Prima Secundae
131. Summa I-II Q.55 aa.1-2: Is Virtue a Habit, and Is It an Operative Habit? (with the plan of the Summa Contra Gentiles)
Class of 2013-09-26
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/131-summa-i-ii-q-55-aa-1-2-is-virtue-a-habit-and-is-it-an-operative/

[0:00] Father and 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, ordain luminar images, and arouse us to consider more quickly. St. Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, help us to understand all that you've written. Father and Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. So we're starting in question fifty-five, which is going to talk about habits in particular, the good and the bad ones.

[0:41] So let's look at the little proemium here. Thomas says in the beginning, "Consequenter, right? We're not to consider about habits in particular, right? And because a habit, as has been said before, habits are distinguished by good and by bad, right? First, we're not to speak about the good habits, huh? Which are the virtues and other things joined to them, to wit, the gifts, like the gifts of the Holy Spirit, right?

[1:19] And the beatitudes, yeah, and the fruits of the Holy Spirit, I suppose, huh? Now about virtues, there are five things to be considered, huh?

[1:37] First, about the very essence of virtue, what it is. Secondly, about the subject in which it exists. Third, about the division or the distinction of virtues, as you'll see later on.

[1:57] Fourth, about the cause of virtue, and five, about certain what properties of what virtue? Virtue. And why does he give the subject of virtue before the division of virtues?

[2:22] Well, essentially, is what it is, right? Yeah, but why does he talk about that before he talks about the distinction or division of virtues? Well, division is based on the object. Because it resides in a different subject. and some of the different objects. different kind of objects. Yeah, yeah. It's in the intellect. The truth is a good maybe. Because later on, you'll distinguish between the virtues of reason, the moral virtues, right?

[2:51] They differ by their subject, right? The one that is in reason itself, and the other are in the will, or else in the concupiscible or irascible appetites right, that's maybe part of the reason why he does it.

[3:05] And then about the cause of virtue, right? Of course, reasonably last about the properties, huh? Now about the first four things are asked. First, whether human virtue is a what Habit, huh? I suppose there's some confusion there about the word virtus. Secondly, whether it's a habit that does something, an operative habit, huh? Whether it's a good habit. Very basic, this guy, huh? Yeah. And last but not least, the thing that he announced first, the definition of virtue, huh?

[3:51] Just in case, Thomas. Hold the thing down. Yeah. I think you know it's really my favorite book, as you know, is the Summa Contra Gentiles But you know the scandal that there's four books to the Summa Contra Gentiles. So obviously he's got to be combining, right? He was. More than one division, right? It's absolutely necessary. Okay. Now, you know the one where Aristotle gives the division to four in the beginning of the categories, he crisscrosses two divisions, right?

[4:23] Okay. When he divides syllogism into four, he crisscrosses two divisions, right? But when Thomas says divides the four kinds of opposites, right? He doesn't do that. But he distinguishes one kind of opposite from the other three. Division into two, right? And then he subdivides into three, right? And when Thomas gives this famous distinction, a fourfold distinction of order in comparison to reason, right?

[4:57] You can see that you divide into one and three because the first order he talks about is the order that reason considers but does not make, and the other three are orders that reason makes, right? So how do you get the four books of the Summa Contra Gentiles? Huh? You might think, you know, from past experience, does he do crisscrossing two and two, or does he have division into one and three, right?

[5:21] Well, neither. He crisscrosses a division of three and a division of two. You say, well, like he does when he takes up the six kinds of government, right? Where Aristotle is, right? You have rule by the one, the few, and the many, and then either good or bad. So you get tyranny and monarchy and aristocracy and oligarchy and you know republic and democracy and the bad majority sense.

[5:53] So why does he end up with six books instead of four? Right, he crisscrosses two and three. Obviously, one's division into two. Well, sometimes it happens, yeah, but that's not what he does here. Yeah, the two divisions he crisscrosses is the things that can be known about God by natural reason as well as by faith, right? Then the things that are known only by faith, right? That's a distinction into two, right?

[6:26] But in both he divides into three. He considers God in himself. God is the beginning of things, the Alpha, and then God as the end of things, right? Okay. So the first book is about God in himself, right? Insofar as he's knowable by natural reason as well as faith, then God as the beginning, the maker of all things, creator of things, and the something that what he's made, right?

[6:59] And then the third book, God is the end of all things, and therefore his providence for towards all things. I am going to detail the providence. Well, then the fourth book he does the same three things. Yeah, and say first of all talks about the Trinity, which is God in himself, right? Then he talks about the Incarnation, which is the greatest thing God made, and you know, sacraments are attached to that and so on.

