Prima Secundae
203. Humility with Charity, Hope with Fear: Aquinas on Matthew, the Magnificat, and the Philosopher's Virtues; Whether Sin Can Be the Punishment of Sin (Q. 87, a. 2)
Class of 2015-02-19
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/203-humility-with-charity-hope-with-fear-aquinas-on-matthew-the/

[0:00] Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas, deo gratias. God, our enlightenment. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, order and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelic Doctor. Help us to understand all that you've written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Now, I was looking at your little thing over there, and saying that John Chrysostom was a friend of Father Marin.

[0:38] It was Chrysostom that Thomas said you know he'd give the whole city of Paris. John, yeah. Well, I've been reading the one on Matthew, you know, but I guess it was John. It's kind of interesting. Just a couple things here, for both theology and for philosophy, for the study of virtues, right? Now, in the beginning of the eighteenth chapter, right? Huh? Just to recall the text here, where Thomas is commenting on it.

[1:08] In that hour, the disciples approached Jesus, saying, "Who do you think is greater in the kingdom of heaven? " Because Thomas sees this as being a little bit of, you know, rivalry there between them, you know. So that's what they asked our Lord, huh? Who is greater in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus calling the little one, right? Parvulum. Placed him in the middle of them, right, and said, "Amen, I say to you, unless you be converted and become like this little one, you will not enter into the kingdom of the heavens.

[1:44] Whoever humbles himself as this little one, right? He is great in the kingdom of the heavens. Okay. Now, Thomas, get some other texts, you know, with the same idea, like for example, in Luke eighteen verse fourteen, who humbles himself shall be what exalted, right? Huh? Okay. But then Thomas raises a question. Of course. Troublemaker. And said, "Potus esse question? There can be a a question here, he says.

[2:21] For this does not seem to be true. Because perfection is in charity. Perfectio est in caritate. Therefore, where there is greater caritas, ubi sit ubi maior caritas, ibi maior perfectio Where there is more charity, there is more perfection. That's a good objection, isn't it?

[2:48] Now, in his reply to this, you see the connection between humility and what charity, right? That's a good objection. It should be said, therefore, that humility necessarily accompanies charity.

[3:07] And this can be seen if one considers who is humble. For in pride there are two things: a disordered affection, affectus inordinatus, and a disordered estimate of oneself. Okay.

[3:32] So also a contrario there is an humility, and that one does not care for his own what excellence, qui proprium excellentiam non curat. Again, does not regard himself as dignum, as worthy, right?

[3:52] He says this of necessity follows upon charity. Istud de necessitate sequitur caritatem. For every man loves the excellence which he loves. Excuse me. Every man desires, right, the excellence which he loves. And therefore, the more a man has of humility, the more he loves what God, and the more he condemns or as in contempt his own excellence, and the less he attributes to himself.

[4:39] Thus, that the more a man has of charity, the more he has of what humility. So he's saying not only are they connected, but the more you have of charity, the more you have humility, and vice versa, right? So only because they go hand in hand, right, would our Lord say what he says, right, that he who humbles himself shall be what exalted, right, huh?

[5:09] I think it's very profound, right, this explanation, and the objection is very good, huh? Doesn't Augustine say something like that? You know, he says the love of God, the love of oneself, usquad contemptum sui, right, makes the city of man, and the what reverse, right, Love of God, usquad contemptum sui. But you know, Augustine says things so well as Aristotle says we should say some things as well as our predecessors say and and try to prove some things, but you know, some things just try to say as good as they said them, right?

[5:40] But isn't in those words of Augustine don't you see the connection between charity and humility, right? The two go together. I think that's very profound, right? Now, it applies to something else, right? Okay. Years ago, when I was studying the Magnificat, I was kind of bothered with that same objection, right? Because she seems to attribute her what being raised so high because of her what, yeah. And I say, well, gee whiz, you make the same objection to the Blessed Virgin in the Magnificat that he gives here, right?

[6:14] But it's because the two go what, hand in hand, right? But why does he emphasize the one that goes with charity rather than charity when it's really, you know, well, because you know, in the context there, right, where they're got a little bit of pride in them, a little bit of rivalry, right, huh? Then you want to emphasize, right, the humility, right, which must come in, and especially when you're going to be exalted, right?

