Prima Secundae
271. Grace, Virtue and the Soul: Rereading Article 3 and the Objections of Article 4 (Summa I-II, Q.110)
Class of 2016-03-10
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/271-grace-virtue-and-the-soul-rereading-article-3-and-the-objections/

[0:00] In the Name of the Father, the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas. Deo gratias God, our enlightenment. Help us, God, to know and love you. Angels of God, enlighten our minds, ordain our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Help us to understand what you've written. Father, Son, and, Holy Ghost. Let's look at the body of the article three again, just because it's such an important article, right?

[0:45] He says, "I answer that it should be said that some lay down to be the same thing, right? Grace and virtue, uh, in their very essence or nature, but that they differ only according to reason, right? Ratio That is called grace, according as it makes man pleasing to God, let's say, or according as it is given gratis, freely. It's called virtue over, according as it perfects us to acting well.

[1:25] And this seems to be what the what the Magister Peter Lombard since thought, yeah, in the second book of the sentences, right? Okay. But is someone rightly, huh? We gotta consider rightly that. So we pray and look for the Thomas or the angel. But if someone rightly considers, huh, the notion of virtue? This cannot stand. That's Thomas' hoc phrase all the time. This cannot stand. Because, as the philosopher says in the seventh book of the physics, virtue is a certain disposition of the perfect.

[2:09] I call perfect what is disposed according to its what nature. That's what Aristotle sees, right? Huh? Now I know when Thomas in in the Summa when he's defending or taking up rather the genus, you know, that virtue belongs to and so on, right? And he recalls the text of Aristotle there in the book in the Categories. And the first species of quality that Aristotle gives is habit or disposition.

[2:46] The second species is natural or natural ability or inability. And then you have the sensible qualities, and then you have the shape and so on. Well, it's always struck as kind of strange at first sight that he puts habit or disposition, Aristotle, before power. Right? It's just that closer to the nature, right? And Thomas says, well, he puts habit or disposition first because by the habit we are disposed well or badly with regard to our what nature.

[3:24] So in that sense, it's closer, right? In in some sense, than even what the the power is in a sense. Because by the power you can use that well or badly, and it can be disposed in a way that's even contrary to your nature. So the virtue is being disposed in a way that's kind that's that's in agreement with your nature, right? And the vice is a disposition that is contrary to your what nature.

[3:56] Well, here you see something like that, huh? I call perfect that which is disposed according to its what nature, yeah. Now, of course, in in God, huh? The the virtue of God, there are certain virtues of God, right? They are the same as his nature, right? See, so you didn't have to worry about nothing, yeah. Yeah. But we, they're not the same thing, right? Huh? And so we can be disposed by our habits, right?

[4:28] Either in accordance with our nature, or what opposed to our nature. Okay. From which it is clear that virtue, the virtue of each thing or each thing, yeah, is said in order to some nature pre-existing, right?

[4:53] When each thing is thus disposed according as is congruent, right, with its nature. Okay. So we so now you speak of you know the vices being something inhuman, right? Okay.

[5:15] Now it is manifest that he's going to I take a little break here, right? Because he's going to develop this point. Now it is manifest, however, that the acquired virtues and the natural virtue—I mean the human virtues—we call them the virtues acquired through human acts about which we have spoken above—are dispositions by which a man is suitably disposed in order to the nature by which he is a man, right?

[5:45] Now the infused virtues dispose man in a higher way and to a what higher end. Whence also it is necessary that be in order to some higher what nature.

[6:04] Otherwise, you'd be disposing it in a way that's not suitable to the nature of the thing, right? So the nature of man has to be raised by grace, right?

[6:15] Huh? In order that the theological virtues and so on, and the infused virtues, can be in accord with that. And this is in order to the what divine nature partaken of, huh? According as it is said in the second epistle of Peter. Now he's the what first pope, I guess. Maxima et pretiosa, he gave to us, right?

