Secunda Secundae
7. Distinction and Order, the Senses of 'Before', and Augustine's Definition of Believing (II-II q.2 a.1)
Class of 2017-10-12
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/12-secunda-secundae/007-distinction-and-order-the-senses-of-before-and-augustines/

[0:00] The Father and the Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. God, our enlightenment. Guardian angels strengthen the lights of our minds, ordains our images, and arouses us to consider more correctly. Saint Thomas Aquinas, angelic doctor. Amen. Help us to understand all that you have written.

[0:24] Amen. The Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Let's just stop a minute here and talk a bit about the distinction in order of distinction in order. Got that? Distinction in order of distinction in order.

[0:42] Okay. So, what's the first distinction? A distinction. What's the distinction? A distinction. What's the distinction? Distinction. Material. Material. Formal. Formal. Material and formal. Yeah. Yeah. So dividing something according to the continuous or by opposites. Yeah. Yeah. So when Thomas is investigating the distinction of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit, which is something to be careful about, right? Okay. Well, he begins from the distinction of what he calls material distinction, which is by division of the what continuous.

[1:51] Remember we were studying the categories. Some of you did anyway. In the categories of what quantity, distinction between discrete and continuous, and they both have parts, right? So the distinction is by opposites, right? And in the continuous, the parts meet at a common what boundary, right? The parts of the line, the point, right? Or the parts of this as a semicircle, right? You know, the what meet at a line, right?

[2:28] And two bodies meet at a what surface. So you can divide the continuous, right? Okay. So you divide a line at a point and a semicircle. You know, Euclid has a theorem, you know, to divide, bisect. And you can bisect a what Angle. angle, yeah? You can bisect the semicircle, right, and so on. And so this gives rise to what they call material distinction, because the continuous is a property of the what.

[3:02] Of matter, okay. Then the other kind of distinction is what? Formal. They call it formal distinction, and that's by what opposites, right? Now, Aristotle among other places, right, in metaphysics, but also in the categories, right. First post distinction, right. I mean the first post predicate is the distinction of what opposites, right? You probably met that before, right? And there's four kinds of opposites. There's contradictories between being and non-being, right?

[3:45] And then there's the opposition of having and lacking, right? And then there's the opposition of contraries, okay? So you have to understand those three, right? And then kind of distinguished from those three is the opposite of what relatives, right? So Thomas, when he's doing something very profound, right, what is the distinction between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit? Is it by well, is it either by material distinction or by formal distinction?

[4:20] It can't be by material distinction because God is not a body, right? He's not continuous, right? Therefore, it must be by what formal distinction. And then he says it can't be by contradictories or by having and lacking or by contraries because all these are kind of a distinction of being and non-being, right? Contradiction is simply being and non-being. Having and lacking is non-being. It's something in the subject able to have something, right?

[4:52] It doesn't have it. And then even one of the two contraries is lacking compared to the other, like vice is not just the lack of it; it's a real inflection. But but it it's lacking something that it should have, right? So in God, who is I am, who am, right, came to that kind of distinction. So you're forced by the truth itself instead must be by what relatives, right?

[5:22] Okay. And sure enough, the name Father and the Son seems to what to suggest that that's the truth, right? And so it's beautiful what he proceeds, right? So the first distinction of distinction is between what material and formal, formal,

[5:45] yeah. Notice first there, right? That's the name of distinction or a name of order. Order, yeah, yeah. This first means before all the rest, right? Okay. And then there's a second distinction, right? You can distinguish this according to what could be continuous, right? So it's one thing to divide a line, another thing to divide a plane, another to divide a body, and so on, right? Another to divide what motion is just continuous in some way,

[6:26] and so on. And then a distinction of form, right? Secondary, now. Okay. Now, what's the distinction of distinction and order? What's the distinction of distinction and order? Well,

[6:43] order of generation and distinction. Well, to say that things are distinct and to say they're ordered is at the same thing. What's the distinction between saying they're distinct and saying that they are ordered? The distinction is that this is not that. Yeah, yeah. Things are distinct when one is not the other. That's simple enough, isn't it? Okay. If one is the other, they're not distinct. Okay. And order is

[7:21] one is before or after. Yeah. And things are in order when one is before or after the other, right? Simple enough, right? Okay. Now, what's the the order of distinction and order?

[7:44] Distinction is before order. Because you have to see that they're distinct before you see their order. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I say that there's an axiom, right? A statement that's going to be kind of obvious if you understand, but and so on, that nothing is before or after itself. Today is before tomorrow and after yesterday, but can today be before after today?

[8:17] Not as a whole, right? You can say morning is before afternoon, but then there's a distinction between morning and afternoon, right? You know, afternoon is before evening, right? Huh? Okay. But there's a distinction between the afternoon and the evening. Okay.

