Tertia Pars
30. The Knowledge of Christ II: Infused and Acquired Knowledge, and Knowing the Same Thing in Different Ways (ST III, q.9, aa.3-4)
Class of 2009-02-12
https://berquistcourse.com/course/theology/13-tertia-pars/030-the-knowledge-of-christ-ii-infused-and-acquired-knowledge/

[0:01] Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Now, was there some knowledge in Christ besides the what? Science of the Blessed, right? Now he says every other created knowledge, compared to the what? Blessed knowledge, as the imperfect to the what? Perfect, right?

[0:33] But the perfect knowledge being present, there is excluded what? Imperfect knowledge. Just as the manifest vision of the face of God excludes the enigmatic vision of faith, as is clear one Corinthians thirteen. So faith and what hope for that matter disappear, right? Since therefore in Christ there was the blessed science, it seems that there could not be in Him any other. Inditi? How do they translate inditi in your text?

[1:13] That should be not innate, but endowed, as you know. Endowed, yeah, endowed probably, yeah. Well, ditaris to endow something Moreover, a more imperfect knowledge disposes for a perfect one, just as opinion, which is the dialectical syllogism, disposes for what science, right? Reasoned out knowledge, which is by the demonstrative what syllogism. So in the twelve books of wisdom, there are fourteen books. Aristotle's a whole book devoted to the what syllogismum dialecticum, the third book.

[2:05] But the perfection being had, there is no necessity for further for the disposition, right? Just as in having the term is not necessary the what motion.

[2:23] Since therefore, whatever created knowledge, other created knowledge. Since therefore, any other created knowledge is compared to the blessed knowledge as the imperfect to the perfect, and as a disposition to the term or end. It seems that when Christ had the what blessed knowledge, was not necessary for Him to have what the other knowledge.

[2:55] Third. Moreover, as bodily matter is in ability for sensible form. So the possible understanding—that's one way which we understand—is an ability to the understandable form.

[3:16] Now, if you have a formed mind, you have your understandable forms, right? But a material body cannot receive at the same time two what—sensible forms, huh? One more perfect and one less perfect.

[3:36] So I can't be what—very healthy and not so healthy, same time, can I? Therefore, need is a soul able to receive a twofold knowledge—one more perfect and the other less perfect—and thus the same as what before.

[3:56] But against all this nonsense is what is said in Colossians two, verse three, that in Christ. Christ are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.

[4:08] So he's got it all. huh? The answer should be said that as has been said above, it was suitable, right? decebat, that human nature, assumed by the word of God, be not what imperfect. But everything that is an ability is imperfect unless it be reduced to act. But the possible understanding, the human possible understanding, is an ability to all understandables. It is reduced to act through the understandable forms, which are forms that complete it, as is clear from those things which are said in the third book about the soul.

[4:57] And therefore, it is necessary in Christ to place a what—indwelling knowledge, huh? Insofar as through the word of God, united to the soul of Christ in person, there are what pressed upon the mind of Christ understandable forms for all those things to which the possible understanding is an ability. Just as through the word of God are impressed intelligible forms on the angelic minds in the beginning of their what creation, as is clear by Augustine in the Genesis of the letter.

[5:45] And therefore, just as in the angels, according to the same Augustine, there is placed a twofold knowledge—one to which the morning knowledge, right, by which are known things in the word itself in the beatific vision, right. Christ says that the angels are little boys, right? See God face to face, and the other, the evening knowledge, through which things are known in their own nature, through forms, what?

[6:20] We give them, yeah. So besides the created, uncreated divine knowledge, there is in Christ, in his soul, the what blessed knowledge, by which he knows what the Word and things in the Word, huh? And the what infused knowledge, right? Through which he knows things in their own nature, through intelligible forms that are what proportioned to the what human mind, huh? You'll get some of those from your guardian angel when your soul leaves your body, by the way.

[7:02] You get some of those from your angel when your body leaves your soul leaves your body. Oh. From the higher angels, they'll send you some forms. Fill out this form. But.

[7:18] Not those kind of forms. That's when you know you're not in heaven. Yeah, you know you got to fill out forms. You're not on the right road.

[7:35] Okay, now Thomas is applying to the first objection, which is arguing from the fact that faith disappears when you come to see God face to face. To the first, therefore, it should be said that the imperfect vision of faith, in its very what definition, right, includes the opposite of manifest vision. Because it is of the very definition of faith that it be of things not seen. So the definition in Hebrew is what the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of what is what not seen.

[8:14] The Greek word there is what hypostasis, huh? Which is etymologically the same as Latin substantia. You know all the problems that gave us an understanding of Trinity, huh? Because there are three hypostases in God, and they say, well, there are three substances because the word is the same etymologically, and but substance in Latin will be used for what what a thing is, as well. So it gave rise to misunderstanding, right?

[8:47] See now the Greek word that we translate by substantia in Latin is usually what usia, Aristotle. Usia doesn't have at all the the etymology that substantia has, substance. But the other Greek word that's used for individual substances, which are most of all substances, is the same hypostasis, huh? But you've got to be careful because substance is used for what a thing is. So, Aristotle distinguishes, usia, you do it into what a thing is, and then hypostasis.

[9:20] Huh? Doesn't use the word hypostasis, but he's talking about that, and that's the two main meanings he gives. But the knowledge which is through these infused forms does not include something opposed to what blessed knowledge, huh? And therefore, the reason is not the same for what both, huh?

[9:59] The real. Opposition there between seen and not seen right? And they also always talk about this saying, you know, and seeing is believing. You know, I say, well, he points out, just do not care what you are saying there, right?

