Prima Secundae
61. Summa I-II Q.21 a.4: Merit Before God; Why Thomas Treats Human Acts Before the Emotions; Faith, Hope and Charity and the Senses of 'Before'
Class of 2012-03-15
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/061-summa-i-ii-q-21-a-4-merit-before-god-why-thomas-treats-human/

[0:00] In the, name of the Father, 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, keep the lights of our minds, order and, illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Pray for us. Help us to understand all that you have written.

[0:37] So we're down to question what? Twenty-one, Article Four. What? To the fourth one goes forth. Thus, it seems that the good or bad act of man does not have the character of merit or demerit in comparison to what God,

[1:09] because as has been said, merit and demerit imply the order to a recompense, right? Of going what something better, I guess, or of damn loss to what to another. To another

[1:29] But the act of man, the good or bad, does not what give way to some what progress or damn of God Himself. Where it's said in Job thirty-five, if you what Sin. sin, what is it to what To harm him? Yeah, to harm him. and if you act justly, what are you giving him?

[1:57] I used to compare you know giving God something to giving your parents something out of your allowance. Did you take your mother and your little boy, you know, something you know, for Christmas or something, and then Mother's Day, then you got to give an allowance. Well, we got allowances from thirty dollars. Yeah.

[2:20] Therefore, the good or bad act of a man does not have the notion of merit or demerit before what God. Now, like the second argument here, Moreover, an instrument, a tool, right? Tools in this word

[2:42] merits nothing or demerits something before the one who uses the instrument, right? Because the whole action instrument is of the one what using it, huh? So should I thank the the knife for cutting the bread, or thank my hammer for? Driving the nail in, huh? Should I do that?

[3:08] I owe you something, guy. I got to have your vacation dollars, something. But man, enacting is an instrument of the divine power, which is the one chiefly moving him, right? Whence it is said in Isaiah chapter ten, should the what? Acts. Yeah. Glory against the one who what? Cuts with it. Yeah. Or should the what? Saw. Saw exalt itself against the one who draws it, huh?

[3:46] Where manifestly the man acting is compared to the what? Tool. Yeah, tool. It's how we define the soul, right? Is the first act of an actual body composed of tools, right?

[4:07] Therefore, man, enacting well or badly, merits or demerits nothing before God. Yeah, that's confusing to me. Okay. Moreover, human acts have the notion of a merit or demerit in so far as they are ordered to another. But not all human acts are ordered to God. Therefore, not all good or bad acts have the what character of merit or demerit before God.

[4:45] But against this is what is said in Ecclesiastes, huh? All the things which what come up out, God will bring into judgment, whether they're good or whether they're bad. huh? But judicium, huh, judgment huh, implies attribution with respect to which merit and demerit are said. Therefore, every act of man, good or bad, has the aspect of merit or demerit before what God.

[5:19] Now, what does Thomas answer? I answer: It should be said that as has been said, the act of some man has the notion of merit or demerit according as it is ordered to another, either by reason of itself or by reason of the what community.

[5:41] But in both ways, our good or bad acts have the notion of merit or demerit before God. By reason of itself, in so far as it is the what? The final end. Yeah, the last end of man, right? Huh? For it is owed, you might say, to the last end to which all what should be referred, yeah. Whence the one who makes a bad act that cannot be what referred back to God does not observe or keep keep the honor of God, which is ordered to him as the last what end

[6:33] on the side of the whole community of the universe, right? Because in any community, the one who rules the community especially has care of the common what good, huh? Whence to the one, whence it pertains to him to what pay back for those things which are what well or badly done in the community. But God is the governor and ruler of the whole universe, as was had in the first part of the Summa, and in a special way He's the governor and ruler of rational creatures, huh?

[7:19] Whence it is manifest that human acts have the aspect of merit or demerit by comparison to Him. Otherwise, it would follow that God has no care about what human acts, huh?

[7:43] What about the first objection there, right? Back and look at the first objection again. Can't help him or harm him, right? Okay. To the first thereof, it should be said that through the act of what man, huh? God in Himself, right, huh? Nothing can be what added or what lost, yeah. Nevertheless, man, as he is in himself, or as far as lies in him, right, subtracts something to God, right, huh?