[6:42] I mean, I think the highest title of Mary is Mother of God, right? And you know, you could be raised higher than that, right? And you're a creature, And she emphasized humility, right? You've heard the holiness, right? Okay. Now, let's descend to a humbler sphere, right, huh? I got thinking again. I'm a philosopher, which is a means a lover of what, of wisdom, right, huh? Now, the love of wisdom is a little bit like the love of God, huh?

[7:19] Because God is wise, but God is not only wise, but He's wisdom itself. So, in a way, to love wisdom is to, in a way, love God, right? But now, what's very interesting is that the origin, the legend at least about the origin of the word philosopher, was that this great guy Pythagoras discovered things like the so-called Pythagorean theorem, right? And they called him what, wise? And he says, don't call me wise.

[7:50] God alone is wise, right? What should we call you then? Well, if you got to call me something, call me a lover of wisdom, right? So, in the origin of the word philosopher, as the Greeks understood it, was not only right the love of wisdom as the name etymologically has, but also what, humility, right? Now, are those two necessarily joined, right? Can one truly be a lover of wisdom without humility?

[8:28] I don't think he can be, right? The two go together, right? And you see that it's really beautiful, I think, huh? That you see this already in Pythagoras, right? Either man shouldn't be called wise at all, as the great Pythagoras says, or it's in some very imperfect way that he's wise, right? And at the end of the the so-called golden age of Greek philosophy, which comes to an end, more or less, Aristotle, Aristotle says the same thing, right?

[8:57] Either God alone should be called wise, right? Or God alone is really fully wise, right? Okay, the other way of saying it is either man only God should be called wise, or man should not be called wise at all, or else in some imperfect way, right? I think that's really beautiful to see that, you know. That's why I like those words of Aristotle, you know, where he speaks about how you should be thankful to those who came before you, not only those you learned something from, right, but also those that you thought were mistaken, you know, because they exercised your mind, you know, and and argued against them, right?

[9:35] You see, Aristotle, thinks humility there, right? Or like I was quoting earlier, where he says we should try to say some things better than our predecessors, but other things just as well as they said it, right? I think there's some humility there, right? And of course, the the so-called sophists, you know, that Socrates and Plato are always attacking, right? Ah, they Call themselves wise, sophos right? You know, and and but Pythagoras the the true philosopher, right, kind of rejects that because God alone is wise.

[10:11] So there's that humility, huh? And you can kind of see that. I mean, wisdom is the knowledge of of truth, right? And pride, of course, is the great cause of what being mistaken, right?

[10:27] Now, I got to think a little bit again of of Mozart, right? And I've quoted that famous excerpt we have from Mozart's letter to his father, right? And he's talking about his writing Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which is an early opera of Mozart. And in the letter, he's talking about representing Osmin right? Who's the kind of head of the troops there, you might say, and who's very indignant at the Christian trying to get some Christian out of the Serail and so on.

[11:02] And so the music is going to present the anger of Osmin, right? And Mozart says to his father, he's going to present, you know, Osmin losing his control, self-control. But he goes on to say, but not in such a way as to become displeasing to the ears, or in other words, ceasing to be music, he says. So it's kind of per se nota, huh? So Mozart, that music, as opposed to noise, right?

[11:28] Music must be pleasing to the ears, right? But what is pleasing to the ears, or what is pleasing to the eye, is the beautiful, right? So Mozart is a lover of the what? Beautiful. I always say, no one knew how beautiful a woman's voice could be until Mozart wrote for it. And and we have, you know, and even when he's doing those early operas down in Italy and so on, and the the soprano, where it was, you know, just carried away, you know, that she's going to be able to sing this aria that Mozart wrote for her, you know, because everybody's going to be, you know, struck with how beautiful it is, you know, and it is, you know, huh?

[12:07] You know, it's just ecstasy, you know, with the beautiful piece of beautiful arias written for her, right? Huh? See, but notice going back to what Thomas is saying here, right?

[12:22] Is there a connection between the love of God and the love of beauty? Doesn't Augustine say, I think, in the Confessions, you know, too late have I come to know thee, thou ancient beauty? You seen that in in the Confessions? He kind of you know regretting, you know, they didn't turn earlier, right? You know, took a while to to get in the straight road. So in a way, the love of beauty is something like the love of God, huh?

