Prima Secundae
283. Grace and Merit I: Worthy Merit of Eternal Life (q.114 a.3) and Charity as the Source of Merit (a.4)
Class of 2016-04-28
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/11-prima-secundae/283-grace-and-merit-i-worthy-merit-of-eternal-life-q-114-a-3/

[0:00] Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen. Thank you, God. Thank you, guardian angels. Thank you, Thomas Aquinas, God, our enlightenment. Guardian angels, strengthen the lights of our minds, and illumine our images, and arouse us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor, and help us to understand all that you have written. Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Amen. So we're up to article what three, right?

[0:33] Huh? I was thinking, you know, about this article two that we did last time, where he talks about man being in his two-fold status, right? And the reason why, even the state before the fall, he couldn't what merit eternal life, you know, by his natural powers, and then the second reason he says is because of sin, right? And then you need grace doubly, right? I was just thinking, you know, this is a little bit off the text or that thing, but one thing Thomas doesn't talk about in this consideration of grace is the sacraments, right?

[1:08] And of course, he does talk about the sacraments in the tertiary parts, right? So you talk about Christ, the incarnate Christ, in the third book, right? And then you talk about the sacraments are like tools of Christ, right? Huh? And we, if I remember my definition from from catechism, right? The definition of sacrament was an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace, right? So the connection between grace and the sacraments is very clear in that definition, right?

[1:45] It's the purpose of the definition to make things clear, right? Huh? It's one kind of discourse, right? You know, when Shakespeare says that reason is the ability for discourse, right? To take the first thing, he shows what it's for. If you go to the science of logic, and one of my teachers there was a guy named Albert the Great, huh? And Albert the Great divides logic into two parts, huh?

[2:11] The art of defining and the art of what reasoning. Yeah, the art of the coming to know the simple unknown, which is defining, right? And the art of coming to know the complex unknown, the statement, right? Reasoning, right? And so that's interesting. That's a sign of the truth of what Shakespeare said, right? That reason is ability for discourse, right? And the two main kinds of discourse are defining and reasoning, and Albert testifies to the fact that that's the way of dividing logic, right?

[2:46] Logic is the art of discourse, the art of coming to know what you don't know. He divides it into the simple unknown and the complex unknown, which kind of exhausts the subject, right? And then the way of arriving at making known the simple unknown, which is defining, and the Complex known, which is by reasoning, right?

[3:06] We should go back, you know, to our our friend Anaxagoras, right? Who first, who said Aristotle was like a sober man among drunk men. We need to use the greater mind, right? But to distinguish things and to order them, right? Now this is the second part of the definition, right? So these things. But anyway, notice the from the definition there of grace, I mean, of sacrament, the connection between grace and sacrament, right?

[3:33] Now St. Thomas doesn't talk about in this treatise here, and the question is just right, because he talks about the two conditions of man, right? But do the angels have grace too? Say, do the angels need grace? He doesn't really talk about that explicitly here, does he? Right. Okay, but is there sacraments for the angels? You don't have bodies. Yeah, yeah. The sacraments are tied up with the fact that what.

[4:04] Strength repeated. Yeah, yeah. And and Thomasian will talk about how the sacraments are proportioned to Christ, the Word made flesh, right? And you have this double aspect in sacraments, corresponding to that, and so on. And then how it fits us, right? Animals that have reason, right? We need the sacraments, huh? Something sensible, right, to get at these things. But there's no sacraments for the angels, right? So how do they receive grace?

[4:34] It's not by sacrament, is it? Some other way. I mean, more. More direct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see. Among the sacraments, we say the greatest one is the Eucharist, huh? And the reason they give sometimes in terms of grace, that it's the one sacrament that contains the source of grace himself, Christ, right? His body and blood and soul. divinity as they say, are there, right? Now, in a way, they're not in the other sacraments, although the power is in the other ones, right?

[5:08] But it's because he's the source of grace, huh? Which is the way Thomas begins the division of the New Testament, right? New Testament is about grace, and the articles. It's divided into three parts: the origin of grace, which is in the Gospels, and then the nature of grace in the Epistles of Paul, and the effect of grace in the Acts of the Apostles, Canonical Epistles, and the Apocalypse.