[10:20] The seeing in that sense is not believing, believing or believing is not seeing. Do infused knowledge add something that wouldn't be present with just the beatific knowledge? Well, you are seeing more in the beatific vision than you see by this infused knowledge, right? But you are seeing in this infused knowledge t here is many forms, right? So you are not seeing it all at once by seeing one thing.

[10:50] Just as in the beatific vision, in seeing God, you see what everything else you know. You don't have any discourse there, right? Okay. Well, these infused species, even the angels, t here is a discourse, right? Not discourse in the sense of coming to what you don't know, but going from one form to the other, right? Uses form and then this form.

[11:13] So a human soul that, you know, baby baptizes and dies has the beatific vision. If that baby would come back to earth and talk to us, and he would say, Well, can you do us some geometry? Do us the Pythagorean theorem from just having the beatific vision?" Could he start doing the Pythagorean? Yeah, but like your guardian angel there. If you pray to your guardian angel, like I ask, try to teach you guys to do.

[11:39] Then you sit down and do some geometry, and he'll enlighten you, maybe, you know? Or strengthen the light of your mind, right? Okay. So that baby could just start doing the Pythagorean theorem. He would know from the beatific vision those. What doesn't he know when he knows that? That's what I am. That's why I am trying to understand the different types of knowledge. Yeah. Yeah. It kind of

[12:03] gets interesting, though. Article there on the limits there in calculus and so on as being kind of our mind striving to be like the angels, because you know, if you see, for example, the you inscribe, let's say, a square inside a circle, right? When you bisect these things, and you keep on getting a what polygon with more sides, and it gets closer and closer and closer to the circle, but it never what It becomes a circle.

[12:37] Yeah, you never get a polygon that's going to be exactly equal to the circle, right? Huh? So the circle, therefore, is the limit of these polygons increasing in this way, the number of their sides, right? So you seem to be knowing circle and polygon by the same thought, and so you are striving to be like an angel who, by one thought, knows maybe what a dog and a cat is and a horse is, each of them distinctly, right?

[13:03] Huh? And here you kind of in seeing the circle as a limit, a limit that you never reach, right? You see kind of absolute distinction between the polygon and the circle, right? That no matter how close the polygon gets, I mean how many times you divide and and double the sides and so on, you never get a polygon equal to a circle, right? So it's like knowing distinct at the same time circle and what, Polygon and polygon, right?

[13:31] And he says, you know, the fact you aren't struck by this, right? This sign the decadence of the of the modern mind, right? You know, Because you hear our mind is striving to be however imperfectly, a little bit like the angels, or by one thought, you know, distinctly what? Many things. Many things, yeah. By one thought they can know. Yeah. Distinctively. You see, as you go up, as you go up, the you know the angels, they know more and better by fewer thoughts, huh?

[13:59] And then you come up to God who knows it all by what? Yeah. Now, now it's time for my now it's time to recite my poem again, right? That's right. God the Father said it all in one word. No wonder when that word became a man, he spoke in words so few and said so much. He was the brevity and soul of it. Okay. But you can see that in these minds, John, that the the great mind says more with what?

[14:27] Fewer words. With fewer words, right? I'm like John Locke, you know, apologizes for the wordiness of his work. Too lazy, he says, to go back over him, you know. And that's a beautiful quote there from the the Greek things, you know, where the famous speaker, you know, he's down there, you know, and he's he's going to give a speech, you know, and he's working his speech out.

[14:47] And and he's working. They say you're lengthening your speech, you know. He says, no, I'm shortening it. He's going to say it better, right? But the thing I should know is, as a professor, sometimes you'd have, you know, two or three sections of the same course, right? You know. And so the second time you you explain the matter, you have the impression that you're explaining it better than the first time you did it, but now you've got some a little bit of time left over at the end of it.

[15:12] You get the sections, you know, kind of you know parallel, right? And so I said the same thing better than I did the last time I explained it, but I've taken less time. I'm a little wiser. See, so that's what what Shakespeare says. Brevity is a soul wisdom, right?

[15:33] The beautiful thing there in the in where is it in the seventh book of wisdom, right? Aristotle refers something. Well, that's a a brevity he says. That's that's a brevity. Thomas says, oh, he means it's the beginning, small in size but great in its power. Aristotle says, that's a short.

[15:53] It's very short, Aristotle. But Thomas goes straight away with what he means by that, huh? You know, it's something that's very small but. Very powerful. There's a story in Herodotus of an island which was threatened with a by a very very powerful neighbor. So they came to Sparta looking for help. And I guess one thing that they needed first of all was a whole bunch of food, like flour.

[16:19] Yeah. And they started off with this big long-winded speech about how badly they need the flour, how they're all starving and all that. And the Spartans said, "Way too long. Come back and try again." So they came back with like a two or three-word request, like "We need flour." And they said, "Two superfluous words." The Spartans were infamous or famous for you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Get to the point.

[16:53] Yeah. Plato talks about that. I don't know They probably owned for that too, you know. Okay. Now, second objection here, right? Just to draw the sword and say flour. This is the thing I referred to earlier about the dialectic, right? To the second should be said that disposition has itself to perfection in two ways. We met this distinction before. In one way, as a road leading to perfection.

[17:28] Another way, as an effect proceeding from what perfection. And he takes this example from the ancient science. For through heat, matter is disposed to receiving the form of what fire. So as you heat up the the paper, all of a sudden it's going to what? Bursting. Burst in the flame Bursting into flame, right? But now the heat is what before the fire is there, and it's disposing the thing to receive the form of fire.