[8:26] Or he exhibits shows something to him, right, huh? When he observes, he does not observe the order which God has, what? Yeah. Okay, so that's kind of hard to understand, right, huh? What do you got?

[8:43] No skin off your nose. Yeah. But as far as lies in my power, right, huh? That's that's the objection to the crucifixion. Why should anybody be punished for crucifying Christ? I mean, he wanted to lay down his life, so I mean, yeah. But he said they did what was in that power and harm him. Yeah. Oh yes, Thomas More, there, you know, the guy. Give him, you know, Oh, he's sending me straight to heaven.

[9:20] Okay. To the second, it should be said that man thus is moved by God as an instrument. That nevertheless it does not exclude, but that he moves himself through what free choice.

[9:36] So the word tool is not said univocally, right? Of the hammer and me. The hammer is a tool in the first sense of the word, right? And a tool in the second sense, huh Have. Not exclusively a tool

[10:15] third, it should be said, that man is not ordered to the political community according to himself, the whole of himself, right? And according to what? Yeah. The bishop saying that to Obama now, right? And therefore, it is not necessary that what?

[10:40] Any act of his is meritorious or demeritorious in order to the what? Yeah. But the whole that man is right, and that he is able and has, ought to be ordered to what? God. And therefore, every human act, good or bad, has the aspect of merit or demerit before God, as he guards the act itself, huh, from the act, the nature of the act itself.

[11:20] Now I'm going to take a little side here, but you know, make a little reference here to the next part, where it's beginning now, the emotions, huh? And just go back a moment to question six, article one, where in the proemium he divides up these things, right?

[11:52] We just look at the proemium at the beginning of question six again. Now, before question six, he had been talking about what the end of man, right? The last end of man is beatitude. Because, therefore, to beatitude is necessary to what? Arrive at beatitude through some acts, right? Is necessary, consequently, to consider about human acts, huh? That we might know by which acts one arrives at beatitude, or that one is impeded, huh?

[12:31] The way of beatitude, huh? But because operations and acts are about singular things, right? Therefore, every operative science, every practical science, is perfected in a particular what consideration, right? Aristotle said this before, you know, Thomas. In one place there, he actually criticizes the greats. What?

[13:03] Socrates, right? Huh? For defining virtue in a very general way, but not descending to what is the virtue of a man, what is the virtue of a woman, you know? He said, "Be better, you know, to talk about the virtue of a man is what the virtue of a woman is, what the virtue of a father is, what the virtue of a mother is, right? Because that's closer to what the end of the science, which is action, right?

[13:26] So because of that, he says the consideration of morals, which is of human acts, first ought to be treated in the universal, right? But secondly, in the what particular, right? Huh?

[13:45] Now about the universal consideration of human acts. First, one ought to consider about the human acts themselves, right? Secondly, about the what principles or beginnings of them, right? Okay, and that's going to start down in question what forty nine, right? Huh? Long ways to go, huh? That second part. But now the division is kind of relevant now. But if human acts, some are what private or proper to man, right?

[14:20] But some are are common to man and the other what animals, right? And because beatitude is man's own good, more nearly have themselves to beatitude the acts which are proper to man huh Oh there's a Latin word over there.

[14:46] Then those acts which are common to man and the other animals, right? Huh? First, therefore, one ought to consider about the acts which are proper to man or private to man, right? Secondly, about the acts which are common to man and their animals, which are called the what passions of the soul, right? Or the emotions, right?

[15:17] So that's the distinction we will be just finished here in question six through what twenty one. We're talking about the acts that are proper to man, right? And now he's going to do the ones that are common to us and the beast, right? Huh? Okay. And I was mentioning someone before the class began there that when Thomas in the you can see it in the Summa he talks about the teacher, right?

