Prima Secundae
49. Aquinas, Summa I-II Q.17 a.8–9 and Q.18 a.1: What Obeys Reason, and Whether Every Human Action Is Good
Class of 2012-01-19
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/049-aquinas-summa-i-ii-q-17-a-8-9-and-q-18-a-1-what-obeys-reason/

[0:00] and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo gratias God, our enlightenment, guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, board and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, help us to understand what you have written. Father and Son, Holy Spirit. And I was reading through that thing, by the way, in the second part of the sentences.

[0:37] I found those three things I say in the prayer for the angels right there in one little text. you know, I think it's found in other places too, but it's the three of them right together. you know, in one of the reply to objections. The other thing about holiness and teaching, I remember when we started studying theology many years ago. Father Peter asked us to be a good theologian.

[1:01] Do you have to be holy? We're all scratching our heads, and he says, "Well, if the best theologians are the doctors of the church, namely a doctor of the church, if it wasn't canonize the saint first, Since that's kind of an order. You see it. Their authority as teachers is basically begins with their holiness of life, That's where their authority begins.

[1:23] Okay, Sreptor. Article Eight here in Question Seventeen. To the eighth, one goes forward. Thus, it seems that the act of the vegetable soul, plant soul, the acts of the that's such a soul, I suppose that's a plural, are subject to the command of reason, right?

[1:50] Well, he says the sensitive powers are more noble than the powers of the plant soul, but the powers of the sense soul are subject to the command of reason, right? Therefore, much more those inferior powers, right, of the plant soul.

[2:15] Moreover, man is said to be a little world, huh? Because thus he is, thus the soul is in the body as God in the what world. But God is thus in the world that all things which are in the world obey His command. Therefore, all things which are in man obey the command of what reason? Even the powers of the plant soul, right?

[2:48] Who but thinking about can add a cubit to his height? Huh? Yeah, I'm growing from high shoes, high heels shoes, but you can't. Some of these girls, you know, they're kind of short and wear those those crazy shoes, you know. They're really dangerous to drive with, you know. And

[3:10] yeah, that's still, I mean, strictly speaking, adding a cubit to your height. That's a good attempt. And praise and what? Blame, I guess. Tuperium tuperium does not happen except in those acts which are subject to the command of reason. But in the acts of the nourishing and generating power, there can be what praise and blame, and virtue and vice, as is clear in gluttony, luxury, and the opposite, virtues, huh?

[3:50] And therefore, acts of these powers are subject to the command of reason. But against this is what Gregory, some Gregory, says that that which is not what. Persuaded by reason. Is the nutritive and the generative power, right?

[4:17] So Thomas says, "I answer it should be said that of the acts which proceed from what. Natural. Natural desire. Some are from and in some what. Some proceed from natural desire. Some from animal desire, right? Sense desire. Or intellectual desire. For every agent, in some way, desires the end, right? So sometimes the man, the nursery may say, you know, this plant likes a lot of what sun.

[4:50] It wants a lot of. I'm not as used to planting broccoli. They say it's a big feeder. That's a lot. So for every agent, in some way, desires the what the end. But the natural desire does not follow upon any what grasping of it. Just as the animal and the intellectual desire do follow upon some kind of what knowledge, huh?

[5:27] But reason commands through the by way of what a grasping power because it is a grasping power. And therefore, acts which proceed from intellectual desire or animal desire are able to be what commanded by reason. Not, however, acts that proceed from natural desire. And of this sort are acts of the what plant soul. Whence some Gregory, right, says. That that is called what natural, which is the generative power and the nourishing power, right?

[6:08] Huh? In account of this, the acts of the nourishing soul are not subject to the what command of what reason? Huh? Digest this food. Yes, or don't I guess. Okay. Now, what about the first objection there? But the more noble are subject, but they're not the less ones. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the more some act is what immaterial, the more noble it is, and the more subject it is to the command of reason.