[8:36] So you can talk about now in the second post distinction, right? Aristotle. Right. Okay. So in the second post predicament in the second post predicament, what does Aristotle do? He distinguishes the senses of what before, right? And now he's distinguishing the senses of what order. So you know, don't get mixed up in the word. You're distinguishing. Order, right? Okay. Just like when I say first distinction, second distinction, you're ordering distinctions, right?

[9:13] Okay. So you can distinguish orders, right? And you can order distinctions. Okay. I guess that's clear, right? Huh? Not enough to drag the student.

[9:31] That's what I'm gonna do, you know? Time up. Yeah, yeah. I know, professor. This is to say, you know, undergraduate. This is the teachers to confuse the issue. You got to see what he meant, you know. But

[9:50] so, what's the first sense of before? Right. Aristotle? In the distinction, in the distinction of before, he gives us the first meaning of before, right? Before in time. Time. Now, we'll see where that comes first in a minute.

[10:21] He gives us the second meaning of before, before in what being, right? Now, you all kind of know what before in time means, don't you? But what does before in being mean?

[10:45] That's kind of subtle, right? Because I am eighty-one years old, right? So I'm before a lot of you guys in time, right? Okay. But now you sometimes see something strange about some things that are before in time, that they could be without something later in time, but what's later in time would not be without them. Let's take a simple example here. Bricks come before a brick what?

[11:24] Yeah, or a brick house or a brick. And but not only are bricks before a brick house or a brick wall in time, but they can be without a brick house, right? But a brick house can't be without them, right? Now I might be before some of you guys in time,

[11:50] but can you guys be without me? In some way. Yeah. So if I'm before some of you in time, am I also before you in being?

[12:07] I can be without you, but you couldn't be without me. No, see. So those are different meanings, right? You can see the closeness to the second sense because what is before in being might often also be before in time. That's a different sense of before, right? But before in being is another sense, right? Now, what's the third sense of before? Knowledge and reason. Yeah, before knowledge, right?

[12:41] And how does the name before get carried over to that, right? See. That's by a likeness between the two, right? A likeness of ratios. So just as some things can be without other things, but not vice versa, some things can be known without knowing other things. But those other things can't be known without knowing these. What first?

[13:11] So that's the third sense of before, right? And then the fourth sense of it's all. Totally. The very first border is what with the good, right? Okay. And that's really the sense of what better, right?

[13:32] Aristotle stops and gets to those four senses, right? And then it's kind of almost funny because, but there seems to be another sense. He said, you know, that can't, you know, be out. And that's the sense in which a cause is before a what effect. Now,

[13:57] is that sense fifth in order? Or is it something a little bit like the second sense of before and being? Because what's before and being, and what's after and being, right? What's after and being in some way depends upon what's before in being, right?

[14:20] And so the sense in which the cause is before the effect is very much like what the sense of before and being. But they're not exactly the same thing, right? In the sense of before and being, what's before can be without what's after in being, right? Without that being, but can you have a cause without an effect? So it's not really the same sense, right? Okay. Now, I used to have fun with the students, and I'd say, "Now, in what sense of before, did Shakespeare say that reason looks before and after.

[15:04] What's the answer to that question? I suppose all of them? All of them, yeah. Okay. And so sometimes you have to look at all the senses of before, right, to understand the great definition of reason that Shakespeare has in the best short exposition to use reason that we have, where he says that reason is the ability, right, for large discourse looking before and after, right. What does he mean by before and after?

[15:37] Just one of those five senses? No, in all. If you go through each one of them, huh, you can see reason looks before and after in all all the senses.

[15:53] I was looking again at the text of Thomas there in the sentences, huh? In the sentences of Peter Lombard, which is a major work, right, at the Sorbonne University, The work is still at the University of, Paris. And the name of the article is "Whither God the Father is before God the Son," right? And Thomas says, "In no way is God the Father before God the Son."

[16:22] So how many senses of "before" does he have to consider? At least four. Yeah, yeah. And the way the body of the article, right, begins, he says, "God," I mean, the Father is not before the Son in what? He actually says what? Motion. But it's a more generalization of of time? Motion or change? No. Does he say

[16:57] duration? Duration. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's not before in duration. That's attached to the first sense, right? Because time is the first sense of duration. Yeah.

[17:09] He's not before him by nature. Well, that's with the second sense. And b. He's not before him in knowledge. He's not before him in goodness or perfection, right? It's exactly the order of what? Aristotle, right? Pretty good, foot. Pretty good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, then you know recently, not too recently, but I was looking again at Thomas's five proofs of the existence of God, right? Too soon as he's gone.

