Prima Secundae
182. Q75 a.4 & Q76 a.1: How one sin causes another through the four causes; ignorance as a cause of sin
Class of 2014-10-17
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/182-q75-a-4-q76-a-1-how-one-sin-causes-another-through-the-four/

[0:00] What would it be like to have Thomas as a teacher? It would have been interesting, huh? Because he apparently was well received in in Paris. That's what they say, you know. He was regarded as the teacher of the teachers, right?

[0:19] I was reading Thomas an article the other day there, with one man is understands better than other man. So I didn't see Thomas. He's such a good example. One man understands better than another man, right? I read someplace. Maybe it's just an obvious anecdote or something, but St. Thomas was asked what was the best grace he received. Yeah. Kind of relative. Yeah. Baptism really isn't so much.

[0:51] Yeah. But I read that he had said, responded something like, "The great grace he received was that he never, he always understood what he read." Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember De Koninck quoting some contemporary, you know, saying, "Il faut dépasser Saint Thomas." you know De Koninck said, "well, fine if you can do it," he says.

[1:28] It's supposed to be a time when it wasn't Augustine appeared to Thomas. You know, I'm a bit interested to see those two guys go at it together. Was it? Was it Peter and Paul appeared to explain the epistles? Yeah, yeah. Paul did. Paul did, yeah, yeah. Thomas, can I should never believe who is there.

[1:52] To the fourth one proceeds us. It seems that sin is not a cause of sin, right? For there are four genera, four kinds of causes, huh? Where do we learn that?

[2:09] Of which no none is what able to what fit that sin is a cause of sin, right? For the end has the notion of something good, as Aristotle himself, the man who distinguishes the four kinds of causes, says, right?

[2:29] Which does not belong to sin, which, of its very definition, is is bad. For the same reason, sin cannot be a what cause, efficient cause, because evil is not an efficient cause, but infirm and impotent, as Dionysius says, huh? Imagine if people don't understand Dionysius you'll say, "How, "How naive can he be?" You know, when he sees Hitler and Stalin and how many, you know, legions of the Pope have, and so.

[3:03] And the material cause and the formal cause seem to have place only in natural bodies, right, which are composed of matter and form. Therefore, sin is not able to have a material cause and a formal cause. This is one way we syllogize, and the either-or syllogism, I call it, disjunctive syllogism is the technical word for it. But I call it either-or syllogism. So you go through all the four kinds of causes, and no one of them fits.

[3:40] Moreover, it belongs, right, to make or do something similar to oneself or a perfect thing, right? You can reproduce yourself, right? As is said in the fourth book of the Meteorology that's Aristotle's book. But sin, of its very notion, is something what? Imperfect. Therefore, sin is not able to be a cause of sin. I mentioned how my one of my modern philosophy teachers here at Laval, he said they call Descartes the father of modern philosophy, but doesn't really have any any sons because they all do their own thing, right?

[4:20] But so what I was saying here, right? You don't have any sons. Only the perfect can have a son, right? And it's only when plants or animals, you know, reach their their perfect age, so to speak, right, that they can reproduce, right? So if sin is, by its very notion or definition, something imperfect, right? How can it reproduce itself, right? How can it be the father of another sin, right?

[4:42] Huh? These are marvelous arguments, huh? I just wish I could cut off that part and just feed it to you, you know. Have to wait till tomorrow, you know, and see if you really thought about those objections, right?

[5:01] I told you I had that thing that I couldn't solve when I was an undergraduate. My teacher Kasurik couldn't solve it, and then I was reading Thomas, and I was going to lecture Dionne and I put two and two together, and I had the answer. I said, but after ten years, you know, I said I'd better check with Dionne. So I came down, and I said I perceived a nice order we started out, and Dionne said, I know where you're going.

