Prima Secundae
266. Grace, Part 2 (ST I-II q.109 a.2–3): Willing the Good and Loving God Above All Things, in Integral and Fallen Nature
Class of 2016-02-18
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/266-grace-part-2-st-i-ii-q-109-a-2-3-willing-the-good-and-loving/

[0:00] Article two here. The second one goes for thus. It seems that man is able to do, to will, and to do good without grace.

[0:18] For that is in the power of man, of which he is the lord. But man is the lord, the master of his own acts, and most of all of that which is to will, as has been said above. Therefore, man is able to will and to do good by himself, without the aid of what grace.

[0:52] Okay, so we're in the first objection here, right? Man has gotten power to will and do things. To the first, therefore, should be said that man is the lord of his own acts and of willing and not willing, on account of the deliberation of what reason,

[1:17] which can be moved to one part or to the other, right? But that he deliberates or does not deliberate, if he is the lord of this, it is necessary that he what do this, that this be through some preceding deliberation.

[1:40] Now, I can argue, you know, the argument for instance of God, right? That you can't have a endless series, right, of movers, right? Well, here you have kind of another kind of argument for God, right? And since this cannot go forward forever, right, it is necessary finally to arrive at this that the free judgment of man is moved by some exterior beginning, which is above the human mind, to wit, from God.

[2:17] And notice he says here is also the philosopher, meaning what Aristotle proves in the chapter on good, what fortune, huh? Okay, this is the chapter in the what Eudemian Ethics, huh? You know, most of the time we get quotes from the what Nicomachean Ethics, right? Huh? Now, who is Nicomachus? Nicomachus. Because Nicomachean Ethics from Nicomachus, right? Who is he? Nicomachus?

[2:54] Well, I, I guess Aristotle's father was named Nicomachus, right? And he also had his son named Nicomachus, huh? So is it the ethics he learned from his father, or the ethics he was trying to what communicate to his son? Huh? You'd say maybe either one, or maybe a bit of both, right? Huh? Now who is Eudemian Ethics? Well, Eudemus, I guess, was a student of Aristotle, right?

[3:23] Huh? This is kind of profound thing that Aristotle's saying, right? I kind of call this, you know, the the ethical arguments of God, right? Huh? In that he can't be the start; you might say, of his own what deliberation, right? Huh? But he's moved by God. He talks about that in a chapter the Eudemian Ethics. You got to realize Aristotle was the kind of Aristotle, somebody. I mean, he really is, and this is a beautiful example, you know.

[3:53] You wouldn't expect, huh, a pagan like that, to to realize this dependence upon God, right? Even for our internal things. I mean, modern philosophy thinks it's my own thoughts, you know. I don't need anybody to move me.

[4:10] Whence the mind of man, of even a healthy man, right? Huh? Does not thus have the dominion of his own acts, but that he needs to be moved by what God. And much more, right, the free judgment, free will of a what man who's infirm after what sin, or he's impeded from the good by the corruption of what nature.

[4:40] So you need God, right? Huh? To think about doing something good, right? How is that in your power to think about something good? Understanding, right? Of this.

[5:01] Let's look at the second objection here. Moreover, each thing is more able to do that which is for it according to nature, than in that which is outside of nature, right? But sin is against what nature, as Damascene says in the second book, huh?

[5:27] So Aristotle says there in the ninth book of the Ethics that when a man does wrong, right? Huh? He changes himself; he's no longer himself. It's kind of a striking thing, huh? Did you see that? This is Damascene says, huh? Peccatum est contra naturam, but the work of virtue is for man according to nature, as has been said above. Since therefore man seems to be able through himself to what sin, which is against nature, right?

[6:01] Then much more through himself can he what will and do good? Huh? That's a nice argument, huh? Well, Thomas says to the second, it should be said that to sin is nothing other than to fall short of the good that belongs to someone according to his nature. That's a beautiful thing, right? Shows the importance of what nature. Now each created thing, huh? Just as it does not have being except from another, so considered in itself, it's nothing.