[17:42] I notice he says that we have shown sometimes he'll say we show that God is the first cause, and we show that God is the first what? Being. Well, those exactly the same things he's shown.

[18:01] And it may be, in fact, it is so that the first being is also the first cause, and the first cause is the first being, right? But are they synonymous, first being and first cause?

[18:16] And cause and being are not synonyms, even though cause is defined by being, right? It's not defined to be being, but a cause is what is responsible for the being or the coming to be of another, right? Okay.

[18:39] Um. So, and is first instead of being instead of what? Cause. Is it the same sense of order? No, because first, as we said before, is the name of order, right? First means before all the rest, right? Well, the first cause is before all the other causes in the sense in which a cause is before an effect, and the first being is before all the rest in the sense in which something is before its being, right?

[19:13] Okay, so these are not. I think so many people kind of kind of ignore that there's, knowing God as a cause is known from its effect, and realize that there's two things being shown there, right? Although they're very close together, right? It kind of confirms the fact that this fifth so-called meaning is not fifth. I always put it in quotes, and I say fifth. It's not really fifth in order; it's underneath what second, second one, yeah, yeah.

[19:45] Okay. It's kind of interesting to see the way Thomas develops that, right? Because arguing more to the first cause, he argues that God is the first. Mover, right, and the first maker, and so on, right. But he talks about God being the first being, right. Well, more directly, he argues from the what two distinctions of being. What are the two main distinctions of being? Being per se because he had the distinction of being per accidens and being per se.

[20:29] What are the two main distinctions of being? Act and ability. Act and ability, yeah. Uh the uh categories. Yeah, yeah. Even the categories, in Aristotle distinguishes between universal substance and singular substance, universal accident, singular accident. He calls this distinction ton of beings, right? Okay. So, in the fourteen books of wisdom, right, first philosophy as Aristotle calls it, he has two main distinctions of being per se. One by the figures of predication, substance, quantity, quality, and so on, and then act and potency.

[21:30] Well, then you end up with two what? Ways of speaking of the first what being. You see, if you know the categories, what's the first being at that point? Is it quantity, quality, relation, or substance? Substance. Yeah. Substance is the first what being? That's not getting to the really first being, right? Yeah. Okay. Now, in the third argument,

[22:10] Summa Theologiae, right? In a different place than Summa Theologiae, right? It's a different place in Summa Theologiae, but it's in their chapter on the eternity of God. What is this next step, right? Well, it takes up some kind of a broad sense, right? Or even analogously, it might be applied even to God, right? And he says, the substances that are most known to us, they're contingent. They can be and but not be, like you and me, and the dog and the cat and the tree.

[22:55] Now, can those be the first beings of all things that can be and not be? Why would they even be? To explain things, right? So before them there must be something that is what Necessary. necessary being right. Now I know from logic that something can be necessary to another, but what is necessary to another can that be the first being?

[23:23] Well, the first being must be a being then that is necessary to be through itself, and that's God. Yeah, the being that can is necessarily is through itself can be without other beings, but they can't be without it, huh? Because the beings that are necessary to another are necessary to this being, right? And the poor beings like us, you know, it can be and not be, we're even more dependent upon than the necessary beings, huh?

[23:58] Okay. So let's just say God's the first being. He's a being that must be through itself. He's a being that necessarily is, but not to another, but to itself. Thank goodness, huh? Amazing, huh? It's a little different than saying he's the first mover, isn't it? That's saying he's the first cause in some way, right? Or he's the first maker, right? Okay. Now what else? What other way could you speak of the first being?

[24:30] Well, there's another division of being, right, into ability and act, right? Now the early Greeks and so on, and the modern scientists, huh? They all think or thought that matter was the beginning of all things, huh?

[24:49] And there's some probability to this because the things that go from ability to act, they're an ability before they are an act, right? So it makes sense to say that what ability comes before act, right? But then Aristotle points out in the great ninth book of first philosophy that something goes from ability to act Price is something what? Already in act. already in act. So haplos, simply what comes before in universe, ability or act, act, yes.

[25:29] And that leads on to the conclusion eventually that the first being must be what pure act, because there's no potency ability, you have something before it. It was kind of interesting, right?

[25:43] So he's showing eventually that not only is God but the first cause, more particularly the first mover or the first maker, so on, but also that God is the first being, right? What is the first being? The being that must be of itself, starting off from the categories, right? And then the being that is pure act, right? So you're ready to talk now about the substance of God, huh?

[26:18] But again, it's good to know that distinction of what order, right? Huh? Because he's showing not only that God is the first cause, but that he's the first what being, right?

[26:44] Okay. Well, we'll check on that a little bit now, right? Okay. So you get just thinking about distinction and order, and the distinction of order and the order of distinction, right? That doesn't confuse anymore, does it?