[12:52] And so there has to be what humility there, right? You know. And if you looked at Mozart, Mozart said to them, "Say, gee whiz, everything came too easy to him." He said, "Just a minute now. There's not a master in the art of music," he says, "before me whose works I've not studied diligently, right? So he could learn from them, right? huh? Down in Italy, there he was studying in Padre Martini, huh?

[13:19] You know? And there was a group of Mozart six chamber quartets, huh? String quartets, which he dedicated to what? Haydn, right? So they're always referred to now as the Haydn quartets, right? And this is the ones that when Haydn himself heard them, said, you know, he went over to Mozart's father and he said, as an honest man, he says, your son is the greatest composer known to be, you know, live or you know, these works around.

[13:51] And but Mozart, when he dedicated the six quartets to Haydn, he says, I had to dedicate them to Haydn because he taught me how to write a string quartet. And Einstein talks about the not the Albert, but the Alfred, the famous Mozart critic, that the Russian quartets there of the Russian quartets there of Haydn had a tremendous influence on Mozart, right? Because Haydn gave each instrument its own voice in the quartet, you know, and so on.

[14:21] And so that's humility, right? He dedicates to Haydn, so I had to do so, he says, because he taught me how to do that, right? You know. And of course, of course, the early works when Mozart sat on J. C. Bach, John Christian Bach's lap there in London, right? Bach had a lot more things Mozart could do it. But the early pieces of Mozart, they're imitations of what Bach, right?

[14:44] And he kind of transforms them, you know. He takes a Bach sonata and makes a little symphony out of it or something, you know, and those sort of things. And you know, at that time in Mozart's life, you know, the great Johann Sebastian Bach was not too well known, right? But but the the head librarian there, you know, would have these Sunday concerts, you know, where all that was performed was Handel and Bach.

[15:06] You know, those are two the two greatest, you know, perhaps names in in the Baroque. I have to add Corelli too, my good old man. How if I don't add Corelli too? But but

[15:18] Mozart was someplace where some Bach was being played that was not familiar to him at all because it was not well known, you know. And he says, he says, what is that? He says, you know, he gets excited, and then they said, this is something one can learn from, he says, you know, you know. But I think those are examples of what is new to Mozart, right?

[15:38] And and could there really be a love of the beautiful without that? What? You know, I don't think so, huh? So that's kind of a beautiful what. There you go.

[15:54] Okay. It all just comes out of this now. Now another little passage here, huh? Where Thomas says, he gives his what, his objection, right, huh? Okay, and then he says, this is Dominic. Everybody thinks it's. You come to my house and they see this, you know, you got it, oh yeah, and they always think it's Thomas, you know, but it's Thomas, but it's actually Dominic there in the thing.

[16:25] Let me first set the text for these words here now. And when he came into Capernaum, right, there approached him a centurion, right. That's a man in charge of what, a hundred soldiers, was it, was it? Asking him and saying, Lord, my boy, huh, lies in the house, paralytic, right, and badly what tortured, right, huh? And Jesus said to him, I will come and I will cure him.

[17:04] And the centurion responded, said, Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my house, but say but the word and my boy will be healed, huh? That's one we we still use in the mass. At least you used to have it. Yeah, but we still use that in the mass, you know. We say it every day in the mass. He says, this is the centurion.

[17:25] Who's this? This pagan, right? He's not. He's not even a Jew, right? Let me see. Okay. For I am a man also, constituted under power, having under me soldiers, right? And I say to this one, come, and he comes. And the other one, go, and he goes, right? And to my servant, do this, and he does it, right? And Jesus, hearing this, marvelled. He wondered, right? And he said to those following him, Amen, I say to you, I have not found such faith in Israel.

[17:59] And I say to you that many will come from the east and the west and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, so on. And he says, you you know, he's going to heal his boy. Okay, now, where's Thomas's objection here? He says,

[18:19] but what is this that he says that he admiratus est, huh? He wondered, huh? Because admiration does not fall in God, huh? Because it does not come about except from the ignorance of the cause, which cannot be in God, okay? So Aristotle, in the beginning of the Metaphysics, huh? In the fourteen books of wisdom, he says that philosophy began from what? Wonder, right, huh? And wondering about the unknown cause, right, of a known effect, right, huh?

[18:59] Okay. So the eclipse of the sun. You know what is going on. You know why is why is the sun being cut off? You know God's angry with us. What's the reason, right? So how does He solve that, right?

