Prima Secundae
123. Habits in the Angels: The Names of God, the Per Se Axiom, and Pure Act (Summa I-II q.50 a.6)
Class of 2013-05-16
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/123-habits-in-the-angels-the-names-of-god-the-per-se-axiom-and/

[0:00] In the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the, Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo gratias. God, our enlightenment. Guardian angels, strengthen 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've written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

[0:35] Just reading Thomas there about the four groups of names of God. When he's speaking of the groups of names of God, there's names that are said properly of God, right? You could add, you know, two of these four, the names that are said metaphorically of God, right? The Lord is my rock, and so on. What are the four groups of names that are said of God? Interesting, the way he divides them, right?

[1:11] And he takes two of them, kind of on the side of what naming God from creatures, huh? And one, of course, is naming God negatively, right? He's simple, meaning he's not composed, right? Or he's incorporeal, right? Huh? And so on. And then these relations, these names of God, whereby he's what related to what creatures as their Lord or their Creator. And this is one of the most difficult things in theology that these names of relating God to creatures are not real relations with God, but they follow upon the way we have to understand.

[1:58] He has those two groups of names, huh? And then he has names that apply to God Himself, and some of them correspond to a real distinction of things in God, and that's the names of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And the others don't correspond to a real what distinction of things in God, but they have their foundation in God, huh? Imperfectly understood by us, huh?

[2:26] And so God is good. God is perfect, and so on, huh? So interesting. Interesting. Kind of beautiful the way Thomas begins with that four questions. You know, whether God is nameable. Only Thomas would be so basic, you know, huh? I think St. Augustine speak of that somewhere. He said maybe it's in De Trinitate or something. He says about God being ineffable, but if we say that He's ineffable, we're saying something about Him.

[3:02] So He says we should just stop right there. Just don't go any further, than that. Okay. Well, I guess we're down to the last article here in question fifty, huh?

[3:20] But notice how, how in articles three and four and five, we're kind of setting the topic for the subject of the what? Yeah, the virtues, right? And both the cardinal virtues and the what? Theological virtues, huh? Theological virtues, the virtues whose objects are what? Whose object is God Himself, right? Himself. But Thomas sticks in thinking about the angels here, right? huh? Well, I'm taking up with the angels here.

[3:54] I'm reading about the motion of the angels, you know, in the sentences there. Beautiful text, Thomas. I'm trying to understand my guardian angel, but he's a hard guy to understand. He's he's very amused at me. I think. The angels must have a sense of humor, right? They must find this funny, huh?

[4:22] My old teacher Kasurik used to say, "The angel watching you make a decision is like you watching an angleworm, you know, trying to decide where to go."

[4:34] Used to say when your soul leaves your body, and you see your guardian angel, you'll say, "This is God," And the guardian angel says, No, no, no, no. You got a much higher way to go.

[4:46] I'll take you to purgatory right now." And then you'll see God afterwards. Afterwards. After you're prepared. In the catharsis there, right, yeah? Yeah. That's a catharsis of the what? Soul. The will, the will. Okay. Socrates talks about a catharsis of what? Reason, right, huh? Aristotle talks about the catharsis of the emotions. The medical doctors talk about the catharsis of the body.

[5:19] When they're fighting cancer, something like that, they're trying to purge the body, right, of something that is harmful to the body, huh? And when you're mistaken, then you need to be purged. Another way, huh?

[5:33] But your emotions needs to be purged, right, huh? And your will. Okay, to the sixth one goes forward thus: it seems that in the angels there are not habits.

[5:56] For Maximus says, and he's a commentator on Dionysius, In the seventh book on the celestial hierarchy, it does not seem to be what suitable, right? To think that what intellectual virtues, that is spiritual virtues, right? In the manner of what accidents, right? As they are in us, are found in these divine or godlike understandings.

[6:38] That another in another, right? Should be as in a subject. For every accident there is what repulsed or is not to be found. But every habit is an accident in the what category of quality, right? Which is one of the accidents.

[7:05] Therefore, the angels there are not what habits. So you've got to understand in the the nine the genera of accidents, right? For the distinction of the ten what highest genera. Aristotle is famous for, but giving us the distinction of the highest genera. It's a distinction of what ten highest genera.

[7:33] It doesn't explain how he got the ten, right? But Thomas, when he explains that, the two places explains it. He uses what eight distinctions in the two or three to explain the distinction of the 10, right? He breaks it down. for us. Yeah, but he does it by distinctions of two or three.