[27:04] Now let's come down here, right? And we're talking about the what object of what faith and the act of faith, right? And then the habit of faith, right? Huh? And Thomas is following, of course, again what Aristotle did in the three books on the soul. He took up the abilities of the soul, and he says that you have to know the abilities of the soul through their acts, right?

[27:38] And their acts through their what? Yeah, yeah. So now let's just talk a little bit about the senses, sight and hearing, right? Huh? Which distinction comes first? Huh? Distinction between seeing and hearing, or the distinction between color and sound? Those are different distinctions, aren't they? But the distinction between color and sound is a distinction of what? Things, objects. The objects, right? Yeah. The distinction between seeing and hearing is a distinction of what?

[28:23] Powers. No. The acts, yeah, yeah. But is the distinction of color and sound before the distinction of seeing and hearing? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because we'd say both what seeing and hearing are sensing, huh? But what's the distinction between these two sensing? You got to bring in the object, right? So distinction between. Color and sound is before the distinction of seeing and hearing, right? Now, what about the distinction between the ability to see now and the ability to hear, right?

[29:21] Is that before or after the distinction of seeing and hearing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Just after the act, yeah. So Aristotle follows that, right? I was looking at my emails this morning, you know, and some guy who's working as doctor in philosophy is sending an email, right, asking me, you know, Is he out there for a reason to be? It's like a beautiful text to give him, you know, huh?

[29:58] But we'll go into something. that that uh speaks Right now, yeah. So, distinction of objects is before the distinction of acts, and the distinction of acts is before the distinction of the abilities for those acts. Right? Makes sense, doesn't it?

[30:21] Thomas, is following the same order here, right? He's distinguishing the object, right, of faith before, and then secondly, he's starting now. We're going to start today: distinction of the acts, because the interior act, exterior act, and then you know, he's talking about the habit, right? Okay. So, he teaches Aristotle there again, right? Huh? Beautiful. Aristotle does that right. Okay.

[31:02] That's why I also said Shakespeare defines reason as the ability for certain act, right? And then you get those acts, right? Huh? The ability for large discourse, looking before and after.

[31:19] Okay. So it's good to review those fundamentals once in a while, you know, to keep your mind looking for the distinction that's fundamental, right? Let's look now at question two. Then we're not to consider about the act of faith, and first about the inward act of faith. Secondly, about the exterior act, which is the confession of faith, right? Not the confession of your sins, but the confession of faith.

[31:58] Now about the first, yes, six things or ten things rather are asked, right? It's like he had that many before. About the first ten things are asked. First, what it is to believe, which is the interior act of faith. Secondly, in how many ways is it said?

[32:24] Third, whether to believe something above natural reason is necessary for salvation. Fourth, whether to believe those things that natural reason is able to arrive at is necessary, huh?

[32:41] Fifth, whether it is necessary for salvation to believe some things explicitly. Whether six, whether to believe explicitly or equally held, right, huh? Seven, whether to have an explicit faith about Christ is always necessary for what? Do the Jews have an explicit faith about Christ, huh? It's not implicit what they're saying, but it was explicit? I don't know.

[33:18] No, nobody says. Eight, whether to believe the Trinity explicitly is a necessity of salvation. A little different kind of questions here. Whether the act of faith is what? Yeah. There was somebody praising the early church fathers that they held firmly to the faith, right? Even they weren't able to answer all the objections, right? So there's a temptation to what? Not believe, right, huh? But they were strong enough to continue to believe, right?

[33:56] Before they had fully figured out how to answer all these objections, right, huh? You know. So that Frenchman there, what's his name? De La Barre. What? No, no, I mean the French famous French writer, huh? Oh, Voltaire. Voltaire, yeah, He was, supposed to look at the objections, you know, and went around poking the Catholics, right, huh? Actually, the quote. Yeah. Is it true that every time he thought he was on his deathbed, he called for a confessor?

[34:33] Well, he said, God. You know, I called him using God. Oh, figure of speech. Do you really believe in God? Yeah, it's like like like when when Roosevelt, that Roosevelt, Winston Churchill talks about you know the soldier, you know you pretty have to believe out there, you know. He said God. And the seventh article or tenth article, whether human reason right diminishes the merit of faith? Now that's a very important question.

[35:04] Okay, so Thomas is very explicit, right? Huh? He seems to start in the right place, right? Quid sit create right now. Now he's going to be what taking over Augustine's great definition of to believe, huh?

[35:26] As far as I know, Augustine and Thomas seem to be the greatest minds of the church, huh? Okay. To the first, then one proceeds. Thus, it seems that to believe is not to what? Think with assent. Yeah, it seems to me when you take the Latin word cogitare, right? How should you translate that into English, right? There's no So you know 'cause it's got a little different etymology than ours, huh?