[6:42] That's what I have for myself, nothing. So that it needs to be conserved or preserved in the good of its own nature, in a good suitable its own nature, from another, right? Otherwise, it falls into nothing, right? Now Augustine says sin is nothing, and the man who sins becomes nothing, right? Okay.

[7:09] But he can through himself, huh? Because he's from himself nothing, right? He can what fall short from the good, just as through himself, or left to himself without God, he would come into what non-being, right?

[7:27] God withdraw his what unless he be divinely preserved, right? That's an interesting explanation, right? If a man is more able to do what is against his nature, then what? What is in accordance with his nature, huh? This is this argument from from the idea that it's easier to do this than to do that. He can do the thing that is more difficult, therefore he can do the thing that's easier, right?

[7:53] A man can do more what is in accordance with his nature than what is not in accordance with nature, right? But what can man do more from himself? What is he from himself? He's nothing. He's non-being, right? Huh? And therefore he can do that which is what lacking in being, right? Huh? More easily than that which is what in accordance with nature, huh? I'm

[8:21] able to be a nobody than a somebody, because I'm a nobody from myself, right? I'm a somebody like Aristotle because I've been given a good mind by someone other than myself. Would it be a partial explanation or partial understanding of original sin? Do you think as well? Well, when Thomas talks about you know why a creature can fail, you know, and why the divine you know will can't do evil, you know, huh?

[8:50] And it's because you know that goes back ultimately to the fact that from ourselves we are nothing, huh? And therefore we have built in kind of a negative aspect. Weakness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[9:09] I'm more able from myself to do nothing than something. You see that in the guys that sit around TV all day. Aristotle says the ethics of the life most men prefer a life suitable to beasts. You know, it's rather strong, strong words. You know,

[9:37] how can he say that? How can he be so nasty? Right. He's not a friendly person. Yeah, this this physician assisted suicide, right? Huh? And we're able to end your life than keep yourself alive, right?

[10:16] Okay. Third objection: the good of the understanding is the true, as the philosopher says in the sixth book of the ethics. So he takes up the what the virtues of reason, right, in the sixth book. But the understanding is able to know the truth to itself, just as each other thing is able to do its own natural operation by itself. Therefore, much more is a man able to himself to make and to do and will good, yeah.

[10:53] To third, it should be said that also the true a man is not able to know without the divine aid, as has been said above. And nevertheless, more is human nature corrupted by sin as regards the what desire for good than as regards the knowledge of truth. I know for instance the sales said to our understanding more no our will is more weakened than our understanding and target

[11:25] Now, against this, huh, is what the apostle says. Because he said contra here in the Romans nine, it is not of the one willing, to wit, to will, right? Paul says, nor of the one running to what run, but of the God taking mercy upon him, huh? And Augustine says in the book on corruption, corruption. I mean,

[11:55] correction, yeah, correction, not corruption, and grace. That without grace, nothing what, either thinking or willing or loving or doing, will men do what, what, huh? Now, Augustine, huh? He's got a tough, tough mind, yeah.

[12:25] Thomas says that Plato and Aristotle are the chief philosophers, right? In fact, I tend to say you know Augustine and Thomas are the chief, chief theologians, huh? Don't know who anybody would be quite the equal of those two, you know. But there are some other great minds too, of course.

[12:47] I answer, Thomas says it should be said that the nature of man can be considered in two ways. In one way, in its say what integrity, right, and its wholeness, huh?

[13:03] Just as it was in the first parent before sin, right? In another way, according as it is corrupt in us after the sin of the first what parent?

[13:24] Now, according to both statuses, human nature needs the divine aid, right, to doing or willing any good, right? Just as it depends upon the first what mover, this has been said. But in the state of integral nature, as regards the sufficiency of the operating power, man can through his natural powers will and do good, right? That is proportioned to his nature, such as is the good of acquired what virtue.

[14:12] Not however the excelling good, right? Super, huh? What's that? I mean, super. Super duper. Super. That's my brother's way See, but who's got the word super? Right? That's taken from the from the continuous. Yeah, super. As is the good of infused what virtue, huh? Which is one of the English philosophers. He always complains about that word infused, right? You know, it's crude. You know, as if he can name these things without taking words from the senses, right?