[7:27] And then finally talks about the last things, right, which is about the end, right, the resurrection, of the body, and kind of generally sort of thing, right. So instead of having you know four, five, and six, he has three parts of book what four, right? So he's actually dividing into two, crisscrossing two and three, right? Except that in the part that reasoning can know as well as faith, he has three books for it, and the other one he has three parts of book four, right?

[7:56] So there is six parts. Yeah, you can say yeah, yeah, but but the first three parts are in separate books, right? In the last one or three parts of the fourth book because it's shorter, right? I'm going to assume with theology, it's by the way three parts, right? But it's complicated another way. I was looking at the little book you gave me on prayer, right? You know, and of course when Augustine and Thomas give something for the layman, right, like an epitome of Augustine on faith, hope, and charity, or Thomas's catechetical instructions he gives there in Naples, right?

[8:36] He doesn't divide it according to God in himself and the beginning and the end, but he divides it into three, right, according to faith, hope, and charity, right? But then prayer, which is taken up under hope, has a what? It's a principal part of what sacred doctrine, right? It's one of the three parts of sacred doctrine, you know, and it's very it's very proportioned people, right? I think it's kind of marvelous to see that Augustine did that.

[9:04] Thomas followed him, and even the Compendium of Theology, which is a shortened version, you know, but much longer than the Catechetical Instruction. that was written for his friend there. I don't want something he could carry around and and constantly think about these things, you know, a little bit. And so, although Thomas didn't finish it right, but he's again faith, hope, and charity, right? I think it's kind of marvelous that it was, like, that's when Thomas saw that, I mean, just how proportionate it is to people, right?

[9:33] And that's where the Catechism really is, you know. It's marvelous. Okay. To the first one precedes thus. It seems that human virtue is not a habit, right? And part of this problem arises because of the what? Aristotle has used the word virtus there, right? Virtue. Is the ultimate of the power, right? David, that means exactly right. As far as you can go, the power, so to speak. As I said in the first book on the what universe, right?

[10:16] That's the name that book is usually called in the Latin De Caelo et Mundo, right? But in Greek, I think it means it's really one word and says ends up on universe. So the Greeks have the same word for the universe and the heavens, right? But De Caelo in English, or in Latin, seems to mean just the heavens. So to get the whole universe into, you got to say De Caelo et Mundo, right?

[10:40] But here, I guess he uses the word De Celo, right? Which is, you know, yeah. That's a couple of to turn their things off and coming. Just about I go to mass every day, you know, and just about every other mass, you know, somebody. The people's phone or something. That's what they have. Was I reach this reach for a preacher to make sure the priest is turned off?

[11:03] Yeah. I saw actually somebody sent me. I don't know how we got this. Somebody sent me a video, but it was a Protestant, like a Bible study at church, yeah, do on Wednesday night. Yeah. Some one of the ladies. They're just a small group over here. Is that somebody's phone goes off? Yeah. And the pastor walks over, puts out his hand. Yeah. She hands him the phone.

[11:24] Smashes it on the floor. And they're all just mortified and holy. Well, if you go to the movies now, you know the screen tells you to, you know, turn it off. Oh really? Oh yeah, it's it's regular thing. Wow. It's a real addiction. Yeah.

[11:47] Yeah. Yeah. Pay attention. But the last of anything is reduced to that genus of which it is the what last, right? Just as the point to the genus of what line.

[12:00] Although the point is not a line, but it's the end of the line. Therefore, virtue is reduced to genus of power and not to the genus of what habit. Hmm. But that's kind of confusion in the word. But anyway, moreover, Augustine says in the second book on free judgment, huh? Just reading here, Summa Contra Gentiles us that God is de libero arbitrio you know. He does have that.

[12:28] Thomas gives about five reasons why he does. That virtue is the good use of what free judgment, huh? But the use of free judgment is an act. Ah. Not a habit.

[12:43] So it's like the use of reason, right? Huh? Okay. It changes exhortation, right? To use reason, right? To use the use of reason, it's the act of reason, right? Therefore, virtue is not a habit but an act. So this is kind of confusion in the words here. Moreover, we do not merit by habits, but by what? Acts. Otherwise, a man would merit continually, even when sleeping. But we merit by what?

[13:14] The virtues. Therefore, virtues are not habits, but they're what? Acts. I guess God's virtues are a matter of acts, right, and not habits. No habitual. Yeah. Stinking God. Moreover, Augustine, his guy, is pretty important, isn't he? Yeah. Seems being quoted twice as much as Aristotle. Moreover, Augustine says in the book on the morals, the church, that virtue is the order of love. That's really marvelous. Marvelous thing.

[13:51] Used to quote that sometimes I was teaching love and friendship, you know. They said marvelous. That's what they say. And in the book of the eighty-three questions, he says the ordering, which is called virtue, is to enjoy the things that should be enjoyed and to use the things that should be used, and not the, the reverse, which. Yeah. Is what people are doing in the. That's yeah.