[5:35] Beginning, middle, and what? End. They had you know these articles and the thing about Mother Angelica, right? And one one little quote, they had a whole you know half page of sayings, the things she said, right? And I don't have exact words here, but she's talking about the faith, hope, and charity, right? And she said something like, "Faith gets you going, right? Hope helps you persist, right?

[6:10] And charity gets you there." So that's pretty good, you know, because you know when Thomas talks about the the the three theological virtues, he does say something something like that, right? And that the faith makes you what know what your goal is. Hope makes you tend towards that goal, but then charity finally unites you to the goal. That's something she's saying, right? But I doubt you got it from Thomas.

[6:38] I mean, just from your own common sense, you know, and you're thinking about these things. Kind of a marvelous little quote there from her.

[6:48] So, but here's me out the connection between grace and sacraments here that will come out in the Tertia Pars, right? And that's really important for us to to see the connection between that, right? They speak of this, you know. We you're the expression about sacramental life, right? We have that in the Catholic Church, and when I listen to Journey Home, you know, it's always talking about the sacramental life that the convert is discovering, right?

[7:15] You know, the fullness of the sacraments, right, that you don't really have, maybe a baptism or something, you know. But sometimes they don't even take baptism too seriously, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[7:33] Okay, so up to Article three here. To the third, then one goes forward. Thus, it seems that man, constituted in grace, is not able to merit eternal life ex condigno, right? And what does that mean, ex condigno?

[7:54] There's kind of equality there. Yeah, yeah. You know, when they talk about kind of a common thing in the church now, talk about the dignity of life, right? The dignity of man. You see, respect the dignity of everybody and so on. And but what's the English word for dignity? I mean, that's the Latin word dignity, right? Like you have in here, digno. But what's what's the English word for dignus?

[8:22] Worthy. I think so. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah. Doesn't sound quite as you know elevated as dignity does. But I mean that's the the word, right? Huh? So in other words, you're really you know worthy of this because of what you've merited of your merits, right? See. And now the other one they talk about is congruous, congruity, and and how would you translate that in the English, the native word?

[8:51] Congruous is maybe something like equality, but I'm not sure. I'm trying to say, but I don't think that's what it means. No, no, no. How would you translate that? You know, because that—that's the kind of thing he's going to make here. I mean, it's probably in the text. These are textual distinctions. Agreement or harmony is what it says here.

[9:17] Yeah, yeah. Congrua is the salary of pasture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's—it's some agreement. Yeah. But it's more fitting, you know, huh? You see, it's fitting that you what.

[9:33] Yeah, yeah. Fitting to yeah. More to God than to man. Yeah, yeah. It's like like an appearance says, you know, if you do this, you'll get this, right? And you know, we do what deserve it. Yeah, but it's fitting that you give them the reward you promised them, right? If they did this, right now. So I don't know if worth and fitting are. That's that's one way of translating it.

[9:59] So like the the they. At the end of the day, get the same as those who worked off Yeah. yeah. Because it really owed to them. Yeah. In some way. Yeah. yeah.

[10:12] So the apostle says, and that's antonomasia for for Saint Paul, right? Huh? And I guess sometimes Peter's called the apostle too, you know. I ran across I was reading the Thomas's commentary on John, right? And he's talking about how God, Christ is talking about how the devil is the what? When the Latin says the homicide, right? I don't know in English homicide names the crime, right, of killing a man, right?

[10:45] Yeah, we don't need to name the criminal. Yeah, but in Latin he's the homicide, right? I don't know if he's saying he's the homicider or whatever, but I don't think we have a word there, right? Huh? But he's saying that it's said of the devil by antonomasia Yeah, yeah. Well he's got to be thinking again, you know, of how this abortion, you know, is devilish, right? Huh?

[11:06] Because you're it's homicide, and the devil must rejoice in this, right? And he's must be, you know, it's his campaign, right, so to speak, right?