[6:44] Most of all, and precious promises, right? That through these we might be made what partakers, consortes, of the divine what nature? And according to this, taking of this nature, we are said to be regenerated in the sons of God, right? Well, that's interesting, right? Because a son is something that ties with nature, right? But we're not the sons of God by nature.

[7:15] The son of God, I mean, the the Word of God is is a son of God by nature, right? He shares the same nature, but we're not sons of God by nature, are we? No.

[7:27] So our nature has to be raised up, right, to to partake of that, yeah. So then he argues from this proportion. Just therefore, as the natural light of reason is something apart from the acquired virtues, huh? Which are said in order to this natural light, huh? So also the light of grace, the sons of light, huh? Which is a partaking the divine nature is something apart from the infused what virtues, which are derived from that light, huh?

[8:10] And are ordered to that what light, huh? What? It's kind of a circle. Yeah. Yeah. Whence also the apostle says, huh, in the epistle to the Ephesians, you were once what darkness, huh? But now, however, light in the Lord. Then walk as what sons of the light, huh?

[8:39] For therefore, just as the acquired virtues, which Aristotle wrote in the second in the Nicomachean Ethics and so on, men they perfect man to walking. I used the word. He had that quote there, right? The sons of light walk to walk in a way that's fitting to the natural light of what reason. So also the infused virtues perfect man for walking in a way in agreement with the light of what grace.

[9:11] Okay, so that was such a good text. We had to read it over again, right? Makes you respect nature, huh? See a nice proportion in Thomas there. He's talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, right?

[9:35] And he's talking about the difference between the gifts and the what virtues, right? And so he's talking about at one point there about the maybe the greatest of the gifts in the Holy Spirit, which is called wisdom, right?

[9:55] And the theological virtue of what faith, right? It gives interesting proportion or likeness of ratios, right? He says that the gift of the Holy Spirit called wisdom is to faith, right? The theological virtue, like first philosophy, right? Wisdom in that sense is to natural understanding. Kind of interesting, huh? To see that proportion, huh? He gives a

[10:32] similar likeness or proportion, I guess, if I remember, when he talks about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and that he says it's natural that moral virtue disposes the other powers to be subject to an obedience with obedience to prompt to obey reason. So then, the gifts of the Holy Spirit dispose not only of the moral virtues but even the understanding, the virtue of reason, to be disposed promptly obey the Holy Spirit.

[11:11] Yeah, yeah. Rather than reason, it's it's God Himself was the measure here, huh? The measure of that you dispose according to. Yeah, yeah. Interesting things about the gifts of Holy Spirit. I know how much we knew about them when we were confirmed, you know. I just I just said the old deal. I know they still do that. Oh, that was that hidden for me. Should have, but we did.

[11:41] Yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's go on to Article Four now, huh? To the fourth, one goes forward. Thus, it seems that grace is not in the essence of the soul, as in a subject, but in some one of the what powers, huh? Okay.

[12:10] I was kind of seeing a little bit in the previous article that it's in the soul, right? But notice the care of Thomas to to let be nothing unchewed undigested food Yeah, yeah. Father Blaise liked to develop that between the body and the mind, right? You know, and he spoke of constipated minds. They could not digest the mental digestion. Mental indigestion yeah, Mental constipation. There was a word.

[12:41] He was, he was. I guess they tell about the not in our department so much, but he was talking to the people in the arts and so on, you know, and he had a whole bunch of the books that they're popping with them when he had one side of his desk, you know, huh? And then he's making his point, you know. You know, the faucet that would just let it fall on the side of the desk.

[13:06] You see, he'd put the book on top where it was. 'Voisi la Verite! ' You know, here is the truth. He says, that the whole, to look at all the books that they that they love, they get after. That's what Father Peter Fowler, when he would teach us, he would say, and that's truth with a capital T.