[6:49] Whence, from the very fact that the powers of the plant soul do not obey reason, it appears that these powers are the what lower. It's interesting, huh? The more a act is immaterial, the more noble it is, and the more it is subject to the command of reason. Huh? So, which is more immaterial, sensing or imagining?

[7:18] Yeah, it's more what. To reason. Yeah, yeah. I can't, you know, hear the music of Mozart now, except in my imagination, maybe. But I can't hear it with my ear, right? Huh? The object's got to be there, right? Huh? I can't see Lady Wisdom, you know. No, I don't even picture Lady Wisdom with me. Okay. And but I can imagine these things. I can imagine things.

[8:02] So the fact that they are more immaterial and more noble, the acts of the sensitive soul, right, is why they're more subject to reason than those of the plant soul.

[8:16] Okay. Now, minor world. To the second, it should be said that likeness can be noticed in some respect, huh? Because just as God moves the world, so the soul moves the body, right? That's the the likeness there. But not regards all things, for the soul did not create the body from what? Yeah. As God created the world, right? So you're exaggerating the likeness there, right? Huh? Likeness is a slippery thing, as Plato says.

[8:52] Huh? Cause of deception, seeing the likeness of things, but not their what difference, yeah. That's why I said to Monsignor Dian one time, you know that maybe that's why Aristotle gives the tool of difference before the tool of likeness, huh? Because to see the likeness of things without seeing their difference could lead you to being deceived, huh?

[9:23] So because God created the world, then it's totally subject to His command, right? He didn't create your body; you can't make your body. Some girls aren't so beautiful, you know. They can't make it beautiful, even if they try with art, I suppose. But but you don't have that same control over your body, right? If you could create your body, you could make it as beautiful as you wanted it.

[9:48] They make themselves pretty by deception. Because now they go and have themselves adjusted, you know. Yeah. Sees the advertisement on the radio, you know, for getting your Teeth fixed so you can improve your smile, you know, and the guy said, "My my smile is much better now than it was before." You got the next antidepressant medicine. Yeah.

[10:20] To the third, it should be said, huh? That virtue and vice, praise and blame, are not owed to the acts of the nourishing or generative power, which are what digestion and the formation of the human body, right? Huh? But to the acts of the sensitive part, ordered to the acts of generation or nourishment, as in desiring the pleasure of food and of sexual matters, huh? And in using, according as they ought to, or not according as they ought to, right?

[10:54] Huh? So I guess I got control of my hands, right? You want to talk about the next article, right? I put it in my mouth, there stuff. It's funny how people they say you know they're reading or something, you know, and they don't even know that they're. A few eating popcorn at the movie theater, you know, you know, you wonder whether it's a natural actor or a chosen actor.

[11:23] And now the last article in this question. To the ninth one goes forward. Thus, it seems that the members of the body, your arms and legs, do not obey reason as regards their acts. It's kind of funny you even asked this, right? Huh? I was we're looking at the first book of my master there, Euclid, and the twentieth theorem. You know the the Epicureans, I guess. Um, they made fun of it.

[11:55] The twentieth theorem is in any triangle, any two sides together are more than the third side, right? And he says, "Well, even an ass knows this, right? If you lay out the food here and the ass over here, he's not going to go like that to his food. He's going to go straight line, right? And so, but anyway, how would you prove that, right? Yeah. Threw it out in front of my just as last night, just to see if they recall, you know.

[12:26] But how do you prove that? You know, it's marvelous the way Euclid does it. Incredible way he does it. It's sweet. I remember his reply or somebody's reply to the objection about the ass. And he says, "Well, the ass knows it, but he doesn't know the reason why." Yeah, Asclepius says, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." And there are asses who don't know this. Yeah. It's a

[12:55] simple little theorem, and it's just how marvelous, huh? I was giving this example of how. You know, we guess before we know, right? And but in geometry, people are not apt, for the most part, anyway, to guess something other than what the theorem is, right? No one would guess that that one side could be equal to the other two, right? So even before they see the proof, right?

