Prima Secundae
83. Truth, Life and Appropriation in the Trinity; the Meter of the Adoro te; Operation as the Cause of Pleasure (ST I-II q.32 a.1)
Class of 2012-10-11
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/083-truth-life-and-appropriation-in-the-trinity-the-meter-of/

[0:00] The Father, the Son, 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, order and illuminate our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Amen, Lord. Help us to understand what you've written, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Come back a little bit to the society that I had, where I was comparing the words of Peter, right, the profession of faith, in the I guess the sixteenth chapter of Matthew, there, where Christ says, "Peter, upon this rock, I'll build the church."

[0:49] And then these words of our Lord in the Gospel of Saint John, right, with the question of where you're going and how do we get there, and so on. And in Greek, he says, "I am the hodos right, which is the word for road. We usually use the translation as way, but road is really very concrete. The truth and the life.

[1:12] Now, to compare this profession of faith of Peter and these words of our Lord, they are in some ways alike, in some ways, but different, right? Now they are alike in that in both of them you begin with something which is said of him by reason of his human nature, right? Because as man, he's anointed, right? The anointed one, by antonomasia. The divinity is not anointed, though.

[1:51] And as man, he's the road to eternal life. And therefore, as I mentioned before, and Thomas says at the beginning of the third part of the Summa De Christo about Christ, who as man is the road, right, the Via to the end goal. So something is said of him by reason of his human nature here, right? Before something is said of him by reason of his divine nature.

[2:23] Okay. Now, obviously, the difference between Christ and road is pretty clear, right? The meaning, huh? They bring out two different things, right? So priests and prophets and kings, kings, yeah, were anointed, and Christ has those three. There's all kinds of church documents on that subject. And as man, he's also but the road to heaven.

[2:55] Now over here, what is the difference between these two ways of speaking about him as regards his divinity? Well, the Son of the Living God, and this is naming him what properly, right?

[3:15] Why is the truth and the life naming him properly? What is that? Appropriation. Yeah, we studied that in the Trinity, right? So Thomas said some articles of appropriation, and they gave some appropriations that Hilary gave, and some more that Augustine gave, and so on. One that's very much given is where they speak of power, wisdom, and goodness. And goodness is what appropriated to the Holy Spirit, wisdom to the Son, and power, right, to the Father, right.

[3:58] Now, what is the purpose of appropriation, right? What What need of our mind? What common need of our mind is the reason for appropriation? Why do we appropriate something? Understand. What

[4:17] we do, yeah, but you know, in the treatise on God says you have first, the treatise on the unity of God, right, and then you have the treatise on the Trinity, right, the uno et trino, right. And you take something from the treatise on the unity of God, and you appropriate to this or that member of the Trinity, right? Okay. Now, what's the reason for that in terms of the good of the mind?

[4:49] But it'd be bad for the mind if you don't understand this appropriation, right? What is What is the? Well, I don't know if it's directly answering your question, but you take something that's common to the three persons of the nature, and it's appropriated, spoken of one of them to help understand what is proper, even though what you're saying is common at all. Yeah, yeah, because taken by reason, it's enlightenment, right, of that common attribute to this particular person, right.

[5:24] But it goes back to something very fundamental in our mind, and that is the more known is used to what understand the less known, right? And so the things that we learn about God in the treatise on the unity of God, right, are ones that even the philosophers like Aristotle already knew, right. It's more known to us than the things about the Trinity, which is known only by by faith, right?

[5:51] So it goes back to something fundamental in our mind, right? When we define and reason, we use what is known or more known to know what is less known or unknown, right? Okay. So there's a good reason for appropriation, right? Okay. So truth here is being appropriated to the sun, right? Just like we appropriate to the sun wisdom, right? Which is the knowledge of truth, as you hear us all do.

[6:23] And as we appropriate to the sun wisdom and so on, and enlightening us, right? Okay. Notice how I attaches life followed upon truth, right? You know, in the animal there, we're distinguishing the grades of life. You know, you have the vegetative life, then you have the the what animal life, and then you have man has in addition. And you distinguish them, man, the animals from the plants by sensing and by knowledge, right?

[6:58] Not by love and emotion. We're talking about emotions now, right? But we don't distinguish the animal from the plant in specific category of life because he has emotions, but fundamentally because he has sense. And then the emotion followed upon that sense, right? But fundamentally, this is a new grade of life above that of the tree out there, because the tree, when you cut off the thing, I don't feel sorry for the tree.

