over, right? I guess that's come from the word cloud, there, right? By passion, there remains something of reason free, right? Huh? One arm is tied behind your back, but not both arms.

[18:36] And and and by this, it can either wholly repel the passion, right? Or at least hold itself, lest it what follow the passion, right?

[18:54] In such a disposition, then, because man, according to diverse parts of his soul, is disposed in diverse ways, huh? Other something seems to him according to reason, and other according to passion. That's a pretty description of temptation, right? Something seems to you according to reason, something else according to your what? Passion. Right. It's an old monastic saying that the young monk comes to the old man, and he says, "I feel like I have two dogs fighting inside of me.

[19:26] I don't know which one will win." And the old man says, "Well, which one are you going to feed?" But it seems like you know that you know reading the Iliad again that both Agamemnon and Achilles, right, they know in a sense that they're falling, they're aiming, right, huh? Yeah. And this is not reasonable, right? That they're in this kind of a. Of course, then finally, when the thing starts to go against the the Greeks or the Cadmeans the Danaans then they send this whole delegation, you know, to Achilles, you know, and they promised him. So much, you know he still won't won't do it, right?

[20:04] You know, even though in a sense he knows that he should, right? Okay. To the third, it should be said that the will not only is moved by the universal good apprehended by reason or grasped by reason, but also by the good grasped by what? The senses.

[20:39] What's he saying there, right? He's saying that the will can be what? Moved. Even by the good apprehended by the senses, right? Huh? Okay. Got to feed the baby or something, right? Huh?

[20:58] Somebody did something awful to this baby. I didn't get the whole story there, but paper the other day, you know, he was he was drinking beer and playing video games, and baby was crying and interfering with his his thing, so he took the baby to something. I forgot to get the whole story, but my wife was feeding it to me or something.

[21:21] So, but he could have set the baby near something, maybe, huh? Could have known by his reason, telling baby's crying, something. And therefore, he is able to be moved to some particular good without without the passion of the sense appetite, right? So he can know, right? He turned to the senses, something singular, right? And can choose it, right? Even without sense appetite, for many things we will and do without passion through what?

[21:58] Choice alone. Choice alone, right? As is most of all clear in those things where reason resists, you might say, huh? Passion, huh? So now, important question: whether the will is moved of necessity by the exterior mover that is God, right? Huh? Because he's he's more powerful than sense appetite, right? In fact, he's all powerful, right? To the fourth, one proceeds us. It seems that the will of necessity is moved by God, huh?

[22:48] For every agent to which one is not able to resist, of necessity moves, right? But to God, since he is of infinite power, right, one is not able to resist. When it is said Romans nine, to his will who can resist right? So by reason and by authority, this objection is really a powerful one, right? Therefore, God of necessity moves the what? Will.

[23:27] Moreover, the will of necessity is moved towards those things which it naturally wills, huh? So I naturally will happiness, right? But that is to each thing natural that God does in it, as Augustine says in the twenty-sixth chapter, I guess, against Faust. huh? He was the big Manichaean, I think Faust.

[24:07] It was Faust, the guy that talking about all these things above Augustine's ability to judge, but then he discovered he didn't know the liberal arts. Yeah. So how can he know these more difficult things, you know?

[24:25] So, what did Monsignor Dionne say Or would Augustine have been then without the liberal arts? He would have been deceived by Faust. huh? Contra Faust.

[24:40] Therefore, the will of necessity wills everything to which it is moved by what God, huh? Natural, right? Moreover, the possible is that which, when it is posited, right, there follows nothing what impossible, as Aristotle says, right?

[25:08] But there follows something impossible if it be laid down that the will does not will that to which God what moves it, huh? Because according to this, then the operation of God would be inefficacious, right, huh? Okay. You'd be like Augustine, move somebody to do something, and he can't get them to do it. You know, be the worst of water and God making drink. Yeah, yeah. Therefore, it is not possible for the will not to will that to which God what moves it.