[35:56] It's a little bit like in English speaking of what thinking about something, right? Okay. So it's almost like Augustine had defined the act of belief is to ascend to something while thinking about it. You know, it's a little bit like that. The definition, huh?

[36:21] Now I ask people sometimes, why do you think about something? What's the purpose of it? Why do you think about something? Maybe to understand it. Yeah, as a short answer, I would say is to understand it, right? Huh? Okay. So understanding something is the ender purpose of what thinking about it, right? Huh? Now sometimes they say a little longer answer is to say that you think about something to think out something about it, right?

[37:00] And maybe thinking out a distinction, right? Thomas is thinking about distinction, and he's thinking out a distinction of distinction, right? Okay. Or you might be thinking out a what division, right? Which is a kind of distinction too, right? Or you might be thinking out a definition. We

[37:23] might be thinking out an order. Or you might be thinking out a beginning statement. Like the axiom of before and after, he might be thinking out a conclusion. Okay.

[37:40] So when I pick up my Euclid there, he's this guy's what he thought about numbers and angles and figures and so on, right? And he's thought of all kinds of distinctions, right? Definitions and axioms and so on. And oh boy, yeah, he's always thinking out a new conclusion from the from the theorems he knows already, and then you know, ones he discovers, right? Okay.

[38:13] So cogitatio, huh, implies a certain what investigation, right? Huh? For that is said to cogitare as it were simu agitare, huh? See, I guess it's as good as English thinking about. Anyway. But Damascene is a big authority too, now in theology, right? Says in the fourth book, huh? Defeat the orthodox, I guess it's called. That faith is a non-inquisitivus consensus, right? It's not the result of investigation, right?

[38:47] Therefore, cogitare doesn't pertain to the act of faith. You've got what's his name? Yeah Damascene arguing against Augustine Yeah, Damascene. yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay.

[39:07] Second, moreover, faith is laid down to be in reason, as will be said below. But cogitare is the act of the what? What they call the cogitative power, right? Which was the name of one of the sense powers, right? As is said in the first. Therefore, what cogitatio does not pertain to what faith, right? Huh? Okay. I mean, we sometimes use the the word what same word to name the act of the senses and to name the act of what of reason, right?

[39:46] No. When I was a little boy, my mother said, "I see," said the blind man, but he couldn't see at all. My mother never went to college, but she thought it was a very clever statement, right? But it's playing upon two different meanings of the word what to see, right? Huh? We'll see, how, Thomas. We'll see. Yeah. Not just with your eyes we see, but.

[40:14] Okay. Moreover, third objection: to believe is an act of the understanding, right? Because its object is the true. But to assent does not seem to be an act of the understanding, but of the will. Just as to consent, right? As has been said above. Therefore, to believe is not with what? Cogitare Wasn't Thomas giving proof of what my teacher Kasurik said? This is the teacher to confuse the issue.

[41:01] Okay. But against all this nonsense, right? Is it Augustine thus defines it in the book on the predestination of the saints? You better think twice before you disagree with Augustine. huh? Now, Thomas begins by pointing out a distinction, right? Answer it should be said that cogitari can be taken in what Three ways. three ways. I didn't know that.

[41:48] In one way, it's taken a very common way, right? For any actual consideration that the understanding makes, huh? As Augustine says in the fourteenth book about the Trinity,

[42:08] I now call this what intelligentiam by which we what understand cogitantes, right? Huh? So he's using the word cogitari, and you've got look at the Latin there, right? I don't know if you got the Latin text there. some of you or what?

[42:26] The quote from Augustine here in the Latin: "hank nunc dico intelligentium, qua intelligimus cogitantes, right? Okay. Another way, cogitari is more properly the consideration of the understanding, which is with a certain what investigation you might say, huh? A little Inquisition, right? Huh?

[42:57] Before one arrives at a perfection of the understanding through the certitude of what vision, Vision, right? Okay. So you know when you come to really understand something, you say, ah, now I see it, right? Huh? Okay. But you may have to think about something, right? We're using that as a substitute for cogitari a bit, right? You have to think about something maybe before you say that it must be so, right?

[43:22] So when I study a theorem in Euclid, right, I've got to think about it for a while before I see, oh, it must be so, yes, and then I don't say it's so because Euclid says it's so, but because I see that it's so now. Yeah.

[43:40] And according to this, Augustine in the fifteenth book on the Trinity says what that the Son of God non cogitatio dicitur He's not said to be that, right? Okay. But he's said to be what the Word of God, huh?

[43:58] Okay. For cogitatio, huh, our cogitatio proveniens, huh, he says, to that which we know and which is then what For our formed is true, right? Huh. Okay. Our variable, our thought.