[7:25] Somebody's a little bit, but I don't think that he's any pain. I saw off a branch or something, right? Right, we kind of you know upset there, kind of saw off a leg of a man or in a war. And and then you distinguish man from the beast. You do it by having what reasons. So we define man as an animal that has reason, not as an animal that has will, because that is not fundamental.

[7:51] It follows upon the fact that he has reason. So it's interesting that you put here truth and the life, okay? That's why too when God says what eternal life is there, in the seventeenth chapter there, John?

[8:13] Again, I think it's eternal life now. before you interrupt me, he defines in terms of knowing, right, God, right? So that's interesting, right? Okay. But now we were pointing out last time something else about this, and that is we have two or three names, actually three names. When Tom picks up the second person of the Blessed Trinity, he's called the Son of God, right? And he's called the what Word of God, and then he's called the Image, right?

[8:55] And in terms of this appropriation, which name is best for seeing this? What's the. That truth should be appropriated to the second person of the Trinity, because he's the Son of God, or because he's the Word of God.

[9:22] You see that kind of in the beginning of the John's Gospel, where this is the light that lightens every man into this world, and those things, right?

[9:33] Now, what is this down here? Well, this is one of the quatrains, right? There are what seven quatrains in this famous prayer of Thomas Aquinas, they call sometimes in Latin text the Rhythmus of St. Thomas, because it seems to be a what a meter, right? And

[9:56] what is the meter here? What are these four? Four lines, well, these of course are rhyming, right? But what is the meter in these? What's what's this foot that's being used there?

[10:19] You you told me before it's trochaic. Yeah, yeah. Now I think I'd given you before maybe my mnemonic device. Yeah. Add. Add. Add. Add. Right. Add. Okay. Now the word "add" has got three letters, right? And the word "it" has got two letters, right? And the iambic and the trochaic have two feet, I mean two two syllables, rather. And the anapestic, right? And the dactylic have what?

[10:57] Three syllables in a foot, okay? Now, if you remember what the iambic is, the accent or the length is on the second syllable, right? And the trochaic would just reverse; the accent will be on the what? Second. First. First syllable. Yeah. And it's the same order over here. The dactylic would be like the trochaic, except it has three feet, and the accent will be on the first syllable, right?

[11:32] The anapest will be the what? Reverse of that, right? Okay. So what is the meter here that we have in this particular quatrain? Meter. Yeah. Thesis toctus toctus. On the first or second syllable. First. Thesis toctus. Yeah. Yeah. So it's trochaic, right? Okay. Now Aristotle points out, you know, how the iambic meter is the closest to daily speech, and how people will fall into the iambic sometimes without realizing that they're speaking this way, right?

[12:23] And he point out how in Shakespeare, right, when he has some unearthly character, you know, like a fairy or a witch or something like that, right, you often put them into trochaic, right, to kind of give a sense of being kind of foreign, you know, rather than iambic, huh? And you also, for very solemn moments, you know, when you're going to be kind of formal, you'll put maybe into trochaic or just to give it a little what dignity, you know, that doesn't seem to be familiar, you know, like our daily speech is iambic, huh?

[13:00] So perhaps Thomas, you know, understanding that same thing, right, sees the importance of what? Yeah, yeah. Now, with the trochee though, and the dactyl, they have to go against the certain tendency of our voice. We want to end on a what accented syllable. So what happens in trochee meter and in dactylic meter is that the very last what foot will have just the what the accented syllable and drop off the one or in the other case two unac- accented ones.

[13:46] Okay. And I give you two examples from Shakespeare I can remember. One is the witches, right? Fair is foul, and foul is fair. Hover through the fog and filthy air. Fair is foul, and it's in trochee, but it ends on an accent, right? Fair is foul, and foul is fair, and then it stops, huh? Hover through the filthy, the fog and filthy air, right? Okay. And he does it here.

[14:22] See, it's one foot here, two foot, three feet, four feet, five feet, and then the sixth foot is cut short. I think they call it catalectic. I've got to get that word up because I get it mixed up sometimes I see it referred to sometimes in editions right, this kind of meter. So it's six trochee, but then catalectic, or maybe in English it's a C. You drop off that last, don't complete the last foot, right?

[14:58] Okay. So got to be careful now, you know. Anytime you have meter, some people want to call it a poem, but that's kind of misleading, right? Because a poem, like a Shakespearean sonnet, is a what? It's a likeness, right? Of thought or feeling, right? Um, the Shakespearean sonnet is a likeness of thought or feeling in fourteen lines, of iambic pentameter, right? Huh? Divided into three quatrains of alternate rhyming and completed by rhyming couplet, right?