[25:41] Therefore, it is necessary for it to will this, right? But against all this is what is said in Ecclesiasticus, I guess, huh? What do they call it now? Sirach yeah. God from the beginning constituted man and left him in the hand of his own what counsel right? That's a nice concrete way of saying in the hand. Counsel right. Most obviously in English, you know, it's out of my hands.

[26:22] I have no control over it, right? It's out of my hands. But he left man in the what hand of his own what counsel right?

[26:34] Liberum arbitrium, huh? Therefore, not of necessity does he move what his will, right? So Thomas says, I answer it should be said that as Dionysius says in the fourth chapter of the Divine Names, it does not pertain to divine providence to corrupt the nature of things, huh? But to save them, right? Servare. Whence he moves all things according to an agreement with their condition, right? So that to necessary causes, right, there follows effects of necessity through the divine what motion, right?

[27:28] And from contingent causes, there follows effects contingently. Because, therefore, the will is an active principle, not determined to one, but indifferently having itself to many, right?

[27:51] Example Thomas always gives us up to us to whether we're going to walk or run, right? It's so funny because I think, did he run? Obviously, Thomas moving slow, you know, he's not describing me down his man, you know, he's not in a hurry to get any place, you know. So it seems to be that Thomas says, "I walk or run."

[28:18] Because, therefore, the will is an active principle, not determined to one, but indifferently having itself to many. So, or thus, God what moves it right? That in such a way that not from necessity or by necessity does he determine it to one of the two what opposites, right?

[28:42] But it remains his motion contingent, right, and not necessary, except in those things to which it is naturally what moved, huh? So that makes you think, knowing what that is, second objection, was it?

[29:08] Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said that the divine will not only extends itself to something what come about to the thing that he moves, right, but also in that way, which is in agreement with or congruent with his nature,

[29:33] and therefore it would be more repugnant to the divine motion if the will was moved of necessity, right, when this doesn't what fit its nature, right, than if it be moved freely, which befits his what nature? its own nature, right. Now, to the second one, the objection from natural. To the second should be said that is natural in each thing that God works in it, that it be what natural to it.

[30:22] For thus to each thing belongs something, according as God wills that it what. He does not, however, will that whatever is done in things be what natural to them. As example, that the dead rise.

[30:44] That natural. But this he wishes to be natural to each thing, that it be subject to the what To the divine power. huh? So is he disagreeing with the Gustin or not?

[31:21] I don't think so. He says, Augustine says someplace else. God respects the laws that he's created and he lets his creatures make their own moves, which is almost the word for word translation. Basically. Oh, and Thomas is saying that God moves the will to choose something. Let's say, right? Huh? Is he always moving it so that it would be natural for it to choose this? He seems he's saying that he doesn't always do that.

[31:57] Huh? I think. But it's it's still, you might say, in accordance with the nature of the of the will, right? Huh? So maybe have to see that, right? The nature of the thing has to be. free and contingent, you know? Yeah.

[32:15] So was it natural for me to pick up Homer? You read that book of Homer today? They're doing what comes natural. To your to your particular nature.

[32:35] That's it, Mr. Valian. I don't feel right onto theorem Euclid every day. So there's something wrong with you, she says. So in some way you could say it's natural to us to be natural to our will to be invited.

[33:06] Invited. If I mean, here's your choice. You're invited to do this. Yeah. But you're free to do other things. But you're invited to do. Yeah. Yeah.

[33:17] When you speak of the saints as acting in fact a divine instinct, right? But does that mean that what they chose to do and maybe and did do right? That this was something that is natural.

[33:36] It could be the expression that comes to my mind is something like an acquired taste or something. Mm hmm I was. I was just reading the second book of the metaphysics right there. You know, in the fifth reading there, that's where Aristotle talks about the influence of custom upon our thinking. And you can be more explicit than Aristotle was there because there Aristotle's talking about the influence of custom upon the way we want to proceed, right?

[34:14] And so he says those who are brought up, say, in geometry or something, want to proceed mathematically everywhere, right? And I always remember Lord Kelvin there, the great physicist of England. My brother Richard's physics book in high school, you know, no matter what the matter is, if it's not, you know, mathematical, it's not science, you know. And so you see that, right? And Thomas, but you could say, you know, that custom also makes us think we know something that's obvious that isn't even obvious, right?