[13:34] I almost think that, in addition to the constipation, the opposite problem of constipation, where you ingest food which don't get any food value, kind of just goes straight out the other side, and it seems like all this wisdom goes in, but just never neutrophies, doesn't stick to you. Okay, for Augustine says, huh, in the Hypognosticon, what is that? Oh, that's about the Gnostics.

[14:11] That grace is compared to the will or to free judgment as the what rider to the horse, right? That's kind of a you know Platonic proportion, and it's not bad, you know. Nice to kind of give that. Sometimes you know how, if you lose control of the horse, you know, you're being dragged by the horse, you know. That's where your your reason and your humanity is being dragged by your emotions, right?

[14:40] You know, kind of. But the will or librum arbitrium, right? Free judgment is a certain what potency, as has been said in the primo, right? First book, summa. It's like the like the what the sessor right? the rider is on the horse, right? The horse. It's interesting. I never heard that word before. I never heard that expression, but it's probably it means someone who's seated. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[15:20] But once again, there, huh? The the rider on the horse is above, right? The horse, but he's not really in the horse, right? You know, and then you carry it over. You know, I'm saying, well, the you know grace is you know in the will, apparently Augustine seems to be saying, right? But Thomas would explain Augustine to be free from defending the confusion there of the magister, right?

[15:51] So Thomas really should be called the magister, you know, antonomasia right? Just like, if everyone was called, the commentator? Even Thomas refers to him as the commentator because it was so common those days, right? But I mean, Thomas would be the guy who was able to understand Aristotle fully. I mean,

[16:16] so if grace, so if the will is a power, as it has been said, then grace is in the power of the soul as in a subject, huh? Let's see how Thomas replies to that.

[16:30] Just a little bit here. To the first, therefore, it should be said that just as from the what nature or essence of the soul flows its what powers, which are the beginnings or sources of its doings, right, of its operations. So also, right, this nice proportion now, from grace itself, right, flow the virtues, right, into the powers of the soul,

[17:09] by which the powers are what moved to their what acts, huh? Okay, but no, no, proportion there, right? Huh? Just as the what the powers of the soul are to the soul, but like the property to the species, right? Huh? It follows upon it, right? Well, then the infused virtues, right, and so on, the supernatural virtues flow from the what grace which has been added, right? So it's proportion, right?

[17:40] Okay, just as you know the powers of the soul naturally follow upon the what the essence of the soul, the nature of the soul, and more powers in us than in the dog, and more powers in the dog than in the what than in the tree, right? Okay, so likewise the supernatural virtues, right, follow from the elevation, right, by grace of the what soul, and from them flow that one.

[18:12] So it's a beautiful proportion, right? Huh? I'm a great you know respecter of proportion, right? Aristotle begins with he talks about metaphor, right? He says the best metaphors are by what proportions, right? You see that in Shakespeare, these beautiful proportions, huh? Though art thy mother's glass, and she indeed calls back the lovely April of her prime.

[18:53] That's based on proportion, right? Huh? Yeah, you see that? That's a, there's a young mother that comes here, her little dog looks a lot like her, and so she pulled out her phone, and the mother did, and showed a picture of herself when she was very, and Anza got this. Yeah, I call one one of my grandchildren, little Maria, you know,

[19:24] Because her mother, She looks like her mother more. You see, in what you call a simile, huh? You have a proportion, right? But it's more explicit now. Like as the waves make towards the pebble shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end. That's a very intelligible metaphor, too, though, huh? And I sense you further that I'm talking about connection between time and motion, right?

[19:58] But in the metaphor, it's it's more. Condensed right huh Brevity is the soul of wit, huh? See, Homer is is especially praised for his similes, right? Huh? Shakespeare for his metaphors, so Shakespeare's good similes too. Yeah, yeah. But in in in philosophy, you have closer right proportions, right? And Aristotle talks about the fourth tool of dialectic, right? The tool of likeness, huh? Then that's part of it, huh?

