Prima Secundae
273. Seven Apostles, the Father of Lights, and Why Aquinas Treats God's Substance in Five
Class of 2016-03-17
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/273-seven-apostles-the-father-of-lights-and-why-aquinas-treats/

[0:00] Name of the Father and the 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 illuminate our images, and arouse us to consider more quickly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Help us to understand all that you've written. Father and the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen.

[0:32] Let's get a little scriptural thing here. If you don't, my little thing here. Um Saint John The gospel has three accounts of Christ's appearance to the apostles after the after his resurrection. And the first one is when he appears to all of them except for the doubting Thomas, right? And the second one is when he appears with the doubting Thomas being there, right? And the third one is in this chapter twenty-one, right?

[1:04] But he doesn't appear to all eleven of them, and but he appears to how many? I want to say the names of Peter and James and John O John's there Yeah. Andrew's not there. Andrew's not there. It's it's.

[1:35] Five or six. Seems to me there's five or six, but I don't remember. There is seven. Seven. Now let me give it to you right. The first one is Simon Peter, right? Second is Thomasa,

[1:51] the twin, right? Okay. Now the third one is Nathaniel from Cana of Galilee. Now is Nathaniel one of the twelve apostles? He's not listed in the other gospels. Yeah. Oh, it should be. He's listed, but he's not named among the twelve. What? Is he also named Bartholomew? Yeah, some say that Nathaniel is the same as Bartholomew, right? Now Nathaniel appears earlier in the Gospel of John, right?

[2:19] And it's Philip that what tells him about him, right? And so I was curious about that. I was talking to Warren about it. He thought that Nathaniel was the same as Bartholomew, right? But anyway, I looked it up in the little Catholic encyclopedia there, right, to see what they they said. And they they gave the they said that it's generally accepted he's the same as as as Bartholomew, right?

[2:44] And one thing they point to is this chapter here, right? That he's among all these other apostles, right? And the other thing they point to is how he was so what dramatic his introduction to Christ, and that it seemed therefore to be one of the apostles, right? And the third thing was, I guess, in the enumeration of the twelve apostles, right? They're kind of enumerated in pairs, or you know, and he's always Nathaniel is always

[3:09] enumerated with in Bartholomew, right? I mean, he's always enumerated with Philip, yeah, Philip and Bartholomew, right? And it's same order, apparently, in all three gospels, the Synoptic gospels, right? And so the the the traditional teaching, I guess, has been that he is Nathaniel, right? Okay. So you got Peter, Thomas, the the twin, and the Thomas' daughter daughter, Nathaniel, right from Cana, of course. In in John is the only account of the the miracle of Cana, in John's finger.

[3:47] That's three, right? And the two of Zebedee, which would be James and John, and then others from the another two from the what disciples. Oh it just says a couple of words It doesn't name them though. Okay. So that makes how many seven? Okay. Now, is there significance in the number what seven?

[4:13] I guess it's a number that signifies perfection. I don't know exactly why, but it does. And so we, the church fathers here in the Catena Aurea, they all stop upon and observe that there's seven there, and that this, among other things, means that those who are going to build up the church, right, are seven because they're what, moved by the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, right?

[4:38] Okay. Of course, you have seven sacraments, which another example of seven, and and and the the ten commandments, we put three and seven, right? At seven, so there's a lot of examples of seven, right? Philosophy is divided into seven parts, you may know. Okay.

[4:58] Three parts of looking philosophy, three parts of practical philosophy, and logic, right? There's seven, and it says in scripture, you know, there's seven angels that stand before God, and so it's a symbol of wisdom, right? You know the connection between wisdom and and reason, right? Wisdom is the highest perfection of reason, right? Well, what's the age of reason? Seven. Seven. Yeah, yeah. And Thomas says that the the square of a number has the same significance as the first number.

[5:34] What seven times seven? Which is the year when Aristotle said the mind is best at the age of forty nine. How old was Thomas when he died? Forty nine. Huh? The dates seem to be twelve twenty five to twelve seventy four. So, so he'd be forty nine, right? Very, very appropriate, right? Huh. Um. And so. Oh, the church fathers stop upon the seven apostles, right? It's kind of striking because you got, you know, almost the full contingency in the first two ones, right?

[6:07] And except for you know Judas and and Thomas is missing the first time, but not the second time. But here he has to have seven, right? So they they're very struck by that, right?

[6:19] Of course, you know how at the end of the seventh, the twenty first chapter, there Christ kind of foretells Peter that he's going to be crucified, right? And then he turns and he says, "What about? " Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Christ said, "Well, I want him to remain until I come. " What's that to you, right? And so you're struck here by the the you know the nearness of Peter and what John, right?

[6:46] The two that run to the to the tomb, right? Huh? And you see it here, right? And that very familiar thing, yeah. And then the Acts of the apostles, you find them very closely associated in the early church and so on. So I said, "Gee, we should really reread the next little scriptural reading here, the canonical epistles, right? " Huh? Okay. So I started, you know, reading the first of the canonical epistles, right?

[7:16] Now, how many canonical epistles are there? Two as James, Jude, two of Peter, three of John, seven. Yeah. Yeah. See, that was my reward, right? For for reading the Catena Aurea, the church fathers talking about the seven people at the at third appearance, right? Because it's no big deal just three appearances. That's that's enough, right? Three is the first number about which we say what all, and all is like all, therefore, right?