[15:47] He says the teacher leads the student from the known to the unknown in two ways, right? In one way, you could call manuductio, right, leading by the hand, where you take him from something more known, right. And the other one is where you lead them from principles to what conclusions, right? Okay. I've often thought that when you when you teach, like say the prima pars of the summa, right?

[16:14] Well, the order in which Thomas takes things up in theology, he talks about first of all the a God, right? And then he talks about the angels. Then he talks about the human soul, right? But which of those three is most known to us? The soul. And so he used to say, you know, that the knowledge of the soul is the gateway to the study of the separated substances, meaning the angels, right?

[16:42] And yet the angels are closer to us than God. So you could study, you know, the prima pars and do the treatise on the soul first, and then make a transition to what the angels, and then finally to God, right? And you'd be kind of building up, you know, kind of a wonderful way, right? And let's refer to a text there where Thomas is talking about. I was an order among the objects, right?

[17:11] Thomas says, "I think about the body, so I can think about the soul, and I think about the soul, so I can think about the angels, and I think about the angels, so I can think about God, and that's it." But notice the order there, right? Body before the soul, and the soul before the angel, and the angel before what God. And of course, our soul doesn't know itself through itself, and our soul knows itself through its powers, and it knows its powers through its acts, and knows its acts through its object, and this is what we call discourse, right?

[17:57] So through the objects, I know the acts, and through the acts, I know the powers, and through the powers, the soul, right? But the angel, he knows his own substance through his own substance, and so he's more like God, right? Who knows everything through knowing himself, but the angels don't know everything through knowing themselves. Not even what they naturally know; they don't know at all. So they have to have filled in, right, other what forms whereby their natural knowledge is completed, right?

[18:36] So as my old teacher Kasurik says, you know, when your soul leaves your body, and you greet your guardian angel, I suppose that's the first one your reception committee. You can say, "oh, good, God," you know, and and he's a wonderful creature, right? You know, he said, "No, I'm not God." No, yeah, but you don't be so frustrated with this creature, right? You know.

[19:07] You see, that's kind of the order of of manuductio there, right? Now, as Thomas says in in the Summa Contra Gentiles, the order in philosophy and the order in theology is in a way just the reverse, because in philosophy we start with the creatures, and the last thing we know is God, right? I just got through going through book twelve there, the Metaphysics, again, where Aristotle, finally, at the end of the last part, the last science, arrives at God, and beautiful, you know, the last the last reading there, you know, where he's talking about how good is in the universe, right?

[19:51] And he asks the question: Is it in the universe itself, or is it outside the universe, right? And that's he makes this famous comparison: of the universe to an army, right? Where there's an order in the army, and that's the good of the army in the army, but the whole army is ordered to what the victory of the leader, right? And that's outside the army, right? And so the universe has a good that's the order in the universe itself.

[20:18] The order is an account of something outside the universe. That's not a part of the universe. and that's God. Which is pretty beautiful the way he says that, right? And he goes back to the Greeks Greeks and how they didn't see this well, you know.

[20:34] Actually, it's kind of beautiful the way he does that because actually, Thomas's text doesn't seem to have the last part of the book 12 there, you know. And Aristotle goes, he's criticizing, you know, the disjointedness of his predecessors, right? And he compares it to an episodic plot, right? Sticks all the way back to the book on the poetic art, right? And we don't have really a beginning, middle, and end, right?

[21:01] We used to have a jumble of incidents, right? And and then at the end, he he says he quotes Homer: "The rule of many is not good; let there be one." ruler the whole universe, right? It's kind of beautiful, like when Monsignor Dionne often point out often point out how Aristotle sometimes he gives a very, you know, deep and profound argument, and then he comes back to something very concrete as a kind of sign of the truth of this, right?

[21:33] Here he goes all the way back to the what you know that's most known to us, fiction, that sort of thing, and says that this universe these guys are talking about is like a piece of fiction that just is episodic, right? It doesn't have any real order, right? And then he even quotes the Homer, right? The authority, right? Beautiful. This

[21:58] is that. No, it's the order is just the reverse, right? Because in philosophy you're going from what is more known to us to what is less known to us, right? But in theology you're what partaking of God's knowledge, and so the order of theology imitates God's knowledge, right? And God, by knowing Himself, knows all the things. So we imitate that in theology, and consider God in Himself first, and then we consider other things as arising from God, their Maker, and ord God as their last what end.