[15:36] But this is not Adoro te devote which has seven of these quatrains. It's not a likeness of thought or feeling, right? But rather, it's a what prayer, right? And I heard it said, you know, that our Father, when our Lord gave it to them, in you know Aramaic, I guess it would be, huh? It was in a meter, huh? You heard that? And maybe the psalms have some meter we don't get in our English translations, right?

[16:04] We mean Latin translations, right? And that's for the sake of what? I suppose it makes it easy to memorize it, right? Okay. So, no one should be shocked although it's in a meter, right? It shouldn't be called a poem, right? Any more than one would call the psalms a poem. And even if you have metaphors, it doesn't make it a poem because the Lord is my rock, is that a poem.

[16:34] No, you use metaphors for a different reason in poetry and in what? Scripture, right? You know, in poetry, you use it to bring something up to the level of reason, and then out in scripture, you bring something down to the level of reason, right? So after certain things. So don't call those things poems. I get very angry for finding you doing that,

[17:05] So so I, get very angry, you know, The number of the psalms, that that that gets to me, though. I'll be the master number. I say this is a beautiful psalm, and I remember the number of the psalm that was read in Mass today or something like that. It's always, I know it's the wrong number. I kind of guess it's one less or something, you know. Just annoys me.

[17:25] I got. to, you know, have a hard enough time remembering things without having two sets of numbers, right? You know. They shift gears on you. Yeah, yeah, I'm tired of saying you know. And according to the correct numbering, that was

[17:39] when, I was a kid. it was called the Catholic numbering the correct numbering you know I was called the cross number Some kind of accommodation there. I think it's very easy It's extremely annoying. Especially you realize Augustine's, you know, dividing the psalms on the basis of the character of the 50th, the 100th, 150th psalm. It's wrong numbering. Everything breaks down. Anyway.

[18:02] So you have these what? Four lines, right? With made up of two rhyming couplets, right? But in this trochee hexameter, right? I guess catalectic I think. Don't take my word for it Look that up. Some of these words you can't find. You got to go to the big Oxford Dictionary or the library or something.

[18:29] Now, this is part of the Adoro te devote, which they say Thomas would say right after the consecration, right? And so in the second, the second quatrain, he's saying sight, touch, and taste, right? In te, meaning you in the Eucharist, right? Are what Deceived, right? But by hearing alone, safely does one what believe, right? Okay, so we said Fides ex auditu We hear that phrase a lot.

[19:04] Faith is from hearing, right? And who are we hearing? Well, basically Christ, right? So the next part says, "I believe whatever the Son of God says," right? But now, why should he believe whatever the Son of God says, right? Well, it's kind of the next line he does this, and then he goes over to what Verbum rather than Son of God, right? It doesn't say nothing that the Son of God is more true or that's true, but he goes to the other name of him, nothing than this Word of Truth is more what true.

[19:41] You got a little bit of like alliteration, right? Three, three views. It doesn't make it poetry by the way. It makes it stick in your mind. And you say he's the Word of Truth. What does truth stand for there? It's like the the truth and the life. It's it's an appropriation of the second person regarding the second person of the Trinity. Well,

[20:17] we if we said he was the Word of God, right? What would God stand for? The Father. Yeah. So in this context, if you say he's the Word of Truth, Truth's Word. What does Truth stand for there? The Father. Yeah.

[20:41] And in fact, it can stand for the Father. There is a sign that up here it was an appropriation, right? You see the connection between these two. Because God the Father is Truth itself, just as much as God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is Truth itself, just as much as what the Son. But truth is appropriated to the Son because. That's the word. Yeah. But here it stands for the what Father, right?

[21:12] Truth itself has the word to say. And but if nothing is more true than the Word of Truth, nothing's more true than Truth itself. So the Word of Truth must be Truth itself too. So it's beautiful, right? But the fact that Thomas has the Father using the word Truth to stand for the Father shows that up here it's a what appropriation and not what properly said, right?

[21:44] Okay. Now, thinking about, I was reading the treatise on the operations of God in the Prima Pars and everything, and I was thinking about this appropriation,

[22:11] and it seems that you see the appropriation more from the treatise on the operations of God than the treatise on the what substance of God. So, but in this famous appropriation of power, wisdom, goodness, right? Goodness is taken from the substance of God, but wisdom and power from the operations.

