Prima Secundae
54. The Good Will Depends on Its Object Alone, on Reason, and on the Eternal Law (Aquinas I-II q.19 a.2–4)
Class of 2012-02-02
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/054-the-good-will-depends-on-its-object-alone-on-reason-and-on/

[0:00] To second article, I guess. Okay, the second one goes forward. Thus, it seems that the goodness of the will does not depend only on its object, from its object.

[0:23] For the end has more affinity to the will than to any other what power. But the act of the other powers receive their goodness not only from the object but also from the end. Therefore, also the act of the will receives goodness not only from the object but from the end.

[0:50] Of course, the end is going to be the object of the will, I guess. Okay. Moreover, the goodness of the act is not only from the object but also from the circumstances. But according to the diversity of circumstances, there can be a diversity of goodness and badness in the act of the will, as when someone what wills when he ought to, right? Or ought to, and where he ought to as much as he ought to, and what way he ought to, or insofar, or insofar he should not.

[1:25] Therefore, the goodness of the will not only depends on the object but also from the what circumstances? I don't know. Maybe circumstances can be objects too. Yeah, yeah. Moreover, ignorance of the circumstances excuses the badness of the will. But this would not be unless the goodness and badness of the will depended upon the what? Circumstances. Yeah. Therefore, goodness and badness of the will depend on circumstances and not on the object alone.

[2:01] But against this is that from circumstances as such, acts do not have their species. While good and bad are specific differences of the acts of the will, right? Therefore, the goodness and badness of the will does not depend on circumstances but on the what object alone.

[2:27] Well, what does the master say now? I answer: It should be said that in any genus, the more something is before, the more it is simple and consisting in fewer things. Just as the first bodies are the simple bodies, huh? What we call the proton turned out not to be proton or first, but it was named from being first from being first, right? Proton. And therefore we find that those things which are first in some genus are in some way what simple, and they consist in what?

[3:11] That's why tragedy is better than what? Epic, according to Aristotle. Simpler. And therefore we find those things. Okay. But the beginning of goodness and badness of human acts is from the act of the what? Will. And therefore the goodness and badness of the will is to be noted by something one.

[3:45] Why the goodness and badness of other acts can be noted by according to diverse things. Now that which is the beginning in each genus is not by accident, but per se,

[4:04] because everything that is per accidens is reduced to that which is what per se as to a beginning. And therefore the goodness of the will depends what upon only one thing, right? Which per se makes for goodness in the act, to wit, the object, and not from the circumstances which are certain what accidents of the act. That simplifies life, huh?

[4:43] Until he asks another question. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the end is the object of the will, right? Not, however, of the other what powers. Now that's because the connection between what the good and the end, right? Basically, what same thing, right? So Aristotle talks about the fourth kind of cause, which is what called end, right? Huh? He sees that connection between the end and the good.

[5:23] How they really are the the same thing. Okay. Whence, as regards the act of the will, the goodness from the object does not differ from the goodness which is from the end, huh? Because they're the same. What that is the object of the will, right? Just as as takes place in the acts of the other powers, because they can have an object other than the end, right?

[5:55] But then they can be ordered to a good or a bad end, I suppose. Except perhaps peraccidens, right? In so far as what one depends upon another end, right? And one will from a what another will, huh?

[6:15] Smart guy this time. I said, I think he's, you know, I think I'll continue to follow this guy, right? Now to the second objection here.

[6:38] To the second, it should be said that supposing that the will is of the good, right? No circumstance is able to make it what bad, huh?

[6:52] When therefore it is said that someone wishes or wills some good, quando non debet, when he ought not do right, or where he ought not, right, huh? This can be understood in two ways. In one way, that this circumstance refers to what is willed, huh? And thus the will is not of something good.

[7:20] Because to wish to do something or to make something, when it ought not to come about, is not to what for the good, huh?

[7:37] So if I will to do geometry when I should be going to church, right? That's not. That's not. That's not the will of good.