[22:42] But that's kind of what That's the principle of order of theology, right? In the same way in moral theology, right? It's kind of beautiful, huh? In in moral theology, we take up prudence or foresight first, and then justice, right? And then fortitude, and then finally what temperance, right? But Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, right? He takes up fortitude and temperance first, which are in the emotions, right?

[23:21] And then he takes up justice in the fifth book, right? And then in the sixth book, he takes up what foresight, right? Just the reverse, right? But notice there is something like foresight and justice in God, right? But the virtues that are in the emotions are not found in God, right? Properly speaking, huh? And yet even fortitude, though metaphorically speaking, is more like God than what temperance, right?

[23:57] So everything is ordered to God, right? It's beautiful, right? Not in the Summa Contra Gentiles, huh? Because it's written, you know, partly with the view to the Gentiles, right? Those in error, right? Well, then Thomas, you know, separates in the first three books what can be known about God in himself, and God as the Maker, and God as the End, even by natural reason, right? As well as by faith, huh?

[24:29] And then he puts in the fourth book things like the Trinity and the Incarnation, our last end, you know, fully knowledge of that that can be known only by faith, right? But he doesn't separate in the Summa Theologiae, right? Huh? They follow more more fully, right? The theological what order, right? Where God is the beginning of everything, right?

[24:56] Nevertheless, something about these passions here, in some ways, more known to us, more proportioned to us. So in the order of manudexio right? That is, by the hand, you might start with with these, huh? Monsignor Dionne gave a course one time. He was talking about the four arguments, syllogism, right? enthymeme, induction, and example. Meaning by example, the argument from one singular to another of the same kind.

[25:25] And where do you think he began? Yeah, but that's kind of in the order of manudexio, right? Because it's closer to the what senses, right? Example is an argument from one singular to another singular of the same kind. Well, the senses know the singulars, right? Then induction is an argument from what many singulars towards universal, right? So you're starting to go more into reason, right? But the syllogism, you're starting out with something that is.

[25:54] Universal and you need something completely universal, at least in one of the premises to to have a syllogism, right? But you are kind of being led up gradually, right? To the highest thing. When Porphyry takes up genus, right? Now he takes up the two meanings that Aristotle gives in the metaphysics there for genus before you get to the logical meaning of genus, right? Well, I am a genus.

[26:23] If you look at my grandchildren, right? He's one man from whom many what have descended, right? Huh? Or else this multitude of grandchildren. If you see, I begin these pictures occasionally to show them off. What's going on? But there you see the genus of of grandchildren or something. like that. You see. But both of those are more sensible, right? The one man from whom this multitude is descended, right?

[26:49] Or this multitude of people, this crowd of children from whom they're descended from one man, right? And then you gradually get to the idea of genus, which is something one said of what many, right? So it's not a singular, and it's not the multitude of people, but it's said of many, right? So you are led gradually from what is sensible to what is not so, right?

[27:18] So Monsignor Dianne used to talk sometimes about the kind of manuductio required in this or that science to lead us by the hand, right? So excuse me, then, for talking about the acts of the will before we talked about the what emotions, right?

[27:38] I mentioned before how it's very beautiful in the Summa Contra Gentiles, where Thomas, you know, talks about how we take the names of the emotions and then we pick them up and we carry them over and lower them on the acts of the will, right? But we change the meaning of them somewhat. We drop off the bodily aspect of emotions and so on, right? We keep the formal aspect, right?

[28:08] And then, because he's going to talk about the love of God Himself, right? The love that God has, and the and the delight that God has Himself, and so on. He says, and then some of these names can be put up and carried all the way over to God, laid down on the top of of God, and but there is only really two of them you can do it with.

[28:31] So you can't carry, for example, desire over to God as if he wants something that he doesn't have and so on, right? And there is no sadness in God, right?