[19:15] There's a humanity involved there too. I know, but is he is he ignorant of the cause? Well, Thomas seems to be saying here that the word wonder has two meanings, right? And one is that arising from ignorance, right,

[19:40] of the cause, right, of a known effect, right. And the other is from what? The excellence of something, right? So he goes right on the same words, huh? Right after the ones I quoted there. Also, the apprehension of the magnitude of an effect, right? Which comes from the imagination and the image of some great effect, right? And thus it could fall also in Christ, huh?

[20:13] That is, he admired it. He regarded it as something great, right? That this man had that much faith, right? Unde admiratus est, id est magnum reputavit, right? Okay. Now, how is that applicable to the metaphysics of Aristotle, right? Well, in the beginning, when he says that philosophy begins in wonder, right? He says it will end in the opposite of wonder, right? Because once you know the cause why it is so, you no longer wonder, right?

[20:45] Huh? You see. Okay. But when Aristotle gets to the twelfth book of wisdom, right, the second half of the twelfth book of wisdom, when he comes, he finally arrives at God, right. Okay. Now he knows the first cause of the whole universe, huh? Okay. But he's talking at one point there about God's knowledge, right? Huh? And how God's knowledge, how he's in this contemplative stage, right? State.

[21:17] Which we can only sometimes be, Aristotle says, right? All these practical things that take to get the snow off the roof and so on, and we can't, but always be in this state. If God is always in this state, he's always thinking about something wonderful, right? He compels our wonder, he says. Okay. And if he not only is always in this state, which we can only rarely be, but in a much better one than we are, right?

[21:48] He compels us to even more wonder, right? Huh? Well, is Aristotle contradicting himself when he said that philosophy would end in the opposite of wonder? Because you don't wonder about the cause once you know it, right? Now you know why it is so, right? Well, it's this other sense of wonder that Thomas is talking about there, right? You know, he sees the excellence, right, magnificence of God's intellectual life, shall we say, right?

[22:14] See, Aristotle talks in the Ethics. You've probably seen in the Ethics there. He talks about, you know, the pleasure of understanding and thinking about these great things. You know, is remarkable pleasure, right? Not like the pleasure of candy or whatever it is, right? And so he kind of admires that in God, right? That God would always be in this state, right? Huh? He's always in this, but then even more so because he's in a better way than we are.

[22:41] We even when we are rarely in it, right? You know, and it's a different kind of wonder, right? Huh? So it's kind of beautiful, right? Objection there that you can, you know, apply to what he said there, huh?

[22:57] Now another thing, going back, it's a little different thing now, but going back to the Magnificat, right? Huh? And he says, "And his mercy is from generation to generation to those who what? Yeah. Now, if you talk about the the mercy of God, right, and the justice of God, right, the mercy of God is more connected with our hope in Him, right? But the justice of God arouses a what?

[23:33] Solitary fear, right? Huh? Okay. So you say, well, why does Mary, right, say that? His mercy to those who fear him. Yeah, rather than those who hope in him, right? Huh? Okay.

[23:52] Why is that? See, maybe it's a mistake in Mary's part, you know? Because there are many texts in Scripture that connect hope with what? But, yeah, the one prayer I like a lot, you know, to the prayer of the te deum, right? Huh? It ties up mercy with hope, right? huh? Well, why does Mary say the? See, see, it's a little bit like here because she seems to be missing the point, like Christ, right?

[24:22] In the earlier text I was talking about, Christ seems to be saying, you know, your exaltation depends on how much humility you have, and he should have been saying how much fear you have, right? But he couldn't be saying that unless the two were connected, right? And there's reason to emphasize humility because of their pride that they add a little bit there, right? You know. So

[24:47] what's the solution to this, right? Well, does the true hope in God's mercy, right, and this fear of the divine justice, right, do they go together? Just like what? Humility and the love of God go together, right? And remember that text that we talked to you before, I think years ago,

[25:17] in the commentary on the Psalms, right, where Thomas brings this out, where he says that hope, if you have hope but no fear of the divine justice, your hope will become what? Presumption, which is not truly hope anymore, right? And if you have the fear of God without any hope in His mercy, then you will despair, and that despair is not the the fear of God, right?