[20:34] The ability to see what proportions, right? Okay. That one is to the other as the other is to that, right? Thomas is doing a beautiful thing there. He's talking about the the virtues. Now, the virtues are all what Equal, in some way, right? He's saying, well, the objection is, well, faith is is not as good as charity. So how can you, you know? But Thomas says they're equal proportionally.

[21:02] What does that mean? You know, he takes as a beautiful example of it. The hand, yeah, yeah. See, and as your hand grows, this finger is going to be, you know, you know, They grow equally but proportionally to what their their goal is, right? Huh? You know, the opposable thumb's got to be ready to hold your glass and so on. But it's a beautiful understanding of proportion.

[21:26] How the head often he uses an example all the time, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Doesn't and then he'll carry that over and say, so you can't be, you know, up here in your prayer life, but your patience is way down here. Yeah,

[21:41] yeah, yeah. But in in the words equivocal by reason, right? Some of the most important ones are the ones that are based upon seeing a what proportion, right? Huh?

[21:57] So we're in this room, and our heart is in our body, right? Huh? Not exactly the same thing, right? But it's in proportion, right? If you cut out your heart, you'll be in your body is in a place, right? And not as a part of it anymore. Yeah. They pull out one of your teeth, right?

[22:25] And one day they're in the counting house, takes a thing in out his tooth. You know, it's kind of funny. He comes into shocker sometimes. Just comes into it, half his teeth missing. You know, he's kind of a joke in of it. He told us about the missionary. Missionary somewhere in the Pacific, and he had glass eye, and natives were, you know, simple people. Yeah. He wanted to get to do some work.

[22:54] Yeah. They were reluctant to do work, so he took out his glass eye. So I have to go over here for a couple days, but. He says that I have a tree stump, but I'm going to be watching to make sure you build this building. They were all, and he came back a few days later, and the building wasn't built, but they had put a cloth over his eye.

[23:13] Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was. Is it a true story? So they put cloth. So they weren't quite sure, but they wanted to cover the base. They didn't want it to work. Yeah. Okay, so you see the proportion here, right? Huh? That is just as from the nature of the soul, right? Huh? Their flow, it's what power, is right? Huh? That's why I was recalling the the teaching there of the what?

[23:43] Isagoge, right? Huh? The distinction between species and property, right? And property and accident, right? Because the accidents and the properties belong to the species, right, of the individual, but one has no connection really with the nature, right? The other does. It falls on it. Okay. Well, then grace is like in proportions like what nature, right? It's like a second nature, right?

[24:11] So also from grace there flows power, virtues in the powers of the soul, through which the powers are moved to their what acts, huh? And according to this, grace is compared to the will as the mover to the what moved, huh? Which is a comparison of the rider to the horse, huh? He's moving the horse, right? If he's in control, that's to say.

[24:44] My mother always told me of being, you know, the the horse getting away with the carriage, you know, and and how do you have to almost go towards a tree to stop the horses, you know, and so, but then you lost control, right? Huh?

[25:05] So it's compared as a compared as a rider. Yeah idea to sit there, you know. Not however, as a what accident to its what subject, huh? Okay.

[25:23] So that's the great defense there of Augustine, right? Huh? So the Aristotelian, when he talks about the fourth tool of dialectic, he says, you know, the consideration, you know, of the of likeness, right? Because you got to consider in what ways like, and what ways not unlike, right? Because error takes place when you what think that things are more alike than they are, or they are alike in a way that is what.

[25:57] That they're not really alike, right? See why he speaks. You know, the third tool is finding the difference. Well, a difference is a difference? You don't have to worry too much about. You know, there's more or less, but likeness you've got to be very careful because likeness is the cause of what deception too. See, it's very important likeness, huh? Now we used to read one of the great physicists there, and and of course they say that Pierre Duhem right on these things in the history of science, you know, as well as being you know working physicist, right, you know.

[26:33] And he says that most of the discoveries are based on what seeing a proportion. Because Einstein reflecting on on wave, I mean wave mechanics, right? Talks about how it's based upon seeing a proportion, right? You know.