[17:54] Which nevertheless arriving, then the heat does not cease to be right, but remains as an effect of such a form, right? And likewise, opinion caused in the dialectical syllogism is a road to knowledge, right? Which is acquired by demonstration. Demonstration is what syllogisms are making us know the cause and that which it is the cause, and it cannot be what otherwise. That's demonstration probably acquired. But which having been acquired, there can remain knowledge which is the dialectical syllogism, as it were, what fouling upon the demonstrative knowledge, which is to the cause.

[18:42] Because the one who knows the cause from this is more able to know the probable signs of which the dialectical syllogism goes forward. You can see Thomas, as I mentioned before, in the summa you find a little bit dialectic beforehand, right? But this is arranged by a man who already knows what the truth, right? You remember that the beautiful dialectic there when he's got the definition of eternity, right?

[19:13] And each objection to the way this is definition is what to some part of the definition. So he's really preparing the way very well for you to eventually see the definition as a whole, right? That's the dialectic of a man who's what arrived at the truth and now is coming back and ordering this, right? And you know, in the disputed questions, you know, sometimes you have fifty or twenty objections, but they don't always add that much to your thing, you know.

[19:41] And then you get to the Summa, you get down to more of the most essential ones, right? So it's, but it's, so the man can can order it more what directly to the thing that he wants to lead you to, so it's not really opposed to it, right? Now, to the third, it should be said

[20:17] that the blessed knowledge, right, is not through a species or form, which is a likeness of the divine essence, or of those things which are known in the what divine essence, as is clear from what is said in the first part.

[20:40] But such a knowledge is of the divine essence itself, immediately, right, through the fact that the divine essence itself is united to the blessed mind as the understandable form to the one understanding. So we see God by God, right? God is the form by which we see Him. Otherwise, we would not see Him as He is.

[21:10] Which divine essence is a form excelling or exceeding the ratio of any what creature? It can't be his natural one. Hence, nothing prevents that with a what super-excelling form, there can be at the same time, right, in the rational mind, understandable forms that are what proportioned to his nature. They're not opposed, right, but one I think he gives a second objection first because you can see that thing, you know, that the dialectical solution is something imperfect compared to to the the demonstration, right?

[21:58] Aristotle often will give a a reason which is very strong, right, and then he'll give a what sign afterwards, right? And Monsignor Dionne says he does that partly to bring you back to your senses, because the sign is something that strikes the senses, right? But he can select the sign better, right, because he's seeing the truth, right? You know, in Nicomachean Ethics, when he's showing that that

[22:32] the virtuous amount to eat is not the same for every man, right? And so, for the younger man or for the active man, might be more than for the inactive man or for the so on. And then he gives the example of what Milo, right? We get an ox every day, right?

[22:53] Well, that's a fictional one, right? But it's very beautiful, right? That's not his main argument, but it brings you back to your senses, and he says, "Oh, yeah, I can see that now, yeah."

[23:07] Sort of like that. I was thinking of the other day. With many Protestants believe the same things we do, but not for the same reason. We believe not only God revealing, but the Church proposing it as the divine reveal. They might believe many truths that are divine reveal, but they don't actually know the reason why they're because they don't believe the Church. They don't believe what they believe through the Church, so they kind of have the right opinion.

[23:29] So it would be a Catholic could better lead them to understanding things under divine revelation than they do themselves. They don't they don't find what the Church says, which kind of goes out the window at the beginning because they accept the Scriptures. Yeah. But they don't know that's because of the Church. manuscripts in the first place That's when that program on EWTN, you know, when they come back to the Church, yeah.

[23:48] A lot of these Protestant ministers they realize they so now a problem. Why did they accept these books and all the ones, you know? Yeah. And I think the Second Vatican Council, you know, speaks of those three things: the magisterium and the Scripture and tradition. Those three are such that no one can stand without the other two. But that's a good example of three being enough, like Aristotle says a lot of times.

[24:14] But you see it very much, you know. And Thomas here is not emphasizing; he's trying to give the reasons more for things, you know. But there's tradition here, and there's Scripture, you know, behind what he's saying too, or in harmony with what he's saying.

[24:35] Okay. Now up to Article Four. Whether there was in Christ some experimental knowledge acquired? Now experimental there doesn't have the sense of experimental, the modern sense. It means originally experience, right?

[24:55] Okay. To the fourth, therefore, one goes for thus. It seems then that there was not in Christ some knowledge acquired by experience, right? For whatever belongs to Christ, he had in the most excellent way. But Christ did not have most excellently acquired knowledge, for he did not what insist upon study of letters, right? And by which knowledge most perfectly acquired. For he said in John chapter seven, the Jews wondered, saying, "Where does he know these letters?

[25:39] Right? Since he has not what learned. Therefore, it seems that in Christ there was not any acquired knowledge. The man was unlettered. Moreover, to that which is full, there cannot be added anything. But the power of the soul of Christ was filled through understandable forms, divinely. It's like we say about the angels, right? That their mind was filled with forms, right?

[26:12] Therefore, there could not arrive to that soul somewhat acquired species, right? Of course, these acquired species would be of a different what kind than the ones. Moreover, in the one who has the habit of science, to those things which he gets from sense, he does not acquire a new habit, because in this way there would be two forms of the same what species at once in the same.

[26:45] But the habit which was there before is confirmed and what increased. Since therefore Christ had the habit of infused knowledge, it does not seem that to those things which he perceived by sense, he acquires some other what science. That kind of complement, that second one. Yeah. But against this is what is said in Hebrew five verse eight. When he was what. The son of God. God. Since he was a son.