[14:17] That's the habit of fallen human nature. Yeah. Yeah. But order or ordering names the act or relation, right? Therefore, virtue is not a habit, but an act or a what? Relation. Hmm.

[14:35] Moreover, just as there are found human virtues, so there are what? Natural virtues. But natural virtues are not habits, but certain what? Potencies or powers. Therefore, also neither are human what? Virtues habits, but natural powers. Hmm. But against all this nonsense is what the guy called the philosopher, the capital P. That's what kind of figure speech. Yeah. Yeah. But against this is what the philosopher says in the book on the predicaments, the categories, that science, reasoned out knowledge, and virtue are what?

[15:22] Habits. Yeah. Well, what does the master say? I answer it should be said that virtue names a certain perfection of a what? Power or ability, right? Now the perfection of each thing is most of all, especially considered in order to its what? End. Aristotle takes up the word "perfect" as it's found in creatures, at least. Huh. You know, in the fifth book of wisdom, there, the first sense of perfect or complete is, you know, what has all its parts.

[16:09] So if the chair here is missing a leg, it's imperfect, right? And then the second meaning he gives is that a poet has all the ability of its kind. So Shakespeare, Homer is the perfect poet, right? Because his plots, his characters, and his words, right? Aristotle said he taught all the other Greeks how to make a good plot. And and Hegel has this beautiful comparison of the characters of Homer, you know, with the characters in the French tragedies, because they're kind of one-dimensional, like a passion personified.

[16:51] But Homer's characters are like a diamond with all these facets to it, you know, magnificent, fully-rounded men, right? And then you know Hegel and Aristotle both, you know, praised the words of Homer, right, the similes and so on, right. So he's got the whole thing, right? Or Mozart is a perfect musician, right? You know, he can he can write everything, right?

[17:18] Um, every kind of music, right, for every kind of instrument, right. Didn't realize human voice could be so beautiful until Mozart wrote for it, right? I was reading about one of Mozart's early operas, right, and there was kind of a snickly, you know, soprano. It was, you know, and she was going to insert some of her Arias in there because it's boy, you know, fifteen-year-old boy, when she saw music written for it, she must be out of herself with joy, you know.

[17:45] It was so much, you know, fun to sing these things, you know, and you know everybody's going to be, you know, you know, staring at me. How's this intended to be Tullia Liberata? There, Mozart, not to fill people with it. He wrote it when he was fifteen years old. He said, "My God, what a piece of music for a guy that writes when he's fifteen years old!

[18:05] " Right? You have some beautiful, some stuffs in there, but anyway. Then the third thing Aristotle says is that the thing is perfect when it's reached its end, right? And that's the culminating sense he gives of perfect, right? Then later on, he he speaks the sense which God is perfect, which is a different sense altogether. But it's kind of interesting, you know, talking about creatures, right? A thing has all its parts, you know.

[18:41] You might say, or all the the capacity, all the parts of his capacity is a, you know, he's complete poet, right? Or complete musician, right? Or complete carpenter, right? Complete. I'm listening.

[18:58] But then the the culminating one, huh? That's what he says, proteuon right? Huh? That means the chief one, right? Huh? He calls Plato, Aristotle, the philosophical protos Thomas does huh Thomas does, huh? Okay.

[19:15] But the end of any power is its very what? Act, huh? Okay. So the end of my reason is, yeah. Whence the power is said to be perfect, according as it is determined to its own what? Act, huh? Now there are some powers which, by themselves, huh, are determined to their own acts as the natural active powers, right? So, digesting your food, right? Reproducing, so on. And therefore, powers of what?

[19:53] Natural powers of this sort, secundum seipsas by themselves, right, are said to be what? Virtues, right? huh The virtues of plants. Yeah, yeah. But the rational powers, which are proper or private to man, right, are not determined to some one thing, but they have themselves indeterminately to many. Thomas often goes back to that. That's why we have when people are living at random, right? They end up with something bad, usually, right?

[20:30] Because many ways to be bad, and one way to be good. Okay. But they are determined to definite acts through habits, right? As is clear from things said before about habits, and therefore human virtues are what habits, right? Okay. Now the objections are are many about the use of the word virtue, so but he'll be clearing that up when he applies to them, right? To the first, therefore, it should be said that sometimes virtue is said to be that to which there is virtue, to wit, either the object of virtue or its what act, right?

[21:16] Just as faith is said sometimes not the virtue, but that which is believed, right? This is our faith, right? Don't we say that at the end of the setting of the creed there, right? Okay. Sometimes for the what The very act of believing, right? Sometimes for the habit by which one believes, right? Okay. Isn't that true of other ones? Now we say that's justice. What does that mean?