[25:45] Huh? Something. Yeah. So maybe the divine, maybe the hope and fear have to go what? Together, right? Huh? And it's embraced hitting at right, and says you know it's kind of unexpected to say fear right rather than hope because hope seems to be more tied up with the mercy right, but maybe the hope is not there without the fear, and so you say the fear you also bring in the hope, but you bring out this balanced picture of how the two require each other right, makes sense, you know, but it's since solving that second problem in the Magnificat in the way he solved the first one you know, the way Thomas solves it here in the text there in the eighteenth chapter right, where he

[26:39] says those who you know more more humble will have a higher place in heaven right, first shall be last and last shall be first, those kind of marvelous marvelous things there,

[26:58] and of course you could apply that to philosophy too you know, philosophy is a lover of truth he he wants truth right, but one truth is not enough, because truth is not only a good but it's a good difficult to what achieve as you can see with these things right, so hope is the movement of the appetite right, towards a good that is difficult to obtain, and without that hope you can overcome the difficulties right, then you would what,

[27:34] you'd give up right huh, you see you you would you would despair of knowing the truth right, and I think the American universities are fill are filled with people who have really despair right huh, I always like those things from, Whitaker Chambers there you know when he became a communist right, but he went back to Columbia there and he looked at his fellow students there you know and he found them to be what, He said they were kind of ideas as ping pong balls right huh, you know it's thing and knocked back and forth you know, you don't take the ping pong ball very seriously the big no big deal you know it's knocking back and forth right, so ideas you're knocking back and forth

[28:19] in conversation and and play around with them you know but you don't take them seriously right huh, you know He was serious now about things, you know He was mistaken of course, but he finally saw his way out right huh, now he tells later on in the witness there you know he's looking at his little daughter's ear you know, struck you see a very nice little ear the little girl, and that could have happened by chance you know that this ear turned out to be so well shaped and so on you know, but just it could have been anything you know like that where he saw something about the divine in wisdom huh, yeah that every work of nature is a work of of mind

[28:57] yeah yeah directing nature. Yeah. from Heraclitus that um caught my attention recently when he says that the wisest man, compared to God, is like an ape. with wisdom and beauty and all other things.

[29:19] Now you see, is this hope of of coming to know the truth is that enough for a philosopher, right? Or must he have this fear of being mistaken, right? Now, when you read the great Socrates there about him there in Plato's account of Socrates, Socrates is always afraid of thinking he knows he doesn't know, right? And there's plenty of evidence, right, in talking to other others who claim to know something, right, huh?

[29:48] That often they don't know what they they think they know, right, huh? And so Socrates is in mortal fear, you might say, of being himself in that state of thinking he knows what he doesn't know, right, huh? Well, can you have one without the other, right? So, if you don't really have that fear of being mistaken, this fear of making a mistake, right? You're not going to what?

[30:13] Be careful in your pursuit of this difficult good, which is what? Truth, right? So the two have to be kind of balanced with each other, right? Huh? But something like, like what Thomas was saying in the spiritual life, right? That the hope of in divine what? Mercy must be balanced with the fear of divine what? Justice, huh? So these are different things, hope and fear, just like humility and charity, different things.

[30:42] But one requires what the other, right? Huh? I think that's important to see, you know, how these virtues and things must be what? Together. Yeah, yeah. That's what I so so much admire about Plato's great dialogue there that takes place in the last day of Socrates' life, right? The Phaedo, right? Huh? When they get into a discussion about the immortality of the soul and so on, and difficult things, right?

[31:07] Huh? Aristotle says it in the in the De Anima that's one of the most difficult things in the world to know what the soul is and know the truth about the soul, right? And the at one time, you know, they they get kind of confident, and then some objections come in, and then they start to what? Despair, right? And the guy that Phaedo is recounting this to, you know, he is kind of sinking feeling to what did Socrates do, you know?

[31:35] And Socrates leads them out of their their despair, right? Huh? And then he starts to reply to the objections, right? Huh? And then of course the first objection is kind of easy, and then the second one is more difficult, right? And of course they get very confident. The first one is kind of solved, not too much difficulty. Just a little now, the other's going to be so easy, right?

[31:57] Huh? You know. And you see, I see Thomas do it sometimes in disputed questions, you know. You know, he'll he'll kind of solve a more preliminary difficulty, you know, but but more serious, you know, more more serious thing, right? Huh? You know. And but what you see Socrates doing is that sometimes you have to what? Encourage the student, right? Other times you got to kind of warn him, right?