[7:50] Which is as Aristotle says in the third book of the what natural hearing, the so-called physics third book, that whole and perfect mean almost the same, right? Well, I was thinking about those things, and then I started reading the first of these ones, which is the one of what James. Apparently, this is not James the son of Zebedee. No. This is the other James, right? Huh? And so there's

[8:23] a couple little things here that you know from this particular. No, I got my bookmark in there. Okay. He's talking the very beginning, huh? First verses here about take it all joy when you run into things and so on, and and how this produces what endurance and so on, right? Okay.

[8:54] But here he says, "Hē de hupomonē Endurance, huh? Has an ergon a work teleon a perfect work right? In order that you might be what teleoi he says perfect right? Kai holokleroi yeah yeah. Now holokleroi is is a very demonstrative way of saying whole that all the parts are there. It's none missing whatsoever right? And he goes on to say in the same sentence, huh? In en mēdeni in nothing leipomenoi wanting nothing right?

[9:38] So uses a very strong word there for whole holokleroi right? If you look it up, it gives the meaning of all whole. And then a little meaning perfect right? So once those two come together right? But just like Aristotle there, as he said in the third book of natural hearing, where he says perfect and whole mean almost the same thing right? He says. teleoi teleoi kai holokleroi huh perfect.

[10:04] And they translate holokleiroi, entire, right? Okay. Wanting and nothing, right? So you have those two. Yeah, yeah, but but very joint like Aristotle joins And Thomas is always quoting that text, of Aristotle, and it's more clear, you know, to see that the the the whole is more perfect than a part, right? A whole car is more perfect than a part of a car. A whole chair is more perfect than an arm or a leg of the chair, you know.

[10:34] And in general, right? You know, in Quebec they'd say repas complet, that means a little appetizer, main course, and some kind of dessert. Maybe just jello, but there's there's it has the three parts, right? And you got the number one, and you got the number three, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was kind of playing around, you know, how

[10:56] I remark how the chapter twenty-eight is where Thomas begins to talk about perfection of God, which is a perfect number, twenty-eight. I was talking about the chapter twenty-one here, the last chapter. It's three times what, three times seven? Well, of course, I guess the chapters go back to the University of Paris, right? Nevertheless, it's kind of a nice way to remember chapter twenty-one, huh? So, see the harmony there between Aristotle there in the third book of the Physics or the Natural Hearing, as it says in the Greek, and the first epistle here, James, huh?

[11:32] Okay. Now. Okay. This is again chapter one here, but it's verse what seventeen, which is ten plus seven, right? Now, as far as I know, the numbers that they usually attribute to perfection two is three, most of all, right? And Aristotle in the book on the universe says that we use the number three in praising God because perfection is the number three. Some thought Aristotle was talking about the Trinity, you know, but that Thomas says no.

[12:53] The three has that natural perfection, right? But three, Aristotle says, is the first number about which we say what all. That's all means almost the same thing as you got the whole, right? And so that's perfection. And then seven, like we're talking about there from that last chapter in John, right? And ten is also sometimes said to have perfection, right? And a hundred and a thousand, right, because they're multiples of ten, right?

[13:24] What's interesting is ten is three plus what seven. Augustine explains the numbers sometimes he takes the what factors, and sometimes he takes the parts, right? So he might explain the significance of ten from three and seven, or like when he talked about the apostles, you know, they're twelve, and he says, well, twelve is three times four, and they preach the Trinity to the four corners of the world, right?

[13:50] That's that's one of the things he does, right? Huh? Okay. So seventeen is ten plus seven, right? But anyway, I give you this. But anyway, that's not the point here. But you know how we always say God our enlightenment, huh? Is there a starting thing here? So he says every giving, every good giving, right? Pasodosis agathe, and every what perfect gift, pan doma teleion, is from above, right?

[14:27] Huh? Katabainon kata coming down, apo tou patros, ton photon, the father of lights, yeah. So it's good to be, you know, father lights. And guess what the rest that sentence is.

[14:50] In whom there is no, I don't know exactly what the Greek said, no change, yeah, yeah. With whom there is no place is not any parallage That's one of the words for change in Greek, parallage parallage or tropes which means turn, right? Yeah, I was saying to Warren on the phone and say, we're always turning our mind to something else, right? God. Like turning a channel. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[15:19] But God's mind never turns, you know, one direction, you know, My friend Washington Irving, you know, uses the expression, you know, for some people, their turn of mind, right? Huh? Say God doesn't have any turn of mind, right? There's no change, huh? No change. There's no what aposkiasma, no shadow, huh? Not even what least amount you might say of change, right? Huh? Okay. Now usually that's the text that the most common authority to say that God is unchanging.

[15:53] I mean, the Arabic authority, right? It's always Thomas always quotes this chapter, this verse here, seventeen. Huh? But it's a beautiful thing that can just tell us about the perfect gift coming down from the light of reason, the light of faith, you know, the light of glory. All these wonderful gifts, right? They're all wonderful in their own way, right? And they all come down from the Father of Lights.