[21:49] That mean the virtue of justice? No. No. Or the object is right. The rectified things, right? Okay. So this is nothing unusual. The same thing is pointed out there, right? Huh? Mm. Hm.

[22:03] Whence, when it is said, like Aristotle says, that virtue is the what? Last. Last thing of a power. Yeah. Virtue is taken for the what object of the of the of the power, right?

[22:20] For that in which a power can go last, right? Is that towards which is said the what Virtus of the thing, right? Okay. Now you know our word English word virtue that doesn't really carry all these senses, right? So that's that's part of our problem. And just as if someone is able to carry a hundred what Pounds. pounds and no more, his virtue is considered according to a hundred what pounds, right?

[22:51] Not however, according to such and such, like I was pointed out when Shakespeare defines reason by large discourse, right? Is even more capable of a small discourse. So why does he define it by what it's less capable of? Because that's the ultimate that it has—a large discourse, right? You can have a discourse even about God Himself, right?

[23:16] Discourse about the universe, right? Discourse about human happiness, right? These are great things to be discoursing, right? So he defines it by its ultimate. He's a smart guy. Got some brains, that day. Okay. I was looking at that

[23:37] picture of Shakespeare today, and that appeared in the original edition of Shakespeare. I mean, the first folio back in 1623, right? And of course, then had that picture on one page, another page. You had the thing from Ben Jonson, right, praising Shakespeare, right, and how the artist you know was trying to capture him. But if you could have captured his wisdom, you know, it would have been the greatest painting ever, right?

[24:01] But in order to get that, he's got to go read him now. He says, "You know, beautiful, you know, phrase by Ben Jonson." Okay. Now the objection proceeds as if, essentially, virtue was the what? Yeah, yeah, rather than its object, right? Okay. Now

[24:35] to the second objection, which is the one taken from the first text from Augustine, right? Okay. That virtue virtus is the good use of free will or free judgment. To the second, should be said that the good use of free judgment is said to be virtue, according to the same reason, right? To it that that to which virtue is ordered, as to its own what Act. act, right?

[25:04] So he took these two things—the object or the act—as both examples or things to which virtue is ordered, right, rather than being what virtue itself is, right? Okay.

[25:22] For nothing other is the act of virtue than the good use of free judgment. Now, what about meriting, Right? To the third, it should be said that we are said to merit by something in two ways.

[25:44] In one way, by the merit itself, in the way in which we are said to run by what? Of course. Yeah. By the running. And in this way, of course, we merit by acts, right? In another way, we are said to merit by something. As by the cause or the beginning of the meriting, right? Just as we are said to run by our motive power, right? So do I run by running, or do I run by my muscles?

[26:17] Yeah, but in two different senses of the meaning, right? Is that clear enough, right? Okay. Do I teach by my words, or do I teach by my knowledge?

[26:31] Well, both, right? I'll be reading a commentary. on. The Psalms there, you know. I think this was the forty-eighth Psalm there, where Thomas has to divide, you know, the beginning there. He says, "Who teaches teaches either things or words." And he says, "When we teach things, we teach faith or morals, right? We only teach scripture. We teach words, right? But you've got to understand properly, right? Obviously, you're not going to just talk about words, words, words.

[27:02] But if you are going to comment say on the Bible, let's say, right up front, you've got the words of Matthew and the words of Mark and the words of Luke and the words of of John and so on, right? And now you've got to what explain those words, right? What he's saying and why he's saying it, so on, right? Be part of it. So you are teaching words in that sense, right?

[27:27] But the words are going to signify something, right? But you talk about pick up a summa, then you are talking about God, or you are talking about virtue, or you are talking about some thing, right? Even though you the words are talking about it, right? It'd be a little. I think Thomas has to distinguishing those two, and you can distinguish, you know, the difference between Thomas when he's writing his commentary in Matthew or or John, say, and when he's writing the two summas and so on.

[28:04] So you see, it's a question of the different uses of the word, right? He's explaining here, right? To the fourth, it should be said, huh? That virtue is said to be the order or ordering of love, just as of that to which virtue is, right? For through virtue or by virtue, love is ordered in us, right? Inviting into the what?

[28:37] Cellar, wasn't it? The wine cellar. Yeah, and he ordered what? Order, yeah, for charity and order. Yeah, yeah. I mean, but the virtue, charity, in the race is going to order my love, right? That that I express, right?

[28:56] That's beautifully said, huh? Now the fifth objection is talking about natural powers that are of themselves or by themselves determined to something one, right? Okay. So I don't have to habituate my reproductive power to produce a man rather than a dog or a cat, right? Okay. But I could apply my reason, though, to thinking about God or thinking about virtue or thinking about something else, and that's be perfecting that, you know.