[26:52] And Einstein, you see, with with light, when he introduced the photon theory, there, right, light quant as he called it at that time, I guess, but but what was known to be what a wave in some sense, right? Turns out also to be a particle, right? Well, then maybe the particles that we thought were just particles are also waves, right? And they developed this proportion, right? Louis de Broglie and so on, and they predicted what the waves would be, and sure enough, you know.

[27:24] But most of these theories are most of these new discoveries are made by seeing a what proportion, right? Okay. Thomas was giving us that first objection there, right? Proportion, but in the third article there is a proportion there, right?

[27:45] That the the nature of man is to the what human virtues has what? Grace. Yeah, or maybe turn the proportion around because we're going from that. that grace is to the infused virtues a little bit like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's going to be two things of proportion. One is that the virtues are in the one case in harmony with the what nature of man. Other case are in harmony with grace, right?

[28:12] But then also the idea that they're flowing in some sense, they're coming from them in some ways. Guess look at the second objection here.

[28:26] Moreover, he's quoting this Augustine again. Who is this Augustine? He's quoting all the time. Must be Augustine the Hippo, I guess, huh? Yeah, can anything good come out of Hippo? you know? He said about grace getting good come out of Nazareth, right?

[28:43] Okay. From grace begin the merits of man. Can't merit anything without grace, huh? You can't merit anything supernatural, you can't merit. But merit consists in an act which proceeds from some power. To do something to merit something, I guess. Therefore, it seems that grace is a perfection of some power of the soul, right? Well, this can be solved in some way like the first one, right? And therefore, Thomas says, and through this also it's clear the solution to the second one, right?

[29:23] For grace is a beginning of the meritorious, what the doing, meritorious doing, mediante virtutes, by means of the virtues, right? Just as the essence of the soul is the beginning, right, of the operations of life, mediantibus potentiis, right? Okay.

[29:51] So do I think because I'm a man or because I have reason? Do you think because you're a man or because you? I think because of a man with some reason. You can say in some sense both, right? Huh? Right. One is the beginning, and the other is the middle. Yeah. What does the great Shakespeare say? What is a man? To His chief good and market of his time, be but to sleep and feed.

[30:27] A beast, no more goes back to what is a man, right? But then Aristotle is talking about what reason, right, is doing. Yeah, yeah. So you can say a man, through his reason, right, thinks, huh? Through his will, he he wills, right? He does.

[30:52] So one say what mover, the other, right? One is the source of the other. Third objection. Moreover, if the essence of the soul was the proper subject of grace, right?

[31:21] It would be necessary that the soul, in so far as it has a essence or nature, is capable of grace, right? But this is false, because thus it would follow that every soul was capable of grace. Therefore, not what? Therefore, the essence of the soul is not the proper subject of grace, right? Of course, you're thinking of the soul. There's a animals have a soul. In fact, they're named from anima.

[31:53] And and even the plant, right? Huh? My wife believes when they talk about the plants, they're he's trying to figure out a plant, and they say they got souls, you know, real slick. Did they go to purgatory? So sometimes Aristotle will say, you know, as if the plant have a part of the soul, right? Huh? Because they don't have the full part of the soul, right? Huh?

[32:26] Okay. So this is solved in some way easily. To the third, therefore, it should be said that the soul is the subject of grace, according as it is in the species of a what? Understanding or rational nature, right?

[32:50] Now the soul is not constituted in the species through some power, right? Since the powers are natural properties of the soul, following the what species?

[33:14] So is this number two because it's half of four? No That follows on it being two? Yeah, yeah. So you can't say that it's two because it's half of four. I mean, somebody might say that, right? But you got to be kind of careful about that, right? You might infer that because it's half of four, it must be two, right? But then you're reasoning from the property back to the what species, yeah, yeah.