[7:51] In other way, thus that it refers to the act of what of willing, and thus it is impossible that someone wills the good when he ought not, because always men ought to what will the good,

[8:10] unless perhaps peraccidens, huh? In so far as someone in willing this good is impeded, right? Lest he what? Then. will some other Some good that he ought to. will.

[8:29] And then the bad does not happen from this that someone wishes that good, but from this that he does not will the other, the other good, huh? And likewise, it should be said about other circumstances, huh? That's a mouthful, huh? Brainful.

[8:58] Moreover, the ignorance of circumstances excuses the evil of the will. Right? That was the third objection. But this would not be unless the goodness and badness of the will depend upon circumstances. Thomas says to the third, should be said that ignorance of circumstances excuses the what badness of the will, according as the circumstances have themselves on the side of the thing what will, which weren't willing that right?

[9:33] Huh? To shoot your father there when you were shooting the the rabbit, right? Insofar as he is ignorant of the circumstances of the act, which he what he wills, right? That you're shooting where your father is, you don't know. Yeah.

[9:59] You were going to stone where your father was. Of course, somebody. This is very common to happen in that family in South Dakota. You know, the father's back in the car in the garage, runs over his. Oh Lordy. And that he didn't will to do that. Yeah. Now, does the goodness of the will depend upon reason? now?

[10:38] Notice when we say in English, depend upon we're thinking of the thing depends upon as being under it, right? Are they are thinking more of it being up? Yeah.

[10:52] Does the goodness of the will? It seems that the goodness of the will does not hang from reason. And isn't it? using a different adverb here, isn't it?

[11:05] Yeah. at least in the text it does. For the before does not depend upon the after, but good before pertains to the will then to reason, and therefore the good of the will does not depend upon what reason. Oh, it's kind of an interesting objection. That's the object of the will, right.

[11:35] Moreover, the philosopher says in the sixth book of the ethics that the good of the practical intellect is the truth conformed to rectified appetite,

[11:53] but the rectified appetite is a good will. Therefore, the goodness of practical reason more depends on the goodness of the will than the converse.

[12:09] That was one we used to always like to quote when we studied the ethics all the time, you know. verum conforme appetitui recto We thought we were pretty solid on that notion. Okay, I get you in trouble. I can see.

[12:28] Moreover, the mover does not depend upon what is moved, but the reverse. But the will moves reason and the other powers, as has been said, right. Therefore, the goodness of the will does not depend upon reason. Huh? That's why the moderns tend to think of the will as being better than the reason, right? Because it's the mover, right? Moves.

[12:58] Okay, reason moves the will in a different way, right? Direct by the end, yeah. Directly But against this is what Hilary says in the tenth book about the what Trinity, right?

[13:20] Immoderata, huh? Immoderate is every what? Pertinacity, right? A wills that is not, or the will is not subject to what, reason, huh? Okay. But the goodness of the will consists in this that it is what. No. Yeah. Therefore, the goodness of the will depends on this that it be subject to what, reason, huh?

[13:57] We're down in McGovern's office there, you know, and parking one of his his assistants there, you know, at the March for Life, you know. And so, the actually, talking being done mainly by one of our pediatricians, right? You know, who is an authority because of you know his expertise. I was complimenting afterwards how how how calm he stayed, you know, explaining these things to this this woman, and so on.

[14:26] You know, I said, "A woman's right to choice," you know, and so I said, "Well I'm in favor of choice?" he says, "Too, you know, but you got to choose the good, you know."

[14:35] There was no reason there, you know. It just, just, just, you know, like Orwell says, you know, a modern man thinks in slogans and talks in bullets. Oh. That's what these abortionists are, right? They think in slogans, and people are in favor of this, and then they, you know, they're talking to these abortion machines, you know. So I don't think Hillary would approve of these people. Hillary Hillary would Poitiers I guess huh Yeah.

[15:11] Two L's or one. Yeah answer. It should be said, and it has been said, that goodness of the will properly depends on its what object, right? But the object of the will is proposed to it by what reason? For the good understood is the object proportioned to the will.