[5:23] I said, well, damn it, can I go there? Okay. More of this sin, the cause is another sin, right? Huh? The same reason of that will be a cause some other sin, and that's one will go on forever, right? If sin is the cause of sin, then the sin which is the cause of sin must have another sin that is the cause of it, and that must have a cause, and you got this horrible thing, which is unsuitable, right?

[6:00] And not fitting. Gerstel argues against that, right? We talk about when we prove that God exists, right? Therefore, sin is not the cause of sin, right?

[6:14] But against this is what Gregory says upon Ezekiel, right? That's one of his big works, right? Ezekiel. Looking at down my son's house, there he had the thing of of Benedict, right? You know, all the different doctors of the Church, some of them, and he had one of Gregory, you know. And Gregory is talking about this commentary on Ezekiel, and the the one on Job is the one they call Moralia, Moralia and Job, you know, but it's quoted a lot.

[6:42] He has some interesting things to say about Gregory, but he's quite a guy. But against this is what Gregory says upon Ezekiel: "Peccatum, quae per penitentiam cecius nuliter, the sin that is not quickly right deleted through penance, right, is a sin and the cause of sin."

[7:06] Okay, he was what Pope from what five ninety to six o four. Great, great Pope. One of the four major doctors, right, of the Western Western Church. Great man. Gregory

[7:26] has something on Thomas Aquinas too, and that whole that that series, you know, not not the one of the doctors, but the one, list of the thin thin saints.

[7:40] I answer: It should be said that since sin has a cause on the side of what act, not only in the side of the disorder, right, but both. But in this way, one sin can be the cause of another, just as one human act is able to be the cause of what another, right? Now it happens that one sin to be the cause of another, according to the four genera causes.

[8:13] I should be weeping at this one because this is a four now rather than a a three, right? You know, so much for breakfast right? And his ideas fixes, huh?

[8:41] I should joke about that because because with with the first Greek natural philosophers, matter seems to be the only kind of cause, right? And you get the great Pythagoras, and you get the cause called form, right? So that's two kinds of causes, right? And finally, you get Empedocles, right? And now you get three kinds of what causes, huh? Because he has. Earth, air, fire, and water, and so on—the material cause—and then he has ratios, just like he takes him Pythagoras, right?

[9:15] And then he has love and hate—love that brings them together, and hate that separates them. So he's got three kinds of causes: the matter, the form, and the mover, right? And I say, now isn't that enough? And that's three, you know. Aristotle says there's going to be a fourth kind of cause, right? So even Aristotle himself doesn't always stop at three, right?

[9:42] So much for Berkeley. There's a rule of 2 or 3 We can dispense with him now. Yeah. Of course When you divide the causes. You usually divide them into what? Yeah, sometimes they'll divide them into two. They'll say the inward causes, which are matter and form, and the outside causes, which are the mover and the end, right? And sometimes, you know, they'll, what, divide them into not two and two, but one and three, right?

[10:20] Because they'll divide a form and mover and end against what? Matter, because matter is based upon what? Potency or ability in the passive sense, but form is act, and an agent acts insofar as it's an act, and act is the end of ability, right? So that those three are based upon act, right? And that's the division we use when we talk about God, in what way God is a cause, right?

[10:49] Because God being pure act can be a cause in the sense of end and mover or maker, and even form in the sense at least of a exemplar, right? But in no way can he be the matter out of which things are, what, made, right? So there you divide, but you divide into two, right, to understand that, right? You divide them into two. But sometimes we divide them into two and two, right?

[11:13] So in that sense, we still follow the rule of two or three, right? And we try to understand, huh, these four. The same when you get to the, the four kinds of opposites, right, huh? Thomas, when he divides, takes up the four kinds of opposites, like in the Fifth Book of Wisdom, he'll divide relative opposites against the other three. And you can't have the, uh, uh, first three in God at all, right?

[11:39] Because it involves some what? None being, right? Uh, especially, you know, contradiction and privation or lack involve none being, but even one of the contraries is lacking in comparison to the other. So you can't distinguish the Father and the Son by any of those three kinds of opposites, because then one would be having none being, right? And so you divide the one against the other three, right?