[29:33] I'm going to do some cooking, and I made some turkey marsala tonight. You know. I've got to. Think about it. Yeah, yeah. Plan it out. My wife told me a few things I should be doing. You know,

[29:51] don't think you're doing. See, I'm be perfecting my my thing, right? So all that, just to found that virtue, is a habit. In what sense we say virtue is anyway, habit. Now I was thinking of you know how Shakespeare says, "Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast." And how Aristotle, in the fourth book of wisdom, he spends almost the whole book defending the principle of contradiction, right?

[30:26] So that's what a slug bit right, because that's what's most known, right? But he's wise and slow, right? And then the fifth book, right, because he's shown in the beginning of the fourth book that being and one are the subject of wisdom, but they're not said in one way, right? Then he spends the whole book, book five, you know, this distribution is sense of the words, right?

[30:50] Paul's referring to it in the word "perfect" there, earlier, right? And Thomas was talking, you know, about God's will there, right, in the Summa Contra Gentiles, and there's an objection, you know,

[31:06] to God's freedom there, to God's creatures, right? If he's able to will the twin purpose be or not be, right? And there's some indetermination in God, and there's some potency in God, and they get all kinds of troubles, right? You know, and Thomas of course solves it by the sense of probable or possible that Aristotle distinguishes, which is not by any power. That's in the fifth book of wisdom.

[31:33] Who said that? But these people they they use these words and they don't what distinguish them, right? I remember when I was in graduate school, there we used to go to the library sometimes, and they were you know former theses and doctoral theses all there on shelves, right? And if you're interested in the topic of the doctoral thesis, you maybe you know just take it down and read a little bit.

[31:58] At that time, everybody was kind of interested in Marxism and so on, right? So I was looking at this one thesis on Marxism. And of course, the official name for Marxism is dialectical materialism, right? And materialism means that matter is the beginning and the source of all things. Dialectical means that there are opposites that are struggling, right? So this is very essential the idea of opposites, right?

[32:23] And they even you know the Marxist Lenin even quotes Heraclitus, right? War is the father of all things, right? A good exposition of the rudiments of dialectical materialism, he says, right?

[32:39] but they don't distinguish the four senses of opposites, right? That's a key thing in their philosophy, and they're not doing it, right? So this guy, you know, he stops at that point in his thesis there, and he goes you know to Aristotle, he does it in the Categories, the four opposites, and does it in the fifth book of wisdom, right? But just such a basic thing, you know, I mean for This is this is the fundamental thing in Marxism, you know.

[33:04] You think they would you know. and that's what Thomas is doing here with the word "virtuos, right? I mean, that's the fundamental word in this treatise, and he's stopping, right? Couldn't find anybody else doing that, you know. But he's he's he's except for Aristotle, right? Aristotle saw the need to do this, right? It's kind of marvelous to see.

[33:27] Thomas has a great deal of respect for Aristotle, you know. He's saying, but he uses him in theology, right? There's other marvelous examples of this. In what way? I'm just thinking of what quote you had long ago from Heraclitus, because this explains why St. Thomas does this. Because the wise man is strong in what is common, and these words are common. Yeah. We don't understand them. We can't be wise.

[33:59] Yeah. Yeah. And it's a good example. Wisely and slow, they stumble and run fast. Right? People run in using these words without even stopping to understand them, right? So if a man doesn't know the meaning of the words he's using, right, and mixing up the meanings of the words he's using, then he's in deep trouble, and that's the most common source of mistakes Aristotle says in the book on Sophistical Refutations right?

[34:25] We're already kind of doing that. Wouldn't be a bad introduction to metaphysics to make them do the fifth book, you know? Yeah. Get their heads. Yeah. You know, cleared up, you know. It's marvelous.

[34:39] Okay, Article Two. To the second, one proceeds thus: it seems that it is not of the how should I translate ratione. It's always a hard thing to do this this way.

[34:56] The notion of human virtue that it be a what Operative habit. What? It is essential. Yeah, well some sense I just remember this student asking Jacques Monléon how do you translate ratio He didn't realize what a difficult question. it was

[35:25] For Tully that's Cicero, right? You know how how in Thomas's coming in Scripture, you know, it seems that sometimes the same man has more than one name, right? Sometimes he's called the one name, the other name. But this happens here, right? And he's always called Tullius, you know. I'd more often call him Cicero, right? But it's the same guy. Is that in his Tusculan Questions? That's from Tuscany, I guess, huh?

[35:53] He was drinking a good wine there in Tuscany. I had a Tuscani Chianti there with. I was going to say Chianti with the. It's like a Cabernet. It's like a Cabernet Sauvignon. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think my brother Marcus gave me my first instructions in wine. Right? He says the world's two greatest red grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir. Right. I agree. But after those two, I put Sangiovese, right, And the great, you know, the varieties of it, you know, the great Barolas too, you know.