[15:44] The sensible good or the imaginary good is not proportioned to the will, but to the what sense appetite, huh? So candy is proportioned to my sense appetite, right, huh? Mm-hmm. Not to my will.

[16:04] Because the will is able to what? Tend to the universal. good. Yeah. which reason apprehends, right, huh? Charles De Koninck says we hate every thief. Every single one. Yeah. Hate every terrorist, you know. Yeah. They see this.

[16:25] But the sense appetite, sense desire, does not tend except to the what particular good, which the sense power grasps, and therefore the good of the will depends upon reason in the same way that it depends upon the object. huh? It's like that? remember the treatise on love, there you know we talked about that. What's the cause of love? Well, the first article says, you know, the good is the cause of love, right?

[16:57] And it's the cause of love because the object of love is the cause of love, right? And the good is the object of love, right? But then he goes on in the second article whether reason is a cause of love, right? Or knowledge, and more generally, knowledge is a cause of love. And then he he'll say, well, this is really kind of like a condition of the object, right?

[17:18] So it's really the good as known that is the object of love, right? So it's a cause of love in the same way, in a way that the good is, that it's the same as sight of the what object, right? And then you when you go to the third cause, which is likeness, is a cause of love, right? Then you have really kind of a different thing there, right?

[17:38] You know, that's what's the object now, right? And so, so notice what he says here at the end it's very much like that. Therefore, the goodness of the will depends upon reason in the way that it what depends upon the object, right? That the object really is the good as what known, and in the case of the will, the good is known, understood, right? By reason. Okay, and this good is going to depend upon this.

[18:12] That's its object. Retains its object. Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said. It's the object from the before and after, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that the good under the what ratio of the good, huh? That is under the ratio of the desirable, right?

[18:40] Before pertains to the will, then to what reason, right? But it pertains to the reason before under the ratio of what true. Then to the will under the what ratio of the desirable,

[19:00] because the desire, of the will cannot be about the good unless before it's grasped by what reason, huh? Okay. So. Makes sense. A clear mind, Thomas said. Huh? He didn't have an iPad. Yeah, Sam. The poor man. He thought in Latin too, which you know, Monsignor Dionne said, you know, sign of the great mind, of Thomas, is he could think so well in Latin. That's an inferior language.

[19:43] After all, Aristotle was thinking in Greek. I mean, he had that advantage you know, and we're thinking in. English I told you how he made a comment, you know, and the great thing about Monsignor is he could think so well in French, you know. Which he himself agreed was inferior to English as a language for philosophy, you know.

[20:05] Yeah, that really annoys the Quebecers, you know, when I, when I quote Monsignor, because they can't go against the authority of Monsignor, you know, everybody admires him, you know.

[20:14] Yet he's saying, you know, his own native language is not as good for philosophy as the language that we foreigners, you know. are. have I got a standing, you know, offer there, you know, anybody to get a exhortation to use reason as good as Shakespeare's, you know, in fifty words or less. Shakespeare did it in forty-nine. I'll give you a hundred words, even, you know. They can't go on.

[20:42] Nothing. Now, to the second, it should be said that the philosopher there in the sixth book of the Ethics, right, speaks about the practical understanding, according as it is what taking counsel and reasoning about those things which are for the end, about the means. For thus it is perfected through foresight. Prudence means foresight. English word for prudence is foresight. There is anybody who reads Sir Winston Churchill will find out.

[21:26] Okay, but you know Thomas, he takes up you know prudence there in the Secunda Secundae, right? One of the the yeah is foresight and say well that's what prudence means. Well, it's named from that principal part, right? So if yeah yeah yeah

[21:47] yeah in those things are which are towards the end the rectitude of reason consists in conformity, right, to the desire for a what suitable end. But nevertheless, that desire for a suitable end presupposes a what a right grasp of the end, which is the reason, right? Okay, so reason proposes this as the end, and then the will wills that, and then prudence. Yeah, but presupposes that the what the will is rectified, right?

[22:29] Okay. So unless I want to eat moderately, reason's not going to find what the amount is. You know, I have some experience with people who drink too much. You know, not myself, I understand.