[14:55] But you can see the difference between something that's acquired by your own acts and one that's poured into you, as it says, right? But he objected the word poured in, right? Infused.

[15:07] That's his problem But in the state of corrupt nature, man fails also, right? Even fails from that which is which is able to do according to his nature, right? It's Aristotle's saying, right? Most men prefer a life suitable to beasts, right? Not the life that fits our nature. That they are not able, he is not able, to fulfil the whole good, right, of this sort to his natural powers.

[15:44] But because human nature is not entirely corrupted, right, by sin, that he is deprived of the whole good of nature, and that's not true, huh?

[16:07] He is able, also in the state even of corrupt nature, right, in is able through the virtuous nature some particular good, right, to to to do, as to build houses, as Augustine says, to plant vineyards, right, and other things of this sort, huh? Not, however, the whole good connatural to him, right, such that he fails in nothing, right? Just as an infirm or sick man can to himself have some motion, right, huh?

[16:50] But he cannot perfectly move by the motion of a healthy man, unless he be cured by the aid of what medicine, huh? Thus, therefore, huh, a man needs a gratuitous virtue, right, or power, added above the natural power, right, in the state of what integral nature, as regards one thing, to do and to will the supernatural good, right? But in the state of corrupt nature, I guess I'm in the state of corrupt nature, huh?

[17:40] We're all in the same boat I guess so. As regards two things, right, to wit, that he be healed, right, and further that he do the good of supernatural virtue or power, which is meritorious, huh? But further, in either state, a man needs divine aid that he what be moved, yeah, to acting what well.

[18:21] Well there was a statement about using playo and aristotle, to show that that the first sin had actually taken place, right? You know, original sin had taken place. There's a lot of evidence, right, that man is

[18:36] yeah something's wrong, yeah. Okay. Now we up to article fifteen for another call. Okay. Whether man is able to understand to love God, right, above all things from his But natural powers alone, without grace, eh? To the third, then, one proceeds thus: It seems that man is not able to love God above all things from his natural powers only, without grace. Thomas going to take the other side.

[19:28] Well, to love God above all things is the proper and principal act of what charity, huh? But man does not have charity to himself, because, as Saint Paul says, the charity of God is diffused in our hearts by the what Holy Spirit, right? Who is given to us, as is said in the Epistle to Romans, chapter five, verse five, two. Therefore, man from natural things alone is not able to love God above all things.

[20:09] Huh? That's by charity, and that's not by your natural powers, right? Moreover, no nature is able above itself can act upon and has power in what is above itself. But to love something more than oneself is to tend to something above oneself. Huh? Therefore, no natural created nature is able to love God above itself without the aid of what grace.

[20:51] Oh wait, we should look at the replies and check. should be a few Yeah. To the first, therefore, it should be said that's the argument from charity, right? Okay. To the first, therefore, it should be said that charity loves God above all things in a more eminent way than what nature does. Huh? So he's not going to deny that nature loves God above all things. For nature loves God above all things in so far as He is the beginning and the end of natural what good, huh?

[21:26] But charity loves God above all things in so far as He is the object of beatitude, huh? And according as man has a certain spiritual society with God, huh? Thomas talks about that, huh? When he talks about charity being what form of friendship, right, huh? That therefore is in spiritual society we have with God in heaven. Because it goes back to what Aristotle says, right? That friends, you know, you know, live together, right, huh?

[22:01] They spend life together, right? So we have to spend life in God with us in society with God, right, by charity. Now charity adds above, also adds above natural what love of God, a certain promptness, right, and a certain what pleasure, right? Just as any habit of virtue adds on the act, good act which it produces from what? Yeah, a man

[22:44] not having the habit of what virtue, right? I think Francis de Sales mentioned this in one of those early chapters on the love of God. That's what he says is that by nature we can love God above all things. He says natural doesn't. Yeah, yeah, but but the habit of virtue even there is natural because it's in promptness, right, and pleasure, right? Okay.

[23:13] So it pains me to return your billfold. You know that I found. I don't really have the virtue, do I? I should enjoy, huh? You know, pleasure. Okay. Now

[23:31] to the second objection. Now this is going to go about this being above itself. To the second, it should be said that when it's said that no nature is able to go above itself, should not be understood that it cannot be what carried to some object which is above itself. For it is manifest that our understanding, by natural knowledge, right, is able to know some things which are above itself, as is clear natural knowledge of God, which even St.