[36:28] Don't drink much Barolo. It's about forty dollars a bottle. So okay. For Tully says in the fourth book of the Tusculan Questions that just as health and beauty of the body, so also virtue of the what? Soul. Yeah. Okay. So health and there's some likeness there, right? Huh? And know we use those words in some ways, right? You know, we might say that the virtue is the beauty of the soul, right?

[37:04] And it's a good health of the soul, right? If somebody's vice, I say you're sick. You see that? We do. We do. Well, the Pope was talking about healing by preaching the gospel. Yeah. People must be sick. Yeah. I used to take the three main virtues of the body, so to speak, health and beauty and strength, right? And which one would you assimilate to justice, and which one to courage, and which one to temperance, right?

[37:40] Well, I suppose you think of bodily strength in those terms of courage, right? Health is more justice, and beauty is more temperance. Yeah, yeah.

[37:53] It was Thomas saying that every perfection in the creature is likeness to God, right? That's why I love those lines in Shakespeare's there, "Two Gentlemen of Verona. who is Sylvia that all our swains do commend?" her, Right? Heaven lent her such grace that she might admired be. It's beautifully said, right? Huh? Because her beauty has been lent her by heaven. You know how a woman tends to lose her beauty; she gets older, right?

[38:19] So it's lent her, right, that you know prime of her youth, you know. But but it's what? Likeness to God, right? The beauty of the body, right? Okay, For it's already the beauty of the soul. But I mean, well, well said by Shakespeare. Know, He says things very well. He's the master of the English language. Yeah.

[38:46] But health and beauty are not operative powers, right? Huh. Okay. Therefore, neither is what Virtue, right? Okay. Of course, how far was Tully trying to make that comparison, right?

[39:04] But in natural things, there is found a virtue not only to doing but to what being, right? As is clear through the philosopher in the first book about the heavens, that some things have the virtue that they be what always, right? Huh. And other things not to this that they be always, but for some what. Determined. Yeah. Okay. So you can speak, you know, some animals are longer living than other animals, right?

[39:32] And even some human beings live longer than others, right? Okay. I Went to the doctor, you know, I had my checkup. and I, my joke is, you know, I'm 77. I said, now it's not until I'm eighty that I consider myself an old man, right? And so he said, the medical profession regards 60 as being an old man.

[39:54] So I was telling him, you know, the you know I go I you know count the money you know on Sunday now for the church, and one of the other counters is is a medical doctor, he's retired now, Doctor White, you know? And somebody's asking you know about what is life like in the 60s, right? So he tells him you know expect in your 60s, and then what's life in the 70s, the guy asks, and he told him what you know life was like, and then and finally he says, and what is life like in the 80s?

[40:23] And he says, you don't want to know. So as a doctor, of course, the doctor said, you know, he knows Dr. White. He says, he's got a good, sense of humor, guy.

[40:39] He's always, you know, he and the lawyer, They're always kidding each other, you know. And he gives me a little bit you know, and he. Says, you know, what have you learned since you come in here? You know, what was I going to say? How to count? I said. That's a funny thing to say.

[40:57] You've come a long way. he'll say He's in stitches, you know, the way he is. But just as natural virtue is in natural things, so human virtue in what rational things, right? Therefore, human virtue is not only for doing, but also for what being.

[41:24] I mean, there's a reason why human virtue is kind of used just for doing, because that's something proper to man, right? He's got control of his actions. Yeah. Yeah. Got free will. Moreover, the philosopher says in the seventh book of the physics that virtue is a disposition of the perfect to the best.

[41:50] That's theology, right? There you go. But the best to which a man can be disposed to virtue is God himself, as Augustine proves in the second book on the what Morals of the church. To which the soul is disposed by assimilation to him, right? Therefore, it seems that virtue is called a certain quality of the soul in order to God, right? As it were, assimilative to him, right?

[42:26] Not in order to what operation, right? So by virtue you're not being disposed for operation, but you're being made like God, right? Those really aren't contradictory, don't think. It is not therefore a operative what habit.

[42:46] But against this is what the philosopher says in the second book of the ethics. This is the definition he gives: that the virtue of each thing is what renders its doing right good, right? Actually, the complete one, as he'll say, that it's what, what makes its haver good and its operation, good, right. When I was explaining this, you know, when I'd be teaching ethics, I would

[43:13] talk about the virtue of a knife, right? Just to, you know, concrete. and say, what would be the virtue of a knife, right? What makes a knife a good knife and its own act, which is to cut, good? Well, the main virtue is sharpness, right? And what would be the vice of it? Dull. Dull. Not put your mind. Moron. Moron. Dull. Moron.

[43:42] Or Warren Murray had up in his kitchen. I should tell that he had a little plaque there. You know, much virtue in herbs, little in men.