[22:49] But you know, drunkards usually will not admit that they're drinking too much. You know, everyone. You've had a couple of lousy beers. Going to get more maybe, but.

[23:05] I mean, unless you you will the end, right? You're not going to find the what reason can't find the means. Sometimes that leads to what's now called willful inadvertence. I don't want to know the means of that. Yeah, yeah. That's the history, of humanity. Somewhere, somewhere, you know, I read something about Thomas. Somebody asked Thomas, "How do you become a saint?" He said, "Want to be one?"

[23:36] He says, "But unless you have that will to be holy, right, you're not going to find the way to be holy." Where there's a will, there's a way.

[24:00] Now what about moving? Huh? What should be said that the will, in one way, moves the reason, and the reason, in another way, moves the will, on the part of the object, right? Huh? Okay. So sometimes the end is said to move us, right? Huh? Okay. So where was it, Rapunzel, who was it, up in the tower there? Huh? She moved him to climb the tower, right?

[24:24] Yeah. So women seek to be an unmoved mover, right? Have you always been pursuing them, you know, and they just you know, they're unmoved by all this. Something, something, you know. He's writing now. He's going to

[24:45] write an novel about that called "The Unmoved Mover." That'd be good. Unmoved Mover. That'd be a nice cartoon. This is like in, like in Great Expectations, right? Estella's being brought up to be this kind of unmoved mover, right? It's not. And you know, see, at the end of the novel, the original end of the novel was that that she doesn't accept him, right? Even at the end, even after he's done all these other things, and then Bulwer said you got to give a happy ending, you know, and you know, I guess he convinced her Dickens, you should you should make a happy ending and uh, and uh, Forster, you know, the biographer thought you know that it was the happy ending would be better, you

[25:31] know. But but that's not the reason. First is first. Some you know I was reading read Chesterton, you know, his thing on Great Expectations, you know, it's really more in accordance with the with the what's gone before, right? That she should, you know, finally, you know, continue to persevere in rejecting him, right? Is this an essay or is this a book on Dickens? Well, there's if you look it up on the on the internet there, you can get the they probably some of them written as you know to be at the beginning of the book, you know.

[26:11] Yeah, or introduction. Yeah, yeah, but they they brought them all together, you know. Oh yeah, yeah. That's where they want to go. Then he has besides it a book on Dickens. You say, you know, kind of a. Biography, what do you call it? But critical thing as a whole, you know. But then these individual ones are supposed to be, guys, pretty good, you know. So those, I think, they were gathered called GKC as MC.

[26:34] Oh, I see. That's that's one title I've seen for. All his little introductory works. There's a great one he has for the Curé of Ars by Henri Ghéon Oh. He has a great. Actually, it's like it's an epilogue. Yeah. But it's his

[26:50] marvelous. Yeah. Yeah. He has little works on there, you know, Francis and Thomas, you know. Yeah. Interesting. It's one of St. Francis. They say was his most popular work. Yeah. Yeah. I had the

[27:10] kind of that Francis omnibus, you know. When I when I bought it at the at the big huge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They said you must be a third order Franciscan. I said no, but I'm going to buy it anyway. I was just going to get this. You know, it's got all the, got the famous biographies, you know, and it's got the, you know, the flowers and so.

[27:38] But the thing I used to always quote from from Francis was, in the prayer there that they always have, you know, they even sing sometimes in church. um, he says, he prays that he might more what seek to love than to be loved. Right. That's beautiful. when You're talking about friendship, you know, which is more important, you know. Is friendship consists more in loving or being loved?

[27:59] Huh. Well. What has to be in both, right? You know, I was I was talking to a student, or sending an email to a student who asked me about his. He's writing a treatise on. I mean, a doctoral thesis on Aelred, you know. Oh yeah. And Aelred and and Augustine too go back to to Cicero, right? But Cicero's definition of of friendship doesn't really give what's most essential.