[16:16] What a marvelous name that is, right? You were darkness once, and now you're light. You know, as they say, yeah, beautiful, beautiful thing, beautiful thing. Okay. It

[16:29] was a friend of mine many years ago who was trying to study to be an amateur magician, and he asked me one day, "Choose any number between one and ten." I said three. He goes, "Aha! Do you know that from what I've been learning that that is the number that almost everybody, that most people choose?" Yeah. Yeah. Which is interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I was saying tomorrow and today, I was saying I have tied the knot and said, "Well, give you a little bit kind of interesting.

[17:07] We're chatting a little bit about what wisdom is, right? So we spoke before about the connection between reason and wisdom, right? Because wisdom is the what highest perfection of reason, huh? Now, reason, as you know from Shakespeare, is the ability for large discourse, looking before and after, right? Now, whose discourse is the largest of all? God's. No, no motion, God. We just have the not even the shadow of change in God.

[18:00] No one would say the angels do much discourse. Well, the word depends on how you understand discourse. Now, interestingly, I was thinking about the word discourse, which comes from the act of the legs, right? It means running, right? Okay. And you know why did he take it from running? Was because of the swiftness of the mind compared to the movement of the body. I can go here to the moon right now, right, or go to here to the Mars right now in my my mind, right?

[18:34] Can't do that my body very quickly. I can go here to my house right now, you know, in my mind. Yes. Whoa. Yeah, but I mean, compared to my body, you know, driving over there. And

[18:46] but no, so the word we use for the mind, Herman Purkus's definition of reason, is ability to understand, reason and order yourself and others. Understanding goes back to what? Standing under comes from the legs again, right? So discourse from the Latin word for running, which is an act of the legs, and understand in English comes from to stand. It seems to me, huh? You stand under something, huh?

[19:14] That's kind of interesting, huh? So whose discourse then, right, is the largest, huh? I mean the wise man Yeah, yeah. In how many of the six senses of large, there are six senses in which a discourse could be said to be large. Remember? Of course, this has to be divided into what? Yeah, to see how there could be six senses, right? And there, first of all, what a discourse could be called large because it's about the large, right?

[19:48] Or it could be called large because it its limit, its beginning or end is large, right? Or it could be called large because the discourse itself is long. Right, okay. Now each of those can be divided into two, right? You say the discourse of reason is about the large. You could mean that it covers a large area. That is to say, it's a discourse about the universal, The universal is a set of many things, right?

[20:22] Or it can be a discourse about large in the sense of great things, right? Large is opposed to small, as in small talk, talk about little and important things, right? And so, to give the full power of what reason can do, right, you've got to see that it can have a discourse about the universal and about infinity of things, right? When I say no odd number is even, right, I've got infinity of things being covered there, right?

[20:57] And but I could also have the discourse about great things like the universe, right? Galileo says the whole is better than the part. So a discourse about the universe is greater than any other discourse. But God is even better than the universe, right? But we could have either a discourse about the soul and even about God, right? That shows the magnificent power of reason, now. Now in another sense, a discourse can be called large because it's what beginning or end is large, right?

[21:32] Either because, like I heard the expression sometimes, but people are not thinking of Shakespeare's definition at all. But they speak of a large induction, right? So you know, from many singulars, right, you're inducing a universal. Or they speak of a what principle that has many applications, right? Okay. I always take a simple example of a mathematical what equation? Force equals mass times acceleration. We can deduce an infinity of what forces and masses from that, right?

[22:07] By substituting numbers in. I mean the whole is more than a part that extends to infinity of things too, right? And then the third way that a discourse can be large is because it's long. Either that you go through many steps, right? Or you go between things that are very far apart, right? Okay. So in these six senses of large, in what senses is the discourse of the wise man larger than anybody else's discourse?

[22:54] Yeah, it's it's about the most universal, right? So Aristotle shows that wisdom is about being and one, right, which is said of everything that is whatsoever, right. But also it's about the greatest things, because it's about the first cause, which is God, right? About the immaterial substances, the angels and so on, right? So it's about the largest things in both senses, right? The most universal things and the best or greatest things, huh?

[23:25] Okay. Now, you know when Monsignor Dionne was lecturing on on a text of Albert the Great, he says some sciences depend upon experience, like natural science, political philosophy and so on. Others you can do in your head, like geometry, right? You don't have experience of these things. You are not going to find a flat surface out of anywhere. Okay. But then he gave wisdom as among those that depend upon experience.

[23:57] Say, Monsignor Dionne, what does he mean by experience here? He certainly doesn't mean experience of being. Hell no. But experience means you are getting something more universal from what from many more particular things, right? And all the lesser sciences, right, are the experience that's required for the wise man before he begins wisdom.

[24:23] So in that sense, the discourse of the wise man is the largest, right, from the many things you have to have, right, to do wisdom. Okay. It's also because of its universality, it's going to, and it causes it to extend to all things. It's going to be what applicable everywhere, right? So it's beginning and its end is infinite, right?

[24:51] Now, what about the remaining two senses? Well, the discourse of the wise man doesn't necessarily go through the most steps. I think the geometry might go through more steps. You know, people say, "I know the Pythagorean theorem." That's proposition forty-seven, the one I know. You've got to do most of these before, not all of them, right? And it goes on and on and on. The chain gets longer and longer.