[22:42] It's kind of a mixed thing in a way, right? Because wisdom is more like you know perfection, so it's a perfection of the mind, right? But and by power, morning is one of the sources of activity for God, right? In creating the world. What's appropriated to the Father, right? Now, the creed that I learned as a child was, I guess, the Apostles' Creed, right? What's the beginning of the Apostles' Creed?

[23:11] I believe in God, the Father Almighty. Yeah. And Creator of heaven and earth, right? So, does He alone? Is He alone Almighty? Is He alone the Creator of heaven and earth? No, Almighty is something common to all three, right? They're equal, as Athanasius says in the Creed, right? In power, and they are all what together through the one nature, one substance, they are creators of the world, right?

[23:47] But power is appropriated to the what? Father, right? But the things pertaining to the understanding of God are appropriated to the Son, like wisdom or truth itself, right? And then things that belong to the will are appropriated to the what? Holy Spirit, like He's called goodness, which is the object of the what? Will. And of course, when He's called truth, the Son, that's like the object of the mind, right?

[24:18] The understanding. And when the Holy Spirit is said to be love, right? Again, that's getting closer to being appropriate. I mean, proper. Okay, but it's the way in which, you know, God is love, right? And this is not just the Holy Spirit, but

[24:40] it's kind of interesting because in the treatise on the operations of God, you have the understanding, the will, and the power, right? And one's appropriated to the Father, one to the Son, one to the Holy Spirit. So I was trying to say, well, can you get appropriation from the three from the substance of God, right? But it seems only that goodness is appropriate, right? Because truth doesn't come up in the substance of God, but because truth is primarily in the mind, right?

[25:10] But the good is primarily what in things. So, but anyway, that thinking about the the basic thoughts of our mind, and when Thomas orders them, he puts being first, right? Then one, and then truth, and then goodness, right? Well, goodness is appropriated to the Holy Spirit, truth to the Son. Son, and one. All things in the Trinity are one on account of the Father, as Augustine says, right?

[25:45] They're all equal on account of the Son, right? But they're all one. So it's interesting. One, truth, goodness—you could appropriate those to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I don't think I've seen that, but it seems to me you could, right?

[26:03] It's kind of beautiful I think, to me, you know. The other thing I think is interesting too is that we kind of appropriate to the Holy Spirit be kindling our hearts with love, right? Come Holy Spirit, fill our hearts, make them faithful, kindle them the fire of their love, right? Not because He alone does this, right? But it's kind of appropriate to Him, right? And then in the beginning of John's Gospel that the Son what enlightens us, so He's He's type of faith, therefore, right?

[26:33] Well, then at least hope for the Holy for for the what Father, right? And it's very clear in a way that when our Lord is explaining prayer there, and today we had had the one from Luke, you know, and there instead of saying you know just that He's going to give good things to you like you to your sons, He says you know give you the Holy Spirit, right?

[26:59] So it seems like the prayer is kind of addressed to God the Father, right? Okay, you see this in Christ's prayer there in at the end of the the Last Supper, you know, seems to be praying to the Father and and in distinction from Himself, right? So it's like you appropriate this to the Father, so we say our Father, right? And because hope is what gives you the strength, right?

[27:25] And strength is appropriate to the Father. It's kind of beautiful to see the appropriation of the theological virtues to the three what persons of the Trinity, right? It's beautiful to see that. What

[27:40] you see it also in the spiritual senses of Scripture allegory. How's that? Allegory pertains to faith, and the moral pertains to charity. This is from Augustine: the anagogical to: charity, and then the anagogical to hope. That's interesting. I think that's from Augustine. I may have read it also in St. Augustine. The three spiritual senses, you mean? Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. Because when Augustine and Thomas give the catechetical instructions, they divide according to faith, hope, and charity, and then they do the creed and the Our Father, and then the two commandments of love and the Ten Commandments.

[28:22] And kind of interesting, I think, because it's very proportioned to us. It starts out as something that's in us: faith, hope, and charity, and you end up with the Trinity eventually, right? Beautiful. Beautiful. Okay, now Thomas is up to chapter. Question rather, thirty-two here, right? On the cause of pleasure, right? And I was comparing this, looking before and after, to what he did with love, right?

[28:53] Yeah, you played hooky, remember? Oh, yeah. We're so well recollected on retreat by the guy in the last class. Yeah. I was noticing the likeness here between the treatise on love and the treatise on what? Pleasure, right? Huh? That he considers it kind of in itself, and then looks before at its cause, and then after its effect. Even though, looking at it in itself, there's a looking before and after, right?

