Prima Secundae
235. Know Thyself, Act Before Ability, and the Precepts of the Old Law (Summa I-II Q.99 aa.5–6)
Class of 2015-10-01
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/235-know-thyself-act-before-ability-and-the-precepts-of-the-old/

[0:00] Name of the 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, or illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Pray for us. Help us to understand all that you have written. Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

[0:35] So that good advice there from the seven wise men of Greece. Know thyself. Is that good advice? So, to whom is that addressed? Those words, know thyself.

[0:51] Not to the dog. Well it's to someone who's capable of knowing himself, but maybe doesn't know himself or know himself well enough, right? Now, it seems to me it's attributed especially to the reason, right? Because reason's the only part of man that can know itself.

[1:14] And so, when reason knows that it's the ability for large discourse, looking before and after, reason knows itself, right? And is it in some way like God in knowing itself? Yeah. Because God knows himself, right? Much better than we know ourselves, but likeness of proportion, right? Reason knowing itself, by the definition of reason, right, is like God knowing himself, right? Yeah. Now, of course, there's a couple differences, right?

[1:49] And one is that God in knowing himself knows the best thing there is to know. But reason in knowing itself isn't knowing the best thing that there is, right?

[2:03] And secondly, God in knowing himself, by knowing himself, knows all other things. And does reason by knowing itself know other things? Do I know the Pythagorean theorem by knowing the definition of reason?

[2:20] Yeah. But nevertheless, to some extent, reason can know how to come to know other things, right? By discourse and by looking before and after, right?

[2:38] And I was kind of struck, you know, by the fact that Albert the Great divides logic, right, into the art of defining and the art of reasoning, and these the two main kinds of what discourse. Now Thomas doesn't do that, right? He follows the order of Aristotle's books, right. And therefore, in Albert's division of logic, there's a part on definition in the art of defining, right?

[3:10] As well as the categories in the, Isagoge of Porphyry, right? For, Thomas, in the first act, you just have the work of Aristotle on the categories, right? But where does Aristotle take up definition when he gets to the third part? When he gets to demonstration, posterior Analytics, right? And then he talks about how definition is the beginning of syllogism, but especially of demonstration, right? And then he brings out eventually that both definition and demonstration is by knowing causes.

[3:49] And then he comes to the famous thing, says that a complete definition differs from a what? Demonstration by position only. So if you had a complete definition that included all the causes of the thing, right? You stated as one definition, then you'd have what? All the causes. But in demonstration, you might demonstrate one cause by the other cause, right? So you see, a knife is a tool for cutting, and a tool for cutting is made up of a blade and handle, right?

[4:24] Well, you're demonstrating one cause from another cause, right? But if you were giving a complete definition of knife, you'd say it's a tool composed of a knife and what? Remember, blade and handle, and for the sake of cutting, right?

[4:42] And it's kind of mind to this, you know. Aristotle teaches that in the second book of the Posterior Analytics, right? Where he divides the famous questions, you know, does it exist, and if it does exist, what is it? Is this that? And if this is that, why is this that, right? But he says that the question of what and why are both, in a way, looking for what causes.

[5:08] Well, of course, those are the two main kinds of discourse, right? And causes tied up with looking before and after. That's the senses of before and after, right? Cause and effect, huh? Okay.

[5:25] Now, what do you think is the most important before and after to see? The one that's going to carry you the furthest into knowing. What's the most important before and after?

[5:46] Is the before and after of coffee and and tea? Is the before and after of Mozart and Beethoven? What's the most important before and after to see? Before and after, cause and effect. Well, that's very important, yeah. But this one is going to help you to see that.

[6:12] Is it the second Second sense Well I'm not saying which one of the senses of before and after, but before and after of what things, right? Huh? All things. Yeah. What's the most important one to see? Take you the furthest of all, you know.

[6:34] Not equal to God by knowing, you know, the definition. You know this, but you're taught to look before and after. But where should you especially look for the before and after? Before and after of what? Man and woman? Apple and and orange, or before and after fruits? Before and after reason.

[7:02] Think of something very universal. Yeah, very universal, yeah. And because this is tomorrow the feast of the what? Guardian angels. Tuesday was the feast of Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, right?

[7:20] It comes up in the ninth book of wisdom, which I always thought was an honor to the orders of the angels, right? So what's the before and after there? The ninth book of wisdom. Before ability. And act. Yeah, yeah. And Aristotle shows in many ways that act is before ability, right? In being, right? In perfection, and so on, right? And from that, seeing that before and after, Aristotle says, for example, that although in the thing that goes from ability to act, it's an ability before it's an act, right?