[44:16] Yeah. But it's only after this is formed afterwards, right? Huh. And of course, the thought of God doesn't have to think things out, right? He sees right away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He understands without having to think out, think it out. He understands like that. Understanding himself, he understands all other things, right?

[44:43] So the word of God should not be called a cogitatio, thinking. He's not thinking out. He's not thinking out of God, you know, something like that.

[44:58] And according to this, he says cogitatio is properly called the emotion of the soul, right? Deliberating, right? Not yet perfected by the full vision of what truth, right? Well, that's why he says it makes some sense, maybe, to translate cogitari here to by thinking about, right? You're thinking about something. Does that imply you've really come to understand it yet? No, no. It's something on the way, right?

[45:28] And you're trying to understand it, right? The thinking out. Saying perfect motion. When you finally think it out, then. And then you come to a halt or a stop. See, it's kind of like a motion, right? Is that like an imperfect motion? Well, thinking about something, the reason is a kind of emotion, right? Okay, but once you succeed in thinking out, then your mind comes to what a rest, right?

[46:03] And understanding comes from the word for rest, doesn't it? Stand, yeah, stand. Under moving, or moving under, it's standing under, right? Firm, right. And that reminds me of the Greek word, what episteme, right? Which Aristotle uses for science, understanding. I mean, epist.

[46:32] No. No. What's word I just used? Episteme. Yeah. And both Plato and Aristotle point out that it comes from Greek for coming to a halt or a stop. So.

[46:48] Thinking about something, you think about something until you what? Resolve it. Yeah, until you understand it, and you come to a stop. Yeah, it's kind of beautiful, right? It's a beautiful etymology, right? That the Latin word "scientia" doesn't have, right?

[47:09] French, the Latin is imperfect compared to the Greek for philosophy, right? So some people say, you know, a sign of the Greek mind, Thomas, is they could think so well in Latin. And Plato and Aristotle, they were able to think in Greek, right? And so they had a great advantage, yeah. And I told you how my two great, two my two great teachers in Quebec, their their native languages both what French, Father Boulay and Monsignor Dian, right?

[47:40] But they both insisted that English was better for philosophy than French, and better for poetry too than French. So I'm always pulling them to the French. Yeah. They get kind of playing some crazy for them. They respect the curse.

[48:04] Okay. And then finding the third distinction, right? Because such an emotion can be of the soul deliberating about universal intentions, universal thoughts, which pertains to the understanding part, or about particular intentions,

[48:23] that pertains to the sense part. And therefore cogitare, the second way is taken for the act of the understanding deliberating, in a third way for the act of the cogitative power, which is like a kind of like a particular reason, right?

[48:47] If therefore cogitare is taken communiter, according to the first of these three senses, thus this that is said cum cum assensione cogitare, to assent well thinking about it, right? Does not say the whole argument of that which is to believe. For in this way also the one who considers the things which he knows or understands thinks with what assent. But if cogitare is taken the second mode, thus in thus in this it's understood the whole ratio of this act which is to believe.

[49:34] For of the acts pertaining to the understanding, some have a firm assent without such a thinking out. Like don't you firmly assent to the statement that the whole is more than one of its parts? Okay. Don't you firmly assent to what? Nothing is before after itself, right? Okay. You don't have to think about think it out. I don't think about it. Okay.

[50:11] So of the acts of the understand pertaining to understanding, some have a firm assent without such a thinking out, just as one considers the things that he already knows or understands, right? Okay. For such a consideration is already what formed. Yeah.

[50:31] Some acts of understanding have a certain what? Unformed thinking out, right? Yeah, without a firm assent. And this is when you're really kind of what guessing, right? Here, Thomas, distinguished student, they guess that you're studying rhetoric and you're studying dialectic, right?

[50:56] Whether one declines in neither part of a what? Contradiction, right? As happens with someone doubting. As happens to someone who's what? Doubting, right? Or one inclines to one part, right? But is held by some light sign. As happens to one suspecting, right? Or to one part they adhere, but nevertheless with fear of the other part, right? He's talking about one part of a contradiction, right? To be or not to be, that is the question. It's a question because you can't both be and not be, right?

[51:40] Which is it? Well, I suspect it's this. That's kind of the weaker case, right? Okay. But sometimes I think it's this, you know. You know, we can assure that it's not the other, right?

[52:02] Or they adhere to one part, nevertheless, with fear of the other, which happens to one opining, right? Okay. So sometimes times call those both a guess, right? but opinion is a more firm guess than a suspicion, right? Okay. So I suspect something. I'm guessing. When I thinking something so, but don't know it, I'm guessing too. But it's more firm, right? Yeah, I have more stronger reason, right?