[29:19] Even there, but kind of gives a certain what? Completeness to those two ones, love and delectatio. And just in terms of the Trinity, I mean, terms of the science of theology, right? Of all these emotions, right, whose names are carried over sometimes to acts of the will, only love and what delectatio are found in God. So even considering everything is is ordered to knowing God here in theology, it's appropriate that love and pleasure have a more what fuller consideration, right?

[30:02] But maybe even for us, those two are very most fundamental too, okay? Because people want most of all is pleasure, right? Okay. Then we're not to consider about the causes of pleasure. And about this, eight things are asked. I didn't know that there are eight things asked about it, but I guess there are.

[30:30] First, whether operation is the proper cause of what pleasure, right? Aristotle talks about this in the last book of Nicomachean Ethics, right? That there's a pleasure that follows upon the perfection of what operation, right? So when I hear something beautiful and I hear it well, I'm not hard of hearing, then there's going to be pleasure, right? I'm hearing music on Mozart, right? Or if I see a beautiful painting and my eyes are not, you know, can really see it, right?

[31:03] And then there's going to be a certain what pleasure following upon that. If I understand something like appropriation, something, right? And I understand it well, right? Then there's going to be a what some pleasure, right? Okay. So that's a very important thing that Aristotle is talking about there in the

[31:26] tenth book of Nicomachean Ethics, right? So we talk about that in the division, right? The pleasure, right? The Psalms talk about that. Now, second, whether motion is a cause of pleasure, right? Okay. I think I mentioned before how Thomas tends to use the word operation for a what activity that is perfect, right? Not for what this act of what is able to be, insofar as it's able to be, that is motion, right?

[31:58] Motion is by its very nature a imperfect what act, right? Why why operation is used by Thomas anyway? Aristotle uses energeia, but operation for a perfect act like seeing or hearing, right? And probably the simplest way to see the distinction a little bit, like I mentioned before, and Aristotle does in the ninth book there, when you're walking home, which is a motion, right? Have you walked home?

[32:32] When you have walked home, are you walking home? So so long as you're walking home, the activity of walking home is incomplete. It's by nature incomplete. And if you think of it being complete of some type, doesn't exist anymore. Okay.

[32:54] But what about seeing or hearing, right? See, when I'm seeing the beautiful painting, have I seen it yet? Yes. See, it's already complete in a way, right? I'm hearing the music of Mozart. Have I heard it yet, right? I used to say to the girls there and give like this example. I said, you know, you're loving somebody. Have you loved them yet? Well, yes, of course. You know.

[33:18] So that seeing or hearing and loving are what perfect acts, right? They're operationes, right? So it's interesting. He has these two, you know, next to each other, right? But motion is what more known to us, right? And Thomas often remarks upon how Plato, you know, says that the first mover moves himself, right? But he's not really disagreeing with Aristotle because he's using motion now in this broader sense to include even understanding and loving, right?

[33:50] And so it's kind of profound. Plato means that God, understanding and loving himself, you know, moves us, right? Then he and Aristotle are saying the same thing, right? And but motion is carried over. It's more known, right? It's interesting. It's carried over to operation. Motion is not carried over to form, though. But the word act is carried over from motion to form. We first name motion and act.

[34:20] I mentioned how when I was in Quebec, there you know, we go to the movies and they still have the newsreels in those days. And what we call newsreel, they called les actualités. What's actual? What's going on? You know, moving. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[34:37] So if there's revolution in some country, that's going to be the news, right? Things are still the same. I mean, there's no, no, no news. All right. Yeah, I used to say no news is good news as well. I used to hear from my grandfather. Okay.

[34:52] Third, whether hope and memory are causes of pleasure, right? Well, you see, hope and memory are for a operation which is not present here, right? But the one you're remembering it, right? Or you're anticipating it, right now? Okay.

[35:12] Interesting way he's got these things ordered, right? Okay. But now it's a strange thing. Whether sadness. Oh my goodness, huh? Massive kiss. What is he talking about here? I'm.

[35:28] He's melancholic. Yeah. Yeah. Five. Whether the actions of others are to us a cause of what pleasure, right? If my fellow citizens vote for Romney instead of for this black guy, that may cause a pleasure for me, right? Yeah. Interesting. He has a very, very capacious mind. He has, I would say. Willing to benefit another is a cause of what pleasure? I often hear people talking about that, and even the daily paper, right?