[8:00] In that way, ability is before act, but it goes from ability to act by reason of something already in act, so that simply there, speaking simply, haplos, act is before ability, and that leads you to see that the first cause, right, that you're looking for, right, is going to be what? Pure act. Pure act, right?

[8:26] And that leads you to the what? Knowledge later on of the substance of God, right? Because you know, if you want to be a little bit careless and say there's five things you can say about the substance of God, but if you say basically there's three things you say, right? That God is altogether simple. He's what? Perfect, huh? And therefore good, right? And that he's what? Unchanging, right?

[8:55] And therefore eternal, right? You can see all three of those things by his being what pure act, right? If he's pure act, can he be put together? No, because things, when they're put together, one part is to the other as act to ability, like matter and form, right? Or else, at least the parts are to the whole as ability is to act, right? So if God is pure act, he's altogether simple, right?

[9:28] Does he have any accidents? He added habits, qualities. Huh? No, because then there'd be ability and act, right, in him, right? He used to be an angry God. Okay. And how do you know that God is perfect, right? The perfection of a thing is its actuality, right? And God is pure act. Then you're seeing his perfection, therefore his goodness. And is God changeable. Then you have an ability to be something other than you are, right?

[10:07] God being pure act, possible, right? Huh? Okay. Sometimes Thomas will put infinity in with the what perfection of God, right? And one with the simplicity, right? Get that idea of three? You know, I can get these three kinds of laws, right? Do you want to depart too much from two or three, right? And you know, even from God being pure act, you realize He's immaterial, and that's the root of what knowledge.

[10:39] So then you know that God knows, right? But because He's pure act, His understanding must be the same as His what substance, right? Huh? Because His understanding, then you know He's got will and so on, right? Yeah. I think that's kind of most important, right? Most important before and after. And there's many ways that that act is before ability, right? Huh? And Aristotle takes them up in the ninth book, right?

[11:06] In honor of the nine words of angels, right? It's obviously the reason why it's in the ninth book. And at least you can remember it's the ninth book now. And I know when I teach the metaphysics, you know, you can't do everything, you know. I always make sure that we see the ninth book. You know that that was really something. Being a lazy son of a gun, you know, I was always looking for killing many birds with one stone, right?

[11:32] And I said, "Gee whiz, you can show almost all these things about God from His being pure act, right? " So that's kind of marvelous, right? Yeah.

[11:44] So let's go back now to the. Third article, I guess it is question ninety nine. Where we left off. Okay. To the fifth, one proceeds thus: It seems that there are other what precepts contained in the old law apart from the moral, the judicial, and the ceremonial. Something more than three. What heresy is this?

[12:19] For the judicial precepts pertain to the act of justice, which is of man to man. The ceremonial pertain to the act of religion by which God is worshipped. But apart from these, there are many other virtues: temperance, fortitude, liberality, and many more. This has been said above. Therefore, apart from the foresaid, there must be many others contained in the old law.

[12:54] Moreover, says Deuteronomy, chapter eleven, love the Lord your God, and observe His precepts and His what ceremonias, huh? And judicia, judgments. atque mandata is the fourth one.

[13:12] Therefore, the precepts pertain to the what? Moralia. Therefore, apart from the moralia, judicia, and ceremonia, there are others contained in the law which are called mandata. Four things, huh?

[13:33] I was thinking that commandment, you know, to love God. You know, I got three or four parts to it. Because I was looking at the one Matthew that impressed me with, Christ, you know, and he says, love the Lord with your whole heart and your whole soul and your whole reason or your whole mind, right? But sometimes they had another one with your whole strength, right? Does that be like a fourth thing, or is it something that we apply to all three of them?

[13:59] You know, the whole strength of your mind, the whole strength of your heart. You know, so you're not really getting four things that are what distinguished against each other, right? But three with a quality that should be observed in each of the three, huh? Okay. So you got to watch out, these guys. I want to go beyond three, right? They're a dangerous group, you know.

[14:31] Moreover, Deuteronomy six, verse seventeen, huh? Guard the precepts of the Lord your God, right, huh? And the testimonies and the ceremonials which He has what commanded, huh? Therefore, apart from all the foresaid in the old law, in the law there is the testimonia, right?