[12:06] But you do that even, you know, in terms of philosophy because one relative posits the other relative, right? I can't be a father without having a son, you know? I can't be a teacher without having a student, you know? I can't be a friend without having a friend, you know? So I'm positing the one that I'm being distinguished from, right?

[12:28] So... Yeah. So sometimes we divide four into two and two, and sometimes into one and three, and sometimes we do both, right? Sometimes they divide the causes too. They'll put matter with the mover against form in the end, because form is like the end of generation, right? And the matter and the mover or maker are before in being, right? But the others are more perfect, you know?

[13:01] So there's a couple ways you divide them into two and two, huh? So in order to really penetrate these things, you gotta eventually divide into two or three to understand the division into more than three, right?

[13:18] So I still hold on a little bit to my stubborn. So we won't dismiss you entirely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thomas gives a supreme example of that when he distinguishes the 10 categories, right? Because he divides them into 3, and then he subdivides some of them into 2 or 3 again until he gets down to all 10, right? But he doesn't try to understand a division to 10 by one division, right?

[13:49] Aristotle just numerates the 10, you know, like. That's why I always say the metric system is unintelligible. Divides into 10 first thing it does, first thing it does, whereas the standard way is divide in a half. Yeah. 2, 2, 2. You know, when I was in, in Austria there, you know, talking about the other system, you know, what's on our system, you know? What- how do you transcribe, you know, into ours, you know, what the...

[14:14] What's the real temperature out there? And they put the speed inside in kilometers. That's how absurd. Yeah, I was thinking about the word, um... Well, I may not get into this before I distract you, but get the word point.

[14:40] Remind me the word point, and I'll tell you the interesting thing about it. Um... Okay, we just finished the great Gregory, right? Now we go to Respondeo, right? Okay.

[15:00] It can happen that one sin to be the cause of another according to the four general causes. Now he's going to, what, explain it one by one, right? Okay.

[15:11] First, according to the mode of an efficient or mover cause, right? Both, what, per se and per accidens, huh? Per accidens as the removens prohibens, huh? That's the way they describe in Latin. What removes the thing that prevents something, right, huh? Is said to move per accidens, right, huh? The stock examples is, is, is the guy who pulled the pillar down and then... Sam- Samson. Yeah, yeah.

[15:44] So do you make the w- the ceiling come down, or did the gravity make it? Well, per se is the gravity or something, right? But in removing the prohibens, removing the pillar, he's the cause of the roof coming down, uh-huh. So he's the cause of the roof coming down.

[16:06] This is one of the external causes that Aristotle distinguished on the removens prohibens. So for Aristotle, say, you know, the reason why the stone goes down to the ground is because it has inclination to go down, right? But if you have something holding it up, right? The one who removes that thing that holds it up is the cause of its going down, not per se, but per accidens, right?

[16:30] But this is a very important cause, nevertheless, even though it's an accidental cause. Removens prohibens. What happened when they took the Baltimore Catechism out of the instruction, you know? Yeah. Ignorance, ignorance. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[16:55] Since through one act of sin, a mortal sin, right, a man loses what? Grace. Grace or charity or shame, yeah, or whatever other there is, withdrawing one or holding one back from sin, right, eh? He falls from this into another, what, sin. And thus, the first sin is a cause of second per accidens, right? Per se altum, however, just as from one act of sin a man is disposed that he commit another act similar, right?

[17:36] More easily, right? For from acts are caused dispositions and even habits eventually, inclining to what? Similar. Yeah, like acts, right? So, as far as the efficient cause is concerned, he's speaking of two ways, right? One per accidens by its removing something that, what, holds you back from sin or prevents you from sinning, right? And then, what, the others were one sin gives you a kind of disposition for that sin, and therefore kind of directly, per se.