[13:22] They're going to guess rightly, huh? Well, in natural philosophy or in ethics or politics, men will tend to guess opposite things, right? And therefore, you have room for dialytical disputatio, huh? Which this is a contraction, right? Mm-hmm.

[13:43] Okay. So it seems he says that the the ninth one goes forward. Thus, it seems that the members of the body do not obey reason as regards their acts. For it stands to reason that the members of the body are more distant from reason than the what powers of the plant soul.

[14:17] But the powers of the plant soul do not what obey reason, as has been said. Ergo, much less the members of the body, right? And further away.

[14:33] Moreover, the heart is the beginning of the motion of the animal, but the motion of the heart is not subject to the command of reason. For St. Gregory says that the what pulsing thing, right, is not persuasible, persuadable by reason, huh? Therefore, the motion of the bodily parts is not subject to the command of what reason. Yeah. You read in Aristotle and Thomas, you know that the that they think the heart cannot be what sick, right?

[15:10] And therefore, that the body's naturally recovering powers from sickness are started by the heart, right? Huh? So that's altogether true, but. It's cholesterol. That's why I had surgery.

[15:31] Um. Moreover, Augustine says in the fourteenth book of the City of God that the motions of the genital members are sometimes what. Yeah. No, nothing what. Knowing, I guess, or choosing that has the desiring. How depends on present, right? Just knowing

[15:56] the object your desire is present. Without asking, you could say asking instead of asking. And sometimes it is what absent or distant. Ah, and when in the soul concupiscence is fervent, the body is what frigid, right? Okay. Therefore, the emotional members does not obey what reason. But against all this is what Augustine says in the eighth book of the Confessions. The soul commands that the hand what move, and so much is the facility that hardly what.

[16:38] From service, discern the command. Yeah, carrying it out. The pianist are playing right and so on. Okay. I answer. It should be said. Thomas says that the members of the body are organs or tools, right? Of the powers of the what soul, right?

[17:04] And the word organ, there in Greek, means what tool, right? We can't get this word. Just always say you know if you if you call these parts of the body tools, how can you deny that they are for a purpose, right? Because what's more for a purpose than a tool? So when you call it a tool, it isn't for the sake of something, right?

[17:29] Whence, in that way, the powers of the soul have themselves to this that they obey reason. In this way, that they have themselves also as what body. Because, therefore, the sense powers are subject to the command of reason. Not, however, the what natural powers. So all motions of the members, which are moved by the sense powers, are then subject to the command of what reason, right? But the motion of power of members that follow the natural powers are not subject to the what command of what reason.

[18:15] Not to the first, where it says, "What about them being further away?" To the first, therefore, it should be said that the members do not move themselves, but are moved by the powers of the soul, of which some are closer to reason than the what powers of the plant soul, right?

[18:41] So Aristotle takes up in the De Anima there, right? It's in the third what book after he's talked about what sensing and reason and what desire, the emotion, and so on. Then he talks about the ability to move the what powers of the body, right? Because they follow upon that, right? So it's in the third book. Why he begins, you know, his discussion of powers in the second book, where he talks about the plant powers first, right?

[19:10] The power to digest and to grow and to reproduce, and then he talks about the sense powers there, right? But then after he talks about the understanding, then he starts to talk about desire and the powers to move the body.

[19:28] Now, to the second, it should be said that in those things which pertain to the understanding and the will, first is found that which is by nature, which the others are derived. So nature is what is first in anything. So what is going to nature is going to be before other things, right?

[19:55] As from a knowledge of beginnings, naturally known. There is a knowledge of what conclusions, and from the will, willing of the end, naturally desired, is derived the choice of those things which are towards the end. So also in bodily motions, the beginning is according to nature, but the beginning of bodily motion is from the motion of the what heart,

[20:31] whence the motion of the heart is according to nature and not according to what The will. If your heart keeps on beating all the way through life, I guess, for the most part, anyway.