[11:19] Yeah, yeah. It's frightening. So the apostle says, huh? This is much better to be an apostle by antonomasia. To Romans eight, huh? He's the apostle of the Gentiles, right? That the passions of this time, right, are not condignae huh? Is that word? To the future glory which is going to be revealed in us, huh?

[11:51] But among the meritorious works, huh? Most of all seem to be the meritorious passions of the saints. Therefore, none of the works of men are meritorious of eternal life ex condigno, right? Yeah. And also Thomas answers that, huh? To the first, therefore, it should be said that the apostle speaks about the passions or sufferings of the saints according to their substance. Yeah. Yeah. Not according as it's informed by grace and the Holy Spirit, right?

[12:27] Yeah. Because we've already talked about the necessity of grace, you know, to merit here, right? Now we're asking a more particular question: Does it merit it by fittingness or by being worth it in some way? Huh?

[12:46] Moreover, upon that of Romans six, the grace of God, eternal life by the grace of God, we'd say in English, huh? It can be said rightly. The gloss says, right? Huh? Stipendium, huh? The wages, I guess, of justice. Eternal life. Be not want to say what, but it'd be better to say by the grace of God, eternal life, that we understand God, what? To lead us. Yeah, by His mercy, right?

[13:20] To eternal life, not by our what merits, right? notice that text I was talking about in where was it? Was it John, I guess, the canonical epistle. there, right? no, no, no, no, the one from Jude, right? Okay, about building up your house in faith, hope, and charity, right? And then he mentioned mercy, right? eleos, right? So I was thinking that it was only fitting, right? There's still mercy on his part, right?

[13:52] Now, okay, and this text here would seem, you know, we say by the grace of God, eternal life. Well, then it's not by merit, huh? By my merits, eternal life sounds heretical. Sounds Pelagian or something. I don't know. Yeah, yeah.

[14:14] Now, what does Thomas say to this? To the second, it should be said that the word of the gloss, right, and the gloss is what Augustine, I guess, huh? Yes. it says from Augustine. Yeah, yeah. From the Enchiridion, must be the Enchiridion in faith, hope, and charity. Yeah, it's in my footnote in the Marietti edition. huh Here's the nice thing about these Marietti editions, right? So big edition, I have the big print of Summa Contra Gentiles.

[14:47] Doesn't have all these nice little references to. this one I guess this is the Leonine here but it doesn't have it specified it just says it's from the Mm hmm I mean, this always has you know the parallel texts in other places. of Thomas, where he talks about this matter, you know. So if you want to to make a prolonged study of some question, you know, you can go right away to the other texts, you know.

[15:18] Okay. To the second, should be said that the word of the gloss should be understood as regards the first cause of arriving at eternal life, which is the mercy of God.

[15:33] But our merit is a causa subsequent, huh? He's very subtle, that Thomas, huh? Always slithers out of the. Yeah. So you shouldn't forget that it all started by him from him, right? And be thankful for him, right? Okay.

[16:00] That's like Augustine says elsewhere about he who made you without you will not save you without you. That's what he's talking about. However, that merit would seem to be condignum, right? Worthy that equals the what? Reward. Yeah. But no act of the present life can be equal to eternal life, which exceeds our knowledge and even our desire.

[16:39] That's a famous text there, right? Not into the, yeah, yeah. Has not seen, heard, not heard. Goes into into the heart of man, right? Even his his will, right? Things that God has prepared for those who love Him. For it exceeds the charity, charity or the charity of the way, right? Just as it exceeds what nature.

[17:02] That's why that text was saying that what we should be like Him, As if we're not like him yet. We're like him in an inferior way. So how is there equal to it, right? Therefore, man is not able by grace to merit eternal life ex condigno, How's he going to answer that, huh? I'll get you tied up a third time there with the chain. See, if he can untie your way.

[17:30] To third, it should be said that the grace of the Holy Spirit. Now he's throwing the Holy Spirit in there, right? The grace of the Holy Spirit, which we have in the present,

[17:43] although it be not equal to glory in act, is nevertheless equal in virtute, in power and ability. He makes a beautiful comparison here, just as the seed of trees, in which there is the virtue or power for the whole what tree. So you show the acorn to the kid, you say, "This came, you know, this tree there from one of these." I don't believe that. I don't believe that?