[18:19] So one kind of removes the fear. One kind calls more love Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now, a little more difficult case to see here. According to the genus of material cause, one sin is the cause of another insofar as it prepares the matter for it, right?

[18:43] Just as avarice prepares the matter for what? Law- lawyers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Disputing, right? Litigial, you know? Which often is about congregating wealth, right? Or about wealths that have been brought together. Okay?

[19:11] So I suppose I say eating too much is a cause of lust or something too, right? Preparing the matter in the sense of it.

[19:18] Yeah. That's removens prohibens, right? That too, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was rereading Boswell's Life of Johnson, and they're talking about the effect of wine upon a man, an interesting conversations that they have.

[19:45] According to the genus of a final cause, one sin is the cause of another, insofar as as for the sake of the end of one sin, one commits another sin, right? Just as one commits what simony on account of the end of what ambition, You want your family to be prominent, right?

[20:13] Or fornication on account of what theft, huh? Okay. So you're committing one sin in order to commit another sin, right? Okay. So I might steal the jewels to impress the woman, and I give them to her so I can seduce her, right? Well, then my seduction of the woman is a cause of my stealing the jewels, right? Okay. Or I want to pick her up in a nice car, so I steal a good, beautiful car.

[20:50] So am I stealing the cars to, you know, so I can see the woman or something? Okay. And because the end gives the form in moral matters, as has been said above, right? Huh? From this it follows that one sin is the formal cause of another. That's kind of an extension there. Like we speak of charity as being the form of the virtues, right?

[21:18] For in the act of fornication, which is what committed on account of theft, right? Huh? Fornication is material, but the theft is what formal, huh? No, that's what's the example there of Falstaff, right? Huh? Because the legend is that Queen Elizabeth she liked, you know, the representation of Falstaff in the Henry plays, right? And so she said to Shakespeare, she wanted to play, you know, a Falstaff in love, you know.

[21:50] So that's why he's supposed to have written the Merry Wives of Windsor, right? You know, at the command, so to speak, of request of Queen Elizabeth, right? But as Falstaff is making these proposals, right, to the Merry Wives of Windsor, what is it to get their what money, right? Huh? See, so he's is he committing fornication for the sake of what of getting of stealing stealing from their the monies that their husbands have accumulated, right?

[22:20] Huh? In that case, the sin is what materially fornication, but um. He's aiming at that. Yeah, yeah, but formally, it's it's it's yeah. See, but you know, you could speak of that more as the end, right? Sometimes discussing, but in a way, you can call that's the the form, right? Huh? And so, and since it's all four causes, right? It gets none of these things, of course, because they play tricks upon each time.

[22:48] That's why the Merry Wives of Windsor, right? Huh? Yeah, one of the good-natured comedies of Shakespeare, right? Yeah, it's a great, great comedy. In a sense, you know, you can see what what Shakespeare does, end up with what Mozart does in the Marriage of Figaro, right? Where the lustful man is made what ridiculous, right? And this is kind of the way in which it's appropriate for the the dramatist to inculcate virtue, right?

[23:28] Right, in a sermon you wouldn't do that, you see, but but you know, a play should not really be a sermon, right? So it should move the emotions in a way so that you, by laughing at the lustful man, you are kind of being what inclined a bit towards virtue, right? So he says, you know, Thomas says belongs to the poet to a pseudo representation, you know, to lead men into something what virtuous, right?

[23:55] And in Mozart in the Marriage of Figaro, the count is trying to get the maidenhead, you may say of of Susanna, and the Susanna, of course, is in cahoots with the wife of the count to avoid this, right? And when there's an assignation to meet her in the garden, right? The the countess substitutes for so he he's he's holding the hand of his wife in waving about her her her smooth flesh and so on, you know, her her youthfulness and all.