[25:15] But that's not really perfection. You have to go through many steps to get to something, right? But the wise man reasons from motion, which hardly is. It's the act of what is able to be, insofar as it's able to be. It's hardly an act. It reasons all the way to God, who is the what first act, the pure act, huh? So in five senses, his discourse is what the largest, right?

[25:45] Now going back to the first two senses, there. Why should the discourse of the wise man be about not only the best things, right? But about the most universal things, huh? Why should the same?

[26:01] Man have the largest discourse in those two senses because they're two different things, aren't they? Why should he discourse about what is said of all, like being, and also

[26:20] he'd be about the best things, huh? The greatest things, huh? Why should he? Why should he do those two? Well, the best thing turns out to be the first cause of all things, so his causality extends to all things. So obviously, he's going to talk about the best thing and the first cause. He's got to talk about the what? All things to know what his causality extends to, right?

[26:54] God is the cause of being as being. Okay. So all things tied together, right? Okay. Now, I'm just all going to lead up to the great discovery of request, okay?

[27:14] But he has to have these things in mind, right? Okay. Now we go to the second part of the definition there, the last part of the definition of reason, huh? Looking before and after, right? As we pointed out, looking before and after includes looking for what distinctions, and I base that upon the axiom of before and after that nothing is before or after itself. So you must see some distinction between what is before and what is after before you can see that this is before what that, huh?

[27:56] Okay. If you can't distinguish between water and wine, you can't say wine is better than water or vice versa, can you? Okay. Now, if you take the wise man insofar as his knowledge is involves a discourse about the most universal things and about being, I guess, right. Okay.

[28:31] What are the first distinctions of being that the wise man has? I mean, set aside the distinction in being as such and accidental being, right? But what are the two main distinctions of being as such?

[29:10] Aristotle foresaw this. What are the two fundamental distinctions of being as such? But I know that one is in terms of what you say.

[29:33] No, we just say that you know, accidental being and even being in reason only, right? I mean, take being in general. What are the two main distinctions of being in general?

[29:46] Hmm. No, that gets you. None that gets you to none. Being is is being only in reason, right? I told you how my my old teacher, Kasurik, used to joke about philosophy being the only subject you can get paid. for. talking about nothing.

[30:05] You can make a true statement about nothing and say nothing is nothing, right? Nothing is not something. Something is not nothing. You can't get something out of nothing. You can't get nothing out of something.

[30:18] You know. Well, one of the two main distinctions is the distinction of being according to the figures of what predication of being said of, right? And this is the distinction of being into substance, quantity, quality, relation. There's six more which are much less important, but especially those first four, right? Substance, quantity, quality, relation, right? Aristotle is much more about concrete, what it is, how many or how much, how it is towards what, right?

[30:59] Okay, but those four, right? That's the he says distinction of being according to the figures of predication. Okay. Oh, and the other one is act and ability. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, in the seventh and the eighth books of wisdom, he talks about substance mainly, right? And in the ninth book, he talks about ability and act, right?

[31:28] Now, I've already touched upon a little bit of not only the distinction of substance, quantity, quality, relation, but the what order of them, right? Because we put substance before accidents, right? And in some ways, quantity seems to be closer to substance than quality, at least those qualities that presuppose quantity, like the sense qualities, right? And like shape, right? Okay, presuppose the quantity, right? Okay. And those powers that have a body organ, right?

[32:08] So on. And quantity and quality come before what relation, right? Because some relations are based upon quantity, like double and half, and some upon qualities, like father and son, teacher and student, and so on, right? Okay.

[32:29] Now, in the ninth book of wisdom, which is my favorite book of wisdom, I'll tell you it to God, of course. But there, the book has, of course, three parts, okay? And this is marvelous where Aristotle's ordered this, huh? In the first part, he talks about the distinction of abilities for motion.

[32:55] So it's a more particular consideration, right? Okay. He's not talking about any act except what motion. And the ability for that act called motion. And so the fundamental distinction is between the ability to be moved and the ability to move another, right? Okay. And then he distinguishes between the natural ability to move others and the rational ability to move others, right? Because the natural ability is limited to one, and the rational ability is open to opposites, right?

[33:32] I can, you know, the problem there with doing even the toast, right? And how much you toast it, you can burn it, right? Okay.

[33:42] Doctor can save your life in the dinner. Okay. Then what is he doing in the second part? Well, then he ascends to a universal consideration, complete universal consideration of act, right? And then you see that there are many senses of act other than motion, even though that's the sense that's most known to us. He started that, right? Things in motion, so when you catch the eye, then what that stirs, that's where we start.

[34:14] And so you find out that what there's an act called what form. Okay. So the shape of the chair is the act of the wood, right? And then you find out that there are operations, that are not really motions, as Aristotle points out. You know, when you're walking home, you haven't walked home yet. But when you understand something, you've understood it. When you love someone, you've loved them.

[34:44] Okay. When you see something, you've seen it. You heard something, you've heard it. But when you're walking home, you haven't walked home yet. So you see the difference between motion and what Thomas calls operation, right? Okay. But a perfect act as opposed to imperfect act is motion, and the distinction between motion and what form, right? So he has a universal consideration of act, and then there appears other senses of ability in addition to those that he saw in the first part, right?