[20:46] Okay. For it follows as a per se accident, the life which is from the union of the soul and the what body, right? This is the old thing. What was the fundamental part of the soul of the body, the brain or the heart, right? First, of all it seems to be worth the heart, right? Okay.

[21:21] Just as the motion of heavy and light bodies follows upon the substantial form of them, right? Whence they are said to be moved by the one who generates them, according to the philosopher in the eighth book of the physics. And in count of this, this motion is called what vital. Whence a Gregory says that just as the generating power and the nourishing power do not obey reason, so neither the what pulsing part, which is vital, the pulsating part, he calls the what motion of the heart, which is made known to the what pulsing veins.

[22:06] Yeah. I guess you can. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Pulsation. You want your pulse. Pulse must be an abbreviation of pulsating right Yeah You would say pulse

[22:40] Christ says I stand at the door and I knock To the third, it should be said, as Augustine says in the fourteenth book about the city of God, that the emotion of the genital members does not obey reason, and this is from the what punishment of sin.

[23:05] That the soul, for its disobedience, disobedience. Yeah, of its disobedience to God, in that member especially suffers the pain of disobedience, huh? Through which original sin is carried over to one's posterity, huh? But because through the sin of the first parent, as is said below, nature is left to itself, right? It being taken away the supernatural gift, which was what divinely bestowed upon man. Therefore, it should be considered that the

[23:56] natural cause, the reason, the natural reason, right? Wherefore, the motion of these parts, especially, do not what obey reason, huh? The cause of which Aristotle assigns in the book on the cause of the motion of the animals, saying that involuntary are both the motions of the heart and of the what. Generation Members, yeah, because from some apprehension, yeah, the members are moved, right? In so far as the understanding and the imagination represent some things, from which there follows passions of the soul, to which there follows the motion of these what members, huh?

[24:52] They are not, however, moved according to the command, I guess, huh? Of reason or the understanding, because for the motion of these members is required some natural alteration of heat and cold, huh? Which alteration is not subject to the command of reason,

[25:15] but in a special way this happens in these two members. That's meaning the heart, I guess, huh? And the genital members, because both of these members are, as it were, a what separate animal, huh? In so far as it is a principle of life, huh? And the principle is in its power the whole, right?

[25:41] The core is the beginning of the senses. Since Aristotle sees the senses having their root in the in the heart rather than in the brain, now that's all together. Correct. Anyway, for since for the heart is the beginning of the what senses. And from the gentle members, the seed-like power goes forth, right? Which is in power, in virtue, the whole what, animal. And therefore, they have their own motions naturally, right?

[26:22] Because beginnings necessarily are natural. That's a little interesting. Thing to bring up to the biologists to see what they say about that. Okay. Now, before we go into question eighteen, let's go back and just swing back to the proemium at the beginning of question six.

[26:53] If you remember, question six comes after the determination of what the end for man is, right? What happiness is, or what beatitude is. So let's look at the proemium again here. Because therefore, it's the beginning of question six here, the proemium before the articles. Because therefore, it, is necessary to arrive at beatitude through some acts, right? It? Is necessary, consequently, to our consideration of beatitude, what it is, to consider about human acts, right?

[27:31] That we might know by what acts one arrives at beatitude, or by what is impeded the road of what, Beatitude, right? And sometimes Thomas says virtue is the road to happiness, and vice is the road to misery, right? And if you want to know that, just got a daily newspaper, right? You can see that vice is the road to misery, right? There's always some miserable person, right?

[27:58] Who's gotten there by some vice or other. But because operations and acts are about singulars, therefore every what operative science, practical science, is perfected by a what particular consideration. Moral consideration, therefore, because it is of human acts, first ought to be treated in general, secondly in what particular, right? That's really a distinction between what the rest of the prima secunde and then the secunde secunde, which goes into this and more what detail, right?