[27:17] Since he was a son of God, he learned from those things which he suffered what obedience, huh? And the gloss says that the expertus est right? Really. Yeah. There was therefore in Christ some experiential knowledge, which should be the acquired science.

[27:55] I answer. It should be said that from the things above, it is clear that nothing of those things which God planted in our nature, right,

[28:08] was lacking to the human nature assumed by the word of what God. Now it is manifest that in human nature God planted not only the possible understanding, but also the what acting upon understanding. Huh? And there you can see Aristotle's influence by Plato, because Plato thought that the universal thoughts that we have, right, come from the forms, right, and that the the forms are what's universal, but they exist in separation from the singulars, right?

[28:50] Aristotle, when he realized that what a man is doesn't exist by itself apart from individual men, um, then he has a problem, right? Huh? How does our mind get this what universal knowledge? And therefore he recognized there was another a power or another ability in us, right? The ability to separate the universal from the what singulars, right? So that this universal can then act upon the undergoing understanding, right?

[29:21] Okay. So he posited then in the spiritual part of our soul a undergoing understanding, right, and an acting upon understanding, huh? They're like art and matter in a sense, right? Except in the spiritual order, huh? So he's putting out, well, then Christ had this what acting upon understanding, the agent intellect, as they call it from the Latin.

[29:50] Whence it is necessary to say that in the soul of Christ not only was there a possible understanding, a undergoing understanding, but also the acting upon understanding, huh? The agent understanding.

[30:09] If, however, as in other things, God and nature do nothing what in vain, as the philosopher says in the first book about the universe, De Caelo et Mundo, much less in the soul of Christ was there anything what in vain, huh? But that is in vain that does not have its own what operation, since, as we said before, everything is an account of its what operation. That's something Aristotle teaches, of course, in the ninth book of wisdom.

[30:45] The ability is for the sake of what? Act. As is said in the second book of De Caelo et Mundo, was taught there too. But

[31:02] the agent intellect, the acting upon understanding's own operation, is to make the understandable is to make what understandable forms enact right, separating them from the what images, as is said in the third book about the soul, right? We studied that one, didn't we? Look at again.

[31:25] Okay. That the acting upon understanding is that by which all things are made, right? Soul is in some way all things. Thus, therefore, it is necessary to say that in Christ there were some understandable forms through the action of the acting upon understanding received in his what undergoing understanding. And this is to say that in him there is this acquired science, right? Which some name what experiential.

[32:03] And therefore, although elsewhere, I have written otherwise. Now, if you look at, if you have a footnote there in the Marietti edition, references to the third book of the Sentences, distinction fourteen, article three, question question three distinction eighteen and so three, distinction eighteen, and so on. Okay.

[32:28] So Thomas might have changed his mind. Might have grown in that one. Yeah, yeah. yeah. I understand. This is a famous example, you know. There's one or two places at least where Thomas says this, you know, although I may have said elsewhere, you know. Okay. Idiom quamvis aliter, otherwise, alibi elsewhere, right? I have written, right? It has to be said that in Christ there was what acquired knowledge, which is properly what knowledge according to the human mode, right?

[33:06] Okay. Not only on the part of the subject that is what receiving, but also on the part of the agent causing it, right? For such a knowledge is placed in Christ according to the light of the agent what. Yeah. Acting upon understanding. Which is connatural to human what nature, right? But infused knowledge is attributed to the human soul according to a light infused from above. Which way of knowing is proportioned to the angelic nature?

[33:43] So it's above ours, right? But the blessed knowledge by which the very essence of God is seen is proper and natural to God alone, as has been said in the first part, right? So he has a knowledge which is what he's partaking in the knowledge which is proper to God himself, and himself is God. And the kind of knowledge the angels have, right, does not derive from things, and then the knowledge that is what natural to man.

[34:17] He's got it all. All the thesauri made, all the treasures of what Wisdom wisdom and knowledge, huh? Quite a man this guy. You can imagine reading a book on the physicists there, you know, some of their thoughts. you. know but the physicists got Christ illuminated they want him, you know, to illuminate them about. But he's very sparing about what he what teaches us, right? He teaches us the things that are most important, that are necessary for our salvation, right?

[34:52] Now he doesn't teach us about the electron, the neutron, curiosities. Yeah. And he doesn't tell us really what Caesar was really like or anything like that. Professor, did Descartes somehow short circuit the understanding of the confused knowledge and human knowledge and how it's acquired? In a big way Yeah, yeah, yeah. He has a lot of problems.

[35:23] So what he he sort of short he he built up his arguments on a very different foundation. than Aquinas has. For example, Descartes rejected dialectic, right? And the reason he gives is dialectic proceeds from what is probable, right? Now, if you proceed even necessarily from what is probable, right? What you get is not knowledge, right? So he says, then dialectic is is useless for knowledge. Okay.

[36:04] Well, when I was considering Descartes, there he had kind of a nice little analogy, here, which I think is kind of interesting. Suppose you're looking out at the horizon there, right, and you see something, right? And you call your your friend's attention to it. He says, "I don't see that." I say, "Well, do you see that tree out there? Yeah. Okay. Now, do you see to the right of the tree of a bush?

[36:29] Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, just to the left of a bush. oh, yeah. nice! now once your eyes light upon it, right? You see it, right? But the others were not a what?

[36:44] Well, they led you to see it. Yeah. But now you, when your eyes fall upon it, you don't have to look at the tree in the bush anymore, right? Right. But they did lead you to see something you didn't see before, right? But you don't see the the thing you finally see, like a man there or something, right? Um. Uh. Through seeing a bush. or the other thing, you see?