[32:22] And and shake him up a bit, right? Huh? And I I know myself, you know, as I went from Kasurik to De Koninck to Dionne because you get more of this fear in De Koninck and in Dionne right? As my friend Warren Murray says, you know, on season, Dionne's principal passion is fear, the fear of being mistaken, right? Huh? But I mean, there's got to be a balance, right?

[32:45] I mean, you have the hope as well as the fear, right? And Kasurik I think, was was probably better for me to start out with because he's encouraged me to think more about these things, you know. But you know, Dionne, you know, I told you always at the time when I came with my outline of my thesis of what I was planning to do, you know, and Dionne looked at it for a little bit and he.

[33:04] Made a little suggestion, you know. Which, once he said, I can see right away. He was correct. I said, you know, I said, yeah, it's not good the way it is. I can see that, you know. And he says, I don't have any evidence. He says,

[33:18] but but it won't change again. I can write the thesis on my own, you know, huh? Yeah, no problem, you know. But but there was, he said, balance, right? You know, so it's interesting to see those things in theology and in philosophy. A little different thing, but there's some similarity there, right? Hope in God's mercy and the fear of God's justice must be balanced, right? And in the philosopher, the hope of coming to know the truth and the fear of ending in error and mistake and so on.

[33:50] That's what you find, you know, in the modern philosophers. You find this pride, right? You know, remember Kasurik would bring out, you know, he'd say, "I got a letter from DeConnect the other day, He says he feels like jumping off the bridge. He's going to be in the moderns again. Yeah.

[34:11] You see, it's kind of a pride again, right? Warren Murray is telling me about the pride of the great scientists. Sometimes, you know, they don't want to admit God, right? But they kind of admit sometimes, opening that they're they're trying to block the way to recognizing God, right? Because it's going to interfere with them as the the wisest people around. But they think they are the wisest people around.

[34:35] So it seems that even some scientists who are quite prominent who are proud of their atheism that they always seem to come up with some alternate to God, and it's uncanny in a way. If their religious instinct is intact, it's just it's misapplied in a way. Go to Article Two here. Was it in Question Eighty Seven? Whether sin can be the punishment of sin. To the second one goes forward.

[35:08] Thus, it seems that sin cannot be the punishment of sin. For punishments are brought in so that through them men might be reduced to the good of what virtue. So you spank the kid because you hope this is gonna.

[35:29] As is clear through the philosopher in the tenth book of the Ethics. But to sin a man is not led back to the good of what virtue, but to the opposite. Therefore, sin is not the punishment of sin. That sounds a good argument.

[35:53] See the similarity between this or Thomas is objecting right. Gregory is objecting to our Lord Himself. Right? I was objecting to the words of Mary herself. Right? See, but makes you stop and think.

[36:06] Moreover, just punishments are from what God, as is clear through Augustine or by Augustine in the book of the eighty-three questions. You know what those eighty-three questions are?

[36:25] But sin is not from God, and is unjust. Therefore, sin cannot be the punishment of sin. Moreover, it's of the notion of punishment that it be against the will, right? But sin is in accord with the will, right? It's from the will. This is clear from the foregoing. Therefore, sin cannot be the punishment of sin. I'm convinced, temporarily. See, I'm very what fearful here. You see, fearful.

[37:07] But against this is what the great Gregory says, huh? In his homily or whatever it is on Ezekiel, right? The prophet Ezekiel. That some sins are the punishment of what sin. Well, Gregory's good enough for me.

[37:26] No, I'm really tied up. Answer. It should be said that we can speak about sin in two ways. How does he see these distinctions that my dimlit mind doesn't see? Huh? Brighter light. My dim light doesn't cast much light upon the the thing. This guy. Ball is flickering. Yeah, going out. You see.

[38:00] Okay. Per se and per accidens, huh? I think I've heard that distinction used sometimes before. Per se, in no way, is sin able to be the punishment of sin.

[38:19] For sin per se is considered, according as it goes forth from the will. For thus it has the ratio, right? Aspect of what? Guilt. But of the ratio of what? Punishment is that it be against the will, as is had in the first part.

[38:45] Whence it is manifest that in no way per se loquendo can sin be the punishment of what? Sin. But per accidens, sin is able to be the punishment of sin in three ways.