[36:10] Do n'ot. You know, you feel good to do something for somebody. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what he's saying. Okay. Now, whether likeness is a cause of pleasure, right? That's strange. I remember likeness was a cause of what? Of love. No, no. See, see, what's that? Why would he even ask this? He's amazing guy, this Thomas. You know. No, just incredible guy. Incredible.

[36:38] He says so much. You got to slow down and enjoy it. You know. Go too fast, you might. In short, you know. I don't sit down and read a whole Shakespeare play anymore. In one evening, you know, I could by just going to read a few pages and think about this line or that line, you know.

[36:59] And then, ah, the philosopher now, whether wonder is a cause of pleasure, right? This makes me think of. I thought of this this morning with our Lord asked the Pharisees now, whose son is the Messiah? David's son. Well, if David's son, how can he call him Lord? And in Mark's Gospel, the only one that he says, and everyone heard and glad. Yeah. They didn't. They didn't have an answer.

[37:24] They didn't even dare to ask another question. They were glad. Yeah. Just hated it. Yeah. That's sort of what I thought was an example. Yeah. Cause of the. It's kind of interesting too, you know. You sometimes the wonder in the student, you know, they first hear something, you know, and it's a wonderful thing, you know, and it's kind of revives, refreshes the professor, you know, and sees this wonder, you know, in the student area, you know, huh?

[37:44] Light going on. Yeah. You kind of break through the bovine stare. Yeah. Couldn't help but my show classmate. They were talking about the fallacy of equivocation, right, and so I'm talking about some other things, and

[38:09] I was talking about how, you know, our knowledge starts with singulars, but among universals, more universal comes before the less universal. One of my typical examples is to, you know, if you're going to classify through your experience the plants on the campus, right, vegetation the campus, and I always stick in, you know, prison company excluded.

[38:29] Can't help it. Between us, inside table, my students, you know. I don't know when they. It's more than the college professors to be mean. Yeah. It's part of the contract. You have to do that. Yeah, yeah.

[38:49] To the first end, one goes forward. Thus, it seems that operation is not the proper and first cause of what pleasure. No, it's that propria and prima. Interesting. He should begin there, right? He's obviously influenced by this pagan Aristotle.

[39:10] For as the philosopher says in the first book of the what rhetoric, to be pleased consists in this that the sense undergoes something, right?

[39:24] For there is required for pleasure some what knowledge, no? So the tree has no pleasure, right? Let alone the stone, right? But just the animals,

[39:42] but per prius right? Before are knowable the objects of operations, then the operations themselves, right? Therefore, operation is not the proper cause of pleasure, right?

[40:00] So is it the music of Mozart that pleases me, or is it my hearing the music of Mozart that pleases me? Is it God that will please me in the vision, or is it my seeing him that will please me?

[40:20] Yeah, or is it both in some order there, right? The hearing of rock and roll is not going to please me. It's got to be a good object, right?

[40:39] It's interesting, you know. We have this passage of Aristotle in the De Anima, you know, where he says, you know, one knowledge is better than another is knowledge, right? Because it's about a better thing, or because we know the object better, right? He gives you two criteria, right?

[40:57] But then, in the in the beginning of the Parts of Animals, he says that the nobility of the object is more important than how you know it, right? That it's better to what know a better thing imperfectly than to know. Yeah. So to know God imperfectly is better than to know the number of chairs in this room perfectly. I can really get the number of chairs in this room down to, you know, don't doubt about it anymore.

[41:27] You know, divide and conquer. I mean, really line them up in rows and stuff. I really get an exact knowledge of that, you know, but it wouldn't give you much pleasure, I don't think. But even in perfect knowledge, of course, Aristotle makes a beautiful comparison there. You know, it's a glimpse of someone we love is what more than a leisurely view of the boss at the job or something, you know, or someone you see all the time, right?

[41:51] You know, but but don't love, right? Huh? Okay. Or you know, grandparents might light a picture of the grandchild, right? You know, more than you know, something you can see every day, you know, in the grocery store, and you know, and

[42:08] okay. Second objection here. Moreover pleasure most of all consists in the end being what achieved, I guess. For this is what is especially what desired, huh?

[42:33] But not always is the operation itself the end, but sometimes the thing what done, right? Therefore, the operation is not the proper and first cause of pleasure, right? Huh? So with Michelangelo, right, was it the making of the Pietà or when the Pietà was now made? Ah, there it is, you know.