[24:31] It's really his his wife who's somewhat you know older now. And the Susanna has to have to go down, you know, and ask forgiveness of the countess, you know. So it's a beautiful beautiful thing, you know. But in this kind of way, it's proper, you know, for for the you know Mozart or Shakespeare, you know, to to lead us into something virtuous in the way they do, right?

[24:58] Paul VI said the artist, he said you have a kind of advantage over the preacher because the preachers always like adversarial, warning and scolding, yeah, yeah. Whereas the artist, he says, he can induce people to yeah, desire what's good and right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why you know it'll stress me me, right? Huh? You know, as as my old teacher Kasurik said, you know, you can tell a good teacher when he by examples he gives, right?

[25:28] Well, in the Pope, there this is before his Pope, you know, he lived very short, the first John Paul the first. Um, but he but he he said after reading Oedipus, huh? One is anything but enthusiastic about incest.

[25:50] This is a clear example, though, you know. I mean, you couldn't, you know, you know, the horrible tragedy, right? I remember there's there's when I was reading some of the Elizabethan plays, you know, huh? There's one where where you have a brother and a sister right who are engaged sexually right now, and you know it just turns out just absolutely horrible at the end. You know, you know the brother's got the sister's heart in his sword.

[26:21] It's just horrible, you know. So it's it's not a pretty great play, but it's even not inclined to to want to get involved with your sister, you know. I mean, just you know, that's what it belongs, you know, to to good dramatists to do this, right?

[26:44] I mean, certainly, you know we were watching it? at my brother's, my son's house there, the Merchant of Venice, right? You know, we spent night before I left, my son's right then up to about ten thirty or something at least watching the thing. And of course, you know, you can't you're not really being inclined to sympathize with the Jew, right? Huh? Because he's not being you know kind, right?

[27:09] And then of course the things are turned on him, you know. And Gratiano's making fun of him now, right? Huh? You know, you'll get the law, you know. The law says you don't you take only your flesh and no more nor less, you know, and no blood, you know. He's not giving any any, so he's kind of outwitted you know. But anyway,

[27:31] no subtle woman getting their wings and so on. That's incredible subtlety that Shakespeare has. Okay, now, so what I would do, you see, is then divide up each of those four things, right? But notice the order that Thomas gives there, right? He starts off with the efficient cause, right? And he goes to what material cause, and then to the end and finally to the form. But there you're kind of thinking the efficient and the matter first, and then the end and the form second together.

[28:15] To the first, therefore, it should be said that sin, in so far as it is disordered, has the definition of something what bad. But insofar as it is a certain act, it has something what good, right? At least appearing for an end, right? And therefore, on the side of the what act, there can be a cause both what final and effective another sin. Although not on the side of the what disorder, right?

[28:51] Matter, however, the sin, however, has a matter not from which but about which, right? We speak of the matter of science, right? That that's about which the form it has from its end, right? And therefore, according to the four genera of causes, there can be a cause of sin. This has been said.

[29:16] So, what'd you do if you didn't know the four kinds of causes? What did Thomas do? You can see how philosophy is a what? preambulum, right? Walks before theology.

[29:41] What about this second objection here? Right. The only perfect thing, right? To the second, should be said that sin is imperfect by its moral imperfection, right? On the side of the what? Disorder. Right, but on the side of the act, it can have the perfection of nature. Fornication, right? You have the perfection of nature there, right? It can lead lead to a to another person, right? And according to this, it can be a cause of sin, right?

[30:17] That's a beautiful way to reply to the objection, right? It's got interesting the way that Thomas teaches you because the objections make you think, you know, just how you're going to solve them. But when the solution of the objection uses something that's been seen in the body of the article, right, it's like you're reinforced and seeing it from a little different angle and so on, and sticks in the mind more.

[30:48] Now what about the third objection that sin is a cause of sin and sin is a? We said to the third should be said that not every cause of sin is a sin. Hence, it's not necessary that one proceed ad infinitum, right? But one can arrive at some first sin, right, whose cause is not a what another sin. So what's the sin of Adam and Eve, right?