[18:18] Pulling the wool over my eyes, right? Okay. Now sometimes, you know, you know the pro-life people there, when they talk about abortion there, right? Are you killing a human being? Well, is the fertilized egg a human being? Or would it be more accurate to say that it's like the seed of the human being, right? Just like the acorn is a seed of, you know. If somebody asked me, is an acorn an oak tree?

[18:48] You know, I'd say no. See, or you and I buy packages of seeds there and plant them in the garden there, right? But are these seeds, you know? Is that broccoli? Yeah, is that broccoli? I don't think you'd say so. Would you? You could you could say it's the same life. Well, yeah, but is it really a broccoli plant, right? See, is the acorn a tree? Yes or no?

[19:12] That's a, tough question here, right? The acorn question—we'll call it. I'd say it's the uh first stage in the oak tree's life Well, is it a tree, though? see, it's not a tree yet. Like I said, it's a first stage. It which doesn't mean that there's been the end reached. It's just the beginning. Seeing it as a holistic process, to use one of the current cross phrases.

[19:46] See, well, would you make the distinction here that's analogous to the one made here, right? The grace of the Holy Spirit, which we have in the present, although it not be equal, right? Although it's not equal to glory in act,is nevertheless equal in vertute right? That's a very strong way of saying that the seed, you know, destroy the seed in a way is like destroying the what?

[20:10] Tree. Yeah. And so to, you know, but it's not yet. I don't think, you know, a tree, huh? Okay. But in some sense, it's equal to it, right? Equal to it in in power, right? Okay.

[20:28] And likewise, through grace, the Holy Spirit inhabits a man. Now that's something that is important to see, huh? We studied the Holy Spirit in the prima pars, but but the connection in the Holy Spirit here in grace is being made, huh? Who is a sufficient causa, right? Of eternal life.

[20:56] Whence he is said to be the pledge, right? Of our inheritance, huh? Second Corinthians chapter one verse twenty two. When he says sufficient causa,

[21:14] then he seems to be saying that it's what? Condigno right? Okay. But you got to be in the Holy Spirit to to see this, maybe, right? That the grace, the Holy Spirit inhabits man, right? Huh? So this grace, in which the Holy Spirit, in which the Holy Spirit inhabits, in which it inhabits us, is equal to glory in virtute, right? Although it's not an act, you don't have it an act yet.

[21:49] Another way of referring to grace is when he says it's in some ways the gift by which we possess the one whose name is gift, which is the Holy Spirit. Yeah.

[22:10] Now, what's the sed contra? huh? What text is he going to pull out of Scripture, right? Huh? It's amazing how he pulls these things out of Scripture, right? That which is rendered according to just judgment, right? Now justice in the strict sense, right, is something that you're obligated to because you really do owe it to the person, right? So what is rendered according to a just judgment would seem to be a reward that is what?

[22:39] Condigna right? Okay. That equals this, right, in some sense, huh? But eternal life is rendered by God according to the judgment of what? Justice, huh? According to that, is second to Timothy, where Saint Paul is now talking about himself, right? And he means there is what Set aside for me, right? A crown of what justice, which the Lord will render to me in that day, He being a just judge.

[23:19] That's a beautiful, beautiful sin contra, right? Very good, Thomas. Very good. We're going to advance you into a, to a. Gold star. I got to find the card. I got a card there. One of these, you know, the triumph of Thomas, you know, and it's like the center of the whole thing. You know.

[23:39] He's a marvelous guy, this Thomas. I'd like to twit the the Jesuits, you know, that their founder, you know, was very insistent upon them following Thomas, right? But they don't seem to follow all the time. Yeah.

[24:01] Okay, now let's have this thing unfolded gradually in the respondio. I answer: Should be said that the meritorious work of man, right, can be considered in two ways.

[24:17] In one way, according as it goes forward from free what judgment, huh? From free will. In another way, according as it goes forward from the grace of the Holy Spirit.