[34:52] And maybe even something false, you know. And people are just they hear this thing said enough, you know, they tend to think they they know it, right? And you know, people think they know the Earth is is round. Do they really know that? Oh, it's on Google Earth. Or they know the you know the Earth is turning on its axis, right? Yeah. You know, I've been told this so much, you know, do I really know it?

[35:20] My brother Mark used to be annoyed at these statements. Today we all know, though, that we don't all know that, right? Today we all accept, maybe, maybe that the Earth turns on its axis rather than the Sun goes around the Earth, right? But I don't know if we know it. Most of us. Do we know that? I don't know that.

[35:43] I believe it. I believe it. I don't know. I mean, even the weatherman, the meteorologist, when he always tells us about sunrise and sunset, does he think that the Earth turns on its axis? Why does he call it sunrise and sunset?

[36:01] But in speaking about the the force of custom, right, it can make something that's not obvious seem obvious, right? Or certain way of proceeding as being the way you should proceed, right? Thomas says it's because custom is like a second nature, right? And so it makes something seem what natural, right? And therefore obvious, right? Just like the things that are naturally known, right? So it's hard for people to get to not be a slave of custom, right?

[36:39] What Shakespeare called it custom tyrant, right? It's tyrant, right? Yeah, because it it it rules the mind, not altogether for the good of the mind, right? But more for the good of the what custom itself, right?

[37:00] So when a man acquires in a habit or a disposition, right, then something seems natural that is maybe not what, yeah. But it is something like nature, right? It's second nature. Second nature, you know, in the song, you know.

[37:29] So a person been brought up in virtue, then something just seems natural to do, right? And some things to avoid, right? But nothing he says there. None out of which He does not ever wish that whatever is done in things should be what to them is natural, right gives a very striking example there, for example, that the dead rise, right?

[38:11] But this he wishes for each thing to be natural that it be subject to the divine power, right? I'm naturally subject to divine power.

[38:26] But don't naturally rise. Not the weird Bobby coming back for a while, anyway. Or at least not by yourself. Yeah. By your own power

[38:42] Okay. What is the third thing now? This is a subtle distinction here that's easy missed. To third, it should be said that if God moves the will to something,

[38:58] it is incompossibile, right? Sounds like what's his name? Leibniz. incompossible. To this position, right, that the will be not what moved to it, right?

[39:14] But is not or impossible what? Simply, right. But with that condition, right. Whence it does not follow that the will by God is moved of what necessity, huh? Now for The last five minutes was it impossible that I'd be standing?

[40:17] Kind of like the lecture, sitting down. Thought the audience was more relaxed. We sat down. They were standing up at the podium. But you say in the last five minutes it was impossible for me to be standing. No, at the beginning of those five minutes, during those five minutes. Yeah, but if I was sitting for the last five minutes, right? Then is it impossible for me to have been standing for the last five minutes?

[40:50] Insofar as you were sitting. Yeah, yeah. Insofar, insofar as you. were sitting Would you say that simpliciter without qualification, it was impossible for me to be standing the last five minutes? No, because you could have stood. Yeah. But if you say that what I was sitting, right? I can't be standing when I'm sitting. Right.

[41:22] So that's impossible in what sense then? Qualified sense. Yeah, or a supposition, right? This is true about God's will in regard to creatures, huh?

[41:40] Can God's will change? No. Simpliciter no. Simpliciter or simply, no. It can't change God's will. There's no change in God, right? Okay. So God always willed me to be, or God always willed you to be, right? Okay. So do necessarily will you and me to be? Yeah,

[42:13] in I'd say, according to His nature, He wills contingent things contingently. So, am I a contingent thing? Yeah, but having willed me to be, or willed me to be, He cannot will me not to be. But would you say it's simply He could? He couldn't will me not to be.