[35:19] Well, it's got to be a third part to complete the work of looking before and after, which is to look before and after. And in the third part of the ninth book, he shows all the ways in which act is before what ability, huh? It's before it in knowledge, right? It's before it in goodness or perfection, right? It's before it in what a cause, huh? The only way that ability is before act is that the thing that goes from ability to act is an ability before it's in act.

[35:53] But it goes from ability to act because it's something already in act. So simply Aristotle sees that ability is after act, right? And therefore, the first cause must be pure act. Will eventually be reasoned out when the twelfth book we finally talks about God, right? See, okay. Now, let's come back now to my favorite book,

[36:21] the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? Where does he begin? Well, you got to know God exists, otherwise there's no going to be any theology if God doesn't exist, right? So he's going to reason to the existence of God, right? And in the Summa Contra Gentiles, if you compare it to the Summa Theologiae, right, he not only begins as he does in the Summa, or the Summa, from what the argument for motion that Aristotle developed, but he, the first two arguments, right, are from motion in the Summa Contra Gentiles.

[37:00] And the Summa Theologiae just takes the first of those two ways, huh? So there's an emphasis upon, you know, reasoning from motion, right? And then there's other arguments that were difficult to see, right? But he arrives at God, right? Okay. And then he starts to generalize it, right, to realize that this is in accord with act being before what ability, right? And so he comes to understand.

[37:28] What do you think the first thing he knows about God? If God is pure act, well, as my good friend here, Saint James said, huh? He's unchanging, right? Now, if you go back to the definition of motion, it's the act of what is able to be, as far as able to be. So if you know the definition of motion from natural philosophy, the first thing that strikes you if God is pure act, there's no motion, right?

[37:55] Okay. And it's no more difficult to see that God is altogether what simple. He's not put together anyway, right? But that's quite as quick to see that as an ocean, isn't it? But he says if God is put together, one part would be to the other part as ability to act, if it was say matter and form, right? Or if it was substance and and being, right?

[38:23] Or at least all the parts would be to the whole of God as ability to act. So there's two ways, right? It's something you put together, right? Okay. So when I put together, you know, the letter C, A, and T, right? Well, you can't say one letter is to the other part as ability to act, right? But the three letters are to the word cat as ability is to act, right?

[38:49] But if I put to make a chair, then what the shape of the chair is to the wood as act is to ability, right? So there's got to be some ability in what's put together, right? Passive ability, right? The ability to be actualized is to say, right? Not the ability to act upon something, huh? Okay. Well, therefore, if God is pure act, He's completely simple. There's no composition.

[39:13] Okay. And now He can argue to the third thing, right? That God is what perfect and therefore good. And He can argue from what that act is better than ability, right? So if God is pure act, right? If He's being itself, He has all the perfection of being. And many other ways you can argue. It's kind of marvelous, you know, when you see the Greek word here in Aristotle or in James.

[39:45] The Greek word for perfect there is teleion, which comes from the Greek word for in, telos. Well, Aristotle shows in the ninth book, of course, that act is the end of what. Yes, so it's more perfect than ability, right? And if God is the end of the whole universe. then he's most perfect, right? So many ways of seeing this. So act is a perfection of ability, right? And the whole is perfection of the parts, right?

[40:13] Okay. So he's got those three things perfectly ordered, right? Okay. And Berquist liked the idea of three, right? But now the great problem for Berquist who likes to emphasize the rule of two or three or both. And I'm not a fanatic about this rule. I mean, I always say, you know, that a rule can be very useful if it's true for the most part, right? You know, there's an occasional what exception, right?

[40:44] So I would defend, you know, the usefulness of the rule of two or three or both, right? Either there's some exceptions to this, right? Some distinctions that must be understood as more than three, and can't be understood as being three or two in any way, right? I'm not saying there is, but if there was, right? So being, you know, fanatic about this rule, I I'm I'm I'm a little bit shocked.

[41:13] You're a fundamentalist. Yeah, I'm a little bit shocked or scandalized, right? That Thomas in both Summas divides the consideration of the substance of God before you take up his what operations, right? Into five, right? And the order is a little different in the two, right? It's into five. So you have the take the order in the Summa Contra Gentiles, You have God is unchanging, right? God is simple, not composed in any way.

[41:45] God is perfect and therefore good, right? And then that he's what there's only one God. And then that he's what infinite, huh? In the Summa Theologiae, the order is a little different. You take up first that he's what simple, and then that he's what perfect, right? Then that he's infinite. Then that he's unchanging. Then that he's what one, right? So Berquist is really, you know, really, really, really, really scratching his head, you know.

[42:16] Well, maybe this is the the this is really, you know, how did Thomas? Yeah, yeah. This is the this is this is. Fundamentalist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. Just an occasional rule of five. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[42:35] But Berquist, you know, noticed something about this, right? See. Because sometimes to one of these five something is attached, right? Now, when Thomas takes up, for example, that God is unchanging, like like our friend James said here, right?

[42:56] He attaches to that in consideration of the eternity of God, right? See, and that's very clear to a man who studied natural philosophy because he knows that this connection between motion and what time and things that are have you know begin to be or cease to be are measured by time, right? Things that are in motion. So if you take away motion, you negate motion. You kind of negate time, right?