[33:43] It's really half of four because it's two, and it's also what a third of six because it's two, right? Isn't it? So is it two because it's half of four, because it's a third of six, because the fourth of eight, right? Or a fifth of ten, right? Doesn't make any sense to say, you know, these are not the same thing, aren't they? They're not the same relation, are they?

[34:09] It's the same thing to be half of something and to be a third of something and to be a fourth of something and a fifth and an infinity to them, right? But they're all following from its being what two, yeah, yeah. Okay.

[34:28] But notice we we kind of know the difference between souls by their what properties, right? Okay. And when Thomas is explaining, you know, the Latin word intellectus, right? They sometimes what etymologically say it means to read within, okay?

[34:48] Yeah, to read within, intelligere, right? To read within, and in English now we say understanding, right? But again, when you understand something, right, you're getting to what stands under something, right? When you read within, you're getting to something that's kind of within the the thing that you hear or can sound, huh? So it's

[35:19] because we come to know a thing through its effects or through its what properties, huh? They're more sensible or closer to sensible than the other, right? Okay.

[35:34] We define things sometimes by their effects. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's not reason that makes my soul to be the kind of soul it is, but it's because my soul is the kind of soul it is that it has reason as a property.

[35:55] That's important to see, right? Who's explaining this, right? The soul is the subject of grace, according as it is in the species, right? Of of understanding or rational nature. But it is not soul is not constituted species through some power, since the properties, the powers rather, are the natural properties of the soul. consequentes speciem, following upon the species.

[36:31] And therefore, the soul, in its very what nature, right? Or according to its own nature, its own essence, differs in species from other what animals, from that of the brute animals, right? And of the plants, right?

[36:55] And in account of this, it does not follow, if the essence of the human soul is the subject of grace, that just any soul, right, can be the subject of grace, huh? Because this belongs to the essence of the soul, in so far as it is a what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just as you might say that four is an even number, right? Because it's a number. No, because there are numbers that aren't even, right?

[37:29] So, and and four is half of eight, right? Huh? Because it's a number. No, because it's this particular number, right? This species of number four, right? And four is the only number that is half of eight, to my knowledge. Do you see that? That's the only number that is a third of twelve. On the fourth of sixteen.

[38:01] So it's the what? This particular species of soul, right? Huh? Yeah, yeah. Now sometimes you know they they speak you know the distinction of the soul into three kinds: the animal soul and the plant soul and the human soul. It's being kind of a potential whole, right? Huh? Because the whole power of the soul is, in sense, found in what? The whole part of the soul can have is found in man, right?

[38:28] And something less in the animal, and even less in the plant, right? Did I tell you about this text there, there, Thomas, when he talks in the in the sentences there about always leading into the discussion of the power of the of the.

[38:50] Gets the Holy Spirit and so on. But he's got to talk about the active life and the contemplative life, right? And before he talks about the active life and contemplative life, he talks about life, okay? And he goes back to what's most known to us. Did I talk about this before? Well, what's the first notion we get of life?

[39:12] Yeah, it moves itself. See, so I used to always take the example in class. You're you're walking in the woody path there in the

[39:22] forest, let's say. You step upon something, but not kicking it, right? And as soon as you step off it, that goes zipping across the. It gets alive, you say.

[39:34] Now, if you kicked it, you wouldn't say it gets alive, right? No, you kick a stone lying there and it rolls and see how it's alive. But if the thing seems to move itself, right? Okay. Now, I was thinking of my old teacher, Kasurik, right, and still a few things he just said. This so I'm stuck in my mind, you know. As long as they come in handy, you know.

[39:54] But he says you can tell a man's understanding of something even by. The examples he what gives right now. So when Thomas says that we call something alive for us because it seems to move itself, right? He gives two examples. What do you think they are?

[40:22] Well, he takes one from the plants. It's also to some extent found animals too, of course. And one from the animals, right? What he takes from the plant is that they grow, not that they reproduce, right? Which is more involved, right? Not that they can, in some sense, feed themselves, right? They can pull in things. But that's more hidden, right? But the growth. Yeah, yeah. You know, since you have a plant, I don't think the plant's died.