[28:44] But there you see kind of the order there of what that's natural, right? We place names upon emotions. I remember as a little child being in church one day and the. Priest was talking in the in the

[28:58] pulpit, yeah, about the love of God. And of course, to me, love kind of meant something neither that you had for candy, yeah, right to girls or not yet. But I mean, it's kind of you know, what's it mean to say to love God? Because not, you know, it's not really candy. It's not something that you know sensible, you know. But it's kind of puzzling, right? And I know when I taught the love and friendship course, you know how difficult it is, even for college students, right, to see the difference between love that is an emotion and love that is an act of the what will, right?

[29:33] I always told you about joke about the Polish professor who went to symbolic logic and so on, It annoyed me with my syllogisms, you know, And it's saying, you know, Mr. Perkins, one day he's in, class, do you have an emotional attachment to the syllogism? And I just kinda laughed and I said, emotional attachment to a girl, but not to a syllogism We kind of soon love the syllogism right, because of its rigor, right? So when I call myself a philosopher, which means a lover of wisdom, right?

[30:07] That love is an act of the what, the will, right? It's not a a emotion. So now we're getting down to something more known to us, right?

[30:21] But now it's a little. It's going to touch upon this, but again, there's a little bit of a. Yeah. In the thirteenth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, in the thirteenth verse, they normally have thirteen, thirteen, right? This is what Saint Paul says, right?

[30:53] I'll give you his translation here, just for a second. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, right? Faith, hope, charity. The translation here. These three, but the greatest of these is what charity, right? That's the famous passage, right? And Thomas quotes that in the beginning of the compendium of theology, right? Which he wrote for Brother Reginald. Didn't finish it, but he has three parts. Part on faith, right?

[31:31] Part on hope. And he didn't finish it, but still, he's going to be three parts in half, right? And in Thomas's kind of constructions, you have these three parts corresponding to these three, right? And then you know the famous work of Augustine in *the Enchiridion*, faith, hope, and charity. You have these same what three, right? So, under pistis you take up the what creed, right? And under elpis, or hope, you take up our Father, right?

[32:03] Sometimes the Hail Mary, but our Father is the prayer of prayers, right? And then under agape you take up the two commandments of love, and the Ten Commandments, right? That's a way of what a different way of dividing sacred doctrine, right? Than having Sumas. In Sumas, the basic division is God in Himself. God is the Maker. God is the what end, right? So a lot of this would come under God in Himself, right?

[32:37] Something else. He's going to come up. You're talking about God being the end, right? It's a division into three, but it's not based on faith, hope, and charity. It's more God in Himself. God is the Maker of the things He's made to some extent, and then God is the end, right?

[33:02] In the order of things, to the end of God, as a divine providence, and so on. But this is much more proportionate, people, right? Okay.

[33:15] Now, the last sentence is the grace of Jesus' charity, huh? Meizon de touton, he agape, right? Okay. Now, what's wrong with Saint Paul here, right?

[33:37] If the greatest of these is agape, right, then, then he should have given Agape first in this order, right? And instead, he's placed it last, right? I know the last shall be first, and the first shall be last. You've got to be careful. The way you understand the use of that, cool, right?

[34:07] So, how would you explain this this confusion in Saint Paul's head, or is it confusion? Order of generation. Order of generation. Yeah. Now, there's a different ordering involved here, right? Okay. Now, those of you who have studied the twelfth chapter, the categories, right?

[34:27] We recall that Aristotle takes up the word "before," which is a word equivocal by what reason, right? And it's equivocal by reason of a likeness of ratios among these meanings, right? But he gives the four chief senses of the word "before" in order, right? And the first sense of before is before in time, right? Okay. So today is before tomorrow. That's the first sense he gives of before.

[35:15] The second sense we might speak of as before in being. If this can be without that, but that can't be without this, then this is before that in being. Aristotle gives the example of one is before what? Two. One can be without two, but two cannot be without what? One. Okay. But I give out examples from the sensible world, and they say bricks can be without a brick wall.