[24:02] Paul talks about there in in Romans, huh? But it should be understood that nature cannot go to an act that exceeds the proportion of its power.

[24:16] But such an act is not to love God above all things. It's not above His power. For this is natural to what any created nature, as has been said above, that's in in the body of the article. We'll see that. That kind of surprises people, right? Huh? Because they think that it begins loving God above all things in some way belongs only to what? nature. Yeah, yeah.

[24:48] Moreover, God, since He is the summum bonum, it's the fifth chapter of Thomas on the good summa. There is owed the summum amor, right, the highest love, which is to be loved above all things, right?

[25:06] But for the highest love, giving it to God, which is owed to Him by us, man is not sufficient without grace. Otherwise, in vain would grace be added, right? Therefore, a man is not able, without grace, from natural things alone, to love God above all things.

[25:31] To the third, it should be said that love is said to be the highest, not only as regards the grade of love, but also to the reason for loving and the way of loving. And according to this, the supreme grade of love is that by which charity loves God as beatifying us, right?

[25:55] Aristotle didn't know that. That's what I know. St. Bonaventure describes our nature in theology. Yeah. Beatific happiness. We're able to be made blessed, which doesn't belong

[26:12] in that philosophy, not in the supernatural. Aristotle talks in the Ethics, you know, about how it's hard to have friendship, you know, when there's great distance, right? And then, you know, a man and God, how could they be friends, right? It's too far apart, right?

[26:33] But against this, the first man in natural things alone was constituted, as is laid down by what? Some, right? Huh? In which state is manifest in some way he loved God, but he did not love God equally to himself or less, because according to this he would have sinned, right? Therefore, he loved God above himself. Therefore, God, a man, from his natural powers alone, is able to love God more than himself and above all things.

[27:13] I answer: It should be said that just as above was said in the first book of the Summa Contra, Gentiles and the Summa Theologiae, in which also about the natural love of the angels there were diverse opinions. What? Laid down, right? Huh?

[27:32] Man in the state of integral nature can operate by virtue of his nature, the good which is what? Connatural to him, right? Without the addition of a gratuitous gift, although not without, as we said before, the aid of God, what? Moving him, right? Huh? But to love God above all things is something connatural to man.

[28:03] That's something people have hard time seeing, you see. And also to each any creature, right? Not only to the rational one. But to the what, irrational, and even to the inanimate, according to the kind of love they have, right?

[28:25] That's to extend the word Yeah, which is able to belong to any creature, right? Okay. The reason for this is that it is natural to each thing

[28:41] that it desire and love something, according as it is what apt by nature to be. For thus a thing acts in so far as naturally apt to act, as Augustine says, and as Aristotle says, in the second book of the Physics. But is manifest that the good of the part is an account of the good of the whole. Whence also, by natural desire or love, each particular thing loves its own what proper good, on account of the good, the common good of the whole what universe, which is God.

[29:28] Whence Dionysius says in the book on the divine names that God converts all things to love of Himself. Whence man, in the state of integral nature, referred the love of himself to the love of God as to a what end, and likewise the love of all what other things, all being moved by God to Himself as the end of the whole universe. And thus he loves God more than himself and above all.

[30:06] But now, in the state of corrupt nature, which I guess I am in, you also, man falls short of this, according to the desire of his rational what will, which, on account of the corruption of nature, follows the what private good, unless it be healed by the grace of God.

[30:38] So, and therefore it should be said that man, in the state of what integral nature, does not need the gift of grace added to his natural goods for loving God naturally, right? Above all things,

[30:58] although he would need the aid of God, right, even in the state of integral nature, in order moving him, right, huh? But in the state of corrupt nature, man needs also for this

[31:16] the aid of grace, healing nature, right? So my nature is blasted, on? Like a like a plant that's been blasted by the weather, huh? That's what I am here. I'm in a bad shape, I guess. You need help. I do, I do, I do. You need the help of grace.