[28:43] And that's not enough. You go to you know. Yeah, patron of moral theologians and moral confessors, right? Okay. Now about the universal consideration of human acts. First, one ought to consider about human acts. Secondly, about the what principles of them, right? And that principles doesn't come down till question forty-nine. So it's a long way to go, right? Okay.

[29:27] Now, if human acts some are proper to man, some are common to man and to the other what animals. And because beatitude is man's own good, more nearly to beatitude are the acts which are properly human, than those acts which are common to man and the other animals. First, therefore, we're not to consider about the acts which are proper to man. Secondly, about the acts which. are Are common to man and the other animals, which are called the passions or emotions of the soul.

[30:09] And that begins in what? Question twenty-two. Okay. That's where I take the twos there on love and love and friendship, of course. Some of you.

[30:26] Now about the first, which are the acts now that are proper to man. Two things occur to be considered. First, about the condition of human acts. Secondly, about the what distinction of them. That's where we're about to begin there. Question what? Eighteen, right? But notice he calls it the distinction of them. Here, in beginning of eighteen, he calls the goodness and badness of them, right? But that is a distinction in human acts that's relevant to to moral theology, right?

[31:00] Okay. So we won't go into the subdivision, of the first part, because we've just gone through that now, right? Now we've got to get down to the goodness and badness of human acts in general.

[31:19] So after all this, we ought to consider about the goodness and badness, right, Malice of human acts, huh? Or this distinction of these two, right?

[31:38] And first, in what way human action is good or bad, huh? Secondly, about those things which follow upon the goodness or badness of human acts, as, for example, merit or demerit, sin and what guilt, huh?

[32:03] The Prima Secundae begins in question what twenty-one, right? About the first, there occurs a threefold consideration. First, about the goodness and badness of human acts in general. Secondly, about the goodness and badness of the what interior acts in particular, and that's the next question nineteen. And then about the goodness and badness of what exterior acts, and that's question what twenty, huh? So, Thomas, huh? See, he walked back and forth dictating, and then he'd lie down, in the car and continue dictating.

[32:47] You know. Maybe a little bit like Napoleon was supposed to have been able to dictate two or three letters at the same time. Okay. It's about the first seven things are asked. I didn't know that. Okay.

[33:12] First, whether every action is good or someone is what bad. He doesn't ask whether every action is bad or someone is good. Second, whether the action of man has this that it be good or bad from its what object.

[33:38] Third, whether it has this from circumstances; those terrible things, right? Just stand around now. Fourth, whether it has this from the what end? Fifth, whether some action of man is good or bad in its what species? That reminds of Aristotle there, you know, in the Ethics, when he's talking about how the good is a mean between two extremes, right?

[34:23] And then he goes on, not to say later on that there's no mean of the extreme. I mean, if you have to take something like eating, right? Huh? Is it good to eat? Well, just now. If you eat too much, is that good? If you don't eat enough,

[34:44] so you can't simply say is it good to eat, right? I suppose good in some sense, but you maybe have to be more precise, right? Okay. So, you shouldn't eat too much or too little, right? Okay. Now, what about adultery? You know, should you not do too much, and don't do too little either, but just the right amount? See, Aristotle says there's no. That's an example, adultery.

[35:13] There's no mean of the extreme, right? It's already right. Or, or you say like murder, right? Don't murder too many. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just just the right number, yeah. There's no such thing as that because it's already, you know, by definition. So, whether some action of man is good or bad in sua specie, right?

[35:40] Sure, Thomas has some distinctions for us to see, though. Okay. Whether acts have the species of good or bad from the what end? Seven. Whether the species, which is from the end. Is contained under the species which is from the object, as under a genus, or is it the reverse?

[36:14] Eight, whether there is some act that is indifferent in its species, and nine, whether some act is indifferent according to the individual act. I know that's the individual himself or the individual act. Whether some circumstance constitutes or puts a moral act in the species of good or what bad? Notice it's right there in the tenth thing there, right? The way moral is used by us differently today, right?