[14:58] Moreover, in Psalm one eighteen it said, "I will not forget for eternity, right, your justifications." The gloss says that is the law. Therefore, the precepts of the old law are not only the moralia, ceremonial, judicial, but also the justificationes Okay,

[15:26] got something at church there, you know? Our Lady of Knots. Have you seen that? Yeah, yeah. I said, "Hey, this is just what we need," you know. I guess this the Pope is interested in this. I guess he ran into it in Germany. There, I guess, so he's pushing it. I said, "That's just what we need." I said,

[15:54] "I don't care about the not tired." Notching time, moving more ways than one. Yes. But against this is what is said in Deuteronomy six: these are the precepts and the ceremonial and the judicials or judgments which the Lord has commanded to you, right? And you have the three of them, right? That's kind of the summing up there at the Deuteronomy, right? And these are laid down in the beginning of the law.

[16:25] Therefore, all the precepts of the law are comprehended under these. Well, what does Thomas say here? I answer: It should be said that in the law are laid down some things as what precepts, huh? By the others as something ordered to the what fulfilling of the precepts. We saw that in the explanation they gave, where the

[16:56] ceremonial and judicial ones were more particular, right? Than the precepts like the commandments. Precepts are are about those things which should be done. To the fulfilling of which a man is led into the fulfilling of them from two things, to wit, from the authority of the one commanding, huh? And from the usefulness of their being fulfilled, which is the what achievement of some useful good, right, or some delightful good, some pleasant good, or from some animal good, right?

[17:38] Or the fleet flight from the contrary what evil, right? Is necessary therefore in the old law to propose some things which indicate the authority of God commanding,

[17:58] as in that of Deuteronomy six four. Hear Israel, the Lord your God is what one, and that of Genesis one one. In the beginning God created heaven and earth, and things of this sort are called what Testimonia.

[18:25] Is necessary also that in the law be proposed certain rewards right of those observing the law, and punishments of those transgressing them, as is clear in Deuteronomy chapter twenty eight. If you hear the voice of the Lord your God, you will make you higher right than all the what nations etc. And these are called justifications, according as God justly punishes or justly rewards.

[19:06] Now the things to be done do not come under precept except in so far as they have some notion of being what owed. Now there is a twofold debt,

[19:23] one according to the rule of reason, another according to the rule of one determining what the law. As the philosopher himself says, that's Aristotle by the way, in the fifth book of the Ethics, the Nicomachean Ethics, he distinguishes a twofold justum to wit, the moral one right, and then the what legal.

[20:00] Now the moral debt is twofold. For reason dictates something to be done, either because it is necessary, without which there is not able to be the order of virtue, or as something useful to this, that the order of virtue might be better what preserved. And according to this, some things of the moralia are precisely right commanded or prohibited in the law, as you shall not kill, you shall not what commit theft.

[20:38] And these are properly said to be what precepts. Some are commanded or prohibited, not as it were precisely owed, but in account of them being what better, and these are able to be called mandata,

[21:02] because they have a certain what inducing us to this and a certain persuasive force. As is said in Exodus twenty-two, if what If you take a pledge of your neighbor from your neighbor his garment, his coat or something. Yeah, before the setting of the sun, I guess huh. Before the setting of the sun Turn it to him, right? Another similar things. Whence Jerome says that in the precepts is justice, in the mandatis what caritas but thing that is owed from the determination of the law, in human things pertains to judicialia; in divine things to ceremonial.

[22:04] Now, although those things that pertain to punishment or to rewards are able to be called testimonia, insofar as they are certain protesting of the divine what justice.

[22:21] But all the precepts of the law are able to be called justifications, in so far as they are certain carrying out of what legal justice.

[22:35] Now, is possible for other way mandata to be distinguished from precept. The precepts have said those things which God, through Himself, what orders right? Mandata, which He commands through others, as the what name itself seems to what sound.

[23:02] I'll complicate this. Give you an example of this. From which all of which it appears that all the precepts of the what law are contained under the moral, ceremonial, judicial. The others do not have the ratio, the definition of precepts, but are ordered to the what observation of the precepts. As has been said, so not to be laid alongside like another one, right? But something, yeah, just like I was saying about those loving God, right?

[23:42] There's some distinction between loving with your whole heart, your whole soul, and your whole reason, right? And with your whole strength, you know, it's not a fourth thing, but it's something that is to do excellence in each one of these, huh? According to your.

[24:03] Now, he replies only then to the first objection. To the first, therefore, it should be said: What about the other virtues? That justice alone, among the other virtues, implies the notion of what something owed, right?