[40:55] It's growing all right, you know. And and what he takes from the animals, locomotion, right? Change of place, right? I say those those are the best examples, right? Sensical. And then when you use the word motion in a analogous sense, right? Where understanding or sensing, right, are examples of what motions, but the really operations, not motions in the original sense. They're not the act imperfect act, right?

[41:30] But a perfect act, right? You know that difference. So Aristotle talks about that. He says that. It's my example actually. When you're walking home, have you walked home? No. It's by its very nature an imperfect act, right? So long as you're walking home, you haven't walked home. It's not complete. So it's by its very nature, and when you have walked home, are you walking home? No. So whenever this act of walking home exists, it's by its very nature imperfect, right?

[42:02] But is seeing or hearing in that sense? See. Do you hear me? Well, when you hear me, you have heard me, right? Is it? And when you

[42:23] understand, right, something, you're understanding something if you understood it. Yeah. Yeah. And so I say to the girls. now when someone's loving you, have they loved you yet? Of course. Because those are perfect acts, right? Huh? And Thomas goes on to say, well, we call those motions in an extended sense, right? And that's the example of life that you can sense, you know, that you can understand, that you can love, and so on, right?

[42:49] That's not where life is most known. It's in the growth of the plants of the of the plants and the locomotion of the animals, right? I got thinking about that because I'm kind of running on the idea of inspired by Thomas and the. Disputed questions on power, where he said that all of our—he's talking about, I think, the proceeding in God, right? Proceeding God, and then of course you got to explain this word, right?

[43:16] You know, the Son proceeds from the Father, and the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, but the word "procession" going forward goes back to the senses, right? And Thomas says, well, all of our naming goes back to the beginning of our knowledge, which is the senses, but then he says the senses don't transcend or go beyond the what continuous, right? Now, what's most manifestly continuous in the operations of life?

[43:43] Well, growth, right, which is increasing your size, and size is is a what continuous quantity, right? And the most obviously continuous motion is locomotion, right? It's divisible forever, right? Okay, and so life is most known in the growth of the plants and animals, and in the locomotion of the animals, right? And these are what continuous, right? Our thinking begins with the what continuous, or what is found in the continuous.

[44:21] Now, this word is very important when we talk about form, right? What's the first meaning of form? What's the shape of this glass, right? Which is something in the what continuous, right? Shape of a ball, the shape of a cube, you know. It's it's something in the continuous, huh? And when we say God is indivisible, right? We sometimes fall back upon the point, which is indivisible, right?

[44:52] But the point is has a position in the continuous, right? Why this indivisible that is God has no position in the continuous, right? He's very indivisible, right? So I kind of struck by Thomas taking those two examples. Talking on the phone today to Warren Marini, saying you know I was quoting Casuistic, and you can tell a man's good mind by the examples he he took, huh?

[45:24] We used to make fun of the modern philosophers like to take some kind of a example you know that appeals to imagination, you know, because it's colorful, you know. And and Aristotle or Thomas would take just the right example, you know.

[45:41] What's a substance? A man or a dog? What a substance is. Modern talking about substance, even know what they're talking about, huh? Now, counter, this does not follow if the essence of the human soul is the subject of grace. That just any soul can be the subject of grace, right? But this belongs to the essence of the soul. Insofar as it's of this particular species, right? Okay.

[46:12] I know you can say you can say that man has senses because he's an animal, and every animal has what senses, right? But can you say that man is has reason because he's an animal? Thomas, no, because because then every animal would have reason, right? So he's not doesn't have reason because he's an animal, but because he's a man. See, yeah.

[46:46] And so the soul can be what the subject of grace, proper subject of grace, because it's a human soul, right? A rational soul, the understanding, my understanding soul, Shakespeare says.