[37:06] Okay. So the way in which dialectic leads to knowledge is not that you deduce the knowledge from the dialectic, right? But the dialectic leads you to see something you didn't see before, but not by what proving it, right? See, this is my seeing the bush is not that to which I see the man, but it was through seeing the bush that I came to see the man.

[37:33] I came to know this, right? Anyway. A lot of problems in Descartes. The kind used to make the sides to Descartes when he taught the first framing there to the books of natural hearing to the physics right, huh? Because Descartes seems to identify what certitude with what precision, right?

[38:02] It's interesting that the great physicists, you know, starting Pierre Duhem around the turn of the century, they begin to realize that there's a Duhem says that there's an inverse ratio between certitude and precision, right? And it's the kind of image of the of the thing where one scale goes up, the other goes down. Yeah, yeah. And so I used to come in class some days, and I'd say to students, "Now, how old am I?

[38:32] " And see, so I said, "I said, I say, am I over twenty? " You say, "Yeah, yeah. " See, am I over thirty? Yeah, yeah. Over forty? Yeah, see. But now the more precise you got to my age, right? If you want to say what decade a man, right? So you'd be more sure of what decade I'm in What decade am I am I in Eighth decade.

[38:57] You see? Am I in my forties? My fifties? My sixties? No. My seventies? Yeah. See, okay, and maybe you're right about being in the seventies, but now, which year is it in there, right? See, and you get down to the month and the day and the hour, right? When I was born, I'm not even sure that you know I don't know myself what hour I was born.

[39:21] My mother never never told me that. But you're getting less and less what certitude, but you're getting more and more precise, right? Okay. And then I say, "What now? " You might say, "Well, okay, but we're we're scientists, you know, we're gonna we're gonna go look up your birth certificate, right? "

[39:43] Okay, but if you look at my birth certificate, I said I was born in 1936. Are you now more sure that I'm 73 than that I'm not 74? I mean, our birth certificates always what correct? I know when my when my father died, huh? There was

[40:05] some questions whether he was born in 1891 or 1892, because some records is it? And of course, the newspaper said he was 55. Of course, he's actually 55. So, so I mean, the newspaper is not that, you know. So I mean, the people who wrote these things, right? Um, he wrote the thing down. The guy might have had a drink that day, or might have been you know tired.

[40:34] What was? So what was actually there? My father's thing, you know. So I'm more sure my father was born in the 1890s than that it was 1891 or 1892, right? You see. The other example I would take is I take weight and I say, how much do I weigh? See. Now the more precisely you try to state my weight, the less what certain you are. I used to take the example there, of, you know, I used to do this at the state fairs in the old days, you know, the guy he can get you in so many, you know, he wins, otherwise you win, right?

[41:05] Get a prize or something like that. You say, well, let's get scientific and get the thing out. But I don't get the same weight when I weigh at home and I go to the doctor's office. And we get everybody Yeah when I was in college there, you know, used to be a place there when they had the dances, right? But it was near the athletic facilities, and there were these, you know, weighing things, right?

[41:27] Well, the guys would always make a joke of getting the girl up in the thing to weigh. Well, one of the guys would put his finger behind there, you know, and read the weight off more than the girl's weight when he was. You know, it's kind of embarrassing, girl. Oh, you know. So I say there's a lot of stuff in you know. So I mean, you may not get the same weight on different what different machines, right?

[41:54] You see, it might be, you know, so you're still more sure of the less precise, right? So, okay. First objection. First objection Okay. Let's look again. at the first objection. and show me what it is Should we do this? Okay. Unlettered Yeah, he's an unlettered man. Yeah. Okay. To the first, therefore, it should be said that there is a twofold way of acquiring science, to wit, by discovery, right, and then by learning it from what.

[42:45] Another, right. The mode which is through invention is chief, right? Because someone has to discover the thing, right, before he can teach it to somebody else. But the mode which is through what discipline through learning being taught is secondary, right? Hence it is said in the first book of the Ethics, huh? This is the famous passage that Aristotle takes from what Hesiod, right? He says, best of all is the man who what by himself understands these things, right?

[43:24] Next best is a man who what listens to the man saying these things well, right? Actually, the whole quote says right. And the man who can either discover it by himself, or learn from another, he's the worst, right? He's the least, right? He's useless. And Thomas, in the commentary, says useless as far as acquisition of knowledge is concerned. You know, might be a little able. So, so I I divide the human minds into three.

[43:53] You heard my names for these. Call them the wits, the dim wits, and the nitwits. Well, the wits can discover something important by themselves, right? The dim wits can't discover something really great by themselves, but they can learn it from the what wits. The dimwits, the nitwits can neither discover these great things by themselves nor even learn them from those, right? So you have those three, right?

[44:19] So as far as acquisition of knowledge, the best of the first, right? And okay, so it belongs to Christ then, right? More to have acquired knowledge through what Invention or discovery, than through what discipline, right? Especially since he is given by God to all as the what, the teacher, right? According to that of Joel, let us rejoice in the Lord our God, who gives to us a teacher of what, justice.

[45:01] That's interesting. What Aristotle does, I think he has in mind in all his works, but but he does it in the two what, culmination works, right? Culmination of looking philosophy is is wisdom, right? And the culmination of practical philosophy is what, political philosophy, right? And both of them, he very explicitly examines what those who come before him have said, right? To see if he can acquire this from them, because if someone else is already wise, then the reasonable thing to do, if you want wisdom, is to learn it from this person, right?