[24:22] And therefore, moralia, in so far as they are able to be determined by law, in so far as they pertain to what justice, of which also a part is what religion, as Tullius or Cicero says, right? Whence the iustum legale cannot be something apart from the ceremonial and judicial precepts. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, huh? Well? It seems that the main thing that ails the contemporary world is that with all the rights speak, the focus on rights, Mary Ann Glendon Harvard Law, has written a great deal about this, to the exclusion of duty.

[25:16] It's fascinating here, where he's saying justice alone of all the virtues implies the notion of duty. Consequently, moral matters are determinable by law in so far as they belong to justice. But if there is no duty, then moral matters become very amorphous and undefined. And that's exactly what's been happening in the West. It's really uh, they should really, should be reading Saint Thomas more. I was reading a review in National Review there of a book about the

[25:51] recent decisions about what marriage is, right? Is not. That's by what's his name, Ryan Anderson. I don't know who he is. I'm gonna look him up. He's of the Heritage Foundation. Yeah, maybe he is. Yeah, it's actually a very good book, you know. You know, and of course he was at one point he's kind of quoting, you know, kind of what marriage is, right? The definition of marriage, right, originally.

[26:19] And then he was talking how, you know, of course, obviously changing the definition, right? And he was quoting a homosexual, I guess, from their office, you know, that talks about it. And the definition that he gives of marriage is, you know, that it's kind of like a profession of your emotional attachment to somebody. Like I'm married to my grandchildren, right?

[26:45] I'm married to my dog or cat or something. You get emotionally attached to your your dog or your dog or your pet or something, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I said to Rosio at the dinner, I said, "Is that what we got married? We were professing our emotional attachment? " Rosio, yeah, yeah, you don't get married on an emotional attachment. That's your profession when you get up there, you know.

[27:11] I used to say to students before this this whole thing, you know, crazy thing arose, but I'd say, you know, when you're getting married, does the priest say, you know, do you have wonderful feelings about so and so? Yes, I do. You say, do you take so and so as your wife or husband, right? And that's really an act of will, right? You're choosing, right? See, you don't get married by having wonderful feelings for somebody.

[27:40] That might dispose you to get married, right? But what actually makes you married is that you choose each other for. You know, yeah, it's open to to it's open to to life and so on, right? The definition of marriage means you have to redefine polygamy and root marriage as well. Yeah. It's a it's a slippery slope and very dangerous thing. But in essence, you, you know, going back to discourse there, right?

[28:03] I mean, the the U. S. Supreme Court doesn't understand the definition of marriage, right? These obviously two quite different definitions, two different things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the most common mistake there, you know, of fallacy of equivocation, right?

[28:21] And. it's not a good way of discussing. might say something about marriage. is marriage is for life. Mm-hmm. Take a different point. Yeah. Yeah.

[28:36] But he was very good at seeing, you know, the effect of these things. You know, he begins with talking there about no fault divorce, right? How that starts, thinking that something's going to do, you know, it's going to make it very, very dissolvable, you know, the marriage. Yeah. Okay. Okay, Thomas. We'll give you a pass in this article five here. To the sixth one goes forward. Thus, it seems that the old law ought not to what induce people to the observance of commands through temporal promises, right, and temporal threats,

[29:23] huh? For the intention of the divine law is that make men subject to God through both fear and love. Whence it is said in Deuteronomy ten verse twelve, and now Israel, what the Lord your God asks from you, except that you fear the Lord your God, and you walk in His ways, and you what love Him, huh? See more that Thomas says, Timorum before amorum, there, right?

[29:53] It's following the order of the words here in Deuteronomy. But the cupidity, huh, the covetousness of temporal things leads away from God, right? For Augustine says in the book of the eighty-three questions that the what poison of charity is cupidity, right? Huh? Poisons it. Therefore, the promises and the temper the temporal promises and threats would seem to be contrary to the intention of the legislator, which makes the law what?

[30:32] Yeah. Is as clear through the philosopher in the second book of the politics. Really good edition. Huh? That's a really good edition. Yeah, I say. Moreover, the divine law is more excellent than the human law. But we see in the sciences that the higher it is, right, the more it proceeds through higher middles, right, middle terms. Therefore, since human law proceeds to inducing men through temporal threats and promises, the divine law not to proceed from these, but through something greater.