[42:41] No, I wouldn't say. No, no. But positing that He has willed me to be, then. It's a done deal. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like me by sitting, right? Huh? You know, I could have been standing for the last five minutes. But if you lay down or posit that I I sat the last five minutes, then since I could not be standing,

[43:09] that's kind of you know where where we take that kind of necessary from supposition, right? Okay. Given that I was sitting the last five minutes, I necessarily could not be standing. Can't be sitting standing at the same time, you know. But still, you would say simply, I couldn't be standing the last five minutes, right? But that people get a lot confused, you know, seeing that distinction, right?

[43:38] But it comes up in God and comes up in us, you know. Um, I was thinking of that time when we saw that argument there for the unmoved mover, the argument from the Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle. I think the time we sketched this earlier. It's kind of how you see even even this part of theology or this part of philosophy, right, prepares us for understanding God, right?

[44:06] If you take the fundamental thing that God loves, which is himself, right? You say now, then he asks this question: Does God love himself, or would you say? Okay. Now, could God love himself if he wasn't good?

[44:30] Supposing he couldn't, that he wasn't good. No, he wouldn't love himself. Okay. Because you can't love except the good, right? Okay. So God couldn't love himself if he wasn't good, right? Okay.

[44:47] So God's being good is before his loving himself, right? Okay. But now, could God love himself if he was good but didn't know he was good?

[45:05] You can't love what you don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And you can see these two causes of love: the good, right, and then knowledge, right, are more fundamental than the third cause, which is likeness, right? Because in God loving himself, we don't see any question of likeness there, right? Okay.

[45:30] Maybe in the father loving the son, there can be some likeness there, right? But God loving himself, there can't be likeness, right? So we say, okay. Now, say God couldn't love himself unless he was good, and unless he knew he was good, right? Now, one more question, right? Um.

[45:55] Could God know He was good if He wasn't good? Okay. So what's most fundamental here is that God is good, right? And God has to be good before He could know that He's good. He'd have to not only be good, but know that He is good before He could love Himself, right? Okay. Now you got it before and after there, right? Huh? Right. And good is before knowing that He's good, and knowing that He's good is before loving Himself, right?

[46:33] But is that a before and after in our thoughts, or before and after in things? Which is it? Yeah. Yeah. Because is God's knowledge and His goodness, right? Are they two different things? One which is before the other, right?

[47:08] The beauty of the girl and my knowledge of her beauty, right? Are they two different things, right? And my love of her is another thing, right? Okay. But God's knowledge of His goodness is not another thing, a second thing in addition to His being good, right? They're the same thing. And God's love is what another thing besides His knowledge.

[47:42] And you and I, our knowledge and our love are not the same thing, right? And so, with knowledge of Mozart's music, right, it is before my love of Mozart's music, right? There's a real before and after, before and after in things, right? One thing in me, the knowledge of his music, is a cause. another thing in me, the love of that music, right? But in God, they're what?

[48:13] Not. So, but notice how in theology here, where do you learn that God is good? Yeah, but you learn it in the consideration of substance of God, right? In the what? In the prima pars, right? So you learn that God is simple first, there if you remember, and then that He's perfect and consummately that He's good, right? Huh? In fact, He's goodness itself, right, and so on.

[48:45] Um. And then later on, you learn that God has knowledge, right? And then later on, you learn that God has will and love, right? But there's a before and after there, which is in our thoughts, right? But how would you see that without without seeing this about in us, right? Okay. But now, is that before and after, which is in our thoughts, is that corresponding something in God?

[49:17] Because you said there's no before and after in God, not even in the Trinity, let alone in you know, in in the inspiration of the divine goodness and divine knowledge and divine love, right? If we're clear, there's no before and after there, right? So, is there

[49:39] falsehood in knowing God in a before and after way? Where you say he's got to be good before he can know he's good, and he's got to know he's good before he can love himself, right? Well, why? Well, why isn't that? false right You know

[50:05] Because truth does not require, that the way we know things be the way they are. Yeah, yeah. You get to actually be some kind of correspondence there, right? Okay. And there's something in God to which our thought of goodness corresponds, right? And there's something in God, right, to which our our thought of knowledge, the knowledge of God, right, corresponds. There's something in God to which the love of God, right, God's love, God's will, corresponds, right?