[43:01] Moreover, idleness and rest are said by the are said to the ceasing of operation, right? Huh? Okay, kind of relax. But these are what delightful, as is said in the first book of the rhetoric, right? Okay. Therefore, operation is not the proper cause of what pleasure, right? Huh?

[43:30] So what do you think of that? But then your pipe is smaller a little bit. Okay. But against this is what the philosopher says, huh? In both the seventh and in the tenth book of the Ethics, huh? That pleasure is an operation that's connatural and not impeded, right? Huh?

[43:54] Now, answer. It should be said that as has been said above, that for pleasure two things are what required. To it, the obtaining of a suitable what good, and the knowledge of this what attainment, right? Huh?

[44:20] So if I'm wealthy in my sleep, my stock has gone up in some remarkable way, but I don't know it. No delight, right? Huh?

[44:37] Got a brilliant idea, but I don't know it's brilliant. It solves the difficulty, but both of these consist in some operation, right? For actual knowledge is a certain operation.

[44:56] What would be the English word for operation? See, it's kind of a Latinized word. I don't like the important. Trent might call it a transliteration. Yeah. More than a translation. We

[45:16] always talk about that, right? The wife might say, "No, it's not doing anything. " Because you're thinking there, right? I mean, out the word English for doing, right? I even though it can have practical context sometimes too, you know. But we make this distinction in English between doing and what making. It's example that way of names becoming equivocal by reason. You could divide doing into making and what doing, and making gets a new name because there's a product apart from the doing, right?

[45:51] And then the operation that doesn't have a product keeps the name what doing, right? Huh? But the operation doesn't have a product is actually a more perfect doing, right? The doing that doesn't have a product. So I'm I'm kind of inclined to like the word doing, you know, but you have to explain it a little bit, right? You know, I guess your wife might think you're not doing something.

[46:18] I talked about the guy, you know, one of my philosophers, you know, he's sitting in the room there reading books, and he looks up and thinks about what he just read, you know, and then his wife thinks, "Well, he's not doing anything now." If he's reading, you know, he's doing something, but but you know, if he pauses and looks up like that, he must be just you know daydreaming something, coming up his small talk or something, you know, and that's so funny, I think, you know, the way women don't understand what a flosser is, but

[46:49] but this is probably the most important part. We read a book, right? You stop and say, "Think of that. That's something, you know." You kind of go over it, you know. Sometimes I read a book and I just stop and I remember whatever I just read, you know, and think about it. That's kind of when it kind of really sinks in, you know. That's when I told you.

[47:05] That's a really doing something, you know. That's what my mother did to me last year when I was reading something. She was sitting next to me in the chair, and she's she's really deaf, so I'm reading something, and I looked up. I'm trying to reason it out. I guess my lips were moving. I didn't realize. Yeah. I said, "Who are you talking to?"

[47:24] Who are you talking to? I said, "Oh, I'm just kind of reason out what I'm reading. Oh, what are you reading?" You know. And likewise, the suitable good be obtained by some what, operation,

[47:47] and one's own operation is a certain good that is what convenience, suitable, fitting. Hence, it is necessary that every what pleasure follows upon some what operation.

[48:08] So you don't get pleasure sleeping, I guess, huh? Let's see if we get that kind. What about the first one? It says the objects aren't the objects, the causing the pleasure, right?

[48:28] To the first, therefore, it should be said that the objects of operations are not what delightful or pleasing. Except insofar as they are joined, what, to us, huh? Either by knowledge alone, in some cases, huh? As when we delight in the consideration or begin to of some things, right?

[48:59] Or in some other way, together, see more, right? With what, knowledge, huh? Just as one delights in this that he knows himself to have some good, as for example, wealth, or honor, right? Or something of this sort, huh?

[49:23] So if you know you are loved, right? It's good to be loved, huh? Aristotle's that comparison there, you know. He says to be loved is a way to be honored, right? But to be loved is really better than to be honored.

[49:47] Which are not delightful except in so far as they are grasped or known as something had, right? Whence the philosopher, as the philosopher says in the second book of the Politics, huh? It has great pleasure to think something to be what, one's own, right? Which proceeds from the natural love of one to himself. So you naturally love yourself. So I have this nice edition of Shakespeare. You'd be very happy, right?

[50:26] Delightful. You know, it's my my copy of Shakespeare, right? Okay. My little grandchildren, right there. Yeah. To have, right, of this sort, is nothing other than to use these things or be able to what, use them, right? Huh? Like this bookcase with the nice books. What should I look at tonight? You know.