[43:52] And well, the virtue of a what herb is what makes it a good herb and makes it season things, right? Right. If you have herbs around too long, right, they lose their virtue they lose their virtue, right? Okay. I hope that doesn't happen to us. Is that the only word you get? Yeah, yeah. This is too old, this is too old. Why are you all my herbs?

[44:14] Okay. Okay. I answer. it should be said that virtue, from the very um, definition of the name, right, meaning of the name, implies a certain perfection of a power, right? huh. Whence, since there is a twofold power. He's admitting that distinction, right? A power to being, right? And a power to what? Doing. The perfection of both of these powers is also called a what? Virtue, right?

[44:58] But the power to being holds itself on the side of matter, which is being and potency, right? But the power to act holds itself on the side of what? Form, which is the beginning of acting, right? In that each thing acts in so far as it is in act.

[45:24] Now, in the constitution of man, the body has itself as matter, the soul as what form? So the soul is sometimes defined as the first act of a natural body composed of tools. It's really a substantial form of such a body, huh?

[45:45] As regards the body, man communicates or is in common with the other animals, and similarly regards the powers which are common to the soul of the body. Only those powers which are proper or private to the soul, to which the rational ones, right, are of man only, namely the reason and the will, right? The actually is more complicated because of an active understanding.

[46:14] And therefore, the human virtue about which we now speak cannot pertain to the body which we have in common with the beast, right? But pertains only to that which is proper to the what? Soul, right? That's what we call human virtue. Kind of talking about what's peculiar to man, right?

[46:36] Whence what we call human virtue then does not imply an order to being, but more to what? Doing. Yeah. And therefore, it's of the meaning of human virtue that it be a operative habit. Yeah. Clear enough, huh?

[46:54] These trees that last so long, you know, that's amazing. Yeah. I've heard that. They say that like the olive trees in Israel are two thousand years old. Yeah, yeah. Why they compare man more to the grass? Yeah, something's. Flowers.

[47:11] I think Paul John Paul. I don't know the Paulish, but one of the lines I think is, "Man dies more often than the tree," or something like that. Yeah. Because I mean, there's that ash tree you go by our neighbor's house going up. Neighbor, the little cottage on the left as you're going out. Right opposite, there's enormous ash tree. It's got to be two or three hundred years old.

[47:34] It's huge. Yeah. It's enormous at the base. And it's still vigorous trees, a strong, well, some of those kinds of trees in California, there, you know, really long, long-lasting. Everyone knows in Sherwood Forest there in England, there, you know, showing this one tree, you know, and talking about it, you know, how far back it went. I forget how long, but but they have more virtue to being right than we do, yeah.

[47:57] There was a in in Muir Woods. You've probably been there, where they have the redwood trees. Are they've been in a fire? Yeah. We asked one of the wardens, and he says, "Oh, do you have a fire here?" He says, "Yeah, it was in 1845." So trees are still there.

[48:18] You could build a house in there, you know, any one of those trees. Yeah. Okay. Now, what about this first objection there from Tully? Right. The first, therefore, it should be said that the mode or way of the action follows the what disposition of the doer, the agent. For each thing as it is, so does it operate, right?

[48:48] And therefore, since virtue is the beginning or source of some operation, it is necessary that in the one doing there pre-exists according to virtue some what.

[49:04] Conformed, right? For virtue makes the operation to be what ordered, and therefore the virtue itself is a suited disposition ordered in the soul. According as, according to which, the powers in the soul are ordered in some way to each other and to what is on the outside. This is natural, right? And therefore, a virtue, in so far as it is a suitable disposition of the soul, is likened to health, right, and to beauty, which are suitable what dispositions of the body, right?

[49:51] To the perfections of the body, right? Beauty and health and strength, right, and strong, but not healthy, as my friend Jim said, right? He was strong. He was a boxer, you know. Not two or three guys down for the kill, you know.

[50:11] But he had some health problems, you know. One of his lungs collapsed, and and by this or because of this is not excluding that virtue can also be a principal of what operation, right? So he's saying that virtue is a disposition that is suitable to this power, right? Okay. Just as health or strength or what, beauty is a suitable disposition of the body, right? That's what life consists, not in its being a source of operation, right?

[50:43] But it can have that in addition, right? Maybe beauty doesn't have, right? We just do anything. I mean, moves us, but it itself doesn't do anything, right? Doing it. Yeah. Yeah. Strength is more able to do something.

[51:04] Now, to the second, it should be said that the virtue which is to being is not private to man, right? Propria has got the sense of what private there, but only the virtue which is for the what works of reason, right? Which are private to man, right? Okay. People have a problem with how they translate appropriate sometimes too. You know, I want to translate proper, but it's not always the best meaning there.