[52:37] Okay. But this act, which is to believe, has a firm what? Adhesion. Clinging to it. Clinging to yeah, to one part of a contradiction, right? There are three persons in God, or there are not three persons in God. Well, we firmly adhere to there being three persons in God, right? Okay.

[53:12] Now, in having a firm adhesion, huh? Sticking to, right? What do you call the word adhesive? Something that sticks to it, right? So in firmly sticking to one part, right? Huh? It comes together the believer with the one what? Knowing and the one understanding, huh? The one understanding there means what? Natural understanding, right? Okay. So it's a whole more than one of its parts, or it's a whole not more than one of its parts.

[53:41] I firmly adhere to a whole is more than one of its parts, right? And without having to reason it, right? But the interior angles of a triangle are equal to right angles, I firmly adhere to that because I followed the demonstration, right? In my master there, Euclid, right? Okay.

[54:09] Okay. And nevertheless, his knowledge is not perfect through a manifest what? Vision, right? Okay. In which he has something in common with the one doubting, right? Okay. Whether he be suspecting or opining, right? Okay.

[54:36] And thus it is private to what the believer that he has assent, meaning a firm adhesion, and well, thinking about it, right? And to this is distinguished. See, he's talking about distinction, Thomas, right? This act, which is to believe, from all acts of the understanding, which are about the true or the what false. Yeah.

[55:11] So, what do you think of Augustine's definition of to believe? huh? It has the brevity of wit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's to agree, right, or to adhere, right, to assent firmly to one side of a contradiction. Well, thinking about it.

[55:35] Now, to me, was it who was it? Saint Anselm defined theology as what? Faith seeking understanding. Yeah. Now, why should faith be seeking understanding?

[55:54] Well, because it's firmly assenting to something it doesn't what see, yeah. And therefore, it naturally what continues thinking about it, right? Huh? Okay. See, so if I'm a believer, I believe there are three persons in God, but I don't fully understand why there should be three persons in God, right, or what it is means exactly to be three persons in God, but I firmly believe it, right?

[56:29] Well, doesn't that naturally give rise into what theology? Yeah, theology, right? You know, fides quaerens intellectum, right? Thinking about it. Yeah. If you didn't firmly assent to it, you wouldn't be thinking about why is this so? You know.

[56:49] And what the first guy was? Guy was first told to say, you know, that that God had become man, right? That's kind of an unusual thing, right? But if he came to believe in it firmly by some miracles, whatever was that, kind of disposed him to believe it, right? Why did God become what man, right? That's part of theology, right? To consider why did God become man?

[57:28] So it makes sense, huh? Tied up with fides quaerens intellectum, right? That is defined, right? The great Augustine now has defined rightly the act of faith, right? Because you can see from that why theology should have arisen, right?

[57:57] And also arise in part from the fact that some people attacked what we believed, right? And so I think it's Augustine said it. One church father said that you know heresy is necessary that theology might develop because it's when somebody denied one of these fundamental things that a church father, some man of that caliber, saw the necessity of what defending, and she had to you know think more deeply about it, you know, to defend that article of the faith against this attack.

[58:39] Some attack on the church said we could destroy the church at the little Thomas Aquinas. I mean, there's other church fathers obviously before Thomas who are defending this or that.

[58:55] You can say that theology, in a sense, develops piecemeal. That one article is clarified after another, right? According to the particular heretics that are challenging that particular article, right? Jerome says, you know, the whole world, the whole church groaned to find itself errant, right? It was a terrible scourge scourge, yeah, Yeah.

[59:41] But again, another thing I like to say about Augustine's definition of to believe, right? You know, is to believe these things like the Trinity and the Incarnation and so on, right? Is this against the nature of reason?

[1:00:06] Well, it would be against the nature of reason in a kind of tyranny if reason didn't think about what it believes, right? You know, so that's something else I see. Kind of the definition by the great Augustine, right? It shows the harmony of the nature of reason, right, which wants to understand, right, what it accepts, right. And so that if you assented without thinking about it, right, you'd seem to be going against the nature of what reason, right?

[1:00:40] Right, that makes sense too, right? So both the nature of reason is respected there, and the origin of what theology. It's very profound what Augustine says, right?

[1:00:59] Huh? Also, Thompson's up by saying there, right? And to this is distinguished this act, which is to believe, from omnibus omnibus actibus, from all the acts of the understanding, which are about the true or the false, right? Okay.

[1:01:21] So any question about that first article? So this idea that so it's not against reason. Because it's the fact that he mentions is it's it's it's like in that way like doubting and I don't know what's a suspicion and an opinion in that way because none of those are against reason. You see, in the case of of of

[1:02:04] CG geometry, take the example of that, right? You think about something before you what before you are able to demonstrate that it's so, right? Okay. I know myself sometimes I don't have Euclid around and so on. You kind of think about it and maybe you take a few examples, you know, and you say, "Well, yeah, it seems to be so," you know, and you you know, and then you start looking for the reason why it must be so, right?