[45:43] If someone already has political wisdom, right, the reasonable thing to do is to what, learn it from him, right? And if you don't want to learn it from the man who already knows it, then really you want the glory of discovering it by yourself, rather than what, the quickness of of knowing, right, that you can get from someone else. It doesn't mean you can't, to some extent, try to you know yourself, but but you're not going to get too far by yourself.

[46:15] It's going to take a much longer time. And so if you don't, if you're not willing to learn from those who already know something, you're not going to know very much. You have to discover everything by yourself. Niels Bohr has an essay just on what quantum theory. How it's not the work of any one man, right? But Max Planck saw one thing in 1900 and something else in 1905 and Bohr himself in 1913 and Heisenberg in the early twenties, you know.

[46:43] And then finally, through all of them, you've got this whole, right? So Aristotle, there's some humility in Aristotle there, right? If if those before him have arrived at this knowledge, right, then he in no way is hesitant to learn from them, right? But if they have not, it'd be interesting to think that they have not, then he has to investigate himself, right?

[47:19] I was talking last night to the students come to the house and talking about the eight senses of in there, and Aristotle gives the eight central senses of in there in the fourth book of Natural Hearing, but he doesn't there in the text we have, order them, right? And Thomas says, "Well, in the commentary, we're going to order these eight senses in the way Aristotle teaches us to order these things in the fifth book of wisdom, and he does so, right?

[47:46] But I don't think anybody else could have done that. And so you have to learn those things from people like Thomas. And I mean you could say, could I have discovered that by myself? I suppose, but I wouldn't have gone very far, you know. when is there ever meet these theorems? huh yeah, I might have been able to do a circle at the beginning if I knew the definitions already.

[48:21] Okay. And therefore, it belonged to Christ most of all, you know, or more to Christ, to have acquired knowledge through invention than through what learning from another, right? now especially since he is given by God to be a teacher for all of us. Okay, we're seeing anyway. Okay, let's go on to the second objection here now.

[48:44] The second objection is saying what? What is full? You can add, right? Okay. To the second, it should be said that the human mind has a twofold relation: one to what superior things, things above it, and according to this respect, the soul of Christ was full through what infused knowledge, right? But another relation was to the things below it, that is, to the images, right, which are apt to move the human mind only through the power of the acting upon understanding.

[49:24] It is necessary, therefore, according to this relation, that the soul of Christ be what filled? Not, but that the first fullness was sufficient to human mind according to itself, right? But it was necessary for also for him to be perfected in comparison to the what images, right? Okay. So when Aristotle speaks there, you know, of man's knowledge, he says that

[49:57] the the proper object of our mind is that what it is is something sensed or imagined, huh? Of course, the images are even closer to the senses to the reason, huh? And of course, even after you understand what a dog is or what a triangle is, you will what you try to understand again actually what a dog is or what a triangle is. You will imagine a dog or imagine a what triangle, right?

[50:21] So it's the what it is of something, what? Yeah. So this is a different kind of knowledge than that Christ is being what. Perfected in, but it's kind of interesting the way he describes it, right? From from above or from what? Below, right? Of course, the reason why you know Thomas sometimes gives why the the visions of the prophets are in dreams, right? Is because in the dream you're kind of what cut off from your senses, right?

[50:53] And therefore you're more open to what? From above. Yeah, yeah. Aristotle had talked about that a bit in the books on dreams, huh? He's got a book on dreams. He's got a book on prophesying by dreams, right? You see, and so he admits the possibility, right? He doesn't know, but that there can be certain what revelation there, right? Certain knowledge that that one gets. It's kind of beautiful the way Thomas divides those books of Aristotle because you have following the three books on the soul, you have the book on sense and sensible, right?

[51:30] Then the book on memory and reminiscence, and then the book on dreams and prophesying by dreams, right? So it says by the senses, Thomas says, you know, the present; by memory and recalling, the past; and by dreams, a little bit of future. Yeah, it's kind of interesting, right? Yeah, and it's kind of interesting just in human terms. You know, people said they dreamt of meeting some person, right?

[52:00] Huh? Yeah. And then they go out and they meet that person that day, and yeah, you know, or or maybe they dream of a storm coming and a tornado or something, you know, and then they go out and then there is that, you know, so and it's usually something like that. But in the animals too, right? They seem to be influenced by the coming storms in a way that we are not.

[52:24] You know, we can learn sometimes from them a little bit about what's going to take place. So watch out for Lucy of that kind. I was trying.

[52:37] I was telling them how cute that dog was to Rosalie, and he said, "What kind of dog was it? What kind of a dog? Golden retriever. Golden retriever. Yeah. We're going to have to put a picture in the newsletter.

[52:48] I'll email you a picture. Now the third objection here. This is kind of arguing if you have the knowledge already, you can't get it again, right? But these are different what kinds of of knowing, right? Okay. The third should be said that there is a different reason or different definition of the acquired habit and the infused habit for the habits of knowledge that are acquired by the comparison of the human mind to images, when it's according to the same.

[53:38] Definition: the same kind of habit. There cannot be a what? Another habit acquired, right? So when I go back and read Euclid again, I don't get another habit, right? But I might get the former habit more perfectly, right? But don't get another geometry, right? I don't have it lined up my head, you know. Pythagorean theorem, theorem. Just one theorem up there, and and and I understand maybe a little bit better, better, you know.

[54:07] But I used to write on the board when i gave exams the assumption. that you get bored, they're waiting for them to finish their exam, so I'd put up on the board. Just I don't forget it.