[43:26] So that's how you arrive at eternity as to unchanging things, like being in time as to motion, right? And so in the definition of motion, we say that there's no beginning and no end. I mean, it's in the eternity, and there's no before and after, right? Boethius says that eternity is the what? totusimus perfecta possessio vitae interminabilis, right? It's the all at once and perfect possession of an ending life.

[43:58] It's a life that has no beginning, no end, and a life that has no before and after in it. Yeah, we're going to practice that eternal life. Huh? It's strange. We've got. It's going to be interesting, you know. Our minds really, you know, those men are for theyself, and our hearts are restless till they rest. It's true about our mind too. Huh? Our mind is restless. Huh?

[44:21] Discourse all the time, going from one thing to another, turning your attention all the time. Right, In God, there's no dropouts, no turning, huh? Okay. So I noticed that, right? Huh? Well, then I noticed that when Thomas talks about the infinity of God, right, you have to point out that he's not infinite like a body that goes on, you know, length and depth, right? Even though sometimes metaphorically God is said to, you know, go on like that.

[44:51] He talks about the infinity of God in terms of it's like it's almost a property of its what perfection. God's perfection is what endless, right? See, and it's not end in that sense of the the limit of a continuous thing, right? But it's not limited to any genus, right? It's not limited to an end that's other than itself, right? It's the end of all things, so on.

[45:19] So I said, well, maybe you could say that that the the infinity could be attached to what God's being what perfect, huh? Nah, now you're collapsing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And one one could be reduced to his being what It's quite simple. Okay. Now he had he had a a brother in the religious life theory, Reginald, I guess it was. What was Reginald? Anyway, who you know was kind of his.

[45:57] You know, signed to help him. You know, and write things down sometimes for him and so on. And this guy wanted to get a little summary of theology that I could, you know, carry around with me and consult it in my free moments. You know, because it's kind of interesting this stuff. And so he wrote the Compendium of Theology, right? Well, you pick up the Compendium of Theology, and the Unity of God is in the treatise on His what, simplicity.

[46:28] Ah, now I've got the guy. Ah, I laugh. Got the new super division. So we can say, can we reduce the treatise instead to five parts, right? Three parts, and you put the Unity of God with the Simplicity of God in that part, and the Infinity of God with His what, Perfection, right? Okay. Some people used to wonder, and I said, what's the other one? Just looking at God, once you get bored after a while.

[47:02] Do you realize that the Perfection of God is endless, right? You never gonna be bored. This this this person, this person's, okay. Um. But still, you know, why didn't Thomas do that in the Summa Contra Gentiles then, right? Because he seemed like doing something like that at least in the Compendium, right? I said, why did he do this? You know. So. Duane was puzzled, right? Okay.

[47:33] Well. Let's go back now to the second division of what being is such, or the other division of being is such, which is into substance, quantity, quality, relation. Four. Four. Right. Four. Four. Okay. Now, in logic, of course, we would distinguish between, you know, substance and accidents, right? And the accidents we divided into those three, right? Or we could divide action again into two again, absolute and relative, and then.

[48:13] Okay. So there's no problem. Thomas divides the ten categories. He he divides them always into two or what? Three. He first divides them into three, or you could divide them into two. That's why he gives the rules two or three or both, right? You could divide into substance and accident, right? Or as Thomas divides it, according to the figures of predication, what is said of individual substances as regards what they are, something outside of what they are, but in them, and something outside of them, right?

[48:44] Into three, and then he subdivides always into two or three, perfect, perfect, perfect, following the rule of two or three or both, right? Okay, Thomas. Thomas doesn't goof there at all, okay. But why the hell does he do it? too seriously. He was writing just for you. Now to puzzle me, right, Now. Wait till Bergman gets to be 80, then he'll figure it out. Yeah. Well, Thomas says, you know, when he takes up the simplicity of God, one of the articles you'll find in the Summa, two Summas, that God is not in any genus.

[49:28] He's not confined to any genus, right? When you're in a genus, you're really stuck, right? If you're a dog, you're in the genus of substance, and you can't get in the genus of quality, right? And if you're the knowledge of triangles, you call it geometry, and so on. That's a quality, right? And that's that's where it is. You can't get out of there, right? Yeah.

[49:56] It kind of used to like the thing as kind of a you know one of these strange. Things for an abstract term but predicament right. That's what the you know Albert the Great's work on the categories of Aristotle's the predicament, teach, right? I can begin in here on the beginning someday. Um and uh goes back to the Latin word you know to be said of right. huh But this got somehow into daily speech right.

[50:21] I'm in a predicament, you know. My, I can't fix my income tax or something. I'm in a terrible predicament. I got to go to jail or something. And there's no way out, you know. But that's what a predicament is, right? There's no way out. See, well, God is not in any what genus, right? He's not confined to any of these genera. But whatever there is of perfection, you know, in any of these genera, God has it, right?

[50:49] Huh? Okay. He has the perfections of all genera in a simple what? Wow, that's an amazing, amazing one. God is really amazing. Okay. Well, now what do you say, right? See? when you talk about the substance of God before His operations, right? Huh? It's like the distinction between substance and quality, right? When you get into God's operations, then you get something like quality, right? Except it's not confined to that genus.