[24:36] So notice how he sticks on the Holy Spirit there with grace, huh? He said before. If one considers then it according to the substance of the work, huh? And according as it goes forward from free judgment, right? Then it cannot be what Condignitas. It cannot be worth so great a thing, right? On account of the maximum inequality. It's a k it can't be more unequal.

[25:18] Thank God, God hates equality. Then I told you about my old teacher, because he said, you know, God hates equality. If we demand equality, we'd be we'd be lost here, right?

[25:34] I was thinking, you know, the other day, what what really is misery, and what do you think would be misery, Mister Burquist? And answered myself, saying, you know, I think misery would be to never see God as He is, never see God face to face.

[25:50] I was thinking, you know, if I never saw God face to face, I think I would be supremely frustrated, huh? You know. Have to look at everything else. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[26:06] You know the text that Thomas quotes from Augustine sometimes, where he says, "Miserable the man who knows all the things but doesn't know God. Blessed the man who knows God, even if he knows nothing else. Happy also the man who knows God and other things, but not for knowing other things as well as God, but for knowing God, right? You know. If you realize that, I mean, what's more more frustrating, you know, for for the soul, right?

[26:44] Kind of amusing, I think. You know, they they said that the Greeks had, you know, some ghost stories like we have ghost stories, right? And the philosophers interpreted the truth, if there is truth about these stories, that the ghosts were seen to hang around the graves, right? That's where ghosts hang out, right? And these are people who are attached to the pleasures of the body, right? And now they're trying to get back in the body because they're missing the pleasures.

[27:11] What was their life? They'd say, right? And they can't get back in their bodies, so they're completely frustrated. Yeah. But I don't think my soul would be frustrated not being able to get back in the body, but to not see God as He is, face to face.

[27:31] That's really what your you know your heart is you're made for, right? Yeah. With regard to Islam and the concept of Islamic paradise being essentially a bacchanalia, materialistic bacchanalia, is there any sense in Islam of the joy of being with Allah that would be at all parallel? I don't think that they they have any idea that you can see God. You know, it's just yeah, yeah, yeah.

[28:01] And you wonder if that might be a chink in their armor, but then because the lack of reason, maybe it wouldn't be. Yeah, they wouldn't be. Yeah. That's the problem. That's the problem. It's just that yeah, it just doesn't get a wall. So it's kind of to see the parallel that you see with the secular world and the Islamic world both have these walls, and they're both based on a foundation of irrationality.

[28:31] Yeah, It's really amazing, yeah. And there's not a harmony between their their faith and reason, you know, like ours. Reason. And our faith would make a lot of sense. to Aristotle, if he was introduced to it, you know. I hope he wasn't in some way, but I don't know. Yeah. Just got through reading Summa Contra Gentiles there on chapter 61, there, the second part there, where he's refuting Averroes's view about the the possible understanding.

[29:04] And he gets to really demolishing him, you know. And then finally, he has another chapter saying, you know, but because he tries to base this on the authority of Aristotle Thomas shows that Aristotle is not the same opinion as Averroes'. and it's kind of nice to see him defending Aristotle there, you know, as, from this kind of mistake, but this distortion, you know, it's pretty obvious this distortion on the part of of Averroes, you know.

[29:37] Okay. But nevertheless, there is there a certain congruity, right? Now let's use the word congruity there, right? On account of a certain equality of proportion, right? Okay. For it seems. Right, suitable right, might say, or fitting, that man doing what he can according to his power, right, huh? That God would recompense him, right, according to the excellence of his own what? Yeah. Okay.

[30:20] My son, my son is a lieutenant colonel there. He sends me the, you know, history magazine, a military history magazine, right? And it talked about the the war, the the potato war, right, the 18th century there between, you know, Vienna and and northern Germans there. And some of one guy was defeating, you know, the enemy there, and really took, you know, killed a lot of the enemy and took a lot of prisoners and so on.

[30:50] So he got this highest award that the that the Empire's government gives, you know, it makes you nobility for the rest of your life.