[54:20] Okay. But the habit of infused knowledge is of a different what? Definition. Descending from above into the soul, right? Not according to the ratio of the what images, and therefore there is not the same what rat's reason about each habit, huh? Okay, yeah. To try to understand how these two are related, the infused knowledge, these species that are poured into the soul, or the infused knowledge, that's perfection of the possible intellect, right?

[55:02] The possible intellect can be receiving those forms. Yeah. Okay. So if Christ has the fullness of infused knowledge and he has all these forms, when he acquires knowledge, is anything in his possible intellect going from potency to act? Well, yeah, I see, but by a different form, you see. Like I was mentioning before, when I was talking about the Platonists pointing out there in the calculus, right, that striving to be like the angelic infused knowledge, the in the infused knowledge by the same form, I might I might know dog and cat and horse and elephant by one thought, right?

[55:39] See, but the thoughts coming from the images, I need a different thought for each one, right? So my thought of triangle, my thought of circle, my thought of square, they're all different, right? Huh? See, but in the infused knowledge, I might have the same thought whereby you know all plain figures, right? Okay. So, so his possible intellect is going from potency to act with the acquired knowledge.

[56:00] Yeah, yeah. As far as those form yeah, thomas didn't mean that, right? but he didn't admit that apparently in the earlier work, the sentences, right? You see, so there's a little bit of, you know. Well, it seems really difficult thing. Yeah. I I don't understand infused knowledge and the nature of infused knowledge. Yeah. But so so see. Yeah. Let me get a little comparison here too about the different knowledge here.

[56:26] You see. You know how all the people who are, you know, attacking the church and its vision on abortion and so on, right? They'll say, well, that's a matter of faith, right? Okay. Now, in a sense, what they're they're assuming is that if something is known by faith, it can't be known by reason. Okay. And vice versa. But is it possible that the same thing could be known by faith and by reason in some cases, right?

[57:06] Okay. And Aristotle, you know, had two different ways of knowing that the earth was round, huh? Okay. Um, but now in trying to explain how that's possible to know the same thing in different ways, right? I always go back to what's more known to us, the senses, right? You take the sense of sight, or the eye, and touch, right? Okay. Now the eye knows some things that touch doesn't know.

[57:43] See, so if I touch this book over here, I see. Well, that's blue. Yeah. No, I don't know color at all by touch, right? Okay. See. And

[58:02] when I was a little boy, we used to have these little things that looked like spilled ink, right? But does the eye really know wetness? See, as soon as you touch it, you realize that it's metal. You know, heated to look like ink and spilled, right? On your mother's nice.

[58:27] So, now the eye knows things through color, right? And touch knows it through hardness and softness and so on. But I could know through touch here the shape of this, right? By knowing it through what? Touch. Yeah, through through the fact that it gives way or doesn't, right, or resists my my touch. Huh? I can also know it because the color or blue, wherever it is, extends so far and stops, right?

[58:58] So there are some things that by both of these senses I know, right? And that would be like shape, right? Or the size of something, or something of that sort, right?

[59:14] And so sometimes you know we say, well, sight and touch are the only senses that know shape, right? But they both know it. So does knowing the shape of this by my touch, like I do right now, does this prevent my eye from knowing it? Okay. But maybe I don't have at the same time two seeings of that thing. I don't see it, you know. That make that would be kind of strange, right?

[59:46] Okay. So this kind of principle, on the line of Thomas is saying here. If you know the same thing by the beatific vision and by infused knowledge and by acquired knowledge,

[1:00:06] you wouldn't know it in the same way, right? And one wouldn't destroy the other, right? The fact that I know shape by touch doesn't mean that I can't know it by by sight, huh?

[1:00:21] But likewise, you can say that just as there are things known by the eye that are not known by touch and vice versa, right? So likewise, there are things known by infused knowledge that are not known by acquired knowledge, and things known by beatific vision, God Himself. That's not known by even infused knowledge. God is He, that is to say, right? So

[1:00:47] that's the thing you got to have in mind, right? Why there can be at the same time in Christ, right, different kinds of knowledge,

[1:00:58] whereby He might know some things by all of them, right? So God might, or Christ would know what a triangle is by His what acquired knowledge, but also by His infused knowledge, and even by His beatific vision, right? Why there would be things He would know by one, but not by the what other, right?

[1:01:27] So the knowledge He does acquire, He already has, right? Well, now you see, you got to be careful there, right? You see, because you might say, you know, if I have my eyes closed and I figure out the shape of this by feeling it around, right? So this seems to be a rectangle, right? Open my eyes.

[1:01:48] Well, did I already have the knowledge of a rectangle before I used my eyes? Yes. Yeah, but but am I duplicating my knowledge now? So two different knowledges of it in a rectangle See, I know it's a rectangle in a different way by my eyes than I did by my what touch, right? I knew through hardness through my touch and through color by my what eyes.

[1:02:17] So if someone says, "Well, when open my eyes, I can't know that it's a rectangle. " It's already known by by feeling it. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. See, see, I know it by by touch that it's a rectangle, and now I know it by sight that it's a you know.

[1:02:39] Another way of knowing the same thing. Different ways of knowing the same thing. But not new knowledge. Yeah. Okay. So he comes to know the same thing by a different way. Is what happening? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I I can know it in in another way, right?

[1:02:55] There's something like that. That's a better example, but another example where, as a student, right, you know, you you taught something, you kind of understand it, and then you go out and also you meet an example of it, right? You say, "Thank you. " Well, you are you it, but you knowing it in another way now. You knowing it by, but you know, in the singular, right?