[51:28] So you learn that God is wise. Even Aristotle has talked about God being alone, being wise, right? Or only God in the full sense, right? God is just, right? God is merciful. God has the ability to understand, right? He is understanding. He has will, choose, and so on. Well, these are all things that in us are qualities, right? But in God, they're the very what substance of God, right?

[52:02] But notice they correspond in a way to our genus of what quality, right? And then followed upon that, you begin to see there are certain relations in God. Now, because God makes the universe and so on, there's a relation of God which is not actually real, real relations, relation of reason. But the creatures are really related to God, right? And then because of that, we speak of a relation of God to them, but it's according to reason, right?

[52:35] Okay. Because Aristotle first saw that possibility, right? He says that knowledge is relative to knowable. Knowledge is knowledge of something, right? And then that something is said to be what knowable by knowledge, right? But that's not a real relation on the part of the thing known. But I have a real relation to the thing I know. Okay. So God doesn't. The creatures have a real relation to God, but not vice versa.

[53:02] That's very hard to understand, right? And then you find out you're finding the highest thing to study is the Trinity, right? And you have to understand the Trinity in terms of relations, right? Father and Son, okay. And in terms of what, you know, the Son proceeding by way of understanding, and the Holy Spirit by way of love, and so on. And that presupposes what was like qualities, right?

[53:28] Huh? Okay. Now, you might say, but is there anything corresponding to quantity in God? See, because quantity would seem to be either discrete quantity, right, or continuous quantity. Well, there's no continuous quantity in God because God is not a body, right? He's certainly not a surface or a line, right? And it can't be number in God because number arises from the division of the continuous. And because the continuous is divisible forever, number can go on forever, right?

[54:04] Huh? So at first sight, there might seem to be nothing corresponding at all to quantity, right? Huh? But maybe there's a certain what? Dim likeness, huh?

[54:20] You know, let me ask you this question, right? How many legs do you have? Two so far. Yeah. And how many hands do you have? And how many heads do you have? Just one. Only one. Yeah. Now I don't find any difficulty in saying that last question, right? Just one, right? Someone might say that when I ask about your head, I'm asking a lawyer's question, right? Lawyer's question.

[54:54] Have you stopped beating your wife? You know, that was a kind of standard thing, right? And if you say yes, well then you seem to be admitting that you had been beating her in the past, right? If you say no, and you're still beating her, either case you're guilty of something, right? You see. Now, strictly speaking,

[55:19] that's an appearance, right? Because either I have stopped beating my wife or I have not. It's got to be one or the other. Now, if you ask me, Duane, have you stopped beating your wife, I would say no, if I want to speak truly. Because since I've never done so, I haven't stopped, right? But the average person would think if I say I haven't stopped, I'm still beating her, right?

[55:50] Okay. So you might say, you know, when I ask you how many heads do you have, right? Well, many means a number, right? So I'm really asking you, what is the number of your heads? There is no number of your heads because one is not strictly speaking a a number, right? That's why Shakespeare says, you know, the number was killed by love because it made the lovers one.

[56:14] You know, and the reason it's puzzled by this, you know, but anyway. Ah, so what are you going to say? You know. Well, you see, one, strictly speaking, is not a number. Number is a multitude composed of units, right, or measured by the unit. But proportionally, right, you could see a certain likeness of one to a number. And by proportion, meaning a likeness or ratio, so one can be to a number just like a number is to a number.

[56:50] So one is to two, as three is two. One is to two, as three is two. Yeah. So one can be to a number two, like a number three is to number six, right? So there's a likeness there between one and what?

[57:13] Number, right? Yeah. Okay. It's analogous. It's not. It's equivocal to call one a number, but it's not equivocal by chance, right? There's a real likeness there, and so that's why I don't find myself, you know, forced to say, "How many heads do you have?" Right? Say, say. Well, I don't have any heads. You know, I I don't think I have to do that because I'm kind of already thinking of one as being like a number, right?

[57:44] So one is like a discrete what? Quantity. Like a number. And then what? Infinity. Now, looking today again at the fourth Lateran Council, there, Thomas, you know, has a work on the Fourth Lateran Council. And of course, there, God is called immense. Yeah. Yeah. See. But you know, if I say it's an immense mountain, you know, you know. Now go back to to the definition there of reason, huh?

[58:23] Remember how we said that large is what? Opposed to small. In one sense, small is that found in the expression small talk. Opposed to small, in that sense, is large. In the sense of what? Great.

[58:40] So I may speak of a great mountain, and then I've a quantity in the strict sense, right? Great mountain. But then I speak of a great man. Abraham Lincoln was a great man, or George Washington is a great man, or something. Then it's a different sense, right? But is it completely equivocal?

[59:05] How large is God? Yeah, But you can speak of how large God is, right? See, yeah, and maybe even more clear in English with "How great is God," right? I mean, isn't there a song where the words go? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. When Thomas talks about the infinity of God, he speaks of what spiritual magnitude, right? Well, magnitude is originally the name of what continuous what quantity, right?

[59:43] So, in saying that God is one, and saying God is infinite, right, has some remote likeness to discrete quantity with one number and continuous quantity with what infinite, okay? Now, notice the order. Now, the Summa Contra Gentiles, right? The first three things you show about God is that He's altogether unchanging, He's altogether simple, He's altogether what? Perfect. That corresponds to the substance of God, right? Now, one and what?