[7:56] How many distinctions do you need to distinguish the sacraments? Because the mind couldn't understand the distinction of seven, right? Which ultimately you do, right?

[8:09] One? Two? Three. No. No. How many do you need to do? What I've seen them distinguished in different ways. So you need basically five distinctions, right? First, distinguish what five and two, right? You distinguish matrimony and holy orders against the other what five, right? Because matrimony and holy orders are ordered to the good of others, right? Okay, not to the good of the individual soul receiving them, right?

[8:41] Okay. My my sister-in-law always tells about going to register them at the parish, right? And the priest kind of said, "Do, "You have any children?" And she says, "Oh yeah." He said, "Well now you know what it's all about." He says. And she just laughed. She said.

[9:00] But that's the purpose, practically, right? Huh? Is to what generate more members of the church, right? And educate them in the faith. And the priest is what he's not ordained for his own good, right? He's ordered, he's ordained for the good of the church, huh? To sacrifice and administer sacraments, right? And so on. Okay.

[9:25] Just reading Hamlet there, you know, of course, when he's talking to his father, the ghost, right? And the father is complaining about the fact that he was sent off to the next world, right, without having the last sacraments, huh? And of course, it is mentioned there of you know even of extreme unction, right, the last unction. You've got to know the you've got to have Kittredge's notes, right, huh, to know what the what he's saying there.

[9:51] But the word for oil there is in there, and so on. So he sounds very Catholic there when Shakespeare speaks you know of the. Being unhousled right? Not having received communion, and

[10:08] he not prepared, right? Didn't have the sacraments of confession, so on. So then you'd have to distinguish the five into what? Two, right? The three are kind of perfecting the soul, right? And Thomas compares them to the what? The living soul, right? Where you have these three acts, right? Nourishing yourself, growing, and reproducing, right? You have baptism and confirmation, which is like growth, and then Eucharist, which is like nourishment.

[10:50] Then you have the two they're concerned with, what? Failure right? Yeah. So you've got to divide the five into three and two, and then you divide the three into three, obviously, and the two. So you have altogether what? Five, five, yeah. So not as many.

[11:14] If you take Porphyry, Porphyry, you know, because he's going to talk about genus, difference, species, property, and accident, right? How many divisions you have to have to get the five?

[11:26] Well, he divides, you know, he can divide property and accident against the other three because three are essential and three are outside, and then he subdivides the two, right? And then the three, you could take the three, or you could divide them into two, and then get one of them, so divide it again. So

[11:49] okay. So all that because he's talking about a habit is an accident, like there are accidents in the what? Angels, huh? Moreover, as Dionysius says in the fourth chapter of the Celestial Hierarchy. Now

[12:11] these two famous works of Dionysius, right? There are many of the works, but the one in Celestial Hierarchy and the one on what? Divine names, right? And Thomas Aquinas wrote a commentary on the Divinis Nominibus, right? And Albert the Great his teacher did on the celestial what? Hierarchy, right? But Thomas uses Celestial Hierarchy, right? And he talks about the angels, huh?

[12:37] You seen those paintings of the great Fra Angelico? You know where the kind of this stately dance, and you got the men intertwined with the angels, right? So they're all together, the angels. Beautiful the way he represents those things, huh?

[12:57] Okay, more as Dionysius says in the fourth chapter of the celestial hierarchy, the holy what dispositions of the celestial essences, right? Above all, right, partake, right? The goodness of God Yeah.

[13:20] But always what is per se is before and more potent than what is to another. That's a very famous what? axiom. Axiom, yeah, distinction between the per se and the per aliud, right?

[13:36] Therefore, the essences of the angels are perfected through themselves to conformity to God. They're godlike creatures to begin with. They don't need these accidents that we need to become godlike.

[13:51] Not, therefore, through some habits. And this seems to be the ratio of what? Maximus, the one who quoted there, right? Who there joins? For if this were right, they would not be what? Would not remain in themselves their essence, right? Nor would they be godlike, huh? Would be godlike per se. As much as is possible, would this be possible? Now you've got to be careful of that axiom, right?

[14:29] Per se is before the per aliud huh Now one of the most interesting examples of that, there's two very important ones. One is the Manichaeans, right? And they said that what if something is bad to another, there must be before it something that is bad to itself. It has to be something that is badness itself. And this is kind of opposed to God, who is goodness itself, right?