[1:02:29] Huh? So, but geometry is a assent after you what think about it, right? Huh? So thinking about it comes first, and you finally think it out, huh? The reasons why it must be so, right? Then you what have a assent without any more thinking about it, right? In the case of faith, right? You never quite what know, right? That there are three persons in God, right? Huh?

[1:03:04] You believe that there are three persons in God, right? Huh? But nevertheless, you firmly assent to it, right? But you wouldn't do in a purely human matter, right? And you are what

[1:03:17] assenting, well, thinking about it, right? See, see. I'm not thinking about it anymore when i ascend to the theorem. in euclid. I say, "Now I see it. Yeah, yeah. " I say, "I'm not, I don't, not believing anymore. " My teacher Euclid, right? You know, at one time in life I believed the Pythagorean theorem. I don't believe it anymore. I know that it's so.

[1:03:44] You know, yeah. It's the Euclid, you know. Yours is the first book, you know, to the last theorem. One proposition forty-seven and its converse forty-eight is the Pythagorean theorem, right? Huh? So once I got through the proof, I used to when I give an exam to the kids, you know, and it's going to be you know forty-minute, fifty-minute exam, you know, so they're going to scribble their things and so on.

[1:04:08] And so what I do there, sitting there, I go try to see if I can do the Pythagorean theorem on the board again, right? This student says, "What the hell's he doing up there? "

[1:04:18] I said, "I got to keep my this, you know. " So you know, but should I really knew it, you know, huh? So so I'd say, well, now I think, you know, I know it, right? Huh? So but you think about it before, right? And then you you ascend after you you know yeah but that's that case of faith right you ascend while still thinking about it right because you don't fully have evidence in your reason right it must be so right huh okay do you see that so he's distinguishing it right could you say you see reasons to give assent even if you don't see the truth yeah yeah yeah in the case of of guessing right huh and then there's a thinking about

[1:05:14] it but it's not sufficient to give you a firm assent right so if we compare this with the other acts of reasoning and see this is separating it from all the other acts of reason right

[1:05:29] he does that in the question de veritate he does that he shows all the different acts some of them give assent some of them are about the truth and false others are not about true and false he distinguishes those

[1:05:47] so you have to admire this great mind of Augustine right huh because Augustine didn't have Aristotle as much as Thomas had to help him you know huh

[1:05:59] now what the heck is this second article about we got to look at the objections objections yeah okay oh I almost got away with it Trying to cut it short aren't you Take a shortcut Yeah and the first objection is saying from Damascene right that's non inquisitoris right the first therefore should be said that faith does not have a what inquisition of natural reason demonstrating that which is believed right it has nevertheless an inquisition or investigation soon one of those things by which a man is what induced right to believing right huh not so he says inducitur he didn't say forced to believe right huh but inducitur right huh that in huh

[1:06:54] okay because they are said by God right and confirmed by what Miracles. miracles right so this leads us into believing right but it doesn't force us to believe right okay

[1:07:12] one is not forced by the truth itself since one might be in a geometrical demonstration huh I was forced by the truth itself right you know to say that distinction comes before order I was forced by what the Axiom of before and after, nothing is before after itself. Once that became obvious to me, I said, "What? " And there must be some distinction before you see order, right?

[1:07:49] And that's where Aristotle gives the first post predicament is distinction of opposites, and the second one is before and after, distinction of order, right? Third one is the distinction of hama together, neither before nor after. Yeah, you got a fourth and a fifth one too, you know. The fourth one is about what distinction of kinds of motion, but their motions are what tied up always being opposites, so there's something to do with that at opposites, right?

[1:08:26] Then the last one is sensitive to have, but the first three you can see very clearly how they're tied together, right? Now the second one he says, well, you're just confusing two different senses of cogitare, right? Okay.

[1:08:55] Because in one case you're putting together universals to see something universal, in other case you're putting together singulars, right? To see something singular. They they said that people like Napoleon, you know, when they're down the battlefield there, they just have a second sense of what to do, right? Huh? McCarthy's to get out there sometimes, and they warn him, you know, that there's you know it's too dangerous to be out there.

[1:09:24] And he says, "Well, I can't fight him for I can't see him, he says. Okay. Now, third one, what about this the will here, right?

[1:09:49] He says that the understanding of the one believing is determined to one, not by what reason, but by what the will, right? Huh? And therefore assent here is taken for the act of the understanding, right? But according as it is determined by the will to to one of the two sides of the opposites, yeah. Okay. Okay. Now

[1:10:22] we go to art of