[31:14] The sin of Eve was that. So we take a little break now. You know the way we speak sometimes, right? Suppose somebody is, you know, kind of negative thinking about the world, right? And what does it mean if you say, you know, the world is pointless? What does that mean? Doesn't have an end Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's interesting, right? And we say, you know, what's your point? You know, so we do use the word point for what?

[31:53] End in the sense of purpose, right? Now Aristotle gives the word end there in the fifth book of wisdom, right? The first meaning of end is the point is the end of the line, right? The line is the end of the surface. The surface is the end of a body. That's that's the first meaning of end, right? And then he he moves it, you know, to the end of what?

[32:19] Motion, right? And and then he moves it to the end of thinking, which is the definition, because definition comes the word end too, finis. And then finally to the end of intention, which is the purpose, right? So that's the fourth meaning, right? So when we say, you know, what's your point, or the world is pointless, huh? Or is that pointless activity, you know? We move the word point from its first meaning in the line to what?

[32:53] To the last meaning of end, which is so it shows how natural what Aristotle's done is there, right? It's natural to move the word from one to the other, right? And

[33:06] you know I often think of of the beginning of the Gospel of Saint John, right? And in English it says, in the beginning was the word, right? The word was towards God and so on. And so the word logos, which is the Greek word there, is translated by the word word, right? Okay. Now you say, so you might say, well, the word logos in Greek has many meanings, right?

[33:38] And is the meaning of the word logos there word, or is the meaning of the word logos there thought? Say. Well, someone could say, well, the meaning is thought. It's not it's not the word. So someone might argue, well, then we've translated incorrectly, right? You see. But in translating it word, you can say that we are forced in a sense, in English to what? Go over again, right?

[34:11] The order in the Greek word, right? So we have to move the word word to what? The meaning thought, right? You see. If we're to understand, you know, the word that is was in the beginning, right? So, in one sense, it's good that we translated his word, right? Because then we're forced to, right? See, just like if I translate the word "end" by "point," well, that's not meaning a point; it's purpose, you know.

[34:41] That one context, I mean, you know, you know. I actually take the students. I'd say, you know, happiness is the end of life. The end of life is death. Therefore, happiness is death. What's wrong with that argument? Say, you know, well, you're confusing the that second sense of "end" that Aristotle gives with the fourth sense, right? So,

[35:05] you know, but really, you have to sometimes the word, right? So, when Shakespeare says, you know, the one I'm always quoting from Friar Lawrence, right? Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse. What does true birth mean there? Right? Does it mean birth in the sense of the original? No, it means the fourth sense, I mean, the last sense of birth, which is the nature of thing, right?

[35:32] You revolt from your true nature, stumbling on what abuse, you know? But Shakespeare has moved it from its first to the last, right? I'm saying, in common speech, it seems to me that we've moved the word "point." You know, when I say this is pointless, you know, or or people, you know, think the word "pointless" has no purpose, you know. Somebody disparage like that. They use the word "point" to mean what the end.

[36:00] They've since moved it to the last sense, even. Okay, time for the next article. Okay. Let's look at the premium here. I remember we're in the part one of the five of the six, right? The cause of what? Sin. And that was divided into two, right? The cause in general, and now we come to the cause in what? Particularly, Speciality. Then we're not to consider about the causes of sin and speciality.

[36:42] And first about the inward causes of sin. Secondly, right? About the exterior what? Causes, right? Third, about the sins which are a cause of other sins. What's the distinction of what? Three, huh? Okay.

[37:06] Now the first consideration, according to what has been said before, will be tripartita. Okay. For first, one will treat of ignorance, which is the cause of sin on the part of what? Reason. Secondly, about infirmity or passion, which is a cause of sin on the part of the sense appetite, sense of weakness, huh? Third, about malice, huh? Malitia. You might guess it's going to be the worst of all.