[15:01] So it does not follow from the axiom, right? If you're not entirely bad, which I assume you're not entirely bad, you're a bad per aliud right? huh To another, right? You partake of evil. Bad. Okay. But there must be something therefore essential, right, to partake of, right? Must be something which is bad itself. That is the evil that's opposed to God, right? That's the Manichaean thing, right?

[15:37] And you know Augustine what was under the influence of the Manichaeans there for a certain part of his life. I'm seeing beyond there, you know, in terms of the importance of the liberal arts, right? You heard that story, I think, but. Before the he met the great teacher of the Manichaeans, of course he couldn't follow what he was saying and whether it was true or false, but he didn't seem to know the liberal arts.

[16:13] There is something fishy about this guy who talking about these things way above you, right? And doesn't know the things that he should start, with, right?

[16:25] So he'd say, what if Augustine had been educated little bards, right? What would have happened to this great doctor? Right? " So the other famous example is what that of Plato, right?

[16:46] Am I man himself, or do I partake of human nature? What would you say? Partake. Yeah, yeah. Well, before what is per aliquid, right? There must be something per se, so there must be a man himself to himself, right? And so Plato talks about the man himself to himself and the dog itself itself, and that seems to follow from the axiom, right?

[17:13] And they both seem to be following from the axiom. What's wrong with those arguments? Might be might be easier to speak to the Manichaeans than to the Platonists, because then you could argue about the existence of evil. It's not something that's not, but the other one is harder to deal with. Well, when you come to understand what the bad is, primarily, right? It's really the lack of something you're able to have and should have, right?

[17:46] Huh? So there can't be something whose very essence or nature is to be a lack, you know. But you have to understand it. You can see how a person who doesn't really understand what the bad is, right? And thinks the bad is is just like the good, right? There's good and bad things in this world, right? And they're x equal, you know, or they're both around you, right?

[18:06] Huh? And if there is good and bad things in this world, there must be something that is good to itself and something that is bad to itself, right? But when you come to know the nature of a of bad, you can speak of it as nature, It's using the word nature in a very what extended sense, right? But you know, nature in the strict sense, what a thing is, can't be a lack.

[18:33] Of course, there's all kinds of arguments against that, right? If if it is bad itself, it couldn't have anything good in it at all. Just like God, being goodness itself, can't have anything what bad in itself, right? Huh? When Thomas takes up the goodness of God, he shows that he's he's good first. Then that is goodness itself, and then it can't have anything bad in it, right?

[18:59] Okay. Well, if there is a bad itself, a bad something bad to itself, it wouldn't have anything good in it, and therefore couldn't have any existence, because existence is something good. So it's impossible for it to be right. But Aristotle, you know, in the what the seventh book of of wisdom, right, kind of shows that Plato is mistaken there, right? It goes back to the nature of man, right?

[19:29] There couldn't be a man himself through himself, because it's the very nature of man to be what material, and therefore to be what individual, right?

[19:45] So you got to be careful there, right? Even when using an axiom, that you might not understanding something else, right? Use the axiom to posit something rather strange, huh The evil itself. Moreover, habit is a what disposition, as is said in the fifth book of wisdom, fifth book after the books of natural philosophy.

[20:18] But disposition, as is said there, is the order of what has parts. Since therefore the angels are simple substances, it seems that there is not in them dispositions, and consequently not habits, right?

[20:39] But against this is what Dionysius himself says in the seventh chapter of the celestial harpy, that the angels of the first harpy are called what calefacientes huh? They're burning, huh? They're with love, huh? In the thrones, in the effusion of wisdom, huh? And manifestation, right? The what? Any form of habit. Yeah.

[21:08] Now see what the master says here. I'm glad he talked about the angels and you know, teacher. So he said, anytime you want to start studying the angels again, he says, "Oh, yeah, great man." Answer. It should be said that some lay down that in the angels there are not habits, right? But that whatever are said of them are said what essentially. Now here, in a way, they're confusing the angels with God Himself, right?

[21:39] If we say that God is is wise, or God is just, right? Do we mean that He has wisdom as something other than His substance? Or we say that God has is just, He has justice, is justice some virtue that He's acquired, has had? He's partaking, isn't it?