[39:04] I was just thought of one. He got three. First, on the side of the cause, which is removing the what? Thing preventing, huh? This is one of the famous kinds of what? Accidental cause. So when what's his name there? Yeah, push the thing down. He was the per accidens cause of the what? Collapse, yeah. Because he removed what prevented the roof from coming down.

[39:47] Now the causes inclining to what sin are what? Passions, the temptation of the devil, and other things of this sort. Which causes are impeded by the aid of divine what? Grace. Which is subtracted by what? Sin.

[40:10] Whence, since the subtraction of grace is a certain punishment, and from God, as has been said above, it follows that per accidens also, the sin that follows from this is called a what? Punishment. Yeah.

[40:32] And then even quotes a text from scripture. I just came on scripture, you know. He had a photographic memory, right, huh? You ever know a guy with a photographic memory? You did. Professor, I had first day of class, class of one hundred and twenty. Yeah. He knew everybody's name by by our face, just by going through the student face. Yeah. We were the guy in high school.

[40:57] There had photographic memory, you know, and that's in high school. They could give him, you know, a three or four page poem, you know. And he read it over once and closed book and recited. And go to a party, you know, and there's ten girls there. He he got all their names, you know.

[41:12] Hi, Judy. Hi, Judy. Yes, so we so we all we all kind of. Yeah. He was the same guy, you know, who said, you know, when the guy said, you know, money isn't everything. Yeah, but what it isn't gonna buy. But

[41:32] see, he used to read the Telford book. You know what to do with this memory, you know. Do pages pages the Telford book. But Thomas probably had a you know pretty good memory, right? Remember a teacher at Zurich saying this one got a pretty good memory, you know. He says, "How do you remember all those things? " Well, you see, I imagine a house, and I put this in that room and this one.

[42:01] Here are some tricks, my daughter. They're gonna work for me. In this way, the apostle says in the epistle to the Romans, chapter one, the twenty fourth verse. On account of this, he handed them over God to the what? Desires of their own hearts, right? So as he removed his his grace, right? They followed the desires of their heart to something, even what? Worse, right? Like these terrorists, right?

[42:31] They seem to be doing something worse each time, each day you hear about them. Which are the what? Passions of the soul, right? Because men, being what? Abandoned.

[42:48] Yeah. From the aid of divine grace, are captured by their what? Passions, huh? And in this way, always sin is said to be the punishment of the what? Yeah.

[43:04] In another way, on the side of the substance. Of the act, right? Which induces somewhat an affection whether it be an interior act, as is clear in anger and envy. Or an exterior act, as when some are what? Oppressed by some grave what? Labor and loss, or something. Damn them. That they might carry out the act of the sin according to that of wisdom five seven. We have become what?

[43:40] Exhausted in the way of iniquity, right? That's the expression in Italian. John Mavigatto. Somebody's very young, but he looks like he's exhausted because he he looks like he sailed the seven seas. Yeah. He's already sailed the seas. He's a young man, but he looks like he's a hundred. He's sailed the seven seas. Worn out. The third way, on the part of the effect, as that some sin is said to be the punishment with respect to an effect, what, fouling.

[44:15] And in these last two ways, one sin is not only the punishment preceding sin, but also of what? Yeah. Now, to the first, therefore, it should be said

[44:33] that this also, that some are punished by God, right, when He permits them to what? Fall down, right, into some sin to flow into, is ordered to the good of what virtue, right? Sometimes to the what? Good of those who sin, right? When some after sin arise more humble and what cautious. Now, let's remember that famous text? in Augustine there where he's talking about the early virgins, right?

[45:07] Some that kind of proud because of right. And Augustine said it'd be better if they fell into the sins of the flesh, right? Because then they would be humbled be recovered from their pride, right? Always, however, is it for the emendation of others who, seeing some right, going to ruin, right, from sin to sin, right? They are more what fear, you might say, to sin, right?

[45:41] In the other two ways is manifest that sin is ordered to the what correction of the one that the man who what suffers some labor or detriment in sinning is what apt to what withdraw men to sin, right? So somebody's willing to have an abortion, right? They have really terrible consequences, not just physically, but you know mentally, right? And and they get very

[46:10] mentally sick, you might say. So they go to Rachel or something. Now the second objection and the third are taking what is what per se, right, as opposed to per accidens, right. So he's untied the knots, right? I can go free now. Now

[46:40] what's frightening here in Article Three here?