[28:26] He has he has you know love in there obviously right. But he doesn't make explicit in their mutual love. Although I'm sure he knows it involves that right. And it's got to be mutual love and and and and known that they have this mutual thing, right? And so, loving and being loved, they have to be there, right? I can have benevolence for you, if you don't return my love, right?

[28:51] But we don't have friendship then, right? So, but then the question arises: if both are essential to friendship, loving and being loved, in which does it consist more, right? Well, it consists more in loving than being loved, right? But see, here is here is Francis praying to God that he would more seek to love than to be loved, right? So if he had to pray for that, what about the rest of us, slobs, you know?

[29:20] And. That isn't. Don't people really more want to be loved than to love, right? And so this is something you should pray for, right? But Francis kind of teaches us in that in that beautiful prayer, you know. That's what we didn't find, you know. I don't know any example of anybody's, you know, prayer is known for, you know, that is so good to bring out that point, you know.

[29:50] Mm-hmm. It's just... you know? Nothing more typical by way of contrast. Yeah. yeah. See what Aristotle does in the tenth, in the in the ninth book. There, he takes example of the mother, right, who can't doesn't have the milk for the baby, right, and so he had to give the baby to another woman to milk to feed. But now that baby is going to be attached to the one who feeds him, right?

[30:15] So she seeks more to love the baby than to be loved, right? That's why she gives him to the one that can that can can feed him properly, you know. But then you have you know these ones where a woman has sometimes you know like in you know in Vietnam and so on where they gave up the baby, right? Because they they know they can't you know take care of it or something, and so they seek more the good of the baby.

[30:39] Right. But whoever adopts the baby is going to get the baby's love, right? So they seek more the love of the baby than to be loved by them, right? You know. because Aristotle gives this example in the Homoousi, of a woman It's kind of, this perfection of love that man doesn't have sometimes, you know. So that's very beautiful too, you know. That Aristotle points out there, but

[31:05] that's kind of example he gives there, you know, that friendship consists more in loving than in being loved, right? But involves both, right? It's certainly

[31:18] part of God, right? And He loves us more than before we love Him, right? Okay. Why do you persecute me? Huh? How you doing this? They say he loved Peter. I mean, Paul at that time, right? You know. It's marvelous, marvelous. Okay. So we've got to try to get

[31:51] time for that. We're going to stop here. All right. Trying to go for whether the goodness of the will depends upon the eternal law, right? Huh? Well, to the fourth, one precedes us. It seems that the goodness of the will does not depend on the eternal law, right?

[32:09] Well, bring back back in politics we quote people out of context, right? We just like quoting these things out of context, these objections, right? Yeah. As Thomas says,

[32:22] for a one, one is the rule and the what measure, right? But the rule of human of the human will, from which is its goodness depends, is right reason, huh? Therefore, it does not depend the goodness of the will upon the eternal what law.

[32:46] Moreover, a measure is homogenous with the measured. Okay. So can you measure a surface here by length? No, you got to have a square inch or something like that, right? You got to measure a surface by the square inch, right? And you you measure a body by cubic inch or something, you know? Yeah. See. It's just got to be homogeneous, right? Okay.

[33:27] So Mozart is the measure of all musicians, right? All composers, so Mozart is the measure of all poets. Okay. Um. But the eternal law is not homogeneous with the human will. Therefore, the eternal law cannot be the measure of the human will, that from it its goodness would depend.

[33:59] Moreover, a measure ought to be most certain. You got another measure, right? Right. But the eternal law is unknown to us. Therefore, it can't be the measure of our will, so that the will, the goodness of our will, would depend upon it, right? Hmm. But now there's a big guy here called Augustine, I guess. But against this is what Augustine says in the twenty second twenty second book against Faustus that sin is a thing done or said or wished against the eternal law.

[34:43] He's got some clarity of mind there, Augustine. Huh. But the evil of the will is the root of sin. Therefore, since evil is opposed to goodness, the goodness of the will does depend upon the eternal law.