[22:01] No, wisdom and justice in God are the very substance of God. Huh? Strange as that may be, right? Huh? But the angels seem to be like God compared to us, as my teacher Kasurik was saying. You're going to start to fall down if you can fall down. You're so separated. This is God. I didn't realize that you know how beautiful God is. You know, no, no, I'm just an angel.

[22:26] I'm just a guardian angel. I'm just here to conduct you away to purgatory. I'll wait for you before you take care of business. You really see God, then you go. Take care of business. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[22:40] Purged your business, Mister Burquist. You have great need of being purged. Whence Maximus, huh? After the foresaid words, which we have, what brought in, huh? Says, huh? The habitudines they are right, because their habits, atque virtutes and the virtues which are in them right, are essentiales, right, they're essential right, on account of their what, immateriality right.

[23:17] And this also Simplicius says in his commentary on the Categories of Aristotle, which in Latin they call the predicamentorum right, Predicamenta. This is a quote now from Simplicius there in the Latin translation. The wisdom which is in the soul is a habit, but that which is what, in the understanding substance, intellectual, is a substance right.

[23:52] For all things which are divine and what, sufficient to themselves are existing in themselves right, and not in another right. Now, what does Thomas say about this position right? It's very interesting that that position isn't it? This

[24:17] reminds me of that position there you know where Aristotle's talking about the the man who has virtue been virtualized in the middle between two extremes. And the courageous man seems to the foolhardy man to be a coward, and to the coward he seems to be foolhardy right. And Shakespeare deals with this in Coriolanus right now, and well it's something like this right, the angels in between us and God so.

[24:49] Looked at from the point of view of God, the angels seem to be almost like men right, but looked at from the point of view of men, they seem to be what, good God.

[25:03] It's like those little plays in Shakespeare right on the kinds of romances right. Some of them are in the original edition put with the tragedies, and some were put with the what comedies huh? Because some of them are closer to the comedies and some closer to the tragedies, and therefore looking at it from the other extreme, they seem to be tragedies or comedies. They're really something in between.

[25:28] Well Thomas says which position partly huh? Partly has truth, my goodness, and partly contains falsehood right huh? For it is manifest from the foregoing that the subject of a habit is only what is a being in what potency.

[25:50] Now considering the foresaid commentators, that is Maximus right and Simplicius right huh? Very learned people apparently. You know Simplicius better than Maximus, but the foresaid commentators. Therefore, considering that angels are immaterial substances, and that in them there is not the potency of what matter.

[26:22] According to this, they exclude from them habit and indeed every accident, right? Because they don't have that. What? Yeah, they don't have the potency that is matter, right? Which is the potency we know best.

[26:40] But does that mean that the angels are pure act like God? No, because they receive their existence from God, right? So they're in potency to their existence,

[26:54] and this because although in the angels there is not the potency of matter, there is nevertheless in them some kind of what potency. For to be pure act is proper to what God.

[27:18] And of course, the idea that God is pure act is kind of something we can use to show all the attributes of the divine substance: that He's simple, that He's what perfect, that He's what infinite, that He's unchanging, eternal, and altogether one. Right.

[27:40] That's one reason why I think that the order in the Summa Contra Gentiles is interesting, right? Because as he begins the consideration of substance, he naturally brings in that God is pure act, which he doesn't do in the Summa Theologiae. He has to kind of bring in an ad hoc there at the beginning of the consideration of simplicity of God. That's kind of the middle term for showing all those things, not the only way of reasoning to them, but it's kind of a fundamental one.

[28:10] This goes back to the famous what ninth book of wisdom, where Aristotle takes up what ability first, and then act, and distinguishes the various kinds of ability and various kinds of act, and then the third part takes up the order, right? Kind of following Shakespeare's definition, right? You have to see the distinction, right, of things, and then you can see that along there's what order, and that's where he brings out that in almost every way act is before ability.

[28:43] It's only the way in which a thing that goes from ability to act that ability is before act, but it goes from ability to act because it's something already an act. So simply. And not secundum quid, right? Simpliciter act is before ability, and therefore the first being must be what pure act. If it has, if it was an ability and it had been actualized, there would be something before it.

[29:11] So God is the first being, this being is pure act. That's kind of a big mistake of the moderns there, right? They kind of go back to the early Greeks, huh? They make ability be what, or potency be simply before what act, huh? So it's a fallacy of what

[29:34] simply a, simpliciter and secundum quid, right? Because ability is before act in some way, right? Therefore, simply what came first is some kind of matter that you know evolved by some evolution, right? Huh? Yeah.