[35:56] You can have bricks without having a brick wall, but you can't have a brick wall without bricks. Or a very homely example, you can have the letter C without the word cat. You can't have the word cat without the letter C, right? Okay. It's all kinds of examples of this, right?

[36:21] Now the third sense that Aristotle gives, you could say, is before in the discourse of reason, huh? Okay. If you read my script, before the discourse of reason, or more generally, in what knowledge, right? Okay.

[36:49] And then Aristotle gives finally a fourth meaning, right? And very remote, he says, and you know, you know, but yet people say, you know, you come first with me, right? And so what is better or more loved is also put before, right? Okay. I put Cabernet Sauvignon before Zinfandel, right? Okay. I put steak before salmon.

[37:21] Okay. So you could say before in goodness, right? Or in one word, better, right? Aristotle says that's before the sentence, right? And if you look in the Metaphysics, huh? When he takes up the word before there, right? He takes up kind of these three senses, right? And kind of leaves this one out as if that's a little more remote, right? Okay. But nevertheless, huh? I always think that the categories of where you should begin, you know.

[38:04] Okay. But these three senses are much closer, right? Huh? Now you see that, huh? When I write the word cat, maybe C might be before what A and T, even in time, huh? Not necessarily, but and generally you'd have bricks in time before you have a brick wall in time, right? Huh? Okay. Um. Now that ain't necessarily so.

[38:35] So if I have a little stamp, you know, and bam, like that, the letter C and the word cat come to be together, right? Yeah.

[38:48] But nevertheless, you could say, you know, these tend to go together, right? What is before in time? Well, but not necessarily, right? I'm before some of you guys in time, right? Could you be without me?

[39:06] Of course, of course. So they are really distinct meanings, right? But there's a certain affinity between the two, right? Now, there's a real likeness between the second and the third meaning, right? Because just as this can be without that, right, but not vice versa, so sometimes this can be known without that, but not vice versa, right? And so there's real similarity there, right?

[39:45] But they don't always go together, right? Because, example, it might be that hydrogen can be without water, if water is H2O, right? But in our knowledge, water is before what? Yeah. That's why we named hydrogen from water. Hydrogen it generates water.

[40:11] Nevertheless, this is very much in knowing, like before in being, right? Okay. This is a little more unusual, right? This fourth sense. So he says that these three. In what order is he giving these three?

[40:36] And he first states it before he says that the meizon touton he agape. What order is he giving these three in? Yeah, and probably in time too, right? Okay. So Thomas says that if you believe that there is a God, right? If you don't believe there's a God, you're not going to hope in God, are you? But if you believe that there is a God, and you believe that He loves us, right, and so on, then you have some reason to hope, right?

[41:12] Okay. It doesn't necessarily result in hope, but it kind of disposes us for hope, right? And then if you hope to get good things from God, you turn to Him in prayer and so on, and He hears your prayers. Um, and then you start to what? To love Him, right? Okay. You heard the the um. What the stages of love there that Saint Bernard Clairvaux talks about them.

[41:41] Um. We first tend to tend towards God when we are what? In some what? Trouble. Some trouble, some need, right? Huh? And then we what? Are loving God really for our needs, not for His own sake, right? Huh? But as we continue to turn towards Him, we get to know Him, right? He's not a bad guy when you get to know Him. Mm-hmm. And you start to like Him, right?

[42:06] Huh? Okay. Now you're starting to love God for His own sake, right? Huh? And he says eventually you're going to be loving yourself just for the sake of God, right? He says that's hardly ever fully achieved in this life, you know. But that's what we're kind of striving for.

[42:25] So pistis come before elpis, right? huh? And elpis, or hope disposes for agape, right? Huh? So it's before in time, and it's also before in what? In being yes. In being more important, right? Um. But now, if you take the two masters, the two greatest minds, maybe of the church, Saint Augustine, right? And Thomas Aquinas, and you see the Enchiridion on faith, hope, and charity. This is also the order in what?