[35:01] Well, I answer it should be said that in all ordered causes, the effect more depends upon the what first cause than upon the what second cause, because the second cause does not act except in the power of the what first cause, right? So what's moving the caboose in the train? The

[35:31] engine. No, no, it's the next car. Yeah, yeah. But but most of all the engine, right? Huh. Most. Yeah, because the the the wagons in between that the caboose and the engine move only insofar as they are moved by. But you're supposing the whole cars in between the engine. and the caboose? Now that human reason is the rule of the human will, from which its goodness is measured.

[36:05] Right. It has this from the what eternal law, right? Which is the what divine reason, huh? So this is the light which enlightens every man that comes into this world, right? So the light of reason there is derived from this, right? Whence in the fourth psalm it is said, this is a beautiful one. Thomas says, "Many say, who will show us good things? Right? This is like laetatus right?

[36:33] And sealed upon us is the light of your face, Lord, right? As if to say that the light of reason that is in us, right, to that extent is able to show us the good, right, and to rule our will in so far as it is the light of what your face, huh? That is one that is derived from your what face, huh? It's interesting, huh? Since we speak of seeing God face to face, right?

[37:07] Thomas, in the prayer after communion, he calls that "looks vera," right? Seeing God face to face Lux vera. Whence it is manifest that much more does the what goodness of the human will depend upon the eternal law than even upon what human reason, right? And where human reason fails, is necessary to run back to the what eternal reason, huh?

[37:41] Now to the first objection there, right? It should be said that of one thing there are not many what proximate measures, right? But there could be nevertheless many measures of which one is ordered under what another, okay?

[38:02] So I measure my mind by Monsignor de Haan, he measures it by Thomas, right, or something like that, okay? To the second, should be said that the proximate measure is the one that is homogenous with the what measure, not, however, the remote measure.

[38:24] And to the third, it should be said that although the eternal law is unknown to us, according as it is in what the divine mind, it in some way becomes what known to us either through what Natural reason. which is natural reason, which is derived from it as the very what image of it, or in some cases through some revelation, supra dicta. Now sometimes they talk about Plato and Aristotle there, you know, they talk about the the in the first book of the Ethics there, right?

[39:03] And Plato saying we've got to measure all things by the good itself, and Aristotle wants to get a measure that's more what proximate, right? And so.

[39:18] In the ethics, he said the virtuous man is is the measure, right? So you find someone who excels in some virtue, right? And then he becomes for you what the measure, right? Okay. Man is the most imitative of the animals, right? You're going to be imitation, right? And even you know imitation of Christ, there, right? Huh? You know, turns into suit, use that, you know, and so on.

[39:47] But but you also sometimes what imitate a saint, right? In some virtue, right? Okay. Well, but there's the other principle that Plato states that the perfect is the measure of the what imperfect, and every man is what imperfect. So how can you

[40:12] have a measure that is both perfect and known, right? Huh? Well, that's one of the reasons they give for Christ, God becoming a man, right? Huh? You know, in Thomas, he quotes a kind of little dialectic there of of the great Augustine, right? God should be followed, but He's not, but can't be seen, right? Man is seen, but He's not, you know. He shouldn't be followed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[40:39] So you got a real problem there, right? And it's reflected in thinking of the two great philosophers, Aristotle. But then you say, God solved this by becoming man, right? Then you have a perfect example to follow, right? But an example that you know, right? So that's kind of a thing you take into account, huh? So I mean, that's true that in a sense the perfect is a measure of the imperfect, right?

[41:10] But if the perfect is not known, right? No good measure. Yeah, but you can see, kind of see, you know, the reason there for the incarnation, right? So you can, you know.

[41:29] So this this work called the Imitation of Christ, right? Which I guess is a pretty good work. I mean, you can kind of see that, right? Huh?

[41:40] You know, but at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, though, he says, you know, "well then be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect," right? So, so there he doesn't seem to be, you know, not saying be perfect as I am perfect, right? In my human nature, you know, be, you know, God the Father is not incarnate, right? So He's God, and says to be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect, you know.

[42:09] He who sees me, sees the Father. He talked about that later. They weren't ready. yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.