[1:03:21] You know the sometimes we know things about people universally, you know, but then we find out in the singular, right? Scandals, you know. and one of the things we're learning about is what can go wrong at mass. Learn about. Well, what happens if you pour instead of wine and a little bit of water, you pour a lot of water and a little bit of wine for mass?

[1:03:50] And we were all like, Well, how would who would ever do that? The next day it happened. The next day it happened because when the brother was preparing the chalice, it was very dark in church, and he couldn't distinguish the two cruets, which one had water, which had wine. So he just guessed. Ever since then, we put a ribbon on the wine cruet. What's the answer? What do they do?

[1:04:13] You have to, if you realize it beforehand, obviously you get a new chalice. If it happens after mass, if it happened with us, because we all went to communion, it doesn't taste right. Doesn't taste right. So what what you should do is you you basically either start mass over. or at least you go back to the consecration of the chalice and finish it down There's solutions given in the more approved authors. You can read about I was at a mass and the priest, an older priest, and he started the consecration of the wine before the thing, and I realized, but if you if you went through the consecration of the wine, and you realized you did not consecrate the bread, then what do you do?

[1:04:52] Then you would just go back to that part. That's you would just go back to that part of the consecration, just to consecrate the bread. Yeah. And usually they say try to do it in a way that that doesn't draw attention to itself, so people won't. What's he doing up there? Sometimes you are distracted and say, "Gee, did he really do it? Did he consecrate it? I don't know."

[1:05:12] It happened with Father Miceli once, in Christendom. He he went through the Mass and he stopped. at, It was like about the Our Father. He turned to one of the servers and said, "Did I say the consecration?" And he said, "Yes, Father." Okay. So he didn't remember. He didn't remember doing it. He thought he may have just flipped a couple pages. So thinking about the different, it seems that Christ would know a lot of things by infused knowledge that he wouldn't come to know by means of acquired knowledge.

[1:05:37] Yeah. Because acquired knowledge, like you know, even he didn't have to be like his knowledge of computers, right? Exactly. He was more blessed without knowing computers. Could ask this question a different way. It seems that our Lord's divine knowledge of the future, all of this acquired knowledge, would be totally redundant to what he knows of the future. Is that not? Say it again. Well, I think prophetic knowledge or something.

[1:06:05] Well, our Lord as God knows all of the future, which presumably includes his own future acquired knowledge. So going through the most, getting acquired knowledge, it seems again. Yeah. I have some of my father's confusion, but it seems totally redundant. I mean, in his divine knowledge, he knows all the future, including his future. You know, he knows the acquired knowledge. No, no, but if your reason knows what seeing and hearing and smelling and tasting and touching are, right?

[1:06:38] If your reason knows what these things are, right? Is it then redundant to see and hear and smell and taste and touch? Well, when you put it that way.

[1:06:51] Doesn't that apply to our Lord? lower computer I guess it's? But one thing you know is what he quoted. The question was, what is knowledge in the future? I guess? Well, it depends on what acquired knowledge is, and that's part of the thing that he quoted from Hebrews there about his. He learned obedience from what he suffered, because for example, you go to, you know, when you go to have your tooth drilled at the dentist, it's kind of hurt, but it's not the same thing as it hurting at the dentist.

[1:07:15] So our Lord might have known he's going to suffer the passion, but it's not the same thing as suffering the passion. So, and that's what, as God, he couldn't do; he couldn't suffer. So he had to become man, and he had to learn that through his senses. That's one of the one of the ways. That's one of the kinds of knowledge you can point out.

[1:07:35] What about even the taste of wine? Knowing as creator of creation, everything has been made possible through your creation. But as true God, a true man, you are tasting wine for the first time. Tasting as true God and true man, that will be an example, or would it not? Yeah, it's hard to understand God's knowledge is divine knowledge, right? Because it includes what we have by understanding and by senses, right?

[1:08:10] You see, no way. We tend to think of God's understanding like it's like our understanding, right? And and you see, God, in fact, the the angel, his understanding, he knows the singular directly, right? In a way that we don't, by our understanding, know the singular directly. We have to go back to the senses, huh? some way to know the singular. So they misunderstand, you know. They assimilate God's knowledge too much.

[1:08:36] His understanding to ours too much, or he gives a limitation of our understanding, right? So if I understand what a man is, I don't know what my son is doing.

[1:08:50] I got to go back to my senses to know if he's behaving or not. Give him a smack. Yeah. But then it still seems that that there is something that God didn't know

[1:09:04] before he experienced the passion. I I guess is that the whole point that but but then but then how is God's knowledge totally you know infinite and complete and omniscient? if He didn't know that. He didn't know what it was to suffer by by experiential knowledge, right? But he didn't know what it was to suffer by some other knowledge, right? Because he didn't have any angels Yeah, I mean the angels know what it is for us to suffer in our body, right?

[1:09:29] But they don't know it by suffering in their body because they don't have a body. Then I guess his objection being then God doesn't know something, so his knowledge is somehow limited. And we already as wasn't that in the in the God can't know evil because if if there is a we know evil, but God is all good, and so there is something God doesn't know. God doesn't know evil, not experientially like we do.

[1:09:56] What Thomas says: if God, in knowing himself, knew only himself, he wouldn't know evil. See, but in knowing himself, he knows all other good things, right? That partake of his goodness, and in knowing them, then he can know the opposites, which are evils, right?

[1:10:16] Aristotle gives that as an example of the fact that the word "good" is equivocal, right? That some good things have an opposite, and some good things like God don't have any opposite. So good can't mean the same thing as said of the two.

[1:10:33] Smart guy there, still.