[31:00] Seems you know, excellency him, right? The excellence of the emperor, right? You know, bestowing upon the guy who succeeded this battle. If, however, we speak about a meritorious work according as it goes forward, huh? That's the way you translated, proceed huh? How we translated there?

[31:26] Uh proceeds from Yeah. see, see well people can't get, you know, that's Latin, right? So we call it. Speaking of philosophy, you know, Plato used it, Aristotle, Thomas uses the thing, the way of proceeding, right, huh? It's just the way of going forward. so it's written more. Of course, you want to go forward, right? In your understanding of these things, right? Well, how do you go forward?

[31:53] You know, see, way of proceeding doesn't have that same thing. You know, teacher, because you see, I almost got to put it in English before you think you really understand it fully. If, however,

[32:10] we speak of a meritorious work according as it goes forward from the grace of the Holy Spirit, thus it is meritorious of eternal life ex condigno? For thus the what strength you might say of the merit is to be observed according to the power of what the Holy Spirit moving us towards eternal life. According to that, now I read this recently, John four fourteen, there what grace will become in him a fountain of water, jumping up into eternal life, huh?

[32:58] Jumping for joy. There is to be observed the what price you might say right of a work according to the dignity of what yeah so one should you know you might say measure you might say the the the price of a work right or its value according to the dignity of what grace through which man being made a what nature which is going back to the definition that St.

[33:37] Paul is adopted as a son of God right to which is owed what his inheritance by the right of adoption that's what is said in Romans eight that's a beautiful text his sons then heirs right okay so as in as you like it right for the younger son is not being given his share of the inheritance of the father and the older brother is keeping him away from it and so on and planning to have him knocked off by the by the the wrestler you know the king's right

[34:20] okay so got all distinctions down now and you know when you should affirm when you should deny mostly says right the opus meritorious of man can be considered in two ways right he's seeing a distinction right just like the great mind of Anaxagoras right distinguishing things in one way according as it goes forward from free will or free judgment but another as it goes forward from the grace of the Holy Spirit and the first could only be by what fitting and there may be certain equality but this quality of proportion, right you do your thing and Daddy will give you something that's much greater than what you did but and then but here from the grace of the Holy Spirit right then it is that's

[35:23] a seed right huh it's not actually equal to that but it's in power equal to that right so it's good to have that. Okay, we go on to Article Four now.

[35:46] To the fourth, one goes forward thus. It seems that grace is not the what beginning or the source of merit, chiefly through charity, and then through the other virtues, right? Now, the charity has some preeminence, right?

[36:10] That's an interesting question, right? For reward is owed to work, according to that of Matthew chapter twenty verse eight. Call the workers, and render them their reward, huh? So your wages, huh? That's a good word. But each virtue, or any virtue, I guess, great virtue, anyone, is a beginning of some work. Therefore, and for virtue is a habit that does something, right? As has been said above.

[36:49] Therefore, each virtue is equally a beginning of what? Merit. Yeah. Okay. Now, what does Thomas reply here? To the first, therefore, it should be said that charity, in so far as it has a last end for an object,

[37:12] I see charity is in the what will, and the object of the will is the good, right? Huh? And the end is chiefly the good. So charity, in so far as it has a last end for its object, it moves all the other virtues to. Yeah, it's like the general, right? You know, MacArthur says in war there's no substitute for victory, right? So he's aiming at victory, right?

[37:36] Therefore, he commands everybody else, right? I'm just aiming at getting the guy coming over the hill, you know, giving him his bullet, right? His his great gifts, his great. See, I'm not aiming at the victory of the army, right? Yeah. Ex-Marine, well, there's no such thing as an ex-Marine, but this fellow was in the Korean War. He asked, is it good, moral theology, to say, God have mercy on him?

[38:02] Yeah, that's good. That's that ministry, the Protestant minister there in the in the Revolutionary War or Independence. You know, he says, May God have mercy on your soul, because I have none in your body.

[38:26] Is that in Washington Irving? I don't know. It's just kind of a famous story. I don't know if I heard it, but. uh. Followed up by the saying, praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Erwin Milton, told me he always prayed for his enemies before he shot him. You know. Joan of Arc prayed for her enemies when she was fighting. Yeah, yeah. That's what this gentleman asked me that question.