[1:00:23] Infinite, right? Could be considered substance because they're closest to it, right? Okay. They always talk about the confusion between body as a species of continuous quantity and body as a species of substance, right? It shows the the closeness of the two, right? If you have a hard time distinguishing those two.

[1:00:47] Or you could say that God being one and God being infinite corresponds to the genus of what? Quantity. And then His being wise and His being just and His being merciful and His being what? Having a mind, understanding, and so on, corresponds to quality. And then His being a creator or a ruler or a king, as He said in the Psalms. And if, you get to you get to the Trinity, right?

[1:01:21] Then you have something corresponding to the fourth category, which is relation, right? And follows exactly the order of the four, right? Then you don't have five, but you have three, and then two, and then in the third you have basically what? The understanding in the will, right? And things are either. You talk about what does God understand? Well, understands primarily Himself and by understanding Himself, since He's the cause of all the things, He understands everything else, right?

[1:01:53] What does He love? He loves primarily Himself and loving Himself, He He loves the things that can partake of His goodness and so on, right? So it's divided into two, right? The Trinity is obviously divided into three, so on. So, all things are solved, right?

[1:02:15] Now, in the Summa Theologiae, it's not as perfectly correct because that's not my favorite work. But notice Thomas doesn't put the the infinity of God last, as it is in the Summa Contra Gentiles like continuous quantity is last there, right, in the order. But he puts it right after the perfection of God and before God being unchanging, right? Because it's closely connected with that, as I've mentioned before, right?

[1:02:43] When I was trying to reduce them, right, to three. And why is he end up with the unity of God? Well, it's because of those damn Muslims, right? They think that we're what? Polytheists, right? And the last thing I want somebody to think about the substance of God before they go on later on to the Trinity, right? Is it's just one God, right? And that's what we think, and I mean, this is the reason why we think it's so, right?

[1:03:06] And so whatever we say about the Trinity, it can't contradict the fact that there's only one God, right? And you know, somebody's quick, you know, to you know think that that you're a polytheist or something, huh? And you know, he was he was fighting the polytheism of the Arabs, right? Huh? And he scandalized by this aberration among the Christians, right? Because they seem to be going back to the what?

[1:03:32] Mm. And so gotta watch that when you bless yourself there in the earth, you can be in deep trouble, right? But it's kind of understandable mistake, it seems to me, right? Huh? I mean, it's going to take a hell of a lot of learning to understand this, you know. You know the famous thing about Augustine. There is supposed to have been thinking about the Trinity, and he's seen the little boy run down to the ocean, get a little bit of water, and put it in a hole there in the sand, and he got distracted and said, "What are you doing?"

[1:04:04] And the guy said, "In here. Well, you can't fit that in here. That ocean. Well, neither can you fit the Trinity into your mind." Disappeared the little boy. Huh? But it's kind of a marvelous thing, though, right? Huh? Marvelous example, though, of you know a nice what transfer from quantity all the way up to you know the mind, huh? You know

[1:04:31] these. I always see these these advertisements for big hamburgers, you know. As I said, how the hell do you eat a hamburger like that? You know, I mean, it's just I don't even want to bother with it, you know. I don't even want to try to eat one of those hamburgers, you know. I can't get my mouth around it, right? You know, it's squirting out, and this all the stuff.

[1:04:50] I can't get my mind. Well, there are some subjects, you know, you kind of say I can't get my mind around it, right? That's a different sense of getting around, huh? Than it is getting your mouth around these hamburgers that are, you know, the advertisements. You see them on television all the time. You see them in the newspaper, the magazine, you know. But as Chesterton says, there's a comparison between opening your mind.

[1:05:16] You open your mouth so you can chomp down on something solid. That's why we open our minds. We can grab one of these. Rather than these people who are so open-minded, they never chomp down on anything. Yeah. And also, how making use of the two distinctions that the wise man most of all is concerned with, right? distinction of ability and act, right? Or distinctions, because there's many distinctions among abilities and acts, right?

[1:05:42] And their order, right, which is the ninth book, and the distinction of being according to figures of predication, right? And you see, the distinction of of being into act and abilities is in a way more universal. Because you can apply act to God, right? God is pure act, right? But you can't put God in one confine him to one of these genera, right? But he has something corresponding to each of these four what major genera, right?

[1:06:08] According to substance and even quantity, though a more difficult way to see, right? And then quality and then relation, right? But he follows the same order of those four in this way of explaining the paradox of the five there in him, right? And it's kind of amazing the way he does because he takes the unity of God before his what infinity, right? Discrete quantity before what? Yeah, and that's that's that's what Aristotle does in the in the categories, right?

[1:06:42] That's kind of a marvelous thing, right? Why in the Summa Theologiae he takes up the infinity of God before his unity, right? But he takes it up right next to the perfection of God, right? And he wants to emphasize the unity of God because, as we say, theologians about the uno et trino deo, right? That's kind of the fundamental distinction, huh? So I'm tying the knot. It's kind of beautiful, though, right?

[1:07:11] It's kind of amazing to see that order, right? A little bit corresponding to the order of the first four genera, right? It's the main genera, or you're named from something in you, right? Like I'm a man, and I'm you know five foot eight or something, I don't know, and a geometer and grandfather. yeah, and a grandfather, yeah.