[31:13] Yeah, very good, Thomas. So excited you on Thomas. Something like a purist, a real purist. Warred that is not able to be the award of justice or the punishment of guilt that equally comes both to good and to what bad. But it said in um Ecclesiasticus? I think that's Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes. With the E on the end, it's Ecclesiastes.

[31:50] But we can look at it later. He says that all things universa temporalia, right, huh? Happen evenly, right? Huh? To the just and the impious, huh? To the good and the bad, to the clean and the unclean, huh? To the one what sacrificing gifts and the one condemning or having contempt for these things. Therefore, temporal goods or temporal evils are not suitably laid down as punishments or rewards of the what commandments of the law of God, huh?

[32:29] Okay. Well, I'm convinced, aren't you? Got to follow the argument right to where it leads, right? But against this is what is said in Isaiah. He's a pretty big shot, you know. These these great prophets are trying to what get us to fulfill the law, right? Huh?

[32:56] If you wish and you hear me, you eat the goods of the earth, right? Got it right here. Oh, the goods of the earth.

[33:09] But if you do not wish, huh, and you provoke me to wrath, huh, the sword will devour you. Sounds like Allah, doesn't it? No, Allah would say the sword will devour if you obey me. The sword will devour your enemies. You're sword devouring enemies. Yeah, I mean they chop off heads and so on. Yeah. Okay.

[33:39] I answer. It should be said that just as in the and in Latin he said speculative sciences, right? In English we say the looking sciences, huh? And in Greek they say the theoretical sciences, right? So I'm telling them that what you have in Euclid there are the what theorems, huh? Okay. I was driving in today and I noticed when the guy was from out of state there in front of me, right?

[34:07] And you know how that little thing where you buy the car or something, you know? And said Euclid, Ohio. I I can't avoid this Euclid in my life.

[34:20] From Euclid, Ohio? Yeah. They they probably wouldn't have bought their car I guess. Oh. Yeah, I didn't know it was Eu. I know there's a hotel Euclid downtown St. Paul when I was a kid, you know. Hotel Euclid. Yeah, everything's in triangles. Yeah. in that hotel When I. When I when I count the money there in the envelopes, I get to get the wrong names, you know.

[34:39] There's a Euclid there in the parish, you know, and so and so. I didn't know. I didn't know he had a hotel named after him. Pretty good.

[34:54] So just as in the looking sciences, huh? Men are led to what? Assenting to conclusions through syllogistic what, notice? Notice that word. And if you get the Latin there, inducunter, right? It doesn't mean it's an induction, right? But you're using that common word, right, for leading in. But you're leading it in not by induction, but by the higher way of the syllogism. So also in certain laws, men are led into the observance of the precepts through punishments and what, awards, huh?

[35:36] Now if I drive 30 miles an hour in the city, there, I don't get any award, do I? So, some of these insurance companies, you know, talk about the award you get for for not getting on. Yeah, there's many punishments that they have, you know, for for going too fast or.

[35:58] But we see, however, in the looking sciences, that middles are proposed to the hear according to his what condition. Whence is necessary to proceed in order or do not they, huh? In scientias pucherere, huh? Well, it's looking before and after, right, huh? It's an order road. That learning might be from or begin from what is what more known, huh?

[36:29] So also is necessary. Incidentally, let me stop and if it's for a second there, you know. Um. What's probably the best short way to get somebody thinking about abortion? You know. They shouldn't do it. Yeah. Well, like what Pope Francis said, Congress

[37:00] don't do to somebody else what you wouldn't want somebody. Yeah, yeah. I was thinking that that is better if you say, you know, well, you're you're taking human life, right? Then you get into argument, you know, when is is human and so on, when it's just blob of tissue, you know, and get all that kind of argument. If you say, you know, or begin by saying, you know, do you accept the the common law, right, and doing to others as you have them done to you, and and they probably say yes, they agree with that, right?

[37:27] And then would you want to be what? Make them abort. Yeah. And if you escaped it, you know, would you want to be retroactive? You know, have you eliminated? And they really can't really handle it or think, you know. And then you can throw in, you know, Regan's remark, you know, about I know still nobody's in favor of abortions. Are we even born? It's kind of a kind of a way of indicating, you know, that that

[37:55] truth and argument, you know. And the secondly, framed also is that anybody who supports abortion is a bully. I think the golden golden Might may try I'm bigger I'm stronger and I got more money But I think the growth growing rule there is kind of proportionate in terms of what's more known to people right now, you know. And you said even parents in it, you know, when when a little boy is is nasty to to a neighbor, a little boy or something, you know, who would you want, you know, this something to do this to you, and why are you doing it to him?