[29:58] But these guys are kind of thinking of the. ancient Angels being kind of what pure act because they don't have this ability that is matter, but they have another kind of ability.

[30:10] And therefore, in so far as there is found in them potency or ability to use the English word, to that extent in them there can be found what habits.

[30:26] But because the potency of matter and the potency of an intellectual substance are not of one what ratio or one definition, right? This is a word that's equivocal by what reason, huh? Therefore, neither consequently is habit of one what definition in both, right? But it's equivocal by reason. When Simplicius says in his commentary on the Predicaments also that the habits, ah, he's a minister of habits, right?

[31:00] The great Simplicius, God bless him, that the habits of the intellectual substance are not similar to those which are here habits, right? But they are what More similar, yeah. But they are like the simple and immaterial species which they contain in themselves. Okay. Well, we got to think higher here, Simplicius. He's a great guy. Thomas corrects Simplicius. Didn't mean the categories before.

[31:38] Now about the habits of this sort, in one way the angelic understanding has itself, and another the what human understanding. Now the human understanding, since it is infamous, huh? That's not infamous now, but lowest, lowest. It's always infamous.

[32:04] There's a famous passage of Aristotle in the in the second book of the De Anima on the soul, you know, where he's complaining that the early Greeks they tried to show the cause of knowledge in man and the other animals, they didn't show the cause of deception in error. And he says, well, if you're going to consider what's in man the animals, it's more error than knowledge of the truth, right?

[32:29] So he should have explained why they are so often what deceived or mistaken, right? And I guess you know if you studied camouflage in the animal kingdom, you realize how much deception goes on there.

[32:48] So the human understanding, since it is lowest in the order of understandings, is in potency, right, with respect to all understandables, huh? And therefore, it's proportional. In the order of what, the understandable to what, prime matter is in the order of sensible things, just as prime matter with respect to all sensible forms. Okay.

[33:28] And therefore, it needs some habit for what, understanding all things. Okay. But the angelic understanding does not have itself as pure potency in the genus of what, understandable things. Huh. But as a certain what, act. Not over as a what pure act.

[33:59] For this is only of God. Okay. And notice when, you define God as pure act. Um. Pure is what does it mean? Without passive ability, right? Okay. So pure is grammatically it's negative negative, but in meaning it's negative, right? huh It's a little bit So, but like when you say that God is simple, right? Well, Thomas takes up to show God is simple. He shows he's not composed of say matter and form, right?

[34:40] He's not composed, you know, quantitative parts, right? He's not composed of substance and existence and so on. He goes through all these kinds of composition, right? And then he argues finally that he's not composed in any way, right? So to say that God is simple, even though grammatically speaking, simple is not a negative word, right? Huh? It really is what. Negative in meaning, in the sense it means not what.

[35:06] Not composed, yeah. The same with the word pure, right? Um. I want to touch an example of that kind of fallacy. What do you think? Where pure, grammatically speaking, seems to be what affirmative, right? Figure of speech. Yeah, yeah. Wonder. It seems like it's. Right. I wonder. I wonder. Yeah. It seems very simple, right? Yeah. See, what word like you know to say that God is unchanging or incorporeal grammatically the what.

[35:46] The negative, right? But simple and pure seem to be like affirmative, right? And watch out for language, huh? Deceptive thing, right? Dangerous thing. Very dangerous thing, huh?

[36:13] But it's not, however, as pure act in the order of the understandable, for this is only of what, God. It's interesting. The Aristotle speaks of God as being the most knowable of all, right? But not to us. Yeah. But again, you have that famous distinction between the simply and secundum quid, right? So even the beginning of the physics, there in the preamble to the physics, he distinguishes between what is more known to us than what is more known simply, right?

[36:45] And the natural road is from what is more known to us to what is more known what simply. And it's beautiful, you know, in the ninth book of wisdom there He takes up act and ability, and he shows that things are knowable to the extent they are an act.

[37:04] So the thing that is most knowable is what is most an act, and that's the pure act, which is God, right? But to us, what act is most known? Yeah. And you know, Shakespeare says things in motion sooner catch the eye than what not stirs, and our knowledge begins with our senses. So motion is the act that's what most known for us, known to us.