[47:07] I was thinking about the definition of of reason, right? Huh? Reason, you know, we're told to know yourself, you know. But it turns out that reason is the only part of us who can know itself, right? Does a hand know what a hand is? Does an eye even know what an eye is? Huh? I see itself in the mirror, but doesn't we know what an eye is?

[47:29] Reason is the only thing that knows itself, right? So I define reason as ability to understand and reason and order itself and others. See, my friend Shakespeare defines it as ability for a large discourse, looking before and after, huh? But in both definitions, you know, are in harmony, huh?

[47:58] One makes maybe distinct something that it doesn't, huh? Okay. Magnificent, Thomas. What we do without you? Moreover, the essence of the soul is before its powers. Well, now we're getting down to some sense here, right? Most of all, these objections are, you know, further away from the truth, and as you get closer, you get closer to the truth, right? That's got some very good. Now, what sense is is the essence of the soul before the powers of the soul?

[48:45] Before in time. No, I mean even is is two two before it's half of four. It could be simultaneous, you know, something in its its potencies. Third sense. Well, the third sense is what?

[49:06] Well, it doesn't seem to me that you're talking about that, no. But you're talking about the what? Attach sense attached to the second sense, right? The cause before the effect, right? Ah, but now he's talking about the the sense you talked about, right? Goodness, yeah, So I'm not the injector, yeah. That's what you were thinking about, right? For the first can be understood without the the before, can be understood without the posterior, right?

[49:45] that's the what third sense of before, right? Therefore, it follows that grace can be understood in the soul, with no part or power of the soul being understood. Neither the will, nor the understanding, nor any of this sort, which is unfitting, right? Because we come to know the soul through its powers, right? So Aristotle, in the book on the soul, says that we know the what the soul by its powers, right?

[50:20] And its powers by their acts, and their acts by their objects. So there's a great lengthy discourse. To the fourth, it should be said that since the powers of the soul are the natural properties, right? That's what's going back to to Porphyry, there, right? In the Isagoge, right? They're natural properties following upon the species, right?

[50:49] So half of four, set of what, two, is a property set of its species, right? Having interior angles equal to right angles is a property set of the species triangle, right? Which is a species of equilateral. I mean, rectilineal, plane figure, right? Since the powers of the soul are natural properties following upon the species, the soul is not able to be without these, huh?

[51:26] But even given that without them it could be, right? Nevertheless, huh? The soul would be said, according to species, to be what, understanding, or rational Not because in act it had these powers, right? But an account of what, being a species of such a nature from which are naturally, right?

[51:53] apt to flow forth, powers of this sort. So it's probably not before them in the sense that it could be without them, but they could not be without it. But it's probably before them as a cause is before an effect. This is saying before, follow upon, son. But in terms of of the third sense of before, maybe it's for us the reverse, right? That we know the soul through the powers that it has, right?

[52:28] See, reason is the only reason is the power that can know itself, right? And most people's reason hasn't come to know that. Hey, I'm not a body. But Aristotle, Aristotle has reason helps reason to know in the third book on the soul that it is not a what, body, right? Number of ways of showing this, right? Most people would be disappointed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. One of my former students is talking about that.

[53:04] The brain surgeon was up in Canada, right? Who was, you know, stimulating parts of the brain, right? The guy says, "Oh, I taste chocolate, you know, you know, you know, this, you know," and

[53:21] getting all kinds of reactions, right, from stimulating parts of the brain. But he can never get to, oh, I just, I just will something, I just chose something. He never did, right? So just from his not being able to find any part of the brain, that the guy would say, you know, hey, I just made a choice. He began to think that the will is not what a part of the brain, right?

[53:44] And he was right. And that was interesting because I whether it was the same experiment or one like it, when he did something, the guy's arm moved. Yeah. And the guy said to the the doctor said that the patient he said do that again and he says I didn't do it, you did.

[54:02] You did. Yeah. Yeah. I did not make the choice to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.