[50:40] Seems to say a thing, but there's something that's corresponding to, right? But you have to know him from creatures in this life, right? That's why. That's why you know it's kind of funny. I was happening to reading the reading the Summa Contra Gentiles, one of my.

[51:03] What's the talk we had there? Your your healthy addiction. Um, this program, right? You know, so so I said my my healthy addiction to the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? If I happen to be reading the part on the divine will and so on, right? This time we're you know look at this thing, you know, and your mind just you know tends to go back and say, well, gee whiz, does God love himself, right?

[51:33] Could he love himself, if he wasn't good, and you start to you know think out the things that you know again, and you can see how this helps, you know, you to do that, right?

[51:45] You know, we often hear that you know Saint John quoted, you know, God is love, right? But God is knowledge too, right? God is wisdom, right? He's truth itself, right?

[52:09] When Thomas is looking, Thomas is the arguments there. You know, does God know what evil, right? Well, it seems that this would be a bad thing to know.

[52:27] And therefore, I'd be deducing, you know, badness into God, right? And Thomas has one argument that's kind of interesting there, where he says that

[52:42] there's truth about the bad as well as about the good. And so, if God didn't know the bad, right, he wouldn't know all truth, which is absurd.

[53:02] As well as the argument, you know, that Aristotle gives both in the De Anima and in Metaphysics, right? You know, the Empedocles position makes God not know something we know. We said he know bad, right? And a

[53:21] bad world office now. Seems to be kind of unhealthy addiction. Yeah, yeah. Where Aristotle takes as being, you know, absurdity, right? He takes it to be absurd a position that makes God not know something that we know, right?

[53:51] So the truth about the bad is good, unless you've been be tempted by to be bad, knowing the truth about the good. It's good to know how to not wreck your car. No, I remember one time, you know, we're giving a little talk, and and we say that all knowledge is good, right? But not all love is good, right? All knowledge is good, and then the good father there in the audience, on the question period afterwards, said, "Well, now, if that's true, then then you'd be in favor of the sex education, or I mean, this factual knowledge, right?

[54:38] " And I say, "No, no, I'm not in favor of that. " And but what's the the answer to that, right? If all knowledge is good, right? Then then the the facts about this is something you should be exposing the five year old or six year old, or it is too, right? Huh? Maybe order and knowing and depends on the student. Yeah, yeah, but but but even something that is good can be what per accidens, right?

[55:04] Bad, right? Huh? Okay. And so you know, for other reasons, right? But it's not that the knowledge as such in this case is what bad, huh?

[55:18] That's such a fundamental distinction, distinction between the as such and by accident, right? Even Aristotle, you know, takes up the words "being" and "one." He first divides them that way, right? Being as such and being by happening, right? And in the same way at the one, now it's a very very fundamental thing. If

[55:54] some knowledge was as such bad, right? Then could God be knowledge itself? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's like St. Alphonsus applies that to, like occasions of sin, something occasion of sin, but only relative to a particular person, like being in a bar. It's sinful about going to a bar, but maybe if somebody's got an alcohol problem. For him, it might be a near occasion of sin. They shouldn't do that.

[56:34] Yeah. Yeah. That's why when the it was the beer industry doing in Quebec, they had to kind of write a thing on this, you know, you know, defending defending them, you know. The super was saying, you know, it was like per se bad to to drink this stuff, right? And it isn't per se, you know. Of course, these people get caught up, you know. What about to turn the water into wine, you know?

[56:59] You know, why do you want grape juice? Something they do something, right? You know, you know, or I'm sure he could bring good out of even evil, you know, or something like that, you know. The Eucharist is something, you know, you know, all kinds of problems. If you don't see that distinction between the the as such and the accidental, right? But Aristotle in the book, you know, that's the first kind of mistake outside of words, right?

[57:24] But Aristotle says this deceives even the what wise, even the wise was deceived by this. The accidental. Okay.