[36:52] Because Thomas is saying a moral act is not necessarily good or bad, right? I mean, not necessarily good. We use the word moral to say something is what good, yeah. That's not what moral means. I see. You think of moral as the same from immoral? Yeah. That's what some a priest told me once that when he he went home

[37:16] to the seminary, his his grandmother asked him what he was studying. He said moral theology. She said, "Is there such thing as immoral theology?" That was her conclusion.

[37:35] Moral theology, there must be immoral theology. Okay. And eleven, whether every circumstance increasing the goodness or the badness, right, puts the moral act in some species of good or what bad?

[37:48] Thomas, what a mind! Okay. To the first one proceeds thus: It seems that every action of man is good and none is bad. This is the optimist. Yeah.

[38:14] For Dionysius says in the fourth chapter about the divine names that the bad does not act except by virtue of the good. But by virtue of the good, it doesn't come about something bad. Therefore, no action is bad. Huh?

[38:34] But you have a hard time arguing small secret for the falsehood, right? I think you understand the false position better than the men who uphold it understand it, right? Huh? We say one of the comic, you know, studies was that of Marxism, right? Because that was the dominant thing at the time, right? We had to study that. And I guess to kind of go to these conferences and be a Marxist giving a paper, right?

[39:05] And there'd be an equation creator or someone say, "What Marx say about this?" And the guy wasn't altogether sure what Marx say. Kind of says, "What Marx would say?" Oh, yes, that's what Marx say. And then he go on say why he was wrong. But. I mean, it's kind of you. You can, you know, state the objections or the positions of the

[39:27] men who are maintaining falsehood better than they can, right? But moreover, nothing acts except according as it is in what act. But nothing, but something is not bad according as is an act, because the bad is what the lack of something, right? You're able to have and should have, right? So act is, I mean, bad is not an act, but the lack. of an act But nothing acts except according as it is an act.

[40:06] But something is not bad according as it is an act, but according as it is an ability deprived of acting. In so far as a ability is perfected by act, it is good, as is said in the ninth book of metaphysics.

[40:28] That's why Augustine says, "What sin is nothing, and the man who sins becomes nothing." Okay, it's kind of overstating it a bit, right? But it is a lack, right?

[40:49] Nothing, therefore, acts in so far as it is bad, right? But only in so far as it is good. Therefore, every action is good and none bad.

[41:04] I feel better already. Cancel my confession, Father. I feel better. Where were these things going? Confessions? Your confessions? You thought these people? I can't answer objections. I just laugh at them.

[41:27] Moreover, the bad cannot be a cause except per accidens. This is also clear through Dionysius in the fourth chapter of Divine Names. But of every action there is some what per se effect. Therefore, no action is what bad, but every action is what good, huh?

[41:57] But against this is what the Lord says in John chapter three: Everyone who does badly, right, hates the light. Therefore, there is some action of man that is what bad, huh?

[42:18] Thomas says, "Answer: It should be said about good and bad in actions. It is necessary to speak about what good and bad in things, right? In that each thing produces such an action as it itself what is.

[42:45] Now, in things, each thing has just so much of the good as it has of what being. For good and being are convertible, as was said in the what first part, huh?

[43:05] Now God alone has the whole fullness of His being, according to something one and simple, is very substance. But each other thing has the fullness of its being, right? Suitable to it, according to what diverse things, right?

[43:32] So my substance and my knowledge of geometry not the same thing, right? My substance and my mildness are not the same thing, huh? My mildness and my geometry are not the same thing, right? Mildness and your

[43:54] anger. So, you know, in the categories even we're doing this already, there the way something can be said of something. Why can you say that my body is healthy, but you can't say my body is what health? So the doctor might say if I have a good medical exam, he says your body is healthy, right? You wouldn't say your body is health. So the part takes health.