[50:58] And this is through some operation, right? Take it down and read it. Once it is clear that ownness, gee, see, Thomas, very strong. That every pleasure is reduced into some operation, as in a what, cause. Wow, what a What a mind this guy has.

[51:22] Now why doesn't he have the seven articles. That's the question. Yeah. But this will become more clear, right? The fundamental truth, right? But the way he's ordered is right. Not only is he looking before, he looks to the causes, but that he orders this article before all the rest, right? Would you think of that as a place to begin? Hmm. Because he's got help from Aristotle, you know.

[51:47] And he didn't do it all by himself. I was talking to his students last night about the eight senses of in, right? What's kind of remarkable is that in the text, Thomas is saying this in the fourth book of the Physics, right? And Aristotle distinguishes the eight chief or central core senses of in. He's got eight of them, right? But he doesn't put them in order. And Thomas said, "Well, now let's put them in order in the way Aristotle puts the senses of the words in order in the fifth book of Wisdom, right?

[52:23] " So he's learning from Thomas Aristotle doing, and then he orders them from one to eight. Beautifully he orders them. That's absolutely beautiful. And

[52:33] it's how many things that lead you to understand, right? I was kind of struck by I was thinking about the senses of thinking out the other day again, and there's one sense of thinking out corresponding to the second sense of in, one corresponding to the third, one to the fourth, right? One to the fifth and one to the sixth and one to the seventh, right? But the ones corresponding to the second, the third, the fourth, and the what fifth pertain to the logic of the first act.

[53:10] The one corresponding to the sixth sense corresponds the second act, and the one corresponding to the seventh sense to the third act. So how it illuminates, right? Logic, right? You know, when I was first teaching logic, there used to have a logic course required. Everybody used to be the first course required in philosophy, logic course, and I got to thinking about the this phrase "thinking out," you know, I thought was so good, you know, and I was thinking out the senses of thinking out through the senses of in, right?

[53:40] So I told you I went to Monsignor Dionne and said, "What do you think of this word 'thinking out'? " I thought was very good, and then he told me, "But you can't say this in French, you know, because French is just defective language. " compared to English. I told you that a million times ago both Monsignor Dian and Father Boudet, you know, whose native language is French, you know, said that English was superior to French for both philosophy and for poetry.

[54:11] I mean, Brucke says this, or Brucke says more French, or I'll sort this out. What the hell is opinion worth? But here's people whose native language is is French, right? And they can see the superiority of English. I told you what the the the philologist up there at the ball said: the English language is the greatest invention of the human mind. Oh, really? Yeah. I remember the German and the Austrian priest telling me because he stumbled over the pronunciation of English, so he didn't like English because of that, and.

[54:41] English is a dumpling language, which he meant. You pronounce the word like you have a dumpling in your mouth. That's how you pronounce it. That's how you pronounce it. Because he was trying to say the word euthanasia. Yeah. Because he was reading it. He had me sit next to him while he was reading this discourse of Poli. Yeah. And he says, "Of course, it was perfect German, derived from the Greek 'euthanasia.

[55:05] ' " And I said, "Euthanasia." And he said, "What? Good boy, euthanasia, euthanasia. " Our assistant pastor, he's from Poland, you know, and of course, he has a little problem pronouncing sometimes English words, you know, and it's a little hard to what he's saying, you know, but it's a little kind of.

[55:27] You see. Okay, the second objection, right? Even in those, in which what the operations are not the ends, right? But the things operative, the things operative, the things done, right? Or made, are delightful in so far as they are had or made, right?

[55:57] Which again refers to some use or operation. Look what I've made! Wow, beautiful. Now, what about this thing about rest? You know. Oh yeah.

[56:17] To the third, should be said that operations are delightful in so far as they are proportioned to and connatural to the one doing them, right? Now, since human power or strength is what finite, right? According to some measure, operation is what proportioned to it, huh? Whence, if it exceeds that measure, already it is no longer what proportioned to it, nor what delightful, but more laborious and weary.

[56:51] Weary, yeah, yeah. According to this, hate Or idleness. Idleness, Excuse me, I want to say odium, I think the odium. And according to this, idleness and ludic play, right? And other things which pertain to what rest are delightful in so far

[57:15] as they take away the sadness which is from what labor, yeah, yeah. So professors tell jokes in class sometimes, right? It's kind of you need them for that, yeah. Tell you what this guy was saying, you know. Looks down upon the students as he's lecturing, you know. Their expression of faces, like. Why are you doing this to me? Kind of strange, you know. You know, to think about these things.

[57:48] So.