[51:32] You know. Then you see something's not proper to man. Seems like it's not private to him, right? It's not limited to him, right? If you read enough of these English translations of St. Thomas, you just get used to it. Yeah. That's

[51:53] the thing. That's what they almost just transliterated. Yeah. To third, it should be said that since the substance of God, right, is His action, right, that's very subtle. The highest assimilation of man to God is according to operation. So God is love, you say, right? Okay. God is knowledge, right? Whence, as has been said above, happiness, right, or beatitude, right, those are kind of what synonyms here, right?

[52:35] But their etymology is somewhat different, right? Felicitas comes from the word what fruitful, okay? But we tend to speak that way too of a life that's been fruitful, right? Happy. I'd say happy life, right? But beatitude has the idea, you know, of coming down, right? Coming from God, huh? To which man is most of all conformed to God, which is the end of human life. It consists in somewhat operation, right?

[53:06] So the beatitude or happiness of man in heaven is seeing God and loving God, right? And that's very satisfactory to find out. It's very enjoyable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thomas says, you know, in seeing God, you will also see everything you've always naturally wanted to know, right? Even though it would be insignificant compared to to God, right? Huh?

[53:37] Do saints ever stop praising God, or saving Him? Do saints ever stop praising God, or thanking God? I don't think they would, but there. There'd be no reason to stop.

[53:54] Don't get tired. Don't get tired. I remember my kid in high school. Well, I think we've been, you know, praising God for a few centuries. I mean, do we get bored? We need something else to do up there. I mean, I never get tired of praising, you know, Shakespeare or Mozart, something like that. You know, I mean, their perfection is very little compared to God, right? You know.

[54:17] I was reading MacArthur in some instances, you know, and was Alexander there, the chief military figure there in England, you know, said MacArthur was the greatest general in the war, right? So on the. Elliott. side right, And the famous B H Liddell Hart the famous, most illustrious, you know, writer of military history, right? said MacArthur was the greatest general, right? And MacArthur said, "well, some people are annoyed by this, you know."

[54:57] He said, "But they're entitled to their opinion," he says. I got a kick out of that. That's it. I. I heard it attributed. I don't know if that she. It doesn't sound like she really said it, but it was interesting that when Mother Teresa was in India. Yeah. many of the Hindus used to set up little shrines with her picture, they burn incense for like, "she was a God."

[55:23] Yeah. And somebody asked her about that, what she thought about that. I think this is apocryphal. I don't know what she said, but she said, "man, after all I've done for them, they treat me as if I wasn't human."

[55:36] I can see you saying that. You see these pictures, you know, of John Paul II. who's there at her place, you know, watching her and then going around and seeing how she.

[55:59] Okay. That's kind of beautiful the way he turns it around there, the third, right? Because God, his substance is also his operation, right? So be assimilated to God, you're most of all, assimilated to him by your operation, you're most of all in act. Oh gee I'm, still not sure whether it's a good habit yet. I guess.

[56:24] This guy's awfully slow, you know. You heard that comparison I made with the dumb ox and Niels Bohr. You heard that one. Well, you know, of course Thomas was called the dumb ox, right? How could it be, you know, because of what Shakespeare said, you know, "Wisely and slowly, stumble and run fast," right? Well, Niels Bohr, you know, was an extremely influential physicist, right? Because after he got the Nobel Prize, he set up an institute for theoretical physics in Copenhagen, right?

[56:57] Which was supported with the selling of beer there in Copenhagen and so on. One of the big beer places, and but men came from all over the world to study under Bohr, right? So Oppenheimer came from the United States to study under him, and Gamow came from Russia to study under him, Heisenberg came from Germany to study under him, and so on, right? Now. But when some physicists had a new idea, right, they'd often stop by at the institute there, and they'd have a kind of seminar and they'd sit around a table like this, and the guy would present the new idea, right?

[57:30] And everybody seemed to get the idea except Bohr, and so then they turned to Bohr and tried to explain to him, and finally Bohr said, "Ah, isn't this the way it is? No, you got it wrong." But then, after another discussion, they realized that Bohr had it right. So the last guy to get the new idea was the first guy to get it. Right, right. See, isn't it interesting?

[57:55] Right, a little bit like Thomas there in the dumb ox, right? Because someone they're just like, they're trying to help Bohr, you know. You know, explain it to Bohr, right? And he's just gradually assimilating the idea, right, getting it right. And then somebody came to try to help Thomas, you know, and then they realized how far be behind him they were, right? You know, rather than needing to help him, he could help them, right?

[58:18] It's kind of beautiful, though, huh? Wisely and slow said Friar Lawrence is very wise. There's two remarks about stumbling, right? They stumble and run fast, and then later on revolts from true birth stumbling on abuse, right?

[58:40] It's always applied to Obama and so on, right? Building, more people are, pushing for, you know what? Yeah. Okay. So let the guy go on at his slow rate, here.