[44:30] It has health. Yeah, yeah. It isn't health itself, right? When Thomas takes up, you know, good in God, you know, the first chapter there in the Summa Contra Gentiles this is that God is good, right? And the second chapter on that is that God is goodness itself, right? And so we might say both that God say loves and God is love itself, right? God is alive.

[45:03] Is life itself, right? But you know, you know, Saint Peter makes a confession of faith there. You know, the Son of the Living God, right? So God is alive, but He's also.

[45:15] And and Thomas explains that in the prima pars there, right? Now when he takes up our knowledge of God in question twelve, right, and then our naming the names of God and so in question thirteen, and he says both ways of speaking of God are what imperfect, right? But we're forced to speak this way, huh? Because we start with material things, where the form and what has the form are not the same thing, right?

[45:49] And so we say God is what wise, huh? Because He truly is wise, but this might, from his way of speaking, imply that He has wisdom. Which might imply a distinction between God and the wisdom that He has has in us. So to avoid that, we say God is wisdom itself, right?

[46:13] Or sweet wisdom as Richard says, huh? Okay. But for us, right? We don't, huh? Okay. So you could say God is love itself. You could say He's knowledge itself because He's altogether simple, right? But you couldn't say that I am knowledge itself. I am geometry itself. I am logic.

[46:54] You write a horror story about somebody like that. But you could maybe say I'm a logician, right? Somewhat, anyway, huh? Okay. So God alone, He says, has the whole fullness of His being, according to something one and what simple. So He says, "What shall I call you? " Moses says, "Right. " Says, "I am who I am, right? "

[47:29] Um, but each other thing, right, has the fullness of its being, the fullness of being that is suitable to it, right? According to diverse things, right?

[47:43] Whence? Whence it happens, right? Whence, in some things, it happens that, as regards something, they have being, nevertheless, to them something what? Lacking. Yeah, lacking, for the fullness of being that is owed to them, right? So I should be not only a man, but I should be a geometer and a magician, right? And just and temperate and. Of other things, I'm not right. Okay, I should. I should all be these, right?

[48:24] I don't have the fullness of being, right? So not in being a man, right? Just as for the fullness of human being is required, that it be something put together from a soul and a what, body, huh? Having all the powers and tools of knowledge and motion. Whence, if something of these are lacking to some man, huh? There he fails, right? To him, something of the fullness of what the being he should have, right?

[49:08] Now, as much as he has of being, so much he has of what goodness, huh? But in so far as he lacks something of the fullness of being, to that extent he what lacks something, falls short of goodness, right? And is said to be bad. Just as the blind man has of goodness that he's alive, right? And bad that he what lacks sight. huh? If however, he had nothing of being or goodness, he would neither be able to what be said to be bad nor good.

[49:55] But because it's of the notion of good, the fullness of being, right, huh? If to something something is lacking that is owed for the fullness of its being, it will not be said to be simply good, but what secundum quid? Insofar as he is a being, right? So it is good. what Secundum quid? Very qualified way. Not simply, he wouldn't say simply though,

[50:29] but he can be said to be simply right, and in some way not being right. Thomas talked about that a lot in the first book, if you remember, right? So if you take substance an accident, by my substantial being, I'm said to be simply right. So when I was conceived, I came to be. Period. When I read Euclid, I didn't come to be, except in a qualified sense.

[51:00] I came to be a geometer, right? But when I came to be just and so on, and honest and so on, then I came to be what good simply, right? I was only good in some way, right? So it's kind of a difference there, right? In in goodness in what being, right? So that whereby I have being simply, I have good only secundum quid, and whereby I have goodness simply, right?

[51:34] Then I'm what a being only secundum quid, right? Okay. So is coming to love God coming to be? Not simply, yeah, yeah. It might be being good simply, right?

[52:14] Thus, therefore, it should be said that every action, insofar as it has something of what being, right, to that extent, it has something of what goodness, right. But insofar as there fails to it something of the fullness of being, which is owed to human action, to that extent it falls short of what goodness, and thus is said to be what bad, huh? If it lacks some determined what quantity according to reason or suitable place or something of this sort, right?