[42:57] Knowledge, right, And Thomas gives the catechetical instructions there, in Naples there towards the end of his life. You do these three, right? Okay. Even common people like this, right? This seems to be the order in which you what? In our analogy, talk about pistis first, right? And then hope, and then finally what? Love, right? You see how these three can sometimes go together, right? Okay. But then, having given that order, because of this, then he what?

[43:34] Points out that in this fourth order of Aristotle, right, agape is better than what? Yeah. And now as I looked at Leval there, I said, well now it's everybody knows this text of St. Paul, you know, but now which is greater, elpis or pistis? huh? Some people are saying, you know, I don't know, they told me pistis something. All right. Yeah, and I think Thomas brings this out in the disputed questions on hope, right?

[44:06] Okay. But nobody ever asked the question as you know, man looks before and after I asked the question. And then my friend Warren Murray now pointed out this text in the disputed questions on hope, you know. So in in goodness, agape before elpis, and elpis before what? Pistis, right? And perhaps you can understand it a little bit by the simple explanation that Thomas gives that pistis or faith, like pistis, we know where our end is, right?

[44:40] What our goal is, right? But by elpis, we are now what? Tending towards that, what? Oh. Yeah, elpis is like a kind of what? Desire, desire for a what? Good, difficult to achieve, right?

[44:58] But by agape, Thomas says, we in a way already joined to our end, huh? Yeah. And so I remember this this quote there from St. Therese of Lisieux right? She says, "I don't know what more I can have in heaven, you know. Our union is already complete now," she says. You know, she was she was very close to God, right? You know, you know, Pius XI in fact she was the greatest saint for the modern times, right?

[45:19] What's kind of beautiful, I said. How could how could Augustine and Thomas say that? You know, you know, or at least you know the the vision is the whole reward right? What more do you have What do you mean? But because of this you know this priority in agape, right? Huh? She says our union is already complete, right? So the way you're already joined, so you can see the reason why this is the best, right?

[45:50] If you in a sense already joined to the end. here you're not joined to it, but you're tending towards it, right? Here You just kind of know what it is, right? Okay.

[46:04] So you see, it's perfectly ordered, by him, but notice he does give it in this order first, right? So the first three minutes, right? And then he brings a beautiful order. to the text He's pretty, pretty smart, you know. It's like he studied the 12th chapter of the categories, huh? Or else he didn't have to study the 12th chapter of categories and all the more credit to him right?

[46:28] But it's pretty remarkable text. Now, what does it have to do with the treatise on the emotions? Now, right? Okay, nice excursion here, right? For many reasons, huh?

[46:47] Well, Pistis is not going to be there, but if you look up these in the Greek dictionary, Elpis and Agape, right? Huh? But when Agape has come to mean, you know, charity, right? Huh? But in the Greek dictionary, it can have some of the idea of what love, right? Huh? And if you take the word love, as it's sometimes translated right? Because charity suffered degradation in meaning, right?

[47:19] The word love is originally the name of a what emotion, or they call it passio animae, right? And Elpis is the name of a what? Emotion, passion. Yeah. yeah. So we'll meet these in the treatise on emotions, right? Under the names love and what hope,

[47:47] and going all the way back to Aristotle, right? In the Greek, when they spoke of the emotions and Plato and Aristotle, they had distinguished the two kinds of emotions, and one would be called Epithumia, right? And agape would be found in Epithumia,

[48:11] and elpis would be found in what thumos huh, okay? And we'll be meeting these, huh? Now the Latin names will be the Concupiscible Appetite, okay?

[48:29] And the Irascible Appetite, right? A name from you know just one emotion in that group that stands out, right? So instead of the emotions, we're going to be learning the names that we're going to pick up and carry over one day and place on what the theological virtue of hope and place this other name on the what?

[48:56] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So he's a little bit, you know. It was interesting. I was, you know, how you probably heard of C. S. Lewis's work on the Four Loves and so on, right? And of course, he used the word agape, you know, which has come to be, because of the New Testament, especially, to mean charity, right caritas But only originally it had that sense, huh? You know, if you, look at the Greek word like agapema what's an agapema?