[38:28] Well, he doesn't have much answer to that, right? Main arguments for abortion tend to abstract the issue. It's depersonalized, dehumanized, and so by bringing in the golden rule and also making the person that you're talking to personally involved in the question, you know, well, what were you if if this is just a club of cells? Yeah. Well, what were we? What what was you? What were you and you?

[38:52] Yeah. Yeah. And you get to thinking along those lines, and when it becomes personal, then they start thinking more along the lines of the golden rule. Yeah. Otherwise, if it's abstract. they won't When they realize they didn't want it to be a word themselves. right it kind of bypasses you know all those arguments about when it's just a piece of flesh Right And so on right You know And uh

[39:28] So also is necessary that the one who wishes to lead a man into the observance of the precepts, right? That from those things he should begin to move him, right, which are in his what affections, right? What he's attracted to, huh? Just as boys are provoked, huh, to doing something by some puerile little gifts, I guess, huh? Yeah. it has been said, however Or we would like with the dog you call it a treat Give me a treat Yeah Little treats for little boys

[40:09] It has been said however above, that the old law disposes for Christ as the imperfect disposes to the what perfect, whence it is given to a people still imperfect in comparison to the perfection which would be future through Christ, huh? This will come out even more in some of the details of these laws, right? You see that.

[40:41] And therefore, this people was compared to the boy, huh? Under the pedagogue, huh? That's very show that the analysis is the comparison there is is given by Paul, right? As is clear from Galatians chapter three, verse twenty-four. Now the perfection of man is that having contempt for temporal things, right, huh? He adheres to spiritual things, as is clear through that which the apostle says, huh? That means Saint Paul, right?

[41:14] By Philippians three, huh? The things which are what, huh? Before, huh? The past, forgetting those things, right? Okay. To those which are before, I extend my what self, huh? Before him. That's more like Homer, right? Before and behind, right?

[41:41] Whichever things are what perfect, huh? Whoever are perfect, right? This is the way they think, right, or sense. Now it's of the imperfect that they desire temporal goods. In order, nevertheless, to God, right?

[42:05] But it's of the perverse that they constitute their end in temporal goods, right? Whence it was what suitable to the old law that to temporal things, which were in the what affections of imperfect men, men were led by the hand to God. Have you studied in the Monléon? You would have heard of Monsignor Dionne. But in question one seventeen, article one, right there, he talks about teaching.

[42:41] Right, he says the teacher leads the student from the known to the unknown two ways. One of them is leading him by sensible things and so on.

[42:54] Okay. What about the first objection here? You had Augustine even talking about poison, right? So God was poisoning the Jewish people. The first, therefore, should be said that the cupidity by which man constitutes his end in temporal goods is the poison of what charity, huh? But the attaining of temporal goods, which a man desires in order to God, right, is a certain road leading in the imperfect to the love of what God, according to that of Psalm forty-eight.

[43:37] I will confess to you when you benefit me. Okay. But you find people even you know nowadays even they might pray to God because the husband has a hard time finding a job or something, right? You know, and then if he gets a job, well, then this disposes them, you know, well towards God, right? They're not putting their into their life in this job, obviously, but they've been benefited by God, right?

[44:08] Their prayer has been answered, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Even Christ is going around curing people, right? Interesting. Sometimes he forgets, forgives the sins before he cures them, right? But so he said, "How can you be forgiving sins? " You know, well, it's you know

[44:32] which is easier. Yeah. Okay. To the second objection. To the second, should be said that the human law leads men in from temporal what rewards or punishments.

[44:57] Two men, but the divine law from awards or punishments exhibited by God, and in this way it proceeds from what? I mean, to the third, it should be said that just as is clear, the one what considering, I guess, right, evolving his mind, the histories of the Old Testament, right, the common state of the people under the law was always in what prosperity, so long as they observed the law, and immediately declining from the peace of the law, they fell into many what adversities, finally called off to

[45:47] beg dead and something. But other particular persons also, what observing the justice of the law, came into some adversities, right? Because either what? They were already made spiritual. Yeah, that they might be more from the effect of what temporal things drawn away, and their virtue might be what proved, or because in fulfilling the works of the law exteriorly, their whole heart they had in what, and they were

[46:31] elongated from God, according to what is said Isaiah twenty-nine. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Christ is saying that to the ones of his own time, right? Okay.

[46:54] Now he's