[37:32] And that's why Aristotle begins the ninth book of wisdom there in the first part there, where he talks about ability for motion, right? And it's not until the second part that he starts to see act in a universal way, right? And

[37:50] so I always think you know of all the interest people have in in football and of the sports, you know, but it's all motion, right? Huh? You know. And we go see a movie nowadays, you know, it's all slam bang, you know, boom, cars smashing, fires and explosions, but it's all motion, right? Huh? Of course, the word movie, you know, itself. It's kind of easy to watch a movie, you know.

[38:19] Your brain dead. Yeah, yeah, And I was in Quebec, there, you know, and used to have the old, still had newswheels in those days, you know, and have any more, but but they but the newswheels are called in French les actualités

[38:36] what's what's what's going on, right? You kind of see that in in in Marx, You know, and and Hegel to some extent, you know, that reality is what motion, right? huh? And that's why these people were kind of caught up with history and the philosophy of history. It's the movement that's real, you know. Everything else is static and kind of unreal, you know. And see how

[39:03] people have a hard time understanding. You know, just all you can be doing is looking at God for forever, you know. Would you get bored? Yeah. We ever get a big game? Do something.

[39:22] It's a great big football game. That's what people envision. Oh wow! Most interesting game you ever seen. Yeah. You know, when Shakespeare talks about fashion, right now he sees that. That's where he says that things in motion sort of catch the eye and whatnot stirs. So that motion, that change, right now gets people going.

[39:53] Okay. But the angelic mind, although it's an act, It's with a. permixione right? With a little mixture of some potency, right? Huh? And it has less of potentiality or potency; the more it is what? Higher. Is higher, yeah.

[40:17] And therefore, as has been said in the prima pars, in so far as it is in potency or ability, it needs to be perfected habitually, right? Through some understandable forms for its own what? Operation. But in so far as it is an act,

[40:39] its very substance is an act, right? Huh? And separated from matter, to its very essence, it can understand some things, right? At least itself, right? Okay.

[40:53] And others, according to the mode of its own substance, as is said in the book De Causis, right? Huh? And the more perfectly, the more perfect it itself is, right? Okay. So I think you know we mentioned before that the angel understands himself, what he is, through his own what? Substance, right? Huh? And there was that famous objection to this, you know, where it said, "Well, the understanding or the power of understanding of the angel is in his substance.

[41:28] So how can his substance be in his power of understanding?" And Thomas solves it by saying that there's a different sense of in, right? Because his power of understanding is in his substance as an accident in his subject, right? But his substance is in his understanding, not as an accident, but as a understandable form, right? That by which he understands. Huh? He's amazing. Which is those angels?

[41:56] When your soul is separated from your body, that makes it actually understandable. And then your soul understands itself through itself. But in this life, as Aristotle teaches in the De Anima, we know the soul through its powers, and the powers through the acts, and the acts through the objects. So it's a discourse, right? You know, from the objects we know the acts, and from the acts we know the powers, and the powers we come to know the what?

[42:24] Soul, soul. The book De Causis was thought for a while to be by Aristotle, right? And they discovered it's not by Aristotle. It's got profound some profound things in it, anyway. Thomas has a commentary in the De Causis. But because no angel arrives at the perfection of God, but he differs from him, Yeah. On account of this to attain to God himself. By his understanding and by his will, he needs somewhat habits, right?

[43:10] I was back to the problem I started the class with, right? You know, why do I need these two ones in the will, right?

[43:17] Hope and charity, right? Just one in the reason. something going on there Yeah, yeah. And why there is a link between those two? You can kind of see that in a way in philosophy, there, you know, because philosophy is named from the love of wisdom, right? Now, is it enough to be a philosopher to have this love of wisdom, right?

[43:56] As far as your will is concerned, I mean, you know, well, you might say wisdom is a wonderful thing, but I don't think it's possible for me, right? Okay, so unless you have hope of overcoming the what difficulties, right? You might not ever become a philosopher or pursue it, right? I told you that story when I was first, you know, young student there. Is that some kind of a social function?

[44:27] And got talking to some woman, and she said, "What am I? " I was a major in, and I said, "Philosophy." And she said, "Oh, let me tell you about this young man. He went to the University of Minnesota, and he heard of author A. He said one thing, and author B said something else, and author C something else, author D. He couldn't, he couldn't make any sense out of it.