[37:45] Which is the cause of sin on the part of the what? Will. I was driving up there to Jerusalem Valley, and I was talking about this horrible hatred of Bush that was produced by the Democratic Party during the the thing, and what a horrible thing it was, you know. And was it Durbin? I guess was on the floor of the Senate comparing, you know,

[38:11] Montano, that place where the the base, you know, where the prisoners, you know, comparing it to the gulag and the and the stalag and so. Yeah. So you got to watch out for that malice. huh? Okay. what would you compare abortion to?

[38:29] Worse than you know. We heard my my coupling, you know. I said, terrorists and abortionists, you know, have no respect for life. The terrorists cut off the heads, and the abortionists pull babies apart in the mother's womb. It's difficult to see who's worse.

[38:48] Okay. So that last tripartita dealt with the three things intrinsic, right? That were a cause of sin, right? About the first four things are asked. First, whether ignorance is a cause of sin. Well, no, it's an excuse for sin, right?

[39:15] Second, whether ignorance is a sin. Whether it entirely excuses from sin, whether it diminishes sin, right? It's interesting to get people to answer those things, what they think at first, you know.

[39:45] I was teaching the Psalms. I mean, the the parables one time in the parish, right? And my wife always just says, "No, ask them what they think is the meaning of this thing, and then before you explain what it is, don't explain first what it is." And the answers you get, you know. I don't know why he should have been thrown out because you didn't have a wedding dress.

[40:07] That doesn't seem right. the first one goes forward. Thus, it seems that ignorance cannot be a cause of sin. For what is not is a cause of nothing, right? But ignorance is the non-being of knowledge, right? Since it is a certain lack of knowledge, therefore ignorance is not a cause of sin. Makes sense to me. What is not can I be a cause of? This is marvelous.

[40:48] I have marvelous mind, this guy. Yet, moreover, the causes of sin should be taken on the side of what conversion, right, which you turn yourself towards, yeah. But ignorance would seem to regard what Turning away. Turning away. And therefore it cannot be laid down as a cause of what sin.

[41:16] Moreover, every sin is what consists in the will. This has been said above. But the will doesn't carry itself; is not carried towards something except towards something known, because the good apprehended is the object of the will. Therefore, ignorance cannot be the cause of what sin.

[41:41] But against this is what Augustine says in the book on Nature and Grace, that some sin through ignorance. Augustine's quite a guy. Well, how does Thomas go about this? It's got strange. He begins. Why do you begin there?

[42:07] The answer should be said according to the philosopher. Doesn't even call him by his name, does he? Called by a name. Yeah, yeah. What's the name of that figure of speech he's using here?

[42:27] Yeah, yeah. We give the common name, right, to one in particular that that it is said of, right, because it stands out. So Aristotle refers to Homer sometimes as Homer and sometimes as the poet, you know. And this figure of speech is very what common in Scripture. So the Bible is named by Antonomasia I think I'll ask that question next time I talk in the parish. How was the Bible named?

[43:01] See, then how are the gospel? How are the gospels named? That's Antonomasia right? How is Christ named, right? They're all named by Antonomasia. What the hell is Antonomasia You've got to come up with a better name for it, don't I? Hans, it should be said that according to the philosopher in the 8th book of the physics, books of natural hearing, the moving cause is twofold: one per se and the other praecedens.

[43:53] Per se, the thing that moves by its own what power, just as the one generating is the cause moving heavy and light things because it gives them the power to move them up or down. Praecedens, however, as the removens prohibens, we met that before, right?

[44:16] Or just as the removal of what prohibits or prevents, huh? And in this way, ignorance is able to be a cause of the act of sin. Oh, very good, Thomas.

[44:31] So Thomas, I was going to see how we use the word. I said that's the way I probably should say. Thomas points out a distinction. Isn't that a good way of expressing it? I don't want to say you know that Thomas distinguishes because that makes it kind of sound kind of subjective, as they say, you know. Yeah, you know, that's these distinctions, you know, to get out trouble.