[52:51] Okay. So. See the first meaning of bad is what is a lack, right? Huh? The lack is something you're able to have and should have, right? Huh? And the second meaning of bad is what what has this lack, right? Huh? So blindness would be an example of bad in the first sense, right? And the blind eye or blind man would be bad in this what second sense, right?

[53:27] And the third sense of bad is what produces a what blindness, right? Huh? Some condition, Or some king of the sword or something, you know. Um.

[53:44] So it's a kind of non-being, right? That the badness is, huh? Okay. So what is a bad human act? In general, what do you say about it?

[54:03] Yeah, it's an unreasonable act, right? Huh? So it's lacking the order or the measure which reason should give to our acts, huh? Okay. So should the doctor have a drink before he goes in to operate?

[54:40] So this is what we look for: reason to do, to order things and to measure them, right? Huh? So a good human act is one then that has the order and the measure that reason should impose upon this act, right? And a bad human act is the one that is lacking the order or measure that it should have, huh? Okay.

[55:07] So it's possible for human act to to lack that, right? Huh? I remember some movie actress there, you know, when she was disturbed, she started to eat, you know, and eat and eat and eat, and she ate so much her stomach burst, you know. Well, that's obviously lacking the measure of reason, right?

[55:34] And these Italian, these Irish bars, you know, they try to sit and drink that whole bottle of whiskey, you know, straight. They just, you know, and they actually drop dead sometimes, you know, from it, you know. So if you don't drop dead, it's probably lacking the measure of reason, right? But so to to be involved, like the. I hear about some teenagers doing some stupid thing, and the guy said to him, "You know, when your body gives you pain, that's a."

[56:00] Don't do stuff like that. That's a good sign. Don't do that. When I do this I get a sharp pain. I get sharp pain. Wrap my light around my head. Now, to

[56:17] the first, therefore, it should be said that the bad acts in virtue of a what deficient good, right? But if there was nothing there of good, neither would there be anything of being, right? Nor would it be able to what act. If I were not deficient, it would not be what bad. So sometimes Thomas says they they say that they what evil does not have efficient cause, but a deficient cause.

[56:50] Aristotle, I mean Shakespeare, kind of plays upon that, right? But that old fool there. And once action is caused, an action caused is a what certain good that is what deficient, right? Which in some way is good, but simply what bad.

[57:17] That's what Chesterton says. Man shoots his mother-in-law between the eyes fifty paces. I'd say he's a good shot, but I wouldn't say he's a good man.

[57:27] Good in some way. The second, it should be said that nothing prevents something to be what in some way an act, whence it is able to what act, and in some way to be what lacking act, whence it causes a deficient act, right? Just as a blind man in act has the what power of walking, I guess, which he can walk, but in so far as he lacks sight, which directs him in walking, he suffers defect in walking when he what walks.

[58:08] Hesitantly, yeah, stumbling. Okay. We talked before about how likeness is a cause of error when you don't see the what difference, right? So seeing the likeness of something to something, right? That someone your objections there. Like God is in the universe, like the souls in the souls in the body, like God's in the universe. You see the likeness, but not the difference, right? Then you can be deceived because of your what lack in not seeing the what.

[58:42] Yeah, yeah. But you come to this conclusion because you do see the likeness, right? That enables you to conclude that they're the same, and maybe more the same than they are, right? Because something you actually did see, right?

[59:05] To the third, it should be said that a bad act can have somewhat effect per se, according to that which it has of goodness and what being. Just as adultery is the cause of a what human generation, in so far as it is the mixture of a man and the male and female, but not in so far as it lacks the what order of reason. It's out of order, right?

[59:39] Shakespeare said she had a baby for her cradle, or she had a husband for her bed. That's out of order, right? You have a baby for your cradle before you have a husband for. Before. Yeah Okay, should take a little break here now. Sure.