[38:50] He had two bumper stickers on his car. One said "Marines with a sword." The other said, "Pray the rosary for peace." Another military guest told me he had to work after being brave each time he went into things.

[39:20] So charity, insofar as it has the last end for an object, it moves the other what? Yeah, Aristotle talks about this in the beginning of Nicomachean Ethics, right? Huh? He's talking about how

[39:34] the art that moves one to the last end, right, commands the other arts, huh? Okay. So the wise man, right, commands others, right, because he's aiming at the last end too. Yeah, in the universe, always the habit to which pertains the end commands the habits to which pertain those things which are towards the end, as is clear from the things. Yeah. Let's take an example. you know, the guy who's peeling potatoes there right now.

[40:04] Okay. The master chef comes in and says, I'm going to make the best French fries you ever saw. You know. So I command him, and I tell him what shape or how big you know I want the potato things to be. You know, because you want them to be. And making them too thick in most restaurants, and they're just not the crispness they should. Just, just terrible what they do to it.

[40:26] You know. They asked some famous chef. You know who makes the best French fries? He said McDonald's. He said, "None, none of the great none of the restaurants. I very rarely get good French fry in a restaurant, you know. But McDonald's ones are pretty good sometimes. Yeah. " There's a place we went by where it was. They used to make them very thin, and they'd be like long strips, and they were like curled.

[40:55] Mm-hmm. Yeah, where was it? Went to a dinner there. It was a Trivium dinner, I think. Yeah, for the Cyprian, you know, a Trivium dinner. It's actually a fundraiser, you know. But I was up at the Cyprian Golf Course there last Saturday. And Tuesday I went to another dinner, so this is terrible the dinners I'm going to. Between funerals and all your social life.

[41:22] Okay. So always the habit to which pertains the end commands the habits to which pertains those things towards the end, right? Okay. That's why wisdom commands the lower sciences because it aims at the end. Okay

[41:58] I used to have fun with that. I'd say, you know, doesn't the logician, you know, teach all the other scientists how to proceed, right? So it isn't logic wisdom then. Mm.

[42:12] No, I don't think it's the same thing as wisdom. I know, but I mean, if he's directing all the others, he must be the wise man, right? The logician.

[42:26] But how can how can you say you know? I mean, Thomas himself he says that logic considers the common road, common way of proceeding, right? The common way of going forward in reasoned out knowledge, right? So then every other reasoned out knowledge, going to have to be directed by the logician, right? Because he he considers the way of going forward in reasoned out knowledge in general, right?

[42:52] That's not the end. Hmm? That's the way, but it's the common. No, no, but I mean, if if he's considering the way of going forward in all reasoned out knowledge, then he has to direct everybody else as to how to go forward, right? As far as that goes, yeah. See? So then he must be the wise man because he directs everybody else. So this this is my objection, right?

[43:15] See, now how would you answer that, right? It's not the last end. Well, no, you can't argue from that. No, no, but I say the logician tells you how to syllogize, right, and how to define, right, and every science goes forward. you know, Thomas sometimes has an abbreviated way of saying what the scientific road is. You know, defining, dividing, demonstrating. You know, three Ds. You know, three things: defining, dividing, demonstrating.

[43:49] But it's the logician who teaches you how to define, divide, and demonstrate. Therefore, he directs everybody else. But the one who directs everybody else is the wise man, ergo. Depends on what he's directing, direct- how he's directing. That's where I think, I think that's where there's confusion. Mm. But... So the text in, in the second book of wisdom there where Aristotle says that you have to know the road to follow right before you can really acquire some reasoned out knowledge, and that the way of going forward in geometry and the way of going forward in natural science is not the same, right?