[44:49] He couldn't resolve it, you know, and finally he said, 'I can't take anymore. ' And he threw his books away. He goes down. He lives on a farm now. Works a farm, and he refuses to pick up a book. So she was worrying me about the dangerous occupation that I had chosen, right? So,

[45:10] so given the weakness of our mind, right, and the proneness that it has to make mistakes and so on, you might say, well, I love wisdom, but I don't think I can what? Yeah, second man pursue the woman, right? Romeo loves what? What's her name? Is Rosalind, right? Huh? But she doesn't seem to give him the time of day. So, is it enough to love the woman to pursue her?

[45:36] You got to have hope that she's going to eventually. You know, if you lose complete hope, right? You know, then you say you despair, right? Huh? Of winning Rosalind, right? Huh? So I'm going to give up the pursuit of it, right? Huh? Okay.

[45:54] Maybe somebody would love to be president or love to be senator or something, right? Huh? But is that enough to run for office, right? So if I have no hope of getting elected, I find despair of what I am just going to go through the what motions. I am not going to really run a good campaign, right? Huh? So it's not enough to to to love to be senator or love to be president.

[46:23] You've got to what have the hope that you can. There are always difficulties in the way, right? Underinformed voters, they call them now. Yeah. That phrase all the time. The low informed. voter.

[46:41] That's what that's what politicians thrive on. Yeah, yeah, th, they had something on the TV the other day. There, so they go around interview people and see what they really think, you know. And I guess this woman has this program, Judy or Judge Judy. Yeah. She's yeah, and it's got a program on TV, you know, and so. And so the guy was going around saying, "What do you think of Obama appointing Judge Judy to the Supreme Court?

[47:05] Do you think it was a good idea? " Well, I think it was. Yeah, she. Uninformed, you know. I mean, they would have been on TV if he had done that. You know. That's what that's what they did. They did that in Canada. You remember that when we first got to Canada, it was during the end of the presidential campaign in two thousand. And they were going around Canadians, take delight in how stupid Americans are.

[47:28] Yeah. Talking to everybody about how Toronto being the capital of Canada, and every American, all Americans, like, oh yeah, Toronto's the capital. Just making like they didn't know that Ottawa was the capital of Canada. Yeah. So they got Al Gore. Yeah. And he didn't know. that Ottawa was the capital

[47:43] Nobody knows. So, because no angel arrives at the perfection of God, right? But he differs from it; he's distant from it in infinitude. On account of this, to obtaining God Himself through their understanding and will, they need somewhat habits, huh? As existing in potency with respect to that pure act, Whence Dionysius says that their habits are what deiformes by which they are conformed to what to God.

[48:34] But the habits which are dispositions for a natural being, like I suppose health in us and things of that sort, right, are not in angels, right? Since they are immaterial, right?

[48:45] So he applies them to the first objection that the word of Maximus should be understood about habits and accidents that are what material, right?

[48:56] The second should be said as regards this: what belongs to the angel through his own essence. For that, he does not need a what habit, right?

[49:07] But because they are not to themselves beings, right? But that they participate in the wisdom and in the goodness, the divine goodness. Therefore, insofar as he needs to partake of something from the outside, to that extent, it's necessary to lay down in them that there are what habits. To third, should be said that the angels there are not parts of the essence. The substance of the angel doesn't have parts like our.

[49:45] My substance has a body and a soul, and my body has all these parts that I can't even enumerate. But they are parts according to what potency, right? Huh. Insofar as the understanding is perfected through many what. species. Species or forms, and the will of them as itself to what many things. Well, thank you very much, Thomas. You spoke about the angels. I don't know if it's altogether necessary in this treatise here, you know, but I'm glad that he's thinking of my guardian angel and his own.

[50:23] I'll tell you, I sit in the tenth pew in the church. Did I tell you that? My wife and I, getting massive, go to the tenth pew. You know, so leave the first nine pieces for the angels. You know, one for each order.

[50:45] Does Rosalie know that? Yeah, I told her. How many times? Repetition is the mother of learning. So, remind her one. I'm in grade school, you know. The nuns would say, "no, wouldn't you? " I need a little room for your guardian angel, you know.

[51:07] It's a little more sophisticated than that, but it's not much more. Leave nine pews there in front of you for the angels. It's a metaphor. It's like. Yeah, sometimes the priest get annoyed, you know, the people you're sitting too far back, you know, and so on. If I was just sitting up further, you know, I'd leave that for the angels.