[49:26] Well, the translation would be darling. You're my agapema. I mean, it's kind of funny to think of God being my agapema So if I have a little grandchild, granddaughter, or something, you know, you know, a little darling. But it had that, you know, that meaning, right?

[49:44] Monsignor Dionne used to deal with the text of Dionysius the Areopagite, you know, the one where he applies the word eros even to God, right? You know, in terms of the intensity of the love, right? And it's being more known to us, even though eros very much like in C. S. Lewis there means more amor, you know, the sensual love, right? So we're going to be picking up these words and carrying them over, right?

[50:10] When I looked at the word elpis, it's kind of interesting." You know, the first meaning they give elpis is really hope, right? But another meaning they give elpis is fear. I said that's kind of interesting because although hope and you see hope and fear are quite different, huh? But in terms, of course, of the theological virtue of hope, right? It has to be to some extent balanced with the fear of the Lord, right?

[50:38] And you know the beautiful text there where Thomas is expounding the Psalms, huh? And there are sometimes what mention both hope and fear, right? So Thomas says in the commentary of the Psalms that hope without fear of the divine justice, right, could become presumptuous, right? And fear of the divine justice without hope would lead to despair, right? So you have to balance these two, right? And I often, you know, would expand upon that in philosophy because we're taught by the great Socrates, right, in the like dialogue of the Phaedo, in the last day of his life, right?

[51:22] That the philosopher needs the hope of what overcoming the difficulties and knowing what is true, right? At one point, you know, the men he's talking to start to despair of finding the truth about what the immortality of the soul whether it is or is not. The arguments that were first presented and seemed quite good now seem not to be so good, right? And they're kind of in despair.

[51:49] And Socrates, you know, leads them out of this despair, right? And then they get kind of cocky, you know, and Socrates, whoa, whoa, whoa, you know, You know, it's not going to be as easy to answer. Cebes as it was Simmias, right? But you know, this is something that we learn a lot from our Indian. You know, in order to be a good philosopher, you have to have the hope that you can overcome the difficulties that there are in knowing truth.

[52:15] If you despair of knowing the truth, like what you find in what most universities, right? They really despair of knowing the truth. They just uh was it uh was. uh Whittaker Chambers said, "remember, about his friends there at Columbia University says, you know, they they compared ideas as ping pong balls. You don't take them seriously, you knock them back and forth in a conversation, you know, but you don't ever resolve anything or so.

[52:45] " anything. He decided to comment so at least they believed what they were saying. Yeah, yeah. And uh, uh, so I found it kind of interesting, huh? Just because I was thinking of how the theological virtue of hope has to be balanced with that kind of fear, maybe the fear of the Lord or the fear of God's justice, right? We don't have that same balance. So you don't balance agape or pistis, you know, so much.

[53:12] But it's kind of curious that Greek word "elpis," you know, in my Greek dictionary, it has the first meaning of hope, but then it also has the meaning of this fear later on. It's kind of interesting, you know, that they're kind of joined in the word But those hope and fear are different emotions, right? And the acts of the will that are a result of carrying this over, right?

[53:36] You know, Thomas was speaking in Latin of the translatio nominis, right? And translatio means what? A carrying over, right, of the name, and then he used the term impositio nominis, which means a placing upon, right? You know, we say put a label upon, right? But to place a name upon, right? So we pick up a name and we carry it over and we lay it down, right, on top of something else, but we change the meaning, right?

[54:04] But there's some connection between the first one, right? So we'll be starting we'll be studying emotions, but that's a foundation for later on naming the acts of the will, right? And for naming these things here in what? Theology, right? Okay.

[54:27] What a marvelous text. that is, you know, It gives them in the order of time and being and even knowledge, right? First, Saint Paul does it perfectly ordered. Pistis, he says, and then he touches upon the fourth meaning of before him. See, there's no evidence he studied Aristotle, right? But it's just what a mind he had huh? The mind of Christ. Yeah, oh yeah, it's amazing.

[55:04] Okay, should we take our break before we begin this? Let's take a little break between texts, you know, because thinking is like what number is not like lines. Twenty-