[44:29] In ethics and so on. So at the beginning of each reasoned out knowledge, you have to be taught the way of going forward. In this reasoned-out knowledge,

[44:41] and Thomas is noticing the order there, right? Okay, because to go back to the Greek word there that Aristotle uses a lot, he'll call philosophy a methodos, right? Which means meta over hodos over a road. Philosophy is a methodos; It's knowledge over a road. Knowledge that follows a road, right? Okay, so it makes sense to say you've got to know the road to follow, right? Before you can go down that road, right?

[45:14] You go down that road to its end and stop. Then you have episteme, right? which comes from the Greek word for stopping, right? But I translate episteme by phrase, you know, reasoned-out knowledge, right? Okay, the mind comes to a halt. This finally reasoned it out.

[45:31] Well, at that point in his commentary, Thomas says, "Ah, just as at the beginning."Of each reasoned out knowledge, you have to learn the road that is private to that reasoned out knowledge. So, before you can acquire that reasoned out knowledge, so before all the sciences, you should learn logic, because that teaches the common road, the common way of going forward to reason out knowledge, right? So, the you know the the logic professor from Laval you know quoted this text just you know kind of say we're going to do now the logic course, right?

[46:04] And so, once you say that, right, then logic is going to just going to be directing everybody else, right? Well, the one directing everybody else must be what wiser than them, right?

[46:20] Therefore, that's that's the answer. Well, there's there's three roads, and you're leaving out one of the roads, right? You're leaving out in your discussion here the what natural road in human knowledge, huh? Science is the reason Yeah, and that's the one that the wise men, Aristotle touches upon that at the beginning of the commentary in the in the physics, right, huh? The natural road is to go from what is more known to us to what is more known by nature, right?

[47:02] It's the wise man who sees this, right, huh? And is this the natural road, huh? And so he directs everybody else, even in terms of the road, right? My doctoral thesis, you know, had three parts, and I was comparing Aristotle and Descartes, right, about the private road, and then about the what common road reason out knowledge, and then the natural road, right? Knocking Descartes down, being finished with reading Descartes the rest of my life.

[47:42] So, but there's got to be an answer to these questions, right, huh? But logic, in some ways, is what close to wisdom, right, because of its universality, in terms of its being what immaterial, right? I told you when I first met Monsignor Dionne, right, he'd come down to the Twin Cities there, Saint Paul, Minneapolis there, and he'd pay his way down to see what's on his mind, you know, and so on, and he was staying over at the Saint Paul Seminary there, and Kasurik arranged for me to go over to see him, right?

[48:17] And Dionne was talking about how logic prepared the way for wisdom, right? Of course, Kasurik said, "No, you know that's not true. It's natural philosophy." Of course, he was making the distinction that Dionne is making, right, in terms of knowing causes. Natural philosophy is preeminent before wisdom, right? And in fact, you reason to the unmoved mover that there is a God, right? You move, you know, to the immortality of the soul and so on.

[48:43] So you're prepared for, you know, the existence of the immaterial things. In that sense, it precedes, right? But in terms of what resolving to the understanding, right, and considering immaterial things, logic disposes you more for what wisdom than natural philosophy, right? So in a different way, right? And you see, well, the minute he made the distinction, I could see, you know, his superiority, you know. Kasurik when he introduced me to to De Koninck would come down a kind of a lecture tour, you know, in the Twin City areas there, and so I had about five six questions that Kasurik couldn't answer.

[49:25] He said, well, as the kind of comes down, he kind of gets them all. You can see his superiority, you know. But wonderful the way Kasurik did that, right? And introduced me to the two greatest teachers there at Laval before I ever got up there, you know. Marvelous, marvelous man. He says, compared to Aristotle, Kasurik said, I've got the brain of an Averroes But there's no sense of disrespect that Thomas has when he's showing the errors, you know, it's not understanding the text of Aristotle and read Aristotle.

[49:58] He bang bang bang. So I give him the text of Aristotle. He has about fifteen twenty hours of showing. He's mistaken. But respect for Aristotle.

[50:14] Okay. So you see the basic reason now, maybe in that reply to the first objection, right? Huh? Why charity might be what more important, right, than any other virtue? But because it moves all the other ones to their what to the end, right? Always the habit, huh? To which pertains the end commands the habits. Pertains to those things we get to the end.