[44:56] Yeah, but he he sees a distinction, right? And then he points it out to us numbskulls, us dimwits. Okay, okay. He's a wit, but we're dimwits, right? Okay. And then there are nitwits who don't even see them as pointed out. Well, I like that. Points it out, huh? It's kind of I'm taking up with the word point, you know. It's it's Thomas has made me think about it more.

[45:31] And in this way, ignorance can be a cause of the act of sin. It removes something that might prevent you from. Okay. For it is a privation, a lack. I don't know if you speak English. It's a lack of the knowledge perfecting what reason, which prohibits the act of sin, in so far as it directs what human acts.

[46:01] Now, it should be considered. Now, you can skip a little time, and you see another thing coming up. Now, it should be considered that reason is directive, right?

[46:16] According to a twofold knowledge of human acts. To wit, according to a universal knowledge and according to a particular knowledge, because the man conferring about things to be done uses a certain kind of what syllogism, whose conclusion is a judgment or a what, even a choice you could call, or in fact a what, or an action, for actions are in the singular. So you have a universal maybe premise in there, then you have minor, right?

[47:02] Fornication is wrong. This is fornication, right? Okay. Stealing is wrong. This is stealing, right? Huh? Whence the conclusion of an operative syllogism is something singular,

[47:28] but a singular proposition is not concluded from universal one except by means of some singular proposition. Just as a man is prevented from the act of killing his father, parricide, I guess, through this that he knows a father should not be what killed, and through this he knows that this man here, this one here, is his father. Father should not be killed. This is my father. Therefore, I should not kill him.

[48:05] Get somebody else. Now, ignorance, therefore, of both could cause the act of parricide, right? Then, due to some people who kill their father, they get to be a certain age, right? Some of the some of these primitive tribes, wasn't that the thing? Yeah. I remember reading about that somewhere. Um. So ignorance of both is able to cause what the act of parricide, huh? To wit, of the universal principle, which is a certain rule of reason, and the singular what circumstance, huh?

[48:46] So what's his name? What he knew he shouldn't kill his father, right? And marry his mother. Yeah. And he was ignorant of the fact that this man, stopping his way, was his father, and that the woman was his mother, right? So.

[49:16] Whence it is clear that not. Just any ignorance, right, of the one sinning is a cause of sin. But that only which takes away the knowledge, what, prohibiting the act of the sin, right? Just if I don't know the Pythagorean theorem, right, that's not a cause of sin, probably, huh? Okay.

[49:47] Whence, if the will of someone was thus disposed, that he would not what be prevented from the act of parricide, even if he knew his what father, huh? The ignorance of the father is not to this one it causes sin, but it has itself as a complement to the sin, right? And therefore such a one does not sin in account of ignorance, but he sins what big ignorant, according to the philosopher in the third book of the Ethics, right?

[50:23] Okay. To the first, therefore, it should be said that none being is not able to be the cause of something per se. But it can be a cause per accidens as the removal of the one what of the what is prohibiting it, huh? Okay. Notice that little distinction he makes here. He uses the word remotio prohibentis and removens prohibens, right? Removens prohibens is more like the efficient cause, huh?

[51:00] But the the removal of the thing is a little different, right? Effect of that though. To the second, should be said that just as the knowledge which ignorance takes away regards the sin on the side of the conversion, so the ignorance on the side of what is a cause of the sin as removens prohibens, huh?

[51:35] Now, what about this here? That the will doesn't go to something unknown, huh? To third, it should be said that in that which is as regards all things unknown, the will cannot be carried, right? But if something is in some way known and some way what unknown,

[52:04] the will is able to what will it, right? And in this way, ignorance is a cause of sin, just as when someone knows this one whom he kills to be a man and does not know him to be a what father. Or when someone knows some act to be delightful, but does not know nevertheless it to be sin. Okay, good step number one.